Tropical downpour

Causes courtyard to flood. Mum has to clear the drain.

Xmas 3

Xmas 2

Xmas 1

Lunch

Xmas preparations

Mum is cooking, toby is teaching mikayla how to play 21. She is almost 4 so we think she ready

On the deck

Aagh wombarra

Strange fog

The opera house seemed to not turn out. I think you have to pay a license fee to the nsw gov to take a photo. Technology!

I quite like it here

Baby jarrah

Came for lunch and met a bear

We will in for a walk anyway

Budgies on toby

Anabel has 2 little Budgies. Oh ah me hearties

Do the Milkshake

In thirroul with alex and 2 very large tree. It is raining and the temp has plummetted.

Back in the club

On the way to wombarra. Nice big plate of pretzells. Had a lovely day with sonya and alethea. Say that the 780 has finally flown. Well done rob!

Theo birthday

At the hog breathe cafe. Better than no breath at all

A p a 06

We got here

We arrived in Australia, Dad met us at the arrival gate, all very happy.  Anna had takena bit of amystery tour around the new one way system and met us in the baggage hall.  Madeleine and Henry also there and I suppose all the other people in the baggage hall got to see a lovely family reunion.  Anna and I went via the Morningside fruit barn to buy a case of mangoes and 2 bottles of champagne and we went to mum and dads to get stuck in.  There was a bun, and cups of tea and the Kate and Kent came around with the vivacious Mikayla and her trusty sidekick Joshua, and the Gerard and Mel drove up from the coast with the suntanned Jess Ben and Laura.  It felt like we had never been away.
In theafternnon, off to Mike and Kate's stunning new home/mansion.  The kids decided that they wanted to move in and indeed Matilda has not been since since (2 nights) A really lovely party with a bbq, photos taken from a top top balcony.  Lovely to feel the love.

Monday started early for me at 3.00am, to get the most out of the time here I am starting early, so by the time we went out for a swim at 8.30 it felt like lunch time.  We then went off to Anna's and then around to Hawthorne to visit Andrea and Philippa and then back to mum and dads for a stew and a late night (7.45pm)
Today we are off to the Museum of modern art to see the Pan Pacific trieniel (it was on just before we left for the UK 3 years ago, and great to be able to keep off.  Sonya and Alethea will meet us there.  Yippee

Lounge frenzy

We finally checked in- 25 mins. The kids were all in separate seats around the plane. So it took a while to sort that out. So here we are, eating as much as possible. We will be in Brisbane in about 24 hours.

Checking in

Mysterious seat allocation in code share airlines

Today I decided to attempt to get our seats organised for the trip.  As feared, our flight is the dreaded code share with BA.  So of course the qantas people are powerless to tell us anything about it at all.  They will sell us tickets, but not know what kind of plane it is or in fact anything at all about it.  They cannot even provide me with the phone number of BA.

It seems that BA have this new rule which means that you can request seats more than 24 hours in advance ... if you pay £20.  Except that we seem to have been allocated seats without the fee.  No one can explain it, or tell me whether it is the fire escape row (Harry is obviously not used to economy travel any more so feels that he will be unable to sit in a 'normal' seat).  Mysteriously, the children are on a separate booking reference to Harry and I, this seems eccentric, but there are no reasons why this has been done.  It is just the way things are.

I am now gearing up to call BA and getting ready for them to tell me that as I am qantas customer, they will not be able to divulge any information at all to me.  I can expect to be put in special seats where no flight attendant will come, and there will be no in-flight entertainment for us. (the system will be broken for those 2 rows - this has happened to me before).

I am fairly sure that we will get on the plane on Friday night, but it is harder than you think.

And now it is really freezing

It is hard to believe that this time next week, we shall be in Brisbane.  I suppose that it will be way too hot.  But what is wrong with that?  From this perspective, it seems just fine.  Today has been miserable without stopping, rain and rain and more rain.  Yesterday started out the same, Toby (who has been hankering after some shutters for his bedroom windows) said that he did not feel that he needed shutters anymore as you can have winter instead!  That's the attitude, i said.  But it cleared up testerday and was really quite a nice afternoon.  Not today. 

Rudy the dog has gone to stay with Harry's parents. They took him this morning on their way back home (they were here for the weekend) and we will not see him for a month.  matilda cried and there was a lot of last minute patting and cuddling.  After the dog bed was put in the car, Rudy seemed to be moping in the kitchen - I thought that he was sad, but as soon as Dick said ok we'll go, he leapt up and ran out to the car and jumped into the bed!  Happy as anything.  I had not been feeling all that sad really as I was secretly looking forward to a month without vacuuming up dog hair, but I suddenly realised that I will miss him.  Apparently he was very good in the car and has just moved into his new accomodation.  Maybe he will not want to come home. 

Toby has his first judo grading on Saturday, but part of the award should go tot he mother who sat there all day.  He loves judo and will hear no talk of judo practitioners just liking rolling around on the ground hugging each other.  That is a 'move' he says.  Ok say I.  So as soon as we can find the registration book that we received 2 weeks ago and must have for life, he can get his stripes.  This excitement follows hot on the heels of his first competition.  It turns out that him and his 2 friends that he started with are all the same weight so could all be in the same division.  there were just the 3 of them and they were so evenly matched that they had to do the competion twice to resolve it.  The club are delighted to have 3 such keen new boys.  Toby ended up with the silver medal and could hardly have been happier.  he even wore the medal into the farm shop on the way home (I think he thought that it would deter potential muggers).

Winter has come

We woke up today to a thick frost. Hard to even open the car doors. But it is December now, so perhaps it is time. Luckily, we will only have 10 days of it until we move into full summer in Brisbane.  On the way to school, the kids were saying how it will be great to get a tan and I reminded them that they will be so covered up with hats and shirts and sun-screen, they will probably be even whiter when they come home.  A look of general incredulity came across Miss 10 who always knows best.  Mr 12 doesn't care if he does not know best, as he says  'I'm a kid, i'm supposed to be dumb'  We won't bother to quiz Mr almost 15 because we know where that will go. 

It is a shame that none of the sunshirts we own will still fit so we will have to waste valuable time keeping covered up from the sun out of the sun. 

Theo went to a youth group last night.  As I was driving back from girl guides with matilda, she was going on about what they would be doing at youth group, attempting to be a bit sarcastic about them (compared to girl guides which is fab) she was saying it will probably be all biblical and then got stuck because she realised that she really did not know anything about youth groups at all.  She said 'help me out here mum, I am drying up', She seems to often be talking like some sozzled old school comedian these days.  She often has a bit of a look of Ronnie Barker about her.  (She appreciates a spoonerism greatly)  She is practising telling jokes with a straight face.  I am practising reacting with a laughing face.  A couple of weeks ago she went to the 'Schools Prom' copncert at the Royal Albert Hall.  They got back to the school at 11.30pm and was so hyped up that she could not sleep.  So we had a hot choclate a bagel and she told jokes.  I wanted to take out the batteries.