Jo' surprise birthday party

Saturday 25 August

Claude and I arrived at the park at 10 am.
Fiona, a friend of Jo was there since 9.30
to reserve the spot.

Fiona and her daughter Madeleine blew up
the balloons and Claude and I decorated
the shed.

Amelia and I relaxing

Last night, Joshua walk but
he  took a long walk this morning.
He is on the move, watch out.

 Shane is also entertaining a guy he work with in China
and his sister. They are taking over the BBQ

Shane is having problem with the wind
to light the candles

Joshua stole a cherry from the top of the cake.
He liked it, it was soaked in grog.

singing but no blowing of candles

end of the picnic.
Jo's friends have to go and put their children down for a nap.
We went to Shane and Jo's place for coffee and drove the
tourists from China back at the train station.
We left Jo playing with her new toy : The New Ipad.
We met them again later on that night at the restaurant.

The Basin Track

Sunday 19 August

Today we went for a bush walk.
I packed up a picnic and off we went.
We have a nice fresh sunny day for it.

our first stop was at the aboriginal engravings.

Palm Beach lighthouse.

Two different type of Boronia

Claude on the track.

The lagoon near the picnic spot

Enjoying the sun

a mummy with her Joey came to see us.
we shared our pear with her.

we are on our way back to the car.

and stopped for a drink.

The climb is a killer, down because you slide

on the gravel and up because it is steep.

We had a nice day out but now we have to go home
and do a bit of gardening.

Manly Warf Pub

Friday 17 August

We went for a walk in Manly
And had lunch near the ferry.

 I had a Thai beef salad and Claude a crumbed feta salad.
They were both very nice.

Then we had to walk back to the car in Queenscliff.

City to Surf 2012

Sunday 12 August


Claude and I are doing the City to Surf
a half marathon, 14km.
It has been raining all yesterday and
pouring during the night.
At 2 am, I got out of bed to go and
spray our raincoat with a water repellent.

We were at our meeting point at 7am.
It was very cold and windy.

grey sky, will it rain????

 Gary, Warwick, Becky and I

the queue for the toilet.

 Gary took of his jeans

and throw them in a tree.

People are ask to remove their upper layer of clothing,

and throw them on the side. Charities are collecting them.

But I don't think the poor will want those jeans.

 Claude and I

Claude , me, Gary  and Warwick

 Gary and Becky, they are twin.

and off we go

more discarded clothing on the edges of the road.

As people get warm they discard, but only if you

have spare cloth on the truck going to Bondi as

we were told, Bondi was very windy and

bitterly cold......

 along the way we had entertainment, music, dancing ....

some of the girl had smurf hand marks...a bit everywhere

At the bottom of Heat break Hill we caught up

with Helen and Liz

 Bondi, we have arrived, we did it.

It took us more than 2 hours.

Not very good this year.

We did not practised as Claude has been sick.

Windy Bondi beach

 In the pub for lunch

James and Warwick

some of our group. We were 13, but only 10 walkers

the other 3, James, Jo and Santa were our support crew.

They went with the bus straight to Bondi, with our

spare cloth and our food.

Becky and I showing off our medals

Becky showing our "Mall walkers flag"

Santa and Jo (Jo is Gary and Becky's mum)

waiting for the bus

our medals

That was not the end of the excitement....

We arrived home to discover that Claude

had lost the house keys.

I was so much looking forwards to a nice spa bath,

But we had to drive all the way to Jo

to get Shane set of keys.

We are lucky that he did not take them with him

as China is a bit far to go.

My beautiful Amelia.

She was fast asleep when we got there

and she woke up to see me in her room,

She said "grand ma"

It was lovely to hear.

She is still half asleep I think 

A day to remember.