Before

After

On Twitter a person with this as their bio line "I believe that happiness comes from within & that life is what you make of it. Have a wonderful husband and am an aunty to a gorgeous niece" just posted this little rant

"Sick of incompetent people! If I order TENDERLOINS I expect tenderloins, NOT thighs! **** you @NandosAUS!! #derrimut #nandos"

Not much happiness within, must be all the chicken things taking its place.

Now that’s a conversation I wasn’t expecting to have.

I explained how I worked from home and it generally fell to me to get the day to day shopping She seemed happy enough and went off to get my chook.

Suddenly they have become the most amazingly social creatures, and brought Bert along with them. As I type this I’m looking out the window and can see a posse of kids racing up and down on scooters’ Moo, Bert and to a lesser extent Henry screaming along.

The street seems to have come alive this year. Two new families have moved in and both have kids in the same year, or it could be class, still trying to figure that one out, as our kids. Now I hear them yelling ‘Albert!!!!!!!!!!!!!’ to get him to come out. On the weekend I came out of my office to find two new kids walking through the house with Henry. I said ‘Hello’ and one of them, pointing to the other, said ‘I’m his brother’. Right you are then. Then they all disappeared. It was only then I realised I had no idea which of the neighbours they had gone to. Dad of the Year stuff there.

Last night I was walking back to the office and noticed a shadow outside the front door. It was the little girl from across the road. After telling me she was a vegetarian (right you are then) she had a chat to Albert about reading books or something. Sometimes no matter how much attention you pay kid’s conversations just don’t make sense.

So now it looks like I will hardly be seeing them after school, unless I look out my window (oh, look, there’s another kid shown up out of the blue) but I can hear them no matter where they go. It’s a good thing, I’m happy they have friends next door and it makes the street feel more like a community.

That’s two 17 year old girls wanting to watch Doctor Who. My teenage self just exploded in confusion – girls like Doctor Who? What on earth is this world coming to.

Mum turned *cough* a good age *cough* this year and thought it would be nice to have a family get together as her birthday was over Easter. She organised a good whack of her family to spend a couple of days at Stonelea Country Estate, just outside Alexandra.

We drove up on Saturday morning, arriving just after lunch. Mum and Peter were already there, as were Kate and John and it didn’t take long to get down to the very serious business of doing absolutely nothing.

We sat down outside a cabin and pretty much didn’t move for the rest of the day. Lots of talking, lots of eating, lots of relaxing. The Crozier’s, Janke’s and Gedicke’s turned up over the course of the afternoon and the circle grew bigger.

The kids were amazing. Given they only really see each other as a group once a year at Christmas they all click amazingly well. There were larger grounds to explore, a bit of bush to go crashing and thumping through. While we couldn’t see them all the time we could hear definitely hear them!

Afternoon turned in to evening and dinner appeared. The kids kept on running in to the night before everyone moved off to their own cabins.

Sunday morning, Easter Sunday. The Easter bunny managed to find the kids even though they were a long way from home. They fueled up for the day on his gifts.

I took the opportunity to go for a run. A run in the country was amazingly different to jogging through the streets of Derrimut. For one, there are hills. Big hills. Big hills you have to run up. I don’t know how I made it to the top but I did, it must have been the fresh country air that got me there.

That morning the families split up and went exploring. We ventured in to Alexandra to check out the Easter market.where I finally found a hat that I liked. After a stroll through the stalls and sampling some local wines we went to check out the Alexandra Tramway, a small tramway at the old Alexandra train station. We checked the exhibits and went on the tram ride, kids loved it. While the kids had fun banging nails in to to bottle tops (it’s the little things…) Rae and I checked out the wood workers and I bought a stunning wooden pen. Well, I bought it but it’s going to be a birthday present from Rae. Must remind here to give it to me in June.

That afternoon was more relaxing, this time out the front of our cabin. I was determined to finish the book I was reading, With everyone talking this took most of the afternoon but I did get it done. The kids were still running around like maniacs, they even scored some time driving golf carts. There were mountain bikes to use so we had a quick ride around, I’d forgotten how much fun bike riding can be and that was after only a short 4k trip up the road.

PP

The night finished with a bbq, perfect end to a perfect day.

Monday morning was time to leave but the weekend wasn’t over yet. One of the highlights was waking up to a stunning foggy morning and, as the fog lifted, we spotted a couple of kangaroos outside our cabin door. The kids were transfixed. After leaving Stonelea we met up with Helen and Dale in Yea for a coffee.

We’ll skip over the trip home but just mention that having three children find out, at the same time, what happens when you stuff yourself silly with chocolate in a car moving at 100km/h was not the best way to finish an otherwise sensational time away.

Five minutes later though the sky was perfectly clear,

I’m doing my best.