Doing the tourist thing in Melbourne

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.