Arancini

Dear Mum,

It was great Skyping today, sorry if I wasn’t making a lot of sense, I did a blood test after I shut the call down and was a bit on the low side. Oops!

This morning, as well as doing a couple of loads of washing and hanging out of clothes, I found a recipe and made some of the leftover risotto into arancini balls, however I only made a couple as I wanted to check them out before I went ahead and used the rest of it. Because we didn’t have mozzarella I used a small piece of cheddar and a bit of sun dried tomato. They turned out okay but the cheese didn’t melt very well, so I took note and planned to make the rest later in the day.

Deanne and I ate them for lunch, Josh had a cheese sandwich. We left Deanne at home to rest her back and I took Joshy to Riverton, next to the Canning River, to have a scoot and a Calippo ice cream. Sadly the café, which served lovely cakes, although we only had a Diet Coke (me) and an ice cream (Josh), was still in the process of being built, so the playground wasn’t finished. However Joshua coped well with this and so we went for a massive scooter ride along the river.

When we got home I made tea, home made chips plus burgers in buns, then raspberry jelly with vanilla ice cream.

I put Josh to bed then had another go at the risotto, making another eight balls, then sharing one with Deanne to check it turned out okay.

Tomorrow I’m helping out at kindy, so another tiring day I suspect.

A mildly amusing aside: Snuggles just climbed on to the bed and sat between my feet as I was typing this and Deanne said, “ah, what’s it like to be a bore?” Then quickly realised what she’d actually said and changed the last word to “adored”! At least I think it wasn’t on purpose!

Love

Dan

Some Swans At Riverton

Another Lazy Sunday

Dear Mum,
After our busy week we decided to have a quiet, relaxing Sunday. Deanne did a load of washing and hanging out, Joshua played and I hoovered throughout the house.
Lunch was cheese and tomato toasted sandwiches for us and a ham Sarnie for Joshy. After complaining that if was different ham, when we bought it last week (it wasn’t!), he is now a big fan of the Coles honey roast type, which he’d actually had before at Julie’s house. Funny boy.
We actually took a trip over to Rick and Julie’s house in the afternoon to check the mail and that everything was still secure and okay.
Joshy asked if he could watch Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs again, so he did that while Deanne was making a chocolate cake and I was cooking tea, veggie roll and home made chips with veg’.
I’ve been trying to persuade Josh that he wants to go for a cycle tomorrow, but he’s not too sure after the last time he was out and fell off. Apart from that no’wt else planned for his last day off school. Will try and be home to Skype you in the afternoon.
I didn’t take any pictures today so you get another one from our trip to Freo yesterday.
Love
Dan

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

Spud Shed

Dear Mum,

After breakfast this morning I put on some washing then played with Joshua on his new mat in his playroom, as per the picture below. When we were all showered, shaved and brushed we had lunch, then headed out to Spud Shed.

Spud Shed is a kind of cash ‘n’ carry place where you can buy an enormous range of products at relatively low prices. We bought a whole bunch of vegetables and a few other things, they do a pretty good range of Quorn slices and so we stocked up.

After dropping the groceries home we went to Big W and got some supplies for the forthcoming appearance of The Snugs tomorrow. It’s going to be weird having the little ginger fellow back, but we’re all looking forward to having a cat amongst our pigeons again. We’re hoping he’ll settle in okay, but I suspect it won’t be long before he’s clawing at the furniture and miaowing at us for biscuits again.

We’re going to go to Fremantle in the morning to look round the markets there and have a bit of a search around the town to see what we can find there.

Love

Dan

New Playmat

Vegetables

Dear Mum,

Nothing particularly interesting to report today, I did some calling and applying, like usual and cleaned a few things around the house.

Bob popped round to pick up his clippers at about ten, he also dropped off a load of vegetables and a few bits of fruit. I made him a cup of tea and we had a bit of a chat about this and that.

This evening Deanne was out so I put Joshy to bed and did the washing up, etc.

Tomorrow I’m going to a play centre with Julie and Josh as he asked her if I could tag along (what a nice boy!), then some ironing and housework in the afternoon.

I just took the picture below from where I’m sitting, you’ll notice Granddad Jim’s picture above the brown sofa, the other one is next the the TV cabinet.

Love

Dan

The View From Here

Kindy’s Little Helper

Dear Mum,

It did feel a bit weird going to school without Joshua this morning, but once I got there and got started on the sticking and cutting it was fine.

I taped together some bits of card the kids had put their hand prints on, including Joshua’s, to make folders, I assume to put art into. Then I supervised some of them drawing bees on some Easter pictures, I had to try and make sure they put on all the right anatomy, six legs, two antennae, two wings, a stinger, stripes. Which I did with varying degrees of success! After I’d finished making the folders they gave me my dispensation and I came home.

I hung out some washing in the afternoon then headed to the shops to get Joshua a card for his birthday. When we went there last week each shop must have had about five different cards with dinosaurs on them, however because I kept forgetting to go get a card – and it’s getting a bit close to Easter – I had to scour all the shops and eventually found one at Target.

Tomorrow is the big day. Our little boy will be four. Deanne has the day off work, I think we’ll be doing a bit of shopping in the morning to prepare for the party in the afternoon. I’ve attached a picture of the stack of presents he has to open in the morning (yours is at the back right hand side!). However I suspect he’ll also be getting a few more when the relations turn up in the afternoon.

I will appraise you of the young ‘uns level of excitement and happiness tomorrow night.

Love

Dan

Stack of Presents

Talking Rubbish

Dear Mum,

Well, today was the big day..but I’ll get to that in a bit. I dropped Josh off at daycare and he was pretty cool about it. It’s taken longer for him to get comfortable with daycare than kindy, but I guess he only goes there once a week so that’s not really a surprise.

I didn’t do a great deal more revision for the interview this a’vo as I decided I’d stuffed as much into my head as I could fit without it exploding in a shower of IT. So instead I did the washing up and some washing and hanging out of clothes I’d set to wash before I took Joshy in.

At half one, about half way through Star Trek, The Next Generation (I think I may have spent too long at home!) I got changed into my trousers and shirt, packed my tie in my bag and headed out carrying my jacket. The temperature was somewhere around 30° so I wasn’t going to wear everything or I’d have arrived as a damp mess.

I got there in about an hour and ten minutes, so quicker even than when I tried it last week, I got myself dressed up and then had a couple of minutes to kill so I read the job-spec’ and did a blood test (then had a couple of Jelly Babies as I was 4.6mmol/l and didn’t want to drop during the interview). After which it was time to go in.

The guy who met me seemed nice and had only been in the job a matter of months, his other colleagues arrived after a few minutes and hadn’t been working there much longer. It sounds like there was a big re-org’ about a year ago so a good percentage of the people there are new-ish.

I don’t really know what to say about the interview itself, I think I did okay on a few of the questions, quite badly on one and no idea about the rest! The bad one was one I should have nailed as it was asking the difference between a risk, a threat and a vulnerability. You would imagine with my working history and my encyclopaedic knowledge of the English language that I’d have done pretty well at that, but I stumbled and stuttered through and don’t think I actually did a very good job of addressing the question. Still not to worry! 🙂

When I got home Deanne was making tea, the trip back had taken about the same amount of time as getting there so with a bit of polishing I could probably get it down to about an hour…if they actually thought I was okay and decided to offer me the role! She had taken Joshua to the library to return his books and DVD and get some new ones, so he was watching a DVD of Winnie The Pooh when I arrived.

We finally received our Scitech tickets yesterday so I think Josh and I are going to go there tomorrow to play on the exhibits and have a picnic.

Love

Dan