District Swimming Competition and Birthday

This has been a bit of a James week.

I think we mentioned a few weeks ago that James came 2nd in his School swimming competition. Well on Wednesday he represented Balgowlah Heights Primary School in the District Swimming Comp.

Our district has 12 primary schools in it. The competition took place in the Warringah Aquatic Centre - an Olympic size pool with electronic timing and a grand-stand for the crowd.

James heat started around 9:30am and he swam well- doing about 48 seconds for the 50 metres. This was just enough to get him into the

final - the only boy from his School to do so. After a long, long wait, at 1:20pm, the final started.

James had a poor start, he dived a little too deep, but was quickly into his stroke and powering down the pool. Having qualified 8th fastest he would do well just to keep up, but he dug deep and swam his heart out to make 5th - a great performance - and a time almost 1 second faster than in his heat. The winning time was 40 seconds - so quite a gap between 1st and 5th.

He was a little disapointed not get top 4 - and go to the Regional Competition at Sydney Olympic park - but when I explained that there are probably 750+ boys in his age group in the District and he was the 5th fastest swimmer -he cheered up.

We were rather proud of James on Wednesday.

JameJames and Tommy waiting for the start of the heats.s
James - lane 3 for the heats.

Lane 1 for the final.
HHHis time, 48.3 seconds, 5th place.

And today our 'little boy' turned 8. When I think

back to 1977 and when I was 8 it brings back great memories - my first Scotland v England football m

atch at Hampden Park (Scotland won 2-1, it rained, and we stood in the terraces); the Queen's Silver Jubillee - I still remember by Cub Scout Badge commemorating the ocasion; and Star Wars opened in the cinemas.

I hope James 8th year brings as many good memories.

His 8th year had a good start as he took 10 friends to Zone3 - a laser skirmish game that involves 35 kids running around in the dark for an hour shooting anything that moves. He had a great time.

Today has invovled getting used to his new skateboard - including the ramp that I built for him - and playing for hours and hours on the Nintendo Wii - Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games has been a big hit.

Cockatoo Island

Cockatoo Island is the largest island in Sydney Harbour. Located at the junction of the Parramatta and Lane Cove rivers, Cockatoo Island is a former imperial prison, industrial school, reformatory and gaol. It is also the site of one of Australia's biggest shipyards during the twentieth century. The first of its two dry docks was built by convicts and was completed in 1857. The island's maritime industrial activity ceased in 1992.

This weekend the Reids and another 3 familes camped on Cockatoo Island.

It was excellent - we arrived on Saturday morning, found our tent (it is already erected when you arrive) and started exploring. There was lots of tunnels for the kids to explore and old ruin buildings for the grown up's to learn about. We had a BBQ dinner, played cards in the rain and eventually got to bed around 10:30pm.

At approx. 2:30am little Olivia woke up and announced "I'm going to vomit". Which she did. All over her sleeping bag. And her sleeping mat. Inside the tent. My attempts to pretend I was still asleep ended when that lovelly smell of fresh vomit was just too over powering and I had to help Emma clean up.

Other than that, a great place to camp and great fun for all.

The other snap above is Jame's futsal team - five a side football for those not familiar with futsal. Season just ended -and James was top scorer.

My season is about to start - we had our first practise match today for the Over 35 Division 4 team. My legs hurt now and I have blisters on my toes.......oh.....and we lost 6-1. It's going to be another tough season!

Ken

The Reid girls....and new car

So as last week was all about the boys, this week is focussed mainly on the ladies in the Reid household.

Olivia

Since we bought the Piano, it has been Olivia who has been practising the most. She has a determination with each new piece and quickly learns new tunes by heart. She is a little impatient and loves to play each piece lightning fast....but she is doing great and show far more interest in the piano than her brother.....

Despite James getting most of the sporting headlines, Olivia is no slouch on the fairways. She has her mothers competitive spirit and competed as hard as anybody today for the honour of being the Pirates Golf Course champion. After a close matc

h it ended with Mum & Dad tied on 47 shots, Jam

es just behind on 49 and Olivia close to us all on 53.

Emma

As I had all the fun yesterday (see final note below) it was Emma's choice of activity today. So after a fairly long lie in bed, we headed North to Palm Beach for breakfast at Barren Joey.

We have a favourite cafe there that is always very quiet and serves simple hearty breakfasts. We were a bit shocked to arrive at 10:00am today and find it queued out and most shocking of all - a little up-market and trendy. Well, Emma secured a table and we sat down and quickly overcame any concerns about the loss of our quaint an

d simple cafe - breakfast was stunning. It was a little wasted on James - I don't think he really needed the raspery coulis, mascarpone cream and honey with his Banana Bread.

After breakfast we had a good walk up the the lighthouse - a great spot with amazing views.

Toys for the Boys.

It was still a good weekend for the boys in the house. James took 3 wickets and hit loads of runs (including a 6) in his cricket match on Saturday morning. James & I also made it along to Sydney FC v Melbourne FC football match this afternoon - Sydney lost unfortunately but we enjoyed the hotdogs and drinks amongst the 23,000 other fans.

Best of all - we got to go in the new car...................

More next week.

Ken