WOW thank you for your news! Fantastic to hear from you Pie, didn't realise the weather was so grim even there, and deary me I'm sorry about the ants but I'm afraid we did laugh heartily to hear that you literally keep them in your pants. Are your bananas usually dressed in pyjamas as well? I think it would be excellent. The kids sound as if they're doing brilliantly, both of them. Yes, concepts are a problem - but eventually they give way and everything seems open sailing... seems to take a long time sometimes though. At the moment (touch wood) the Non seems to have (mainly) succumbed to 1) counting items in a logical manner from one side to the other (not randomly all over the place as she's been insisting on for the last year and a half at least), and 2) more or less concentrating until about 20 (usually). Huge step forward, that is. Mid you, usually I'm sitting right there by her and STARING at her to make sure she does the right thing, but she has been known to go through a whole page pretty much on her own, and is starting to get a little less dubious when I open the maths book. Once the confidence is up, it's about nine tenths of the battle won, the rest is just making sure it keeps rolling. Interest in Kanji from Leo I'd say (I don't know but I'm guessing) would SURELY suggest a hugely scholarly tendency - well frankly there's no other way to be interested in the damn things, they're so clever and so utterly beyond the point and useless, it's their only saving grace. An absolutely fantastic thing to be interested in, I certainly found every aspect of my schoolwork was heavily compromised by not being able to read properly - as of course it would in any language. As the Non would say, 'Go, Leo, Go!' (she loves to be cheered on while she's swimming with 'Go, Baby, go!').
Must write something about what we did today, I guess. Fantastic and much enjoyed day it was too, despite nothing hugely exciting happening and its being INCREDIBLY hot and oppressive to boot - until the evening (when we had to fire up the barbecue) when it started howling a gale and spitting with rain in some evidently violent disagreement between a couple of pressure systems. Stuff blowing off shelves, the whole hog. So what exactly DID we do... Well, we knew it was going to be hot today so decided to leg it to the beach early - and I mean 8:30 a.m. early (already perspiringly hot by then). Did a bit of jumping in and pushing in at the kiddie's pool initially, but then spied a certain unnerving quantity of livestock in the water, namely a host of very lively millipede-like creatures gyrating gracefully next to us, evidently entirely at home, completely unknown and new, and in certain cases busily excreting milky substances from their posteriors for minutes at a time. Feeling like total greenhorns, I asked several people (also with small children swimming nearby) what the creatures were - but inevitably they replied that 1) they had no idea and 2) they hadn't even noticed them. The did tell their children not to touch them, but generally ignored them and continued along their way. Anyway, we did surmise that as no-one had leaped screaming from the water and we hadn't heard of them as Top New South Wales Killer Avoid at All Costs - it was probably entirely harmless - despite the unsavoury appearance of a rather virulent intestinal parasite. Still, the kiddie's pool didn't seem quite so inviting any more so we did a bit more swimming practice in the big pool (this was mercifully free of millipedes). It was so damn hot that even I did a lap or so - you can imagine.
By 10:30 we were on the way back home. It's the way to be in a country like this. Skin cancer beckons, whatever your suncream factor. In fact, one of the missions tomorrow is to try and find some cover-everything bathing suits for the adults as well - we learned yesterday that they're called 'rashies' because if you surf without them (or a wetsuit) you get a rash because of the wax on the board. Another Aussie lesson learned. Anyway, a period of indoors activity occurred until about 3pm including ablutions, work and lunch. Then it was time to re-stock the refrigerator shelves a little from the supermarket, swiftly followed by a visit again to Blackbutt Reserve (just down the road, the Koala place we visited I think in the first week). My goodness i was hot. But Blackbutt is a great place. Almost deserted at the time we got there (oddly, the only other people was a large and rather dubious family-type gathering of Balkan characters having a loud picnic). Absolutely swelteringly hot, but we still couldn't help going round the place and looking at all the creatures again - besides, some of them we hadn't seen last time. The absolute STAR of the event as far as I was concerned was the Frogmouth, a very owl -like creature (who apparently isn't actually an owl), about 6 inches or so high, who was perched with it's companion in the open aviary JUST on the rafters about a foot above where we were standing. I stared at him, I flashed pictures at him, I came closer, I stared at him some more. People came and went and the exchange continued. He eventually started taking an interest, and started looking closer, and closer, and closer, and CLOSER at my fingers, at the camera, at my hat, and particularly at my face and I can't tell you how intimidating and authoritative such a very small creature (he's what, about one hundredth? two hundredth of my weight? No idea ) can be. I finally had to back politely away. I'll try and see if any of the photos came out. These creatures are fantastic! There was also a very agitated bower bird with a blue object in its beak, clucking away and hopping all over the place with this thing, was watching him for ages to see WHERE exactly he was going to deposit it as it would have been amazing to see a real bower, but he never did - privately I think he was bluffing and he'd forgotten to actually make the bower, was just gathering some bits in case he ever got round to it.
We came home incredibly tired, the whole day had been so hot and oppressive and it looked certainly as if it were getting the better of the other two at least (blissfully there are no mirrors in this place so I didn't get shocked by whatever I looked like), so we hurried in and put the barby on and Pouf, there goes the wind and the rain. Much cooler now. And can I just say, we picked up some lamb ... I would say 'chops' but they were more like 'slabs', not at all sure what cut they were but we marinated them briefly in rosemary and garlic, barbecued them and served with barbecued aubergine, courgette and yellow squash it was quite, quite sublime. As Ian commented - 'well, I'd do THAT again'. Barbecues are wonderful things.
Well, this post is far too long already and I'm missing my nightcap. Lots of love to everyone and once again MANY thanks for the posts,
Nancyxxxxxx
Must write something about what we did today, I guess. Fantastic and much enjoyed day it was too, despite nothing hugely exciting happening and its being INCREDIBLY hot and oppressive to boot - until the evening (when we had to fire up the barbecue) when it started howling a gale and spitting with rain in some evidently violent disagreement between a couple of pressure systems. Stuff blowing off shelves, the whole hog. So what exactly DID we do... Well, we knew it was going to be hot today so decided to leg it to the beach early - and I mean 8:30 a.m. early (already perspiringly hot by then). Did a bit of jumping in and pushing in at the kiddie's pool initially, but then spied a certain unnerving quantity of livestock in the water, namely a host of very lively millipede-like creatures gyrating gracefully next to us, evidently entirely at home, completely unknown and new, and in certain cases busily excreting milky substances from their posteriors for minutes at a time. Feeling like total greenhorns, I asked several people (also with small children swimming nearby) what the creatures were - but inevitably they replied that 1) they had no idea and 2) they hadn't even noticed them. The did tell their children not to touch them, but generally ignored them and continued along their way. Anyway, we did surmise that as no-one had leaped screaming from the water and we hadn't heard of them as Top New South Wales Killer Avoid at All Costs - it was probably entirely harmless - despite the unsavoury appearance of a rather virulent intestinal parasite. Still, the kiddie's pool didn't seem quite so inviting any more so we did a bit more swimming practice in the big pool (this was mercifully free of millipedes). It was so damn hot that even I did a lap or so - you can imagine.
By 10:30 we were on the way back home. It's the way to be in a country like this. Skin cancer beckons, whatever your suncream factor. In fact, one of the missions tomorrow is to try and find some cover-everything bathing suits for the adults as well - we learned yesterday that they're called 'rashies' because if you surf without them (or a wetsuit) you get a rash because of the wax on the board. Another Aussie lesson learned. Anyway, a period of indoors activity occurred until about 3pm including ablutions, work and lunch. Then it was time to re-stock the refrigerator shelves a little from the supermarket, swiftly followed by a visit again to Blackbutt Reserve (just down the road, the Koala place we visited I think in the first week). My goodness i was hot. But Blackbutt is a great place. Almost deserted at the time we got there (oddly, the only other people was a large and rather dubious family-type gathering of Balkan characters having a loud picnic). Absolutely swelteringly hot, but we still couldn't help going round the place and looking at all the creatures again - besides, some of them we hadn't seen last time. The absolute STAR of the event as far as I was concerned was the Frogmouth, a very owl -like creature (who apparently isn't actually an owl), about 6 inches or so high, who was perched with it's companion in the open aviary JUST on the rafters about a foot above where we were standing. I stared at him, I flashed pictures at him, I came closer, I stared at him some more. People came and went and the exchange continued. He eventually started taking an interest, and started looking closer, and closer, and closer, and CLOSER at my fingers, at the camera, at my hat, and particularly at my face and I can't tell you how intimidating and authoritative such a very small creature (he's what, about one hundredth? two hundredth of my weight? No idea ) can be. I finally had to back politely away. I'll try and see if any of the photos came out. These creatures are fantastic! There was also a very agitated bower bird with a blue object in its beak, clucking away and hopping all over the place with this thing, was watching him for ages to see WHERE exactly he was going to deposit it as it would have been amazing to see a real bower, but he never did - privately I think he was bluffing and he'd forgotten to actually make the bower, was just gathering some bits in case he ever got round to it.
We came home incredibly tired, the whole day had been so hot and oppressive and it looked certainly as if it were getting the better of the other two at least (blissfully there are no mirrors in this place so I didn't get shocked by whatever I looked like), so we hurried in and put the barby on and Pouf, there goes the wind and the rain. Much cooler now. And can I just say, we picked up some lamb ... I would say 'chops' but they were more like 'slabs', not at all sure what cut they were but we marinated them briefly in rosemary and garlic, barbecued them and served with barbecued aubergine, courgette and yellow squash it was quite, quite sublime. As Ian commented - 'well, I'd do THAT again'. Barbecues are wonderful things.
Well, this post is far too long already and I'm missing my nightcap. Lots of love to everyone and once again MANY thanks for the posts,
Nancyxxxxxx
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