Goodbye Granny!

We've had a fantastic last week with Rae in Sydney.  The weather has behaved itself much better - November has always been a rainy month in our experience.  On Tuesday night Jules and I went to see Quantum of Solace which was a very rare treat.  We loved the film - Daniel Craig is a great James Bond and although we found that we often couldn't really work out what was going on because of the hand held camera, you just can't beat a Bond film!  

Wednesday was a big day for Tess - her second School orientation day.  She had a ball and behaved as if it was already her school which is fantastic and a big relief.  We bought her uniform, shoes and lunchbox so she's all set to go.  In the evening Duncan, Jo, Martin and Alicia Arthur came round for dinner and we had a lovely evening with a lot of laughs and a fair amount of wine too!  

Saturday dawned and it was obviously going to be a scorcher (we discovered later that the barometer had hit 36 degrees) so we decided to go out on the speedboat.  We launched it at Middle Harbour which we haven't done before and cruised around all the little inlets, marvelled at all the beautiful houses overlooking the water and had a lovely lunch at this little restaurant conveniently accessible by boat - talk about lifestyle of the rich and famous - in the photo you can just make out our tiny speedboat behind Jules and Rae with the yellow and blue "z" shape on it.  

Sunday was Rae's last day and after all the excesses of our week we had a lazy morning but around lunchtime decided we need to get out and about.  We headed down to Manly and decided to take the ferry across to the City for a little wander around.  It's something we very rarely do due to living on the "insular peninsula" and it's a shame because it's so easy and Sydney city is very beautiful.  We dropped Rae at the airport early evening - Tom was fast asleep and will be very confused tomorrow to find his granny gone.  In the car on the way to the airport we recapped on everything we had done during the past 2 weeks - although it's not a particularly long time we managed to do an awful lot which made it feel longer.  Saying goodbye was hard as always and Jules and I came home and opened a bottle of wine - the last for the next 2 weeks as it's detox time before Christmas (how well do you think we'll do?!)

I've also attached a little Christmas cheer from Tess and Tom - enjoy!!