The football season came to an end in September. Liam started off well but became disinterested towards the end. He still enjoyed running around with his friends, but training wasn’t his forte. Megan thoroughly enjoyed her coaching and I enjoyed being team manager. Adam was our umpire.
Liam’s teacher enjoyed big projects which got the students’ planning and designing before coming in later to build. Liam always seemed to want to make the biggest construction, which he therefore interpretted as the best. We wandered around the building site next door to find some really good materials to make his tower and the bridge down below. Rosie spent a lot of time in Liam’s class this year helping out and kept dragging Bruce into the building projects.
Bruce’s brother, Phillip, got all family orientated and sent this photo to all of us. Nice picture so I decided to put it onto our page. Bruce went to Kalgoorlie in September to play in a bridge tournement and also to catch up with the family. He did quite well in the bridge which was surprising since he partnered Michael O’Hara, who is not his normal partner. Phillip has now got a promotion to Albany which is good for both him and the kids since they can now go to a more established school.
Liam turned 9 in October and we had most of the boys in his class around for a party. We really liked the students in Liam’s class this year and were very pleased that he broadened out his friendship group a little. At the party we had Dan, Dylan, Finn W, Lachlan W, Peter, Michael, Jordan, Kirra and Jamie. Pete’s Dad Paul also dropped in for a beer at the end. We had a great treasure hunt and the usual tractor ride.
Liam’s favorite present this year was an X-Box, which he is now addicted to. Kirra and Liam play a lot at each others houses and X-Box seems to be their main topic of conversation. We gave Liam another controller for Christmas so that he can now play multi-player games and at least interact with his friends when they come to play instead of one playing (usually Liam) while the other watches.
Daen enjoyed his rugby again this year and continues to pursue the perfect body with his fitness and health routines. The culmination of his rugby was an international sevens tournement in Bangkok. Unfortunately Daen strained the ligaments in his ankle during the first game and was on crutches for the rest of the trip, but he still thoroughly enjoyed himself.
We are still trying to convince Daen to apply for mining jobs up North so that he can take a bit more control of his finances and start to get ahead a bit. No success at this stage though.
We effectively closed the business for the last couple of weeks of November and took the chance to go up to Geraldton to visit Rosie’s parents. We try to do this each year at around this time since it is just too difficult to get there at Christmas. We took Liam to the Maritime Museum and the HMAS Sydney memorial.
Liam enjoyed the trip and had a great day on the Saturday when we all went out to Nola and John’s historic farm “Glengarry”. The dam was absolutely full of Yabbies, so catching them wasn’t that challenging, but it was a lot of fun for the kids since there was instant gratification.
While up in Geraldton, we took possession of Nola’s BMW. We sold the Explorer. Rosie is now in her element, owning a Beemer. The drive home was pleasant, starting at 4am again. Rosie and Liam slept all the way to Perth. Unfortunately I drove through a flock of galahs and then hit an eagle, but fortunately no major damage was done to the car, though the birds didn’t fare that well. Rosie thought I was playing golf after getting a birdy and then an eagle.
Once home, Rosie has gone on a spending spree to update her wardrobe to match her car and also cutting her hair shorter, for the first time. It is the first time I have seen her take pride in a material possession, what is the world coming to.
Rosie and Bruce both turned 50 at the end of the year. This explains a lot about Rosie’s life changes, though Bruce hasn’t really done anything different. Bruce’s birthday celebrations quietly drifted along over four days starting with a great dinner play at Vat 107 with the group. Then Dave and Olwyn visited so we had to have a birthday BBQ followed by another lunch at Watershed the next day. We finished with another BBQ and poor Olwyn was a lot the worse for wear when it came time to leave.
The birthday crew of Dave, Olwyn, Bruce, Dave T, Barbara, Chris and Tony. Rosie must have been taking the photo. Merv and Robyn couldn’t come to this night since they were both working, but they joined us at Vat 107, along with Mike and Bev Caudle.
We also snuck in a visit to Vasse Felix for their Christmas sundowner. Managed to get our photo in the paper (below). Everyone kept telling us what a great photo and how good Rosie looked.
Bruce kept asking how he looked, but they just replied that he looked like Bruce.
The school year ended well with Liam receiving one of three “Effort” awards for his class. He had a very successful year at school, though you wouldn’t know this from his WALNA results. He came out below the state average in spelling (he is one of the best spellers in his class) and maths (I blame the parents for their lack of education and participation).
Christmas this year was the girls year, meaning that the Darby boys all go to their respective in-laws places. For us this mean Geraldton, which we cannot do for Christmas (hence the trip earlier). Blue and Peg therefore usually come down to us on these occasions. It was a quiet affair, but very pleasant even though it was the hottest couple of days that we have ever had in Margaret House. As usual, Liam got the most presents, with portable DVD player for travelling, X-Box controller and games, clothes and lots of little toys which he loves.
After Christmas Rosie and Liam completed the castle that they had been making at school for months. We are now just doing odd jobs around the house in between guests arriving and departing.
Bruce has to go back to work this year, which he is really looking forward to. We might be applying for teacher exchange, Bruce is filling in all the paper work and will put together the package and see what happens.
I am also doing a weekly Bridge column for the local paper (http://www.holidaymargaretriver.com.au/bridge) which is a bit of fun though obviously time consuming. Will have to see how to juggle all our committments as the year progresses.
