Where does the time go?

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.