Lord I'm a slacker! I keep meaning to update this but haven't gotten around to it since I went to Ireland for my exhibition (6 whole months ago!!)

One of the nicest things was to fly out of a stinking hot Aussie February into Dublin and see snow covering the Wicklow hills. Being cold was a luxury!

The exhibition experience and visiting the Gaelscoileanna was just great. Kids have such great questions and make really neat comments!

Since then so much has happened - new CD recording finished with the lads, couple of festivals and concerts and a couple of stints of working in Melbourne where I waslucky enough to catch a couple fo the Collingwood games, before they crashed spectacularly out of the running last week! And the whole thing topped off by little Rory's arrival a couple of weeks ago... another little Ox in the family.

We've had the dust storm from hell followed by more rain (= red mud everywhere!) and the indications are for a hot December - I really do need to get a shade-cloth frame happening for the vege garden! Spring was lovely - blossoms everywhere which I hope will translate into fruit!

Plans are afoot now to extend the back verandah into a sunroom/dining room and then I think I'll rest on my laurels for a while.

Photos to come!

House stuff in 08

..and now for the house...

This year saw the additiono f the $2 woodshed...


which followed as a natural consequence of the replacement of the old verandah, and constructed by Blake & Chris.

(Thanks guys!)




The new verandah went up in September, replacing the old - very leaky - one that had been there since the 1880s.







Since then, there's been a load of filling gaps followed by the final paint job, so we've gone from this....

...to this! Phew!!

Chubby & Frisbee

The Doggy Sisters...

Chelsea & Phoebe

God - was that 12 months ago????

Loads to catch up on!

Sad news - we lost little Timmy in May. Two dogs jumped the fence and mauled him and in spite of theneighbours best efforts in taking him to the vet, he didn't survive. He was buried with his little toy dog, and now has his own little corner of the garden.
He badly missed.

There are two new dogs aboard - a legacy from a workmate who's gone to live in Austria.

They are cross Maltese/King Charles Cavalier and are sisters - Chelsea and Phoebe, thought more often called Chubby and Frisbee, since one can jump and the other is too fat to manage anything more than the couch. They were hyperactive, but have (thankfully) calmed down a lot since they arrived in August.

Meet Shaw St's newest new resident....

... Presenting ... Stewie the Rabbit,
friend and source of constant interest to Timothy Fuzzbutt - Tim pogos up and down half the day trying to see what Stew is doing - much more fun than his stuffed toy - this one moves by himself!!

(Source of absolutely no bit of blind interest at all - whatsover - to Hopalong Cattidy or Snoopy Viduka - they couldn't care less - unless of course he managed to get out of his hutch...)

Thinking of becoming a grapologist....

.... that's gotta beat working!

Darcy's christening

Couple of shots from the Big D's big day.....