The Baynhams

Josie and Stef are going to be spending the month of August with us. In preparation for their visit we have been doing a spring clean of the house and buying in some provisions.....

We placed an order in our local bottle shop (Off-License) and today we collected 12 bottles of Merlot, 12 of Shiraz/Cabernet/
Merlot and another 12 of bubbly!

Obviously we may have to do some quality control tasting tonight but hopefully we will still have a few bottles left when they arrive in just under 4 weeks time!

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We spent another great weekend in Sydney with Charles and Sue. They have a really limited amount of time left in Oz before they return to the UK. Charles starts a new job in London in October so we are trying to make the most of the next few months.

There was a free night time concert in Darling harbour at 7pm. It was a world renowned tap dancing and percussion group called "Tap-dogs" It really was fun to watch. They were performing on a floating stage just a couple of meters away from the harbour edge. We were sitting on the steps just in front of the stage and had a great view.

The kids enjoyed it, especially when the young tap-pups came on stage. They were aged from 3-8 yrs old and our kids were totally mesmerised by them. The evening ended with some great fireworks and we had an exciting bus journey home with 5 tired but happy kids.

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Gareths Pre-school had a disco last night. He was so excited about going and spent ages thinking about what to wear before finally deciding to wear the standard pre-school uniform t-shirt. Very adventurous! Must take after his Dad....





After an hour Gareth and Rhiannon had had enough and looked exhausted but Sian had to be dragged reluctantly off the dance floor. Over all I think they had a very exciting evening of loud music, party food and E-numbers on what should have been a normal boring Wednesday night.

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Rhiannon looked a little nervous after she came home from school today. Sitting by the front door was an old, battered, dusty wooden case. She came into the kitchen looking for me and asked if we had a visitor? I told her that we didn't and then she whispered "But who owns the old-fashioned suitcase?" She looked pretty relieved when we opened it up to find a Saxaphone inside!



Byrons new (or should I say, very old) saxaphone finally arrived from the US today. It took over two months to get here and he was starting to get a bit nervous about it having got lost in transit. He is over the moon and spent hours last night polishing it and practising playing it. It is a 1960's King Cleveland and has been well used/loved. It has lots of scuff marks and small dents but is full of character and sounds smooth as silk.

For as much as we tease him about not giving up the day job he really is getting a lot better.

...Almost good enough to put away the earplugs!

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Each year, the local school (St. Josephs) has a fund-raising trivia night. It is usually a themed evening with teams encouraged to participate by dressing up in the theme. This year's theme was 'Back to School', and most, if not all teams made a superb effort at wearing school uniforms in different states of undress....

What a fabulous evening we had. Our team of 8 was called Rydell High Rollers and we were dressed appropriately in Grease attire. So good in fact, that our team won the "best dressed" award for the evening!
















Much alcohol and food was consumed, and with so much friendly rivalry between us and the other 23 teams, that both Gina and I have sore heads and throats today. The trivia competition was superbly organised and hosted, and all the teams certainly took it seriously (with unconfirmed reports of rampant cheating completely unfounded).

Overall, our team finished a respectable 5th place - roll on next year!

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As a surprise for our Wedding Anniversary, our good friend and local professional photographer Annette, took some brilliant pictures of Gina. Here's one of my favourites:



Over the next few weeks, more photographs of Gina will be appearing on Annette's own website. See if you can spot them at http://www.flashbackphotography.com.au

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Yesterday was our 10th wedding anniversary.

It is amazing to think we have been married so long. From one perspective the time has flown, I don't know where the years have gone. From another perspective it is all I have ever known. We met in Rhodes when I was 20 and so I really have spent all of my adult life with Mr B.

We decided to mark the occasion with some retail therapy!
There is a list of anniversaries and what gifts should traditionally be given for them. When I looked up this "Traditional" list the gift was tin??? TIN??? No chance!
I kept on searching and luckily there is also a "Modern" list and it says that on the 10th anniversary the gift should be diamond!!! Unluckily for Mr B I consider myself to be a modern girl! I choose a really beautiful pair of diamond earrings and Byron got a fantastic Tag Heuer watch.

We exchanged presents in the morning. The kids piled into our bed and helped to open all the lovely cards and gave us a few home-made ones of their own. Byron has been pretty busy in work recently so we had a pretty normal day with Byron making a quick appearance into the kitchen at lunch time.

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The following superb poem was written by Paul Connelly, who overheard our attempts to attach the boat to the trailer at the local jetty yesterday. Gina let out a yelp when the boat slid back into the water because the ratchet wasn't locked on to the winch....


Once upon a Sunday afternoon one wintertime
A man dids't go out walking with his brood, six short of nine.
And Lo did stroll this wise but youthful gent
with the perambulator to set the pace, lest too soon, all energy be spent.

And by the bay a whim did take our man with brood, six short of nine
"Lets alter course, North East, wheeled scouts and see the water fine".
And as the bend was rounded with speed behesting mayhem
Not that far as crows would fly, the gent did spy some Baynhams!

Upon the liquidsilver it sat poised like some aquatic demon
with its coat of red and its sting jet black it had its Mistress screamin!
"Why the scream" a young man asked his brood six short of nine.
"We'd best stay clear and well away. We'll take it as a sign."

So were left the Baynhams spied with their water monster tethered
and it be said that from whence were spied a bang up job was weathered.
Well done you welcome friends from shores far and away
You have a boat, you got it out and back again same day!


Any comments would be most welcome !

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Well, the "lake report" from two sources, (Kel and Annette) this morning were great, so we were determined to make the most of the weather and to maintain our enthusiasm with the boat.

We were in the water by 11:30 and it felt great just whizzing around the local area, checking out the waterfront properties, stopping by Troy and Annette for fish and chips and generally getting splashed.








Rhiannon was determined to drive today so she spent at least ten minutes sat on my knee steering the boat. To her delight, we even spotted a yacht with her name on the side!

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It's Saturday and we woke up at 7am to blue skies and a flat calm lake!

What more could we ask for to take the boat for its first spin around Lake Maquarie. It took us 2 hours of running around dressing the kids cozy, making flasks of coffee, packing spare hats and blankets, phone calls back and forth to Anne and Kel. Then finally we were on the road!

We found a really calm deserted boat ramp in Styles Point where Byron and Kel were able to take their time working out the finer points of reversing a six metre trailer in a straight line (easier said than done!) The boat floated off the trailer without a murmur and we were afloat. There was blue sky in one direction but grey clouds in the other so we prepared ourselves for a short spin around the lake.

Byron looked so chuffed behind the wheel. The adrenaline was pumping as we spent the next couple of hours breaking the boat in. We stopped at Rathmines and got a big bag of fish and chips. Just as we were about to tuck in we saw the most unexpected and amazing site...A dolphin swimming around near the boat.

We started the engine up as we know that there is a dolphin in the area who loves to swim alongside moving boats. Sure enough the dolphin spent the next hour chasing in the wake of our boat, twisting and turning in the water so close to us we could almost touch him. Every time he jumped clear out of the water the kids squealed in excitement. It was magical. We finally slowed down and tucked in to the fish and chips washed down with coffee and beer and decided to head back to shore. Byron and Kel did a marvellous job getting the boat on the trailer almost effortlessly! What a brilliant first day on the water. Hopefully the first of many more to come!

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After months of research and deliberation we finally decided to buy a SeaRay 175. When we ordered it we were told to expect delivery of it sometime in August. You can imagine our excitement when we got a phone call telling us it had arrived from the US earlier than expected.
I brought the kids off to their Friday tennis lesson and Byron went off to the marina with a big fat cheque in his pocket and a grin on his face. An hour later (and after much persuasion) he drove past the courts with the car on the back so that we could share in the excitement. After bringing it safely home and a stomach churning reverse up a steep curved driveway he came back down to collect us. I had real trouble getting Byron to come back into the house and half expected to see him heading into the garage at bedtime with his duvet and pillow under his arm!

Here's looking forward to taking it out on the lake this weekend!

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We have just had a flying visit from Byrons work mate, Nashy!
Nashy and Claire are doing a whirlwind visit around New Zealand with a 3 night stay in Sydney. They got the train up to Toronto at lunchtime yesterday to stop with us for the night.


We collected them from the train with a huge picnic and drove straight to the lakeside in Toronto where we had two kid-free hours of laughing and chatting and generally catching up on the last year. Finally it was time to collect the kids, then we went back to the house to veg and catch up some more. Nashy hasn't changed a bit......well, unless you notice the super-sized side-burns and the longer hair, oh yes, I suppose the fact he had dyed it all midnight black!!!


We had a brilliant BBQ after the kids went to bed. It was freezing outside but Byron was determined to get us out on the deck to admire the stars. After 20mins of trying to light our outside citronella oil torches they finally burst into wonderful flames only for Mr B to announce he was chilly and we should move back indoors.....?!

A reasonable volume of alcohol was consumed..... Beer, wine, and Irish coffees. By 10 o'clock Nashy and Claire were struggling to keep their eyes open and Byron couldn't persuade them to try some of his favourite Wolfblass port. Probably not such a bad thing as we were all up at 6.30am trying to make the most of a short morning before the 10 o'clock train back to Sydney. We had a BBQ breakfast before doing the school run. There was just time for a quick drive around Rathmines to show them where we will be building the new house before dashing across town to the train station and saying goodbye.



Hopefully we will have tempted him with an idea of the Aussie lifestyle and we will be hearing about a return visit sometime soon.....

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Today we went bush walking! It was the first day of good weather after a long week of rain and we were all needing to get out of the house for some fresh air. We followed friends along a small road up the side of the mountain and thanked God for the 4 wheel drive as we bumped and weaved along the narrow dirt track! It felt a bit like a rally driving race trying to keep up with Peters car. As we went around a twist in the road we often just got a glimpse of him disappearing around the next one!
It was well worth the drive as we arrived at a deserted picnic area miles from anywhere. The trees were so huge and tall that we felt dwarfed by them. Even the car looked tiny underneath them.


The kids had a ball exploring and clambering over rocks while we tucked in to our picnic.





We went on a 1 hour hike with the kids down some really narrow paths that were a bit hair raising to say the least! We finally got to what we were looking for: A beautiful water fall and rock pool.










After a rest we started the steep climb back up the path past all the huge trees and jungle vines. The kids thought it was such an amazing adventure! Surprisingly none of them got whingy or asked to be carried. Lucky for them because we were so out of breath we could barely walk ourselves!

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Well, it is Sunday night
and I am just about ready to hit the sack.

We had a good day once Mr B's hangover tablets kicked in!










As Charles and Sue will be returning to live in England before our new house is built we decided to bring them to see the show house.









The kids all jumped into the bath and I had to stop Sue going to turn on the taps to see if they worked. We already know they do and could have had 5 very wet children!



We enjoyed showing off and got a bit carried away acting like it was our real house so that we almost wondered why other members of the public were allowed to wander around it too!

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My ploy failed... I thought travelling to the other side of the world might make Byron forget about the existance of the World Cup. No chance! Last night was the England V Paraguay match. Our friends Charles and Sue are just about the most English people you have ever met and also fanatical about footie. It didn't surprise me that we ended up getting together this weekend in the name of sport. I started to get an inkling about how seriously they were taking their patriotism when they got out of their car dressed in red and white, including baby Hannah. The next clue was the wine they brought...One bottle of red, one bottle of white. I think the penny finally dropped when they got out a cake tin. Yes, you've guessed it, a lovely cake with white icing and the now familiar red cross. Being a very patriotic Welshman Byron was starting to feel a bit nauseated as you can see from the photo....


A good night was had by all. I fell asleep during the first half and dragged myself off to bed (a respectable midnight I might add) unfortunately the TV is only on the other side of my bedroom wall so I got most of the second half in a fuzzy muffled attempt at sleep. There were some sore heads this morning and Byron had the difficult task of cooking a big BBQ breakfast outside in the chilly, damp back garden while trying to ignore his thumping head and queasy stomach. The kids waking up at 6.30am probably didn't help much either! How many more matches to go?......

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