The Baynhams

It is Gareths Birthday this weekend.

To start the celebrations early we brought a tray of cupcakes to Playgroup with us. Pink icing for the girls and Shrek green for the boys!

Gareth wanted a candle on each one... We put as many as we could on and he had fun getting the other kids helping him blow them out. With all those candles I was hoping we might set off the smoke alarm and get a return visit from the friendly Firemen who had only just finished their visit!!!

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We went along to our Friday morning playgroup today. There was a very special treat instore...

The local Fire Brigade were coming to visit!

There were a lot of very excited kids (and Mums!) The firemen gave a really informative talk to the kids about good fire/ bad fire and what to do in an emergency. They took it all in with big eyes. Then we went outside and had a go at using the fire hoses. The kids really enjoyed themselves and Gareth has come home full of important info.

"Drop down low and GO, GO, GO!!!!"

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Yes!

After all the hard work over the last couple of weeks the guitar is finished!

By six O'clock on Saturday evening it was fully strung and ready for its first play.

We had a babysitter so the kids stayed at home and Byron and myself went out to the party. As we arrived the guitars were on display at the back of the workshop in their various stages of completion. People were standing around admiring them and playing a few simple chords. It felt very strange seeing my guitar being played, especially by people I didn't know.

Over the next couple of hours there were speeches and the workshop was officially opened.

Strato sat down with my guitar and played a couple of pieces and it sounded great. Other guitar players played their own instruments and the next couple of hours passed in a blur of music and talking. We went on for a meal at a local cafe "Double Take" Some of Stratos Chilean friends turned up and they played an impromptu set of Chilean traditional music.

It was a great night and I came away with a great feeling of having achieved something very tangible

All I need to do now is learn to play...!

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Since The Herald interview earlier in the week I have been buying the newspaper every morning in the hope of seeing the article about Stratos workshop. As the days have passed by without any sign of the article I began to think it had been shelved.

At 8am this morning the phone rang. It was a very excited Strato telling me that The Herald had finally published the story in their chunky weekend edition! He had found out when a reader had rung him as soon as he had read the story and was expressing an interest in joining up. Over the next hour he had 6 more calls and by this evening he had lost count! Here is the story....

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The last 48 hours have been a blur of last minute adjustments to the guitar. I have been back and forth to the workshop making a bridge from Tasmanian Myrtle and carving a saddle and nut from bone.

The kids came into the workshop last night and "helped" Strato to put a coat of shellac on the back and sides. It was amazing watching the wood come to life as the shellac soaked in.

At 2pm today I was in the workshop with Byron and the kids and had Strato and two of his friends helping me to get the guitar ready to put the strings on. Hopefully it will be ready for tonights party and may even get played for the first time! Watch this space....

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Less than a week to go and I have been working flat out trying to get my guitar ready for the launch party on Saturday night. I have been busy sanding the sides and making tiny repairs to some areas of the binding.

Strato contacted all the local papers in the hope that one of them might run an article on his workshop opening. One of the bigger papers The Herald sent a photographer around to the workshop yesterday morning and Strato and myself spent the next couple of hours bending wood over the blow torch and sanding and planing as the photographer clicked away.

Later that day I was interviewed about why I was on the course and how much was I enjoying it. It will be great if he article makes it into the paper this week as it will be free advertising for Strato and should help him to get in a new set of students to carry on when our group is finished.

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Now that we have been in Australia for two years and have done all the big things (getting a house, finding a good school etc) we have worked our way down to the slightly more normal things on the list, like finding a dentist.

I booked a family appointment a couple of weeks ago and we all had a scrape and polish. I expected the kids to be nervous but they were excellent.

The dentist was lovely and helped put the kids at ease. They particularly enjoyed wearing the super cool shades! I took a few small shots on my phone and finally worked out how to download them onto the pc today.

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Byron and myself are swotting for our Citizenship exam later this month. A friend , Cameron, managed to get his hands on a copy of the test from Sydney...

To read the questions just move the mouse over each page and click for a larger image

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Two years ago Sian had her First Holy Communion. I had to bring her to a set of evening classes to prepare her for each of the three sacraments. This year Rhiannon will be doing her first sacrament of reconciliation.

I was asked if I would mind being one of the parent leaders. It means that for four weeks a group of 5 kids and their parents will arrive in our house and will spend an hour talking and finding out what it is all about. I was so nervous yesterday. Religion is a quiet and personal thing for me and I don't like forcing my opinions on others. Also some of the people due to arrive were total strangers. I spent the day manically racing around cleaning and scrubbing everywhere from the front door through to the back room we would be sitting in. Mr B was delighted that my religious tendencies were having such a good effect on my poor housework skills!

The meeting started at 7pm and was due to last an hour. My biggest worry was that the amount of things I needed to teach would take longer and that everyone would be bored out of their trees by the end.


We went at it at a furious pace. The kids were brilliant, laughing and answering questions with very little prompting. The pages were flipped over in my leader book at a great pace and when we got to the final prayer to say goodbye I looked at my watch... it was only 7.30! I put a couple of songs on to play and the kids sang away merrily for the next few minutes. At ten to eight I had run out of anything more to do or say and they all got up from their seats and headed away, kids humming their songs and parents relieved that it was all done so quickly.

One Mum smiled as she left and asked "Any chance you could keep the pace up, we could squeeze the next 3 sessions into week 2 and then go off for a coffee for weeks 3 and 4!"

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Many of my friends joke that my camera is surgically attached to my hand as I love taking photos and bring my camera almost everywhere I go.

When I started doing my Guitar making I was unsure of whether the other people in the class would be put off by me taking a camera out while they were concentrating. When I explained about the blog and asked if anyone objected to me taking photos of my guitar during the class no one seemed to mind. Over the weeks Strato, the teacher, asked if I could take some more general photos of the class in progress for his own records and possibly some future promotion. Soon I was being asked by the other students to get the camera out to photograph their latest progress.

I have now taken over 300 good pictures (and deleted hundreds more rubbish ones!) and will be burning a disk for each of us in the class when we are finished.

Recently I gave Strato a disk with the current photos on it and he sent it off to Tasmania to a Graphic Designer friend to produce some posters and brochures advertising the Guitar School. Here are the results!

I am really chuffed to see the images that I have taken over the last few months being used in such a creative way.

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The countdown is on. A date has been set for the official opening of the Guitar Workshop. The aim is to have the guitars finished in time to show them off at the opening. The party is 9 days away!

I have been working flat out on the guitar over the last few weeks, often going back in during the week to speed up progress.

I finished off the back, painted the inside of the body with a light shellac (to try to stabilise the effect of the humidity on the wood) and finally joined it all together! Very exciting!

I've inserted a metal rod in the neck as the guitar will have steel strings and will need extra strength in the neck to prevent it bending.

The next step was decorative, cutting a strip away from the body of the guitar to allow me to insert a fresh strip of wood that would finish off the joins between the top, back and body. This last step has been painfully slow and has caused serious frustration. Each strip of wood needs bending over a hot pipe and apart from burning my fingers I have had piece after piece after piece snap. AARRGGHHHHHH!

Each of the four strips have to be glued in place and bound tightly with a strip of black rubber (I had to painfully cut from an inner tube of a truck tyre!) then left to dry overnight before unwrapping and gluing the next piece. Slow progress!

I am getting close to making the fingerboard out of a piece of ebony and fret wire. The next steps will be to do the final carving of the neck and head, creating the bridge and inserting the machine heads for tuning the strings.

All this in 9 days ???

Don't hold your breath!

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It was Melbourne Cup day today. A "Girls only" day where friends get together for lunch and champagne and place bets on the most glamorous Australian horse race of the year.

This year Byron needed the car for a bank appointment at 1pm. So I had the very fortunate luck of getting a lift to and from my friend Annette's house, and having Mr B pick up Gareth from pre-school after the bank. All that Champagne and no need to drive. I was in seventh heaven! We did a small sweep on the horses in the race and Gareth won 3rd prize.... a whole $6!

It was a lovely day but now I am at home, the sparkly shoes are by the front door, the hat is thrown on the table and I am back to being "Mum" Dinner needs cooking and I think I know how Cinderella felt after the ball!

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As most of you know, my folks have spent the last 3 months visiting us from Wales.

Last year they came for 3 weeks, this time it was 3 months, any bets on how long it will be next time?

I know they've had a fantastic time with us, and it was great having them here. Credit goes to them for being independent and willing to travel to far-flung destinations using public-transport. They've certainly seen more places in Australia than Gina or I have and they've met some very colourful characters.

Well, I took them back to the airport this weekend and waved them on their way back to the UK. Airports aren't pleasant places, and I felt pretty emotional seeing them off - not really knowing when I or the grandchildren will see them again. The kids have got very used to having them around, and yes, they've been spoilt but that's what grandparents excel at! It's been good having live-in babysitters too, being able to take Gina out at short notice, although my wine stocks have taken a serious hammering...

I'm not that good at mush or sentiment, but I'd also really like to thank everyone who took the time to welcome my parents. They enjoyed their visit so much, but they also enjoyed the terrific time spent with our friends here. I think that was one aspect of their journey they didn't expect and it made their trip even more special.

It was also good for my parents to see the kids being so fit and active, whether it was playing rugby, sailing, swimming, trampolining, body-boarding, skipping, fishing or cycling, they know for sure that this is an excellent place to bring young kids up. It was also great to see the relationship between them and the kids so easily re-kindled, and heart-warming to see the children cuddled up to them on the settee in the evening.

Enough already... we're glad you arrived safely back in Wales, but not so happy about the gap you've left in our daily lives, or the gap in my wine rack....

Come back soon.

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It's Henny Penny time again at Gareth's Pre-school. The eggs have sat in the incubator all week and finally the little chicks are pecking their way out to freedom. The girls came with me to collect Gareth and have a look at the chicks. They were allowed to take them out and have a hold . I had trouble getting them to leave!

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