Sorrento Sun

Not the Italian Sorrento, but Sorrento on the Mornington Penninsular, about an hour outside of Melbourne. After some showery days over Christmas the temps headed back up to the high 20's so we had a day by the beach with a picnic. We wandered around the seaside town (which was packed due to the holidays), then headed up to a place called Arthurs Seat which is around 310m above sea level with some great views over the bay. Then back to Melbourne for a barbie & beer.....its a hard life.
As its New Years Eve, we'll all be off into the city tonight to watch the fireworks down by the Yarra river. Hopefully this year Ethan won't be screaming when the fireworks go off. The grandparents are taking the kids home after the 9:30 fireworks show, so the parents can party into the night (thats about 12:30am these days !!). Should be good. Hope everyone has a great New Year whatever you're doing ! See you in 2007.

Boxing Day Test

Well we can say at least that we saw some more history made yesterday as "Warney" took his 700th test wicket....closely followed by 4 more of Englands hapless 'Batsmen'. But 159 all out didn't stop the Barmy Army singing and shouting all the way through the day and they were all sat in a big section next to us. At least it provided some much needed amusement as the wickets tumbled. As you can see from the pic, Mr Hawkins Snr has donned one of his Christmas pressies for todays session. Lets hope he's got something to cheer about when the Aussies resume batting.

'Twas the day before Christmas

Well its Christmas Eve and Maxine is finished studying the cookbooks on the perfect Christmas Turkey - the *huge* bird is in the oven, the last minute shopping is done and its time to drink and be merry in the Australian Christmas sun. 26 degrees gives a very different feeling to Christmas rather than the cold and fog ! It feels like a June day in England. Wearing
shorts around the festivities takes some getting used to.

Ethan keeps looking in the sky and seeing Santa Claus apparently but so far there have been no sightings by the adults. He is still after 'Electric Trains and Lego Muck' which is a huge relief all round really.... 'cos he's not getting anything else at this late hour. He's been distracted from all the excitement by his grandparents who've taken him to the pictures to see 'Flushed Away'. I doubt we'll be getting many hours sleep tonight somehow. Aidan continues to sleep, eat and play - oblivious to the madness of Christmas activity around him.

Finally, we'd like to wish everyone we know from all around the globe and who reads our little blog, a very Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year. Have a good one all and we hope to see you in 2007.

Sydneysiders

On Friday Maxine & I jetted off to Sydney for four days to have a spot of R&R. We stayed at the Four Seasons down on Circular Quay and we couldn't of picked a better
hotel.
The view of Sydney Harbour from our room on the 30th floor was amazing. The night time picture here is taken from our room (!!) The first two days we actually had
dodgy weather but we did some shopping in the city and did the Opera House tour which was good. It seemed a bit surreal being inside what you'd seen on TV so many
times. On Sunday the weather got back to being summer and we headed to Manly beach on the ferry. Manly is Bondi's northern cousin and is considered the better beach. There were loads of surfers doing their stuff out in the huge waves but we opted for the 'bask in the sun' approach to beach life. These are proper Aussie beaches just as you'd imagine them.

We headed back to Sydney (after more afternoon beers looking over the beach!) in time to get ready for dinner. We ate in two seriously good resturants in our time there, on recommendations from others. So if anyone reading this is heading to Sydney soon (that's you Helen!), two very good resturants are ARIA and QUAY. Unreal views over the Opera House and Harbour Bridge while you eat.

On Monday we did loads more walking around the city before heading back to the hotel pool and then catching our flight back (just as the Aussies nailed the coffin down on English Cricket). Nuff said on that subject.

Sydney is a great city to visit and there's so much to see, we've only just scratched the surface. We'll definately go back soon. All in all, a nice way to build up to Christmas !!

Kylie Comes Home

As the folks are now safely here and recovering from the jetlag, we abandoned them to go to Kylie's first night back in her home town of Melbourne. It was the first night of six in her 'Showgirl' return so you can imagine how much the Melbourne crowd loved it. She looked and sounded amazing for someone who's just gone through cancer. Mam & dad have got tickets for Wednesday nights show too before the tour heads off to the UK in the New Year. Another memorable night in our time here.

Just too hot

I had to post this, given the dark December nights now keeping the UK nice & chilly. It's in the 40's today for the first time in this Aussie summer. So far its hit 42.2 degrees according to the thermometer in the back garden. It has the same effect as being in the cold of the UK.... i.e. you have to stay in the house ( just with the aircon on full blast instead of the heating). Mam & Dad were supposed to arrive today but got held up because of the 'London Tornado' delaying flights. Probably a good job given this heat. Off to see if its possible to sunbathe for 5 minutes before I cook myself.

3 Wombats tall

Just as we all suspected. Ethan is in fact 3 wombats tall. We found out this 'amazing' fact at Melbourne Museum. I don't think the kids were that excited about the museum but dad had a great time (dinosaurs, rainforest walk and 3D movies especially) and it appealed to his wallet at only $6 per adult and the kids go free. I think we'll go there every weekend (!)

The folks arrive out from the UK on Saturday for a month in the sun. Its forecast to be 37 degrees C on Saturday so I think they'll have a bit of adjusting to do from the cold shores of the north-east.

Its Official : We're rubbish

And by we, I mean England's Cricket team (there's not enought space in the blog to write about our crap Football, Rugby, Athletics etc etc).

Being on this side of the world I have to endure not only the live coverage but also the commentry from my workmates. After being very optimistic after Englands first innings in the second Ashes test they've managed to perform like Newcastle Utd with 10 minutes to go and a 1-0 lead.... i.e. loose. Absolute tosh. I'd sell our MCG tickets now if they were actually worth anything !!

Old bloke with a beard

I'm not sure who the bloke with the beard is but the other two cuties are my boys apparently asking for **MORE** toys. As if the house could actually cram any more bits of bright plastic in it. I think we as a family are quite possibly to blame for global warming given the amount of plastic we own. Ethan alledgedly wants "electric trains and a Lego Muck"... all fans of Bob the Builder knows who "Muck" is. All Aidan said is, "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth." Boom boom.

Ashes Misery

After 2005's Ashes back in England the ex-pat community have had plenty to brag about here.....but it's all gone in the last few days. Work is going to be hell on Monday ! Being in Australia you can see how badly the average Aussie wants to see England stuffed in the Ashes. Its mad over here.

We have tickets for the traditional big cricket day in Australia, the Boxing Day test, which is the 1st day of the 4th Test here in Melbourne. There will be 100,000 people in the MCG watching, so I'm hoping we're still in with a shout by then....it won't be pretty if we're already 2 or 3 nil down in the series. At least you can drink all day if nothing else !

Return from the tropics

Well we're back after an absolutely excellent week at Hamilton Island .... exactly the type of experience we were hoping for when we moved to
Australia over a year ago. The island as I hope the photos show is just as you would expect a lush tropical forested island would be... its hard to describe just
how beautiful and unspoilt it is. After a 2 1/2 hour flight from Melbourne we started the week exploring the two main parts of the island, the marina side & the beach side.
We were staying on the beach side and had a view straight over some gardens onto the bay. The marina is full of expensive yachts and speedboats .... maybe one
day, as well as the main shops & restaurants. As we settled in we planned some excursions and booked the kids into the excellent child care there for a couple of mornings (so the adults could do some things on their own !!).

There were loads of things to do on the island and there are excellent views all over the place. One of the great things about the island is the amazing wildlife just running around the place. We literally were tripping over the stuff... we fed possums, lorakeets, cockatoos and saw huge bats, butterflies and iguanas over a metre long running around one of the swimming pools ! The water in the bay was 24 degrees C so it was very easy to snorkle above the reef which was only about 200m out to sea. Virtually as soon as we put our head in the water we ran into a metre long turtle eating sea grass and then loads of small sun rays floating by (not the Steve Irwin death variety), not to mention loads of different types of coral fish.

Our main trip (as you can see from the pictures) was to Whitehaven beach on Whitsunday Island by seaplane. We flew over the Great Barrier Reef first and then circled back to land on the sea just off the beach. We had champagne and fruit on the whitest, softest sand we've ever seen. Whitehaven is a national park and their is no development allowed so its absolutely pristine.

Something a bit more weird was the gun range on the island where for the first time ever I held and fired 18 live rounds off a .38 calibre gun (with a laser eyesight). It was a surreal experience loading and firing the type of gun that you see all the time in US cop movies. I also held a .44 magnum like dirty harry's but didn't have a go on that one. It was amazingly simple to use and much more sensitive than I imagined. Scarry really.

The whole trip was something we'll definately do again at some point in the future and if anyone reading this plans a trip to Sydney or Brisbane then its a very short hop to get to the Whitsundays and we'd highly recommend it. Just amazing.

No teeth yet

Despite the fact that Aidan is now 7 months old and seems to have been teething since the day he was born there are still no signs of front tooth #1. But he can still manage to do this to a gingernut. He created this mess in about 1 minute of slobbering all over it...

Earthquake hits Melbourne !

Quite a rare event hit Melbourne last night in that a magnitude 2.5 earthquake struck at about 10:30pm last night. The earth moved for us (well the building seemed to anyway).... boom boom. You knew that was coming didn't you.

Whitsundays

While it might start with the same 4 letters as Whitley Bay, the Whitsunday Islands are in fact nowhere near Tyne & Wear. Despite the striking similarities to Whitley (it has a beach), we are in fact booked up to go there in mid-November. Hamilton Island one of the larger in the Whitsundays which is just off the coast of Queensland and will be our tropical paradise for a week, exploring the Great Barrier Reef and generally drinking lots of beer & cocktails by the pool. 5 weeks and counting.....whooo hooo!

http://www.hamiltonisland.com.au/

Aidan at 6 months

Aidan was 6 months old on Saturday so we had a few hours at the beach with him, testing out the water for the first time. The spring weather is warming up nicely now and it got to 26 degrees yesterday - perfect for the kids playing on the beach.

2006 Royal Melbourne Show

Here's a picture of us all from the Royal Melbourne Show on Sunday. The lamb isn't ours, we just borrowed him/her. The show is a bit of Melbourne institution with kids as it has a big fun fair. They also have things called 'Show bags' ... i.e. lots of crap plastic toys & sweets stuffed in bags for $20. Bargain. Well Ethan thought so anyway. Apart from the fair there's loads of 'country' stuff, hence the farm animals and some great food. We concentrated on the food.

Shearer in toon

An amazing morning in Melbourne with the main man here on a promotional tour. We went down to the Bob Jane Stadium in Albert Park to watch Shearer
train some kids from various Melbourne football clubs. Of course, we were fully decked out in toon gear to make sure he felt at home. About 300 other ex-pat Geordies had done the same so it was quite surreal. After about an hour they finished up and he was being whisked off to go and watch the AFL grand final at the MCG which is also on today (no co-incidence there I'm sure). Before he went though he met the fans and signed autographs. The top picture is of him signing Ethan's number 9 on the back of his shirt and the bottom one speaks for itself. So thats another ambition chalked off ... you don't get closer to the almighty than that ;-)

Back in the US of A

I've left the Aussie sun for some Texan sun this week as I've gone to the states & Canada for a couple of weeks on business. Good timing on the 5th anniversary of September 11th(!) Maxine is delighted at the prospect of looking after the kids for 2 weeks while I go to Dallas, New York and Toronto.... Looks like lots of presents will be in order on my return. We're flying up to NYC on Friday to spend the weekend in Manhattan. Thems the breaks eh.....

Ski School

...We did wonder if it was wise booking up at the start of spring, especially with some of the worst snowfalls in years but as the aim was to give Ethan some
experience on the slopes we went anyway. Mt. Buller is just over 3 hours from our house and easy to get to in the car. Its pretty low by mountain standards (5600ft) but is enough to usually get decent winter snowfall even in Australia. It was actually much better than we thought and there were some good runs for us to go on as well as being able to get Ethan into ski school for the first time (it starts with 3 year olds so he just got in). It was fantastic seeing him in his class with all the other little 'uns. As you can imagine, as very proud parents we were snapping away as he was learning. He has the smallest skis we've ever seen and looked unbelieveably cute ! He had a lesson on the first day which was pretty basic so we took him the next afternoon for a bit more time on one of the beginner 'green' runs - he even went up on the chair lift without being worried at all. He absolutely loved it and by the end was managing to go in a straight line by himself for 10m or so before falling. I think he liked the falling down in the snow bit a little more than the skiing though ! All in all, a fantastic couple of days.

Bentleigh mums group

This was the scene at our house a few days ago when Maxine's posse.... aka the 'Bentleigh Mums Group' descended on our house. 10 mums and 10 'bubs' as the Aussies insist on calling them. Luckily ... er I mean sadly ... I was at work and missed the whole thing. Shame. Oh well, maybe next time.

New season starts

To celebrate the new season and surely Newcastle's first victory of many to come this season (!)... here's Adian bursting out of his toon top. The lads had a few too many pies and the 6 month shirt is a bit of a stretch. He truely is a Geordie then.

4 months old ........ first solids

Aidan seems happy with his first Aussie solids.




.

Returned to Oz

Back safe and sound. There was a bit of a delay at Hong Kong as the day before there was a Typhoon ! It was a bit of a bumpy landing at the airport as the winds had not fully died down but at least we weren't caught in the worst of it.

The trip to the UK was a bit frantic but we all enjoyed getting back for a while, especially with the good weather. Never thought I'd say that ! Here's a picture of Aidan enjoying the in flight entertainment on the return journey....

Ethan turns 3

Our little baby is all grown up ... its amazing how the last three years have zipped by and he's changed so much. We've been in Leicestershire all this week and this is a picture of Ethan opening his pressies on his birthday morning. We've now got the logistical nightmare of how to get all his stuff to Australia in our already bulging bags.





.

Dan & Andreas wedding

Well we made it back to blighty after a mammoth 24 hours flying which isn't for the faint hearted with two young kids.... I think once a year tops is the most we'll be back. The jetlag has taken its toll in the last few days but we did make Daniel & Andrea's wedding yesterday. Here's a pic from the day which went off without a hitch and bride & groom had a great day.

Fireman Hawkins

Ethan's been taking his fireman sam videos a bit too seriously and now feels the need to put out fires in Pontypandy. (Those with kids will know what I'm on about)....

Back to Blighty

...Hopefully just in time to see England lift the world cup on July 9th actually. We're back in the UK between Friday 7th July and Wednesday 2nd August (we fly back to Melbourne on the 3rd). Anyone interested in meeting up then please drop us an e-mail. We'll be in the North East, Yorkshire (Dan & Andrea's wedding) & Midlands (& a trip to Barcelona!) but the last two weeks of the trip Martin will be working in Birmingham. Hopefully catch some of you then.

In the rainforest

This is a picture taken today at the Royal Botanical Gardens in the city. We discovered the childrens garden which Ethan loved running around in with all the other kids.

Proud Brother

Here's one of the two boys, Ethan is really proud of his little brother and is asking if there's another one in mummy's tummy. Hmmmmm. We think not.

Little fella

This little bloke is keeping us on our toes. Sleep now has to be taken in shifts....its amazing what you forget. And now the grandparents have gone we're all alone. At the 4 week weigh-in today he was just over 4 kilos (8lbs 14oz in old money)so he's managed to pack on over half a kilo in 2 weeks.

Bundle of joy

Picture from day 2. Aidan is doing well and feeding all night which is a bit of a nightmare for poor Maxine... She'll be out of hospital tomorrow morning (Tuesday) and hopefully we can start to settle into a routine.

One day old.....

Here's a picture of the three blokes in the family - Aidan aged 1 day. Everythings going fine, Maxines doing well and is getting itchy feet to get out of hospital already. Ethan has been in to see Aidan with Mam and Dad today and he loved it, and has been repeating all day "So is he out yet".... he's struggling with the concept I think!

New Arrival

Aidan Lewis Hawkins was born today (7th April 2006) at 7:31pm weighing in at 7lbs 1oz. Mother and baby are both doing well after a 3.5 hour labour and daddy is as high as a kite with pride! Aidan is in an incubator for the first night as his body temperature was a bit low but they have assured us its all OK.

Here's a picture taken about 20 minutes after he was born. I'll obviously post more over the next few days. Speak to you all soon!

He's still hanging on.....

Still no news on the baby front.... We went to the obstetrician on Monday and he's told Maxine to come in on Friday if its not happened before then. They're going to induce then so its looking like we'll have a new son by the weekend.....

Watch this space!

Its the pits

Well, just outside them actually. Here's a photo of Ma Hawkins outside the pit lane at the end of today's Australian F1 Grand Prix. They had a great time at the race and are now confirmed petrol heads.

The clocks changed to daylight savings in Aus today so we're now 9 hours ahead....for anyone phoning please remember !

No baby news yet

No baby news to tell.... he's obviously hanging on in there. Maxine has another doctors appointment on Monday so he may want to set a date to induce. She's pretty keen to get the little fella out now !
The folks are off to the F1 Grand Prix tomorrow so you could bet on the baby coming just after they leave. I couldn't get any work done on Thursday / Friday as the Albert Park track is about 200m away from my office block! We had screaming F1 cars going past the window in practice & qualifying - no need to buy a ticket, you just go to work for the day.
Here's a picture of Ethan the other day in his toon top. Thanks for the new strip from the Rump's .... rest assured despite living in Melbourne he will be a NUFC supporter at heart !

Down by the Yarra

Here's a picture we took of the Commonwealth 'fish' on the Yarra.....with the city in the background.

Its all over....

Well, the Commonwealth Games finished on a high last night with the city in full party swing well into the night. We went into the city with the folks (who arrived safe & sound the day before) to have a meal around 4:00pm and then strolled along the Yarra river to see the commonwealth 'fish' do their stuff. The city was packed, there must of been a couple of hundred thousand people watching various events and the closing of the games itself. I won't bang on too much about how great it was .... but it was a fantastic night. I've never been too interested in the Commonwealth Games but having it on your doorstep is a different story. Hopefully the closing ceremony looked just as good on UK TV as it did here.

The English atheletes have let me down badly however. I now have to face the fact that the Australians won 84 gold medals compared to our pathetic 36.... with a population 1/3 of the size. At least we beat the Canadian's (sorry Jason !) and the South African's (sorry Zoe !).... ;-)

We've been lucky to be in Melbourne for the experience, something I doubt we'll forget. Good on 'ya Melbourne.

Day at the 'G'

We did manage to make it to the MCG today to watch the 1st day of Athletics in the games. We saw the 100m heats (including the world record holder Asafa Powell), marathon, javelin & shot put. The MCG was pretty impressive, holding around 100,000 people when full. The best cheers of the day (which Ethan didn't like) were for the Australians winning the Ladies Marathon. 100,000 screaming people are pretty loud.

The Games Commence

The 2006 Commonwealth games start today in our adopted city with the opening ceremony kicking off tonight along the Yarra river (8:30pm our time)....9:30am your time. The city is looking fantastic and there's a lot of hype over here - especially as the city is trying to outdo the Sydney Olympics from 2000. Hope you're all watching !! We're off to the MCG on Sunday to see the athletics .... barring any early child arriving.... we may be the first couple to have a baby in the stadium. Keep an eye out on TV, should be easy to spot amongst the 100,000 people there too.

March & Autumn has arrived

March has arrived which is the start of Autumn over here.....so the temps have dipped to the mid 30's (!!) ;-) This picture of Maxine & Ethan was taken today at 7:00pm in the back garden.
We're on the final countdown to the big day and have done the hospital tour so we know what to expect. Maxine has opted for the 'give me everything' approach to childbirth pain relief! The nursery is all ready and the Hawkins grandparents are being shipped out on the 23rd March so we can leave them with the two kids while we run off for a month. All-in-all we're about as ready as we can be....

Digging for England

This was Ethan at the beach on Sunday. We weren't trying to bury him honest....
His father managed to dig the largest sand hole on the beach, much to all the other kids envy. Ethan wouldn't allow any other kids in, shouting 'That's my hole' at anyone who got within 10 feet of it. Not that he's posessive about everything he touches or anything.

5 weeks to go and counting for the arrival of boy No.2. Its all getting very exciting....unless you're Maxine that is, who is now finding it difficult to cope with the doctor keep telling her .... "This one's going to be heavier than your last one" !

Australian Open 2006

On Monday we went to the 4th round day of the Australian Open at the Rod Laver Arena. It was a fantastic experience and the day flew by. We mainly watched Dominik Hrbaty vs Nikolay Davydenko in a 5 set match over about 3.5 hrs. Davydenko won after loosing the first 2 sets and goes on to play Roger Federer (and therefore probably get knocked out!). We also saw the start of Francesca Schiavone vs Kim Clijsters, nicking some seats in the players enclosure in the process which was a much better view!

The extreme weather policy was enforced at the open over the previous three days due to the heat. It was in the 40's over the weekend, reaching 44 degree's C on Sunday. All you can do is stay in the house when it gets that hot, its unreal....