Magic beach

Here's a little film Flo and I made of our day at Balmoral with Jacqui and Oscar.

Making the most of it

We have had an action-packed weekend that started with Jillian's 40th birthday ladies lunch at Susie's house. 8 of us sat down to prawns, oysters and champagne over several hours. As school pick up time approached various husbands were called to ferry children and themselves to the lunch. We left at 5pm as Rob had to go to work, but I understand the lunch continued until 10pm when a fleet of taxis delivered everyone home.
On Saturday we had James and Amelia and Susie and Damien for dinner, an event so funny and entertianing I forgot to take any pictures. Sunday was Anzac Day and as the weather had turned cold and wet we wrapped ourselves up and had a slow walk from our house to Revolver for lunch stopping at 2 parks there and back for a long play for the girls and a chance for Rob and I to chat. Now that we have made our decision to move back to the UK, we keep second guessing ourselves. We seem to be having a much more wonderful than usual time with our friends and have also seen a house we really like the look of in Leichhardt. One minute we are sure, the next we are not. I won't be sorry to see the back of my job but it's the great school and school community that is hard to leave. Monday was a bank holiday so after a party for Charlie next door we had Christian and Emma and their kids plus Nic and Yoko for lunch. It ended at about 7.30pm when there was no more wine or champagne left to drink. In the space of a whole afternoon the kids had been offered the same bowl of pasta for lunch and dinner, bribed with sweets to sit quietly in front of a DVD, had been bathed and then finally they went potty jumping about the place while the grown ups danced and sang. The picture below is the before shot, the one above, the after shot.

Roar and Snore!

Scarlett and I spent Friday night at Taronga Zoo at Roar and Snore, where we got to experience the zoo at night and early in the morning with only a few others. It's a brilliant campsite set up in a spot offering amazing views of the city and harbour, you sleep in great tents on proper beds with duvets and get dinner and tours of the zoo too. On Friday night after drinks and nibbles the zoo keepers brought snakes and lizards for us to meet, then after dinner we set off on a 2 hour torchlit walk around the zoo in the dark. It was great fun having the place to ourselves and hearing the lions roaring in the dark. We got to bed at about 11pm and then woke at 6am for breakfast and some fantastic behind the scenes action.


We went into the giraffe exhibit to hand feed the giraffes their breakfast, and saw the seals up close too, then we got to pat a koala, ringtail possum and echidna. It was great fun and I think I might have enjoyed it slightly more than Scarlett whose favourite part of any trip to the zoo is the ride on the gondola.

Scarlett loses her first tooth!

Scarlett started complaining this week that her front tooth hurt. We assumed some collateral damage after the Easter Bunny's generous chocolate deposit, but closer inspection revealed a wobbly tooth. After placing bets on whether it would fall out before or after Liz and Charlie's departure, it finally came out last night after a great deal of wibbling and wobbling by Scarlett. Here she is as pleased as punch with her new gap, unaware of her resemblance to the late Queen Mother (God bless 'er). A short note to the tooth fairy placed under the pillow alongwith the tooth resulted in a shiny gold $2, an increase on what we were given as kids, allowing for inflation.

A different beach every day

As Liz and Charlie's visit draws to an end I realised, as I lay awake in bed in the early hours of this morning after too much food and wine (again), that we have packed plenty into their visit. As well as their trips to the zoo and aquarium, we've taken them to Redleaf, Balmoral (including kayaking), Nielsen Park, Freshwater had dinners out at La Scala and Vicini, breakfast at Revolver, to our 3 local parks and two local pools and had lunch with the neighbours, Simon showing off the spit we bought him for his 40th. So active have we been that even Scarlett (who's allowed to stay up later during school holidays) has been fast asleep at 7.30pm. Tonight is their last night and we're tossing up between pizza or fish and chips for their final Aussie meal.

Happy easter 2010

Easter started for us with a wonderful house warming party at Brett's on Good Friday. The best part for the kids? Not the lively company, great food and morning at Balmoral beach, but the chance to ride, not once but twice in a Maxi Taxi to Brett's place in Paddington.
After a suitable amount of house trashing, screaming in fear at Brett's tiny dog Lola and cuddles with Brett's NZ mum Lynne (pronounced Lun), we returned home to prepare for the arrival of the Easter Bunny.

Easter Sunday dawned and the EB had left a generous deposit of chocolate which, against our better judgement, we allowed the kids to start eating at breakfast time. Thus fed, we caught the tram to the fish market for breakfast of coffee and hot pastries and to buy a 4kg salmon to stuff with lemons, fennel seeds and herbs.

By 2pm the house was full with the Flemings, the Langs, the Dodds and Luke Atkinson and we sat down to a long relaxed lunch. Numerous Easter egg hunts kept the kids entertained for the entire day which meant they ate little but chocolate.

The evening ended in tears for Scarlett who woke hours after bedtime with a terrible tummy ache that could only be fixed with pain killers.

Liz et Charlie sont arrive

Liz and Charlie arrived from the UK on Saturday night to perfect balmy Autumn weather. It was brilliant to see them looking so well and refreshed having enjoyed a great flight with Charlie behaving perfectly the whole way. They were, of course, as perky as pixies having slept most of our day and so we felt compelled to join Liz in late-night champagne consumption which led to what I like to term "early peaking". Hungover on Sunday and after only 4 hours sleep, I drove Rob to North Sydney to take part in a sponsored kayak on the harbour organised by one of the dads at school. Rob was lucky enough to get the first leg of this relay event, from McMahon's Point around under the bridge to Mosman. That done, we managed to struggle through and prepare lunch for the McHughs, enjoying pork fillets with crushed fennel seeds wrapped in proscuitto.
Knowing what a beach bunny Liz is, on Monday we dropped Scarlett at school before heading to our beloved Redleaf harbour pool. Alas not only did it cloud over - it rained! Zut alors! Tuesday and Wednesday the rain continued to fall and we dropped Liz and Charlie at the Australian Museum to check out the dinosaur exhibit one day and to the ferry wharf the next so they could explore Taronga Zoo, all beach plans cancelled. I had expected both those days to be glorious and sunny so today, thinking we would be all beached out, had arranged a grown up lunch with Brett at the restaurant at the newly renovated Manly Pavilion, built in the 1930s as a changing facility for swimmers at the harbour beach. We even organized for Charlie to spend the day with Flo at daycare. But upon waking to a bright sunny day Liz explained that she'd really rather go to the beach than have lunch. I realised my idea of her trip was to show her a snippet of our lives here, whereas hers, quite rightly, was to relax on the beach and forget the troubles and stresses of a busy working life at home. So after dropping off the younger kids at daycare we headed first to school for Scarlett's last day of term and the Easter hat parade. We had to cut it short however as poor Charlie was not a happy bunny at Wattle Lane and Liz was anxious to be reunited with him. After picking him up, we drove them to Manly beach and Rob and I had a lovely walk alog the walkway to Fairlight before joining Brett at the restaurant.


It was an amazing lunch with the full trappings of being a journalist and lunching with Brett who also happens to be the restaurant's PR. After champagne, the chef and owners came out to introduce themselves at the table and we took up their offer to wine match the 8 course tasting menu. It was a pretty spectacular food experience and the view straight down the harbour towards the city and the heads is unique and unforgettable. We were sorry Liz missed it. Here is Rob in the spectacularly appointed dining room.