We'll just lop a few off.
On Saturday afternoon Blair came over and talked to me about lopping off a few branches from the Pine Tree behind the carport. It's basically on their fenceline and drops a lot of crap on their side, so I wasn't bothered if they wanted to cut a few off. I talked to Sarah and we said yup let's chop them. Sunday morning Blair was out there first thing with his mates chainsaw-on-a-pole and was into it. I setup some chairs for Beth and Theo to watch as we cut and cleaned up, Beth watched for about 5 minutes before calling out to me "Daddy, this is BORING" and leaving to go and do something else.
Anyway what was going to be a couple of branches turned out to be a huge mega cleanup. Cushla came over too and got stuck in, ripping out the old overgrown garden and sweeping up all the old dead pine needles etc that had dropped on the ground. Blair took two loads of greenwaste to the tip and I've got about a truckload's worth of firewood to dry off and then use it. It was something that I thought was going to take us an hour at best and instead after 3 hours we were still going. I said to Blair and Cushla that sorry, I was heading off to go and meet Sarah at the Teddy Bear's Picnic. Which I didn't feel too bad about really, they were the ones who wanted the whole place cleaned up so I just left them too it!
The Teddy Bear's Picnic was crazy! I mean it's not just a picnic, it's full on rides and carnies and all that sort of stuff. I scootered over (Sarah had taken the kids in the car while I was still doing the cleanup work) and found everyone. I sat down and Beth and Theo went off to sit down and listen to story time. I should mention "went off" was about 5 mtres from me and I could see them at all times. In case child protection is reading, or something. Anyway Story Time was going great until the giant Peppa Pig arrived. Beth FREAKED out, just burst into extreme tears. Story time was drowned out. And once Beth started screaming Theo wasn't sure what to do, so defaulted to crying too. Next thing I had two crying children in my arms. Argh. Eventually story time was over and Peppa had lots of photos with all the other non-crying children then left. We left too and took Theo and Beth on the "Teacups" ride, which they loved. Then Sarah took them on the giant mega slide. I didn't want to take them, heights and all that. Ugh. Then we headed back to the car, Theo very upset because we didn't stop at the trains and have a ride (the queue was massive)
Oh I forgot to say, Sarah got certificates for the kids and their teddies. Beth took Snoopy and Theo took "Foxty" as he refers to him. Very cute.
Sunday night Peter and Mary came over for dinner, plus Blair from next door too. We had a lovely lamb leg that Sarah cooked up, with tasty roastie tatters and salads that Mary brougt over. Very tasty. Learnt a lot from Blair about how the forklifts etc work at the Port.
Monday I got up and cleaned up the tree we'd chopped down a few weeks ago, there was heaps of branches etc lying around that I hadn't cleaned up yet. I loaded them onto Blair's trailer that he lent me and then took it up to the greenwaste. That was 3 greenwaste trips all up (though Blair did the first two!). Once that was done it was time to take Beth to Alice's birthday party - her party was supposed to be on Saturday but Alice was sick, so it was moved to Monday. It was quite a drive to Alice's house too, Eskdale. 20 minutes from our place! Anyway had a good time at the party, I hardly saw Beth she was playing with Alice the whole time quite happily and independently. I spent my time talking to all the other dad's there, most of whom were farmers. I learnt a lot about sheep farming and hunting deer and fishing and thistles.
Once the party was over it was home time, Theo woke up and we did a bit of playing outside, a bit of gardening and cleaning up.
Then it was time for bed, cause I was knackered.
The End.