All Change

Mum and Dad went home last week. We had been lucky enough to have them for nearly 7 weeks and they have left a huge gap in the household goings on. We miss them very much and Ru, who has a special bond with his grandad, cried a fair bit. The very same night that they left, Brian arrived home after a four week absence, which at least gave us comfort and cheered us up :-)

We had a busy final week of the holidays with the boys going to a cartooning camp one day and Alfie doing cricket another. One especially hot evening last week we even met friends down by the river for a swim and some fish and chips. It was a gorgeous evening marred only slightly by Alfie getting stung on the leg by a jellyfish. He cried enough that several different people came to offer advice, the best of which seemed to be to bathe it in warm water (this after we had applied ice and he screamed the place down!!). Poor love, he did eventually feel better after we laid hands on some warm water and some miraculous jelly snakes which were better that panadol for pain relief it seems!

As soon as Brian returned last week it was time to hand in his notice for his current job. He was approached a while ago by another firm who are looking to establish a subsea base here in Perth and they offered Brian a job which he felt was too good a move to refuse. The new job will keep us here in Perth for a few more years so we have, exactly 2 years to the week after we first arrived here, answered my intial question "will we want to stay?" Fortunately we have found a school where the boys are happy, and friends who have been both caring and fun. Who could ask for more? (Apart from having family and old friends closer by of course, but that's a whole other thread....)

The boys went back to school on Monday. For Alfie it is the start of year 2. For Ru, the start of a whole new phase- full time school. He has just gone into pre-primary, the equivalent of reception class in the UK and they wear the school sports uniform so he felt very grown up on his first day.

Up and dressed without a murmer (first time ever!)

 

 Best of all was that Brian took the time off work to come in with us that first morning, which I know made both the boys very happy.

Brothers together, school bags at the ready.

 

 Their first day seemed to go really well. I ran about shopping for a few things we were supposed to donate to each classroom that I had forgotten about, then at 3 o'clock Ru came out with a smile on his face and Alfie with an exhausted groan- he had done school swimming ( half an hour every day for two solid weeks a year is part of the curriculum out here) and then got back to school just in time for a sports lesson! Both of them like their new teachers so far too, which is great.

Yesterday two other pre-primary mums came over to give a hand sorting out the "lucky dip" prizes for the school's annual Family Fun Night. We got roped in to help and as it is this Friday evening, we had to get on with packing up the gifts and decorating the boxes. One of the girls brought sushi for our lunch and we set to work, sorting boy prizes from girls, bagging them up and putting them in separate boxes, not to mention our wonderful "special" prizes for the lucky ticket winners!

Nearly 4 hours (and much chatting) later we had finished 75 bags of each type, by which point it was time to go and get the boys from school.

Then, last night I sent Brian out to the shops for some butter so I could make cakes to add to their packed lunches. This new thermomix thing I got for Christmas makes it very easy I must admit, and I feel the need to get our money's worth out of it!! Well, anyway, I wished I'd never bothered. He returned clutching the few bits he went for, pressed the botton to close our (elderly electric) garage door, and it only went half way down. No obvious reason for it, so he pressed again to make it close properly and BANG. The supporting arm broke free of its mount and fired out between the door and the frame itself, thus jamming it part way open. It was going nowhere. Brian managed to push it down a wee bit farther, just to try to make it secure as we have bikes and tools in the garage, but it stayed like this, with the arm that should be inside, sticking outside.

So a very good friend came and collected my little darlings for school this morning, and another "stayed and played" with Ru in his classroom for the first ten mins when I would normally be there. I have been stranded all day in fact, thus having no option but to vaccuum and do the ironing (yuk) and write this little update. The man is here now fixing it, so I should be back to the real world tomorrow.

Between missing Mum and Dad, getting Brian back again, him putting the wheels in motion to move jobs, and the boys going back to school and leaving me on my own each day, I was wondering how I would feel during this week of change. The answer has been that I haven't really had time to stop and think about it much so far, and I guess that means things must be pretty good really!