Morning Tea

Dear Mum,

A good day today. Deanne left for work early-ish as she is dropping Joshua off tomorrow, so Joshua and I got ourselves ready, read a bit of one of his library books, wrapped the little wool and bead bracelet Josh made for Penny over the weekend, then headed out for school.

When we got there he played with some buttons in a box for a bit, but then Penny arrived and he went to give her the present. She was very excited and all her friends gathered around to see what it was. As soon as she had unwrapped it she put it on and went off to play after shouting thank you to Josh, who had run off to find something else to do. It was really cute, and funny watching the social dynamics of the four year olds interacting with each other.

I had a few things to do after that, post a letter then put some money in the bank, etc. When I was at the bank I noticed that Emma (Penny’s Mum) was in the queue behind me. I said hi, then messaged Deanne to tell her who I’d seen. Dee messaged me back and said I should ask if she wanted to go grab a drink, so I did. I would never have thought of doing that, probably because I’m a man, but Emma accepted and in fact bought me a Diet Coke which was very kind of her. We sat down and chatted about various bits and pieces of stuff, obviously the kids, books, jobs, all sorts of things really. But then it was time to get going and so I headed off and did my shopping, etc.

I did some research, for a number of things in the afternoon, including some more of Richard’s project, then went to pick Joshy up from kindy. We got home and he had a quick snack, then I grabbed some more food (muffins) and we went to the park. He took his scooter and we went all the way to the medium playground where he played for a bit. He’s very keen on the swings now and tries to get me to push him higher and higher. Because she had been in early Deanne left work at four and met us there, giving us a lift back to save Joshua’s legs from getting too tired.

I made a stir fry for tea and now Dee is doing a load of ironing. All the stuff that has been hanging up, creased, in her wardrobe since we got it out of storage. I have a few things like that which I don’t use enough to have needed to wear yet, but not as many as she owns!

Tomorrow is going to be another busy day.

Love

Dan

Muffins At The Park

Blurry Sunday

Dear Mum,
Today has flown past. Can’t rightly remember what we’ve done but whatever it is has made the time go really quickly.
I certainly remember reading a great deal of my new book, which I’m rather enjoying. I haven’t read in the daytime for ages and had forgotten how nice it is.
Joshua had a relaxing day playing with his toys, making some craft-y things, watching TV and playing games on the tablet. Not super constructive for him but he was tired when he woke up so it was necessary!
Deanne made a lovely lemon cake and also made chilli for tea, which was really nice.
I have a couple of things to do tomorrow, but my memory seems to be having the day off today so you’ll have to wait to find out what they are.
Love
Dan

He’s Out

Dear Mum,
To say we didn’t have much planned today if turned out quite busy.
After getting ready this morning we went to the library, to drop off Deanne and Josh’s books, and so Joshua could get some more. He picked two dinosaur books and one about ancient amphibians!
We went to the shops on the way back to get some presents for the twins’ birthdays on Wednesday. Bob met us there and then came home with us, where we had drinks and some biscuits. Dee had made them beforehand and frozen the mixture so just took the block of dough out, cut it into slices and baked it. Lovely.
Toasted cheese sarnies for lunch then we went to the local shops, Dee and I walked and Josh took his bike as it’s not that local. When we got home we let Snugs go out into the back garden. He was a little nervous and we bought him back in pretty quickly, but I think it won’t take him too long to get the hang of it. He did have another quick sojourn after tea but seems a little agoraphobic and came back pretty quickly.
Tea was risotto and garlic bread. This evening I’m going to read my amazing proof copy of The Long Mars.
Don’t know what we’re doing tomorrow yet. Might Skype you if we’re home in the afternoon.
Love
Dan

1,100 Papers

Dear Mum,
Joshua was raring to go this morning when I dropped him off at daycare. He almost ran off to join the other kids before I’d got a kiss and a cuddle! Which is good because even up to a couple of weeks ago he was still a bit clingy.
I got home and got on with my downloading. I have now been through over 1,100 lines of the spreadsheet and so have less than 400 to go. Another day of two and I should finish this first bit of the work for big bro’.
Skyped you before collecting Joshy, he mentioned a new friend called Aiden, so I assume that might have something to do with his earlier keen demeanour. Then we waited for a visit from Julie, who arrived with some home made pasties, half a vegetable pie (which I heated up with some veg’ and gravy for tea), half a lemon meringue pie and half an apple cake. Apparently she had been in a baking mood!
Thankfully it’s the weekend now. We’re going out tomorrow to get some presents and cards for the twins’ birthday on Wednesday, then drop some books back at the library.
In case you’ve been wondering about how The Snugs has been settling, in I took this picture to show you that he appears pretty happy. I don’t think it’ll be too much longer now before we let him adventure out into the big wild Aussie world.
Love
Dan

Wrong Or Write

Dear Mum,
I’ve been out at my writers group so a short one tonight.
I spent a good part of the day working on Rich’s project, only slightly interrupted by a phone call from an agent, which I’ll tell you about soon!
Deanne picked Joshy up from Nana’s house and they arrived home at about five.
I made a curry for tea, but I did most of the preparation this morning, ’cause the bottle of sauce wasn’t as nice as we expected last time we had it. I roasted some veg, potatoes, pumpkin, that kind of thing, then poured the sauce over them and let them soak until I put them and the rice on to cook for dinner.
Tonight was my writers group which was, once again, very entertaining. We were talking about endings this month, but it’s amazing what kind of tangents a room full of writers can go off on when sat in a room together for a couple of hours. I also have another exciting thing to reveal as a consequence of that, but will save the couple of bits of news I have until I know if they are good or bad.
I took a picture of the cakes in the café to show to Deanne when I got home so that is what you’re getting for your visual feast. I didn’t have one, by the way!
Love
Dan

Cake

Running Dan

Dear Mum,

Nothing to report today really. Josh is staying at Julie’s again tonight so Deanne and I are doing various bits and pieces of things.

I spent more time downloading scientific papers today and also managed to fit in a load of washing and a run round the lake, which took me almost exactly 40 minutes this time, so a bit slower than the last one but I was trying a few different speeds and running/walking distances just for fun. I actually felt quite comfortable running at a fast speed so might try that next time and see how far I get before I conk out!

No picture tonight as I forgot to take any today, although I did get a shot of Snugs sitting in the sunlight inside our bedroom, but the contrast was really awful, so I stuck it on Facebook where it doesn’t really matter!

Joshy/Nana day tomorrow too so I’ll be getting on with more downloading and job hunting.

Love

Dan

It Still Needs A Bit More Petrol!!!‏

Dear Mum,

Back to normal today. I dropped Josh off at school, he ran about with Liam because they were both a bit early. When the buzzer went off we headed inside and Joshua played with some building things, which made a farmyard and sheds. Some of the girls came and sat around him. I’m not sure if it’s good or bad but he seems very popular with the (little) ladies. This morning Ella asked if she could sit next to him, then when the twins arrived Summer came up to tell us that it was her birthday in nine days time, which was nice.

I came home and started downloading the papers for Rich’s project again, I also called a couple of people about a couple of jobs.

I got back to school a little before three and met one of the other school council members, she runs the uniform shop and I said I’d take a look at the spreadsheet with the sales data on to see if I could come up with some yearly trends. Haven’t fired up the pen drive yet but it should be an interesting task. Joshua also got an invite to the twins party next Wednesday, which made the episode in the morning make more sense.

When we got home I offered a trip to the park, Joshy decided he wanted to walk, rather than ride his bike, to the “medium” playground, which is about two kilometres away! He did actually walk all the way there and back, although there was a bit of moaning about tired legs as we were nearing home. However he did make me stop at the exercise machines on the way back so he could get on the stepper thing. While he was on it and pushing the pedals and handles up and down it made a squeaking noise, Joshua listened to it then said “It still needs a bit more petrol!!!‏” I assume what he meant was oil but he said it so sincerely that it made me laugh. That’s what the picture is of anyway.

Deanne was home and making dinner by the time we got back. Lasagne, very tasty. After putting Joshy to bed Deanne has been trying to check the iiNet bills, as they seem to have made some sort of mistake for our charges, but we’re not sure exactly where the problem is, and if it’s in our favour or not. I Skyped Rich and wished him a happy birthday, we had a bit of a chat about nothing much and now it’s bedtime so I better get myself sorted and have a sleep.

I might run in the morning as Julie is dropping the boy off at kindy, apart from that back to the grind.

Love

Dan

It still needs a bit more petrol!!!

Back Online…Again

Dear Mum,

Well, our internet is back up and running, no thanks to iiNet! They had told us that a technician had looked at the local exchange on Friday, after we had lost our collection along with half of Perth on Thursday morning. However today a proper technician from Telstra was sent to look at the issue, and rather than coming to our house and finding there was a fault he called me (at exactly three o’clock, just when I should have been picking Joshua up, but I can forgive him that as he fixed the problem) and said he was working on it.

About an hour later the missing two lights on the right hand side of the router came back on and everything started working again. The nice techie said that it was obvious that no one had done any work at the telephone exchange and that it could have been fixed much earlier if anyone had done so!

iiNet tried to call me but failed to get through, as we were busy talking to the Telstra guy. I will however be calling them up tomorrow to ask them to ensure we get the five day’s worth of money taken off our next bill, as well as an apology for the anguish, plus some kind of reimbursement from the time I’ve lost working on Rich’s project. Mostly just an apology for their appalling customer service.

Anyway, we’re back on and so we can Skype and I can apply for jobs and do some actual work again. Hooray!

Apart from the whole lack of internet we had a really nice weekend, on Saturday we went to Julie’s house, just to say hi on our way through, then headed over to Olive’s house, as we hadn’t seen Deanne’s Nana for a few weeks. As well as eating…a lot…Joshua mainly played with the toys he had taken over, as well as some of Olive’s things like a torch that was in her sitting room.

On Sunday we went to Scitech and investigated the new fairground exhibit, with a hall of mirrors and games of chance and such like. Joshua also finally agreed to try the planetarium, which was really good. It started with a girl presenting some information about our galaxy and the constellations, then flew to outside the galaxy and showed you how tiny a part of it the constellations we can see actually are. Then there was a film, narrated by Rupert Grint, Ron Weasley from Harry Potter fame, and it was about life on other planets. Joshua was a little disappointed that the show didn’t have any actual aliens in it, so we had to explain that humans haven’s actually met aliens yet!

Today when I dropped him off at school he started playing with some Lego. While he was doing so his little friend Penny arrived, came up to him and handed him an envelope with his name on it. He opened it and it was a beautiful print of her feet, covered in purple glitter and with Joshua’s name written on it. She was really proud of it (and so she should have been) and Joshua was really impressed. It’s really good that Josh has some friends at kindy, because we were worried about how he would make friends when we arrive in Aus’. But apparently we needn’t have done so!

This afternoon, because Deanne left early to pick the boy up we went to the bird hide in the park. It was great and we were out about an hour, Josh scooted and Deanne and I walked. It was great but also quite tiring.

Oh yes, I nearly forgot. We are attempting to stop the thumbsucking! we have tried a number of things but eventually settled on painting a mixture of coffee and cayenne pepper on to Joshua’s thumb before he goes to bed at night. It feels a bit like child abuse, but Joshua has embraced it with aplomb and asks for his thumb to be treated so he doesn’t suck it. It’s got a thumbs up (sorry)!

Tomorrow is another day and I have a bit of catching up to do with various things so it probably won’t be very exciting to write about, but I’ll let you know when it’s happened.

Love

Dan

Working, thank goodness!!!

Not Happy

Dear Mum,
A short one tonight, I’ll explain why.
Yesterday morning there was an internet outage that affected Optus, Vodafone and iiNet (they’re our internet provider).
My mobile phone and the internet were both out of action for the whole day. Got up this morning and my mobile worked again, but the internet was still down.
It’s now 8pm and I’ve spoken to iiNet twice, they are saying it’s most likely a problem with something at our end and want to charge us to send out a techie to look at it.
I told them that we didn’t cause the issue and aren’t paying for it, however they can’t send someone out until Monday afternoon. Which means no internet until (at least) then! So no Skype this weekend, no blogging (I’m making an exception tonight), no email, no web and none of Richard’s work.
Not happy!
Love
Dan

P&C

Dear Mum,
Not much interesting to report today apart from this evening I went to another P&C meeting at Joshy’s school. Only this time I actually got the log on details for the P&C WordPress ‘blog site. So now I have three ‘blogs to manage!
Joshy is staying at Julie’s house again tonight so I can start work early tomorrow. Life seems to be getting awfully busy all of a sudden!
The picture is of a giraffe that Josh and I made this morning before Nana picked him up. It’s pipe cleaners and beads. Joshua decided he wanted to do an impression of a giraffe and be in the photograph too.
Love
Dan