.
Until now we have had FiFo miners, FiFo families and even FiFo wives with the latest development according to Erin Laurance, being the FiFo grandparents. And the logical extension to the FiFo phenomenon, of which there is a reported 50,000 people in Western Australia into FiFo jobs, is the DiDo or drive-in drive-out workers and grandparents.

For grandparents seeking an unsurpassed, top flight lifestyle, towing a donga on wheels and parking in a caravan park on the wrong side of the tracks, provides neither a king-size bed, room service, Sky News and peerless en-suite facilities. So it is with some reluctance that grandma and grandpa have taken up the FiFo option, becoming more like FiFiFo aficionados’. (Forever Into Fly-In Fly-out)

But unlike Fly-in fly-out employment which can put stress on family relationships, Grandparent FiFo brings the benefits of forward planning of school holiday child-minding duties, dinner gatherings and celebratory occasions such as birthdays and the like.

In the recent past DiDo been mingled with the GP FiFo, either taking on a motor-home relocation or getting the new Falcon G6 out of the ‘lock and leave’ facility in Winthrop and driving for a couple of days in order to actually exit this vast state of ours and onto the Adelaide Hills and nearby eastern states destinations.

Secretly however, grandma and grandpa are genuine devotees of SiSo (ship-in ship-out) racking up something like 150 nights on Princess cruise vessels and earning platinum status into the bargain. Platinum enables you to leave your shoes outside the door in the evening and or to receive free satellite Wi-Fi so that you can sit up in bed in the morning and read the papers on your iPad

Erin, Ava, Dave and Sophie

Frankie and Sophie

Stu baby with Blogger Frankie

 

 

Brian Laurance, Brian Laurance and Ray Laurance

Brian Laurance, Brian Laurance and LynnD Laurance

Where would be we be without Google? A couple of years ago I  learned that Google Images would find your matching pictures even if they had been pixilated. A test was required to prove the theory and so a beaut picture of Isabel and I on a balcony verandah in the south of France was the bait followed by a click of the ‘search’ button.

The result was 16 pages of images of couples and families, old and young, big and small,  sitting on verandahs, in parks, downtown, in the lounge room and even a picture of a horse before proceeding to the knackery. Nothing like the original search engine image of Brian and Isabel, but couched within that plethora of images was a simple black and white picture of Brian Laurance, financial controller of an American Construction company.

Brian the finance guru lived with his wife LynnD and their 2 daughters in Tacoma near Seattle in Washington State. This Brian was the second Laurance I had communicated with over the last couple of years, the other being a native of Auckland NZ and all having the common problem of trying vainly to impart the spelling of the family name over the telephone; whether for theatre tickets, a restaurant booking or setting up a new account.

The US component of the family hailed from Flemmish weaver stock, persecuted as protestants and ending up in the Netherlands before emmigrating to the land of the free. The Kiwi branch turned out to be very much closer with his great, great grandfather being the brother of my great, great grandfather, all one time weavers who had settled in Ireland. One cannot imagine European weavers persecuted for their protestant religion choosing to move to Ireland. But I choose to leave the past right there!

In 2009 we travelled to NZ aboard the Diamond Princess which had us disembark in Auckland and a chance to catch up with the Brian Laurances from across the ditch. We spent a very pleasant few days with Brian and his wife Janice, his Mum June and Dad Ray and their families, chewing over respective family histories and coming away with the original log my great great grandfather Thomas Clarke Laurance kept while a young lieutenant on a sailing ship working his passage from Cork to Quebec.

Three years later in 2012 we travelled to the north west US city of Seattle and had dinner with Brian and LynnD Laurance at a popular mariner near their home in nearby Tacoma. A really pleasant after work gathering with the setting sun and boats gently bobbing in the calm harbour waters and a chance to compare family histories. With further travelling planned in coming years Google may turn up more Brian Laurances

   

This week we have heard from and seen mummy-bloggers, but the real scoop is the crop of new baby-bloggers. A quick note from grandpa to Frankie in Melbourne drew a hasty and thoughtful response.

Grandpa to Frankie

“G’Day Frankie, Grandpa came across your little frozen cubes of veggies in the freezer and decided to write and ask how you are getting on?
I suppose you are now way past blitzed veggies and taking in t ‘bone steak in your adventurous strides.
Say hello to your Mum and Dad for me and say we are looking forward to March 26
Pip pip!
Love Grandpa”

Blogger Frankie replied

Dear Grandpa
It was lovely to hear from you. I still quite like puréed food, but don’t send it over…enjoy it yourself, perhaps stir it through a pasta, together with some chorizo. Mum made me a Ploughman’s Lunch today, which I thought was quite strange because I am not a Ploughman, nor do I have any idea what a Ploughman is.

It was good anyway, and it had lettuce and carrot, some ham, cherry tomatoes, grapes and a piece of toast with pesto spread on BOTH sides. As is the custom with the peeps in my set, if its worth eating straight from a plate it’s worth throwing on the floor, having mum pick it up and put it on the plate again, then eat it (repeat step one and two as necessary). Mum also made some icypoles out of banana, which I just love.

Anyway, you should know that I’ve pushed up a couple of little chompers, which I reckon is great because I can now bite things like my bed and the wooden frame around the mirror and it leaves a couple of little indentations (that’s a big word…where did I learn that?). Dad reckons they’re a bit crooked and went straight out and took out health insurance with orthodontics cover. I think he overreacted, although I will concede that, given that I only have two lower teeth, I do technically have an underbite.

Dad bought a little seat for me that attaches to the handle bars of his bike. I reckon it’s great fun…he and I rode down to a cafe in Carlton this morning…he had a coffee, but didn’t get one for me. As a consequence, I fell asleep on the way home.

Did I tell you that I’m going to day care every Thursday and Friday whilst mum and Dad are at work and Uni? I really like it there…it’s at the University of Melbourne, so most of my friends there are the kids of academics…best I don’t go into the details, but I know you’ll be the one to appreciate the implications of that (let’s just say that nappy rash is not the only thing that is RED there).

I’m really looking forward to seeing you in a couple of weeks…I think you’ll be pretty impressed with how well I’m doing…I think you’ll realise that I’m your best grandchild, even if its unlikely that I’ll carry on your name. There’s no need to say anything about it, but know that I know that you know.

Lots of Love

Frankie.

Xxx

All manner of birdlife visit our home garden but never have we seen a kookaburra, which Wednesday began by eyeing off the bedding begonias for any sign of creepy crawlies for half an hour and then tried a fitting in the bird bath.
It’s surveilleance point was the Tipuana tree, which is 18 years old and during summer gives shade to the entire back garden.
Constant feathered friends we usually see are honey eaters and we can have up to 20 or 30 darting in and out of the tree branches in what appears to be a game of tag and chasey. It is amazing to watch them, for they never ever collide either with each other or the branches.
Mr Willy Wagtail is a constant visitor, especially while I am weeding the garden beds and he picks over the newly tilled earth for a bit of tucker. There is also a rather cocky mudlark, noisey as ever, standing up to any potential threat to its livelihood, be it a dog, cat or 100kg monster gardener.
Wattle birds too enjoy darting in and around the trees and shrubbery, the red bearded male along with its plain-jane female version.
Crows are one of the unwanted visitors, for apart from their sickening car-car-car! sound, they love to drop purple poops all over the bird bath and environs. A beautiful overweight palamino homing pigeon is another unwanted variety because it has chosen our place to ‘home’ and always attempts to put sizeable deposits on our outdoor furniture setting. But the squeak associated with the sliding door opening alerts them that the landlord is on the war-path again and they are terrified. At least until my back is turned or while we are away on holidays when they get free reign to move right back in.

Late last year we found ourselves alone at Christmas; the entire clutch of family members had flown the coop, obviously a pay-back for us spending over 4 or 5 months during the year either overseas or over east.
The McInnes’ and Stewarts took their respective caravans to Esperance, for Dave and Erin, like Stu and Jas visiting from Melbourne for the festive season, the call of Jas’ and Erin’s individual maternal nests took presendence on Xmas day.
Undaunted, Isabel and I were cock-a-doodle-do over a pork loin roast with all the trimmings and not a kid or grandkid in sight to fight over the exquisitely crunchy crackling.
By Boxing Day all had been forgiven as half the family members flocked to the Dunsborough holiday home. And how perfect with Sophie and Frankie (and Sascha the dog!) getting to spend quality time with Grandma and Grandpa.
While I am more of a gourmand, Stuart is a well defined gourmet and following roast duck cooked and served for his in-laws Xmas dinner, Stu reserved the epicurean delights of roast goose for us over New Year.
If you cast your mind back to the recent festive season the days were energy zappingly hot and the normally temperate Dunsborough decided to join in with a series of daily 38c
So our quality time was lengthened somewhat, sitting around the air-conditioned lounge room instead of the usual family luncheon setting at the Bootleg Brewery complete with rock bands.
But we did get to marvel at 6 month old Frankie’s mobility skills, Sophie’s articulate communication and door opening skills letting in the heat and allowing Sascha’s preferred option of barking at the neighbours wandering by.
New Year’s Eve arrived and time to turn our attention to matters of a poultry nature as the grand goose had been in the frig thawing for 48 hours and time for it to salute the recently cleaned and especially prepared oven.
At 5.30 pm the kitchen lighting took a serious dim view while the oven was taking an age to heat up. We had struck a ‘brown out’ which is apparently less severe than a ‘black out’, but none-the-less harmful to a ready prepared goose.
I rang Western Power who advised there were no outages for the south west and had I checked if the problem also existed with any of the neighbours. A quick check with Jenny in 13 found her half sized fluorescent circle globe in the kitchen flickering like they usually do. “Just use my oven if your like” she generously proffered, “I am going out, but you are welcome to use it”
After calling a couple of local electricians, who politely laughed at me calling on new year’s eve, one told me it was back to Western Power for me.
Calling the power generating giant, this time I was advised that they had received 780 complaints and that the matter would be rectified by 8.30pm that night.
What a good thing Isabel had a stockpile of yummy left-overs in the little frig to enable us to celebrate the arrival of yet another year.
The following day–still a rather auspicious day– the goose finally joined in the celebrations giving the many unitiated diners the taste of a bird usually the favoured domain of European royalty.

The Perth branch of the family presently numbers 14 with Erin and Dave adding yet another birth’day later this month. Early February each year sees Sophie celebrate the 1st, David observing the 3rd and young Ryan eagerly rejoicing on the 5th.

With so many celebrants to kick up collective heels, a  family knees-up on Saturday February 2nd memorialised the multiple occasions with a fashionable meal of sliders. Whoppers are so yesteryear! Out-dated, two handed and passe when compared to the cutting edge sliders; a chance even to hold these mini burgers with 2 fingers and practically stuff the lot whole into your gob.

Researching all the bakeries of Australia revealed that the genuine slider buns are only made for retail fast food outlets. The ‘family’ slider show must make do with soft round rolls recomended by the bird at the Booragoon Coles store. (ordered 2 days in advance)

It was the usual suspects of Ally, Bec, Erin and Isabel who formed the catering corp for the event with an assortment of lamb, beef,  vegetarian and chicken burger patties. Not even Maccas, KFC or Sizzler can match such an outstanding range of distinctively delish dainties deserving of a dynasty.

The Stewart’s poolside was the popular mid-afternoon venue and several hours in the pool always sets up the appetite for burgers, salad and birthday cake in the form of multiple cupcakes as opposed to those NHMRC incorrect communal cakes that spread the nasties.

There are other months of the year when birthdays tend to collide but July has been chosen for a fully-blown family get together in Broadbeach on the Gold Coast, when the Melbourne branch of three will swell the dynasty ranks to 17. There could even be sliders on the menu!

 

Welcome to the first of our new blog, an occassional posting of family events and grey nomad travel adventures.
Recently the Perth Wildcats celebrated its 30th Anniversary to which Dave got top tickets courtesy of his Meerkats boss Gavin.
A prestige celebratory event at which we rubbed shoulders with past owner Bob Williams and his sons Richard and Chris (the passage of time is a curious matter, for young Chris was in those days employed as a floor wiper and about 9 years of age about the start of the new millenium).
Other shoulder to shoulder greetings involved James Crawford, flown in for the event from his now home in Alabama, Cal Bruton, Eric Watterson, Ned Coten, Trevor Torrence and being actually seated next to the guest of honor for the day, John Worsfold
David was stoked getting to update his 20 y.o. pictures with JC, who not even remembered the event but remarked that Brian’s home cooking on that night included salmon; and an ever obliging top bloke Woosha happy to smile for the IPhone.
The Wildcats Legends team defeated the Pioneer Westate Wildcats and the current Wildcats champions beat the Adelaide 36ers
All that was Sunday February 3rd and the celebrating continued the following morning at a breakfast for 500 at the Perth Exhibition Centre as moi sat next to the former owner and enjoyed the banter and breaking bread.
As one who has only ever won a bride doll in a raffle imagine my joy when David rang again to announce he had fallen heir to more box seats at the following Friday night game. Retirement does have its drawbacks. One never gets a day off in retirement.