A flat-out weekend with Wiggles and Rugby and lots of visitors

Here is the schedule for this weekend, 25/26 June 2005. Angela's folks will be staying with us. Saturday is packed!

Wanna go to Aus vs Italy? It's very close by, and tickets should be cheap, it's a 50,000 seat stadium with zero interest in the game here. If we go, we'll leave early to make sure we don't miss the NZ/Lions kick-off.

Saturday

8am - Greg / Nic / Lizzyrose fly in. Mike picks them up. Leaves them at Mike & Angela's Southbank flat.
10am - Mike / Angela / Toby off to Wiggles! at Dallas Brookes Centre.
1pm - Greg / Nic / Lizzy check into hotel somewhere in Southbank. Meet Steve & Maria for drinks?
3pm - Aus play Italy at Telstra Dome (20 min walk from Mike & Angela's flat). Steve, Maria are going; Mike, Angela & Toby are maybe going.
5pm - NZ vs Lions. 58 people cram into Mike & Angela's lounge. Children huddle in fear at everybody shouting at the TV.
7pm - British people leave disconsolately (there'll be at least one token one). Steve & Maria off to continue drinking (if they made it in the first place).

Is there another game or something on? Rings some bells. Or…?

Sunday

Everyone has lunch. Yum Cha maybe?

A day in the life of Toby (aged 1½)

Toby's 1st birthday and Christmas in Melbourne

Dear Maggie and Sasha,

Toby loves your walker present!  Here are some photos of him walking about. But, he seems to have given up on the idea of walking in preference for climbing everything.  Walking must be too boring.  He still walks about with the walker and around the furniture, but won't even walk with both hands held anymore (unless on sufferance).  Climbing seems to be the big new thing.  Up anything, no matter how high or how flimsy. And he seems to have no fear of heights as he climbs onto the windowsill and looks down over 18 floors to the ground without any concerns.  Maybe we are breeding a mountain climber.

One thing I'm sure you will understand is Toby's preoccupation with our Christmas tree and the presents under it.  He has been apprehended trying to rip off the paper from one of his presents a few times now.  I think he'll be quite confused when we actually ENCOURAGE him to rip all the paper off tomorrow morning!!

Arrived in Melbourne

Dear Torsten and Regina,

We have now made it to Melbourne, after many travels.  Our apartment is still very empty - but we have just bought a fridge, a TV, a sofa and a washing machine, so we at least can wash our clothes, and sit on the sofa drinking beer and watching the rugby!  We don't have a bed yet, though, so we are still sleeping on the floor.

Toby has now met his two grandfathers - one in New Zealand and one in Australia. They both loved playing with him!  He survived the flight from London to Australia very well - he slept most of the way, and when he was awake, he played with his toys, and didn't cry much at all.  Whew!!

Hallo - Angela auf Deutsch.

Jetzt, sind wir in Melbourne.  Und Toby war der beste Baby auf dem Flugzeug. Kein schreien und viel schlafen.  Toll!  Unser Familien sind glucklich wir hier wohnen.

Mike musst Arbeit suchen.  Vielleicht dieser Wochen er musst anfangen.  Er hat ein bischen Angst.

Toby liebt sein 'Buggy Buch' Regina hat gekaufen.  Aber der Buch ist kaputt. Wann Toby hat Zahn schmerzen, er 'liest' sein Buch mit sein Zahne.  Oops.

Ok.  Tschuss.  Wir denken von euch!

Granddad

St Clair beach

Obligatory Robbie Burns

Nana

Brisbane Movieworld

I love this photo

Then it rained

We've arrived in our new Melbourne Apartment!

These boxes look familiar from the last blog post?

Toby settling in

This was our bed for a month or so

Getting ready to leave London

Not long now.  This is our last week in London - then we have a week in the countryside, two weeks in Brisbane, 1 week in Dunedin, 1 week in Gold Coast, 1 week in NSW, finally making it to Melbourne around october 17.

Packing is going slowly. And a little empty and sad - yep, that's about what it's like.  This is the worst bit ay.  Can't wait until we're on the plane and everything has been done (or not done - but too late so too bad!).

Toby is also changing all the time.  Crawling isn't happening, but he is thinking about it.  He has also only recently realised what his legs are for - so standing hasn't happened much.  But he is a wee cutie (no bias there at all!).  He also loves other babies.

Jennie & Stephen - we’ll come see you this Sunday, probably lunchtime-ish. Is it okay for us to stay Sunday night?

Last bbq on the roof

The July with the London heatwave

Ah, we're baking in a heatwave here!!  It's been 30 degrees every day for the last 2-3 weeks.  Hard to imagine it being cold!!  Our flat is not well insulated, so that means that over winter it was freezing but now it's baking, particularly upstairs where there's pretty well nothing between us and the black roof tiles.  Toby's been finding it hard to sleep and some nights we stick him downstairs in his travel cot, where it's cooler.

Yeah we need to crank up the icecream maker some more.  So far we've made coffee icecream as per the standard recipe and it was divine.  Watch this space!

We sold Der Bus this month. Toby wasn't included.

The Summer with London heat and Toby growing up

Well, it's now July and Toby is getting all very old - nearly 7 months.  Lots of firsts happening - like first tooth (last week) closely followed by first bite out of Angela while feeding (he drew blood!  Owwwww!), very very closely followed by his first telling off...!

It's been 25-30 degrees here for most of the month, if you're in the Wellington wind and rain right now, it must be pretty tempting to pop over here.

The big news is we're coming to Australia to live.  We leave here Sept 8th and get to Brisbane for a friend's wedding.  Then we drive to Melbourne and move into our new flat.  

Toby is doing very well.  You'll have the chance to see him in Feb 2004 as we are attending another wedding in NZ.  All our friends are also expecting babies - Mike says he's hit the demographic for it.

Ok.  Better go get some things done while Toby sleeps.