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Published: February 11th 2010
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Day 285 - Box Hill North
We were up and about pretty early this morning with a plan of attack for the local Op Shops! We’re off to Tasmania on Monday and need to get a few things but the list isn’t too long though it ranges from long trousers for Darryl to some sort of light weight water proof jacket for me. It was a bit of a trawl around taking us from Camberwell to Blackburn to Doncaster to Box Hill but we got what we wanted and also managed to find a Lonely Planet guide of Victoria for $3 and Bill Bryson’s “Notes from a small island” (which is all about England) for $2 which we thought would be a nice ‘flight read’ for Geoff when he jets off with Aunty Cathy.
When we got back to the house Anna and the girls were pretty much ready for Charlotte’s birthday party. We killed a bit of time on the Wii (my Wii fit age is currently 31 so I’m pretty chuffed!) and then set off to the Art Factory.
What a great place to hold a kids party. There are 8 other young ladies joining Charlotte
in the treat but as there were places to spare the adults were encouraged to have a go too. The girls really wanted Darryl to join in but he decided that today’s creation of a ‘Denim Diary’ wasn’t really his thing so I joined them instead. It was great fun and although a couple Charlotte’s friends hadn’t met us before so the inclusion of an ‘adult’ at the party probably seemed a bit odd, everything went very well. The lady party host was a big hit all round. She got all the girls to shout out what they knew about Charlotte and one little girl, Michaela, stole the show by saying that Charlotte was just the nicest person she’d ever met and the nicest friend anyone could wish for. Beautiful! Anna’s Mum (whose birthday it actually was today) came along with friend Joan plus Aunty Cathy and Jordan who is Grant & Anna’s number one son. Everyone lent a hand with cutting out fairies or flowers or stars, it was all good fun. The creation of the diaries went very well and the party food was quickly devoured afterwards. I just loved the wording on the walls headed ‘How to
be an artist’; there are some great ideas for life in general there!
From the party we headed back to Box Hill and were joined by the lovely Mel plus her children Georgia (who was at the party) and Ethan. We always enjoy a fun chat with Mel, she’s great company and we love it when she’s around. The afternoon had to be kept on track though and we couldn’t indulge in our usual tot of Baileys as we have a dinner engagement tonight with the Kumars. This is the family that we should have gone 4WDing with the other weekend but bottled out at the last minute and went to the beach house and sailing instead! Luckily they haven’t taken it to heart and we’re still on the guest list for tonight!
They live a short drive from Grant & Anna so we take the two cars. It’s a complete family outing, the girls and both the dogs are coming too! Puneet, Poorvi and Arshia welcome us into their beautiful home and we’re treated to more gorgeous company and a magnificent dinner. Grant ribbed me earlier about getting mixed up between Thai and Chinese food last weekend
but I’m sure Puneet said tonight’s feast was Malaysian. It’s beautiful and is a mixture of small meals including anchovies, rice and chicken. It’s very tasty and beautifully presented.
We were very interested to hear how the 4WD trip went. They’d gone with ‘Plan B’ in case we’d come along so it wasn’t as full on as they would have normally tackled. Interestingly the trip took them to the High Country very close to Mansfield where our good friends the Reeves live. Arshia spent much of the weekend swimming in King River which they were camped along side at Pineapple Flats. It looks magnificent and despite a reasonably deep creek crossing it looked like something we could have handled. Another probable for the next trip list!
We really enjoyed this evening and it was lovely to catch up with Puneet and Poorvi again who were just great, easy going company. It wasn’t ridiculously late when we bundled ourselves back into the cars to head for home because Acting Sergeant Adams is back on duty in the morning so we’re performing our own ‘lock in’!
Dar and Sar
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