Birthday girl

Isabel reached the grand old age of 7 on the 11th June. She decided this year to have a sleepover party after constantly changing her mind on how she would like to celebrate. I have to say it was the easiest party ever and despite Rich and I thinking we'd get little sleep on the Saturday night, we in fact got the same, if not more, than usual. The party goers were asleep by 11pm having been entertained at Perth's ice-skating rink in the afternoon, followd by watching a movie and then feasting on pizza and chocolate birthday cake for their tea. They even managed a midnight (well, 9pm) feast!

Anyway here's the five of them enjoying themselves in the spa....

(Isabel is second on the left)

Common visitors

Every now and then we find a gecko at home. They manage to sneak in through invisible holes in the walls. Katie LOVES all creatures great and small (well, except for the common spiders that we see all the time and no, they're not dangerous!), so last time we caught a gecko the girls had a hold before we let it free...

They really are quite beautiful creatures with amazing and cute feet which tickled our hands as the gecko ran over them.

Hmm, so June’s almost over now....

We're well and truly into winter now as it rains every week! Okay, that's a little sarcastic but I'll remind you that the summer was HOT, too hot. But we are so lucky and appreciative of the warmer weather and still can't believe that winter here is so, so different to what we're used to in the UK.

A couple of weeks ago we took advantage of a really warm spell and decided it would be a good time to take some action on the constant reminders by the girls that we hadn't been to the beach in ages, so we decided we'd try and find some rock pools. Despite the low tide being at midnight the day we went, we were lucky and even managed to find some life in the pools!

Rich and Iz attempt to catch a Puffer fish

Got it!

The girls enjoying themselves (not that I really needed to state the obvious!)

Stormy weather

Well, we might have moaned about the rain in the UK but have never experienced rainfall like yesterday. We had double Nottingham's average monthly rainfall in 6 hours. How best to describe it? Well, imagine the world's largest shower head turned on full blast, the rain was so loud you couldn't have a normal conversation with any of the windows or doors open. We had three separate storms with amazing thunder and lightning. Rich and Katie spent a long time gazing out from the balcony. We forgot to take any photos so I've had to "borrow" one from the local news site....

Gone but not forgotten....

..... I admit there has been a somewhat enormous gap in my blog postings, so I thought it was about time that I sat down and reminded you all that we still exist, we have just been a little bit busy.....

Well, summer was HOT to say the least. We sweltered through lots of high 30s and 40 + days but did survive the hottest summer for 16 years. Clearly it was a test to see whether we could withstand the Aussie lifestyle. Well we did and bizzarely it became a novelty to see some clouds in the sky. There was even a period of 50 days without rain which was pretty unreal and the day it rained it really rained. A whole day of it in fact, and something like 50cm fell from the sky in about 6 hours. It was very refreshing I can tell you.

During the summer we spent lots of time outdoors which was great. We spent quite a bit of time at the beach and we learnt the trick to go early and leave early before the heat got too much. The girls LOVE the sea, Katie probably more than Isabel as she is not bothered about being knocked over by waves. We all got pretty brown over the summer, (even me!) though I have to say not having to apply sunscreen everyday is a relief. You do have to be very, very careful as it's very easy to burn here.

We've had some visitors too, first Paul and Janet came in time for the Australia Day celebrations. Their second time for this special day, although it was our first. The fireworks were the best we've ever seen. The display lasted over 20 mins over the City and huge crowds watched from the Swan River banks.

Paul, Janet, Rich and Katie, Tony and Isabel, Jane

Australia Day Fireworks display

A few weeks after they left Richard's sister and boyfriend Craig arrived. It was his first time in Australia so they spent some time over East and down in the South West as well as up in Perth. We took them down to Margaret River for a long weekend and a happy 3 days were spent eating, drinking and playing on the beach which was a short walk away from our villa.


My parents arrived in March and stayed with us for 4 weeks. In fact we realised that this is the most time we've spent with them in years and the girls loved having their grandparents to stay :o) and we all had a great time. They loved Perth. Mum fitted in very well with the laid-backness of the place and really appreciated how friendly people are here. Although one memory will probably stay with her which was the day we had taken the girls to a playground when a group of mums arrived, along with a picnic and bottle of wine which they drank whilst the kids played. I had to tell her that this kind of behavious is perfectly normal (!) although I have only taken wine with me on special occasions :o) Honest!!

Katie, Mum, Dad and Isabel at Dunsborough Beach

Mum, Rich and Dad quenching their thirst at Lawrence Vineyard

Mum - proud to be made of tougher stuff than me
(I thought the water was to cold!)

So what else have we been up to? Well, kind of normal life stuff. The usual 9 - 5pm life happens here but we do try and make the most of our weekends. The summer involved days out round Perth - parks, beaches and the occasional shopping centre to stay out of the heat, oh and we indulged ourselves by buying a spa for the "back yard." (Thank you Richard, keep on working...) A pool is out of the equation so a spa is the next best thing. The girls even abandoned their huge paddling pool in favour of the spa even though the spa is smaller but bubbles and warm water apparently make it a lot better :o) Still, it does mean that we have a bit more of our garden back.


Talking of gardens, that's our current project. Rich built a pergola on the back of the house this summer. Not the right time of year as everyone pointed out but hey, we've at least got one now. It's made a huge difference to how we use the house as it means that we can now go outside sun or rain as it has a UV polycarbonate roof. The final look of the pergola isn't yet finished yet as we'd like to put down some decking and add more plants but at the moment we're sitting back and designing / re-designing the layout. Our plan is to try and get as much done as possible before the end of Spring. It'll be us doing the work as trade labour here is very expensive due to the shortage of building/plumbing/electrical tradespeople. In fact they are on the Government's most wanted list of workers for people moving to Australia.

Anyway, when we bought the house we also inherited a courtyard that we're now jazzing up. It's surrounded by the family room, play room and office which all have large full length windows looking out onto it. It's gradually changing from an extremely boring brick paved nothing to look at to a roofed pergola-d water featured adult sitting out area when we want/need to escape for a bit of peace. I envisage some happy times drinking coffee/wine/beer whilst our cherubs happily/quietly entertain themselves.... (delete as appropriate!) I'll let you know how we get on and I'll add a photo when we've finished.

Oh and very importantly I almost forgot to tell you that we have been here for over a year! We celebrated our first anniversary on the 29th April and are looking forward to celebrating our second.

So, instead of rambling on for another few paragraphs I've picked out some more of our photos to show you what's been happening in our part of the world.

Lots of love

Jen, Rich, Isabel and Katie (who has aquired a very Aussie twang to her language) xxxx

Katie making friends at a sheep farm

Katie on the beach at Bunkers Bay
(Note the group of people above her left arm. That was a wedding ceremony taking place.)

Believe it or not this was a fabulous sunset on New Years Day - taken from the balcony of our house!

Me and my man :o)

Isabel concentrating on reeling in her fish from Busselton Pier (she caught 3!)




Me and my girls :o)

(A belated) Merry Christmas!

I know this comes two days after the event but we hope you are all had / continue to have a great time!

We have sweltered in 40+ degree temperatures on Christmas Day and yesterday. It's been as hot as the only other time we came here at Christmas 8 years ago but we coped! Christmas Day Isabel and Katie woke us very early to tell us Santa had been so we all got up to find out what goodies he had left! They were so excited over everything they received (and thanks to all who sent them gifts). Unbelievably we still managed to leave the house at 9am to go to the beach and just as well we did because Cottesloe Beach was heaving. We've never seen it so busy. As we arrived and walked down to the sand we passed loads of families sitting down and toasting the morning with Champagne, it was a great atmosphere.

The weather was on top form and not trying to rub it in to all of you readers in the UK but the beach was gorgeous..... turquoise blue sea and golden soft sand :o) Well as soon as we'd set our shade up the girls were in the water on their body boards. Both of them have got very confident in water thanks to their weekly swimming lessons which they've had from the very first week we arrived in Perth. We all had a great time in the water and more or less had to drag ourselves out so that we could drink our champagne with Jane and Tony when they arrived.

We finally left Cottesloe at 1pm when it really was feeling pretty hot. When we got in the car the temperature reading was 41 degrees (so thank goodness for air con!)

The rest of the day was divided between eating a traditional turkey roast (at Isabel's request) and more swimming in Jane and Tony's pool before we all collapsed into bed on Christmas night. All in all a fab day.

Yesterday was much the same although being mad we went out for a picnic so that we weren't in the house all day! When we arrived at the park (one which neither Jane and Tony or us had been to before) it was 45 degrees. It was like stepping into a furnace when you got out of the car. We couldn't stop there anyway because we discovered that dogs aren't allowed and we had their dog Red with us, so we went to another park close by which was about 2 degrees cooler. Well, we managed to sit in the shade for about 40 mins before we packed up, shot back to Jane and Tony's and literally (for me) jumped back into their pool. It was bliss.

The air con has stayed on all night as even at 10pm the temperature was 32 degrees outside. It's certainly a test to see how well we can cope. We've definitely acclimatised to the weather here as although it's extremely hot we're not wilting in the corners and obviously air con in the houses and cars makes a HUGE difference :o) According to the Western Australian newspaper we've had the hottest 3 days on record for 95 years.

Today (27th) it's going to be slightly cooler but we're spending time inside one way or another. The news yesterday said that $6 billion is predicted to be spent in the next 3 weeks in the Australia sales. I think our contribution will be a couple of hundred! We're hoping to decorate our family room in the next few days before Rich goes to work and I'm sure another visit to the beach will be on the agenda at some point too.

So, life continues as normal. Rich is watching "Have I Got News for You", the girls are busy drawing with their new colouring pencils and I've just spent an hour on the computer.

We hope you've all had a fab Christmas too. Thank you for our Christmas cards and for those of you who have sent emails in the last week or two you will hear from us soon!

Take care all,

Love The Ramshaws xx

Feeling hot, hot, hot!

Well, the warm weather has arrived as of 8 days ago and we're getting a feel for how summer will be. Last Friday afternoon we decided to take a drive over to Cottesloe beach for a stroll and a fish and chip supper looking over the ocean....

It was windy as you can tell. Here's me and the girls (with me doing my "Posh" look!)

And here's the view we were admiring....

Otherwise, the week has continued as normal, with work, school, etc, although the girls are now making full use of their 3m pool we bought for them. It's now a permanent fixture in the garden (as it's chlorinated water with a pump), along with the trampoline. Yes, our garden is a bit different from our last one!

This weekend we're chilling out a bit, although tomorrow we're up early to go to the Cottesloe Life Surfing Club as Isabel is starting a surf awareness course to get her more confident with swimming in the sea. She's not learning to surf but playing games on the beach and learning about staying safe in the sea. We're all looking forward to it (apart from the early start!) I'll let you know how she gets on.

Well, it's gone 10pm here and about time I put the coffee machine on. So g'dnight all and keep watching this spot!

J,R,I & Kxxx