May - BEST NEWS OF 2012

DAD'S PET SCAN WAS CLEAR!!!!!!! The five months of treatment endured in hospital was worth it. We are all SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO relieved and excited to be seeing him again so soon.

Dunc practising for our absence

Dunc will have ten peaceful days (apart from going to work!) when we are all away and he can just enjoy Pumpkin and Lulu by the log fire. 

Bruce Paterson - 1929 - 2012

Our dear friend and former neighbour for nine years, Bruce Paterson, sadly passed away on 7th June aged 83. He was an incredible man  - so utterly in touch with nature. He spent 40 years doing bush regeneration in the bush land behind our old house, he was a highly talented artist, graphic designer and musician. He did everything in epic proportions - like cycling from Sydney to Perth in his younger years! Just last year Manly Surf Club taught him to surf, aged 82 (!) and he was shown on a documentary doing it much better than I can after several lessons! He even ran the 9km soft sand run in Manly (soft sand is seriously tough if you've not tried it!) just 3 years ago. During his life he completed 30 marathons and many ultra long distance bike rides. Until just six months ago, he cycled every single day from Allambie Heights down to Manly and back UP again wearing his trademark wetsuit! While in Manly he would do the 1.6 km ocean swim with our swim squad the 'Bold & Beautiful' and in fact we got to know him most from our shared love of ocean swimming despite having lived in the same street for so long. Dunc would occasionally collect him from our old street at 5.30am to take him to a hospital appointment or operation. Yesterday I went to the small memorial service for family and a handful of friends. On 24 June, at Bruce's request, his ashes will be scattered by the 'Bold & Beautiful' swim squad on the point where we always wait for everyone to catch up. He has also requested that everyone sings "Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye" so I can only imagine the sea level rising with the amount of tears that will fall. I will be in the UK sadly as I would have loved to farewell him in his own special requested style but Dunc will swim for us both and Matt will walk from Manly to Shelly to represent my swimming buddy Laura who is also going to the UK. He was a truly inspirational man and we are honoured and privileged to have had him in our lives.

Bruce was told by his doctor just before Christmas that his cancer was soon going to end things for him and he suggested Bruce go on a longed for trip before his 83rd birthday (10th Feb 2012). The 'Bold & Beautiful' swim squad, set up by Julie pictured below in pink shirt with the grey hoodie like mine, therefore organised a celebratory early 83rd birthday breakfast for Bruce in January after one of our ocean swims. By this stage Bruce was no longer able to cycle to Manly nor swim with us so I collected him on the morning of his birthday brekkie, he watched us swim and then at least 60 of us celebrated his birthday with him at Manly Wine over coffee. 

Not only did he get to see his real 83rd birthday in February and give a slide show of his life's achievements at the local Humph Hall to a packed hall (it went on for five hours apparently, I got there for half an hour or so after a 30 km training walk for Coastrek). He also did go on a longed for trip - he and a fellow ocean swimmer from our group took the train to Broken Hill just SIX weeks before he died!!! This is a 1,147 km trip!! It takes about 13 hours by car so I can only guess that the train journey is epic. Apparently he wanted to go as far as he could within NSW to use his free Seniors' rail pass! 

Bruce - you continued to amaze us all, right until the end. You are going to be truly missed by so many.

June - heavy rain and soggy rabbit

June so far has been a total wash out. We've had more rain on certain days than they had in over 40 years for a June day! Sid the rabbit has been inside a few times for love and cuddles. 

June 9th - Pork belly with the Howes and McPs

We had a lovely dinner with the Howes and McPs - slow cooked roast pork belly and all the trimmings. The McPs had just returned from Fiji so were sun kissed and relaxed and pleased to hear they had missed little else other than heavy rain. Pumpkin got wrapped up like a little doll by Tess and Iona and didn't seem to mind. 

May - Mother's Day artwork

I was very flattered to receive the two 'Mum' portraits by Tenzin and Iona for Mother's Day shown below. Spitting image I hear you say!

May - Lulu's 1st birthday

Our Rhodesian Ridgeback/labrador cross "Lulu" had her first birthday in May. The owner of Mia (the chocolate lab Mum in the picture) contacted all 8 puppy owners and suggested that we get them together in a dog park for a birthday romp! Six of the eight huge 1 yr old 'puppies' made it there as well as Mia the mum and the Ridgeback Dad 'Felix' pictured below like a lion at the front of his pride! Pumpkin on the right (our lab/spaniel cross) came along for the fun too.

May - Treetops

We drove to the Central Coast to meet several families from school at Treetops Adventure Park. Barney managed to pass the height test as a ten yr old so he went with Dunc and Arthur on the 10-15 yr old high climbs through trees and sliding down huge flying foxes. I stayed in the 3-10 yr old area with Tenzin and Iona. She was too small to do it alone and parents weren't allowed up on the climbing equipment so she managed to sweet talk an instructor 'Tim' into giving her one-on-one assistance for two hours! Dunc and the other Dads had a ball on the enormous black run climbs at the end and seriously high flying foxes.

Barney and good buddy Lachy.

Arthur on the training ropes before being let loose on the 10-15 yr old climbs.

Iona and her new friend 'Tim'.

Dunc on the grand finale flying fox.

Iona on the wee flying fox.

Tenzin doing his thing.

Iona's new bike

Iona and I decided it was time to trade in the small red bike that the boys had learnt to ride on and get a 2nd hand pink one with all the tassles, teddy bear baskets and back seats. Much better!!

Ocean swims, dusky whaler sharks.

Dunc and I have not done as many ocean swims as we'd like to due to busy schedules, bad weather etc. However, we did manage to get a baby sitter for the early Anzac Day swim with the Bold & Beautiful group for the usual 1.6km swim from Manly Surf Club to Shelly Beach. It was glorious in the water but a bitterly cold wind above the ocean surface. At Shelly Beach, one of the regular swimmers, Greg, played 'The Last Post' on his French horn and we stood in silence as the water lapped at our ankles and we shivered in our wet swimmers in the bitterly cold wind. I shut my eyes and visualised the scene at Gallipoli - it was quite haunting hearing the lapping of the small waves and imagining being there at the time.

A few days later Laura and I did our weekly swim and counted between 20-25 baby dusky whaler sharks (about 1 metre long). They were so stunning that I took Dunc and the kids back to Fairy Bower a few days after that and we took it in turns to stay in the sea pool with Tenzin and Iona or to snorkel out with Arthur and Barney to see the baby sharks. I went out first with the boys and we didn't go far enough as they both got nervous but when Dunc had a turn they seemed to have more confidence and loved seeing the sharks swimming below.

May - Tenzin starts taekwondo

Tenzin has decided to follow in his big brother, Arthur's, footsteps and start Taekwondo. Barney has taken up rock climbing instead and in less than 6 weeks of attending he was asked to join the climbing squad (which involves two x 2 hour climbing sessions per week rather than one session) in order to prepare for competitions and to get ready for climbing real rock faces with the team. Yikes!

April 2012 - Seal Rocks - never too many photos

The view from the hill overlooking Fisherman's Beach.

Maggie and Tenzin getting blown away at Yagon Beach.

The Wakes-Miller camp with Trak Shak.

Self-portrait!

Quote for the holiday from Iona was as follows:

One night it got dark before we'd found the head torches. Iona stumbled around in the dark tent looking for hers while we cooked outside and when we heard her crying we said:

"Arthur, Barney or Tenzin - could one of you please go into the tent to help your little sister?"

Upon hearing this she appeared in the doorway of the tent with a face like thunder and roared:

"I need a torch NOT A BROTHER!!!!!"

Never one to mince her words. Bless.

Our little pinky ponk in all her guises below:

April 2012 - Seal Rocks yet more...

Always magical cloud formations at Seal Rocks.

A pensive Tenzin (I think he had a mouthful of chips!)

Barney in a serious mood.

Duncan getting some surf action.

A very leathery shot of me with my fresh faced young lady.

April 2012 - more Seal Rocks

Here is a lovely shot of Kirsten and wee Claudia.

Bean got lots of action with his new board.

A spot of beach football.

Maggie and Iona were like two peas in a pod despite the year in age difference.

Barn getting a bit of wave action.

The Easter egg hunt finale - dividing up the eggs and sharing them out!

April 2012 - Seal Rocks

Our favourite spot once again - Seal Rocks for a ten day stint over Easter with the Howes (sadly minus Laura as she had to go to the UK) and the Highnams. The pictures below show a fabulous evening spent at Fisherman's Beach for the obligatory campfire, marshmallows, sunset and then a stunning tawny frog-mouthed owl awaited us in the car park as we left.

March/April 2012 - trips

Duncan took Arthur, Barney and Tenzin for a boys' camping weekend to One Mile Beach near Nelson Bay. It turned out to be far too civilised compared to what they are normally used to - the camp site even had a pool. They had fun though.

Then it was Arthur's turn for a big boys' only trip to visit his godfather, Pezza, down in Melbourne. The economy flights were so extortionate that I booked them business class tickets on frequent flyer points instead!! There was Arthur, aged 11, settling into business class with his Dad when I have NEVER flown anything other than cattle class and am nearly 42!! They had a top weekend mountain biking on the Saturday then watching an Ironman competition on the Sunday which one of Annie's mates was competing in.

At the beginning of April it was Lenka's 40th so we went over for a lovely family meal and superb birthday cake - presented on the Wedgewood cake stand that we had bought at Lenka's request. Always fun with those guys.

29th March 2012 - La Traviata on Sydney Harbour

One of Duncan's clients, Tourism NSW, invited us as guests to see the performance of La Traviata on Sydney Harbour. I am not massively keen on Opera normally but this was out of this world. The setting at Mrs Macquarie's chair was incredible and we had fabulous seats. The giant crystal chandelier had the main soprano hoisted in the air singing her heart out at one stage. They really made use of the Sydney setting with opera singers arriving by water taxi as part of the story, drag queens appeared at the interval and then formed part of the operatic group on stage for the 2nd half. It really was superb.

7th March 2012 - Penguin Cafe Orchestra

Duncan bought tickets for us both to see the Penguin Cafe Orchestra perform at the Opera House. He didn't know that I'd owned one of their 'cassettes' (that's how long ago it was!) about 20 years ago. I loved them at the time and was thinking how old they must now be. It turns out the 10 musicians were all mid thirties and are headed up by the son of the original founder. Such incredibly talented musicians. The strings and two percussionists kept their instruments throughout and the keyboard, guitarists, ukelele players all interchanged. I was so inspired that I went out a couple of days later and treated myself to a really good quality tenor ukelele, donating my orange $30 one to Iona!

March 2012 - footy season commences

Once again all three boys are playing for the Forestville "Ferrets". This is Tenzin's 2nd season and he is on fire, scoring five tries in three games!

March 2012 - favourite artworks from 2011

We don't have enough space to put each artwork up, nor the favourites up forever so I have decided to at least photograph the pictures that each child loves (or the ones that we love) so that we don't lose the image forever.

Ship by Arthur:

Aboriginal style "Two men going to get bush tucker from the dam" by Arthur.

The poster drawn up by the kids for Dunc before his major surgery.

Tenzin's interpretation of a chicken with four legs - because his magnetic fridge chicken DOES have four legs!

Tenzin's pet quail - "Jo".

Tenzin's interpretation of a rainbow done at art workshop with best mate Charlie's Mummy, Fi.

Barney's tool collection in Fi's art workshop.

Santa by Tenzin (about 4 foot tall in reality and the teachers at kindy were gutted when I asked to take it home!)