Double Digits.

Whoopee, Alex has made double digits, his 10th birthday.

He actually had two birthday celebrations a couple of weeks apart. The first was just a small family affair having a picnic in a local park.

Not exactly his best smile!!

We had better start calling him a young man now as he gets bigger.  Definitely not a little boy any longer.

His official party celebration was yesterday and guests started to arrive.

This is Ben selecting his party food.

Now thats what I call a well balanced party diet.

Lots of good food.

This was the highlight of the day. The arrival of a trailer full of gaming equipment.

All queued up and eager to play.

Inside was kids heaven. Loud music, flashing lights and four monster screens with an extra two on the outside.

Each screen can show four different segments so in theory 16 games can be played at once, either individually or players can compete against one another.

Two hours later and everyone had a great time.

A special Minecraft birthday cake.

Lovely chocolate decorated with black and green smarties.

A great day was had by all. I even got to go 10 pin bowling without leaving the front room!!

Visitors.

A lovely but short visit from our niece Louise and her husband Andrew.  It was Andrews first visit to Gods Own Country and we really managed to throw the book at him, climate wise. From the heat and bush fires of Western Australia to the heat and humidity in NSW and currently the cyclones in Queensland.

Following a quick visit to Bondi Beach we arrived at Watsons Bay for lunch.

Doyles restaurants and hotel.

An after lunch stroll to South Head, looking across to North Head.

Another day, heading through the mountains with a stop at the Mount Tomah botanical gardens.

Camera fishing in yellow shorts, no wonder the fish disappeared.

This was about the only view possible of the Three Sisters at Katoomba which didn't include thousands of Asian tourists.

A very nice outdoor late lunch in Leura ........

....... back home and checking out the days photographs.

We drove up to Terrigal and returned home via Spencer and Wisemans Ferry.

 A nice lunch over looking the beach.

One of Andrews lasting memories of Australia must be his encounter with the efficiency of Australia Post. While in Western Australia he ordered some fishing equipment from South Australia to be delivered to us here in New South Wales. One parcel arrived quite quickly but the second took a big detour. It arrived in Sydney but then decided to divert to Western Australia before coming all the way back to North Richmond. Something to have a laugh about later.

We had a lovely time with our visitors, lots of laughter and reminiscing but all over too quickly.

History.

I was mowing the front lawn the other day and it suddenly struck me how quickly the garden had recovered after building the new retaining wall.

In the very beginning, using old railway hardwood sleepers.

Starting the build using treated pine sleepers.

The change in just over six months is amazing.

From this .....

..... to this. 

We have had some good rain that has helped but I like to think it is due to our green fingers.