A months worth of news.....................

A months worth of news............


Part of the back garden - before


Lewis cutting down a tree



Right, here we go with an epic installment.

A few weeks ago Lewis ran for his school in the District Athletics - he ran the 800metres and came 4th. Unfortunately 4th place wasn't good enough to take him onto 'zones' but he did very well none the less.

Lewis has also been on school camp to Sovereign Hill in Ballarat. He lived there for 3 days in the style of an 1850's school boy and had to dress the part and be taught in an authentic 1850's school, complete with cane and slipper!


He has also just completed a course in indoor soccer - he came all this way to be taught british football by a bunch of aussies! Anyway he enjoyed it but didn't want to continue on to be in a team. They have great 'taster' sessions of every sport you can think of here, they usually run for 4 or 5 weeks and at least give the kids the chance to try different sports without a huge commitment or too much money.

Elliot has had some excellent results in History, maths and English over the past few weeks so school is going well for him and he soon goes on leave for his end of year exams. He has also applied for several part-time jobs at our local shopping centre, just shelf stacking to get himself abit of extra pocket money. He hasn't heard anything yet though.

Elliot has also been helping renovate the backgarden - he has actually been digging and carting wheelbarrows full of stone and soil all over the place - not what he usually likes doing but where there's money involved, he'll do anything.

Jake has also helped with the backgarden, including making and mixing mortar for James to use in building some steps, he really helped James out. He has also helped me decorate my bedroom. He did the majority of 3 coats of undercoat and 2 coats of colour and apart from a few 'drips' he has done an excellent job. Now, you might think this all sounds like child labour, but I like to think of it as learning 'life skills'! Anyway I wasn't going to have 3 sons and not put them to work now was I!!

The boys are now on 2 weeks school holiday, that is the end of term 3 just term 4 to go before the 7 week summer hols. So, the first day of the holiday Jake arranged to meet some mates at the local roller blading place. He had a voucher to get in for half price so he was well happy when I dropped him off there at 1.30, roll on 2 hours and he rings me say he has had bad fall and thinks he's broken his wrist!! So much for a cheap afternoon out, it has now cost us just about $200 to discover that he has broken his wrist and so he is now up to his elbow in plaster cast for the next 5 weeks. So, his plans for more rollerblading and rock climbing this holiday are now on hold, he will also have to spend his birthday and our holiday in 4 weeks time in plaster so no surfing for him on holiday either!! I suppose we've done quite well as this is the first broken bone in 15 years of parenthood.

Finally, the garden renovations. We had nothing more than a mere back yard on 2 levels separated by a muddy slope so James has built 2 steps and a paved path and then dug up what grass there was (not much and dead all summer!) and laid down membrane and covered it all in gravel. Oh, nearly forgot, he has built me a large stone planter and put trellis up for me so that I can grow something up the shed. So, tomorrow we are off to a local garden centre to buy some plants, hopefully we'll get some rain until they are established and before it becomes too hot.

There is still loads to do in the garden, back and eventually the front, but that will be a huge and expensive job as we live on a hill and have 4 terraced sections to the front garden leading up to the verandah, the idea is that we make everything as low maintenace as possible and just have plants that will survive in the drought and extreme heat. I've also got big plans for the kitchen and bathrooms and just keep casually mentioning these to James until eventually he'll think it was his idea!!!

And me, well I have done the usual, shopping, washing, cooking, cleaning (okay, not much cleaning!) driving the boys here there and everywhere. I walk everyday with the Banjo and a couple of neighbours, frequent trips to the seaside, meeting up with friends and lots of hours making cards and scrapbooking and of course being artistic director in the garden renovations department. That's all for now. I'll post more photos when we've got some plants in and cleaned up abit!


And after, it'll soon be ready to be planted up



Jake with a broken arm.