Christmas Highlights

Jessie and Goofy are not the only two characters to have joined our household over the last couple of months.  A few days after we first brought Jessie home we rescued a young couple from the Wicked Witch of the West(ern Australia).  Adam and Coralee both used to work with Barnadi at the Green Park Brasserie in Bath and the have recently been travelling the globe.  Their first stop in Australia was Perth where they stayed with Coralee's Aunty and although she might describe herself as a witch, she is not really that wicked.  She believed the place where Adam had been working was haunted, so every night would have to perform an exorcism in order to purge the house of the evil spirits he inadvertently brought back with him.  The tensions eventually got too great and so they cut their time in Perth short by a couple of months and came to stay with us, just in time for Christmas.

Instead of staying at home to cook Christmas dinner Barnadi decided this year he wanted a traditional Aussie Christmas, a BBQ on the beach.  Instead of going to the overly popular and crowded beaches like St Kilda or Brighton, Barnadi had a very specific stretch of coast line in mind, the Bellarine peninsula.  The little bit of land that sticks out into Port Phillip bay just south of Geelong is a very underrated bit of coastline, with more people heading down its counterpart the Mornington.  It is quite a long drive so we had planned to leave early, but unfortunately Adam and Coralee had other ideas, they had gone out on Christmas eve and were not prepared to be seeing anything of the day until after noon. Even once they were up, the journey was pretty torturous with sudden turns bringing on waves on nausea in our hung-over back seat companions.  By the time we arrived at the Bellarine peninsula, the hangovers had lifted, but all the available BBQs were in use.  So instead we found a nice quite beach hidden behind a small cliff and went for a swim/paddle in the calm shallow waters.  Goofy was a little undecided over his first swim but he took to it like a duck to water, or in his case a dog to water.  As we came back up from our swim we saw that all the BBQs had become available and so a Christmas dinner of Sausages, steak, lamb and turkey burgers could go ahead.  With suitably full bellies my four passengers slept the whole way home. 

Starting a family

I would be the first to admit when we started looking to buy our own house, one of my biggest incentives was being able to have pets.  Proper pets I mean, of the mammalian variety (no offence to our lovely goldfish Lilo, Lila and all that have gone before).  No sooner had we moved in to our new house than we begun looking, but problems beseeched us every step of the way.  Promising adverts for free kittens ended up leading to disappointment when we called to find they had all been taken.  Puppies became available, but not in the breeds or colours Barnadi was after.  We got close to getting a kitten from one of Barnadi's customers at work, but it ran away from home before we could even pick it up.  Our search went on a back burner as pre-booked holidays approached and priorities got realigned. 

Then on a perfectly ordinary Saturday I opened up Gumtree and saw her, one of a litter of four ginger kittens, available immediately.  Cautiously, after previous disappointment, I phoned the number on the advert and spoke to an old Greek man who informed me there were still two left and it was a first come first served operation, so if we were interested we should head over.  We didn't need to be asked twice and got straight into the car.  When we arrived we were shown around the side of the house by the old man's daughter and entered what appeared to be a zoo of domesticated animals, rabbits, birds, dogs and eventually the kittens.  There where still two left and despite Barnadi's desire to take them both, the old man informed us someone else was also on their way, so he couldn't give us both.  He handed me the slightly larger of the two, a completely ginger kitten and unto Barnadi he bestowed the smaller ginger and white kitten, with whom he instantly fell in love.


Jessie

"Don't ask me what sex they are" grumbled the old Greek man as we pondered the decision of which of the two irresistibly cute bundles we would take with us.  To Barnadi however, it was no contest, the kitten in his arms won outright with her white socks and bright blue eyes (which incidentally have no turned green).  The kitten cried and hid under Barnadi's jacket the whole way home, whilst we discussed unisex names, a quick look indicated the kitten was female, but it wouldn't be the first time a mistake like that has been made.  Using one of my own middle names as inspiration we decided on Jessie, or Jess for short.  Once we were out the car and we had her fed and watered and settled in she started to look a little more relaxed and even begun to purr.  This is how we adopted our first child.





Goofy

Barnadi has always wanted to get another dog, preferably a border collie in either brown or blue Merle.  I have never had a dog, but out of principle have always been in favour of cross breeds.  The same weekend we found Jess we found another advert for a litter of 11 border collie and maremma cross puppies.  In one of the photo's on the advert sat away from the rest of the litter was a fawn, white and black boy, which as soon as Barnadi saw, he knew had to be the one.  We phoned straight away, not expecting to get that lucky twice in a row, but all the puppies were available including the one in the photo that they had already christened Goofy.  The puppies weren't going to be ready to take away from their mother for another couple of weeks, but to ensure they kept Goofy for us we put down a deposit.  The two weeks seemed to drag on and on, but in that time Jess got braver and braver exploring more of the house and garden, and making it hers.  Then the day came that we could pick up Goofy, so we got up early and drove down to Frankston, he was the last of the litter to be collected and his mother watched us with immense distrust and resentment as we walked off with her last remaining baby.  The trauma of being separated from his mother affected Goofy as badly as it had affected Jessie and he cried and cried in the car.  We did not go straight home however as we had driven so far we stopped and had lunch in Mornington before heading off. 

The introduction between Goofy and Jessie was an unnerving experience, we first brought Goofy around the back into the garden, then I went to fetch Jess.  She came out bounding around as usual, until suddenly she saw him.  The transformation was instantaneous.  Her back arched, her hair stood on end and her whole body shook with terror.  I took her back inside quickly and calmed her down.  Once she was calm I took her back this time to the kitchen window, when she saw him it immediately elicited the same reaction.  So we gave her a bit more time to calm herself back down before we tried again.  This time Barnadi held Goofy and I held Jess and we edged closer to each other until they could cautiously sniff each other.  That night they slept side by side as if they had been friends for life.  They still fight like Cats and Dogs during the day, but as they sleep they are like angels.  This is how we adopted our second child.

Little Angels?

It seems we are now well and truly settled into our life in Australia, we both have full time permanent jobs, we have our own house and we have now started our own family.  What more could we possibly need.