As is usual when Elwyn visits us from London, we all go to a cricket game together. This time we shared the KFC 20-20 Match at the WACA – lovely at sunset. Elwyn loves cricket more than the rest of us (well, only closely in front of Rob) so it’s a good way to be together. However Christopher and the kiddliwinks are not so fond of watching it – thank heavens for iPhones!

Last week, the last surviving butcher bird from the hail storm last March (we had a family of 4 who have bred in our garden for some years), finally achieved his goal. He has been calling from all the gardens around us to find a mate since September. And now there are 2!

They are so sweet, sitting together in the bushes, on the tables and even the washing line, the little man finding worms and other yummy thing to eat and delicately giving them to his lady with his beak:-)

And this morning, during our early morning walk in Kings Park, there were 3 of our critically endangered red-tailed black cockatoos feeding in a gum tree. Although we loved seeing them, it is another sad sign that they are not only losing their nesting sites to our rapacious need for housing estates, they are also losing trees to feed on!

What a magical world we live in!

These images of the eclipse of the full moon, on the summer solstice (in the southern hemisphere) are quite magical:-)

It’s taken Tom at least 3 months to colour in this poster! I have been promising him that when it was all finished I would take him to the “lemonading” (ie laminating) shop to get it laminated so we could stick it to the wall. Today was the day! Here he is with Doggy to help:-)

Not to be out-done, Thea took 3 of her pains-takingly coloured-in Disney princess pictures to be laminated too.

The lady at Snap Printing was lovely. She let me take Tom and Thea behind the scenes to watch all the laminating happen. She really got in on the adventure!

What is it about Elwyn – fresh from UK, she gets the kiddliwinks up to mischief in record time! Here she and Tom are carrying Thea in the blue plastic pig that I found by the side of the road near our rental house in Floreat:-)

It’s Rob’s 60th birthday today, the 60th chance to celebrate the gift of his birth:-)

He’s already had birthday greetings from Elwyn, Tristan, Blaine, Tom and Thea (as well as me as we woke up). Jeanette has a surprise visit to his work planned…

We’ve been through a lot together during the 41 years we have been best friends, but the best bit is that we are still alive and well enough to enjoy each other’s company and just doing things together.

Here’s to Rob!

This morning, to give Tom and Thea something nice to do while Tristan and Blaine frantically got their house ready for the first home open, we let them decorate the Christmas tree. When we pulled our old tree out of storage, it was so fragile and dusty that we put it on the front verge and took the kiddliwinks shopping for a new one! Bunnings had none. Coles look like they had none, but Rob (of course) tracked down the last one.

Picture this: after that we had morning tea at BrewHa, the cafe near Coles, with a HUGE box next to us – the Christmas tree!

So, once again, it was Pa (Rob) to the rescue:-)