Trussells (were in Manila) now Down Under!

Thought I would post a quick blog and let you all know what we've been upto over the weekend. We've had a long weekend here (well, the boys & I have, John hasn't - someone's got to earn the cash!). Bradley has had his half term break from school - all two days of it!! He's going back to school tomorrow for the last half term of his reception year.

On Friday night, John & I had booked tickets to go and see Pirates of the Caribbean at the cinema. For one reason or another - the boys woudn't settle down to sleep, so we were late leaving. At the cinema over here, you don't get many trailers or adverts, so if the film is due to start at 8.10pm, it will start only a few minutes later than that. Then, as it was raining, we couldn't get a cab for love nor money!! When we did find one, the traffic was so horrific, it took us half an hour to do a 5 minute journey - bad even for this city, I think. We decided we'd see a later showing, but the next one was sold out, and the one after that would finish too late (Johnny was playing golf at 5.30 the following morning), so we gave it up as a bad job. We then queued for a taxi for 45 minutes, to go home miserable in the rain!!

Saturday was better. I went shopping with Bradley, and he was as good as gold - even when I was clothes shopping! In the evening John went out with a few of the other ex-pat guys who live in our apartment block, and I went over to have a girls night in getting a pedicure!

Sunday, we all went to a hotel on Manila Bay. They do an all you can eat Sunday brunch, and diners can use the pool facilities. It sounds a bit Beefeater, I know, but it was really excellent!! The food is from all over the world, and is first class!! The chefs prepare most of it in front of your eyes. The desert section was my favourite (obviously!), although, the help yourself champagne bar was quite handy also!! The pool was super too. Although we were late (old habits, and all that!), so by the time I sat down and had a little chat with some of the others (we met 4 other couples there with all their kids), it wasn't worth me getting changed to have a dip! John went in with the boys, and they had great fun! There are slides, and waterfalls etc. And it all overlooks Manila Bay! We could see the thunderstorm head right for us across the water, just as we were getting ready to go inside. Because there were so many of us (9 adults & 11 kiddies), we reserved one of their rooms, which was great, because it meant the children were all "contained". There was a couple of guys there modelling balloons and giving them out, and doing body art on the kids - the boys got snakes, and the girls got Miss Kitty. Adam, bless him, was too busy watching Nemo on a portable DVD player that someone had brought along!

Monday we met some friends at a park very close to where we're going to live, then it was Bradley's first birthday party in Manila! It was his classmate's 5th party at a pool in the city. His parents had arranged for a couple of swimming coaches (eye candy for the mums - not me obviously!) to watch the children in the water, and to play games and organise races with the kids. bradley had such a fab time, playing with his friends. It's the first time I've seen him play with his new friends - well I didn't see much of him at all, actually - he was too busy having fun!

The birthday tea was a hot buffet (for 3 courses!) served out of the silver service food warmers (honestly!). Then we sang happy birthday over the cake, and it was time to go (two and a half hours later!).

Today (Tues), we have been milling around the apartments. We met Johnny for lunch, which was really nice, since they didn't see Daddy at bedtime today. Then after a swimming lesson (Adam can swim about a metre and a half with no floats! Bradley is fast perfecting his front crawl and breast stroke), we came back to the apartment and watched some telly.

I'm afraid I kept forgetting to take the camera though, this weekend, so I'll just put up a couple of the boys I've not put up before - they were taken shortly after we arrived in Manila.