Ways To Cope

Maybe you know this statue, it´s kinda reassuring those visiting Pinarroo Valley Memorial Park (cemetery).

I wanted to visit this place since Grace and Sami described it as beautiful and when cool - rather early or late - there are kangaroos all over.

It was cool yesterday.
Yes, this is a cemetery - beautiful, no?

This sight of a graveyard you won´t find in Germany, not allowed.

Or even this!

Yesterday five years ago our Mum lost her fight against cancer.
It was the right day to go to this place yesterday.

They even give Christmas Crackers to their loved ones....

Swimming in the lakes and ponds is not allowed (there is a sign even!), yet we found these...

Cause... must´ve happened, peeps fall in, no wonder!

When we came around this corner we really weren´t sure.
That´s not... is it? No, can´t be!!!

That´s not a barbie-area, no?!

Phew, no!
The more expensive ones.
Guess Aussies have some humor, no?

So many ways to put up your loved ones.
We saw just the dates, creative backgrounds, pictures... I liked this one:

We also saw ducks and birds and... roo-poo but no roos.

I said to Ingo, aww, well, we know how roos look like, huh, and Ingo added, "and taste like" - true, matey!

Mum sure´d loved this one.

As long as you´re in our hearts and minds you´re still around, Mum, I miss ya.
Wish we had such cemeteries to enjoy back home.
Five years.
And a day, you would add, ha-ha.

Rockingham - No Excuse No More

So yesterday we hopped on Transperth and went down to Kwinana where H, B and L picked us up and took us to Rockingham - such a nice place!

We walked the nice scene a bit and then met up with their friend L for lunch.

And... guess what?

Ingo and I shared Fish & Chips cause they offered the fish also just grilled, which is ok to Ingo.
I got a plain kid´s plate and could join, aaaand: Yummy!!

So, add this dish to fish-fingers and tuna and I can say: I do eat fish, huh? ;-)
No more excuses!

It´s really a beautiful place if really windy and with 24C only, quite cool, too!

Guess I wouldn´t go on this one....

But isn´t that a beaut?

A turquoise boat!

We drove to L´s place to pick up a small boat, he goes to the beach every morning and takes findings home.
Makes some arty stuff, no?

On the way there is a look-out from which you can see Penguin Island in the distance and Ingo really asked which year Sami took us there.
Hello?! ;-) The year we got married!

Back at H´s and B´s home the boys "played" a bit, aka building a lightning-detector/warner.

Actually it was for L but he got bored of watching ;-)

Us girls chatted, munched on salt & vinegar chips and Territory jerky and by all means I´ll roll home by myself if the eating goes on like that!
Crazy.
I tried to buy a phone online. You cannot pay via paypal here being German.
Why?
They wanna avoid us doing money laundering. Thank you Germany. We talk of AUS$ 150.
Germany sucks. At times at least.

Anyhows, thanks H, B and L for another fun day!

And as I type the ad is running cause... Jamie´s Super Food is on ten - love watching him!
Got the 15-minutes season and maybe I will get to cooking for real now and then (even if one 15-minutes-meal likely will take an hour for me).

So sad it´s so difficult for us to come here permanently...

Sad btw...
To Mum. You left us on this date, so sad you couldn´t meet Wee One. I miss you.

Tom And I

We´re on holiday, right?
We sleep in a little, then have a brekkie with a ripe mango, a ripe avo and a sandwich with Coon (I was about giving Vegemite a go again but Ingo said I have to eat it up if I buy, so I chickened out).

The telly is on with seven´s Morning Show.
Tom Jones is in Australia and was answering in an interview to the question what the oddest thing was that had happened to him:

He was taking a shower when someone came in. Like not into the cabin but leaning over the wall.
It was Elvis Presley. He was so eager to learn what Tom Jones was thinking about his new idea for a song he sang it to him right away.
"I had Elvis Presley singing to me, literally, while I was taking a shower."

Now, that happened to me, too, minus the literally, certainly.

1999 we were in this Tourist Park in May, October and December.
First, we lived in a simple cabin without toilet/shower and bought a car, then we slept in the car (we came back to extend our visa), then the simple cabin again to sell the car.

The managers were huge Elvis-fans - very often (or always? I can´t remember, thank you brain) Elvis was playing.

So, Tom and I huh, Elvis in the shower!
Am I thankful we got upgraded by accident and have a cabin with aircon, shower and toilet ever since.
No more Elvis in the shower!

(No) Lemon Tree

So, what´ve been up to... we certainly saw the obligatory for Christmas, first time in the original, how nice.
It was also good to be able to listen to the Obamas without getting babbled in the German translation. How about subtitles, ever heard of that, Germany?

We opened our last cheapy Christmas Cracker...

Another thing you won´t get in Germany.

Yesterday we went to the city, Ingo gave this busker a buck cause he was really playing well, if a tad too loud for my liking...

Actually I wanted a new phone but the only one with double sim was too expensive.
Westpac wasn´t open, either cause Aussies are clever.
If a public holiday falls on a Sunday they get another day off. Certainly not the case in Germany...

Got some pics of beautiful Perth mixing old and new...

Let´s see how this looks like if hopefully we can come back sometime soon...

The title?
Every time we head for the bus we pass this beautiful lemon tree...

... giving me a tune of that song by Fools Garden.
We´re for sure not at all bored here. Sorry if I gave you an earworm ;-)

A Mix

For 25th the new Park-management offered a BYO-Christmas lunch and also the Kingsway Shopping Centre opened it´s doors for a free Wanneroo Christmas Lunch "for all those in need of company on this special day" - nice ideas, no?
Which reminds me: When we first stayed in this Tourist Park in 1999 the address was Wanneroo. Over the years our address changed to Landsdale and now we live in Madeley. Crazy!

We didn´t join either lunches since Sami was so kind to invite us over to her Portuguese Christmas lunch :-)

I expected heaps of yummy food - loads of fish, too, which sadly is nothing for me, and lots of Portuguese talk, which I certainly do not understand at all.

Since Sami and her family lived in Braunschweig for a while Ingo wore a BRAUNSCHWEIG t-shirt and to my surprise a girl came over and said in German she doesn´t speak German.
And every time she has to write down the town she was born in she has to google it to get it right.
She was born in Braunschweig.

Huh???

And then.
Her Dad showed up.
After leaving Braunschweig 15 years ago he spoke in my opinion some pretty perfect German!
Funny thing was it was Ingo who had trouble talking German to him and fell into English all the time at first.

Languages, huh?

Sami had an Indian girl over, too and her Daughter´s boyfriend is from France, telling us the French are stupid he won´t go back there ;-)
We were quite a mix there.

And certainly everybody, Ingo included, ahhhh-ed and ohhhh-ed over Sami´s first Grandson, he is a cuie-pie for sure!

We enjoyed the new shaded patio, wonderful food and fun company heaps.
And instead of being lost in Portuguese we spoke the most German in quite a while to others.

To top it off we even got pressies, thank you so much for spoiling us, Sami!

With Transperth everything went smooth, too - on the way to Warwick we even were the only passengers!
So that was Christmas 2016, today we don´t do much, just some grocery-shopping. Aircon is on already, 31C, much better than the still warm 11C back home!

Fun fact we learned: Fries with ketchup and mayonnaise is not to be found outside Germany.
I always thought that´s the most normal stuff to have!

The Day Before Christmas This Time

Today is boxing day over here and hence Santa isn´t in yet, still climbing ;-)
I´m a tad behind again, hence expect some pics!

Thursday H, B and L picked us up at Kwinana train station and via a lille, beautiful detour with a bit of gravel road even, took us to their brand new home.
Awww, made me wanna buy a car and head off to the Outback again!

That house... awesome, so clever with the kitchen-area. If we had anything like that I might cook once in a while.
Maybe. ;-)
Also the rest, beautiful, even the typical small space to the neighbours is so well done!

The boys prepared a bbq...

Later B showed us how quick building in Australia really goes.
Crazy, 1.5 years ago cows grazed where there are now houses!

After that beautiful arvo we arrived in time for...

... and promptly outed us as non-Aussies laughing at this:

Everybody gave us a look when we told we go/have been there, but really, it was fun - and sweet!

One of the residents played the guitar and was the "first voice", his wife handed out the texts.
And as the evening went by I learned that when she was 14 - she is in her late 70`s now - her now-hubby was dancing with her.
They wrote letters for a while after she left but eventually lost contact.
50 years later, after her husband had passed she tried to find him on facebook (!), but alas, heaps of peeps with that name!
She remembered a Greek cousin and the rest is history aka Christmas Carols as newly-weds in Kingsway Tourist Park.

Awww, no?

Not so nice: I got four really huge mossie-bites, but that was worth it.

Friday we went to Freo again. Construction sites don´t need to be ugly here!

Awww, the wheel...

Just from the ground cause... 40 meters is a bit too high for my liking!

I love those houses in the harbour!

And the beach...

Or those cute changing-rooms...

And then... Just said I´d like to buy a car and head off again, right?
And then we run into this!

A Patrol LWB, just like ours back then, a couple years younger but just what we need!
And here:

We even could afford this, my, this was SO tempting!
A beauty, no, just the wrong color, but what the heck!

But, this is Australia, not Germany, we had to sign that we leave, and when.
So instead we paid Little Creatures a visit...

Tables are marked a bit different here:

Different is also their Xmas-tree:

The "star" on top certainly comes naked:

On we drove to catch up with Mark and his wife and then we headed home, my the days sure are packed here! :-)

Today nothing much.
The mate at our lille Grocery store said, "And merry.... ahhhh... merry... I always forget the word!.... Christmas!"
Yep, he´s from Iran... "and I ran", joke by L :-)

In case family reads along, to you a Merry Christmas today!

Forgot to ask Niece if she looks forward meeting Santa Clause.
Last time she whispered a fearful no, reckon she had her reasons ;-)