tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-263284342009-07-09T10:05:51.742+10:00A record of the Hawkins family emigrating to Sydney, Australia, from September 2006.Hawkins Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05395453033426911184noreply@blogger.comBlogger241125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26328434.post-21981079999729527382009-07-09T10:05:00.001+10:002009-07-09T10:05:44.362+10:00

Normal service will be resumed shortly...

Hawkins Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05395453033426911184noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26328434.post-67891258447963643622009-07-05T14:29:00.002+10:002009-07-05T14:34:46.621+10:00

So Andy Murray achieved the usual British 'amost there but not quite' at Wimbledon this year, which at least saved us from a late night on Sunday staying up to watch the final live.However, the Ladies Final on Saturday between the Williams sisters was live from 11pm and we spotted some famous faces in the crowd...and again.... Nice hats for the hot sun!

Hawkins Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05395453033426911184noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26328434.post-84578641662714602212009-07-01T17:14:00.003+10:002009-07-03T17:09:01.767+10:00

As a slight change from the usual posts, here's a midweek nature piece, with two kookaburra's that Sue took a photo of, sitting in the garden tree as the sun came up (the birds that is, not Sue!)They are one of our favourite birds here - very wise and knowing, they 'fluff up' well, and are very good at spotting things to eat in the garden!

Hawkins Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05395453033426911184noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26328434.post-1809980933024992152009-06-29T08:17:00.005+10:002009-06-29T19:30:32.084+10:00

Another weekend with an organised bike ride came around quickly and yesterday's was the longest yet - 60km from Windsor, in Sydney's north west. Sue decided to give this one a miss again as she hasn't been on her bike much recently and thought it would be a ride too far. So, we both had an early start on Sunday morning as I headed off for the 50 mins drive to Windsor and Sue took Rebecca off to

Hawkins Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05395453033426911184noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26328434.post-72829784084455251882009-06-22T08:19:00.002+10:002009-06-29T19:15:10.728+10:00

Clive and I had kindly been invited to help our friend Sue celebrate her 60th birthday. This is a lady I met initially through French conversation and then tennis, and a younger 60 year old it would be hard to find! She has the energy of a horse, working part-time and filling in her spare hours with nanny-sitting her two (soon to be three) grandchildren and helping with any charitable event going

Hawkins Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05395453033426911184noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26328434.post-26078814941082052212009-06-15T09:20:00.003+10:002009-06-17T17:26:54.265+10:00

It's been cold here over the past week, but usually with blue skies during the day. What with the weather and other commitments, there's been lots of excuses not to do so much exercise! However, we had another bike ride with the local group planned for Sunday, which was the toughest one so far, with a circuit around Pittwater, which included a ferry ride as part of the route.Sue decided not to go

Hawkins Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05395453033426911184noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26328434.post-25734255866614090712009-06-08T10:12:00.004+10:002009-06-09T09:06:32.571+10:00

After all the planning and waiting, Laura's day of departure came on Saturday so we all went to the airport to see her off to the US (and UK) for the next 6 months. She is flying to San Francisco initially, to stay with a friend there for a week, before heading on to Newark and down to the camp she will be working at in Virginia - she heard about this placement last week and had to change her

Hawkins Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05395453033426911184noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26328434.post-4564358892969614892009-06-01T08:28:00.004+10:002009-06-09T09:06:56.779+10:00

Laura is getting ready to fly to the US next weekend for her stint at Camp America - she has yet to find out where she will be going but has a flight booked to Newark, where everyone meets before going off to their nominated camp. She had a 'small' party at the house on Saturday night where about 30 of her friends gathered for several hours before heading off to Manly for the rest of the night.

Hawkins Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05395453033426911184noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26328434.post-75979474924026830122009-05-25T08:38:00.004+10:002009-05-26T12:18:22.999+10:00

Autumn has been coming to an end with some wild weather over the past week - heavy rain showers and strong winds which have been lashing the east coast. Northern NSW has been suffering badly from the worst flooding in years, so Sydney has got off relatively lightly, but the beaches have been taking a pounding and lots of sand is being washed away.We went down to South Curl Curl on Saturday

Hawkins Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05395453033426911184noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26328434.post-12188652158076207612009-05-18T08:33:00.003+10:002009-05-21T20:01:21.870+10:00

We’re having a fabulous autumn so far, with lots of sunshine and midday temperatures in the mid-20s after cool mornings. There are some beautiful deciduous trees around, with leaves which look very colourful against the brilliant blue skies and, because frost is rare, they tend to stay on the trees for much longer than in the UK. It’s not quite New England, but it’s very pretty!Clive and I

Hawkins Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05395453033426911184noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26328434.post-3024784103016895782009-05-12T18:16:00.003+10:002009-05-21T20:07:37.498+10:00

We are happy to report that Caroline passed her driving test today, at the first attempt! We felt she was more than ready, having completed her mandatory 120 hours (including 20 at night), compared to the 50 that Laura had to do before her test. However, anything could have happened on the actual day to scupper her chances of success but luckily the weather was fine and she wasn’t too nervous.We’

Hawkins Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05395453033426911184noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26328434.post-52724670672445248962009-05-11T08:49:00.003+10:002009-05-21T20:14:10.711+10:00

It's been a weekend of contrasting weather, with some good sunshine on Saturday which got us down to a beach for the first time in what seems like ages - we had a walk along Collaroy in the afternoon and it was good to feel the sand again. The sea is also still quite warm at the moment, but we didn't venture that far.Sunday was Mother's Day here and also an early start for us, as Rebecca had

Hawkins Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05395453033426911184noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26328434.post-86806319982660097002009-05-04T17:44:00.002+10:002009-05-05T20:36:49.382+10:00

After a cool week and some torrential rain on Friday evening, the weekend has been lovely with blue skies and warm autumnal sunshine. On Saturday Sue and I had a good walk along Manly beach from Queenscliff to Shelley Beach which was lovely and good to see lots of people out enjoying the sunshine.On Sunday we had another early start for Rebecca's football which was up in Avalon, about 30 mins

Hawkins Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05395453033426911184noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26328434.post-67684589625380067652009-04-27T12:48:00.004+10:002009-05-05T20:24:41.842+10:00

What a lovely weekend! Saturday’s weather was warm and sunny so Clive and I drove to Palm Beach and climbed up the track to the lighthouse at Barrenjoey Head for some wonderful views of the coast down to Bungan Head in the south and across Pittwater to Pearl Beach and Ettalong in the north. On the way up we watched pelicans gracefully enjoying the thermals, para-sailors showing off in the

Hawkins Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05395453033426911184noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26328434.post-24529317964579928972009-04-20T08:24:00.003+10:002009-04-22T20:02:02.674+10:00

We have been meaning to visit Parramatta ever since we arrived in Sydney and Saturday seemed to present the ideal opportunity – not too hot, not too cold, just right! Rebecca decided she would come with us and so we caught the ferry from Old Cremorne mid-morning and then had a twenty minute wait for our ferry to Parramatta.Parramatta is 23kms west of Sydney’s CBD and was explored by Governor

Hawkins Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05395453033426911184noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26328434.post-23134561664431208932009-04-14T08:13:00.001+10:002009-04-15T20:04:57.089+10:00

It's been the Easter long weekend so a good break from work and we've had a quiet few days at home. Laura twisted her ankle on Thursday night wearing high heels, so was laid up on Friday, but Sue and I took Rebecca for a walk along Manly beach. The recent heavy seas have washed up lots of seaweed onto all the beaches in the area which doesn't make them that appealing at the moment! The council

Hawkins Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05395453033426911184noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26328434.post-31861527471900977382009-04-02T08:18:00.004+11:002009-04-04T20:01:19.272+11:00

Now that Rebecca's soccer season is about to start again, I took her (and Laura) along to see Australia's World Cup qualifying match at the ANZ Stadium last night. The 'Socceroos' have been doing well so far and are in the final qualification stages, with their game against Uzbekistan requiring a win to almost guarantee their place in South Africa in 2010 (dependent on the other match that's

Hawkins Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05395453033426911184noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26328434.post-89183211188077442042009-03-30T18:40:00.003+11:002009-03-31T21:24:34.563+11:00

The weather over the last few weeks has been great - blue skies and not too hot - although it looks like a change is coming this week for the start of April.The weekend saw two annual events taking place, the first of which was Earth Hour, where everyone is encouraged to turn out the lights for an hour at 8.30pm as a form of protest about climate change. This first took place in Sydney two years

Hawkins Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05395453033426911184noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26328434.post-73813646072782224512009-03-23T10:02:00.005+11:002009-03-24T17:18:36.933+11:00

To mark the official start to Autumn here, this is a photo that Sue took on Friday morning as we are currently getting up soon after sunrise, although this will change again in several weekends time when the clocks go back (a week later than the UK's go forward).We had a quiet weekend at home as Laura was recovering from having her 4 wisdom teeth removed on Thursday - she's feeling very sore at

Hawkins Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05395453033426911184noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26328434.post-90332711369047765952009-03-15T17:17:00.004+11:002009-03-18T21:21:55.397+11:00

After two and a half years in Sydney it was becoming a little embarrassing to admit to not having been to the Hunter Valley yet - the premier wine-producing region of NSW about 2 hours drive north of the city. However, we can now cross this location off our 'visited' list.I think our reluctance to go there has been the unsurprising lack of interest on the part of the girls. There are no theme

Hawkins Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05395453033426911184noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26328434.post-71481084896713298752009-03-12T13:16:00.001+11:002009-03-16T17:34:40.402+11:00

We had a rare 'family outing' last night when the five of us headed off to the Acer Arena to see Coldplay - the first of 4 shows they are playing in Sydney. It's unusual to find a band that we would all enjoy, which is probably why the music critics like bashing Coldplay's music, but they can certainly draw in the crowds, which must be doing something right!The evening traffic wasn't too bad

Hawkins Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05395453033426911184noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26328434.post-14652029837964152442009-03-02T08:08:00.005+11:002009-03-08T15:21:33.619+11:00

Yesterday - to celebrate the start of autumn - Clive and I set the alarm for 7am (not easy after a dinner party with friends the night before and a lively house party nearby that only quietened down at 4am!) and crawled out of bed to drive to Manly with our bikes in time to catch the 8.20am ferry to Sydney. This was for our 4th ride with the Northern Beaches Bikers, and each has been very

Hawkins Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05395453033426911184noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26328434.post-85814437603246837932009-02-22T19:53:00.004+11:002009-02-24T16:52:31.335+11:00

After days of constant rain last week (when Caroline was on a 3-day 'camp' with school – typical!), the weather returned to more ‘normal’ February weather - i.e. hot and humid - at the end of the week. Caroline had a great 17th birthday on Friday, needing a lift home with all the flowers her friends had given her and we had a family meal together before she and Laura went out for the evening –

Hawkins Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05395453033426911184noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26328434.post-89657680395981444242009-02-15T11:12:00.002+11:002009-02-15T11:28:05.052+11:00

The news here over the past week has been dominated by the bushfires in Victoria which have now become the worst natural disaster in Australia's history. The death toll increased daily from last weekend and is currently at over 180 with many people still missing and hundreds of homes destroyed and survivors left with nothing. There has been a big fundraising effort across the country to support

Hawkins Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05395453033426911184noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26328434.post-85491863449589439022009-02-09T08:33:00.005+11:002009-02-15T11:08:18.575+11:00

We have had another hot week of blue skies and had also been forecast intense heat in Sydney over the weekend, to match the levels in Melbourne, but although it was hot the coastal breeze didn't make it too oppressive, although temperatures were over 40 degrees further inland. We had agreed to play with a new tennis group on Saturday afternoon and weren't greatly looking forward to it in the heat

Hawkins Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05395453033426911184noreply@blogger.com0