Maddie's 1st Birthday!

So in case the title and the photo didn't give it away, Maddie is one! Well actually she's now one and 3 1/2 weeks, but time flies and so this blog is a little late.


As you can see she soon got to grips with present opening!











and she was even happy to share her presents with Mummy...



...and Daddy.

She had I think 14 people (4 "smalls" and 10 adults) at her party. Typically after 3 months of no rain it drizzled on her birthday so our grand plans for a picnic in the Botanical Gardens were shelved.
Things got a bit hectic once everyone arrived in the afternoon so we didn't get many photos (sorry) but this one will give you an idea of the state of the house!

In the background is Maddie's friend Daisy who despite having English parents is actually a bona fide Aussie by birth. She doesn't talk with a funny accent though (yet).

Thank you to everyone who has sent presents and cards (and to those who came out!), it was lovely to have so much post arrive - she is a very lucky little girl.

Next blog update won't be so long coming, although now that Toni is addicted to Facebook it is suffering a little bit!

Love from us all, hope you are all well.

Spider count: still only 1
Snake count: 0
Rain: some (hooray!) although the 12 months to the 15th May was the driest year on record (boo!)

Christmas!

...ok not Christmas, but a huge delivery of parcels nonetheless. Our worldly goods arrived, appropriately on St George's Day, a mere 3 months and 26 days after we last saw them!

The funny thing is, the things I thought I would be most desperate for, I haven't missed as much, and some of the things I was most looking forward to getting back were just odd.

What does it say about me when of all our possessions two of the ones I was most anticipating ripping the packaging off like a kid on Christmas morning were the hoover and the ironing board? (Actually it probably just says it's impossible to iron a shirt on a $10 floor-level IKEA ironing board. And it turns out there is a limit to how long I can go without hoovering after all. Who'd have thought?)

The arrival of 126 boxes / packages in one morning can be pretty overwhelming, particularly when you have guests arriving 5 days later (Toni's Mum, Malc and Toni's Gran)! Incredibly though we managed to open all the boxes, check for breakages (nothing significant luckily), unpack and get the house looking tidy before they arrived.

We had the Anzac Day bank holiday to help us though, which fell on a Wednesday (25th April). If you ever wanted to destroy workplace productivity for a whole week, arranging a bank holiday for a Wednesday is a surefire winner. Think about it: on Monday everyone's still getting going/moaning about it being Monday, on Tuesday everyone's talking about plans for the bank holiday and winding down, Thursday: talking about the bank holiday and saying things like "doesn't this week feel short? Or is it long? Come to think of it, it's like 2 weeks. I'm knackered!" and then it's Friday.

Plenty of other news too:
We bought a house!
AND
MADDIE IS 1 !!

More on both to follow, and obviously, photos of Maddie's big day.

Bye for now
Dom

Spiders: 1
Snakes: still none