(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

More Photos

Thought I'd post up a few more photos of the Bull Air Race for you to see. (I did try to add more when I posted last time but Blogger stopped working.) Anyhow, here they are.....

Can't claim credit for this one but it's a great shot...

Or this one but it gives you an idea of the day. By the way, these planes were flying at over 400 kms an hour!

The best day!

We've had the most fantastic day - Perth is host to the finale of the Red Bull Air Race. This is a free event over the weekend. The contestants, 13 pilots today, tested their skills along the Swan River, flying as fast as possible around a course of inflated pylons. It was absolutely FANTASTIC. We were some of many thousands on the river banks, watching the event right in front of us and on the huge tv screens. The weather was perfect, 30 degrees C, blue, blue sky (not a cloud to be seen just to rub it in) and everyone there was out to have a good time so it was a great atmosphere.

We moseyed on down by bike - 15 mins from our house to almost the city centre - and finished our day drinking wine on Richard's parent's balcony watching more stunt flying (they live a stone's throw from the foreshore) and Iz and Katie cooled off in their pool. I'm sitting at home now looking through our 198 photos, the best of which I'll post for you to see along with some from the official site so you can get an idea of what it's all about.

Before I finish, if any of you fancy coming over for a holiday, this time next year would be a good date for your diary as the Race returns to Perth for its third year. Now onto the photos.....

Countdown to the race.....

Watching the action

It's been a while....

Okay, okay we're very overdue for an update on here (aside from posting up news). Well, in 4 days we'll hit the 6 months mark. Rich has been at work for 3 and a half months, I'm doing some web site work again (for my old UK company) and for those of you who don't know, I'm also a Tupperware demonstrator! Yes, you really have read that right, and no, I'm not pulling your leg. Tupperware is BIG business over here like you would not believe. Even single guys order the stuff and Rich has realised that the money I earn is quite useful.... Enough said about that.

So, what have we been up to? Well, with the warm Spring weather (30 degrees C this week - just to rub it in), we've been to the beach a couple of times, visited Rottnest Island with it's 63 beaches (not that we managed all of those in 1 day!), Rich has had a go at kite surfing and decided he wants to take it up as a hobby. Katie had her 3rd birthday back in September. The photo above is of Katie and her friend Imogen at her birthday party. Our first birthday party at home, great fun but exhausting!

We're all seriously into our coffee which we've probably mentioned before. I took this photo of Katie when she had her first baby cino (it's actually hot chocolate but she thinks she's drinking coffee!) Cafe culture is very much part of our life here and the girls have totally taken it for granted that that's what we do. I was told by Tony last week that when Katie spent the morning with them, not only did she dictate exactly what they were going to do but it included a trip to their local cafe for lunch :o)

One of our favourite things to do here is to go out on our bikes as there are cycle paths everywhere. We've bought trail-gators which attach the girls' bikes to ours so that we can move along at a sensible speed. Rich took this photo of me and Katie weeks ago, probably to show you that I do do a bit of exerise....

And in case you're worried that the rest of the family don't exist, here's one of them at Mandurah beach...

So, reading back that's not a lot of news but it's really hard to remember what we've been doing! Anyway, I hope this gives you a bit more of an insight.

Hope you're all well and aren't thinking too much about Christmas. I was told today that it's only 8 weeks away, I don't think that we'll ever be ready for it as it's soooo not like Christmas time over here. Even the shops having Christmas departments haven't convinced me, although I think Isabel and Katie would complain very loudly if Father Christmas missed them out!

Take care all and when you get chance, please get in touch!

Love

The Ramshaws in Oz xxxxx

They're a rough lot here.....

We've laughed out loud at one of today's news stories and felt we had to share it with you....

"CANBERRA (Reuters) - An Australian barmaid has been fined for crushing beer cans between her bare breasts while an off-duty colleague has been fined for hanging spoons from her friend's nipples, police said Wednesday.
Police in Western Australia said the 31-year old barmaid pleaded guilty in the local magistrate's court to twice exposing her breasts to patrons at the Premier Hotel in Pinjarra, south of the state capital, Perth.
The woman "is alleged to have also crushed beer cans between her breasts during one of the offences," in breach of hotel licensing laws, police from the Peel district of Western Australia said in a statement.
The barmaid and the hotel manager were both fined A$1,000 ($900), while an off-duty barmaid was fined A$500 for helping to hang spoons from the woman's nipples, police said.
"It sends a clear message to all licensees in Peel that we will not tolerate this type of behavior in our licensed premises," local police superintendent David Parkinson said."

We'd just like to point out we don't know them, honest!

Where have 15 weeks gone?

Well, today marks our 15th week here. You could not imagine how fast the time has gone since we first arrived. I thought I would be updating this blog much more frequently than I have been doing but I always seem so busy!

Anyway, enough of my excuses, I thought I should share with you some of the local ways that are a bit different from here.

Well to start with, the lingo is a bit different. Obviously it's English but common words we've encountered are:
Manchester - all forms of linen. Why "Manchester" I have no idea. Oh, and a duvet is called a "doona"
Snags - sausages
Eggplant - aubergine
Zuchini - courgette
Capsicum - pepper
Router - Rich has discovered that this is pronouced "rowter", as "router" means to shag :oD (Cause of embarressment at his office!)

I'm sure Isabel knows more (she's determined to learn them all) but she's in bed so I can't ask her to fill me in on the ones I've forgotten. If you really want to know, then let me know :oD

So, what else can I tell you. Well, postie does his round on a motorbike. Houses over here don't have letterboxes in their doors, but letterboxes at the front of their garden. Newspaper delivery people do the American thing of throwing the paper on the lawn.

Customer service is great in the shops. You are greeted with a genuine smile and even on the phone people greet you with "How's it going?" and always end with "Have a nice day". I still find it amusing.

Driving.. Hmm, this is an experience. It's left hand driving as in the UK BUT you can overtake on the inside as well as the outside. Lorries can drive in any lane. As a generalisation most Australians will automatically zoom up to the car in front if you indicate that you would like to move over to their lane. This means that you have to negotiate changing lanes a good few minutes before you need to in order to guarantee you can swap lanes in order to turn off. Supermarket bumps on car doors is common. We have already been scraped twice. Grrrr.

However, despite the 4 weeks of almost continuous rain, we are not complaining. We've filled our weekends without any effort and staying in the house to "get on with stuff" is a rarity despite wanting to make lots of changes to put our stamp on our new home. Going out is always so much more appealing.

I have got through the first school holidays which loomed upon me without too much thinking about. I have become network queen and met lots of great people :o) Isabel even went on Guide Camp in the holidays (yes, aged 6!) for 4 (blissful days). Harsh you may think but it meant there was no rush for getting to school and she loved it anyway!

Last week I went to see Gwen Stefani on her only night in Perth. She was fantastic. It was my first concert in nearly 10 years so to make up for lost time I'm already planning my next one to see Justin Timberlake in November.

We're off on our first minibreak in a couple of weeks to a place called "Billingup". I have learnt this week that any place that ends in "up" means that it is an Aboriginal place name that means close to water.

Photos - we have taken some, just been useless at checking them out. But I can assure you that there are some beautiful spots here and Iz and Katie are growing fast. In fact, Katie is 3 in less than 4 weeks (gasp!) and Rich is another year older a couple of days earlier. So birthday celebrations are being planned.

Anyway, I hope the sun is at last shining in the UK and that you mums are managing to do more than soft play in the school holidays.

Take care. We miss you all. Drop us a line when you get time.

Jennyxxxxxx (and co)