The Williamsons in Australia

South of most places

2009-01-26T11:26:00.000-08:00

New Zealand = awesome. We're still enjoying our travels, although time is running out. We've got one more week here, a few days in Hong Kong, and then we'll be winging our way back to the frozen arctic wastes known as East Anglia.

Since last post, we came down the north island via Paekakariki and Wellington, took the ferry across to the south. Stayed at the top of the south island for a while as it was so beautiful, then came across to the east coast via Kaikora and Christchurch. Currently in the Wanaka area - next Dunedin, a flight back to Auckland for a last few beachy days and to collect our stuff from Ian and Sarah...

Highlights so far (to go into too much detail would I am sure bore you stiff): hanging out with our dear Melbourne friends the Mills family at the beach, picking mussels, filtering them and then cooking them in white wine and garlic - yum, all for free; staying on another Melb friend Andrew Tripe's dad's farm during the shearing season, chasing sheep round on quad bikes and watching Will attempt to shear a wriggly lamb (and later eating lovely lamb!); visiting Abel Tasman national park to do some sea kayaking and seeing some seals swim by; swimming with dolphins and seals in Kaikora; passing various Lord of the Rings filming sites (now desperate to see the films again to make the connections); sampling cool city life in Wellington and Christchurch where we bumped into the international busking festival; ... am I making you green with envy yet??

In the last few days both Will and I have been 'canyoning' which involved abseiling, sliding and jumping down a river gorge in a wetsuit for a day. Enormous fun.

Homeward bound...kinda

2009-01-07T01:04:00.000-08:00

Just a quick update for all those loyal followers of the blog. Normal service will return soon.

We left Australia on Dec 29th, the day after V's 39th birthday, and we were very, very sad to go. We landed in Auckland and had a few happy days with friends Ian and Sarah Wroe (see Sarah's blog, la petite irlandaise for details). Now we are touring down the north island of new zealand and having a good time. We've been to the Coromandel Peninsula, which was stunning in a beachy way, through Rotorua and Taupo which were stunning in a geothermal kind of way, and now are in Tongariro national park, home of Mount Doom from the Lord of the Rings movies, which is stunning in a mountainous kind of way.

Photos and more details when we get to a reliable and cheap internet place!

Adelaide

2008-11-22T02:05:00.000-08:00

We made it! We hopped on the plane to see David Fairweather and Sian in Adelaide after almost two years of promising. It was great staying with old friends and it was good to get to explore Adelaide. Highlights were an early morning bike ride up Norton summit, Thea and Dulcie's face painting in the market, the beach at Glenelg, long lazy evening meals and a visit to SA's answer to Bavaria, Hahndorf. The low point was getting Dulcie up from her lunchtime nap in a borrowed porta cot to find her and her immediate surroundings liberally smeared in poo. But even that couldn't put a dampner on a good weekend.

Odd shaped balls

2008-11-22T01:41:00.000-08:00

It's probably disrespectful to Aussie Rules Football to make light with their monuments, but then maybe it's just showing your appreciation. Dulcie might not quite get it though.

Sydney side

2008-11-22T01:34:00.000-08:00

Well you can't go to Australia without visiting Sydney can you? Sydney's great, you gotta love the harbour, opera house, bridge, Manly, Taronga Zoo, Watson's bay fish and ships, Mossman, Circular Quay and well, the Rocks rock don't they. Thea brought her mate Alec and his brother Bas and Ma and Pa Emma and Steve along for the laughs. Great place great time ..... but it aint Melbourne and Melbourne can't be beat. Nuff said.

Skenes Creek Take II

2008-11-21T23:49:00.000-08:00

Seeing as we had such a great time over New Year last year we went back to the Blackbery Hill house in Skenes Creek to enjoy the sea, the views, and the company of good friends Richard, Raechel and Abigail with recent arrivals Archie and Lydia. The weather came up trumps, the barbeque was cranked up and the vino flowed (after 7:30). Sensational.

Dulcie is 2

2008-11-21T23:34:00.000-08:00

Dear Dulcie has chalked up two very fine years and celebrated in style in Eglington Park with her wonderful friends. There was a train cake, games, copious quantities of processed sugar, pressies and lots of really good fun. Dulcie was particulary pleased with her new tutu skirt, so much so she spontaeneously started dancin'. Bless her bum.

Round the bend (err Bay)

2008-11-21T23:15:00.000-08:00

Armed with a champagne and company lycra the 100 kms from Sorrento to Melbourne simply flew by. Mr Williamson looked quite stylish I think you'll agree!

The Mighty Fighting Hawks

2008-10-26T19:42:00.000-07:00

Fielding a young team widely expected to reach a competitive level in a few years time, the Hawks weren't expcted to do too well this season. Seems like the Hawks had forgotten to read the form book because the Mighty Fighting Hawks (Hawthorn Australian Rules Footbal Club to give their full name) made it to the Grand Final and the Williamsons made it down to their old ground to watch along with 20,000 others.

Pre-match excitement

They've only gone and won

Crazy scenes on Glenferrie Road.

The street party goes on.

Life and things

2008-10-26T19:16:00.000-07:00

Some of the cool stuff the girls have been up to includes a tennis lesson for Thea (unfortunately she wasn't imediately selected for the Australian youth team) and a visit to see Dorothy the Dinosaur with good friend Rosie.

Frasering

2008-09-22T05:31:00.000-07:00

Because it's still wintry in Melbourne September is the time to go up to Queensland and enjoy some of their year round sun. So we got on a plane and joined the annual Victorian migration to the warmth. We headed to Hervey Bay and swapped our soft roader car and the comfort of our little house for an enormous V8 land cruiser with a tent in the back. The thing to do at Hervey Bay is to ferry across to explore Fraser Island, an enormous sand island and national park famous for sand, dingoes, lakes and having the world's only beach highway. Thankfully the girls found the roar of a meaty V8 quite soothing and combined with gently bouncing over the island tracks were blissfully asleep for much of the driving. Which was more than could be said for us when we settled down for our first night's sleep in the painfully thin thermarests and frankly useless sleeping bags. But saved by some very kind people who lent us spare bags and after we'd made a shop keeper very happy by buying Vics one of his outrageously expensive air beds, things looked up and we were regularly sleeping in till 6:30 am - when the family alarm clock woke up and clambered over us going, 'Da da wha's dis'. Despite certain discomforts, Fraser Island won us over with spectacular blue lakes, crystal clear streams, amazing sand formations (sand blows), the stunning scale of 75 mile beach, more hump back whales than you could shake a stick at and pleasing lack of dingoes wanting to eat our children. We soon settled into a comfortable evening routine of boiling the billy for some tea, cooking up some pasta, cracking open the wine box and turning in to bed incredibly early. Thea's major disappointment was that we had forgotten to buy tomato ketchup so she started tripping round to the neighboring campsites for sauce. She was very effective and neither the young nor old could resist her charms - so the little lady got her sauce every night. Buoyed by a singular lack of dingoes we even camped at the back of the beach on our last night on the island and went to sleep to the stars and crashing waves. Fantastic. Then for good measure we returned home via Tin Can Bay where a pod of wild dolphins come in to feed every morning - which nicely capped off a great holiday in a very special place.

Sounds from a land down under

2008-07-10T03:04:00.001-07:00

Gold Digging

2008-07-07T05:21:00.000-07:00

We headed east in the footsteps of gold prospector Ned Stringer in search of the remnants of Victoria's richest gold mine and a nice weekend in the hills. Walhalla's population is a little down on the gold rush days, there were over 5,000 then now it's about 8. Still a few of the buildings remain and we stayed in one of them. The old Mill cottage. Once we had got over the initial shock of discovering very little had been done to Mill Cottage since the gold ran out in 1911 and survived the first night's sleep we revived our spirits with a nice morning in the sun on the balcony feeding the parrots. It's a good thing we were blessed with bright winter sun because it made the trip to the dunny in the garden more pleasant and took the edge off the unheated outside bathroom (yes, it was another trip booked by Will). Walhalla proved entertaing with an informative tour of the long tunnel extended gold mine, a great railway trip down the stringer's creek gorge and Ron's 4WD tour, which was particularly enjoyed by Will and largely tolerated by Thea - after driving through the Thomson River Thea was quite persistent in making sure Ron had specifically confirmed there would be no further river crossings. After all that there was nothing for it but to take a walk to the Wally Lodge Hotel (pub) for a pie, pint and a bit of mixing with the locals. Although with its plus points by day the accommodation revealed its most serious drawbacks at night. There was something about every creak, groan and bump of a 150 year cottage in a village that prides itself on its ghost tours that was just a little unsettling. It's amazing how you can hold onto a wee when faced with a night hike to the dunny!

Are you dancin'

2008-06-23T05:18:00.000-07:00

It's dancing time again. We put on the glad rags and razled dazzled our little hearts out at the annual Connell Wagner dinner dance. Ably assisited by some wonderful friends who had T and D for a sleepover we had a great time and got home far too late for sensible parent type people. This time we were older and wiser and took the photo before we went out rather than when we got back!

Thanks Lizzie

2008-06-09T05:48:00.000-07:00

You gotta be rapt that we get a day off for Lizzie's Birthday. Good old Queenie. So it was head to the Dandenongs for a little mountain air and good old family time. You know the thing, kids screaming in the car all the way there, starts to rain just when you're about to arrive, spend ages driving past various tea shops trying to decide which one looks worth spending all day in! Bit like a holiday in Wales really.

Now living in Aus you tend to notice the little differences such as the more informal approach to life here - so you end up with roads with evocative names such as, 'Bonza View'. To be fair, once the mist had cleared a little to an almost penetrable haze there was the vague impression of a fine view.

But the weather did dry off for the afternoon and we made it around William Ricketts Sanctuary and the unusual selection of sculpture in amongst the ferns depicting aboriginal spirituality with a generous helping of eastern mysticism stirred in for good measure.

Busy busy world

2008-06-09T05:29:00.000-07:00

It's busy being 4. For a start there's all the groups and activities to get to. Then there's the parties. So when Abi and Lia sent out invites for parties on the same day it was just as well that Abi was a doing a brunch party at the playground and that Lia was doing a craft making thing in the afternoon. How much refined sugar can a small person consume? Quite a lot apparenty.

Thanks Grandma

2008-06-09T05:18:00.000-07:00

We love the new jumpers Grandma

New house, new challenges

2008-06-09T05:14:00.000-07:00

Well after a flutter of frantic house hunting we moved into a new gaff in Clifton Hill. Certain compromises had to be made. First was the space, we're now down to 2 bedrooms, and second was amenities, there's no bath. Still who needs a bath when there's a utility room sink. Still a bath on your own is no fun so we got ... tuff tubs. A huge hit from the first night on, the tuff tub is deep, warm and endlessly enjoyable.

Ree Bear's Visit

2008-06-09T05:02:00.000-07:00

Thea's kinder has a very special member. His name is Ree bear and he is friend to all. Ree bear has a tough gig, he goes from house to house to stay for a couple of days at a time and gets thoroughly pampered and treated like the super star that he is. Ree bear's stay with Thea was no exception. A full weekend of activity was planned complete with breakfast out and trips to the park, pool and kid's church. Of course being a star his every move is covered by the paparazi (Dad) and journos write up larger than life accounts of his very move (Mum) to be read out at kinder on his return. But Mum didn't just write up a good yarn. Oh no, Mum illustrated it, created a book and crafted Ree Bear's very own book bag to take to kinder too. If you don't belive me, see the photo below! It's rumoured that one Dad even brought in his data projector to do a powerpoint show of Ree bear's weekend - but that must be kinder folk lore. Surely?

Sunday pm

2008-06-09T04:40:00.000-07:00

A warm autumn Sunday afternoon hanging out at the cafe at Collingwood Children's farm.

We apologise for the break in transmission

2008-06-04T18:17:00.000-07:00

Oh dear, what a shocker - last post in April!!

Ok, here come the excuses: just after we got back from Byron Bay we found out that our landlords were selling our house and that we would have to find somewhere else to live. This meant a lot of time dragging the kids round potential houses (Thea, having a tantrum: "But I don't want to live in a house with no furniture!") and we kept running into the issue that letting agents expect you to sign a 12 month lease - impossible for us as we intend to be back in Blighty before this time next year. To cut a long story short, we ended up finding somewhere through a personal contact in the next suburb and so got round the 12 month contract issue. But it has meant we've had to leave Kew, where we felt very much at home, and come 10 mins by car nearer to city to Clifton Hill. Our new house is lovely, brand new, but not as big as the old one so things are a little bit tighter. As we don't think it's worth moving the kids into more local kinders, etc, we are doing quite a lot of driving back and forth at the mo.

So we've been without the internet & email but now are finally back on line, which is a bit of a relief. Things are just starting to settle down a little bit and we're looking forward to making a few plans for holidays etc to really make the most of the rest of the time we're here. It's getting quite wintry now!

I'll get Will to put up some pics soon; he's started downloading them onto a different computer now so it's not so straightforward to bung them on.

Byron Bliss

2008-04-06T02:58:00.000-07:00

This week, Williamsons and Morrises (friends from round the corner in Cambridge) headed north to Byron Bay to sample the best beaches that new south wales has to offer. Being further north introduced larger and more deadly spiders, which was a negative for some - but once we'd found the redbacks that were living under the patio chairs we'd been sitting on at least we were able to get rid of them! Obviously deadly perils lurk in the water too. Thankfully we only saw little jelly fish and bottom feeding sharks on an epic snorkling trip! Everyone got on very well. Dulcie was never happier than when she was pulling out William's dummy - still she got him a beer to make up - see below. Thea and Emily spent many happy hours trying to out boss each other. Vics and Rach seemed to manage regular time off for beauty therapies and shopping (editor's comment, he's only talking about 4 hours over the whole week which was always reciprocated... not that it's an issue, ahem) and Will and James staged some titanic clashes on the tennis court. The highlights had to be the fine beaches, the high tech house, and beautiful evenings with fine food and a fair smattering of good Aussie wine.

Camping at Easter

2008-03-28T20:54:00.000-07:00

Desperate to eek out the last of the good weather, we headed off to Lorne on the Ocean Road for a spot of family camping over the Easter long weekend. The campsites were busy but we managed to get a pitch overlooking the ocean and drifted off to sleep to the sound of the roaring waves (and the blokes next door coming back from the pub.) All worth it in the morning when our kids got revenge and we got to watch the sunrise over the waves without leaving the tent.

An absolutely splendid time was had by all. Mum and Dad enjoyed a spot of boogie boarding on the big waves, Thea made an Easter Garden out of sand, and Dulcie threw herself headlong into the surf on numerous occasions. (Our kids are worryingly not showing the ocean the respect it deserves.) Lorne was great for coffee shops, kids trampolines, fish & chips...

One day we headed off to Kennett River to see the koalas: there are hundreds of them who live in the trees just by the beach and they're pretty easy to spot. They don't move all that fast! The beach there has some wonderful rock pools, so Thea, Dulcie & I played mermaid houses while Daddy rode the surf.

Real life stuff - term time

2008-03-25T21:16:00.000-07:00

W's parents were with us until towards the end of February, when real life kicked in again. So here's a taste of this term.

Thea started her new kindergarden, JJ McMahon Memorial, once we were back from holiday. It's a lovely preschool where she goes for 2 days a week, and we're very impressed with the staff and the nurturing atmosphere they create. T settled pretty well once she had overcome her inability to use the loos (they are health & safety standard issue doorless loos, and she's not one to poo in public). But a couple of doses of infant laxative and a star chart later, and all was well. Vics found it quite hard to be at the school gates alongside people who all know each other, but is gradually getting to know some other parents.

Dulcie started at her 'occasional care' at Kew Neighbourhood House, which is a 3 hour session each Tuesday morning and once again we've been really impressed with the staff and their care of her. After four or five weeks, she's stopped screaming the house down when mummy leaves and instead goes happily to her favourite carer. At the end of term we got an email from them which had photos of her progress each week: cute!

Vics continues to work one day a week at Finpa New Media, where she is officially termed an instructional designer, and helps develop interesting interactive e-learning materials. The wonderful Jane comes to look after Dulcie and then picks Thea up from kinder at 3pm. She is in the Mary Poppins vein: by the time parents get home from work, the house is tidy, children fed and bathed, calm descends and the gin and tonics can begin. Hurrah.

In addition, each week the girls go to a lovely playgroup, a music session that they both enjoy, Thea has a creative dance class and we are pretty busy! I'm not sure how interesting all this really is.

Term has just ended and it's the Easter break. More soon!

Photos

2008-03-16T01:41:00.000-07:00

To see more of us try our Picassa photo page at http://picasaweb.google.com/Thewilliamsongang

Vics adds - yes, W has bought a new digital camera and is now producing masterpieces quicker than I can create text. We've started creating picassa albums so that despite the blog getting out of date quite quickly, you can still see up to date pictures.

Cradle Mountain

2008-03-02T02:56:00.000-08:00

And finally on to the most beautiful part of our stay, the Cradle Mountain National Park. It was actually quite a bit parkier than expected and some of us ended up wearing all of our clothes to keep warm. We did some lovely walks, short ones to see waterfalls on wonderful boardwalks, and a long one around the lake where Thea completed over 4km without being carried. We were extremely proud!

Nearby was a Tassie devil sanctuary. These creatures are dying out in the wild due to a facial cancer that actually spreads as they interact (ie fight over food, which is often). They're surprisingly cute looking up close. Not that you'd want to be in the cage with them.

Sorry some of the pics are sideways. I just can't face fixing them. Lie down next to your computer and you'll get the idea.

Going wild

2008-03-02T02:34:00.000-08:00

Heading west through Mount Field National Park and Lake St Clair to the edge of the world at Strahan.

The ranger we did our walk thru Mount Field with swore that you could hear the trees drinking if you used a stethoscope. Vics wasn't quite so sure.

We experienced the Roaring Forties on the beach at Strahan. Man did they roar.

Hittin' Hobart

2008-03-02T02:28:00.000-08:00

The Williamson's can't be without a decent cafe latte for too long. Time to go to Hobart.

The weather wasn't quite so good at Hobart, and we had an amusing drive up Mount Wellington for the fabled view over the city, only to have the mist descend so we could hardly see each other at the top.

Good cafes, and restaurants. While we were there a massive cruise liner arrived. Worth a gawp.

Freycinet frolics

2008-03-02T02:16:00.000-08:00

At wineglass bay your wineglass is always half full.

We stayed at a beautiful beach house just outside Coles Bay, which was only slightly spolit by the appearance of a massive (harmless, but huge, really) spider in our bedroom on the first night. Gallant Will soon disposed of it.

The scenery around Coles Bay was truly stunning, and we did a beautiful but very tiring walk over the hills to Wineglass Bay itself, which was stunning. As you can see.

Lovin' Launceston

2008-03-02T02:04:00.000-08:00

First stop on the grand tour of Tassie was Lanceston, a quiet little town on the river. We hung out at Cataract Gorge, where there was a chairlift over a lake (half way across I wondered if it really was a good thing to do with Thea), a swimming pool, and some stunning scenery. A cruise on the river completed the stay.

All aboard

2008-03-02T01:58:00.000-08:00

Departing marvellous Melbourne for the delights of Tassie.

The highlight of Joyce & Mike's trip to see us was a two week holiday to Tasmania. Thea, Daddy, Nanna and Gramps travelled on the Spirit of Tasmania ferry for an 8 hour day trip across to Devonport on Tassie's north coast. Mummy and Dulcie took a flight which got them to the same place in around an hour.

A night on the tramcar

2008-03-02T01:50:00.000-08:00

How much fun can you have on a tram?

One of the first things we did when W's folks were with us was to get on board the travelling tramcar restaurant and have 5 courses and a few drinks (can you tell?) whilst gliding round the city's tram tracks. I was paranoid that drinks would spill on the bends, but said tram has been fitted with some sort of stabilising gear to make sure it doesn't happen. The decor is an Australian version of victorian, so a bit chintzy. But huge fun.

Thea's Birthday

2008-02-24T03:21:00.000-08:00

Here's some pictures of Thea's 4th birthday a highlight of which was a trip up the Dandenongs in Puffing Billy. Thanks for all the lovely presents fro her fantastic friends.

Christmas and New Year family visit.

2008-01-17T02:06:00.000-08:00

We're back in business. I'm going to stop apologising about the gaps between blogs now. It's starting to get repetetive.

What an absolute stormer of a Christmas and New Year we had. V's brother Matt, wife Sarah and the neices Bella and Saskia made the trek round the world to spend their holidays with us. It was so special to have family here over Christmas. The four girlies got on extremely well (most of the time!) and the adults had a blast too.

It's hard to pick out the highlights as it felt like there were so many of them. Ok then, you've twisted my arm. Here's a few:

The trip we did along the Great Ocean Rd - incredible views. Stayed at the dream beach house at Skene's Creek: massive seaviews from windows and balconies. Two minute walk to beach where the kids played in the creek and Bella, Vics, Matt & Will spent many a happy hour boogie boarding. Once we got Sarah in a wetsuit she enjoyed the sea too. Walks along the beach at sunset - and one early morning jog where V came face to face with a seal on a rock.

Further along the road, a helicopter trip (taken by everyone except V & D) to get amazing views of the 12 Apostles.

The scenery at Hall's Gap, in the Grampian ranges, where kangaroos came to check out the football pitch near the youth hostel at sunset.

A steaming hot day at Sovereign Hill, a living museum set in the goldrush times, where we all went underground to find out about the lives of miners in the 1800s (not good lives , as you'd imagine.)

A trip through the Otway forest on the Otway 'fly' - a vertiginous suspended walkway which was apparently supposed to sway in the breeze, giving stunning views of the prehistoric ferns below.

A couple of child-free trips into Melbourne at night, checking out some fine restaurants and getting into the warm city night vibe.

Matt and Will enjoyed a day at the Boxing Day test at the MCG in the members area, courtesy of our friend Raeche who took them as her guests. This was before the test got controversial and was apparently a top day. Sarah & Vics got their own child free day at the end of the holiday when they did their best in the new year sales.

And I could go on. Except that we're a bit busy getting ready for W's parents who arrive at the weekend.

We're all well. W's work quite hectic at the start of the year, kids missing the cousins a bit. But doing good.

November catch up

2007-12-02T03:06:00.000-08:00

So many adventures, so little time to blog about them...

Earlier this month we had Will's company family Christmas fun day. This was great fun although rather strange in some respects. Firstly, it was of course no where near Christmas. Secondly, it was a blazing hot day and a bearded, costumed man seemed somewhat out of place. Thirdly it was at Melbourne's answer to the Masaai Mara, Weribee Safari Park. T was predictably slightly unsure about sitting on Santa's knee but nevertheless accepted his gift (a cheap version my little pony) whereas Dulcie thought the whole thing hysterical (although Mummy has 'lost' her gift, a delightful pink bear that sings an abridged version of rockabye baby in a high pitched electronic tone.)

Last weekend we went camping with friends Paula & Pete and their three girls Lia, Rosie & Liberty, to Wilson's Promontary, a beautiful bit of coast about 3 hours south east of here. The wildlife was amazing. Our campsite was regularly raided by cockatoos, possums & wombats and with a couple of toddlers dropping half chewed bread on the dust, there were rich pickings! We camped by a serene tidal river, and the beaches were pristine. One had amazing sand that sqeaked when you walked on it. It was called squeaky beach - well, that's the Aussie way. Tell it like it is. Disappointingly it was the coolest weather we've had all month, so not quite the sunbathing & swimming in the sea vibe that we'd hoped for. Of course, since heading back to Melbourne it has been hitting the 30s on some days.

Did we say that Dulcie learned to walk? Also, her hair suddenly went very very curly. Odd. Also, V started doing one day's work a week on a trial basis for an e-learning company.

Well, hopefully that's brought us all up to date. Enjoy advent!

Gallivanting with Grandma

2007-11-27T03:16:00.000-08:00

Phew. How busy have we been lately? You'll have noticed the rather large gap between blogs. Sorry about that. I'll try to do a few over the next few days to catch us up with each other.

We spent most of the last month having far far too much fun doing touristy things with Vicky's mum.

First of all we headed down the Mornington Peninsula to stay at St Andrew's Beach where there was plenty of appropriately beachy type activity. A real highlight was a tour we did of the bay in a little boat looking for seals and dolphins. Grandma donned a wetsuit and got up close to the seals. She did pretty well as a novice snorkler to manage to hang on to the back of the boat and see stuff!

Following the nature/water theme, we had another great evening in the city harbour on a penguin tour. There is a colony of 'little penguins' which has taken up residence on a man made breakwater off St Kilda Pier, and by going out on a sunset cruise we got the chance to see them all coming in from a day's fishing, zooming round the baot underwater, and clambering up the rocks to find their nests. They were most cute.

Then Vicky & her Mum headed off for a relaxing girls' weekend away to the red centre of Australia - Uluru. It rained for the first time in 5 months when we were there so some of the activities we planned to do weren't possible, but we had one wonderful sunny day when we did a walk near the rock in the morning and went on a tour of the nearby Olga rock formations in the afternoon. And lots of time for chatting and chilling out.

Finally, you can't be a Brit in Melbourne without visiting Ramsay Street. Yes, we are far more serious about Neighbours than the locals and the bus that takes you to the residential street where they film is full of UK citizens. We got to walk around the street, go to the set of the garage & greasemonkeys, and meet one of the cast. Unfortunately I (Vicky) haven't actually watched Neighbours for a while so the chap we got to meet ("Fraser") was a mystery to me, but my Mum seemed pretty happy to get her arms round him.

All too soon it was time to wave V's mum off again at the airport. Sadly her journey home was a bit eventful, with a bout of food posioning necessititating a short stay in a Singapore hospital en route.

One is fun!

2007-10-20T04:59:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday Dulcie!

We have had a beautiful day today celebrating Dulcie's first birthday (I know! Where did that go?) today along with very special guest Grandma (V's mum) and lots of our lovely friends. V's mum arrived last night and was picked up from the airport by V and T. Unfortunately V managed to get completely disorientated on the way back and get lost not once but twice. The 40 minute journey from Melbourne airport took over 2 hours. Whoops. Fortunately T had fallen asleep (mid sentence, she was so shattered) after five minutes of this epic journey.

This morning Dulcie had a few presents, we all went out for breakfast and W bought a few tons of sausages for the afternoon. We had a couple of lovely treats: Auntie Harriet sent us some amazing cupcakes which we found in a beribbonned box on the front doorstep, and then Gordon & Helen phoned from Tajikistan - the first time we've managed to actually talk to those dear friends in months.

This afternoon we held a special first birthday BBQ for Dulcie and lots of our new aussie (well, the majority were South African, Scottish, or from UK actually) friends. We hired the hall at Thea's kinder, Possums, which has a delightful enclosed garden with barbeques and lots of lovely play equipment. The weather was perfect, about 24 degrees with a light breeze, and the garden had loads of trees providing dappled sunlight. It was wonderful. Thea particularly enjoyed opening all of Dulcie's presents.

Here's some pics of the day so you can all imagine you were there with us too. That would've been nice, eh?

Where does the time go?

2007-10-09T20:54:00.000-07:00

Whoops, so sorry. Weeks are slipping by and no new blogs. We will have a word with those responsible and make sure it doesn't happen again.

Well, since we were all last here, winter turned into spring; we've had to start putting the sunscreen on the kids again, packing the sun hats instead of the woolly ones, and drinking ice coffee instead of latte all the time. Having said that, we have seen the unpredictability that Melbourne is famous for, and the buggy rain cover stays in the boot, just in case.

We've all been pretty well apart from me (Vicky) who had a bit of a monster virus which took over two weeks to even think about packing its bags and departing. Unfortunately it co-incided with the school holidays when everything (kinder, playgroup, singing, dancing) shuts down for two weeks so there was a lot of DVD watching in our house with mummy only lifting her head off the sofa to beg Thea not to put the Wiggles Safari on for the 17th time but please to switch to Beatrix Potter (Mummy's favourite with nice soothing music.) My friend Paula came round one morning so I could go to the doctors and get some sleep, and when I finally surfaced she had cleaned my kitchen. That is the kind of friend you need! Anyway, I'm back to firing on most cylinders now.

Thea continues to enjoy making unusual things from recycled cardboard boxes, masking tape, string and pegs. We are running out of space to store these creations so every few weeks Mummy rounds them up at night, secretly dismantles them and puts the pieces back in the big drawer marked 'junk modelling'. We have bought her a digital clock for her room and trained her not to make noise or come in to see us until she can see a 7 at the front of the numbers. Each day we are now greeted at 7.01 am by squeals of 'I see a seven, I see a seven.' Unfortunately once she got over excited when she saw a 7 and forgot that it was supposed to be the FIRST number - 6.27, not good for the poor slumbering parents.

Dulcie is not quite walking, but loves pushing a trolley around and walking holding people's hands. She can stand up on her own in a wibbly wobbly kind of way. She tends to refuse her morning sleep most days so we are down to one long sleep a day at lunch time which is convenient for everyone else most of the time. She claps, says 'ta' when you give her something, wipes her face if you give her a cloth, climbs into inappropriate places (the dishwasher this week) and finds her older sister quite hilarious. I spend a lot of the day rescuing Thea from Dulcie's crude expressions of love and interest ("Mummy, help, Dulce is eating my pencils/turning my programme off/going to ruin everything.")

OK, here are a few pics of what we've been up to. There are some of us at the MCG watching Aussie Rules, supporting our local team, the Hawthorn Hawks, who were unfortunately knocked out soon after these pics were taken. AFL, to our British eyes, has some really comedic moments, like when you suddenly realise there people all over the pitch who aren't even playing - people carrying water to the players, and men dressed in fluro yellow who carry messages from the coaches to individual players. Plus at the end you all have to sing the winning team's song seven or eight times. I reckon it's closer to Quidditch than it is to footie. But it's all in good humour, the fans aren't even segregated and you don't get any aggro. We enjoyed watching the finals on TV. We barracked (= rooted for, but you can't say that here, it's rude) for the Cats (=Geelong), and they won, hurrah.

Other pics include the kids enjoying Mainly Music, shaking their shakers and feeling the groove, plus a recent family outing to St Kilda, one of the bayside suburbs. You can just about make out the scary face behind us which is the gateway to Luna Park, the famous amusements down there.

Ok, I think that's got us up to date now. We'll be back very soon.

Head to the Hills

2007-09-16T03:03:00.001-07:00

All I did was make a casual comment about a beautiful mountain whilst skiing and the next thing I knew I was signed up for a 3 day hike up Feathertop. But when the hills call you've gotta answer. So with my Dad's time off pass clutched in my hand we set of for Harrietville in the Victorian Alps to establish base camp in the luxurious accommodation of the local motel. The first day's hiking got off to a bad start when the path disappeared and our search to find it again led us up the wrong spur. However, once we were 500 m of altitiude up the wrong spur it suddenly became the 'right' spur and the route was quickly re-planned as a circular walk taking in the delights of the razor back ridge. A not altogether bad outcome. The first day got us up to the ridge and a decent camp site with a good patch of snow for water. The sun set was exquisite and the al la carte supper of pasta with curried sausages tasted magnificent due to the exertions of the day. Day 2 was a hike to the summit at 1926 m through the remains of the snow - we couldn't have had a better day for it, with blue sky and light winds - and down the northwest spur to the Melbourne Uni hut. The Hut was great and the snow melt spring water especially invigorating for the morning ablutions. Day 3 was the rapid and thigh busting descent into the valley. I found the old adage to be particularly true: Descend Feathertop in haste, struggle to walk for the next 4 days.

Happy holidays

2007-09-04T21:12:00.000-07:00

We did a very spontaneous thing last week and went off on holiday at 4 days notice. We booked to fly up to Queensland where the weather is currently warmer than down here in Victoria, and headed to a place called Noosa which is very popular with Melburnians this time of year, situated on a beautiful network of rivers at the coast. We booked on the Tuesday, and on Wednesday Noosa experienced a one in a hundred year rain event (almost a metre of rain, can you imagine) and got flooded. We had a worried few days, but took some advice and in the end headed up as planned. In the event, a few of the roads were closed when we arrived, but most things were functioning as normal.

We stayed at some very swanky apartments, with gorgeous pool and roof terrace with bbq, TV the size of a radiator etc. Unfortunately they were renovating the apartment below us but the builders were very very nice and at our request didn't do any noisy work when the kids had their lunchtime rests. It sounds like a recipe for holiday disaster doesn't it, inundation and brick dust, but actually we all had the most wonderfully relaxing time. We spent most of our time on the beach or in cafes, and Mummy and Daddy took turns to have a surf lesson each: both managed to stand up a couple of times by the end of their sessions, how proud were we? There was also a stunning national park which we strolled round, and a sunset river cruise where we drank bubbly and rubber necked at the multi million dollar properties. The girlies were completely delightful, although Thea is currently scared of big waves so wouldn't go in the sea at all, and Dulcie consumed quite a lot of the beach. On the way back to the airport we dropped into Australia Zoo (once home to Steve Irwin). It's a little odd how Steve Irwin is now regarded as some sort of national saint now (they've renamed the highway near the zoo after him), and also how the zoo functions as if he'd never died. There are huge pictures of him everywhere, and he's refered to in all the literature as if he's still around. Mummy got to stroke a wombat while we there. Well, when in Rome...

More ordinary stuff

2007-08-19T05:08:00.001-07:00

Well, as the title of this (and the previous) post implies, we haven't been up to anything particularly spectacular recently, but have nevertheless been having a great time doing everyday stuff.

We're really enjoying the kids. Dulcie seems to be doing different things every day. She has got a new facial expression which I hope you can see clearly in the picture: it's a kind of screwed up nose grin. If you look carefully in one of the pics (click on them to make them bigger) you should just be able to make out her crazy vampire teeth, the middle two haven't really come out properly yet but the next two are right out and looking rather fangish. She crawls really, really fast now (so fast that you're looking around the room wondering where she's got to.) Today we found her on top of our mini trampoline, so climbing is obviously a skill she's about to get going on! And her hair's started to go a bit curly at the back!

Thea is very imaginative in her play and we spend a lot of time following her instructions being kings and queens, all sorts of animals etc. She's very loving and affectionate. Days are spent making, building, colouring, painting, picking flowers. Her current preferred media are blu tack and selotape. Recently, the whole gang of her soft toys were selotaped up and we were told that they were wearing space suits and going to the moon. I have had the genius idea of getting her a CD player in her room and buying a few story CDs, which means she actually lies down for a bit at 'siesta' time and doesn't just trash her room for an hour.

The lady you won't know in one of the pics is Jane. She's going to be looking after the girls on 3 out of 4 Friday afternoons for us to give Mummy a bit of a needed break. She's brilliant; we met her at playgroup as 4 days a week she nannies one of the little girls Thea knows at playgroup.

We are on a bit of a self improvement drive at the moment. Our church homegroup is studying The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work by John Gottman (why do these NY Times Bestsellers always have to have seven of something? Despite that I recommend it...), we're going to an excellent parenting course on Sunday afternoons developed by these people in New Zealand https://www.parentsinc.org.nz/toolbox-parenting-group-information/, and stone the flaming crows if I haven't taken up jogging. I know, I know, I've said a thousand times that I CAN NOT run on the road but having invested in a good pair of shoes it appears that I can. Slowly. And not very far!!! The plan is to crank it up to go a couple of times a week so I can actually start to lose that post baby spare tyre. I think I'll have to ration my trips to the coffee shop to even start to make a dent in it, to be fair...

And today I pruned the roses. It's all beginning to sound a bit middle aged, isn't it? I guess I can redeem that by adding that we've been 'gigging' a bit lately and have the seen the Shins (average) and The Cure (pretty darn good) in the last two weeks. And we celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary this weekend with a marvellous Burmese takeaway with Brown Brothers bubbly one night, followed by a night out to a swizzy restaurant the next. Hurrah.

Ordinary stuff

2007-08-11T16:46:00.000-07:00

Here are some recent pics. I'll tell you what's been going on soon!

OK, here's some explanation of a couple of the pics.

"Look, I'm dressing up as Mummy," said Thea. I turned around and saw the attractive stilletto & rubber gloves outfit. How does she know?!

Look, we've gained a son! No, it's just James, sharing a bed time story. Amy & Richard Bala, whom we knew in Cambridge, have just arrived here in sunny Kew for 18 months, with their little boy James and baby Isobel. It's been lovely to have them around and makes us feel very established here to suddenly be explaining how things work to them. They are going to be living near, which will be fun.

Skitastic baby

2007-07-29T03:37:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we took a long weekend break and headed for the snow. It had been raining gloomily in Melbourne for weeks before which meant that the mountains were getting a decent amount of snow cover. So off we headed to Mount Hotham in the Victorian Alps. It was about a five hour drive. (You can tell we are getting more aussified as we didn't think too much of that. People over here are prepared to travel so much further by car.) We stayed in a lodge which is a cross between a youth hostel and a European style ski chalet: we had all our meals cooked and the full gourmet luxury experience yet we were expected to all sleep in bunks and depending on numbers, share rooms with strangers! Wisely the lodge manager didn't put anyone else in with us, as Dulcie did her waking up in the middle of the night yelling thing (an hour earlier each night we were there, ARRGGHH) but our friends Richard, Raechel & Abigail had a couple of people sharing with them who came back from a night at the bar and tried to get into the wrong bunk. Chaos ensued.

So, skiing in July. Weird huh? (The last time we went skiing must have been almost exactly 18 months ago, as the day we got back that time I discovered I was pregnant with Dulcie, and she hit 9 months last week.) It all actually worked very well with us taking it in turns to ski and do childcare. Abigail took her Pingu DVD and Thea took her new Fifi and the Flowertots, so the gilrs were happy. Thea said she was desperate to "ski fast" so one afternoon we hired her some boots and skis. Cue all manner of whinging. "These boots are tooooo tight." Will skied her down a very flat slope in between his skis and she moaned all the way down, and of course said "Again, again" at the bottom.

We couldn't help but notice a few key differences between the Victorian Alps and the French Alps, our usual ski haunt. Hotham was smaller & lower of course, but it seemed very uncrowded, no real queues. In fact on our way up the mountain on the way there we kept thinking we had gone the wrong way as there was no traffic. And this was on changeover day. Also, the Aussies who work the lifts etc are eternally cheerful, ask you how your day's skiing is going, help you get on the lift, and would never ever dream of closing the lift if they could see someone skiing down towards it. I couldn't help but feel that they should pop over to France and offer the ski resort staff there some lessons in customer service. Also the Aussies are health & safety freaks and insist on scaring you to death by putting signs at the top of black runs which say, "Expert skiers only. Do not fall over on this run," which is the kind of thing that makes me far more likely to fall over.

Anyway, we all got back in one piece, apart from a nasty bruise I sustained to the kneecap by walking into the tow bar on the back of some ridiculously oversized chelsea tractor in the car park of the place where we were returning the snow chains we'd hired. (Long sentence, but grammatically ok I think).

Being away at the weekend meant I missed the release of Harry Potter 7 which led to a pretty desperate time on Tuesday afternoon whizzing round Melbourne looking for a shop that hadn't sold out of them. I was successful on the fifth attempt and spent most of my free hours last week with my heart in my mouth wondering what was to become of the boy wizard. No spoilers here apart from to say I thought JK dun well.

Other news, I have been looking into doing a bit of work and have a few chats with different contacts I've made to see what's out there. Nothing definite yet but some interesting leads. Salaries seem a bit lower here and childcare costs the same, so I need to just make sure I don't lose any money! I think it's about time I got out of the house without the girlies a little more. They are both gorgeous and I love being with them, but it's too full on at the moment and I think a day or too when Mummy has a rest at work would probably do us all good.

Girlies news: Thea has completely turned into a blue-peter-presenteresque reuser of household junk and I am constantly being told off for throwing something away which she wants to make into something unfeasible. She gets this crazy look in her eyes and nearly always starts the process by saying, "Mummy, I've got a brilliant idea, let's make a ..." Today she threw a wobbly when Will left a cafe without the two empty cardboard cups she'd earmarked to make a mask with (?!). Dulcie has started crawling quite quickly now and as I have mentioned before, sees it as a personal mission to tidy up the by-products of Thea's craft work by eating them. She seems so grown up all of a sudden. A friend has lent us one of those baby entertainment centres that they stand up in and she just fiddles with all the toys on it, upright and perky, babbling a load of nonsense that sounds more like speech now. Anyway, if I don't finish this soon she'll have nothing to eat next week as I'm out of frozen baby mush. More anon.

July jaunts

2007-07-19T02:51:00.000-07:00

Hello again from a wet and chilly Melbourne. We are learning to love the rain, cos rain means snow in the mountains and we have booked to go skiiing this weekend! Skiing in July. Crazy stuff. Actually a lot of the Aussies seem to have a sense that it's just not quite right to have the seasons this way round (heritage I suppose) and you see shops selling tinsel, fake trees etc for 'Christmas in July' celebrations that people do.

We are finally starting to feel a bit better. I had to go on antibios in the end for a chest infection. The kids are taking a few days break from being snotty, although D is still afflicted with teeth issues. Actually her teeth are coming through in a very odd looking way. The top two middle ones not thru yet but the next ones across on each side have come out mid way down the gum, almost like they are pushing forward as well as down. She looks like a little vampire when she grins! Suffice to say there has been an element of wailing in the night (her and me) and you can't even buy Medised (sure fire knockout drops) here. I had a discussion with a friendly pharmacist today about how I might mix my own. Dulcie has started crawling in a rather determined way. She also hates being carried and deplores being sat down. She tries to hurl herself out of our arms and insists on being stood up against things. Alarmingly this has co-incided with Thea going through a phase of increased creativity which involves cutting, sticking, building, gluing, taping, and a lot of dropping small items on the floor. We are averaging around 3 choke hazards a day..

Photos for this blog entry include the wonderful Pixar exhibition that we went to see in the city centre the other weekend, a trip that we did with our friends Emma, Alec and Sebastian to Weribee Safari Park (the kids had more fun bundling each other on the slide than on the safari bus, I think) and Thea's trip to the wonderful Kew traffic school. This is where kids cycle their bikes round a mini road system, complete with dinky functioning traffic lights and painted sheds to look like little buildings, supposedly to learn the highway code. Hmmm. Thea spent more time playing shops in the huts than actually cycling, but she had fun.

June jaunts

2007-07-01T03:03:00.000-07:00

What happened to June?! (And I don't mean poor old Blighty's complete lack of summer.) We seem to have slipped onto some kind of fast forward mode. We've have suddenly been here six months, Dulcie is eight months old, we've done two terms of all our weekly activities, and Melbourne midwinter is upon us. I'll start with the weather since that's so topical. Well, for the first time since we've been here, the Melbourne cliche 'four seasons in one day' is finally starting to apply. You can't really look at the sky and make a plan for the afternoon, as it can change and change back again in the space of a few hours. As a result I have occasionally been caught out in a heavy shower with a buggy full of greengrocery, two small kids, no coats, umbrellas or raincover.

The womenfolk of the house have all had rotten colds on and off for a month. The last bout has been a bit frustrating, with everyone coughing and spluttering. At night there's a cacophony of soprano and treble hacking, with an accompaniment deep bass snoring. It's the school holidays here now for two weeks and all our groups have stopped, so I hope that we'll be in contact with a few less germs and be able to properly get over things. Dulcie has returned to old tricks of waking up when it's still dark, so all in all what with illness and tiredness we've been feeling a bit sorry for ourselves at times.

A couple of weeks ago it was Will's company's annual knees up, which took place at the famous MCG in the members' rooms (which they project managed when it was built). I didn't have particularly high expectations, particularly when I found out the theme was 'hollywood glamour' (nothing in my wardrobe answering that description, had to get the Audrey Hepburn option from local fancy dress hire) but it turned out to be an absolute blinder of an evening, fantastic views over the city one way and the vast sports ground the other way, excellent food and wine and a band playing our kind of music. Here's a pic of us attempting to look glamorous, self portrait when we got home (2am, latest stop out since having kids)! Can you check out my bling?

We've been enjoying family time together at the weekends lately. There are so many great places to go in Melbourne, and as we're still basically in tourist mode, we tend to go and do more things than some of our friends who live here all the time. These pics are us enjoying a bit of family jumping (off a wall next to the Collingwood Children's farm near us) and the visit we did yesterday to MSAC (Melbourne Sports & Aquatic Centre) on the other side of town. To my huge surprise, Dulcie coped really well (first time we've got round to taking her swimming) and stayed in the water for quite a long time. Thea did brilliantly in the waves pool and to my utter shock agreed to go down the water chute with Daddy. This was a really high, dark, enclosed slide with lots of twists and turns, the sort of thing that I have to pluck all my courage up to go on. I think Will was desperate for a go but too embarrassed without a small child as an excuse, so he talked her into it. Apparently as they were spat out into the pool at the bottom she said, 'Again!' This is yet more proof that she has more Williamson genes than Ewins ones. It was a good way to get a quiet afternoon tho as both girls were exhausted from the activity; Thea was so weary that she actually fell asleep with a toy in her mouth.

Artist in residence

2007-06-26T05:43:00.000-07:00

Admittedly there's an element of proud parent goggles here, but below you will be able to enjoy the following delights from the pen of an emerging genius...
- Bird with blue wing
- Thea pushing Peter in a wheel barrow
- Woman with child
- My family

Not quite sure who the mystery 5th person is.

Ocean Groove

2007-06-19T04:28:00.001-07:00

The second weekend in June was the Australian official bank holiday to celebrate the Queen's birthday. Happy Birthday your Maj! (When we come back to UK I'll be agitating for an introduction of a similar paid day off so we can all have a slice of cake and raise a glass to HRH togther.) We were invited by our friends Raechel and Richard to go and stay at Raechel's parents' house which is at a gorgeous place called Ocean Grove down on the Bellarine Peninsula, about an hour and a half's drive from Melbourne. Although it was a bit chilly, the weather was mainly sunny and we had a really relaxing time. There was a lot of going out for breakfast. The kids watched wall to wall Pingu!

Thea was confused about being on a beach in the sunshine and not being allowed to go swimming. She threw a wobbly when Will wouldn't let her go in, so he negotiated that they would go and put their hands in the sea and if it was warm enough he would let her take her shoes off and paddle. Of course, she put her mits in the icy water and declared it warm enough, stripped down to her Dora pants and gallivanted around. We got strange looks from all the Aussies who had their kids wrapped up in fleeces. She did some lovely drawings on the sand, including one with seaweed hair.

On the Saturday we took a ride on a little steam train that chugs up and down the coast. It was really beautiful. The kids loved it and the parents found the rhythmic motion slightly sleep inducing. Shame it was only for 45 mins!

Dulcie's second tooth has now come through the gum and she's also experimenting with pre-crawling moves. Instead of sitting up happily amusing herself all the time, she tries to lean forward onto her hands and ends up splatted on her tummy, unable to do anything. Whinging swiftly follows. Thank goodness she has also started sleeping a bit later in the morning. We had been getting a bit sick of 6am starts but introducing a bottle before she goes to bed seems to do the trick most days.

Winter's coming

2007-06-03T04:03:00.000-07:00

It's definitely getting colder. We need the radiators on each day now, and when the heating went wrong on Friday night we certainly felt it. We had to leave our babysitter at home with a hot water bottle! Fortunately the letting agancy were very good and a man came to sort it out on Saturday morning. The problem: the thermostat batteries had died. Which begs the question, why have a thermostat that's not connected to the mains??

We've had a few good evenings out. We found a cool cinema down in St Kilda that's still as it was in the 1930s. It has a huge upstairs balcony and a downstairs area, art deco furnishings and a resident cat. Just like the old ones before they turned them into multi screens. It won't take bookings and shows double bills, but after enjoying The Queen with Helen Mirren, we were too tired to stay for the second film.

Girlies have both had back to back colds (us too) and Dulcie has celebrated the hatching of her first tooth with a few early morning risings. She has also started chuckling randomly, as if she's continually having a private joke. Thea has got her first pair of long boots, which is helpful as she's addicted to skirts and at least with the boots she can wear her skirts into the winter. She was typically unsure about them to start with ("tooooo tiiiiight") but won't take them off now. She has started drawing people with arms and legs attached to their heads instead of just heads. And using words like , 'unfortunately.'

We had a great trip to the zoo yesterday and were particularly pleased to see Timmy the Pygmy Hippo who Uncle Ben sponsored for Thea. Actually Melbourne zoo is quite cool. The elephants are all from Thailand, so their bit is more like a Thai theme park, complete with Thai style buildings, statuary, decor and food in the cafe.

Hip hip hooray

2007-05-24T21:16:00.000-07:00

Managed to speak to the GP yesterday who confirmed that the ultrasound scan shows Dulcie's hips are developing totally normally. Phew. We've celebrated by introducing chicken to her diet. I spent hours the other night making various types of chicken stew, blending and freezing them. I'm not sure how well they are going down: she had one for lunch today and has spent most of her 'nap' since screaming. Maybe too much leek?! We are learning that Dulcie essentially has two modes. She spends most of the time grinning widely and toothlessly, charming the pants off people. But the rest of the time, to quote Thea, 'she screams till her head falls off.' There's no in between. So it may not be a digestive problem, just a bad mood.

We went to see a cool exhibition at the weekend about the Great Wall of China, where I learned that there are in fact many walls, not just one, and that it can not, in fact, be seen from space. So there you go.

We're really enjoying speaking to people on the phone. If you use skype, send us an email and we'll let you know our identity (if you don't understand that bit, don't worry, it's not relevant to you).

Updates

2007-05-22T04:56:00.000-07:00

The ambulance bill arrived today. $250. Apparently if we'd needed a trip somewhere it could have been thousands. In the envelope with the invoice they send you an invitation to join the ambulance insurance scheme for $120 a year per family. I think we'll be doing that very very soon.

Dulcie had her scan on her hips on Thursday. I am still waiting for a chat with the GP to get the official results, but the lady who scanned them said she thought all was normal. And that cost $180, about half of which we can claim back if we go and queue up for half an hour in a nearby suburb at the Medicare office.

People of the UK, I say unto you, treasure your NHS. Cherish it, nurture it, love it, buy it little gifts. You don't know what you've got till it's gone.

Call the cops!

2007-05-14T22:13:00.000-07:00

I am just recovering from the trauma of having the girls locked in the car with the car keys for about 20 minutes! I had been at a friend's house and was putting the kids in their car seats ready to go home. Thea was groaning so I Iet her hold the car keys, slammed the doors and was just saying goodbye to Raechel when - click, stomach wrenching noise - she must have pressed the zapper and locked the doors, and then let the keys fall to the floor. I just stood in the road not quite sure what to do next. I started trying to talk to Thea and ask her to try to wriggle out of her straps or undo her harness so she could jump into the front and open a door, but of course she couldn't manage either. Neither she nor Dulcie seemed bothered initially so we rang Will to see if he could drop his set of keys by. It looked as if that might take a while, so Raechel rang the police. Who brought the fire brigade with them. And because there were children involved, an ambulance turned up. It suddenly dawned on me that there were NINE uniformed men all gathered round the Subaru - and don't forget, this is Australia and you have to PAY for these services. Thea thought it was hilarious. The firemen said if it had been summer they would have broken the car window immediately due to risk of kids overheating but I really didn't want that to happen unless really necessary, so one of them kindly called the RAC (on his own membership! I think they took pity on me after hearing me repeatedly gabbling, 'How much is this going to cost?') and in the end RAC man got there first and broke in. It was just in time as Dulcie had just started to cry, the paramedics were getting itchy about how long the kids had been in there and I was only just holding it together. When I got T & D out they were really hot - this was on a cloudy autumn day.

Phew!

Other than that, we are all v well and happy. Starting to feel like we are making some friends and that our social life is nice and busy. And Dulcie seems to have decided she doesn't want to feed at night any more, so the last couple of days she has slept 7-7 and I have had boobs like rocks. It was Mother's Day here on Sunday and I got the best gift: I was allowed to go back to bed for an hour or so in the morning, and then Will & Thea made me pancakes for breakfast. What more can you want?

A few pics of us. The ones of me and Will were taken by Thea who seems to be following her dad's enjoyment of photography.

Doing the tourist thing in Melbourne

2007-04-30T04:25:00.000-07:00

On Saturday we headed out on the tram to do the tourist thing on a sunny Melbourne autumnal day. First we headed down to the Botanical Gardens for a very pleasant stroll about and some fine lunch in the cafe overlooking the lake. Thea insisted that we play 'What's the time Mr Wolf?', a game that she has learned at a few recent parties and is just getting the hang of. She was initially far far too scared to actually play it, but was fascinated to observe it. Now she has plucked up enough courage to be Mr Wolf herself, or to let Mummy be Mr Wolf if she has a pre-agreement to catch Daddy and not Thea. She's a sensitive little soul who finds parts of Sesame Street distressing enough to need to leave the room. Miss T is also becoming quite a proficient photographer - see the self portrait of her shadow. (She does also take a lot of pics of people's feet.) The Botanic Gardens has a magical children's section with bamboo hiding places, rocks to climb on, a pond to attempt to fall in etc, and we played there happily for ages.

Next we headed for the National Gallery of Victoria to see an exhibition we had heard about where you go and build some white lego into an ongoing structure. The NGV has a wall of glass with water running down it which is quite hypnotic (and rather chlorinated) so you get a peek of the exhibition through a haze of water before you go in. It also has a splendid stained glass ceiling and a coffee shop, and we ended up devoting most of our time to those rather than the lego.

Dulcie is sitting up really well now with only the occasional face plant. She is also dribbling until her clothes are saturated in a matter of hours, so she may be hatching some teeth. We've got to take her for an ultrasound on her hips soon as apparently she has unsymmetrical folds in her leg flab & bum cheeks which is sometimes a sign that a hip ball isn't properly in its socket. We're not particularly worried. But missing the NHS! I find being asked to pay $55 at the end of a 2 minute GP consultation for a baby sticks in the throat, even tho you can claim some of it back.

Autumn happenings

2007-04-29T20:59:00.000-07:00

Yes, it's autumn here, but not many mists or mellow fruitfulness as yet. It's been a beautiful time of year in Melbourne. The mornings are chilly enough to make you want to stay in bed, but by around 11am it's usually warm (and sometimes hot). At around 5pm it starts to get nippy, and then you need a jumper for the evening indoors. We haven't needed the radiators on yet, though we have noticed that most of our Australian friends have their heating on. Wimps.

Big news for us is that we finally have a car. Scooby the Subaru arrived a week ago and we are very VERY pleased with the new addition to the family. It makes it so much easier for Vics to get around with the kids and to get back home from activities before one or both of them is going spare from wanting food or sleep. Driving in Melbourne is pretty straightforward too. Just don't get stuck behind a tram.

On Weds 25th we had yet another bank holiday, this time for Anzac day. (Incidentally do you know the Aussies even have a bank holiday to celebrate the Queen's birthday? We are missing a trick in UK.) We took advantage of the weather and the Subaru to go up to the Healesville Animal Sanctuary in the Yarra valley. Healesville is one of the zoos that Thea got annual membership of for her birthday; it's home to indigenous animals and set in really beautiful grounds. We were accompanied by Emma and her boys Alec (Thea's friend from kinder) and his older brother Sebastian. On the way back Emma took us to the Yarra Valley dairy where they make their own cheeses and ice cream. Yum.

Ballet heck

2007-04-29T05:07:00.000-07:00

Ever since Thea's godmother Rosy sent an Angelina ballerina DVD for Thea's birthday, the girl has been ballet mad. Last week we finally crumbled and started her at a local tot's ballet class on Thursday mornings. It's fairly low key, and Thea is fortunately young enough to think that her fairy dress and Dora the Explorer socks are no different to the pukka ballet dress, wrapover, tights and shoes that some of the other weenies wear. She is loving it, especially the bit at the end where Miss Melissa (why are ballet teachers always Miss something or other?!) pretends to be a tree and they all stretch up on tippy toes to pick an apple out of her hand. I am surprised to report that she is rather elegant and occasionally graceful, which is odd considering her genetic makeup.

Lazy saturdays

2007-04-29T04:49:00.000-07:00

It's not all whizzing around doing exciting things. Sometimes we just laze about a bit.

Dulcie starts solids

2007-04-29T04:42:00.000-07:00

Four go camping

2007-04-11T20:47:00.000-07:00

Or should that read, four go mad in the Katmandu sale? Yeah, you guessed it. We are now proud owners of a luxury family tent. And the mother of all airbeds. I'm not quite sure how I got talked into it, but one minute Will was chatting to a couple from church about their Easter plans and the next we were fully signed up members of the camp Cormorant experience. This involved a 4 hour drive down to the beautiful East Gippsland lakes to camp in bushland by the beach with about 8 other familes, mostly with small children. The first night was pretty sleepless, but once we realised how many layers Dulcie actually needed to get warm, things settled down quite nicely. Will enjoyed a spot of waterskiing, and Thea enjoyed a lot of pretend waterskiing. All she talks about now is getting a wet suit and a lifejacket! Highlights included a very popular Easter Egg hunt on the Sunday, lots of atmospheric campfire moments, watching pelicans landing on the lake... you get the picture.

Busy busy weekend

2007-04-11T20:37:00.000-07:00

Hi guys, I'm getting a bit behind in the old blogging so here's a bit of a rush job to catch us up to Easter. All going v well. We had a particularly cool weekend the one before Easter when Melbourne was hosting the FINA swimming finals, there was lots of performance art on, and there was a food and wine festival, all at the same time. We tried to do our bit and participate as much as possible, so here's the photographic evidence. It's a shame you can't put captions on the pics, but see if you can match the description to the image: Vics and Thea dancing in Federation Square, Thea and Will go to the finals of the synchronised swimming ('ladies doing ballet in the water') - before, during, and after (crazy with excitement), Thea enjoying some Japanese installation art (seconds before the curator told her off for standing on it), the whole family...

Culture Shock

2007-03-26T04:10:00.000-07:00

We're noticing things about Australia which are, well, a bit different from home. So we thought we’d make an ongoing list of them before they become so familiar that we no longer see them. So here, in a completely random order, are some the first four observations:

1. Cafes are frankly marvellous in Melbourne, and there are tons of them. Just our little High Street here in Kew has five or six, and none of them Starbucks or Costa! Most of them do mouth watering breakfasts, and so we're getting into a weekend 'breakfast out' habit that's going to be hard to break when I finally stop needing the million extra daily calories that breastfeeding requires. The icing on the cafe cake is the babyccino, a child sized portion of frothy milk often extravagantly decorated with chocolate, marshmallows, or sprinkles, sometimes in dolls house style weeny cups and saucers, and a lot of the time totally free. Thea is becoming a connoisseur.

2. The spiders in Oz are much, much bigger. Thankfully haven't seen any huge ones round the house but down by the coast I saw a colossal* one on the car roof as I was on my way to get Dulcie out after leaving her to sleep there. AND I HAD LEFT THE CAR DOOR OPEN SO SHE GOT PLENTY OF AIR!!!! I wouldn't get in the car the next day till Will had conducted a thorough anti arachnid check.

3. The Wiggles. This is a phenomenon with both positive and negative aspects. For those not in the know, The Wiggles (www.thewiggles.com.au/au/about/) are four mildly irritating middle aged men who have made a fortune by dressing up like the crew of the SS Enterprise (not deliberately, I don’t think) and writing and performing songs for small kids on TV and in live shows. Wiggles endorsed products are everywhere. It’s inescapable, and most Australian kids have an addiction to them. Thea is going the same way, but with pleasing side effects. I bought her some Wiggles ‘toddler toilet wipes’ (pictured). She loves them so much that she keeps taking herself off for a poo with a satisfyingly high level of bum wiping success.

4. People here still use top loading washing machines. At first I thought this was a bad thing, as they look so 70s and use a ton of water, but now I am learning to love ours in an Anthea Turner perfect housewife kind of way. If you forget to wash something and find it lurking in a corner after you’ve set the cycle going, you simply open the lid and pop it in. Marvellous! Also, if you have a really deep hot bath one day when you don’t really need one, you can assuage the drought induced guilt by carrying your used water along the corridor, bucket by dripping bucket, and pouring it in the top loader to do a load of washing (not when you’re washing my clothes you don’t – Will).

*Every time I think about it, it seems bigger. May have been the size of Thea's hand...?

Fab few days

2007-03-24T03:33:00.000-07:00

We've been having a lot of fun in the last few days. We had a wonderful long weekend away at Phillip Island, about two hours south of Melbourne. We stayed right by the beach and although the weather was (for the first time since we've been here) a bit iffy, Thea still managed to frolic in the sea quite happily, pretending to be a 'sea creature' for hours on end. But the top stuff was the wildlife: we visited a koala sanctuary where you toddle round a boardwalk up high enough to be able to see the little fellas at the top of the trees really well, and we went to the famous penguin parade one evening. You go to a certain beach at the end of the island where there's a colony of fairy penguins. Every night just after sunset they come waddling up the beach in little groups, and head up the hill to find their burrows. It was pretty magical being on the beach under the stars and being able to observe such endearing creatures at such close range. Thea was spellbound. Dulcie slept through the whole thing. Annoyingly our camera was totally out of charge for the whole weekend, so I've borrowed acouple of pics off the net to give you an idea.

Where's Dulcie?!

2007-03-08T18:18:00.000-08:00

Ok, ok, so I totally forgot about Dulcie Grace in the last post. There have been several requests to see a bit more of the little lady, so I will upload some recent pics for you.

She is doing very well. 20 weeks old today! Can't believe that 20 weeks have passed since that painful October morning, seems longer and less all at the same time. She is thriving. She's stuck to her centile lines and is bang on average for weight, slightly taller than average and a bigger head than average: all those brains I expect. She's a happy, healthy and co-operative bub who doesn't seem to mind long stretches of time sitting in a bouncy chair/laying in a buggy/kicking on a changing mat etc while everybody else gets on with their stuff around her. She has gigantic vast huge eyes that are commented on by everyone who meets her. An average Dulcie day involves lots of eating (still on milk but prob heading towards babyrice soon), burping, grinning, pooing, more grinning, napping, grinning; you get the picture. She sleeps well at night, ok-ish in the day, and that's how we like it. Her big sis is mostly lovely to her and recently donated several of her favourite toys, unprompted, to 'cheer Dulcie up.' Aaah. The consensus seems to be that T takes after Daddy's side of the family and D is more like Mummy, but you can decide for yourselves.

Transmission resumes... time for an update

2007-03-04T02:02:00.000-08:00

Sorry to keep you all in suspenders, but we have been without internet for 3 weeks and so blogging has been tricky. But we're finally up and running and got loads to tell you. We're nicely settled into our new house (address of which has now been removed from the blog after we read scary article on internet security) with most of the furniture we need apart from poor old Dulcie who sleeps in the travel cot in an empty room. W has purchased his Merida Speeder and now cycles to work. The first week he got it, temperatures were hitting 35-8 most afternoons; we started keeping flannels in the freezer to revive him. The laydeez have got a proper social diary in place with playgroup on Mondays, Thea's kinder on Tues and Weds afternoons, and music group on Fridays. We've just started having people round to play and visiting other people's houses, so it's starting to feel much less lonely for Vics in the days. We've joined a church called Christchurch in Hawthorn which is very welcoming. Homegroup starts with a beer! (See www.christchurchhawthorn.org if you're interested in that sort of thing).

Just before we left the flat it was Australia day and we had a great bank holiday Monday taking in all the free entertainment in town. Several of the major parks were full of merry go rounds, bouncy castles, ice cream vans, antique cars etc etc and we ended up spending most of the day there. On a stage were lots of little girls doing callesthenics (cross between gym, ballet and dance) with glitzy leotards and too much makeup and Thea was enthralled. Since watching she has taken to striking dramatic poses and waving her arms around like Kate Bush.

Feb 16th was T's 3rd birthday and it actually got celebrated three or four times. On the day itself things were quite low key but some clever people got their parcels to arrive from UK so that was excting. On the Saturday she had a party at the home of a family called the Faulks (who are Christy, John, Tessa, Charlie and Millie). Christy was in Kenya in 88 with AIM teaching alongside my good friend Lorna, but she and I never really met then. Lorna put us touch and it's great getting to know them as a family. Anyway, the Faulks provided a spectacular cake which has really set an uncomfortably high standard for future birthday cakes. When T set eyes on it her little face lit up - aaaah. We all had a swim in their pool and a lovely tea. On the Tuesday T started Possums, her kindergarten, and it's the tradition to take little cakes if it's your birthday so all the kids sing to you. She felt very special. Although she was a bit miffed when someone else had a birthday a few days later and she was no longer birthday girly.

We also had our first overnight guest who was Mr Ian Wroe, friend from Bristol now resident in NZ, in Melbourne on Business. Ian wanted it publically recorded that for the first time ever he didn't over order takeaway (which was a fine Malaysian little number.) Photo evidence provided.

All in all we are doing well and enjoying ourselves. Anyway, more updates soon as this is getting a bit long and unwieldy. Great to be back!

House!

2007-01-31T18:10:00.000-08:00

After weeks of traipsing round dodgy houses (hence learning to read between the lines of aussie estate agent blurbs – low maintenance garden = concrete yard) and applying for nice ones which we didn’t get, we’ve finally hit the jackpot. From Saturday we will be the proud tenants of a house in Peel Street, Kew, Melbourne. It’s a typical Melbourne house: a long, thin Victorian bungalow with three bedrooms off the hallway, bathroom and separate laundry, opening out on a big open planning kitchen and living area with polished boards and lots of light. Plus a compact bijou (teeny tiny) backyard. I’ll upload some of the agent’s pics so you (and we!) can start to visualise it.

Kew is a leafy suburb to the NE of the city centre. It’s not exactly where we imagined we might live but it’ll do nicely. It has all the right local amenities for our stage of life: parks with exciting equipment, cafes, YMCA swimming pool and gym, an apparently lively local church or two, trams into the city centre, etc. (This whole blog is starting to feel a bit estate agenty, apols …) W will be cycling an estimated 30 mins to work at Heidelburg once he buys a new bike.

The next few days will be busy (so what’s new) with choosing & buying furniture, white goods (rental houses come with nothing), bedding etc. We expect to spend most of Saturday in IKEA and then most of Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, swearing at flatpack instructions. We are really excited about having a home, getting out of the apartment (or ‘hoe-tail’ in Thea speak) and getting on with life. There may be a break in communications while we get our broadband set up. Be grateful for rip off Britain: broadband is twice the price over here.

City life

2007-01-23T18:31:00.000-08:00

For the last 10 days we've been staying in the Quest Serviced Apartments, Southbank, Melbourne. Here's the view out of our 10th floor window. I can't believe how quickly we've adapted to being here, developing our own little rituals. There are three lifts and we always play 'choose your lift' whereby V, W & T go and stand in front of the door they think will open first. Amazingly, 95% of the time, Thea gets it right. When she gets it wrong she tends to throw a wobbly. W has started work. His first project is on a hospital to the north of town in a place called Heidelberg ('You've gone all that way to be sent to work in GERMANY???' W's mum). It's on site which means lots of liasing with client, contractors, etc plus learning the ropes from colleagues. We're all missing each other loads as we'd got used to being togther as a family 24/7 for the last month. The laydeez have done trips to the Botanical gardens, the Aquarium, the shops, and the galleries where we chanced upon an acrobatic show for kids called a Barrel of Monkeys which Thea loved so much we went to see it the next day too.

We are really hoping to get our own place to rent soon. Turns out there are more people wanting to rent than houses at the mo and we've had a couple of disappointments, applying for houses which we didn't get or had already been let. So it feels a bit like limbo land: once we know where we are going to be settled we can start playgroups, swimming, library trips, etc and get established. Patience required! Anyway, this Friday is Australia day which means everyone gets a day off work and we can all have some fun. Hurrah.

Jetlag and holidays

2007-01-20T02:37:00.000-08:00

Not only did W's new boss Jenny come to the airport to pick us up, she also lent us a company car for our week's jaunt to Morninginton Peninsula, an hour or so from the city. Promising start eh? We based ourselves in a small seaside town called Rosebud, at Mirrabooka appartments (owned by a lovely couple who made us feel very welcome). Having jetlag with two small kids was a nightmare initially: we found ourselves overwhelmed by that 'falling asleep at the wheel' feeling at the precise times when T & D needed lots of attention or supervision - bath time was the worst. But within a few days we were all into the swing of it and having a ball, visiting a different beach every day, exploring trendy Sorrento, exclusive Portsea, dramatic Blairgowrie. We discovered that Ozzie Dads don't normally make sand constructions for their kids, cos everytime W built T a beach boat, car, plane etc, passers by reacted like it was a work of art. We drank a lot of iced coffee (W & V) & milkshake (T). Started to get the hang of Melbourne weather, which can change by 10 degrees from day to day. Dulcie didn't dig 37 degrees tho...

Big journey

2007-01-20T01:42:00.000-08:00

Heathrow to Singapore. Will watched 'The Departed'. Thea watched Dora the Explorer (one episode, back to back, 17 times). Vics watched the seatbelt sign light up repeatedly as an over zealous captain judged a few tiny bumps as ‘turbulence’. Each time a sleeping Dulcie had to be oiked out of the bassinet and strapped onto Mum’s lap. On a couple of occasions the seatbelt sign was off again by the time Vics had completed the challenge. Singapore. Hot. Wet! Very groovy hotel (Siloso Beach Resort) tho not so groovy sharing room with children whose body clocks said morning began at 3am. Much administering of Medised. Spent our day in the swimming pool, then visited Underwater World where Thea was thrilled to spot Nemo, plus a few of his stunt doubles. Singapore to Melbourne. Another night flight, but shorter this time so whilst D & T snored the hours away, V & W got no sleep at all.

Hello and welcome

2006-12-27T05:25:00.000-08:00

Departing: 3rd Jan 2007

Status: wild panic until the 3rd Jan

We're looking forward to...
Will: A break
Vics: A break
Thea: A pink bucket and spade
Dulcie: The next feed

Watch this space for updates