Tom and Thea LOVE the new bathroom! Tom helped me find the right plug fitting for it, and Thea enjoyed her first hair-wash. Best of all it’s a “bubble (ie spa) bath” according to Tom!

Tom and Thea LOVE their very own new room in our old house:-)

Taken by Jackie and Jen, Elwyn’s cricket team captain and cricket team mate, who are visiting Oz and NZ. They called the picture “Little Wrigglers”! Rob and I took them for a short sail after this, and even though they have never been sailing before and it was quite windy and choppy, they were just fine!

This evening, when I walked up Roscommon Hill to farewell the day @ sunset, who should be there but the little cat – the little mother who lives in our house at Floreat! I had been worrying how she would go after we leave the house on Friday to return home to Derby Road. But she had obviously been out foraging, and I realised that she and her babies would be just fine.

So we stood some distance apart, enjoying the end of the day together:-)

This morning we shared morning tea at Zamia Cafe with Blaine and Thea – Thea wore her Swiss tee shirt that Elwyn had sent her and looked very pretty:-)

With Tristan away Blaine needed some adult company!

Elwyn has just published a panorama of the mountains in the Swiss Alps, around Zermatt, where she did a challenging trek last month.

She shares the family ability to take excellent photos:-)

Another strange thing happened at our rental house today.

I was reading to Thea in her and Tom’s bedroom, and we heard a tiny cat voice meowing. Blaine thought it sounded like a very young kitten. After much searching we tracked it down to underneath the house, but we could not fit in to rescue it. I rang a number of organisations including the RSPCA but no-one was interested. So sadly we agreed that we would have to let nature take her course.

Later that day, as I sat working at my desk after Blaine and Thea had left, I spied the pretty little cat which often trots around our yard, and she was carrying a meowing kitten in her mouth! Transfixed, I watched her carry the little bundle to the back of the garage, then up the wall and into the roof space where she has lived until she gave birth to her litter!

How amazing! Although we leave this house on the 26th, I’ve been leaving little pieces of meat out for her each night. At least that’s some nights she won’t have to hunt for food.

What a brave little mother!

This morning we made the most of living near Herdsman Lake and walked part of the way around it. There were so many birds – several types of dusks, swans, the Herdsman harrier, coots, moorhens…but this sight of the heron was the most pciturescque:-)

Well the transformation that the dreadful hail storm in March initiated is almost complete. The bathroom that we decided to redo while the repairs happened, and the bedroom where the first water-destroyed ceiling was dropped, have been transformed. As has the rest of the house.

It’s good to be planning the move back in now:-)

When we leave this rental house in Floreat, that has been our home since 8th July, one thing that I will REALLY miss in Roscommon Reserve. A limestone ridge just around the corner from us, it’s very special to be able to walk up the hill and enjoy the sunset, or any time of the day, with the 360 view clear all around us.

Tonight we spied some native snails! They are very small, smaller than my little finger nail. But there they are, just doing their thing as they have done here for many, many years:-)