A Jazz Performance...Fishing Mishaps

Jasmine had her first dance performance on Saturday. She performed at the Robina Town Centre and the Gaven State School fete. She seemed to enjoy herself and not get too overawed by the occasion. We enjoyed watching her but it was quite a warm day and hot in the sun watching all the dance performances. Jasmine was rewarded with a KFC lunch. We got video of the performance, so I will try to upload some streaming video but it might not work out too well with all the rapid dancing moves.

This morning I went for an unplanned fishing trip. I didn’t leave home until around 8am and the tide wasn’t quite right but I thought I would give it a go. I put the boat into the water and was about to park the trailer when I remembered that I hadn’t put the bung (plug) in the back of the boat. As a result, I had about half a foot of water in the bottom of the boat. I put the bung in and started to bucket out the water. Another guy put his boat in and said he had done the same thing once before and when you have done it once you will never do it again. To which I replied, this is my second time!

I caught some live bait and tried my luck at a few new spots but caught nothing. But I had a nice relaxing time anyway. When I returned to the boat ramp I had more trouble. I had almost winched the boat right up when on the final turn the cable snapped. Fortunately I caught the boat on its way back down the trailer and slowed it down going back into the water. I was also fortunate that the cable broke near the hook and I was able to tie the hook back on and get the boat back onto the trailer.

This afternoon we went into Surfers Paradise to check out where the Westpac branch is and find the parking areas. Lani starts her Westpac training in Brisbane tomorrow. The first day starts at 8am so she will need to catch the 6:30am train. For the rest of the 2 weeks she should be able to catch the 7am train. Hopefully all will go well for her. It will also be the kids first day at after school care. I’m looking forward to hearing how everyone’s day went was tomorrow at dinner.

Krysti and kids visit...Lani's Westpac return

Since our last update we had Krysti, MJ and Jessica visit for a couple of weeks. It was particularly good to see MJ and Jessica again, and see how much they have grown. It was also kind of interesting to have a 2 year old and a 5 month old baby in the house. Reminded us of how much work and constant care they need. It is no wonder that my back really started to get bad when we had James and Jasmine. So much lifting and holding them while they wriggle around. Jessica was unwell with a urinary tract infection so she was a bit unsettled, but she still gave us plenty of smiles and giggles.

The only other big news item to occur recently is that Lani has been offered and accepted a permanent 4 days per week job with Westpac. She inquired about a job advertisement on Monday, did a phone interview on Tuesday with a recruitment agency in Brisbane, then she went to Brisbane on Wednesday for another interview with personality, behaviour, skills and role-playing tests taking over 4 hours. Yesterday she had another interview at a Westpac branch on the Gold Coast, and last night got a phone call offering her the job.  She will start a 2-week induction/training course on Monday in Brisbane, then 2 weeks training at the Surfers Paradise Westpac branch. After that Lani will be an internal relief officer and float around the northern Gold Coast branches with the further branch being Broadbeach and the closest in Helensvale.

Lani was initially after a 3 day per week job that was advertised but that job changed to a 5 day per week, so she went for a 4 day job that was also on offer. It has been nearly 9 years since Lani has been in paid full-time employment so it is going to knock all our routines around a little. The kids are going to have to attend some after school care. Jazz seems kind of happy about it but James isn’t very keen on the idea. There is supposed to be an after school care program set up at the school but that has been delayed, so for the moment the kids will get picked up by a bus and taken to a nearby child care centre. Lani says that Jazz is excited about catching the bus. I plan to start and finish work early each day so the kids don’t have to spend so much time there. I will be probably be preparing some dinners during the week also. Should be interesting.

Some fish and Eskimo rolls

My ADSL Modem/Router decided to die a few days ago so I haven’t been able to log the past weekend activities. I’m borrowing an ADSL modem kindly lent out by the Connolly family until mine is fixed.

On the weekend John visited after doing some work at the British Consular Agency in Brisbane. On Saturday morning we got up at 5:15am to do some fishing. We caught some live bait to catch some serious fish. We fished the Broadwater initially but with little action decided to try our luck out off the Seaway.  I didn’t take too long before we had some action. I caught two spotted Mackerel and a small shovelnose shark. John had a few live baits smashed and his hook bitten off but nothing to show for it. I got another good hook up and offered the rod to John to bring the fish in but he wasn’t keen to take the rod off me. After some friendly squabble as to who was going to bring the fish in I put the rod in John’s hand and told him to bring it in. Seconds later, the line broke and the fish of the day had got away. John just didn’t have any luck.

I always say that fishing it not just about catching fish but more an adventure and we had some other interesting events in the day. We saw a Westpac rescue helicopter doing a rescue drill not too far from us. Actually, it was right near where we started our drifts. When it was winching a person out of the water I moved us back to the start of our drift and the helicopter drifted a little towards us, at one stage it was almost over the top of us, probably no more than 15 metres. John’s cap flew of his head into the water and we copped a spray off the water. We also saw a Sea Eagle dive down and take one of our dead live baits out of the water. And to top it all off, back at the boat ramp we watched an old guy and his mate make a total mess of reversing their boat trailer down the boat ramp. The ramp was very busy with several other boats waiting to come in or go out. All of us watched the comic routine in disbelief. The boat was appropriately named “Double Trouble”.

John and I tried our luck again on Sunday morning, once again getting up at 5:15am but a northerly wind made conditions not as pleasant as the day before. John caught a small flathead which was well and truly legal to keep but we decided to give it another chance in life, and released it back into the water. John flew home to Canberra later in the afternoon.

Monday was the Labour Day public holiday in Queensland. We played some tennis in the morning and later in the afternoon went down to the Broadwater park. The kids rode their bikes and I tried to work out how to do Eskimo rolls on my wave ski in the calm water. It was quite daunting rolling over the first time strapped to my wave ski with a quick release belt. I just didn’t know what to expect when I rolled over. I dreaded the idea of getting a lot of water up my nose. It was also a little embarrassing because there were quite a few people sitting around the shoreline that would have been watching. I wasn’t too concerned about how hopeless I would have looked; I just didn’t want someone to think I was drowning. With every attempted roll I felt more relaxed with being trapped under the water and I tried different things. I was getting close to rolling back up out of the water but I just couldn’t get it. Then after probably around 30 attempts I finally did it. It surprised me how easy it was. I kept trying again and again until I could do it fairly consistently. After more than an hour of struggling in the water I felt tired but my back was fine. So I’m looking forward to working on it some more before finally trying it in the surf.

This evening I picked up Krysti, MJ and Jessica from Brisbane airport. They are going to be staying for nearly two weeks. Everyone was quite happy to see each other, particularly the kids.