Molly and Tom's visit

Oh it's a bit difficult, trying to write a blog when so much time has elapsed between the taking of the photos that you want to use, and the writing part. This photo below is, I think, of Phoebe on or around her birthday. Her fifteenth one! Oh yes...indeed...and all that sucking in of breath and head wagging and ruing the passage of time. So...yeah here she is in all her radiant...ness :-) Last out, best iPhone...as they say...and have I told you about how often she drops the thing? No...?  Well...perhaps we shouldn't go there...

Anyway, not long ago...but definitely far away, especially if you live in the old Blighty...Molly and Tom arrived....travel battered and needing a lie down. So...off we went to the spit of course.

Daile donated her car to the greater happiness of our lovely guests and they went off later in the first week or so, to New Sarf Wales...and had a bit more of a lie down at Byron Bay. And other stuff...like sitting up, making tea, trying out Australian beer...(and then getting back to the European stuff right away....which is quite justifiable really). Meanwhile...back at base camp...yours truly got 'nut bound' or something of the sort. (work it out....no actually, not being able to work it out!). Here I am in all MY radient-ness. 

..and then....

They stuck a tube up my nose and expected me to swallow it when it came past the swallowing flappy thing...y. OHHHH MYYYYY GARRRD.
You know when you go to get your blood taken for an investigation and the dracula can't get the needle into a suitable vein...but feels like it's all good practice, and you come out with an arm like a pin cushion? Well this wasn't anything like that.

But...the ***kers (gawd bless 'em) nearly killed me!
I am NOT programmed to allow plastic tubes into my stomach...I can tell you that.
Here I am again with the radiant vibe going on...

Somehow, I survived.
I was admitted to a surgical ward...to see what would happen. I was lying there hungry and thirsty on the second morning there...(cos it was nil by mouth) when the cohort of doctors and butchers came past and said (giggling and cackling) that if there was no movement by the following morning, It'd be into surgery for me....to see if there was anything left in there that they could take out and throw away. At that point, and this is no word of a lie....the heavens opened up...and so did the bowels (metaphorically of course...in my case...cos well...you know...? ) ..and so that passage of my life was past (as it were) together with a few handfuls of nuts. God was praised for such a well timed intervention...but I didn't hear back from her. Probably couldn't make out what I was saying cos of the tube.

Shortly after this, we all took a walk to the quarry...cept for me...because I can't walk far cos of my shagged out leg, so I took the bicycle.

The two frolicsome adults spent quite a lot of time with me at the art school, and it gave me a chance to get to know Tom a bit more.  He's a fine person, and rare I find, he's interested in questioning his assumptions of reality. Molly and he are a good fit....which is a great thing for anyone eh! 

...and Tild came along quite often too... 

...and Ned...can't get rid of Ned...follows me around like a dog. 

And right at the end...the last weekend, we went to Straddie. It was a pain cos there's been fires there and our normal campsite was not available for camping. We couldn't believe it. 

In the end, having considered camping at one of the organised places on the island, we decided to get the first ferry out at shortly after dawn, and come back on the last one back. It was a great day. The following pics illustrate:

These last two were at Tap and Miriam's house. The Feeb here with Louisa...and her varnish collection. (in the way of the pool table!!!). 

and sunset from their house is always good...they are on top of the highest hill in Shailer Park. 

...and then....

They were gone again....leaving me to rue the passage of time. 

Josh's visit...some of it anyway.

We went to the spit shortly after Josh got here...it's a formality really. And we walked quite a long way down the beach...but I couldn't make it all that far. We thought about walking as far as the coffee shops towards Surfers Paradise, but we swerved and it was a good thing as I was really aware of the fact that my knee is missing most of the cartilage by the time we got back. 

This is us shopping for Phoebe's birthday. It was lovely for us to have Josh here for that! In this pic, I asked Matilda to try on this jacket to see if it would work for the Feeb...and we decided that it would....:)

....and I made a cake...

This is Josh at the art school...he spent a lot of time with me there this visit...and did a whole heap of paintings. He's got a good eye for it, and really made some good progress with 'actual paint' as opposed to the digital kind that he normally does. I was impressed.

Third weekend in, we went to Straddie. Our car is the old heap on the right hand side with all the crap on the roof....

The first night it was just Josh and I, which was really nice. We'd bought a new tent...one we've been wanting for ages, and it sets up in 30 seconds...plus knocking in a few pegs.

On Saturday, the girls came over. Daile had been working and Matilda had had her 'formal' dance thing...to mark the end of her schooling. So they came over by the Straddie Flyer which is a small boat for people and bikes...Here's a rare picture of my lovely wife :-)

...and Josh, choosing sun instead of shade for a while. You can't do that for too long here...it's quite fierce.

Phoebe wanted to see the dawn on Sunday...so we were up at 5am.

All the kids had a go at driving on the beach... it's a good place to get a first go at how all that stuff works. This was Feebs first drive. She did really really well.

On Sunday afternoon, the weather changed...from lovely and clear, to severe storm. We just got our camp away in time, and made for the ferry two hours earlier than we'd planned. This is Phoebe in the rain...

This is from the ferry, leaving Dunwich...post storm. In the end, the worst of it missed us. The ferry people let us transfer to an earlier ferry...and we were all home in good time and spirits.

Unrelated, this is my new coffee thing...from IKEA except for the wooden base, which I made..to keep it from getting cold too quickly. We find this makes even nicer coffee than the French press we normally use.
I think its fair to say we drink too much coffee as a family, (Except for Daile..her weakness is tea).

And here is Josh, at the bookshop having found both of his books...always a good sign. :-)

 Today, he left for London. It's a horrible flight, but he's with Singapore Air, so it could be worse.
It was a lovely time...we all miss him already. :(

Another...very long time later...

I do mean to update the blog more often, I really do, but I keep getting distracted by other stuff. 

I can't even remember what's happened this year really. I'm prompted to write something though as Josh has been here for nearly a month, having spent the previous month in NZ, and Molly and Tom are coming over for 6 weeks next Thursday, 3 days after Josh has gone back to the UK.

There's been a number of things, of course, that have gone down over hte last year and I'm not even sure I've got any images to put up..which is a bit of pisser because that's what we've started to use this blog for really...as a repository of 'things that happened' and the visual evidence to prove it. A kind of photo album with descriptions permanently attached. 

So, gotta start somewhere, so I'll start with today. We went down to the quarry...for a good swim this morning. It's always a great thing to do... I've edited out the dog barking. 

I went there by bike. My legs are shot...but I just cycled alongside the others, who were walking. 

Here's Feeb... 

A cloud with fingers...

And Josh ready to set off back. Look closely in his glasses for the very lovely Matilda...

This is a blow fly. They are bastards! This is a dead bastard :)