BREAKING NEWS - NIAMH & SEAN

Reuters (Mom) and APS Dad)  have confirmed that the relationship is back on and stronger than ever.
Both were spotted holding hands watching The Disney Channel last night.

Noo Noo with the Mother in Law (Aisling)

BREAKING NEWS ENDS

BREAKING NEWS - Niamh Skerritt and Sean Murphy

Sources close to the couple have reported that Niamh has chucked Sean, but there is no hard evidence to confirm or support this report.
Although other kids in the playground have said that Sean has been spreading malicious gossip that Niamh sucks her thumb and has a teddy bear!!!  Niamh categorically denies that she sucks her thumb and also said it was ridiculous for anyone to think she only has one teddy bear, she said "I have hundreds' before stomping off.

Sean is second from the left.

This is the last picture on record where they attended a function together. The  inter - school X country championships. (Both finished second in their respective heats)
They were pursued throughout the day and asked to comment on the rumours that they had split, both declined, just saying that there will be an official statement issued in due course via there management company.
More news will be posted as we get it.
BREAKING NEWS ENDS

Sydney

Well the kids are now back at school and some sense of normality has returned.

Our Wend has hit the gym again, and I am still as busy, bike riding, guitar playing, golfing and business hunting. It’s tough, but I’m getting through it!!!
First a bit of a rant. What the heck is going on at The Villa, they are selling everyone who can play, I just don't understand how someone as intelligent as Randy Lerner must be, can go so off the rails in the space of 12 months!!! We have gone from European potential to Championship potential. The Blues fans must be piddling themselves laughing. We looked absolutely clueless against Chelsea in Hong Kong.
Anyway, we had a week in Sydney whilst the kids were off, what a great place for a visit. It’s a three and a half hour flight there and a 5 hour flight back, it’s the wind you wind you know.
We got there at midday, so we got stuck in straight away and had a much civilised lunch at a place called Doyle’s on the Quay. This place sits right on Sydney harbour directly across from The Opera House, and nearly under the bridge, quite surreal, having seen both so often on the TV to actually be there.
As you can well imagine, with its location it was a rhino experience (they know how to charge), but considering where we were not too hefty really.
We then had to get checked in at The Menses Hotel, not a bad place, well located just off the main strip, George Street, within walking distance of everything near the harbour, I can recommend it, if you ever get over here.
The idea was that we would have a quick walk around the harbour and ferry station, as we had arranged to meet Jody, Our Kids daughter , who lives just outside Sydney CBD in a place called Coogee. Trouble was, we all fell asleep, didn’t wake until 5.30pm, so the initial sightseeing had to wait.
We had arranged to meet Jody at a bar alongside the harbour jetty, directly underneath The Opera House, really buzzy place.
Managed to get a livener in in a bar underneath the Overseas passenger Terminal in the harbour before we met Jode.

The Harbour

Jody looked so well, she was over the moon to see us, she doesn’t get too many folk from the UK coming out to see her, so as you can imagine we reminded her of home. Not that she is thinking of going back, although she misses family and friends, she just loves her life in Sydney.
Had a great evening, although it became quickly apparent, that I was there to go to the bar to get the drinks, the kids were there to listen only, ‘cus we couldn’t get a word in edgeways with Our Wend and Jode!!
On the way back, we had to go past the Four Seasons Hotel, there must have been about 40/50 people outside in sleeping bags curled up on the pavement, clearly someone inside they wanted to see, but no idea who it could have been. They were also all very strangely dressed, lots of colour, piercings, weird hairdo’s, army type boots, over the top make up.
Little Peter since we got to Oz has not stopped talking about the fact that he cannot get brioche. Thursday morning we set off to find somewhere to have breakfast (brekkie in the hotel was $35 dollars per head, about 24 quid). Bugger me next door to the hotel was a café, it had an A board outside advertising brioche for that morning as a breakfast special, with bacon and egg.
In we go, Little Peter orders four brioche with chocolate sauce, ‘what’ the waitress says,
‘chocolate? on brioche?’
‘yeah’ says Pete, ‘lots please’
Off she went, the chef then came out, ‘just checking, you want chocolate sauce on your brioche?’
‘yeah’ says Pete, ‘lots please’
‘that’s a new one on us’
Well about 10 minutes later the chef returns, with Pete’s order, ‘brilliant’ he said, ‘I’ve just had some myself, it’s fantastic. We are going to put it on the menu’
So that was it, breakfast at the same place every morning. They did do the most fantastic scrambled eggs though, not quite sure how they made them so creamy, but yum yum.
So all fed we set off, first up the hop on hop off open top bus, thought it would be a quick way to see the sights as a snap shot, then explore them more later in the week.

Yeah, it was cold, b****dy cold!!

St Mary's Cathedral. See later tit bit.

We got to the top of George Street, which is where The Hilton is, and there was a massive crowd outside, dressed pretty much like the kids that were outside the Four Seasons the night before. Lady Gaga was in town, she was obviously here not down the road. Apparently, she was in the basement bar and certain people had tickets to go and join her for coffee. She was to perform that night in the Town Hall for just two hundred people. This was the only gig she was to do in the whole of Australia. Thought she could pull a bigger crowd than that!!
On the bus route was The Capitol Theatre, which has Mary Poppins on at the moment, so let’s get some tickets.
We go in the door with the sign above which says ‘Ticket Sales’, that should do it. Up to the counter
“We would like tickets for two kids and two adults for Sunday at 6 please”
“Ticket sales are through that door there mate”
This was back out the door we had just came through, turn right six feet and in through another door!!! Could have made a mistake, the Aussies are pretty poor with signage.
Out and in again, ring the bell on the desk, guess what, the guy who told us to go out and in again appears!!
I give him my bestest smiley face, although I wanna rip his bleep bleep head off.
“We would like 2 kids and two adults for Sunday at 6 please”
“Sold out”
“Well, what about Tuesday at 1.30?”
“Sold out”
Big, big deep breath
“Well what have you got available”
“Nothing, completely sold out”
Huge breath, clenching of the fists
“So, this runs until February next year, what about a sign on the door to tickets sales, a desk that you actually don't need right now, says MARY POPPINS SOLD OUT. That way people like me won't want to #$%%^%$ kill you!!!"
“If you would like to join the queue in there”, which was exactly where we had just come from, “there may be some cancellations”
Well I was only half way across the counter when Our Wend got hold of the turn ups on me trousers.
I think we pretty much did everything that was on offer in the week, either on foot, by bus or ferry.
The Opera House
They wanted $75 dollars to visit the auditorium and look at the stage. Thought that that was ridiculous to look at a room with hundreds of empty seats, done that down at The Blues loads of times for a lot less!
I have never seen so many people jogging as I did whilst we were walking around The Opera House, you could very easily be knocked over by the throng.

The infamous

Lunchtime in Sydney, sad or what?!!

Manly
This is a half hour ferry ride from Sydney Harbour. It has great beaches and walks, also restaurants. As its winter, it was pretty quiet.
Luna Park
this is like Drayton Manor Park, it even has the people to match!!  All rellies I'm sure must come from Tamworth or Atherstone!!!
We did have the most fantastic paella there for lunch, with the madatory couple of beers and some white wine.
There was a ride in the park, which was a very large drum, you get in and stand with your back against the wall and the drum then spins at very high speed. So much so that the floor you were standing on drops away and you are pinned to the wall be the inertia. It looks sickening.

No, not EXACTLY Disney!!

Nice bum Pete

The kids are in the back ground I'm sure of it!!!!!

Mad completely mad

Another nutter

Do ya think my shutter sped is a bit slow?

The view whilst scoffing our paella at Luna Park. Its a tough old life.

Taronga Zoo
what a stunning location this is for a Zoo. Its a short ferry ride across the harbour and you can see the city skyline from nearly every area inside the zoo.

Friendly or what?

View from the location of the bird show. What a Zoo

Goats, can't remember what make. Basically, hairy and smellie

They don't move much!.

This was just fantastic. To be so close

This sealed it for me!!

Sydney Sky Tower
Not much you can’t see from up there.

There is a revolving restaurant up there

You can see our house from here

Harbour Bridge
walked along it, (well me and the kids did Our wend got the ebee geebys),  not up it, as they wanted $1,000 for four of us!!!. We crossed at about 7 in the evening. Again, the amount of people out jogging was astounding.

Olympic 2000 village
Same deal as The Opera House, lots of dosh to look at empty seats. Peter did have a great couple of hours in the biggest skate park in Sydney though.

The Rocks
Just a real nice place to have a stroll and take a look at the shops, foodies etc, very old part of Sydney, right by the harbour.
I reckon we went to every museum that’s in Sydney
the old barracks and the maritime stood out as the best, got to go in a real polaris type submarine. How did anyone ever spend 6 weeks beneath the waves in one of them? Fantastic exhibition about Scott of the Antartic though, really makes you feel humble when you think what those guys endured, unbelievable. ‘I’m just going outside  for a while and I may not be back’ Gives you a lump in your throat. Soppy old git ain’t I?
Aquarium
Dugong or sea cow, these are only found in the northern waters of Australia,  15ft sharks, and loads of lego figures!!

LEGO

Maybe if I just don't move!

Dugong, very placid looking things

SHARK, you'd need a lora chips with this!

Quietest he had been all week. I wanted to buy the helmet.

More LEGO

Chinese gardens
these are smack bang in the middle of Sydney, kids got to dress up, really cool.

Niamh's attempt at having slitty eyes.

Cool eh?

Aaaah So!!! Something like that.

I told Our Wend if she keeps going to the gym she would turn into Fatima Whitbread.

Puberty, incredible isn't it?

Niamh saw Pete's hairy bum!!!

St Mary's Cathedral
As you may imagine a pretty holy place.
We sat in a pugh just inside and lit some candles as you do. Just next to where we were sitting there was a locked door to the outside, and just the other side was a guy talking on his mobile, oblivious to the fact that he could be heard him perfectly from where we were sitting. If you have ever seen the Dom Jolly TV sketch where he is on a very large phone screaming at the top of his voice, this was just the same, but the expletives that this guy was using would make the hardiest of souls blush. In the end I just had to get up and go out to tell the chap. "Oy you,for @!#$%^&* sake there are some *&^%$# people trying to )*&^%$#@ pray in here, keep it down you @#&*^%$"
Bondi Beach
one of them just must go places.
Yours truly, Team Leader, "we are going on the bus"
"Oh DAAAAD"
The bus had two stops designated as Bondi Beach, one was north, the other south. We, well me, picked north, that turned out to be WRONG! So we decided, well I decided, we would walk. An hour and twenty minutes later we arrived at Bondi, I have to say, I was not as popular as I was an hour and twenty minutes before hand. Anyway, we did get to see Marcel Desailly and Mark Bosnitch, with what they said was the Premier League trophy, in the shopping centre. Well I liked it ok?
There was an Austrian winterwonderland theme on Bondi, (see how I've dropped the word beach? Thats what the locals do) the kids were ice skating, the accordian player was bashing out the umpa umpa music and the guy was yodelling his brains out,( no not Frank Ifield, he is dead) whilst me and Our Wend sat and watched the surf and surfers, surreal.

Bondi. Could be Aberdovey.

Austria by the sea.

Dancing on Ice

Crawling on Ice

We then walked the 7km to Coogee (that was a highlight, just brilliant) and had dinner with Jodie her NEW boyfriend and her flat mate Clare.

There are these saltwater swimming pools all along the walk to Coogee

Coogee

Nice cheeks Noo Noo

aaaaaaaaaaaah

It was a great walk, Pete windged all the way, bless!!
On the last night we met Jodie and Clare again at, supposedly, the oldest pub in Sydney, The Lord Nelson, it was just like walking into your typical English pub, like The Three Tunns in the old days, even thought I recognised some folk!! Proper steak and kidney pies, pickled onions, gherkins, PORK PIE with ENGLISH MUSTARD!!!
We had a brilliant time, and as they say over here 'all good'
Forgot to mention I stayed up until 4am to watch The Open, loved it. My new super hero? Tom Watson, what a man.
The Skerritts in Oz

NEWS FLASH

I've found it, at last, after looking for months.
A pub which serves drinkable Guinness.
God Bless ya Durty Nelly's, Perth
AHHHHHHHHHHHH

Just Stuff

It’s all happening back in the UK/Europe eh? Villa, Baggies and Wolves survive,  Houllier steps down, Blues relegated, McLeish resigns and joins the Villa (what a shock that was?), Paul Skerritt winning his second major in Aberdovey, Matt Morris wins 34k euro at Wentworth and Rocky has his first tour win in Italy, pocketing 250k euro, watched it all, fantastic, I was smiling more than he was? Plus Yours Truly comes second in the Make a Difference charity golf day out at Kennedy Links, with a staggering 13 under par GROSS, 53.5 nett (it was Texas scramble, me 4 partners were 7, 12 & 12 handicap), only to be pipped at the post with an incredible 12 under par GROSS, 42.5 nett, by three 18 and one 16 handicapper!!!!!!!!!!!! Yeah, they have cheating bastards down here as well. In fact I think they have more. At a recent Pro Am, they gave a prize for individual scores would you believe. A guy off 5, supposedly had a 5 under 67, they announced his points as 49!!! How do they work that out? I know the guy who did the score, so went to congratulate / verify, he said he did 5 OVER!!!!!! LEVEL HANDICAP 36 as long as I have been playing!!!!!Anyway at Kennedy, Bay we picked up a spanking six Heineken half pint pots (I know what you are thinking but they did have the logo on!!) a Srixon Z Star cap in neveaux white, a black brolly, as if I need anymore brollies than I already have, and a very large bottle of Southern Comfort!!!! Total value, threepence!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Daren’t tell Matt or Rocky they would be devastated, NOT). Cracking day though, the golf course was superb, playing surfaces were as good as I have played on, and it’s a links, some of the most fantastic pot bunkers I have ever seen, course designed by Baker-Finch, so not too long for us mortals. Best of all, free booze ALL DAY, and we had a driver all they way home, whey hey, happy days.
Been a member at The Vines just over a month now, and have not managed to get myself booked into the Saturday comps once. The only time I played was when some member invited me to play with him and he did it. You gotta go online 8 days before and book a time, which is all alien to me, hey ho, so end up playing on the other course (Ellenbrook) instead, always takes 5 hours, but at least it’s in the sunshine.
Generally play with Scottie and Darren, we have heart starters at 11.30, set off about midday, buggies, I sometimes walk, ‘Esky’ full of ice cold beer. Scottie likes his pop, he generally works Saturday mornings, pops into the local boozer on the way to the club, has he 50 cent roll up at the bookies. Yeah, the bookies are actually in the bar of the pubs over here, Trevor Roberts and Roachy would be made up, they would think they have died and gone to heaven. We then has at least 10/12 stubbies of beer whilst we are going around. Its hard work golfing here!!!! I'm knackered for the whole weekend after an afternoons golf with those boys. Almost like being at home!

Getting colder over here now and raining quite a bit, most mornings it’s only about 8/12, rises during the day to about 20/24, then can get as low as 4/8 in the evening. Lucky I have kept all me sweaters and won that brolly!!

I think we have finally found a decent curry house, yippee. It’s in a place called Carrimar, which is about 40 minutes from here, and called The Glasgow Curry House, would you believe. This place is over run with flaming Sweeties. Definitely the best one we have had and it’s a BYO (bring your own booze place), so nice and affordable. Had a Rogan Josh, and it actually tasted like one. Although, Wendie’s chicken tandoori starter caught me out, I broke a bloody tooth chomping the remains! Couldn't get an appointment for the dentist until the Wednesday to get the rest took out. Most expensive curry I have ever had, $150 for the scram, $300 to get me tooth out. It took the dentist 45 minutes to get it out. Its been bloody painful since, 2 weeks. OUCH!!!!!!!!
As far as the chippy is concerned (The Slippery Eel was its name) its got away! Seems as though there was an issue that we have no retail experience. What a waste of 3 months that was. Hey ho, what will be will be eh? Just have to do bugger all for a little while longer!!!
Wendie and the kids are still all good, Wend is hitting the gym every day and goes with Niamh to Zumba on a Wednesday. She is getting so thin I have trouble finding her!! Not a massive problem 'cuz I can always hear her.
Peter has decided he wants to play football (the English version, or soccer as they call it here), let’s just see how long that lasts. He really wants to do fencing, but he is a bit young to go out to work, anyway he’s got to go to school and he can't do both. Took him to the driving range the other day, he whinged like mad, but he went. Had a small bucket of balls for him, only about 30 in it, he hit his first sixish balls, 125ish yards, slight draw, beautiful, ‘I’m bored now Dad’. Didn't hit him that hard Your Honour and it is only a small black eye, it’s nearly gone now, you can hardly see it. Kids eh?
Had John Pritchett and his wife Barb over at the weekend, he is Rosie's pal who has been here for about 35 years. Had a cracking night, Our Wend excelled with the scram, it was superb. Turns out JP used to play football, many years ago with Dave Dangerfield. Bloody Hell just can't get over sometimes how small the world really is.
Last night, I went to the pub for 'early doors' with Scottie and Daz. After about an hour they went to the golf club, as they live on The Vines and they can safely have a couple and get home safely, but its a 10 minute drive from where we live and did not want to risk it, already having had a couple. I know I know, it doesn't sound like me, but you just can't take the risk with the booze bus about. Anyway I stayed and got chatting to this big black guy, I mean big & I mean black, he was originally from Zimbabwe, smashing guy and really interesting. Well he has only be here 1 month, having come from the UK, where he had been working for Carillion as a electrical engineer, living right by The Scott Arms, Great Barr, drinking in the Horse & Jockey, Sutton Coldfield and the Half Way House Mere Green!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You couldn't make it up could you?
Played Cottesloe early June, fantastic course, in superb nick. When I went to Cottesloe to redeem the voucher that Steve Hall bought me ( had to redeem it 'cuz nobody could afford or was willing to pay $160 per round to come with me and I didn't want to play on my own, so the pro said he would reimburse me), the pro first of all said it was not one of their vouchers! Luckily, there was a women in the shop there who remembered her conversation with Steve and verified it. They then had a conversation, between themselves and asked me did I want to play if they could fix me up with some other members. That was definitely what I wanted to do. So they then had the conversation about who they could put me with on the members Tuesday comp day. They then asked if I had a handicap, did I know the etiquette of golf, where was I a member, did I have all the gear, did I have proper golf clothing etc etc. I thought, oh no they are gonna put me with Greg Norman!!!
All the relevant tests past and questions answered correctly, they told me that was fixed and I would be playing with three other members, teeing off Tuesday 7th June @ 11.15am. One was an immediate past Captain, the other two were his regular partners. I reminded him that I was a member of Little Aston Golf Club, which is one of the finest 50 courses in the UK, very, very upmarket not to mention exclusive, with numerous R&A members, past amateur champions, England selectors and said " I hope your not think of putting me with three f*****g hackers" .
Well, what can I tell you, but the one guy played only using one arm. Honest, he has two but one is badly damaged from a fall he had whilst playing tennis, so he just plays using his right arm, although he does use two for putting. He is off 13!. He is about 60 and it was amazing. He got in a bunker, a deep one too, the face must have been about 10 feet high. I thought, he ain't never gonna get out of there, but bugger me he just turned around and walked out the back. No seriously, he got out first time to about 10 feet, proper shot, brilliant. At the 9th, he was about 5 yards short of the green, there was a bunker between him and the flag, which was about 3 yards on, he played a flop shot that Mickelson would have been proud of to about a foot!!! I ended up with 33 points, with a blob at the last, not bad having not played there before, yep and you guessed it the 'one arm bandit did 34 pigging, spunking, flipping, twatting points. I have now been beaten at golf by a one armed man in Cottesloe and a one legged man that I played in a County match at Robin Hood. Do you think The Lord is telling me something? Great day out though, so glad that I got to play, stopped off a Scarborough beach on the way home had a bag of chips whilst watching the sun go down over the Indian Ocean, marvellous, bloody marvellous..
Went to Perth Zoo recently, what a great place, its more like a park that's got a zoo in it. Loads of open spaces, the customary free bbq, really brilliant. We took the train and the bus, more relaxing for me than driving and you get to see more. We had 6 train rides, four bus rides all for $9 for the lot of us, beat that. We shall definitely be going back soon for the full picnic and bbq.

A tree climbing Kangaroo

These were the scariest animals we saw!!!!

Trev, you never said you were coming to visit!!! You should be staying with us. Nice coat, from Ted Williams?

Only a few weeks old

Now go and wash your hands. I mean the lizard!!

Whatever they buried, it was big

Everyone loves the elephants

It got Otter as the day went on.

Can't bear to see animals locked up

Peter Williams of Ted Williams, Rhino (he charges a lot)

Went to Fremantle for tea, had fish and chips at Cicerello's (remember Sean?), fantastic, right on the dock amongst all them squillion dollars worth of yachts, happy days.

Niamh got an award at school recently for, and I quote, 'For her collaboration skills within the class and willingness to help those around her'. They hand them out once a term, think its to encourage all the kids and give them something to aim for. As you can imagine, we were made up, so was she. (Anyone know what collaboration means?)
She also won the school cross country race and has now been picked for the team.
Must just mention the on off relationship that Name has with her boyfriend Sean Murphy, he is Irish would you believe, a lovely Cork lad, who incidentally has 'I love NS' written on his hand. Its generally OFF 'cuts Name wants to go out with loads of lads, little floozie but just at the moment its Shepherd Shabombi, a Somalian. I Know, I keep telling her, 'people have enough trouble spelling your first name Niamh', well that's my excuse and the only one I am prepared to say in writing!!!!! Its ON 'cuts Mom's best mate is Ashling who is Sean's Mom and Sean is broken hearted every time Niamh tries to call it off. Can't tell you the amount of time they spend on line at Mushy Monsters, and that's not rude ok?

Ain't she tall?

Sean Murphy, Niamh News current beau!!

We are still enjoying the lifestyle, its so much more laid back here, feels really safe for Peter & Name, they have far more independence than they would have in the UK. Peter cycles back and forth to school now on his own, he loves that, we do to. It took us a while before we would let him, but that was more us than him or here.
Last Sunday we went to Fremantle prison, it only actually stopped housing criminals in 1991, bloody place is positively archaic, all very interesting though.

Very Covent Garden

Main entrance to Peters new accommodation, if he is not very careful!!

Peters room top right!

View from Peters room, if he is not very careful!!!

I know its only just closed, but you would think they would have toilets that were a little more private.

When you gotta go you just gotta go.

Peters room if he is not very very careful.

Peter had his 12th Birthday last week, his first not in the UK. He has asked me to thank all those who sent presents and tell those who didn't its still not too late!!!!!!
Missing you all back home, hope you are getting some summer weather.
The Skerritts in Oz