Crossed Wires!

Sunday 27th November, 2011

Someone had their wires crossed this weekend and it looks as if it was me.  A planned quiet weekend was now going to be one of , "What are we going to do today?"  Still, that's what makes life interesting.

On Friday I headed off into the city to meet up with Tony and while there we planned on doing a bit of Christmas shopping.

We went off and had our usual coffee and then to the Chemist to get his prescription filled.  While there Tony's phone rang.  It was Katie.  "Hello Poppa," she said, "Where are you?"  He handed the phone over to me.  "Nanna," she said, "I thought I was coming to your house so that I could go and see Father Christmas".  "No," I said, "That is next week".  She was adamant that when we last spoke she said she was coming over this weekend.  "OK", I told her, "we will come and pick you up".

We got the prescription and then went over to meet up with Kahra and Katie.  After picking her up we headed back into the city and then went off to the Magic Cave.  We were quite surprised, the lineup to see Father Christmas wasn't that long, maybe we had a wait of half an hour.  She went into see him, and they had a good long talk with each other.  It was hard to hear what they were talking about as there was a lot of whispering going on.  When we came out she said, "Oh no,"I didn't even tell Father Christmas what I wanted."   "Never mind" I said, "I did hear him say something about a surprise".

With that she was happy, and went off to ride the Carousel, and the horses, Nipper and Nimble. 

It must have bothered her not letting Father Christmas know what she wanted, because she asked to go and see Father Christmas at Myer.  So we headed off down there.  She believes that Father Christmas at David Jones' Magic Cave is the real one, and the one at Myer is his helper. There was no lineup at Myer and so we went straight in.  She made sure this one knew what she wanted.

Father Christmas was very impressed with her, and on the way out he commented to us on that fact.  He said that she was a delightful, charming and very polite young girl.  It was a pleasure to have her visit, he said.

She thought she had better write a letter to Father Christmas as well to make sure he really knew what she wanted.

I thought last year may have been her last year of believing in him, but this year she appears to be just as excited as ever, and we have had no mention of kids at school saying that he isn't real, or her asking if he is real or not.  I know that that day will come and I am dreading it.

By now it was getting close to shop closing time (9.00pm) and we still hadn't eaten.  Yikes!!! So off we went to Vili's for a much needed coffee and something to eat.  On the way home we called in and filled up the water bottles.  We also noticed that the Christmas Riverbank Display at the Brewery has been turned on, but we promised Katie that next time she came we would go and see that. 

On Saturday we were up early and off to the shops as I didn't get any shopping done last night.  While out we had breakfast and met up with some of the Christmas characters. 

Did some grocery shopping to tie us over for the weekend, dropped it off home and then went to Bunnings.  We needed some new fly wire for the front screen door.

Also called into the Good Guys (again....lol) and bought a new cordless vacuum cleaner.  I love using them in between having to get the big vacuum out.  My old one is needing a new battery and sometimes it works out cheaper to buy a new vacuum instead of replacing the battery.

We then thought we might take a drive into the hills and see if there were any cherries.  We were in luck, we found most of the cherry places were open.  We bought some at Kersbrook and then went to Kenton Valley and got some more.   Even Katie enjoyed them this year.

We went back into Gumeracha and to the Giant Rocking Horse.  Katie wanted to climb it.  It was too late to wander in and feed the animals, but one of the peacocks had wandered outside of the enclosure.  He was just laying in the grass, resting.

We waited to see if he would show us his tail.  After around 20 minutes we decided to leave and as we were getting into the car up goes his tail feathers.  Katie quickly went and got a couple of photos.

We came back to the city and as it was now getting late we decided to go and have dinner at the Hampstead.

Sunday morning was spent lazing around.  Tony replaced the fly wire in the screen door and Katie helped him put the door back.  She said she really felt like she was working when Tony allowed her to use the drill.

I cooked some fish for our lunch and then we went off to the swimming pool.  The Aquatic Centre had just gone through a major upgrade and so we thought we would go and check it  out.

We couldn't see too much of a difference.  A new roof and some plants removed (making it feel more open) and that was it.  Katie wasn't bothered, the pools were still there and she could still swim.

From the Lens............