Tony's Tales: The Summer slowdown

Well it's been quite a while since we were blogging and we have to put it down to the summer slowdown (remembering that it's summer here in Dubai, and boy do they have long hot ones!). When we were last online Sarah & Alexander had started their very long summer school break and the entire family had de-camped back to Melbourne to catch up with friends and family and to enjoy the cooler weather. In fact, many of those who can depart the Middle East do so, and it does drop to a lower pace, especially given that the holy month of Ramadan commenced in August and the associated fasting really slows everything down.

Rather than boring you all with the relaxing in Melbourne, we'll keep this one short and just provide some photos to get us all back on track for the second half of the year.

At right is a scene in Melbourne at Aunt Jenny and Uncle Stuart's with, happily, plenty of gumboots after the five year drought, and (from left) Ethan, Logan and Rylee with their bigger cousins Alexander and Sarah.

Melissa, Sarah and Alexander then headed over to Perth for a week to catch up with friends and family, including Uncle Stuart, Aunt Jenni (yes, they're different) and (from left) cousins India, Oliver and Harvey with Sarah and Alexander.

Just as Melissa and the kids returned to Dubai we had a health scare from Grandma Dorothy back in Melbourne who had a minor stroke following her hip replacement surgery. Good news is that it could have been much worse and it was mostly a wake up call that will result in Mum having both her carotid arteries cleaned out. Keep smiling Mum!

To close out the summer the ever-thinking Alexander proposed that he be allowed to buy a small pet so that he could prove to his parents that he could be responsible enough for a larger (think canine) pet. After some investigation on his part it was decided that it would be turtles, and hence the greatly enlarged images of Shelley and Crash at right. Despite living in the environment of a boys room both seem to be doing well at present -- stay tuned in future blogs.

Well that's all from us for now, but we are very excited as we enter the final week of the Australia Footbal League season and Tony's beloved Collingwood Magpies are in the Grand Final and in fine form. Let's see what the coming week holds. GO PIES !