Thursday, April 02, 2009

Thanks for all the fish

Last Days

As many of you will know, we've planning for a little while to move to the UK, and today we're boarding the flight to make the long journey. We've all thoroughly enjoyed the last five-and-a-half years or so living in Balmain, and we'll all miss the many friends that we've made here.

In the last few days and weeks, we've been trying to cram in many of the things that we always meant to do, but never got around to doing - such as finally managing to do the Bridge Climb, which was very good (although a little expensive) - as well as organising for the removalists to pack up all our stuff and ship it to the UK.

Ironically enough, our last full day was a bit wet, but Caitlin & (especially) James leapt at the chance to throw themselves into the big puddles that had formed in Tumbalong Park - see the splashing...

Of course, moving out of Balmain also means that “Hughes of Balmain” is no longer a very accurate destination so, if you're struggling to sleep at night you could always head on over to Hughes of Warwick.

Chris

posted at 7:31 am  

Monday, February 09, 2009

New Zealand

Flickr Collection

After 3 weeks touring in New Zealand, starting in Auckland and finishing in Queenstown, we made it back into Sydney on Saturday evening to be welcomed by high-30s heat; and it wasn't until the following day that we heard of the terrible bush fires in country Victoria.

All-in-all, the trip went very well - once Caitlin & James had settled into the rhythm of the trip, and we had gotten used to navigating around the motor-home. We only had a couple of rainy days but, unfortunately, one of them was on the day that we were visiting Fox Glacier.

I'm not sure exactly how much of it the kids will remember in months and years to come - I suspect not much apart from trampolines and jumping pillows, but they certainly had plenty of fun anyway!

Chris

posted at 9:14 pm   0 comments

Friday, January 02, 2009

Featherdale Video

posted at 10:24 pm   0 comments

Friday, December 05, 2008

In the Red Centre

Uluru - Kata Tjuta National Park

After some debate about the best itinerary, we spent last weekend on a 3-day trip to visit the Uluru - Kata Tjuta National Park, to see the famous rocks. The schedule we decided to go with was pretty hectic but, rather than having the kids bored/time-to-think, we opted for the “no sleep till Sunday night” plan of:

We were pretty lucky with the weather - although the temperature didn't dip much below 37°C while we were there, it was not humid at all: so was very manageable as long as you had plenty of water. All in all, it was a great trip and both Caitlin & James were better behaved than we feared they might be.

Chris

posted at 9:43 pm  

Friday, October 17, 2008

Sold

Sold House

The house went on to the market for its first public inspection on Saturday and, just in time for the 12:00pm timeslot, the clouds cleared so that the sun was shining down on us. Speaking to the agent later that afternoon, he was pretty bullish as he reported that he had seen around 35 groups come through the property (including one group that had sent a building inspector through the property the day before); and predicted that it would be a “busy Monday”.

Come Monday, it became apparent that there were two parties who were looking to make an offer on the place, and that afternoon we ended up accepting an offer from a couple who were keen to exchange contracts, without any cooling-off period, as soon as possible. So it was that, by the end of Tuesday, not only had we accepted their offer: but the exchange of signed contracts had also taken place.

Chris

posted at 9:58 pm   0 comments