Winter's coming

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.