Rum & Dal

The folks have been and gone and we had a fantastic time with them.  They livened the house up, did a grand job on the garden (with a little supervision) and kept us entertained with their stories of home.  I was so worried about them at the airport thinking they would be bringing at least one of them out on a wheelchair.  I was so wrong though, they were the last to come out but they came bouncing out! If anything Rum and I looked terrible, as it was almost 1 in the morning.

The garden is almost complete, with most of the work done, Rum and I can handle the rest.  Just decking, barbecue and patio left to do before the next batch of visitors.  Dad couldn’t wait to get started on it.  Any normal day he doesn’t wake up till the afternoon, but with an empty canvas waiting for him he was up at 8 almost everyday. Took him shopping for plants and he returned with lemon, orange and mango trees.

The garden project took a little longer than anticipated. When taking the dads to the shop they always brought less and not more of what was needed.  So instead of going back and forth, which was not a short trip, we left them at home and brought heaps extra materials.  They just couldn’t get their heads around buying extra and returning what isn’t used.

Once the vegetable patch was ready we went looking for veggies.  First lot of tomatoes died thanks to the Craigieburn winds but plenty more stuff planted to look forward to.  We’ve been lucky in that it has been raining since they left, the grass is getting greener and we’ve planted more tomatoes and sweetcorn. We’ve also added two little garden gnomes to watch over it in their absence.

We didn’t make them work the whole time they were here. We did take them out and about, as far as they would let us.  “How far is it?”, was the first question they would ask us.  My mom would be asleep on the way back and the furthest we went was 40 min! They did enjoy Victoria market, enough to make two trips, although the moms left out the meat section altogether.   We were also lucky that the sun was out when we took them to the beach and the animals put on a good show at Melbourne Zoo.

I was lucky enough to share another birthday with them and it was nice to have a fathers day too. I am putting together a photo DVD for them so you can all share the fun loving memories that they left behind.