Wet week

The weather continues to be totally unseasonal and utter pants. We have not had a day at the beach all winter which is very unusual. Being stuck indoors with two small children and a husband sleeping off a night shift in a nearby room means one has to use one's imagination. Pretending it was fun to spend all day in our pyjamas - including going grocery shopping in them - had worn a little thin by day two, but the chance discovery of a small pile of party hats in the larder around dinner time brought some unexpected light relief to an otherwise dull day. You know you're getting desperate when the creation of a pretend laptop from an old box makes a 3-year-old's week. We however managed two great nights out. On Saturday night our friend Dave took 10 of us out to dinner to one of Sydney's great restaurants, The Boathouse, to celebrate his wife George's 40th. It was a truly great night of wonderful food and plenty of laughs. The evening started badly when Scarlett became hysterical when we left, eventually making herself sick. Lauren our babysitter - who also works at Scarlett's nursery - has babysat for Scarlett since she was a year old, and has never had to do a thing except sit and watch our telly while Scarlett slept. Now Scarlett is older and often still awake when Lauren arrives, we are trying to nurture a relationship between them. However when we told her we were going out and that Lauren was coming over she declared 'I don't like Lauren!' with full pout and the accompanying hysteria and vomiting. Last night we were going out again and this time decided things might go smoother if Lauren read Scarlett her bedtime books - including our new favourite Walter the Farting Dog Goes on a Cruise - the difference was extraordinary with Scarlett barely looking up as we left. We went to the Opera House to see Burt Bacharach perform all his top hits with the Sydney Symphony. Thankfully as the king of the love song is now 79 and with a voice much rougher than his smooth personality, he had three incredible singers on stage with him. It was a top night of singing along to his compositions including Walk On By,Say A Little Prayer, Alfie, What The World Needs Now, Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head, Close To You and many more. As often happens when I attend places i know I can't talk, I got a fit of the giggles. It happened during a Kiri Te Kanawa recital, at the opera - when I was saved by a pashmina I was able to stuff into my mouth, and again last night. At one point Burt was telling us about some new material, but his mouth was so close to the microphone you could hear his dentures whistling. It made him sound as if he mispronounced someone's name and I said to Rob "he probably said it right but his false teeth clattering around made it sound wrong.' Rob snorted with laughter and then turned to me and made the noise of gnashing teeth and saliva. At that moment the talking and applause stopped and room fell quiet, save the noise of a human making a half snort half honking noise from row C of the gallery. I had to keep waiting for loud applause just to let all the laughter out. Finally, a pic of our daughter the Hollywood actress, asleep in her eye mask.