Paul arrives

Paul in the courtyard of our place.

After some months of paperwork etc, we've got an exchange student staying with us: Paul from Montreal. We picked him up from the airport.

Walking nearby up the shops.

 After he settled in on the Friday, we went for a walk nearby on Saturday. We walked near Waverton to Berry Island. I've never done it myself. The bushland is in pretty good condition. It seems to be fairly untouched. It's a surprise to be so close to the city, and have some nature.

Near Waverton train station on the way to Berry Island.

On Berry Island, there are some Aboriginal rock carvings. We saw a kooaburra.

A kookaburra on Berry Island.

Berry Island - you can forget you're in the city.

The city centre.

One of the small navy bases.

Louis birthday!

Celebration on the day at home. No expense spared.

Our youngest little boy proudly turned the big 6! There were 3 celebrations; starting with just us on the day, and a few gifts. Then we had my family to yum cha, my absolute favourite. Sam came around to make the cake for his main event. She worked in a cake shop for 5 years or so. She showed us a few tricks, like putting some icing onto baking paper, then freezing it and popping it onto the cake. This way she could trace a car with a pencil, then put the icing on the wax side. Lou had a drag racer on the cake, nice work!

At the yum cha place for Louis's bday.

We all went down to the slot car track for an hour odd session of racing. Not sure who won. Louis and Ivan retired early.

The birthday boy himself with a pile of macaroons.

Fil, Ceal, Mill, Tess.

Sam the cake maker extraordinaire!

Crazy boys, Lou Roger David Ivan Ollie.

Racing!

Happy birthday to Lou!

Our stuff landed, mid April.

9 odd boxes, 2 sofas, 1 bike, table, chairs, fridge yeah!

After having a half empty place for a couple of months, and living out of a fridge that is barely big enough for a case of beer, finally our stuff arrived. The fridge we borrowed had a lid on top. All the stuff was piled in, and condensation ruined anything touching the bottom. Horrible!

Souvenir of the village of fishermen: Cros de Cagnes.

Our fridge: only half the space could hold things.

Our old table, chairs, sideboard. V nice.

At home..

Preparing lunch for school.

Enjoying summer. The bikes stored in the living room for a bit.

A few shots from when I remember to pull out the camera.






Lunches for school are well planned out. The boys are getting used to taking sandwiches, didn't take long. Sadly the boxes in the picture went the way of all school things - they got lost.

Louis comes up with a strategy: buy everything!

When we first got here we didn't have much stuff, so there was a lot of space in the place - enough for bikes in the living room! While convenient, and super cool to have inside, one major objector meant we had to move them all downstairs. Luckily since we don't own a car yet, there's plenty of space. Our neighbour even gave us the keys to the electrical cupboard so I could drill in a little hitching ring into the wall. Then we could lock them up down there.

Holly's turn!

Nice to have the cousins around whenever they like. Lord knows what they do. They run up and down the staircase and get excited. We've had a few sleepovers. They all pack in like sardines and get to sleep at who knows o'clock.

Dinner with the cousins.

Weekends...

The reprile man works his magic.

Lou's buddy Ray had his birthday with the reptile man. He had all kinds of snakes, lizards, turtles etc. The kids absolutely loved it. They've both had a few birthday days each.

Pat this prickly one!

Can't remember where we went to this day, Fils?

Walking on George St after Anzac day. Too easy.

NSW election day. Ceal chats to the competition, Tess and Will give a hand.

We promised them a bike when we got back home. Happy consumers!

Cricket and soccer in the cricket nets. A ride to the park.

Trying to get political

Out there trying to get some interest.

Well cycling always gets the rough end of the stick. Government announces grand plans, promises much, then these things either get underfunded or cancelled altogether. So we thought we'd start up a party. There was plenty of interest, so it took off easily enough. Getting votes, now that's the hard part. We really needed 40 or 50 thousand or something, but got 22 thousand.

Along the way, we went to a few protests, had a few sessions of handing out leaflets, and some of us did question and answer sessions. Trouble is that not many questions were about biking.

Near the Gore Hill freeway and Willoughby Road.

Me versus Gladys and the others at the little debate.

Getting mad as hell about the destruction of College St cycleway.

At one of the many College St bike path protests.

Me, James, Anthony, Party pres Omar, Barbara, other people. 

School

Don't stress boys. I'm sure it will be fine!

The boys had their first day of school. We were pretty stressed out about making new friends, whether they'd like it etc. Marie bought all their uniforms so they'd be ready. On the first day, we went to school only to find out we were just outside the catchment. So then we raced over to the other one. 

Gaelle came and stayed for a few days.

The enrollments are available in about 10 different languages. Turns out at school there's 58 different languages spoken natively at home. What a great place.

They had the big fete, with joy rides, food, etc. I told Lou where we'd be standing so he could find us. He shooed me away very quickly, saying yeah yeah, just go! Alright, seems he's comfortable with the place.

They tell us Ollie is a good influence on the boys in class. His buddies are a real bundle of energy.

One of my work buddies sent his daughter over. She stayed with us for a bit, and cooked us a very nice dinner. 

Hello Sydney

Hello again Lola, Lou and Holly.

What a shock to be home. After paying about 5 euro for 2 hours, Evonne paid 20 something dollars for the same time. Plus the Tarago was the biggest car I'd been in for about 4 years. I gasped in amazement as she fit all the bags, plus our whole family in the car, then did a u-turn in an average street.



At Evonnes place, our bags exploded, as we tried searching around for summer clothes, toothbrushes, gifts, holy water etc.

Marie among the bags.

The warrior princess.

Welcome home to the most poisonous snakes in the world.

And crazy lizards.

Always fun to see a roo.

Bye Nice

Ollie and me carve it up before I fell on him

The last couple of days in Nice. Funny to be ice skating one day, then in t-shirt and shorts a few days after that. It was quite a shock to be back in Sydney.


Dinner was terrific. Thanks a bundle Gabriella and Hugues.

Place Massena. Apollo looks good, but horses in the hair? Bad.

At the airport, we had so many bags to check in, the guy had to get his manager over to advise him a bit. After being told we were a bit over, we opened them up and starting handing out all the ski gear. Not like we'll need it much anyway.

And then there was the carry on bags. We tried to get away with those, and thanks to the guy watching us throw out our ski gear, he was a tiny bit lenient.

The new play area and gardens in the centre of Nice.

Gabriella and me.

On the ferris wheel looking over the sea.

Liviu, Alina, Gabriella, Marie.

Farewell dinner Tristan, Lou, Rubina, Leonie and Ollie.

This is really it. Departures at the airport.