It's Spring!

If she's good, Scarlett gets to stay up later than 7.30pm on Friday and Saturday nights. Last Saturday, Scarlett joined Rob and I on the couch for viewing of ET. Those who know me intimately know as a youngster I was a proud member of the ET fan club. When I wasn't sitting in my room tearfully staring at my ET posters, I was sitting in my room tearfully listening to the 7" recording of all of ET's speaking parts. I saw the film when it first came out and immediately fell in love with the small alien and with the films of Stephen Spielberg. The second time I saw it at the cinema was several years later, with Richard Hand, while we were drunk. Needless to say it was not the emotional journey I had expected. Instead we found the whole thing hilarious. Three pints of Strongbow will do that. So almost 20 years later, here we were last Saturday watching it again. I made quite a big deal of it to Scarlett and told her not to be scared and not to be sad as it was just a film. She was very good, seemed to understand most of what was going on and sat quietly throughout. Towards the end when ET 'dies' and later when he has to say goodbye to Elliot before boarding his spaceship before the scientists arrive to take him away, I looked over at Rob, with tears flowing freely, to see him similarly moved. Scarlett? Nothing. Rather she looked amused at her pathetic parents.The first week of spring has sprung and the weather has been a mixed bag of beautiful hot days in the high 20s, drizzly rain, massive thunderstorms and chilly nights. We are secret pyromaniacs and are dragging out the last of the firewood knowing the days of open fires at night are on their way out. I've been doing lots of stuff outdoors with the girls including making chocolate brownies, and today Flo and I made our first trip of the season to Balmoral Beach.
We also had our lovely mate Kendall to stay for a night this week. He was up from his home in Melbourne on his way to Lord Howe Island. Kendall makes his living as a freelance travel and food writer and is always off somewhere around the world on a fabulous jaunt. He was looking very relaxed and fit.