What Aussies do at Christmas !

Yep, go to the beach. We didn't quite have a BBQ but did have the usual 'sandy' biscuits & 'sandy' pop. Hope everyone's enjoying winter back in Blighty ;-)

Merry Christmas ~ !

Well, the big day is now over. Only 364 shopping days to go until the next one. Mam, you'd better get started in the Boxing Day sales! As usual, the boys had a whale of a time opening the presents (which lasted about 20 minutes). Then the 'big build' started - including 3 remote control toys, 7 boxes of Lego and an assortment of other stuff. Lunch was very good (Turkey & Ham being very traditional this year) and we slobbed around the pool afterwards in the sun. Anthony was only in it 30 minutes and managed to scorch his exposed body parts ! Here are a few Christmas Pics of the boys - including uncle Anthony eating his Chrismas pud in the sunshine!

HO HO HO !!

Almost. Only 1 hour and 10 minutes to go ! The boys are completely besides themselves with excitement (and I'm limbering my fingers up ready for the Lego marathon that the 25th December usually is !!) ... I'm even having to type quitely in case they think Santa is e-mailing Mrs Claus without our permission. Anyway, Merry Christmas to one and all ! Here are a few pics of the boys, and also a link to an Aussie Chas'n'Dave style Christmas song.

The Hawkins Christmas Rap

We thought we'd get you all into the spirit of Christmas and recorded this little jingle for you. Make sure you've got the speakers on and hit play !!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Wet, Wet, Wet

No, the people in the picture are not the '80's pop stars looking a bit worse for wear (a lot worse for wear actually). They are in fact my mates on their way to the Newcastle match last weekend. The title is merely a reflection of the BLOODY AWFUL weather in England in November that I've 're-discovered' while being here. I think out of the 10 days here, it's managed not to rain for two of them! It's a solid reminder of why I need to be living in a warm country ! Where's that Qantas plane .....

Celebrity Stalkers

After my latest brush with someone famous (QT as he now likes me to call him!), I recon I'm being spied on by the rich and famous. Clearly all celebrities like to hang out in hotel lobbies and airport lounges around the globe - maybe they like the attention. So far to-date I've 'bumped' into the following !!

Ant & Dec (Wembley watching NUFC get beat)
Jason Donovan (Heathrow BA Lounge)
Alan Shearer (Melbourne - and I even spoke to him !)
Alan Hansen & Martin O'Neill (Heathrow Terminal 5 Lounge)
'The Cure' (Auckland Airport Lounge)
Rick Stein (Singapore Airport Lounge)
Quentin Tarantino (Westin Hotel, Tokyo)

Who's going to follow me around next ?!? QT sharing my hotel is certainly up in the celebrity stakes than two short Geordies from Byker Grove, so its all good!

Days 4 & 5 Reservoir Dogs

Well, the holiday, er .. I mean.... business trip is over in Japan. The last two days back in Tokyo have been hard at work and more meeting and greeting (very important in Japan). The last two nights have been a continuation of the culinary experience the likes of which are unheard of in my normal diet. I feel like I've eaten half of the sea. My omega 3 levels must be sky high ! I've been staying at The Tokyo Westin - which is without a doubt the most luxurious (and expensive) hotel I've ever stayed in !! Which leads me to a surreal experience tonight on the way out of the hotel. The man in the picture (for those who have been living on Mars for the last 10 years) is Quentin Tarantino - and I almost walked straight into him at the hotel as he was leaving. If I'd of been 1 minute earlier (and not in the process of trying to find the loo) my camera would have been out to prove it. Quite a strange way to round out a very interesting week !

Day 3 - Himeji Castle & Aioi

Well today started as planned as per the picture - a very early breakfast followed by a quick trip to Himeji Castle before the day started. It's great to see something completely different to Tokyo and much more historic & traditional. After the quick visit it was another short train ride down to our factory in Aioi which is completely remote area in rural Western Honshu - dramatically different to Tokyo. At lunch we went out with the local management team to a resturant high up on a hill overlooking the sea. It was a full traditional Japanese lunch, sitting on the floor with a short table and sushi to eat and being served by girls in full traditional dresss - quite an amazing experience, nothing like any meal I've had before. Another bullet train ride back to Tokyo tonight has rounded off the day. This beats working for a living ;-)

Day 2, Nagoya

The Tokyo sightseeing day over, today I've travelled south from Tokyo to Nagoya to visit a gum factory and distribution centre. Glamourous eh ? The highlight was travelling on the 300 Km/h bullet train down to Nagoya, through Kobe (big earthquake in 1995) and then on again to Himeji where I'm staying tonight. That thing is pretty impressive - beats the good old British Rail 125 hands down ! That train stops in Hiroshima which I'd be pretty keen to go to - just not on this visit due to time contstraints unfortunately.

Tomorrow its up early to have a look at Himeji Castle which was built in 1333 and is the grandest feudal castle remaining in Japan (think 'The Last Samurai' with Tom Cruise!)- before going on to work.

Tokyo Calling!

Hello from Japan! This week, Mr Cadbury has taken me for my first ever visit to Japan (Tokyo). I'm here to spend a week learning the business and I'm obviously going to make the most of seeing as much as I can. On first impressions Tokyo is just bloody huge. 33m people live in the greater city and its just hard to describe how vast the place is. Today (Sunday) I've taken in the Central Tokyo area but in reality just scratched the surface, covering the Imperial Palace gardens, Ginza shopping district and Tokyo Tower. Its like nothing I've seen before - and hard to describe on a blog! The next few days will be interesting as I do my first bullet train ride down to Nagoya and then Aioi to visit some of our sites here - it's a hard life!

Derby Day Filly

Spring racing is now in full swing - with today being the start of the Melbourne Cup carnival - Derby Day. As you can tell from the picture, Maxine is off with a load of workmates to bet on a few GGs - but mainly to partake in the party atmosphere and drink loads of champers. After a massive thunderstorm last night, luckily its a perfect blue sky today and about 30 degrees! Whereas this is the 'before' shot, taken minus any alchohol consumption, lets see what the 'after' picture looks like when she rolls back in tonight! As its also Halloween today, I instead have the joy of taking the two little 'uns to an afternoon house party with loads of other kids... I know where I'd rather be!

Sun comes out

Just in time for the folks leaving for blighty on Tuesday, the sun has been out for a good few spring days. It was enough to get the pool up to 27 degrees, so it was time for the first dip of many that will happen during the Aussie summer. The kids managed to persuade both Grandma & Grandad in the water as you'll see from the pics here.

Sydney for the weekend

My folks are over again this week from blighty so as per usual we upped sticks and abandoned the kids with them ! This time Maxine had to go to Sydney the following week with work so we worked around that to go for the weekend. After a week of rain in Melbourne (* I'm blaming the English visitors here ), it was good to see the sun shining in Sydney. We did the usual wandering around Circular Quay to look around "The Rocks" historic area, Opera House & Toon bridge copy. We also ventured into Government House which sits in the Botanical Gardens - well worth a visit as its a stunning part of downtown Sydney. While Maxine worked on Monday I wandered around in the sun (after a very large relaxing breakfast, coffee & reading of the paper!) and headed over to Darling Harbour on one of the ferries. Now thats the way all Monday mornings should be spent let me tell you! A few pics are here.

Child Labour

Well, my younger brother isn't quite a child now actually, but in the good tradition of making visitors plough the fields and toil on the acreage, Anthony has been allowed to drive the 'ride on'. In many ways its an honour to be allowed at the wheel of this 18hp vehicle, its probably a bit more power than he's used to in his new Focus !!

Gold Coast

Just back from a week up on the Gold Coast at Surfers Paradise (yes that's the name of the town!). It's the school holidays here so we took the opportunity to go for a bit of Queensland sunshine. The Gold Coast is just south of Brisbane and is a major Aussie holiday destination, mainly due to the fantastic year round climate its lucky enough to have. It's made up of several towns along a 30 to 40 mile strech of sandy coastline. Not a bad place to be it has to be said. We spent 6 days there and ventured out to two of the theme parks (Seaworld & Wet 'n' Wild), both of which are very good and no doubt we'll be back there as the kids get older as there are about another 4 or 5 theme parks in the same area aimed at older kids. On the last day we spent a day staying in Brisbane, looking around the city. Year round sunshine and a beautiful city on offer.....we could see ourselves retiring here. Just another 20 years on the treadmill to go though first !! See some of the pictures here.

Ashes Victory !

After a few days of winding up the Aussies here with a big smile on my face (not to mention relief) I'm now running the risk highlighted in this cartoon. Still though, its worth it ;-) There's nothing better than an English victory over the Aussies to get their back's up! Great sport.

Toofy

We wanted to record this moment in the blog as a milestone in a childs life ! Ethan lost his first tooth aged six and 3 weeks. It's not every day you loose your first tooth (bottom right central incisor for all our dentist friends), so he was naturally excited about the first visitation of the "Nintendo Tooth Fairy" as it will now be forever known in this household.

Migration

Well the depopulation of Blighty continues with another ex-pat arrival on the shores of sunny Oz. Yes, now 2/3rd's of the Hawkins bros are going to be living down under with the arrival of Anthony. He's been across here for a house finding visit and flown back again today only to return in late August for good with all his posessions in tow. I've already been showing him the Aussie ropes by introducing him to AFL footie at the MCG at the weekend, followed by several refreshments in the local taverns ;-) Neil, I'm coming after you next !

Big lad now !

Happy Birthday Ethan !! Our 'not so baby boy' turned 6 today and *finally* (in his eyes) got his Nintendo DSi. Already he's turned into a zombie kid that walks around with a stoop staring at the console mesmerised! Its all about 'Ben 10' at his age. If you don't know what that is, you're sooooooooo 1990s. Get with it !
Opening pressie pics here.

Fruit Production

As followers of this blog may be aware, last year we planted a few fruit trees. Since then its become a bit of a home orchard (!) with Martin now having planted mandarin, lime, orange, lemon, grapefruit, avocado, pear, apple and cherry trees ! They're all obviously small at the moment, however, the lemon tree has produced it's first crop (all 5 of them !) ready for picking. Here's a few pics with the kids fighting over who got to pick the first one!

Mt. Baw Baw

The snow has finally arrived in the mountains (!) - so today we took a day trip up to Mt. Baw Baw which is about a 2 hour drive from our place. It's really the first time that Aidan has properly been in snow because when we went skiing a couple of years ago, he was only a few months old. We went to go sledging this time with the kids as it's a bit early for Aidan on ski's and we wanted to see what the place was like. Anyway, it turned out to be a good place for the kids to learn to ski so we'll be back. They both loved the sledging and snow ball fights so hopefully they'll sleep well tonight! You can see a few pics here.

More parties & more horses

The mad April & May 'party season' on the street is now behind us, leaving a trail of cakes, sweets and assorted pastries behind us (quite literally in the kids case ........!). The weather is on the turn and today (June 1st) we officially enter winter in Aus. Time to get the winter veggies into the ever expanding patches (more on my Hugh Fernley Whittingstall-esque attempts at a later date). In other news, Maxine, on the back of the success with my mother, enrolled the kids for a riding lesson last weekend. Ethan managed to get into it straight away and was even trotting on the first attempt which was pretty amazing to see. Aidan was somewhat more reticent however but given that his horse was about 3 times his height its not surprising that its a bit terrifying for a 3 year old ! Anyway, some of the latest pics from May are here.

Toon Doon

Well, almost 18 hours gone and the sickness in the stomach hasn't abaited just yet. Not since the dark days of playing quality clubs like QPR, Derby, Coventry etc etc in the '80s when I was a mere lad have things been this bad. The joke that is Newcastle United FC, for those that don't know what the hell I'm on about, has been relegated, cast into the wilderness of bloody Doncaster Rovers territory for next years bleak season. Being 12,000 miles away just made it worse.....I can't wallow in self pity with my workmates, no instead, I get the pleasure of setting the alarm at 2:00am to watch overpaid donkeys wondering who's going to pay them next season ('cos it sure won't be Newcastle). Disaster. Two messiahs in one season couldn't even save them. Where do we go from here? Aussie Rules is starting to look attractive.

Easter sunshine in Frankston

Easter started early in the morning in the Hawkins household with the Easter bunny clearly having an impact. I think it was about 6am with the kids up and searching for chocolate eggs strategically placed around the living area. Just what you need on a Sunday morning ! What happened to those days of sitting for 2 hours reading the paper after having a hearty fried breakfast followed by a bit of a kip ?!?. Long gone. Anyway, by 9am we were at Frankston beach just as the morning mist evaporated to a very nice autumn day - and ready to look at the 'Dinostory' sand sculptures. These things aren't your average sand castles as I'm sure you'll see.Some pics from the sand sculptures exhibition & beach are here.

Aidy's 3rd Birthday Party

Another year has gone by for our youngest who celebrated his 3rd birthday last week. Once again we hired the farm animals to come and visit, which amused the 20 or so assembled kids for at least ooooh .... 5 minutes. Anyway, we had a mad couple of hours and at least there were three of us to corral the kids rather than the usual two with mam still being here for it. The important thing was that Aidan seemed to enjoy himself even if he was tired from getting up at around 5am ! See the pictures from the party & him opening his pressies here.

The Horse Whisperer

Sneaking in just under the 60 year old barrier - here's a photo of Mrs Hawkins Snr out today for her first EVER horse ride. With the video camera at hand for any "Beadle's About" type mishaps, Maxine took Mam out to tackle an ambition to get on a horse. Sadly, for us anyway, there were no outakes for comedy falls into the dust to earn 200 quid but at least it meant she kept her bones intact. Dad will have to give it a go next time. Probably not on the same horse though as his legs might be dragging along the ground ! Well done mam !

Coldplay, earthquakes, food festivals & travel

The title pretty much sums up some of the activity the Hawkins household over the last couple of weeks.

Maxine & I went to see Coldplay in Melbourne a couple of weeks ago one hot autumn night. They were excellent as usual.... Then when we were having a curry one night a 4.6 level earthquake shook the house. Came back to a petrified, white faced mother. We didn't feel a thing. 2 weeks later, Martin was in Auckland .... same thing again (he must know when to avoid being at home). For a place 1500Km from the nearest plate boundary, they're not bad earthquakes. Other stuff has included the Melbourne Food Festival visit as well as a trip on the Yarra river with mam and a trip to Sydney for Martin with work. We managed to squeeze some work in there too.... only just.

Curry Collapse

Now it might of taken me 25 years, 10 pints on Newcastle's Quayside in a night followed by a 2 a.m. "Ruby" to master this look ...... but as you can see my youngest offspring can manage it by 5:30pm on a Sunday afternoon !! Oh, how your kids can make you proud. That's my boy.
The funny thing about it was, when I woke him up again, he immediately started tucking into what was left of his curry ! Classic.

Strawberries for every meal

Dad has departed for the cold shores of Blighty this week, the 5 weeks has flown by! Mam is here for another 5 weeks though so we'll be making the most of the weekends off doing stuff. Today we've been down the Mornington Penninsular to Sunny Ridge Strawberry farm for a bit of DIY Strawberry picking.... the kids loved scoffing them off the plants as we went (the adults had a few too I noticed). We came away with 4 punnets and heavy stomachs after discovering the cafe there that had loads of cakes & ice-cream with a Strawberry theme. After that we hit the T'Gallant winery just across the road for a spot of testing a few whites and taking a few bottles home for further sampling tonight! (* You need to test these things properly to get an opinion I always find!)Then we climbed up to Arthurs Seat to view the bay from up high, before heading down to Dromana & the beach there. Phew. See all of the photos from today here.

Noosa

This last week Maxine & I have taken off for Queensland beaches and a bit of well deserved R&R. We went up to Noosa Heads, about an hour north of Brisbane and a fairly big holiday destination over here. You'll be able to tell from the pictures that we didn't have the kids (Grandparent week!) so it was just the two of us.

We pretty much crashed on the beach at Noosa most of the week but as its the rainy season we did have a couple of days of rain where we hired a car and did a bit of local exploring to Maroochydore, Mooloolaba, Montville and the Kondalilla national park. We also visted 'The Big Pineapple' plantation (for all of 10 minutes!) and also the world famous (*Now that Steve Irwin is dead!) Australia Zoo. The Crocodile Hunter may be no more but you wouldn't know it if you visted the zoo. Its a bit spooky really, they go on like it never happened with pictures of him everywhere. Bizzare.

All in all, we sunned ourselves & ate ourselves stupid, so it was a very pleasant week! See some pics here.

House just saved

Eight months after the first of our cats nine lives disappeared, it would seem that our second has gone today. Melbourne has hit record temperatures at 46 degrees C and with it came a huge risk of bush fire. There are many burning uncontrollably across Victoria today. Unfortunately that risk came rather too close for comfort. We saw a fire a couple of KMs from us in the morning and didn't think too much of it - it appeared to have been put out. Later in the afternoon the scorching 100 KM hour winds re-lit the fire and it headed towards our house. As you do, you don't think it will be too bad and it won't get that close. About 10 minutes later we were told to evacuate the house and get away from the fire front. Maxine & the kids took the car up into the hills. The fire burned the very dry grasses and trees right behind our house... spot fires started in our gardens from the embers. It was another surreal experience. The fire continued to rage up the hill and apparently 6 houses within streets of our area have burned down. Luckily, ours survived....... I think I may need to review my stance on the man upstairs. Here are the pictures from today - all taken from our back garden.

1st Day at School !!!

The day has finally arrived that our first born has gone to school! We're very proud of him! After much fretting, hand-wringing & concern (on our behalf) it turned out to be a breeze for him. We fully expected and were bracing ourselves for the tears (ours and his!) but it turned out to be much easier than we expected. He seemed to love it. Early days yet but I think he's going to be OK ...... Ethan's pics are here.

Tennis Torched

Its hot. SERIOUSLY hot. We went to the Australian open quarter finals yesterday at the Rod Laver Arena in the middle of one of Melbournes biggest ever heatwaves. It was about 38 degrees when we got there at 11am and crept up to 43 degrees by 5pm. It's expected to be like that for 4 or 5 days !! We could barely walk in it so god only knows how the tennis players could actually play before the roof was closed. We saw two of the womens QFs and then the Andy Murray conquerer Fernando Verdasco beat Jo-Wildried Tsonga. It was a good day out.....just too damn hot!

Folks Arrive

The long flight from Blighty has delivered the folks to the warmth & sunshine of Oz in January.... their milky white skin looks ready for a tan! As you can see from these pictures, its not taken them long to discover the pool & spa and have spent the last couple of days recovering from the jetlag horizontal on the sunbeds.

We've also been up to the Dandenong ranges on Australia Day (Today) to take in the view over Melbourne and once again fatten up the birds (the feathered variety). Now they're just off to the 4th Round of the Australian Open ... so for anyone watching the James Blake vs Jo-Wilfried Tsong match today - look out for the 'whities' in the crowd.

Happy New Year !!

A bit late as usual but HAPPY NEW YEAR to you all (whoever you are that's still reading this !) We spent New Years Eve with some friends this year at our place (now that we have our swish entertaining area!). They came across for the traditional barbie for dinner and then we had a few beers before they had to get back. So we watched the fireworks from Sydney on the telly as well as those in the city and then had an early(ish) night ... we're getting on a bit now you see...

A couple of days into the new year and we decided on venturing to a new part of Melbourne we'd not explored and went to Cranbourne Royal botanic gardens - which is actually only about 10 miles away from where we live. Something else for the folks to explore when they are over later in the month. Some of our photos of the day are here....