A new family member

 

We flew home mid December anxious to meet our first grandson Oliver Wymark Charles Davis who was born on 18.11.2015 weighing a whopping 4.67kg! Kate had a long labour, 34hours, and quite traumatic. I will always remember a text from Ben after just 6hrs labour and on the way to the hospital it said “the pain is getting worse and worse” ! Little did he know just how bad it was going to get before Oliver made an appearance.

Meeting Ollie was very emotional, in a beautiful way. He is such a perfect, cuddly, happy, gorgeous little boy. Kate and Ben are deliriously happy and enjoying parenting despite suffering with lack of sleep as most new parents do.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We spent a wonderful 7 weeks at home and Ollie was the best Christmas present ever.

We were lucky and to have the offer from our friend Carol to house sit in South Fremantle for 5 of those weeks and the bonus of a lovely dog Heidi to look after and enjoy many walks on the pristine beaches we have at home.

Jerry is not one to sit around doing nothing and it wasn’t long before he had Ben and Kate’s laundry remodelled to make it more “user friendly” incorporating a sink to bath Ollie in. Lots of other jobs were on the list but with such a young baby at home it was not the time to be doing too much. We were also somewhat distracted whenever we visited.

7 weeks passed very quickly and leaving home this time was very hard. But we are now back onboard Tigress Too and getting ready for our next sail which will be through Indonesia. But first we have to get a problem with the gearbox fixed which like all major jobs up here is turning into a real pain in the backside!

We arrived just as Chinese New Year began. Just about everything stops and shuts for a 7-10 days which can be quite frustrating when you are on a mission to get something fixed. But after being in SE Asia for a while you learn not to stress out and just sit back and enjoy the festivities. Which is exactly what we did.

The dragon dancers came to the marina to bless the offices and bring good luck for the new year

They give offerings of food  and the final gift is these four plates of mandarins that hide a secret number that will bring good luck. There was much studying of these plates and the custom is that the Chinese people once they are happy they have deciphered the number will rush out and buy lottery tickets! Can you see a series of 4 numbers? Hint, it is on the bottom plate. If you win lotto don’t forget who passed the good luck on!

Just a few more of my favourite Ollie pictures.