The Queen's Birthday

Despite being a nation of avowed republicans, Australians have no trouble celebrating the 3-day Queen's birthday weekend and making the most of the Monday off work by heading away for a few days. We joined the throng by heading back down to Gerroa with our mates Chris and Steph and their children Genevieve and Harrison. Steph rented the same house we rented with Martin and Drew last September when apalling storms lashed the coast for our entire stay, keeping us inside. As the house had a fireplace and spectacular views of the spectacular storm, we didn't mind. On this visit we couldn't believe that the same violent weather pattern turned up again, affecting most of the NSW coast causing havoc and more. Although we stayed safe and warm inside, attempting a couple of walks on the beach, by the time the storm had finished, 8 people were dead, roads were washed away, a tanker was blown aground near Newcastle, 2 hours north of Sydney, and in the city one of the harbour ferry wharves was washed away and sank. After all that, being trapped inside with 4 children under 4 didn't seem so bad. There was much book reading, watching of DVDs and playing with dolls to keep all amused. Finally, come Monday morning, the sun came out and we got to play on the beach all morning before heading back to Sydney to check on the state of our house which has been known to leak a bit. Top fun. With the winter nights drawing in, we have taken to popping on the heating and in lieu of anything any good to watch on the box, have been perusing old home movies. Tonight we watched all the stuff from 1999 - Thailand with Fraser and Moira, my sister's wedding in Connecticut with Sarah and Scott, Ruth and Hom and Ol, the Whitsundays sailing trip with Moira and Fraser, Harriet's and Scott and Anne's visit to Australia where Scott got so sunburnt we had to call the fire brigade, and our Christmas on the Hawkesbury river with Phillipa and Paul and baby Finn, Moira, Fraser, Neil, Dad, Alexandra and Zoe and Paul, smoking fags and looking like a right couple of publicans. It is so much fun looking back at these tapes we haven't looked at probably since we made them and calculating how many children we now all have between us. Will we ever show them these tapes I wonder.