Photos for Drew

Two weekends ago Drew was feeling a bit homesick and wanted me to send him some photos of home. I took a walk around one grey, overcast morning. They cheered him up.

Twelve Days

I've been absent from sliprail for twelve days due to a variety of reasons; cold, tired, busy, apathy, brain drain and travelling. Life has gone on, plenty has happened, nothing exciting. I organised a birthday gift for Drew from half a world away, had a hearing assessment, won some ribbons at the local poultry show, been for a bike ride, gardened, celebrated Gibbo's birthday, been out for dinner, been to Toowoomba and Brisbane, been volunteered as the treasurer of the poultry club and am currently sitting in the car at the cricket at Yarraman (where Gibbo has blown a calf muscle and is hobbling around the stumps filling in as wicket keeper).

I'm going to catch up in haphazard order.

After a fair amount of discussion and researching (and a strong Aussie dollar) I decided to buy Drew a new camera for his birthday. I googled a camera store in Ottawa and sat up late one night (well actually I fell asleep on the couch and woke up at 1.30am) and rang them and was put through to a very nice young man called Nick. Nick and I proceeded to correspond back and forth over the next few days until I had the paperwork and transaction completed; Lianne very kindly offered to pick the camera up. We all contributed - Mum, Mate, Chris and the three of us so it was a real family present.

Lianne emailed and asked for some recipes of Drew's favourite foods so I sent her the Thai Chicken Mince Balls, Honey Soy Chicken Wings and Pavlova.

NSW won the second State of Origin; so what??

I took my half day off then went to Toowoomba for my hearing test - left ear is much the same as 12 months ago, right ear slightly worse. I chose a hearing aid to test and I pick it up on the 30th.

I cooked two lots of mince and a batch of patty cakes for the local poultry show. Meg decorated them!

Another Very Special Day...

Just as June 3 is a special day in our family calendar, so too is June 25. On this day 18 years ago I gave birth to a beautiful bouncing baby boy - all 9lb 3oz of him - at 6.30pm after a vicious three hours of labour during which I nearly broke Gibbo's thumb off his hand. The doctor quietly suggested to the nurse that she keep on eye on him.

Meg was at Grandma's, eagerly awaiting the birth of her sibling; she was most distressed when Gibbo showed up there without mother and baby. When she came to visit me later in the hospital she said, "It's ok how you look Mummy, really it's ok". I didn't know what she meant until I looked in the mirror later and saw that I had burst hundreds (thousands?) of blood vessels on my face with the effort of bringing young Drew into the world.

Now he's taller than me and lives on the other side of the world!

Happy 18th Birthday Drewy........WE LOVE YOU!!!

Where We're At

Drew is in Canada.

In less than five weeks Megan leaves on her four month 'round the world adventure.

A week later Gibbo flies to Korea and Japan.

And me? What am I doing? I'm going to ride my bike from Gundi to Brisbane....................
9 days....570km.....1500 friends.....in September.

Promposal Part II

Drew entered the Ottawa Citizen (Life) Promposal Competition - and while he didn't win with his Promposal to Bryn, his entry was selected and written about! The photo of them both appeared right at the bottom.

Getting Ready

for the local poultry show next weekend requires some effort. We don't often put a lot of time into the preparation of our chooks for shows but will do so for our local one. Gibbo washed and I dried. Four down, ten to go!

 

 

Excited at the Cricket

OK, so I did it again; I went to the cricket, this time in Caloundra. It was a three way comp between Qld, NSW and Vic. We left early on Saturday so as to get there in plenty of time to inspect the pitch :). Everyone remembered the unspoken rule about NOT wearing your whites to the game. 



Previous experience has taught me to arm myself with plenty of reading material to stave off those plentiful occasional moments of boredom. I came well prepared. I also took the latest Earth Garden magazine and my 50 Marathons in 50 Days book and my pillow and blanket. I wasn't about to be caught out.

At a break in play, I walked to the nearby shopping centre and found a new bowl to replace my old favourite that the cat knocked off the bench overnight during the week. 

This was my view for most of the afternoon. I thought we were back in England where they play in all kinds of weather. I had a little sleep and read A LOT! Gibbo made 40 retired not out, took two wickets - and the team lost. We finally left at 5pm. It was a cold and rainy and dark trip home.

Snapshots of Drew

Drew has been absent from sliprail's pages for a while - we talk all the time but he's so busy having fun that he hasn't emailed photos for ages...........so I've had to lift these from his facebook page. I've only picked a few and they're mostly of him :) Tomorrow will mark 19 weeks since he left us. How many to go? We miss you Drewy.

He did a 5km run in place of his friend Rachael who hurt her ankle.



Ever Onward

Last weekend the primary school I attended celebrated 150 years of existence. I was there from 1968-1974. My Mum was there between 1940 and 1949, I'm not sure of the exact years. I spent the day with a couple of special people from back then and we went out for dinner that night.

 This is how I learnt to read! I spent ages sitting in the "olden day classroom" going through the Happy Venture books - I remember these stories and books vividly. It must be where I developed my love of words and reading. There were so many pictures I remembered - I was quite blown away. I found the story of the bootmaker who grew the red nastirtiums over his roof and the townspeople all rushed to his aid with buckets of water because they thought his house was on fire! For years I've had the red nastirtium thought in the back of my head and I knew it was a story from my childhood but I couldn't remember it - and then I found it easily on Saturday.

 How about the cover of this book??! How politically incorrect to have a SMOKING horse piloting a plane!!

I actually couldn't stop smiling as I came across book after book that I recognised; it was wonderful!