The last four months in 4000 words

Dear Blog, sorry for not writing in you for the last four months. We have been very busy. Here is a picture to illustrate just what we’ve been up to:

Let’s make a start in February. Since then I’ve been on 7 trips to Melbourne and one to Perth with work. I’ve started to get complacent and have left dirty undies in three hotels (note: some places send them back for free, and washed!). Stace has also been working hard as her school has the Ofsted inspectors in later this term. So that is why we’ve been behind the times in blog world. Having said that we’ve had some awesome weekends in the last four months, had a few more visitors from England and a trip to NZ over Easter for Aimee and Eugene’s wedding which was choice and mean as. We drove around a bit out there visiting Stace’s family, including (cuzzies) Mark & Karen’s new baby son Caleb who is a really cute and peaceful baby, but a useless badminton referee. Mark took me on a one day intensive sniper training camp and I improved from missing a possum at 3 yards to taking out the enemy plastic coke bottle filled with water across a ravine at 80m (don’t ask how many bullets). I think I wrote already a while back about how cool their house is out there – perched on top of a mountain surrounded by bushland and with panoramic views out to the sea, the hinterland and a volcano (!). It is the perfect place for an ex-special forces sniper to hole up becuz he is disillusioned with his treatment at the hands of the government and I think it’s only a matter of time before the same ’suits’ change their mind, realise that I am the only person who can do the job they need doing and come to find me, tails between their legs, while I’m probably out the back chopping logs or something with a dog by my side. (Stace is likely to be inside playing with Baby Caleb as this is going on and maybe making a nice carrot cake for my tea). (Karen’s playing Netball and Mark’s at work).

Also in NZ – Uncle Steve took me fishing with Dion and Kirsten and we didn’t catch owt – but look at the size of this bad boy that Dion hooked and caught all by himself the week before!

The rest of our trup to NZ was spent planning for and getting very excited about the wedding… if you can make it over please think about booking tickets asap cos they’re not going to get any cheaper!

In other fishing news, I also didn’t catch anything when I went out deep sea game fishing for marlin and sharks on Sunday, though we did see whales and a giant pod of dolphins that swam all round us for ten minutes whilst we were 20 miles out to sea in Sydney. Got some good video of them but it’ll probably take until 2010 before I get round to processing it.

Other highlights since we last wrote include the V Festival in Centennial Park, where Stace and I were lucky enough to score free backstage passes through Timo’s mate Andy Love who played for the mighty Buca J’s with us in London. We saw Groove Armada, Gnarls Barkley, Phoenix, Beck, The Pixies and Pet Shop Boys – Andy Love was their backing singer which was quality. Aside from the music we had fun throwing empty beer cans at Pete and Nick from inside the VIP enclosure as they sweated with the pikey masses on the outside. Eventually they managed to get in too, despite me explaining to the security guard that they weren’t allowed to be there and he should make an example of them and turf them back out. Throughout the day we bumped into numerous other faces from out here which goes to show how we’re settling in and becoming part of the scenery I suppose.

Here’s a final little picture of the Stace & me at Eug & Aimee’s wedding. Think there was something wrong with the camera.

Aside from all of that we’ve been driving around and exploring new beaches with Pete and the surfboards and catching up with the other new addition to the Bondi Massive along with Petay – baby Jaxon, to Kirk and Shelley, who is another unbelievably cute little fella (Jax, not Kirk – the survey results below proved it).

Hope everything is well with you. Happy birthday Olitch! RIP AA & Mossy (anniversaries). Good luck for the wedding Mar & Suz! S&S xx