A packed month

August was a packed month with a wonderful wedding celebration, family gatherings, our premature granddaughters making good progress and our little cottage settling into its new habitat. 

Our daughter Hannah’s best friend from Primary School, Tilly, was the beautiful bride and Sam her handsome husband. The maids of honour were Tilly’s sister-in-law, Jill, and Hannah and the delightful flower girls were Tilly and Hannah’s gorgeous little daughters.

It was a really lovely day and everyone had a good time – and the sun shone all day!

Before the wedding we had a lovely gathering at Jack and Carole’s (Jonathan’s brother and our sister-in-law) where we were able to catch up with lots of the family in one go. Once again it was a glorious winter day – warm enough to sit outside which was so lovely. 

The gorgeous weather continued and we enjoyed ourselves walking on Ben and Sarah’s property, taking trips to their lookout which has views to die for, and having picnics with friends – while wishing so much that Ben and Sarah could join us. 

Meanwhile, the two of them have been simply amazing, travelling an hour every morning to the hospital, spending all day with the twins and then travelling home through the rush hour traffic to get home again – seven days a week, every day since 13 May. 

Happily the girls have been making good progress and it was a great moment when the two of them were put together in one cot again when Matilda was put on low flow oxygen and graduated from Intensive Care to Special Care.

Work on our house seemed disappointingly slow after the fanfare and excitement of its arrival on 30 July. 

Once the two halves had been gradually brought together, there were a number of small chips and knocks resulting from the journey there that needed repairing. 

The join between the two halves also needed to be “made good”.  The fans needed to be installed and various other little jobs were required. 

Just one guy did all this work- he did a great job but it was a slow process!

We had one little visitor who wasn’t very pleased about the arrival of the house – a sweet little blue fairy wren that had caught sight of its reflection in one of the windows. Poor thing kept bashing into the window- attacking “the intruder” until Jonathan fixed up a sheet to hide its reflection. 

Then in mid-August things started to move along when work began on the framing for the deck and the car port. We had hoped to be moving in while Hannah and Pieter and our little granddaughter were staying in Brisbane but that was unfortunately not to be. 

We were also very much hoping that the twins would be out of hospital before their return the The Netherlands. Sadly, that was also not to be. We had to be content with lots of cuddles at the hospital.

Then the lovely nurses in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit heard we were all sad that we couldn’t have a family group photo taken together and very sweetly made it possible just a couple of days before the Dutch contingent flew out!

A nurse brought them out of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit into the lobby and waited while we took lots of photos. She then took some lovely family portraits for us!

On the last day before they flew home we discovered a hidden gem – Ipswich Nature Centre. This delightful park is free to get in (although a gold coin donation is suggested.)

Set in lush landscaped gardens, the curving and shady walkways take you through a variety of exhibits of Australian wildlife. 

We saw various types of wallabies, grey and red kangaroos, lots of water birds, including black swans, many different species of birds (in the roomy tropical aviary), dingoes, wombats, water dragons and even sweet bilbies in a special nocturnal exhibit.