Into my 5th decade

This time 10 years ago I was enjoying turning 30 in the beautiful surroundings of New Zealand. Ten years on and it's Australia this time round as I enter decade number five.
A stark reminder this morning of just how short life can be when the news of the untimely death of the apparently happy 42-year-old Wales football manager Gary Speed hit the headlines. Definitely a footballer of my generation.Very sad.

On a happier note...what a month of celebrations that was.

It started with the aforementionned surprise appearance of Miss Cherry Devine. A one off event if ever there was one - not even a sniff of a reappearance since then.

Celebration stage two involved a quite blissful weekend in the sunshine up in Yarra Valley. Thanks to Roger and his new girlfriend (is this the one?) Amy for joining us. With hot weather, blue skies (most of the time) and some lovely wine in fantastic settings it was hard to imagine a better way to finish my thirties. Highlight of the weekend was undoubtably the Tempranillo at www.sevillehill.com.au accompanied by the live Sunday afternoon jazz band in the gardens overlooking the vineyards. Easily the best tempranillo I've had outside of Spain. Please check it out.

BBQ lunch at Seville Hill

Accomodation was at Blairgowrie estate. This also comes highly recommended.

Roger relaxes at Blairgowrie Estate

All the boys together...Healsville Hotel

Back in Melbourne I managed to rope in the client to a mini celebration on the roof terrace of the Emerald Peacock.

Finally, the weekend after the main Yarra event we managed to throw a BBQ for some 30 adults and 20 children in the pouring rain. Thanks to everyone for turning up.

 Somewhere along the way this month we also found time (thanks to Lydia's favourite Groupon website) to pose for some 'professional' photo shots. Needless to say, the children came out best.

 So there we are. 40 years old.

I can say with great pride that every decade has thrown up diverse and interesting experiences, but surely the thirties will have seen the most variety and meaningful memories of them all.
Thanks to all my wonderful friends and family for giving me so many memories to cherish

14th November 2001 - Bungee jumping with Olly in Queenstown, NZ
30th June 2002 - World Cup Final, Yokohama, Japan
24th December 2002 - Bullseye Coleraine, the night I met Lydia
25th August 2003 - Moved to wonderful Madrid for my MBA
July 2005 - Lydia joins me in London
25th August 2006 - down on one knee
7th May 2007 - Married
February 2008 - Honeymoon #2, Argentina and Chile
1st september 2008 - two became three - welcome to Celia
April 2009 - A few months in Geneva
28th June 2010 - The family is complete? Welcome to Max
31st August 2010 - A new chapter - off to Melbourne
21st February 2011 - A lucky escape from the Christchurch earthquake
13th November 2011 - The last day of my thirties, in the Yarra Valley

Too many people spend too much time worrying or complaining. I much prefer to keep moving, growing and enjoying. Here's to the next 10 fantastic years and the next round of wonderful memories.

Love you all

AK.

Miss Cherry Devine's debut

I can't believe it has been nearly a month since I last posted an entry (the original intention was to do a post weekly) but we are just so busy, plus we got Foxtel installed so have been overdosing on trashy TV (eg. My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding - the shame!)
My social life does seem to be a bit busier than Andy's, much to his annoyance, but us fulltime mothers need some time out for our sanity and since a babbysitter is about $100 a night, it is preferable for one of us to babbysit (Andy) and the other to go out (me).
So 3 weekends ago I had my night out with the Aussie mum's group at a lovely restaurant called Newmarket in St Kilda, then 2 weekends ago it was the UK playgroup's Quiz night at Hampton RSL plus Andy's Birthday surprise on the Sunday night (more on that later). This weekend it was my geordie friend Marie's birthday night out which involved cocktails in a very quirky bar (all the waiters are dressed in tennis whites and the roof terrace is decked out in faked grass) called Madame Brussels and then on to a fancy Japanese restaurant where we proceeded to lower the tone so a good night had by all.
Incase you were feeling sorry for Andy, he does get to have a night out this weekend at Moonee Pond races as it is Spring carnival season here and Melburnians are nuts about the races and all accompanying paraphernalia, also lets not forget he had a boys weekend in Auckland for the rugby!
Anyway, more about Andy's 40th birthday surprise - what do you get the man who has everything (when his wife is not earning)?? A surprise Burlesque performance by aforementioned wife of course. Andy thought I was going to Zumba classes for 10 weeks but all was revealed on Sunday the 16th Oct when I performed at a Burlesque Student Showcase at Red Bennies under the stage name of Cherry Devine (all very professional!) I have my friend Andrea to thank for persuading me to do it as I loved every minute of it and of course Andy appreciated it too (as you can see below)

Andy's 40th isn't actually until 14th November so next update will have more details on the birthday celebrations which he is streching out over 5 weeks! 

A lot can happen in a year

We celebrated our first anniversary this month (of arriving in Oz) and although the time has flown by, a lot has happened in that year - trips to New Zealand (including a 6.4 magnitude earthquake), Tasmania, Mornington Peninsula, Wilsons Prom and 3 transglobal flights!
Max has obviously changed the most as he was only 9 weeks old when we arrived and now he is a proper bloke hurling himself down the highest slide/climbing frame/clifftop he can find! Celia has changed too and not all for the better but I guess that's the terrible 3s for you. And as for us, Andy's hair has receeded a bit, mine has gone completely grey, but we've never regretted our move, and bar the first few weeks of understandable stress, we've loved our big adventure down under.
I've adjusted to being a fulltime mum and I can't think of anywhere better to do it. There's so much to do with the children and I have made such fantastic friends through the playgroups and mothers group I attend.
As for our future plans, we are still undecided but then we always said give it two years then decide and that's what we'll do.

The only other event worthy of note this week was my Huntsman spider encounter - I carried the beast in with the mail and got the shock of my life when this crawled out of a pamphlet onto the dinner table. Twenty hits with a Charlie and Lola library book later he was no more!
And for those sad people that actually follow this blog, a quick update on the outcome of our tribunal - the $5000 got reduced to $1750 so very happy bunnies!

Home sweet home

It has been a while since my last post but I think moving house with a 14 month old and a 36 month old gives me a valid excuse. We are pretty much settled in now (still a few teething problems as it's a new house - mainly with the central heating) but we're happy with our choice. The main source of stress is now the old house as the owners are looking for $5000 to cover damages which we think is just wear & tear so Andy is off to a tribunal next week to hopefully get a resolution in our favour.
We threw a party for Celia's 3rd birthday the weekend after we moved and as you can see from the below photos she had a great time.

Turning 3 has however resulted in my little angel turning into a diva / monster - tantrums every day, "No, don't want to!" is the phrase of choice. We have hourly battles as she refuses to eat, get dressed, brush teeth, go to bed etc. Patience was never my strong point so I am near breaking point! I am even trying out Jo Frost supernanny techniques (I swore after I found out that Gina Ford had no children never to listen to the advice of a childless person again!).
Anyway, I'm sure it's just a phase, I just hope the phase doesn't last 14 years or you will be seeing us in Utah on a future series of 'Bootcamp'.......

Rugby World Cup in 4 days time

Life is just so busy. Time for a holiday. Boys trip to New Zealand for Ireland v Australia.

We're on the move

Well we didn't see any other houses worth a second look so Bentleigh it is! As we move next Thursday I decided to book the kids into 'Occasional care' for the first time and start my packing this morning. Occasional care is a great childcare service over here that you just book a week in advance (or two in some places) and you can use it for a few hours whenever you need it. It's heavily funded by the government so it cost $44 for both Celia and Max for 3 hours - loads cheaper than nursery, although funding is due to stop in December - even Australia is feeling the global pinch.
By the time I had settled Celia (not Max - he was fine and it was his first time!), done a couple of errands and had a cup of tea, I only managed to get one hour of packing done - oops!

We have spent the past couple of weeks feeling very relieved that we no longer live in London. I know that the media can blow a few isolated incidents out of all proportion (everyone from Northern Ireland is only too aware of that!) but it really did seem that all hell had broken loose. If it makes those back home feel any better, life in Australia has it's downside too. Firstly there was the incident last week where a lady tried to run me and the double buggy off the pavement with her Doggy buggy (yep, she took her poodle for a walk in a stroller and expected us to move out of its way?!) Even more annoying, her dog was wearing a coat that was probably more expensive than Max and Celia's together and to top it off, it wasn't even cold enough for my children to have their coats on! The 'cold' thing is really starting to get to me. One day it was sunny and 18 degrees and we were on our way to the park in teeshirts when the lollypop lady, who was wrapped up in a fleece and woolly hat, said "oh, I hate those chilly breezes" then shivered....
I took Celia and Max to the beach for a picnic on Tuesday as it was a gorgeous day and the only other person I saw was a woman walking her dog and she also had a fleece and a woolly hat on (at least her dog didn't have a coat!) I started to think it must just be me but when I got back to the car the temperature gauge said 20 degrees??

One final annoyance was last week's Q&A (Australia's version of Question Time). They had the usual political and journalistic types on the panel but I couldn't believe my ears when I heard that one of the panelist was a 'Playschool' presenter - Carol Vodermann all is forgiven.
Doesn't quite compare to riots in your streets I know but all joking aside, I really did despair last week. Things can only get better..............

House-hunting continues.....

The search for the perfect pad down under is limping along and so far only one house has warranted an application but it's in Bentleigh not Bayside (which is a stones throw from Brighton East so only about 10 minutes drive to the sea) however the plus side is that it's got 4 bedrooms so all you potential visitors, get your flights booked!

There have been a couple of milstones regarding the children's development over the past week, the main ones being Celia ditching her dummy and Max walking (like a zombie from the Thiller video but walking all the same). There have also been some not so welcome developments, such as the deafening screeches from Max whenever he spies anyone eating (even if his own mouth is already crammed full of food!) and Celia's obsession with everything having to match from clothes and hair accessories to plates and cutlery and not just her own!

So as a reward for Celia binning the dummy we promised her a toy of her choosing and as Target were having a huge toy sale we popped along last Saturday. Whilst there we spied a lovely kitchen unit which would be perfect for her birthday in 4 weeks time so I duly sent Andy back the next day to get it. Unfortunately it was the last one in the shop so he bought the fully assembled demo which of course was twice the size of the car (he didn't realise until he got it out to the car park apparently!?) So there was no alternative but to walk about 2 miles home with it in the trolley which sounds relatively painless but when you consider he had to get the trolley over the security barrier in the car park, across the Princes highway, over the tram tracks (which incidentally also acted like a security barrier because of the metal) it was no mean feat. Needless to say, I just had to take a photo when he eventually got home. Which reminds me, we still have the trolley in the garage - oops!....