Happy new year!

Hello everyone. I start on New Year's Eve eve where preparations were in full swing. We were finishing up all the loose ends finding where there were missing shells and filling whatever we could. Once the was done we started the mammoth task of testing everything! There weren't many of us as the vast qty of people were frantically setting up the bridge still. We tested the bigger barges and got somewhere close to being done.

Forch came over the radio and decoded to call it a day. That was pretty much all there was to tell about this day, it's just another rigging day...

New Year's Eve. 

New Year's Eve came around and I was up at the crack of dawn. No idea why I just was. I had a good breakfast and headed in to work. This morning a time code test was taking place at 8:30, time code is basically what synchronises the display. It came through and the laptops read it fine and everyone's firing system was talking to each other. 9 o'clock came and we had a whole team meeting. We went over all the various protocols and procedures and checking we knew who was doing what where. This was followed  by a big song of happy birthday as it was Chichos birthday. (One of the Italians) we retired from the marquee and finished testing. We plugged our barge in and fire one said nope I don't want to play. Nothing on my barge tested at all. 2 hours later and we hadn't resolved the issue. Forch came over and suggested a few things, eventually we got it working all seemed to be ok. A full time code check was then taking place at 1oclock with the system fully armed (in safe mode so nothing would fire, just pretend) it was just as well we did this as this time the system wasn't happy. It would receive it fine but if the signal dropped the system would crash. It's supposed to switch to a local back up and carry on. Frantically everyone started to work out why this was happening. None of us were able to find a remedy so a call to fire one in America was in order. It was the middle of the night for them but even so we got an answer! Eventually after rather a lot of faffing around we discovered it was our fault. All our laptops were hired and had the latest version of windows installed however the fire one software doesn't like it! So it was a mad dash to round up as many old laptops as possible and luckily there were enough! We had a bit of a plug and play session and everything seemed to be ok. We ran another full cycle on the barges and everything seemed to be happy. Few! People then started heading out on various barges, I drove up the road to collect Laura as I had arranged for her to come out on my barge. Laura collected we sat around for a short while before we were called we jumped on and were tugged out to the harbour. Our barge was on the west of the bridge closest to it so we had a brilliant view of the bridge. 

We bobbed around for a few hours before we got the cue to fire the first of 4 displays that night. Everything went perfectly and we then waited for the next cue. We had the radio going and had a bit of a party session. The next 2 displays were brilliant including the 9oclock pre display. We watched a film on one of the laptops and I had a 5 minute snooze. Half 11 came and Forch gave the announcement to test the system arm it and wait for time code. We tested it and it went nope not playing. It had got in a huff and didn't want to talk to the pyro. Panic set in and we frantically started testing one by one to try and find the cause. We were running around like headless chickens trying to work it out. Time code was being received and there was a countdown on the laptop screen just to make us panic more! With 7 minutes to spare everything went green, the system was talking and tested fine! Wow that was scary! System armed and we watched the clock to count down. 5,4,3,2,1, happy new year! followed by wallop! With a rather petrified Laura cowling away in the container we ventured out and opened the door slightly to see the bridge, it was AMAAZING! About 4 minutes into the show there was an almighty bang and the barge lit up, we ran to check the laptop to see what had gone on and to kill it if needed. The laptop said we had lost a rail of finale but everything else seemed ok. We let it run and the rest of the show was spot on. Everything finished perfectly on time we shook hands said happy new year have Laura a kiss then went to see what in the name of god the bang was! We put out the fire and investigated. Luckily the senior firer had a camera sat facing the back of the barge filming the show! We watched the footage to see what had happened. It appeared a shell had just flopped out if the mortar and bounced on the deck. There was a flash of white, bang and everything looked a little worse for wear. 

As we had watched the video we called it safe to go and have a look to see if there was any more live out there. And lo and behold there was a load of finale sat there where it blew up a module. 32 6" shells hasn't left the barge. Oh well nobody seemed to notice.

This is what the module looked like after it got in a fight with a 6" shell of shells.

Sorry Forch. $1000 down the drain!

We took out all the live stuff put it in a box and headed back to the bay. We got back and Chicho was helping us offload the shells. I was just about to pick up another box when I heard a "woahh" and a thud. Very shortly followed by help help help. I threw the box down and ran to the port side. Chicho had missed his footing, slipped and fell between the barge and the concrete wall. 3 of us lent over and dragged him out if the water. We sat him down and started to fish out the shells he had rather inconsiderately thrown in the drink. Asking him if he was ok he was more worried that his iPhone had stopped working! We took him back to the site office got him a change of clothes and let him calm down. The worst part of the whole thing was that it all took place right infront of the health and safety woman from Sydney council. Oh dear... Anyway we tried to forget about it and Tim rounded up the inducted people and loaded us up into the minibus. I left Laura to have a sleep in the car. While I went to the bridge with a few others to clean up. The bridge had to be totally clear before morning so everyone was helping out. We climbed to the top of the bridge and I had to stop to pinch myself. I was standing at the highest part of the harbour bridge overlooking the opera house having just fired the most famous fireworks display in the world! Wow! Anyway back to work. By this time we were very tired and agin stopped to look at the next most amazing sight I have seen. It was the sun rising above the horizon of the city of Sydney. Again pinching myself. It got to half 6 and we were all done. We got to the lower deck and had a group photo of the team. Rather than saying cheese it was fire haha! We jumped back in the vans and had a wacky races style race back to the port. We drove in through the gate and Forch was on the phone. He started laughing so much he was crying. Eventually we got out of him what was so funny. We had left 3 guys at the top of the bridge hahahahaha! Giovanni pulled the short straw and went to collect them. We all assembled in the marquee to have a beer and chat about eachothers shows. The 3 missing showed up and it was a congratulations from Forch and Tim. All of a sudden Tim shouted HEY RANDOM PERSON! It was Laura poking her head around the door! We carried on chatting finished the beer and headed out. Again wacky races style. My original plan was to take Laura back to the hostel and have a sleep and take her to the train station in the afternoon but as it had gone 7am I just took her straight to the station and then I headed back to my hostel. I dived into bed and fell asleep within seconds. I woke up at half 10 ish to get some free breakfast and that leads me to now. A couple of people congratulated me in the hostel saying how amazing it was. I'm now sat in the lounge writing this it's just gone mid day and I think in going to head back to bed!!

Happy new year to you all. Missing everyone at home, I hope you enjoyed reading the blog and if you did watch the fireworks I hope you enjoyed them too.

Here's just one of the photos from last night ill get the rest up soon. Along with some videos!

Love to all x

Christmas 2013

First things first we are so sorry this blog is so late and that the photos are all at the bottom the blog isn't playing ball and we shall sort it out soon as possible hence the delay in the blog being published! Regardless this is an account of our Christmas and we would like to thank everyone who sent us a gift or card we didn't expect it and are so thankful to have such thoughtful family! Here goes:

An early Christmas Day start, our alarm went off at 8 shortly followed by the house being filled with Christmas songs. 

A very excited Deb was STILL wrapping Christmas presents in her office and shouted a very excited merry Christmas at us both. We started breakfast which was poached eggs and English muffins which was a good start to the day. Laura wasn't feeling very well today but there was no time for that! Lots of Christmas cooking to be done and that started with a vegetable house. We didn't want a gingerbread house as it would have been too sweet along with our other creations so a vegetable house was decided upon.

Whilst this was being started Deb put Myles in charge of the BBQ, which today had the turkey in it. Very big Job but he only had to keep an eye on the temp so not a hard job either! We spent all morning cooking and creating.  

Once the turkey was ready we had our formal Christmas lunch which had, Turkey, pork belly, pumpkin,roast potatoes general veggies and lots of gravy! 

After this the next adventure was to create the 'Melon Train' this is a train that I found on the internet made out of melon and then filled with fruit salad. I got all of the fruit out of the fridge and asked the boys to cut it. This then turned into their project. From that came the competition  about who's creation was better. The vegetable house or melon train.

 (New poll, which was better melon train or vegetable house?) 

Both creations were being made for evening tea when Debs daughter Mel and her husband Kurt arrived for presents. (See photo below of the tree)

Once they both arrived with their dog winter (who was featured in the IFR blog) True Christmas madness begun, as time was getting on Deb was being Santa giving out the gifts from under the tree so everyone had something to open. This continued for a good hour and a half until everything had been opened. Myles and I were spoilt & very excited to open our presents from home. Myles got 100 points for guessing that grandmas present was, a jar of Bovril and I was FAR too excited to see the latest series of top gear in my hands! All presents opened it was time for tidy up and food! Myles and I started to lay out our huge creations whilst filling the gaps with jelly oranges & shots, Father Christmas pavlovas, brownie bite Christmas trees and egg snowmen + lots more! Everybody pulled their Christmas crackers (bonbons if you are an Ozzie) and got finger puppets which were good fun! 

Then there was a slight pause as everything looked so pretty no one wanted to eat anything! We made a start with the jellies and then everything else followed nicely. Laura's fizzy blue jellies were a HUGE hit with Mel who now wants to make more at home.

After this it was tidy up and time for bed for Myles as he had a 5:30 start the next day. He said his thank yous and goodbyes and retired to bed. A half hour later he returned in his foti top and explained there was the biggest spider he had ever seen in our room, tried to kill it and lost it. He had put his other clothes in the wash and this was the first thing he could put on. Kurt and I went on a spider hunt and just as we got into the bedroom I saw the biggest spider I have ever seen. Worst part was it was on Myles 2 foot away. I lost it and ran screaming, Myles followed me confused and then managed to tell him it was on him, he flipped out and threw his shirt off. I'm sure he's never taken a shirt off so quickly. Kurt then rescued it and took it outside. It was a huge huntsman and a jolly ugly looking thing! Merry Christmas Myles! He shakily went back to bed and I promised to follow not long after. (Myles went to hit the spider which had then jumped onto his shirt and hidden in it)

 Just as I was about to go to bed deb asked me if I understood her chain of presents that were pretty confusing. I had no idea what they were about and had already eaten the apple she gave me. She and Ian then gave me one last present and said that I wasn't meant to get it until I guessed but did anyways as I was ill. It was only a blooming iphone and all of the gifts made sense! I was so overwhelmed I couldn't help but laugh. I was so grateful to be given such a lovely gift I didn't know what to say other than a lot of thank yous. We put Tara to bed and that was about it for our Christmas. 

Hope you all had lovely christmas's and sorry about the delay in this blog it was a team effort and with no wifi pretty hard to do! 

(P.S it rained the whole of Christmas Day! So much for a hot Ozzie Christmas!!)

Christmas tree brownie bites

Christmas Tara!

Turkey on the BBQ

Laura & top gear

Myles & Laura's tree decorating with presents 

Christmas tea table 

(Myles holding the melon train before it became a train, he said he is leaning back his belly isn't that big!)

Ian carving pork. 

Day 3 of NYE setup - the Italians are here!

Hello everyone,

After a pretty uneventful day yesterday today was a little more interesting. 

We started where we left off yesterday with a barge just laid out with racks, there were only 3 of us on the barge as the crew had been split between all the barges with other teams preparing rooftop gear and the harbour bridge. With the 3 of us on the barge it became very quickly apparent that I was the most experienced so we agreed that I would be in charge of the layout. I have a map to follow of what goes where along with a show script of about 200 pages with what should happen where and when. 

This was the show plan map.

Long story short the team that laid the barge out yesterday did a pretty poor job of it racks were wrong, in the wrong place, wrong numbers it was a mess so it took a goo while I sort, once it looked ok we started nailing together breaking 2 nail guns in the process. I handed them back to the office said that they were a little on the faulty side and ran away.

Oh I forgot to mention, the Italians! The Foti family is Italian with only a few living in Australia, other Fotis from Italy have arrived on site now. What a great bunch of people, they don't speak much English but hey their English is far better than my Italian I can only say hello and thankyou. 

We started loading mortars and wiring the same as the last 2 days. Lunch today was a fantastic roast lamb, that went down a treat! The wind picked up this afternoon which kept the temperatures down but made working more difficult.

4:30 came and we packed up and went home. Last night I had a brilliant Heinz spaghetti and meatballs which I made in a matter of 2 mins, stir and microwave for a further minute. I have that down to a fine art now. Tonight I went all out and cooked a creamy mushroom pasta. Thanks Dolmio! They put good things in so you wear the Dolmio grin (aparantly) well so the advert says...

That went down a treat and I retired to my room. I'm sharing tonight with a South Korean girl that grew up in France and is studying in London. Try and get your head around that accent then!! Anyway a pretty boring blog from me sorry ill do something better when I have more energy! 

Oh here's the show so far...

Sorry for the delay!

Sorry for the delay on our Christmas blog Myles is working on it! 

So for now here's a song we learnt at the carols in Bowral! 

http://youtu.be/OAT33pqvHlY

Myles' adventure

Hello everyone and welcome back to Myles' tale of his trip to Sydney.

It's actually not very interesting... For those that don't know I am part of the team preparing for the New Year's Eve fireworks in Sydney.

I was up just after 5am as was Laura because My alarm woke her up. I had a cup of coffee to get me going took my bags to the car kissed Laura goodbye and hit the road. In the rain. In Australia during public holidays the RTA will issue "double demerits" basically If your caught doing something you shouldn't be on the road you will be hit with double points. After a couple of minutes I noticed there was less traffic than normal actually there was none after half an hour a car went the other way and we waved to eachother haha! An hour and 40 min drive only took an hour and 15 so I was half an hour early at the port. This was plenty of time to laugh at the management setting up the new access system. When I did the IFR earlier in the year it was sign in sign out now we have retina recognition! Yes we have to have our eyes scanned before we start! Security is rather tight here! Staff started to trickle in,  people that recognised me came up and had a chat and a catch up before we had our site safety briefing. Then we had an all new briefing by the city of Sydney and the Sydney ports authority. It was basically a repeat of what was said by the Foti guys just padded out... There is actually a requirement from Sydney ports that cars be driven at walking pace with lights and hazards on with someone walking infront of the car in hi vis! I'm not joking! A smartass from the back said oh we are back in Victorian times again? The briefing then went on to how we should do our jobs. Apparently we must wear safety goggles when loading shells. The same smartass said, "hello, sorry, if a 10" shell goes of when your loading it, its probably going to kill you how the f*** is a pair of f****** goggles going to save you! If anything it's going to make it worse because you will have bits of plastic in your eyes!" The safety woman didn't have much to say to this and the meeting was soon ended. I went straight to loading shells as that's a nice easy job. Unless it rains, and it wouldn't be a a firework display without rain! By lunchtime the rain had cleared and the sun was shining. We tucked into a huge lunch and watched a video of the show that Foti did in turkey! It was laugh a second and made lunch even better. Back to work doing more loading and before I knew it it was time to go home. I took my sunglasses off and realised that my arms had gone pink, yes I think I have sunburn... I logged out by staring at a screen and traveled back to my hostel that I was in for the IFR. The lady recognised me on reception and gave me a key to my room, she said that she had tried to keep it empty for me as I need a good nights sleep. This was much appreciated! My 4 bed room only has a Myles in it! Ahhh dorm to myself!

I took a walk up the road to get some bits for dinner and realised it was half 5 on Boxing Day, I was right the shops are all closed. I think it's going to be a maccas for dinner...

Anyway Myles signing off here more updates for you tomorrow.

(I also know what the shape will be on the bridge this year but shhh it's s secret)

Pre Christmas post

Hello all, I do realise we haven't blogged for you in a very long time but we have been busy doing nothing particularly interesting. It's been beautiful weather out here on the run up till Christmas hitting a high of 44 degrees so far! (Just what you all want to hear out there!) That's the same temp as when we were in Vegas! For here that's a bit hotter than normal so we have turned into water babies and spent a lot of time in the pool. The heat got the better of Laura earlier in the week and today it's caught up with Myles who is sleeping off a headache. Other than that we have been Christmas shopping and helping prepare with Deb and Ian. Myles has had an important job working with Ian to get Debs bore working before Christmas! Today we can safely say it is working which is fantastic! It means they can water their garden using underground spring water even when drought restrictions come in, which they will soon we are told. So this means all our hard gardening won't go to waste! We have been starting to plan where we are going to go after we leave here in the new year which feels a bit daunting again. We will have to see where we end up next! 

Laura has also finished painting the utility room to a lovely green colour (it's not easy being green) 

For those who didn't see on Facebook, we got an early Christmas present from Deb and Ian which was this beautiful Christmas tree decoration which was engraved for us. It's such a lovely memento we can take home with us at the end of our trip! 

So with that your pretty up to date with our world. It's still very difficult getting to grips with having our first hot Christmas and our first away from home. Luckily we are with people who feel like extended family now and that will be lovely or make us miss home more were not sure which yet!

So if we don't blog before we love and miss you all and hope you have a lovely Christmas we will be thinking of you all! 

Tuesday 3rd December

Laura got a phone call from an excited Ian today asking if she wanted to work and that he had a surprise for her! He wouldn't say more so she set off pretty sharpish because Laura hates not knowing! Once at the office she was treated to a HUGE box on the table with her name on it! Very excited she started to pull at the brown tape which failed miserably. She considered that it could be from aunty Helen the way it was wrapped! Once a knife was located there were no problems! 

The first thing was a note:

After reading this 2 lovely advent calendars were found and a wrapped present and card! Yep more waiting for Laura her least favourite thing! Well I suppose you have to get some joy this Christmas ey mum and dad?

What a lovely surprise for us both we are very grateful and can't wait to open it!!

Lots of love from us both, this has gotten us into the Christmas spirit a little more as it seems too warm still!! 

Just for joy here's a tiny green tree frog I saw at work, was the size of Laura's  thumb nail! 

30th/1st new month!

Firstly happy first of December Myles was very excited to open his woolworths Christmas calendar! 

This weekend was a vary varied weekend, we started Saturday morning going to a local car and truck show,

This is Laura with a 'Kenworth big double' it currently has just under 2.5 million miles on the clock and still going strong. An 804hp caterpillar V8 is the power plant.

We had a browse at all the various cars and bikes and ha a trip home.

On the way back we picked up a tilt tray car trailer for Ian which had been hired for the weekend. I was asked to drive it home which wasn't too tricky as the roads are so wide over here! We got it home and loaded up the Clio race car to take it to work as that is the next project.

Poor polly the Peugeot wasn't happy towing the trailer and car but she got it there none the less.

All was good and we dropped it off. 

In the afternoon we hung debs birthday present from her mother which was a rather ornate bird feeder. We erected a steel arch and hung it from the middle.

Nothing much happened in the afternoon until the evening. Deb had decided that we would go to a concert down the road from us, it sounded quite good so we packed up a picnic and headed out.

The concert in question was in aid of the RFS as a thank you to them for the heroic firefighting they have done recently. (The event was to raise money for the NSW, RFS (Rural Fire Service) which is a charity/voluntary organisation which provides training for volunteer bushfire fighters during bushfires. I am told the RFS claims to be the biggest voluntary fire fighting organisation in the world with 70,246 (ish) volunteers! 

Before anything musical everyone stood and sung the national anthem, something I doubt would happen in Britain. It's great to hear everyone singing, except the 2 pommies that were there. 

We sat down and tucked into our food while we were treated to some amazing singing ranging from modern songs to classical. 

The concert started at 7:30 and by this point we were all pretty chilly in jackets and wrapped in blankets. It started with the Phantom of the Opera sung by Dale Burridge & Danielle Everett - Original stars of Phantom of the Opera. They were amazing and we had a lovely time listening to them and a few other singers. By the end of the night around 10ish we were all freezing and hurried home to cups of tea and hot chocolate. Later to discover that the temperature was actually 13 degrees according to polly! 

(There will be some videos to come of the singing you lucky people you!)

Sunday morning was an early start for Laura and me as we had a trip to work. As nothing got done on Friday it had to be done at some point! We didn't get much done as on Tuesday I hurt my wrist playing tennis, it was still sore and I twinged it again Sunday. The decision was made that we would go home and join Debra shopping. This in itself was very exciting! Debra was going to Costco! Costco is a rather large store, actually it's a warehouse where everything is sold in bulk. And by bulk I mean by the pallet. We wondered around having all the free samples which was lunch taken care of! After a couple of hours I left Laura and Debra to it and headed up the road. Foti had been in contact and had asked if I could do a couple of shows for them. Tonight's show was for a Sydney suburbs Christmas carol concert. As a guess there would have been 4000 people there. It was a big do! Fireworks were all set up and loaded ready to go. I had asked Deb and Laura to come up if they wanted to see what it actually is that I do! Debra was very interested in the various systems that are used and the fireworks themselves! After this Laura stayed and took photos of the fireworks and even helped with the derigging afterwards! Once we finally got home around 12 we had a feast of cheese, meats and biscuits. With slightly full bellies it was time for bed as I had work again at 8am the next day!

Friday 29th November

6.30 alarm by Miss S,Collins sending a message of her dinner. GREAT! Luckily I had to be up anyways as I was heading out to the central coast today with Deb whilst her and a colleague Michael  had to see a client. This meant I could see a little more of OZ even if it was just for a few hours. 
We had to leave by 7:20 when Micheal arrived. Deb and I were pretty much ready when she told me to get Myles as he could work Saturday and come today. I very sleepy Myles had a shave whilst I made him breakfast still aiming for 7:20 to be ready! Michael was running late and arrived at 8ish which was pretty handy for us as it gave us time to make lunch to take with us. Car loaded with picnic, a boogie board and the usual camera gear we set off. It was about a 2 hour drive to the Central coast where it was bucketing it down with rain! Yipee poms at the beach and it rains, typical much?
 Being true brits we braved it as it wasn't raining too hard by the time we got to the beach and took our picnic onto the sand and took a few photos in the sea. 

After a while we got too damp and retreated to the car feeling very normal eating in the car watching the sea, feeling very much at home.
We had a drive around the coast looking at the very expensive beach and cliff side houses and went to pick the workers up. 

Myles out of the drivers seat we were treated to lunch in The Entrance in a hotel restaurant. This place had some good choices but Myles and I settled for a steak sandwich although I still think Myles should have had croc or a roo burger! (We still have plenty of time for that tucker though!) We ended up with a seafood and chicken wing platter too which was yummy, the chips were covered in cheese and bacon also which Myles LOVED as you can imagine. We watched some ducks in the rain whilst we ate and left with very full bellies. Myles offered to drive so Deb and Micheal could have a drink and I got front seat as Micheal wanted to have a nap in the back! We set off home and within minutes were all asleep except the driver of course. (Deb says she wasn't asleep though she was working the whole way) I managed to sleep for a good 50k which cut out most the motorway nicely. We arrived home around 5ish still very full, feeling a little tired and lazy Deb decided she didn't want to cook so I offered but she decided we could go out for dinner too! We needed to work off some of what we ate earlier so played a spot of wii tennis and Myles joined in to play bowling and baseball where somehow he got a score of 10! (Which anyone who has played wii baseball knows its stupid and no one gets that many points!) 

By this time Ian had come home and decided that an Indian would be a good choice so we cleaned ourselves up and headed out to the Indian we went to when we first arrived in Tahmoor. Same as last time Deb chose for everyone as she always does a good job. We had some lovely curries and enjoyed ourselves rather a lot. Home was followed by bed.

Tuesday 26th November

Today was a very exciting day. Firstly Laura started a job collecting debts for Debs accounting buisness and generally harassing people over the phone! During the day Laura got a message from a very confused Myles saying Deb was buying him new shoes. Baffled I replied and found out that because Ian was in Melboune Deb needed a male tennis partner for the tennis comp that they have been playing in, so she told Myles he was playing and needed new shoes. He requested I go with her to ensure the trainers were black and not bright green or some crazy Deb colour! I agreed and we set off to rivers to get some cheap trainers. We found some in Renault sport colours that Myles would have loved but they didnt have them in his size sadly. So black with tequoise bits were selected. These bought and a few more phonecalls made I was off home to cook dinner and check the shoes fitted okay! All good and dinner done it was tennis time. Myles looked pretty confident and we all went to the courts (I say we I mean Tara came too much to her pleasure) Deb and Myles warmed up whilst Tara watched very pleased she was invited as she loves tennis, sadly she wasnt allowed on the court as she likes to lay at the net and collect balls during the game. We watched till it got too cold for her and wished them luck and headed home. A good hour and a bit later the tennisists came home very happy. They hadnt won the match but had won a few games which is how the points are counted overall so thats better than getting -9 for not turning up! Sadly Myles had hurt his bent hand bone and needed a little ice to ease it. Being about 9:30 that took us swiftly onto bed time! 

Just a little side note, we have made 12,000 views which is very excting! 
Thanks to everyone that has been keeping up with us regardless that we havent been writing too many blogs recently. In the run upto christmas we are a little more busy so hopefuly you will all get a bit more to read!!

Sunday 24th Debs Birthday!

Today was an exciting day as it was Debs birthday and Ian was throwing her a pool party at the house. We got up and started to help out getting things ready. First things were to get tables and chairs ready and all that sort of stuff. Myles was in charge of doing the BBQ this afternoon which was a very big job! Luckily he didn't have to start straight away and was occupied with putting up a marquee over the shallow end of the pool. We all set out to get last minute bits and Ian went to pick Debs mother up whilst we started the food. Once this was done Myles joined me in making canapes for when people arrived. The first was a rocket, salmon and cucumber with aoli mayonnaise on a fork. The second was a prawn fork and then oysters to go on the platter around this. All very pretty and fancy stuff. By the time we had started guests had started to arrive. The weather was perfect for a BBQ nice and warm( which didnt help our seafood canapes! ) All done and put on ice we carried on getting drinks for people and getting introduced as Debs Pommie children.

 Once everyone had arrived and had enjoyed the seafood portion of the party Myles moved onto the meat. There were 5 different types of sausages, steak, burgers, chicken wings & legs and more seafood to be cooked! 

Along with sides like halloumi cheese, this was very big job for a lone pom! 
Myles made a start looking very daunted but there was no time for that and he soldiered on. I was in the kitchen still doing other bits like salads and sides as well as finding space for puddings people had brought along too! It was quickly realised by those who offered to help that I spent far too much time in the kitchen and knew where everything was so for the day I was the go to girl!
By about 2 O'Clock everything had come together nicely, Myles and I sat down cider in hand with everybody else to enjoy the fruits of our labors! It was a fantastic BBQ and everyone seemed to enjoy the food but we were still left with a good 20 sausages left over! (This was then 3 days dinner & lunches!) 

Clean up in progress we had a well deserved rest and got changed for swimming, before we got into the water it was time for cake. Debs daughter had made her a swimming pool cake, It was a carrot cake with blue jelly topping for the water and looked beautiful. Singing and photos done it was time to find all the deserts I had hidden away in fridges and freezers to then be served.

 Bellies very full it was time to relax. This meant I was pushed in the pool and bullied for being short whilst playing volleyball. The pool today wasn't too cold and we stayed in for a good hour and a bit. After getting very cold I got out of the pool and Myles did too resentfully. Shower and some warm clothes on and it was just family left so we started the final clean up and loaded the dishwasher for the final time. Everybody shattered we relaxed and played a game of outdoor bowling which was great fun and Myles somehow won! He got 72 Aaron and I both got 58 and I forgot Deb and Ians scores (Sorry) :S

Left overs for tea starting the consumption of the sausages! 
Time for bed not long after. Very long day but so worth it everybody had a great time and most importantly Deb did too! 

Tara during bowling being an added obstacle <3