ben and eve's adventures

Kingston Beer Festival

2009-06-23T12:16:00.004+01:00

What an amazing event. It was incredible, just like having your own pub for the day. Ben was in his element as the publican, dishing out the beer and talking about the tastiness. We had quite a few folks, from the village as well as surrounding areas. Around 50 or so. We had folks next door lend out lovely white outdoor settles for people to gather around and even a proper bar. I have a few pics which Ben took and we do have a film. I will post the film still but will replace in when we have more disc space as it jumps a bit and skips bits because it didn't copy of the camera so well.

Mini Steam Trains

2009-06-17T06:50:00.000+01:00

Update on the move and movements alike

2009-06-10T11:09:00.004+01:00

Well after much investigations, first Norway, then Greece. We have finally got a side trip to Amsterdam. It was quite tricky as the visa's are going to be cancelled and then there were release date deadlines etc etc, you know how this stuff goes. Anyway we are out of here from the 18 August and with any luck we will know by the end of today, it should be on board the magnificent A380. I know you could argue, a plane is a plane but I like this one, I really do. We should be back in Oz on around the 20th though alas not much catching up or socialising can be done as Ben has to get back to work on the 24th so we will be heading to Bathurst soon after. We have much settling up to do. But we will definitely be heading back into town the following month to see folk and for birthday time events.

Wish us luck :P

Bathurst 1000, bring it on!

2009-06-10T07:54:00.004+01:00

check the gears, mmm

And we are racing...

Oooo did I win, did I, did I, hu, hu hu

A Taste of Narrabri

2009-06-09T08:33:00.020+01:00

Many of you have heard the odd tale or two of life and adventures in Narrabri. I was sorting through all our things in prep for the move and came to the photo albums and thought I might put a few up as it is always nice to have illustrations to go with the story.

This is the cantankerous goat in my stories of trying to get out of the pool, the same goat that jumped on cars too :P This is a pic of my sister Jane and I have fun in the mud in what was effectively our drive way. It was referred to as the bog hole.

My dad at the Easter parade, he won a prize for his float a tone of bull , with mr turnbull as the inspector. my dad is a plumber and had a toilet on the back. very funny, had to be there.

This is me under our house with my dog tracey
The next one is my good self helping dad measure for my cubbyhouse, it even had french doors.
Here are two of my brothers washing in the rain after the breaking of a seven year drought
Another of my dad's contructions. This one is to win the river race, it ended up its career sinking in our oversized concret pool.
The boys winning with our three seater bike. This thing may have been hard to work but it was cool. The three seats were in a straight line as the front of a car with two wheels at the back and one at the front. the two on the outside got to peddle and the joker in the middle gets to steer. It is heaps of fun but don't try it going down hill
Dad, looking suave for the seventies

(A little late though hearty felt) Happy Birthday Kim

2009-06-09T08:19:00.005+01:00

big sister, beautiful inside and out. hope you had a great day, love e, b, t and m

Awww cute

2009-06-08T21:35:00.002+01:00

We are shipping out

2009-06-03T16:23:00.009+01:00

Indeed with are, we are heading home at the end of August. We hope to fit in a few more locations before we go but our main goal with be to get back and settle in Bathurst. It has been the most amazing adventure and we will certain miss everybody we have come to love here. We will still keep the blog going for those not in Bathurst, obviously but we will be remarkable more boring from now on. Though I am sure some will be thinking that, that happened when we had kids and stop jetting everywhere. From our three years here we have gained many countries in our passport, France, Belgium, Germany, Ireland and Scotland though we had been there before. Italy, have not seen nearly enough of that famous place. Singapore though Ben doesn't count that as it would have been easy from Australia.

We have loved growing our own food, singing carols in the freezing dark around our gorgeous village. Getting to know the neighbours has been an amazing and wonderful thing. We have celebrated with the folks here, done easter egg hunts, we have had harvest festivals, the fetes have been excellent. We have loved having the horses near by, walking to the duck pond to feed them. Collecting berries and other fruits for making jam or just yumming up on our way around the place. We will miss the great friends we have made here but we hope to keep in the coming years as with any luck we will be able to visit once a year. Kingston has truely been our home as we have gardened and weathered through three years. We won't miss all the colds or the dark winters, though I loved the cold and the dramatic changes in the seasons. Watching the dead world come alive again after months of dark. It is like an explosion of leaves and blossoms as the plants reclaim the landscape about us. The animals return and mud shrinks back into beds of bulbs in a riot of colour and smell. Summer sees all the light starved folk out frying in the sun, red English on each patch of lawn, be dammed those cancer spots. The land comes alive with festivals, fetes and drama as shakespeare clad folk walk amongst the market hailing us to their performace. The sun is eternal in these full and powerful months of summer. Yet autumn and winter is not without its romance and charm as the leaves go from blinding greens to the blaze of firely tones and then of course all fall in a heap upon the ground. It is a time to gather all the goodies that the summer has given, the fruits are brought in and saved. New wellies are walked in for the mud will return. Singing comes back as the students return to the ancient halls of learning. The cow is fattened for the feasts ahead and thanks is give in firelight for all the good bounty gotten. Christmas comes with cold frost and the excitment is heighted as the red robins drop by and stocks and lights appear at windows. The fairy tale ends with a lovely hot feast of turkey and pudding, carols and presents and warm spiced wine. mmmm

I think I would just give up January and February and keep all the rest. It has been groovy. Of course Ben will do his own less sappy sign off. Here are a few pics of us here and around the village.

A Brighton Weekend

2009-06-02T15:46:00.010+01:00

We had a magnified weekend with friends, Gillian and Tim, and their two adorable children Alice and Daniel. To fix some info though, it was actually Eastbourne but still just as lovely. We checked out their excellent new home, bbqed and went to the sea side, can't really say beach as it is just not like one an Australian would know. We did get excellent pics though and some film of the little critters playing together. We also check out the zoo there, it was quite nicely done. No large animals and all the enclosers were well suited to the animal, though I did disagree with the big birds. The owls etc are use to flying and long distances so it was too awful to see them there but there you go. The rest of the zoo was great. It had a paddling pool and a thomas train you could ride on and heaps of play park area with neat equipment to try out. So an excellent adventure all round. Alice is ten days older than Timothy and Daniel was born this March, so very wee chap.

Junior cooking class

2009-05-26T16:21:00.003+01:00

I quite often have a few little critters over, and I love to do the creative thing. This is a picture of my darling cooking class as the made their first jam drop biscusit. They didn't taste half bad either. Of course Timothy is an old hand at the cooking but he likes to make stuff even more when his pals are about.

At the moment I am getting my crafty and organisational drives out on the play group that I do on Fridays. Each Friday morning, I hire the village hall. The boys and I take down as many toys as we can carry, aparticularly the train set. Timothy on his trusty dinky and mini foozle in the double pram with the rest of the stuff. We spend an hour getting it all set up and then wait and see who comes. We have been running since the beginning of May and so far our biggest group has been 8 children but we get more each week and new faces each time as the poster get round with the word of mouth too. I have even been invited to join the hall committee to improve the hall usuage so I am excited about that. Last week I did a painting class with the kids and that was very successful. We are hoping to run a music, water and clay session during the summer weeks. Most playgroups shut down during this time so we should get lots of bored parents coming, excellent. We are planning lots of other uses for the hall too, June will see our first Kingston beer festival and we already have the hall booked for Halloween which is helpfully on a Saturday, so should be fun. Will post more pics as the activities happen. Monday I should have new pics as we are off to Brighton for the weekend

Pics from the 2nd Party

2009-05-25T07:57:00.005+01:00

Timothy and Jonas 2nd Birthday Party

2009-05-25T07:42:00.004+01:00

It was an amazing day. We hired the Bourn village hall with friends Mary and Ben so that Jonas and Timothy could celebrate their second birthday together. We would like to thank them and Maria and Tabatha for all the effort.

A Standing Foozle

2009-05-24T10:18:00.000+01:00

Cookie Monster Attack

2009-05-16T09:21:00.002+01:00

He likes his biscuits, mummies cooking of course :P

Two on the Tenth

2009-05-11T09:52:00.005+01:00

Yes Timothy is two already. Hard to believe but lovely to see. Though most of his friends have hit two and somehow got a copy of the book that explains to them how awful they really should be. I think Timothy got an advanced copy as he is well aware of how to go from angel to someone we want to throttle. But not on this special Sunday. Not only was it the 2nd birthday, it was Australia's mothers day (UK stick to Mothering Sunday). We both had a lovely day, it was wonderful to see that I was the mummy of such a bright, loving and funny boy. NEW WORDs for this day was 'Lunch, don't touch (that was for Matthew's benefit) and Catch.

Even though we are having a party on 23rd with one of his mates in the next village (the Lovely Jonas), Pirate theme. We did get into the spirit. Ben took Timothy shopping in the morning for birthday cake ingredients. We made of course a chocolate cake, woman's weekly rocks, works every time. We played with his new sand-water table and then bundled the two kids in the bike trailer and rode to Cambridge to do this .... (pics speak better)

Traveling the Public way

2009-04-29T08:05:00.004+01:00

Since our car has been out of commission, we have had to rethink our way around the place. Last weekend was decked out with sunshine and we had super dad home so we all got on the bikes and rode places, to the park and to the baby markets. Ben had Timothy in a seat on his bike and Matthew was towed in the trailer (this weekend both boys will go in the trailer for the trip into Cambridge, about 8 miles). Come the weekdays, mummy is not so fit or strong so we turn to the buses. And guess what, it was fun and not to much bother. The first trip we went to the library, two villages over and while there went to see daddy at his work place and have all the ladies there coo over Matthew and got me some reading glasses (getting worn out i'm afraid). It was just the walk back to the bus stop Timothy objected too. So our next trip we took his dinky and it was great. As I have a rope that goes around the bars and I put him up the hills or just keep him on the right side of the road. When Timothy is playing at our friend's place, Maria, he hitched a ride with daddy.

This weekend was supper riding time. We did make it into Cambridge. It was 17 miles round trip. It was very good value as it took five hours as we hung around for three or so in town. It was a dream run, until the car. The children loved the trail and it was a beautiful day. We went to cafe's and walked around the markets. Sunday was a bit more work as I was tired but we rode to caldacote, only 2 miles or so though one of the few hills in Cambridge. We came home at lunch after the birthday party we were attending and rested for an hour or so and then went to a friends bbq. here are some pics. (Think we will just garden today instead of riding :P)

Village Life

2009-04-23T12:55:00.004+01:00

Thought I should do a general news up date as there are many I have not had a chance to chat too in a while. I hope everybody is well. We are doing very fine and dandy here, really getting into the spirit of village life. We have our allotment now and have already planted the potatoes. Plans for corn, pumpkin, carrots and beetroot are in the works. Ben and I are also trying to help out the community here as well. They need to raise funds for the upkeep of the church. It has some amazing paintings "During a general restoration of the church in 1929 – 30, inappropriate wax treatment damaged wall paintings, leading to recent major restoration of these works. In the chancel, paintings of foot soldiers with lances are probably thirteenth century, with fragments of foliage arabesque perhaps even earlier. Saints, the Virgin, and panels with black text, date from the fifteenth, sixteenth and early seventeeth centuries. A horned demon, symbolizing the seven deadly sins, and a wheel, symbolizing the seven acts of mercy on the west wall of the north aisle, are late fifteenth century." for more go to

So you can see its worth doing something to keep such art and history alive. Well now as you would expect, we raise money in our own style so we are putting on a beer festival. We have started with getting a social group or club together and all the blokes have picked a weekend to 'investigate' what beer should be at the event. Sounds like fun, well it will be. We are holding it in our village hall, along with toys and games for kids and adults alike. This will be held in June. For more use of the hall, I have hired it for each Friday morning, from 10 to 12 for a playgroup. Everybody has been very helpful and generous towards getting this up and going. We already have lots of toys and activities for the little critters, morning tea and kids snacks are provided and we will put on special events now and then as we already know art teachers, music leaders etc. So its going very well, I even had a trial run last week with just friends and it was so much fun. I am still waiting to hear about the insurance though. I may not have to get any if the current hall insurance is enough but I won't hold my breath.

The boys are growing in leaps and bounces, Matthew loves bouncing. Matthew is also very keen to follow Timothy everywhere and so is already trying to crawl. He can sit up and get onto all fours but so far progresses in reverse more than forward. Timothy is now really accelerating with his words, which is good as Ben was a bit worried. Alas Timothy mostly has girl friends (definitely a ladies man this one) instead of little blokes to hang out with so comparing them is not equal as most boys are a month or so behind their female counterparts. But he is having fun each day trying out new sounds and words. Yesterdays new ones were Lock, Pink and Leek (as in the veggie) Each morning we are greeted with 'Bic, Bic, want Bic' I think he considers it a right to have biscuits since he can say it, bless them, their so cute. Timothy has also moved into a big bed. Ben made it a while ago and it is working out well. Matthew has moved into Timothy's old cot and both of them have now moved out of our bedroom and into their own, (party, yippy) though Matthew usually ends up in our bed before the night is out as I run out of energy to get up and feed him. It is much nicer lying in the water bed to feed him and dozing off afterwards instead of sitting up.

May is getting busier as we go through all the birthdays. We are having a joint party with friends for Timothys second birthday. We are holding it in the next village's hall. Quite a bit bigger than our Kingston's one. We are having a pirate theme and have just bought a jumping castle for little ones. Its so cool, we tried it out this weekend, naturally Timothy and his pals loved it. We are also going to have sand, water and other craft activities at the party while all the adults get to hang around a bbq. We had a super weekend this weekend just past as we have also bought, second hand a trailer for the bike. Both boys fit in it and it is a super design. We got it from our friends up the road who had it brought over from the dutch. They do a good trailer, this thing turns into a pram like device once you reach town. It also means ben can now do the shopping in two small loads with the trailer during his lunch twice a week instead of taking the car after the kids are asleep at night. We have found that if Timothy notices Ben is gone shopping, he tends to freak out so it will be good to avoid that. We also get fit on the weekends instead of the stress of parking in cambridge with the kids. Well Ben is already fit but I will catch up soon, I hope. It is also good this has come along as I car blew up. The cam belt went on Friday and we have yet to hear how much damage it did. They are saying it will be at least thousand pounds, bummer.

Anyway I think that is about all our news for the minute but I am sure more will come. TTFN

Clips from Oz

2009-04-20T21:03:00.002+01:00

The collection below includes a day at the beach on the Gold Coast. Watering in Bundaberg, Uncle Dan meeting Timothy at the Hotel, Breakie at Dee Why with Uncle Jodie and Auntie Alex and Trying to sleep while big brother runs dinky through the kitchen....

Nonna's Big Night

2009-04-20T13:24:00.007+01:00

Sorry about the film quality, it was quite dark and I am not very good at it. Here are some pics from the glamours night too...

Thank you to Kim for the amazing food on the night and to all those that organsied it and of course a big thank you to the birthday girl for sharing a special event. We loved being apart of it.

Hot Lap 'round Mount Panorama

2009-04-13T05:30:00.003+01:00

This is me (Ben) beating Jamie Whincup's lap record at Mount Panorama, Bathurst. With other cars on the track no less (some going the wrong way!).

Our little Astra is a wee bit slow down the straights but I reckon I'm so much faster over the top of the mountain and through the dipper. Suck on that Jamie! Alas, as this was not under race conditions the record doesn't count.

The audio might sound a little strange, but we'd had tons of coffee to get the tip top alertness and reflexes required for this attempt. So that explains that completely.

For our british friends that may not have heard about Mount Panorama, Bathurst and the Great Race (and it is a great race) see here.

A Christened baby

2009-04-06T12:38:00.004+01:00

It was such a lovely service, most moving and a big thank you to the wonderful and generous people of Bathurst. They were very welcoming and had some beautiful things to say when welcoming Matthew Scott, Chelsea Grace and Timothy James into the family of Christ. We would also like to thank all the great friends and family who came all the way for the service.

Sydney

2009-04-06T11:28:00.011+01:00

After a super time with Nanny and Poppy in Bundaberg, we made our way via two flights to Sydney. We sent the first night in the intercontinental, five star hotel. This was followed with dinner at Rock Pool. The reason behind this decadent choices is, my lovely Ben and I have been together for ten years. Married for eight and known each other for twelve. It was the most magical night. Even better than the night we got married. We went with the tasting menu which was excellent and quite funny as it has nine course and of course nine glasses of wine. This meant of course that Ben was extremely merry by the end of the event. The hotel, five star, was wonder and so where the lovely grandparents that looked after the boys. The following two nights we got to stay with my lovely brother and his beautiful Alex. (we love her already) This was great as we got to have breakfast at the beach. Saturday morning we met up with our great friends from Glebe library. It was amazing to catch up with everybody and we also go to walk with all to the Glebe markets too. I got some really cute t-shirts for the kids. Saturday we had lunch with Dave and his lovely family in the excellent coffee district of Leichhart. We had great gelato and fun in the park. Saturday was a relax with Jodie and Alex. Sunday we saw the happy birthday girls, Chelsea and Jane.

Monday we caught up with Toshiba buddies and Mosman chums. That was excellent too, swaping gossip and news about who is where and how every ones family is going. We wish a super Congrad's to Tim and Jane and the big sister now, Welcome to Sam. He is so beautiful. We do apologies to Jane B and Jaqui, who I really did want to see and met to call Monday night but alas my irrational dislike for cockies (bugs) we ended up driving to Bathurst that same night and did not return to Sydney until Thursday. Thursday we made up for all the stuff we had to cancel, that were very nice though. Visiting friends with their great dogs and a super groovy dinner with work mates. Friday we got to go to the zoo with Jodie and Alex, it was so pretty.

The beach in these pics is Dee Why

This is the lovely Palm beach

Newport....

And the zoo...

Bundaberg

2009-03-25T18:00:00.009Z

Here we are in more sun shine and with Nanny and Poppy

So lovely up here to. We had a bit of a rush to get to the airport (not leaving early enough) and caught a prop driven plane, so cool up to Bundaberg. It was like a home away from home, so lovely with the family, sun and dad's cool new boat. We took Timothy out on it and he loved it, of course. We also went to the bundaberg rum distillery. The smell is very yummy and the massive store house of molasses.

Timothy and Matthew had a lovely time getting to know their Nanny and Poppy. They loved spending time together and Ben and I got to go out twice while Nanny babysat. There was lots fun pics of the time and we had some great walks too.

Quite warm today, nothing like a splash in a pot...

'Roo Hugger

2009-03-21T02:52:00.003Z

First few Days

2009-03-18T03:30:00.005Z

Tryin' to make the most of it :-)