Hi all
rellies, friends and Peregrino amigos
It's
Mike here again and as you can guess it's been a mad house here since the end
of November .
Some of
you know I built an aeroplane from drink cans, well that never flew well so I
tried again this time building a Spitfire out of them.
Here you see me at work on it while Maisie
did the Christmas decorations - well I did help a bit chuckle. It had started
to warm up in December, you see the roses are in full bloom.
First there was Tricia's
Birthday
here are a few photos of the
family eating at a nice restaurant, as
usual I didn't get many good ones owing to the red has alcohol in it!
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| Maisie's Christmas Cake |
Panic had
set in, where would we all be able
to be together on Christmas Day? In the end it was decided to have it at our
place as we are near the airport as one of the family needed to fly back to
England to see sick relatives on Christmas
day!
We could
go out to Dieter (Silvia's Dad) for Christmas Eve as John and Family would come
up from Denmark and that meant Silvia would do most of the cooking for her dad
and we were invited there too, giving us time to prepare the Paella vegies for
Christmas day in the morning.
The
paella, rather than a big turkey, meant
all the cooking would be done outside as it was getting hot in the days now and
we could all get around a big table set up on our patio. Tricia and John would
do New Year at the Jaradale farm in the hills for those that were up here near
Perth on the 31st.
That
sorted, I returned to try to finish the Spitfire it was (90 percent done but it has to be all
ready to fly the tests chuckle) but it looked good.
Christmas Eve
at last arrived and all went like clockwork,
at last arrived and all went like clockwork,
for us anyway chuckle. We were ready and Silvia somehow managed
to drive up from Denmark a day or so before and cook a huge roast pork with all
the trimmings at Dieter's and how good it was too, oh the lovely crunchy
crackling!
This was followed by the most super Black forest gateaux, and astronauts cream, which was also out of this world chuckle,
both made by other ladies of the Silvia's
family. Gifts were given out as is traditional in Germany on this day. The
youngsters did a few turns playing their instruments.
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| Dieter and Silvia's cousin |
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| Silvia's Aunt with her grandson |
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| John giving out presents |
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| Silvia's cousin's daughter and John |
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| Emil and Benjamin |
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| Silvia (in yellow) and Maya playing the flute |
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| Maya |
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| Opening presents |
Christmas day started well.
We managed to set
the tables and start the paella one and a half hours before the hordes were due
to arrive. We had scrapped the idea of traditional Christmas turkey for the
tried and tested chickens in the paella and the timing was perfect. A few
minutes with tinfoil over it just finished the top rice off as we had used the
big pan but the gas ring wasn't really large enough, this tinfoil trick saved
the day chuckle.
Great care
had been taken by all the ladies over the sweets because one child is allergic
to nuts and Silvia needs gluten free things! but this meant we now had two Christmas
puddings and a trifle! All yummy and
different. 
A small tabletop football game and quoits
were the afternoon games.
We took
Simon's modern looking jet fighter that he had built to the park and I have
never seen one go so fast! I was over one side of the park with the camera
intending to film it on video and promptly did a pirouette as it took off like a rocket out of John's hand with me trying to get it in my camera viewfinder, but
all I got was sky till I heard a crash
high above my head as it thumped
into a large and very high gum tree, scattering bits in all directions.
The rear
fuselage was now without a nose cone, the power pack and battery had to be hunted
for. On finding them they were a bit dented but were found and all declared
repairable!
Seems Simon, like me, had not had enough time to
practice flying the damn things chuckle. His Spitfire made of the same paper
and foam card also had to be got out of a tree later with my long pool net, also repairable chuckle. They were
mended before New Year!
John and family stayed over.
Not quite sure what we did but photo's show we did more eating, swimming in the pool and flying glider aeroplanes that Josie had bought for everyone!
Boxing Day
Not quite sure what we did but photo's show we did more eating, swimming in the pool and flying glider aeroplanes that Josie had bought for everyone!
Emil had
made me a round disc plane as a wonderful Christmas present!
I took
the engine and power pack out of my tin spitfire and we fitted them into that.
It was
supposed to be easy to learn on!
On the contrary at first it proved hard to fly with the wheels on that John had made for me here at home so we could try to fly it.
On the contrary at first it proved hard to fly with the wheels on that John had made for me here at home so we could try to fly it.
OK, so
it also finished up repairable and has since been restored as new but the days
since that have been very hot with always with a breeze and if there is one
thing we had learnt is it's better without a breeze chuckle! So I still have a
lot to learn.
Emil had
been able to stay with us while his Mum Silvia and Dad John with his younger sister and brother went back to
Denmark on the following Monday. He
walked with me in the mornings and swam a lot in the pool too. He also helped
me with the aeroplanes. One day we took him to the cinema to see Paddington, which
was very good and we all enjoyed it.
A huntsman SPIDER appeared in the corner of the chalet and upset these arrangements we had arranged, but Simon bravely changed places and the creature disappeared up into the roof chuckle, or were those spider chops we ate that John later cooked?
Before dark, guess what? We all did we flew unpowered paper gliders, made from a book Simon had brought along!!!!
A cake
was cut for Alex's Birthday that is the
day after Boxing day. I'm not sure how
many times we had done this chuckle! Our family manages to spread birthdays out
over several days and I'm never sure chuckle!
Having
eaten our fill of tapas we now retired to the patio to eat.
As said previously, John cooked the chops, be they spider or not, which we had with salads and other goodies plus sangria and wine till we returned inside to shout (I can't say sing the new year in) - the usual Auld Lang Syne and the Hokey Cokey before all retired to their beds.
New Year
We drove
to Tricia and John's place in Jaradale where bedrooms were issued to all, with
only us using the Ford camper van as we
always do.
We all admired the new fence and water feature that will be finished in the New Year chuckle, well done again John.
We all admired the new fence and water feature that will be finished in the New Year chuckle, well done again John.
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| A nice little uninvited chap |
A huntsman SPIDER appeared in the corner of the chalet and upset these arrangements we had arranged, but Simon bravely changed places and the creature disappeared up into the roof chuckle, or were those spider chops we ate that John later cooked?
Before dark, guess what? We all did we flew unpowered paper gliders, made from a book Simon had brought along!!!!
A cake
was cut for Alex's Birthday that is the
day after Boxing day. I'm not sure how
many times we had done this chuckle! Our family manages to spread birthdays out
over several days and I'm never sure chuckle! Having
eaten our fill of tapas we now retired to the patio to eat.
Look at
that moon!
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| Look at that moon! |
As said previously, John cooked the chops, be they spider or not, which we had with salads and other goodies plus sangria and wine till we returned inside to shout (I can't say sing the new year in) - the usual Auld Lang Syne and the Hokey Cokey before all retired to their beds.
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| January the first our first visiter who came for breakfast |
