back to normal

So life is back to normal with the kids back at school, but actually I guess it really is a new normal as Mark started work and with Ceri being here. So Mark gets up at some ungodly hour, 5.15am (the days just start earlier and earlier), then I eventually surface at 6am after he's left and then Rebecca gets up at 6.40 and  try and make sure Josh is awake before I leave at 7.10am. Ceri sensibly keeps out the way. Then instead of coming home to tea cooked. Mark is out, I get tea and he gets in at 6.30pm (although he's been home in between from 9am- 1.30pm). So all in all a different sort of normal and the kids are getting the bus to and fro from school which they don't mind too much. I guess we'll all get used to it slowly.

Anyway Mark has been exhausted this week, a real shock to the system getting up so early and finding the 2 hour drive a day quite a lot, also managed to get Achilles tendinitis which isn't helping, and the CRPS is slightly worse, but I guess its all about getting used to a change. The kids are great and he's enjoying the challenge but the other staff all seem to be quite happy to leave him to do all the work, hence he's spending most of the time standing :(  His boss told him this week how lovely it was to have somebody who could mange the kids well and she could 'leave him to get on with it', a compliment which gives her an excuse to disappear for another smoke break! Anyway, its a start and will be easier to get a job from a job, so we'll see how it goes.

Ceri hasn't heard anything from her interview this week, but Josh kindly took a message on Monday from a nursery she'd dropped her CV into to ask her to come to an interview on Wednesday. Unfortunately when she turned up on Wednesday she was told it was the following week. Needless to say Josh was not very popular, however they did ask her to take a copy of her certificates, visa and more interestingly payment for her blue card (police check equivalent) as if its a forgone conclusion. It would be a great organisation for her to get into as they have lots of nursery's all around Brisbane and have their own training school for everything from basic courses up to diploma s in childcare, so we're praying lots for Wednesday!! She is also extremely bored now and needs something to do.

So Josh and Rebecca have settled back into school, Josh has declined all sport this term with the aim of studying more, he does seen more motivated with his work which is good to see. Rebecca also has won an academic award for these 2 terms which she is really chuffed about, as are we:) She's also joined touch rugby and restarted drama this term, so back to early mornings and late pick ups, which started with a 6.30am drop off at school yesterday morning for an away match. Very uncivilised start to a Saturday morning !!!

So I had a good week, especially as I had Friday off in lieu of the conference last Saturday. So I took Ceri, firstly to do her driving test theory to get her Learners license, to be told that as she had a UK provisional license they can transfer it straight over, which cheered her day up no end :) However we couldn't transfer it as she hasn't accumulated enough ID yet, but she can use her UK licence for 3 months, so she went on her first drive with Mark yesterday. Anyway, we then went to Medicare to get her registered, that will give her ID when her card arrives. Then we went for a wander around IKEA and picked up some bits:) It's so nice having it nearby. 

Saturday was much more leisurely, shopping in the morning for me, when I took Josh to work, that was after I'd gone back to bed from taking Rebecca at 6am. Mark took Ceri out driving, apparently for some unknown reason I teach them too many bad habits :( In the afternoon, Mark and I went to some lighting shops to start looking at lights for the house as they all have sales on, we chose loads but the quote we were given only lasts for 7 days so today we played hookey from church (which I did miss) and went to look at yet more places to compare and see what else we could find. Anyway, we did find some kitchen lights, so another item crossed off the list, and we'll go back and get some of the ones we chose yesterday, but not all. 

We also went to see the new Spiderman film last night which was very good once we'd worked out it was different to the original ones. We were then going to take Ceri to Southbank but it was heaving and we couldn't get parked, so we went off to another suburb, called Paddington, which was distinctly lacking in bears and marmalade, but was very retro and yuppie ish, but we had a nice afternoon ambling round there, especially as it was such a warm sunny afternoon :) Still at least the UK now has some sunshine as well so I don't feel quite as guilty enjoying all this sun in the middle of winter :)