Wet, wet, wet

While our neighbouring state of Victoria is being ravaged by bushfires and scorched by high temperatures, along Australia's east coast the weather has taken a dive. For a week now it has rained all day every day and the temperature has dropped down to around 20 degrees.  Any trip outside involves macs, brollies and determination. Inside we are going stir crazy. To attempt to alleviate some of Dad and Alexandra's disappointment that  they will not be returning to the Uk with a tan (not at this stage anyway), we have been trying to fill their calendar with events. On Friday we took them to lunch at Flying Fish, a great restaurant at the end of the wharf in Pyrmont. We dined royally on oysters, fresh fish, prawns and crab and a few glasses of wine, while boats sailed by the floor to ceiling windows. Morning tea at Martin and Drew's, while rain lashed the windows, filled Sunday morning and today I took them to the Chinese Friendship Garden near Chinatown, for fish feeding, lizard spotting, tea and dim sum. Suddenly the clouds parted, a strange gold orb shone in the sky, that took us some moments to recognise as the sun, and we raced home to rehang washing, put more washing on and for Dad to change into board shorts and sit in the garden in the sun.

Surprise!!!

Returning home from a walk with Florence on Tuesday morning, I found my Dad and Alexandra sitting in our family room. I COULD NOT believe it. I haven't seen them for  just over 2 years and they have never met Florence. It was absolutely brilliant to see them, a fantastically executed surprise by Rob - who made up some nonsense about a friend coming here on business from NZ, and they are here for all of February. They left Heathrow in thick snow and arrived in Sydney during the hottest number of days over 40 degrees since records began. Today it is 42 - yes, you read it right - 42 degrees. And guess what the forecast temperature for tomorrow is? Go on, guess. It's going to be 47 degrees. We have spent this morning at the pool and this afternoon we're off to a mate's place with a pool. Tomorrow it's the pool for us followed by a kid's party at another beach. God help us.

Happy endings and new beginnings

There has been a lot of change in our house this week with Scarlett starting school. The other big news is that I took redundancy from the Sydney Morning Herald after nearly 10 years. I absolutely loved working there, but I hadn't been happy with my new role since returning from maternity leave last February. I was promoted into a new job in November which  was then made redundant and things went downhill from there.  So it's out into the world again to see what's there. Most of old colleagues want me to freelance for their sections on the the herald and I've had interest from a couple of magazines already, so the future looks bright , even if it all feels  a bit scary. I am going to miss my brilliant friends at the paper but had a fantastic send off. My friend Nick gave a wonderful speech, as did two other colleagues Doug and Conrad. After cake and presents - an ipod thank you very much -  we went to the local pub for the night.
Just 24 hours later we got together with loads of my work friends again.  My journo mate John married  anaesthetist Martine on Sunday, but on Saturday we were all invited to the Clovelly bowling club for a bbq and to for all the bride and groom' s family and friends to meet once another. It's probably the most picturesque bowling club in the world, perched on the cliffs overlooking the Pacific.
On Sunday Rob and I left the girls for the afternoon and evening with our wonderful babysitter Julie and headed off to the adults only wedding at the Icebergs Dining Room and Bar in Bondi. The Icebergs is an institution in Sydney, with its ocean pools on the southern end of Bondi beach.  Again the location was spectacular with John and Martine making their vows with the waves crashing onto Bondi beach in the background.  After the most amazing, thoughtful, articulate and emotional speeches I have ever heard at a wedding, there were tears all round followed by much eating, drinking and dancing late into the night. Brilliant.