Just one of those days/months/years/lives

Well, I'm here. It's been while I know. To be honest I've not re-entered these pages without a small degree of trepidation. You see, the longer I am away, the more I have to write and the less inclined I am to want to as I just can't face having to backdate what we've been up to. However, fortunately I have Val to motivate me and poke me with the guilt stick when I get too slack. Therefore I hereby provide a quick overview of life here and vow to get my finger out and post some photos next time.

So many mysteries.

A few posts ago I alluded to a mysterious event which was in the offing. I must apologise for the melodramatics but we had a lot of threads to pull together – any one of which could have put the kibosh on the whole project – and so we didn’t want to say anything and then have to turnaround and print a retraction. So here we are then – the news…wait for it…Breda’s pregnant!

No, no, just kidding. We’re not mad.

Actually, we’ve bought a piece of land and are building a house. Or, to put it another way, we’ve committed ourselves to a year of paying both rent and a mortgage in order to put a roof over the kids’ heads. I hope they bloody appreciate it…

Work.

This is a bit stupidly busy at the moment and likely to get more so in the near future. I have also been away in Melbourne for a week stuck 80' up a chimney sampling the air quality inside a motorway tunnel. It has been exactly as exciting as it sounds.

School(s).

There are a number of schools in the Mandurah area; some good, some bad. Finding a good primary school is not a problem but decent secondary schools are another thing altogether. The trouble is that unless the kids are in a good secondary school at primary school level then they won't get into a good secondary school once they have finished primary school. Therefore we need to be looking for a good secondary school at primary school age. Or, to put it another way, in the scale of our schools selection process, the secondary is primary and the primary secondary - except that the primary (which is actually secondary), is primary if we are to achieve the primary secondary, secondary.

It is enough to give me a headache. Or rather, give Breda a headache, as she is doing all the leg work while I am assisting by nodding sagely at whatever she tells me.

The situation is not helped by the fact that because there are so many schools in Mandurah the catchment areas for some appear to be about the size of a very small, small thing, seen through the wrong end of a pair of binoculars.

The situation is further not helped by the fact that until very recently we did not know where in Mandurah we were going to live - and hence - what catchment area we would end up in. (See note on building a house above. Although, apparently, the catchment area doesn't count until the house is actually built...).

The situation is additionally not helped by the fact that we need to take up three of the precious places at the good schools which is not always possible.

The obvious solution is to give up and fly Grit over here to home school.

Life in general.

Perhaps due to the above we are both struggling to keep our heads above water at the moment. We are feeling very old, unfit and generally run down and this seems to be supported by nagging cold like symptoms which are hard to shift. The kids, sensing weakness, are playing up a lot. Jonty in particular is going through one of his 'anti' phases and would be hard enough work without the other two. I come home at times to find them all literally hanging off Breda and screaming for her attention. She's shattered after a full day of the same and there is no respite for me either as a busy day at work I don't even get a second to take my shoes off before being drawn into the chaos. As much as we would like to, there is little enthusiasm and less energy for exercise or even eating properly by the time the kids are finally bludgeoned into bed. To be honest the whole thing's a bit of a grind at the moment.

Phases like this come and go and we know that we'll ride this one out as well, but oh, doesn't the thought of collapsing by a pool for a week while being fed and cleaned up after sound attractive. I think this sort of thing is called a holiday but figure it probably exists in the same fantasy realm as dragons and elves and being allowed to sleep in past 0530...

Dancing in the streets

Despite the whole woe is me sob story above there have been some fun times. Like the other day when we were passing a mall which had music playing outside and the kids started dancing and soon we were all laughing and enjoying strutting our funky stuff to the amusement, disgust or total indifference of passing shoppers. The kids - when behaving - are fun and sprouting up like weeds. The only problem is that even when they're good, we're simply too exhausted to be able to enjoy it. This makes us very sad.

Other news.

I know there are quite a lot of things which could be written about here but quite honestly I can't be buggered.

Photos next time, I promise.