Happy, happy, happy

We have just had such a wonderful last weekend in Sydney for a few weeks. Friday was Scarlett's last day at nursery for the year and she said goodbye to all her friends, in particular her best friend there, Millie. On Saturday we spent the morning at the pool, throwing Scarlett about, swimming laps and doing lots and lots of jumping in brilliant sunshine. Then we went to the Royal Hospital for Women to visit Eve, the new baby daughter of friends Cait and Pete. Eve was born 8 weeks early and is very very tiny. She is being looked after in the special baby care unit and will stay there for a few more weeks until she can come home, hopefully for Christmas. That afternoon we all had a really long sleep before heading for dinner with our old neighbours and friends Dave and George. Scarlett was an absolute doll and stayed up until 10.30pm - her latest night ever - and behaved so well. In the end it was Mummy who needed to go home to sleep not her, or Rob who was happily on the cans all night. On Sunday we went to the christening of Oscar James Neale, the baby son of our friends Amelia and James. It was held in the beautiful chapel of The Kings School, and followed by a fantastic lunch at James and Amelia's house - the house we'll be moving to in January. Only 4 more sleeps until we fly, so Scarlett took the opportunity to try on her new winter hat, knitted for her by Rob's mum especially for our trip....

Hotter than July...

...and in fact every other month this year. Today was officially the hottest day of the year and in the words of Kool and his entire gang it was 'too hot baby'. Yesterday was the same - 40 something degrees. We all had a shocking sleep last night as it was 27 degrees overnight - OVERNIGHT - no amount of nocturnal cold showers can fix that. You just lie there awake, feeling like a hairdryer is being pointed at you. Rob was up between midnight and 5am, pacing. This morning we escaped the heat dungeon known affectionately as our house and headed straight for the beach where we could submerge ourselves in the Pacific every 10 minutes to cool down. Strong winds from the west brought the smoke from the fires that are currently consuming the Blue Mountains, and the harbour was filled, rather eerily, with smoky fog, taking on the appearance of London in a Victorian pea-souper. We spent the afternoon at the pool, mainly playing catch using Scarlett as the ball, which she loves. A southerly change is promised tonight which will hopefully blow this heat away. We watch the UK weather forecasts and sigh that we will soon we on our way to 'proper' Christmas weather rather than this Father Christmas in board shorts and flip flops nonsense.

Scarlett's social life

It's official - Scarlett has now reached an age where her social life has dwarfed my own. This weekend she was invited to three - count 'em - three birthday parties. In fact I got so confused by where we were going next, I got the day of one wrong and we arrived a fashionable 24 hours late. On Saturday it was Joshua's 2nd birthday party in Petersham park, a great venue with bbqs, wide shady trees and a swimming pool. We had such a lovely morning at the party we stayed for the afternoon too until Rob had drunk all Joshua's parents' beer and there didn't seem much point in remaining. On the walk home, Scarlett fell and now has a scab the size and shape of her entire nose. She scraped it from bridge to tip on a sandstone step. There was a lot of blood inside and out and a lot of tears. Scarlett was pretty unhappy, too. The next day we went to Isabelle's 3rd birthday party. Isabelle is Scarlett's friend from childcare and we were especially proud that she had secured her party invite independent of us. The party was held at a purpose-built kid's party venue that housed themed party rooms resembling prison cells. Our party was in the disco room and the kids were led in dancing and games by the pair of dim-witted twenty somethings who worked there and knew all the words to every Hi-5 song. The dancing was followed by a kid's lunch while all us parents stood around outside eating sandwiches and cake. On Sunday, after a morning of vigorous aqua-athletics at the pool, we had a long sleep and headed off to Tom's 1st birthday party to be held in a park on the harbour. Perplexed at finding no one else there at the appointed time, we headed to his parents' house, assuming the venue had been changed due to some strong wind on the beach. Instead we found a neighbour who informed us that had we arrived at the same time on the previous day, we would have enjoyed ourselves very much at Tom's party. This sort of mistake is so unlike me that Rob immediately accused the baby of stealing my brain and demanded to look at our invite to a friend's son's christening this coming weekend, to check I had that correct. 'They do have a baby, do they?' he asked scowling with a face reminiscent of a young Glenda Jackson. I am impossibly excited that we now only have 10 more sleeps (not including lunchtimes of course) until we leave for England and I have only 3 more days at work. Have soooo switched off from work, it's not funny, and find I am simply going through the motions without really taxing myself. About to head off in a mo. Rob and Scarlett are picking me up from work and we are going to the opening of our friend Luke's exhibition of his life drawings at a gallery in Surry Hills. Lovely.

Happy Birthday Rob

Yesterday was Rob's birthday. I know everyone thinks he is the same age or younger than me because of his youthful good looks, but no, he is in fact 5 years older than me - d'ya hear me - FIVE YEARS - that makes him 43. The day began as the coldest day in November history since 1905. Winds howled and storm clouds brewed. Scarlett was booked into nursery as usual for Thursday and I had taken the day off work to spend with Rob. Unfortunately almost before the day had begun, I received a phone call informing me my planned birthday present had to be cancelled due to bad weather. I had arranged months ago for Rob to have a flying lesson, a lesson that would see him eventually take the controls on a flight over Sydney. Bummer. Thankfully I had also bought him a webcam and some handmade chocolates. Instead, we headed for Westfield Bondi, a giant shopping mall, so I could spend money on Rob and generally act as a servant and bag carrier as is traditional in our marriage on birthdays. A highlight was Rob trying on what he thought were a pair of black flares but ended up channeling Marcel Marceaux. Then we headed back to Leichhardt to the movies to watch The Prestige. A very clever film from the writer/director of Memento and Insomnia, full of clues and twists that keeps you guessing until the end. Last night with Scarlett fully unconscious we headed out to dinner at a new French place round the corner that recently earned an excellent review and score by our restaurant reviewer. We had a fantastic dinner with 5 friends and finally fell into bed at midnight - Rob very very drunk.

Sculpture by the sea

On Wednesday we awoke to the most amazing gloriously hot day and piled into the car to Tamarama Beach to see this year's Sculpture by the Sea exhibition. Artists display huge works of art on the beach and along the cliff path between Tama and Bondi. A favourite this year was the melted ice cream van, that appeared to have melted into the pavement, with even its version of Greensleeves slow and warped. Scarlett and her friend Peggy, visiting from England, had a ball charging about in the sand.

Belinda Emmett

I was very upset at the weekend to hear of the death of actress Belinda Emmett from secondary breast cancer. Belinda is best known here in Australia for being a former star of the soaps Home & Away and All Saints, and also appeared in films and recorded albums. She was also the wife of comedian and Tv talk show host Rove McManus. I met her a couple of times over the years, at the launch of the ovarian cancer fundraiser book Exposure (http://www.exposure-book.com/index.html) in which we both appear and at the Logie TV awards. She was diagnosed with breast cancer the same year as I was, but her cancer returned in her bones three years later. She has been battling it ever since. Her death at the weekend still came as a huge shock to her family and friends. I couldn't help but feel we had lost one for our team and once again realised how very lucky I am to be here and to have all I have.

larti self-portrait

We had a great day at our Melbourne Cup lunch on Tuesday. We didn't back the winner but we had a hoot being judges of Fashions in the Field. The food was wonderful and I remember everything about it this year. Only 21 more sleeps until we leave for London. We are all impossibly excited about our holiday, though to be fair Scarlett is more excited about the impending arrival of her new holiday bag which is on wheels for her to pull along and has her name on it. We have talked a lot about Christmas and the baby Jesus and family and how it is a happy time with (hopefully) lots of snow and presents for good little girls only. We just need to work out how to explain how Father Christmas will get into Dad's house as he doesn't have a chimney.

Home again

We got back home to our house last night after three weeks housesitting for our friends Zoe and Paul at their huge house on Sydney's Northern beaches. By housesit I mean we hassled and called Zoe and Paul repeatedly until they finally caved and reluctantly agreed to hand over their keys. Despite some pretty unbeachlike weather we managed a few lovely breakfasts at Curl Curl, a couple of gorgeous afternoons swimming in the ocean pool at Freshwater and had friends for breakfast and lunch by the pool at Zoe's house. A highlight of our stay was Scarlett riding a bike for the first time. Looks like that might be making it to the top of the birthday list for her next year. Despite all the extra space - our house fits in theirs at least twice -it was lovely to get back to Leichhardt, all our familiar things and in particular our bed which is the world's most comfortable. I went to bed at 8.30pm last night with my book and was asleep by 9pm. Bliss.
Tomorrow is Melbourne Cup, famously 'The Race That Stops the Nation". And it really does. Melbourne pretty much closes completely as everyone heads to the track or to parties and lunches showing the 4pm race. Everyone dresses up more extravagantly that at any wedding here. Women wear hats or fascinators, gorgeous dresses and men wear suits. The fashion is half the event. Traditonally everyone gets very very drunk on champagne, there are sweepstakes, prizes for best dressed and the day is a right off. Even in Sydney, everyone stops work to watch it. Screens are erected in public squares and pubs and resturants host big parties and lunches. Even here in my building, which houses about 3,000 people in different companies, there is a huge champagne party put on in our large foyer for everyone who works here with a big screen for watching the race. This year Scarlett will be going to nursery for an extra day and Rob and I have been invited to a lunch at Cafe Sydney, a gorgeous restaurant overlooking the bridge and opera house. We have both been asked to be judges of the fashions at the lunch - I am judging best dressed woman and best shoes with a fashion designer and Rob is judging best tie and best jewellery with a jewellery designer. I won't be able to go crazy on the pop this year - this is a good thing - last year I was so smashed I had no recollection of picking Scarlett up from nursery - but I'm sure that won't stop Rob.