Sunday 19 December 2010

House pets

We are a bit bleary eyed this morning here in the Beckett household.

We had a very nice day yesterday, lounging by and swimming in the BDI pool. We then went to the Beach House for tea.









We aren't tired because we had a busy day. We are tired because one of our house pets kept us awake. We don't have dogs, cats or fish. We have resident geckos. At about midnight last night, the gecko that lives in the light fitting decided to start making a 'chat chat' noise. We did not know what it was at the time so you can imagine the scene.

We evacuated into the lounge while we turned the lights on to find out what kind of monster was terrorising us. There he was, as large as life, on the wall by the ceiling - nightmare proportions of four inches in length. Happy that we were not about to be eaten alive by a giant spider or snake we settled back into bed. Just as we were dropping off, 'chat, chat, chat, chat'. Aargghhh!

Jeremy made me up a bed on the sofa and he went and snuggled up to Mr Pickle. About 10 minutes later the heavens opened and there was a rainstorm to end all rainstorms which kept me awake for the next 45 minutes. 

It felt like I had been asleep for about five minutes when Jeremy appeared by my side saying that Mr Pickle had asked him to leave his bed. By this point we were both exhausted enough to be confident that any amount of chattering by the gecko would not keep us awake. At 2.45 we went back to our bed and passed out. 

Neither of us were ready for the arrival of Mr Pickle at 8.15 am (technically this would have been a lovely lie in) beside the bed proclaiming it to be 'a bit morning mummy and daddy'.

Early night tonight with ear plugs if our little friend is feeling chatty. I am happy for him to be in our room as he eats the mozzies. As far as I am concerned, he can bring his friends too if it means I don't get eaten alive.

Sunday 12 December 2010

Christmas has arrived at BDI, Blok E-41

The tree is up and I have decked it with my home made Christmas decorations.

I have been showing mum my creations on skype and I am now ready to reveal them to the world on the blog! Mr Pickle helped make the round layered bauble (in the last picture) and much like Auntie Debs and the famous Squirrel Weathervane, I have pictorial evidence that it was all his own work!


Here are some Christmas trees that I've made for the sideboard:


This is Mr Pickle with some of the felt cirlces from his decoration:




Our Tree before decs:


Mr Pickle threading some baubles with hangers:



Mr Pickle loves the tree:



Here are some of my hand made decs:




This is our joint effort:



Tuesday 7 December 2010

Goodbye Latif and hello Yuni

Our lethargic houseboy left our employment on Friday, last week. It was not a particularly sad parting and Mr Pickle and I are now fighting off his cold! Good job we eat lots of fruit and veg and my multivitamins arrived in the shipping box (ah, the never ending joy of the contents of the shipping boxes).

We now have Yuni working for us. Within the first hour of being in the house she had remade our bed (it clearly wasn't up to standard and I have to say having seen her made bed I totally agree), made Mr Pickle's bed (because I hadn't got to it yet), swept and mopped the floor and got on with some ironing. The woman is like a whirlwind of activity! 

Jeremy was so impressed that he felt he had to take some pictures to share with everyone.




When Oscar came in from pre-school for lunch he was very excited to see Yuni and insisted on showing her his playroom. This is the playroom prior to the unpacking of the shipping boxes (is anyone fed up of hearing about these shipping boxes yet?)


We were very fortunate to snap Yuni up.

Friday 3 December 2010

Shipping Boxes have been opened

Hooray for the shipping boxes having arrived!

Mr Pickle now has more toys in his play room than he knows what to do with, so that is good because it means we can rotate them when he gets bored.

We have even managed to convince him that the brand new Lego Duplo farm was delivered to us by mistake and not to Father Christmas in the North Pole. It was always meant for Christmas but because I was so excited about the shipping boxes we just tore into them without thinking and there it was!

I have pictures to add into this post at a later date.


There was a casualty of the voyage. Button Garage Ding was bent out of shape and cracked! The one item that Mr P wanted to see above all else and it was damaged. I whisked it away while he was busy with the other toys with the promise that I would fix it while he was in school the next day.


We could set up a small ex-pat shop with the consumable contents of our shipping. 3 bottles of maple syrup, 20 packets of taco seasoning, 15 packets of flour and corn tortillas, 3 jars of marmite, 2 bottles of Worcestershire Sauce, 2 bottles of Sarson's malt vinegar.........the list goes on. I also have a picture of this!


I can also report that I managed to mend Button Garage Ding the next morning with a hairdryer and some electrical tape. As good as new!


Thursday 2 December 2010

Where are my shipping boxes? The next installment.....

Where are they? I hear you all cry.

They are in our garage. Hooray!!! Totally unexpected!

I got a phonecall from Jeremy telling me that a delivery had arrived for me to the office. I was very pleased because I presumed that either the book from the book depository, my thread cutter or my DMC threads had arrived. Jeremy then told me that Asa, the company's driver, would be delivering them to me this afternoon on his rounds. I was even more pleased as it meant I wouldn't have to wait until Jeremy arrived home to open them.

I asked what size the package was and Jeremy said 'quite big, you'll have to open the garage doors all the way'. I was very confused and said that I hadn't ordered anything that big. He lauged and then the penny dropped. The shipping boxes had arrived! 

Only yesterday I told someone that they were languishing in Hong Kong. How wrong I was. Mr Pickle is very excited and we are waiting for Jeremy to arrive home so that we can have the ceremonial opening of the boxes (mostly because I cannot actually move them).