Introducing Florence Elizabeth Mary

On St Patrick's Day at 3.20pm our second saintly daughter Florence arrived with all the speed and grace of a baseball being fired from a batting cage machine. To say her delivery was rapid would be to understate greatly. After a couple of hours of regular bearable contractions, things started to get a bit intense and I asked for an epidural. But there was no time for that namby pamby pain relief nonsense. Then I went from not even halfway dilated to giving birth in 30 minutes. I will not give details of the pain except to say, if I had been handed a gun I would have used it on myself and would have given away any state secrets in my possession. As always though once she arrived all memories of pain and suffering were replaced by feelings of adoration for our perfect little parcel. Today I am shattered as the woman sharing the hospital room with me was not blessed with a saint and her baby cried all night - and I mean all night - while Florence snoozed throughout. We are now all home and happy to receive visitors bearing flowers and cold chardonnay.

I am 3, hear me roar

Thursday was Scarlett's birthday - she turned 3. After a morning in bed opening her lovely presents and cards, we gave her the play kitchen we had been hiding in the laundry loo for the last month. At nursery she had a huge fuss made of her and had a cake. In the evening we met up with the godfathers Kendall and Brett, our friend George with her kids Sophie and James and our old mate Ann-marie who was over from Auckland for the week and we all had a special birthday dinner out. It was all a bit much for Scarlett however and after a long day of fuss and no sleep it ended in tears at bedtime. On Saturday we had Scarlett's party. Zoe and Paul arrived with a Princess jumping castle. Scarlett just about wet her pants - had she been wearing any. It was such a hot afternoon, Rob filled up the paddling pool and the kids went crazy, stripping off all their clothes, leaping in and out of the pool and then jumping on the castle and down the slide like slippery eels. It was a hoot. The adults in the meantime sat on the deck in the shade, eating sausages and gulping down much needed liquid refreshments. Today we gave Scarlett the last part of her birthday present - a new pink fairy bike from Nanny and Grandad. She was absolutely thrilled but a test drive up the driveway has revealed she needs to grow her legs another inch or so before she'll be able to ride it with the zeal and panache such a glorious bike deserves and mainly so that Rob doesn't have to bend over pushing her along as she tries to reach the pedals. I am now less than two weeks away from my due date and counting the days. Getting up in the night to visit the bathroom two or three times isn't half as much fun as it once was. Anytime you're ready, baby, is fine with me.

Zooolander

This is my first week off work and frankly I have been counting the days. We had a busy weekend of swimming and children's birthday parties. Scarlett was invited to her mate Sophie's 4th birthday party which required her to dress as a fairy princess. Here she is looking exquisitely calm and thoughtful. Moments after this photo was taken, she declared her fairy dress 'too itchy' and it was removed in favour of a more subdued gown. That's 100% polyester for you. At the party, a chaotic mix of 'live fairy entertainment', cordial, and sandwiches made from hundreds and thousands, Scarlett got her face painted before we dragged her off to bed for the afternoon, so we could return later to the party venue for adult portion of the evening, a right old knees up for everyone except the pregnant lady in the corner. When you are sober, drunk people are total idiots. Oh to be one of them again. On Monday I got to join Rob and Scarlett for their regular sojourn to Taronga Zoo. We discovered that the new elephant enclosure has an indoor annexe where you can visit and stroke the elephants. It was brilliant. We had a big cuddle with an elephant and were amazed at how hard and firm his trunk was and how spiky his hair was. Later Rob and Scarlett bumped into our old friends the Mckendrys who were hanging out at the gorilla enclosure.

A pair of queens

There was a right hoo ha in Sydney on Tuesday as the superliner Queen Mary 2, the world's biggest queen class vessel, pulled into Sydney harbour for the day. On the same evening the QE2 came in, making it the first time the two ships had crossed paths in Sydney harbour since the 1940s. The Queen Mary is absolutely enormous and was quite a spectacle. Traffic was brought to a standstill around the city, and thousands of office workers abandoned their usual positions smoking fags at the entrance of their offices for vantage points around the harbour to get a look at the floating monolith. We joined the crowds, driving down to Mrs Macquarie's Chair and spending the afternoon at the pool there right across the bay from where she was docked in Woolloomooloo. In the pic you can see the QE2 in the forground, and the massive QM2 in the background. Sydney is blessed with so many gorgeous public spaces right on the water to enjoy days like this. Spaces that in many other cities would be reserved for apartments and houses for the very rich or for office blocks - just look at the Thames. Virtually the whole of the north bank, and much of the south, is lined with office blocks and busy roads. Or New York where almost all of the green public space is away from the shore. We took advantage of Sydney's great harbour aspect again yesterday when Rob, Scarlett and I went to Redleaf Pool in Double Bay. It's an amazing shark-netted harbour swimming pool with pontoons to swim out to and sunbake on, a lovely beach, great cafe and fantastic views of all the zillionaire's homes. The point is we got to enjoy the same view as them - for free. It was a glorious day of swimming - something Scarlett can make a good fist of now without any floats - sunbathing on pontoons, lunching and making secret camps under towels. Today is my work leaving lunch before I head off tomorrow. A visit to the Dr last night revealed the baby's head is partially engaged, ready for blast off.

Goodbye Summer, Hello Autumn

This is our last full week of Summer before Autumn officially starts on Scarlett's birthday, March 1. This weekend saw the arrival of the Chinese Year of the Pig. In Chinese lore this is considered the luckiest year to be born in which bodes well for Duthie number 2. Inside a fortune cookie I just opened it says 'Confucius say only a fool sees pork on the menu and does not order it'. Mmmm, did Confucius really say that I wonder. Another cookie ode tells me 'People born in the year of the pig are kind, honest and chivalrous, with an enjoyment of good food.' Pork presumably. We have just had a busy weekend - perhaps a little too busy. I went to see Notes on a Scandal on Friday night which I loved - Judi deserves the Oscar more than Helen in my book. Saturday we went to the Orange Grove organic markets for basil and tomatoes, but ended up buying a mushroom quiche, blood orange juice, a loaf of Sourdough, fruit juice ice pops and honey cured bacon and egg rolls as well. After a lunchtime nap we headed to the pool for a late afternoon swim before sunset. On Sunday Rob was up and out early to meet Rob and Ewan for a bike ride around the Bay Run, Scarlett and I joining them later in the park for coffee. Back home I just collapsed, realising I haven't been slowing down nearly as much as I should, despite being 36 weeks pregnant. Every day we are up and out either at the pool swimming laps, at the beach, at the shops, rushing about, I just felt so exhausted I could hardly lift my head off the couch. So while Rob took Scarlett out to the pool and to the Mardi Gras Fair Day I slept for about 3 hours with the air conditioning on in the bedroom. Heaven. Must do that more often. Not much point having an out of work husband if you don't make use of him while he's off. On their return, Scarlett joined me in bed and zonked out for another two hours, me nodding on and and off with my book. Then we packed up the car with food, drink, chairs and rugs and headed into the city for Tropfest, the world's largest short film festival which is held in The Domain every year. There are huge screens set up and the films are broadcast to live sites around Australia. The winner gets their film shown at the Tribeca Film Festival, gets flights to LA to meet with film industry dudes and prize money, so it's a big deal to win. Most of the past winners have gone on to work full time in the film industry. Every year there's theme or an item that has to be included in each film - this year it was a sneeze. There was a huge crowd but we got a great spot on the grass with good views of the screens and Scarlett was an angel only declaring it 'boring' at about 9.30pm, understandably as this was hours passed her normal bedtime. It's great that she's at an age now when we can do stuff like that with her. The winner was a film about where imaginary friends go when kids grow out of them. Where indeed. Only two more days at work as I pack up on Friday.

House & bump

Here are a few shots of our new house and my bump, being compared against that of my friend Lara who is due a week before me. Those of you who have visited us at our old house will note the new garden is about 400 times the size of the old one.

Hair today, gone tomorrow

Yesterday, as Rob and I gulped back tears, Scarlett had her very first haircut. It has never even been trimmed before, but as it had got so long and consequently knotty, we decided it was time. Brushing Scarlett's hair had turned into a nightly negotiation and we were sick of her resembling a child from a Barnardo's children's home poster with her food-slathered hair pasted across her face. Oh and she asked if she could have it cut. So we took her off to Clara's the local hair salon, where for $15 she was transformed from scruffy little girl to stylish bob-wearing grown up girl. Bizarrely it seems that it wasn't only hair that was cut away - a particularly frustrating period of terrible twos naughtiness that appeared since our return from the Uk has also vanished. Today she was more angelic than I can ever remember her being and Rob and I kept looking at each other and wondering what happened to the real Scarlett. Long may it last.

Hooray for Charlie

At about the same time we started telling people we were expecting a baby, three of our friends announced they were too. Lara and Adam are expecting their first baby about 10 days before us and Rob and Freya about 10 days after us. The most anticipated for us however was the arrival of the baby of our fantastic friends in England, Liz and Mike. Their first baby, Ruby, our god-daughter, died a day after she was born in January of last year. In September of last year Liz called to tell us they were pregnant again. We were beyond thrilled to get a call from Liz on Saturday morning telling us they had had baby Charlie Alonzo last week. Here is the little prince looking absolutely adorable, and the Bailey family altogether. Am not sure Liz and Mike could look any prouder. Hooray for Charlie.

There's a baby in there thar hills

'This week your baby weighs a little over 4 pounds and measures 17.2 inches from the top of his head to his heels. His skin is becoming less red and wrinkled, and while most of his bones are hardening, his skull is quite pliable and not completely joined. This will help him ease out of your relatively narrow birth canal.' Oh well that's ok then. Thank you helpful baby development website. I love the inappropriately and hopelessly optimistic term 'ease' in that sentence. Clearly written by someone who hasn't passed a watermelon before. Baby website also tells me that 'Your baby can swallow up to a litre of amniotic fluid each day, passing this out as a type of 'urine' through their kidneys and bladder, back into the fluid around them.' How deeply unsavoury. If I wanted the baby to swim around in urine I'd take it to the local pool. We had our 33 week scan yesterday, during which the sonographer told me 'the head's down'. Well I could have told her that without the hospital needing to invest in an expensive piece of ultrasound equipment. My guess is the baby's head has been 'down' for some time since I feel enormous pressure in my 'downstairs' most of the time. Still with more than 6 weeks left to go and the baby not quite yet cooked, we don't want it coming out too early, now do we? Slightly frustrated that our broadband still isn't going to be connected for another fortnight so can't yet post new pix of me and bump. Just imagine a bowling ball sellotaped onto the front of a woman and you're halfway there.

Happy Australia Day

Today is Australia Day, a day when everyone, except me and a few hundred other journalists, gets to take a public holiday and rejoice at being Australian and all that means. Chanting 'Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, oi, oi, oi' over and over again, drinking beer, having barbecues and taking part in a zillion public events on around the country. In Sydney there is the famous ferry race on the harbour and masses of fireworks tonight. There has been a big hoo ha because the organisers of the big music festival -The Big Day Out - that is on today have banned all Aussie flags and nationalistic symbols anxious their presence will inflame racial tensions. Everyone thinks it's nuts to give the racists control over the flag instead of taking it back as the British have done with the Union Jack after the National Front had it for years. Rather frustratingly my office overlooks Darling Harbour so we all get to look down on all the people having lots of fun without being able to join in. Rob is out and about with Scarlett. They are in the Botanic Gardens as I type getting ready to watch the ferry race. We are having a load of mates over for a late lunch tomorrow so we'll get to celebrate together then. Aussie, Aussie Aussie...


In other news it is now only 7 weeks until our baby arrives. It kicks like a striker all the time and is quite uncomfortable especially when I am sitting down and it really goes into full Jackie Chan mode. We have the cot set up, but superstition prevents us from doing much more until he or she arrives. I'm told second labours are typically about half as long, which bodes well as Scarlett was 6 hours door to door. Please let it be true. I can have the baby and be home in time for Neighbours at 3.30pm. We have numerous friends waiting for the call to swoop in and look after Scarlett for us and she has been briefed that she's not allowed to come to the hospital when the baby comes. This explanation is usually followed by a 'Is the baby coming out now?' question from Scarlett. Unlike when I was pregnant with Scarlett, I currently feel as if I have bowling ball suspended inside me and that if I cough or sneeze unexpectedly the baby will drop out at any moment. Apparently this sensation gets worse with every subsequent birth. I can't tell at this stage which way up the baby is and whether the bit sticking out at the top is the bum or the head. There is a great deal of activity all the time, much of which can be seen through my clothes, so we hope the baby is lot calmer once it comes out. I am still very small, but now obviously pregnant so it's been very weird for many of my colleagues who had no idea I was pregnant. I didn't really start to show until about 25 weeks, when we were in the UK and now I am back at work people keep coming up to me and saying 'I didn't know you were pregnant - when are you due?'. When I reply '7 weeks' they nearly faint. It's like I am having a special express pregnancy that you just add hot water to.

Blown off

I recently had the following column rejected by my editor for being 'distasteful'. I road tested it on my sister, who usually keeps a stiff upper lip on the subject of wind, but even she declared it 'hysterical' adding in her email response that she was 'wiping tears of joy from my face even as I type.' Personally I think both the reader's question and my answer are very funny, even if I do say so myself. Editors - what do they know anyway?.

Q. Being fairly uninhibited folk, my partner and I rate our burps out of ten. We have also considered rating our fluffies but here lies a problem. While burps are usually a single movement, the humble bum trumpet can be a multi-part symphony over the course of 5 to 6 seconds. We don't know on what basis to compare an excellent single blast with a multi-stage performance. Can you advise?
M.W, Artarmon, NSW
I understand your fascination with the scoring of gas omissions, having attended a mixed sex Roman Catholic secondary school in England in the 1980s. In the grimy days of Thatcher's Britain, the grading of one's blow offs was practically part of the curriculum. As an adult I fell in with a crowd who were as free and easy with their combustibles as you and your partner. Indeed when I met the man who would become my husband, I knew he was the one for me when during an early date he responded to a request to take a weekend away together with a brief trouser toot that I understood to mean, `I love you, Bognor sounds perfect.' Later in our relationship we began a system of gas grading using types of car to suggest quality. For example, a small, silent event that attracted no attention from an outsider would score only as a manual mini cooper, whereas an event that could still catch the ear and nostril of a stranger some metres away on a windswept beach would be scored as a Ferrari. I have retained the crown in this contest since 1992 following an episode aboard a British Airways flight from Turkey to England following a 3-week holiday on the Turkish coast. In my defence it was a trip punctuated by frequent spells in restaurants feasting on piles of creamy fetta cheese, ripe tomatoes, olives and aubergines. About an hour into the flight, a noiseless gas escaped from me causing the sleeping passenger next to me to not only snuffle awake (slowly at first and then in a state of panic, with arms waving, much coughing and spluttering) but to attempt to kick out the plane window in a kung-fu style in order to provide fresh air for herself and the other passengers in lieu of oxygen masks dropping down. It took a weightlifter from Theydon Bois to subdue her in the aisle. Which vehicle did we feel matched this moment? What else? To this day it is known to us as The Queen's Coronation Carriage of farts. Please feel free to use our system as your own. I think you'll find it useful as it allows you to talk on a subject most find unsavoury in a secret and polite way. I must go now as I have a Porsche Carerra in the carpark close to its expiry time.

We're in

We are finally in our new house and have had two nights there. So far we're loving it and have discovered the following:
It doesn't have a smoke alarm. I didn't notice the toaster was buggered and the toast was burning to a crisp and filling the high ceilings with smoke until Scarlett called out from the back garden in the manner of Steve McQueen in The Towering Inferno.
It is so big, we call 'where are you?'.
There is road noise from the very big main road we are close to, but we quite like it as background noise
We do not miss living under the flight path
Our old house might have been small but it had fantastic storage. Our new house is bigger but has very little.
The house is so big we have shoved everything we can't find a place for or don't know what to do with into two rooms we don't use yet and have closed the doors. When that happens, those boxes, those skis and that wedding dress simply do not exist.
Wooden floors are lovely but your feet get very dirty by the end of the day.
Having a huge garden is a great way of wearing out small children by throwing a ball for them to run after, over and over
Telephone companies all over the world are staffed by gibbering, drooling idiots who think it is helpful to say 'If you could stop raising your voice and swearing I'll try and help you.'
Scarlett thinks her new room 'is lovely' but is a bit freaked out by sleeping in it
Pam the cat is still living at our old house and we don't feel that inclined to go back and get her. Is this wrong?
We have lots and lots and lots of stuff even after we threw half of everything we own away.
We are very happy with our decision to move.
Once we are a bit more organised I will post some photos of the house.

On the move

We just spent the weekend driving between our house and the new place taking all the loose items that are too hard to pack for the movers - umbrellas, breadmaker, wedding dress, two year old. All quite stressful, particularly when trying to do stuff with small child constantly vying for attention. Bad mummy switched into gear by screaming at small child until she dissolved into tears, closely followed by mummy who felt like horrid heel. Made time the second day to do more fun things like go to the pool and hide under an umbrella from Daddy. Tomorrow Scarlett is having an extra day at nursery so we can finish all the packing and then we move on Wednesday. We'll be really sad to leave our lovely house. We have lived here for 5 years, the longest we have lived anywhere, it's the only house Scarlett and Pam the cat have ever known and we have had a lot of good times here. Last night, we went through all the things we will miss about Reuss Street and all the things we have to look forward to in the new place.
What we'll miss -
Sitting with the front door open hearing the noise passers by on the street
Our fantastic neighbours
Walking to our local Italian shops in the afternoons
The brilliant park in our street
Being 10 mins from the city
Sitting out the back at night under our palm trees listening to other people chatting in their backyards
What we're gaining -
A house twice the size, with 2 more bedrooms and an extra living room
A driveway big enough to do a three point turn in - not sure why this matters but it does
An enormous back garden
Haberfield and Five Dock's Italian shops
An organic market every week at the church in our street
NOT LIVING UNDER THE FLIGHT PATH - YAYYYYYYY!
Being 11 minutes from the city

Goodbye to all that

New year, new us. We have finally got over the jetlag and shocking colds that dogged us all of last week and have all enjoyed three restful nights without any nocturnal interruptions. Scarlett got over it all first, but kept waking in the night and yelling out for us seemingly confused by which bedroom she was in after all the different beds she slept in on our holiday. We have spent the last week, enjoying the balmy, muggy weather, swimming every day at the pool and Rob and I managed a day at the beach alone on Friday while Scarlett was in nursery and have managed to top up the golden tans that temporarily left us in Blightey. Having discovered that British Tv is just as rubbish as anywhere else, we have enjoyed a few quiet nights in front of the box watching the few shows here that are worth watching, thankfully not a thing with the word 'celebrity' in the title. We are now getting ready for our house move next week. We pick up the keys on the weekend so we can start moving over some bits and bobs, and the removal mob come on Wednesday with the big truck for all the furniture and boxes. We are really looking forward to all the extra space and in particular the massive back garden.

Happy New Year

We returned this week, on New Year's Eve morning, from 4 fantastic weeks away in Blightey visiting family and friends. We were based mainly with my Dad in Kent, popping frequently to stay at my sister's in East Sussex. The drive between their homes is a stunning thatched-cottage strewn dream of English country life and reminded me how much I took for granted the beautiful Kentish scenery when I was growing up there. It was brilliant to be in the cold, having to pile on jackets and boots for walks and outdoor excursions and it being dark at 4.30pm every night. It was so amazingly festive everywhere we went, trees and lights and carol concerts but sadly no real snow. Highlights included seeing our nephews Jack and William in their respective nativity play and carol concert, the Dickens Christmas Festival in Rochester complete with fake snow, our visits with great friends Liz and Mike in Whitstable (Liz and i got to compare bumps) and Moira and Fraser in Scotland, catching up with mates in London at our drinks party, a brilliant afternoon at the Tate Modern with Rick riding the tube slides, a gorgeous Sunday afternoon lunch with Ruth and Pete, the look on Scarlett's face when she realised Father Christmas had been, Dad's fantastic Christmas dinner and seeing George Michael in concert at Wembley and getting to spend an afternoon with our favourite honeymooners Sarah and Scott and their gorgeous children Jacob and Ruby who live in New York, but who flew over just for the afternoon to see us. Despite all expectations they would become lifelong friends, Jack and Scarlett fought like cat and dog so Maria and I have agreed they can't meet again until they are in their teens. We arrived back on Dec 31, jetlagged and full of colds, but managed to stay up for the 9pm fireworks, watched in style from an apartment in Walsh Bay over looking the harbour bridge.
In two weeks we are leaving our lovely home of the last 5 years in Leichhardt, renting it out and moving to a bigger house in nearby Ashfield, and from then will be known as the Duthies of Ashfield.

Happy, happy, happy

We have just had such a wonderful last weekend in Sydney for a few weeks. Friday was Scarlett's last day at nursery for the year and she said goodbye to all her friends, in particular her best friend there, Millie. On Saturday we spent the morning at the pool, throwing Scarlett about, swimming laps and doing lots and lots of jumping in brilliant sunshine. Then we went to the Royal Hospital for Women to visit Eve, the new baby daughter of friends Cait and Pete. Eve was born 8 weeks early and is very very tiny. She is being looked after in the special baby care unit and will stay there for a few more weeks until she can come home, hopefully for Christmas. That afternoon we all had a really long sleep before heading for dinner with our old neighbours and friends Dave and George. Scarlett was an absolute doll and stayed up until 10.30pm - her latest night ever - and behaved so well. In the end it was Mummy who needed to go home to sleep not her, or Rob who was happily on the cans all night. On Sunday we went to the christening of Oscar James Neale, the baby son of our friends Amelia and James. It was held in the beautiful chapel of The Kings School, and followed by a fantastic lunch at James and Amelia's house - the house we'll be moving to in January. Only 4 more sleeps until we fly, so Scarlett took the opportunity to try on her new winter hat, knitted for her by Rob's mum especially for our trip....

Hotter than July...

...and in fact every other month this year. Today was officially the hottest day of the year and in the words of Kool and his entire gang it was 'too hot baby'. Yesterday was the same - 40 something degrees. We all had a shocking sleep last night as it was 27 degrees overnight - OVERNIGHT - no amount of nocturnal cold showers can fix that. You just lie there awake, feeling like a hairdryer is being pointed at you. Rob was up between midnight and 5am, pacing. This morning we escaped the heat dungeon known affectionately as our house and headed straight for the beach where we could submerge ourselves in the Pacific every 10 minutes to cool down. Strong winds from the west brought the smoke from the fires that are currently consuming the Blue Mountains, and the harbour was filled, rather eerily, with smoky fog, taking on the appearance of London in a Victorian pea-souper. We spent the afternoon at the pool, mainly playing catch using Scarlett as the ball, which she loves. A southerly change is promised tonight which will hopefully blow this heat away. We watch the UK weather forecasts and sigh that we will soon we on our way to 'proper' Christmas weather rather than this Father Christmas in board shorts and flip flops nonsense.

Scarlett's social life

It's official - Scarlett has now reached an age where her social life has dwarfed my own. This weekend she was invited to three - count 'em - three birthday parties. In fact I got so confused by where we were going next, I got the day of one wrong and we arrived a fashionable 24 hours late. On Saturday it was Joshua's 2nd birthday party in Petersham park, a great venue with bbqs, wide shady trees and a swimming pool. We had such a lovely morning at the party we stayed for the afternoon too until Rob had drunk all Joshua's parents' beer and there didn't seem much point in remaining. On the walk home, Scarlett fell and now has a scab the size and shape of her entire nose. She scraped it from bridge to tip on a sandstone step. There was a lot of blood inside and out and a lot of tears. Scarlett was pretty unhappy, too. The next day we went to Isabelle's 3rd birthday party. Isabelle is Scarlett's friend from childcare and we were especially proud that she had secured her party invite independent of us. The party was held at a purpose-built kid's party venue that housed themed party rooms resembling prison cells. Our party was in the disco room and the kids were led in dancing and games by the pair of dim-witted twenty somethings who worked there and knew all the words to every Hi-5 song. The dancing was followed by a kid's lunch while all us parents stood around outside eating sandwiches and cake. On Sunday, after a morning of vigorous aqua-athletics at the pool, we had a long sleep and headed off to Tom's 1st birthday party to be held in a park on the harbour. Perplexed at finding no one else there at the appointed time, we headed to his parents' house, assuming the venue had been changed due to some strong wind on the beach. Instead we found a neighbour who informed us that had we arrived at the same time on the previous day, we would have enjoyed ourselves very much at Tom's party. This sort of mistake is so unlike me that Rob immediately accused the baby of stealing my brain and demanded to look at our invite to a friend's son's christening this coming weekend, to check I had that correct. 'They do have a baby, do they?' he asked scowling with a face reminiscent of a young Glenda Jackson. I am impossibly excited that we now only have 10 more sleeps (not including lunchtimes of course) until we leave for England and I have only 3 more days at work. Have soooo switched off from work, it's not funny, and find I am simply going through the motions without really taxing myself. About to head off in a mo. Rob and Scarlett are picking me up from work and we are going to the opening of our friend Luke's exhibition of his life drawings at a gallery in Surry Hills. Lovely.

Happy Birthday Rob

Yesterday was Rob's birthday. I know everyone thinks he is the same age or younger than me because of his youthful good looks, but no, he is in fact 5 years older than me - d'ya hear me - FIVE YEARS - that makes him 43. The day began as the coldest day in November history since 1905. Winds howled and storm clouds brewed. Scarlett was booked into nursery as usual for Thursday and I had taken the day off work to spend with Rob. Unfortunately almost before the day had begun, I received a phone call informing me my planned birthday present had to be cancelled due to bad weather. I had arranged months ago for Rob to have a flying lesson, a lesson that would see him eventually take the controls on a flight over Sydney. Bummer. Thankfully I had also bought him a webcam and some handmade chocolates. Instead, we headed for Westfield Bondi, a giant shopping mall, so I could spend money on Rob and generally act as a servant and bag carrier as is traditional in our marriage on birthdays. A highlight was Rob trying on what he thought were a pair of black flares but ended up channeling Marcel Marceaux. Then we headed back to Leichhardt to the movies to watch The Prestige. A very clever film from the writer/director of Memento and Insomnia, full of clues and twists that keeps you guessing until the end. Last night with Scarlett fully unconscious we headed out to dinner at a new French place round the corner that recently earned an excellent review and score by our restaurant reviewer. We had a fantastic dinner with 5 friends and finally fell into bed at midnight - Rob very very drunk.

Sculpture by the sea

On Wednesday we awoke to the most amazing gloriously hot day and piled into the car to Tamarama Beach to see this year's Sculpture by the Sea exhibition. Artists display huge works of art on the beach and along the cliff path between Tama and Bondi. A favourite this year was the melted ice cream van, that appeared to have melted into the pavement, with even its version of Greensleeves slow and warped. Scarlett and her friend Peggy, visiting from England, had a ball charging about in the sand.

Belinda Emmett

I was very upset at the weekend to hear of the death of actress Belinda Emmett from secondary breast cancer. Belinda is best known here in Australia for being a former star of the soaps Home & Away and All Saints, and also appeared in films and recorded albums. She was also the wife of comedian and Tv talk show host Rove McManus. I met her a couple of times over the years, at the launch of the ovarian cancer fundraiser book Exposure (http://www.exposure-book.com/index.html) in which we both appear and at the Logie TV awards. She was diagnosed with breast cancer the same year as I was, but her cancer returned in her bones three years later. She has been battling it ever since. Her death at the weekend still came as a huge shock to her family and friends. I couldn't help but feel we had lost one for our team and once again realised how very lucky I am to be here and to have all I have.

larti self-portrait

We had a great day at our Melbourne Cup lunch on Tuesday. We didn't back the winner but we had a hoot being judges of Fashions in the Field. The food was wonderful and I remember everything about it this year. Only 21 more sleeps until we leave for London. We are all impossibly excited about our holiday, though to be fair Scarlett is more excited about the impending arrival of her new holiday bag which is on wheels for her to pull along and has her name on it. We have talked a lot about Christmas and the baby Jesus and family and how it is a happy time with (hopefully) lots of snow and presents for good little girls only. We just need to work out how to explain how Father Christmas will get into Dad's house as he doesn't have a chimney.

Home again

We got back home to our house last night after three weeks housesitting for our friends Zoe and Paul at their huge house on Sydney's Northern beaches. By housesit I mean we hassled and called Zoe and Paul repeatedly until they finally caved and reluctantly agreed to hand over their keys. Despite some pretty unbeachlike weather we managed a few lovely breakfasts at Curl Curl, a couple of gorgeous afternoons swimming in the ocean pool at Freshwater and had friends for breakfast and lunch by the pool at Zoe's house. A highlight of our stay was Scarlett riding a bike for the first time. Looks like that might be making it to the top of the birthday list for her next year. Despite all the extra space - our house fits in theirs at least twice -it was lovely to get back to Leichhardt, all our familiar things and in particular our bed which is the world's most comfortable. I went to bed at 8.30pm last night with my book and was asleep by 9pm. Bliss.
Tomorrow is Melbourne Cup, famously 'The Race That Stops the Nation". And it really does. Melbourne pretty much closes completely as everyone heads to the track or to parties and lunches showing the 4pm race. Everyone dresses up more extravagantly that at any wedding here. Women wear hats or fascinators, gorgeous dresses and men wear suits. The fashion is half the event. Traditonally everyone gets very very drunk on champagne, there are sweepstakes, prizes for best dressed and the day is a right off. Even in Sydney, everyone stops work to watch it. Screens are erected in public squares and pubs and resturants host big parties and lunches. Even here in my building, which houses about 3,000 people in different companies, there is a huge champagne party put on in our large foyer for everyone who works here with a big screen for watching the race. This year Scarlett will be going to nursery for an extra day and Rob and I have been invited to a lunch at Cafe Sydney, a gorgeous restaurant overlooking the bridge and opera house. We have both been asked to be judges of the fashions at the lunch - I am judging best dressed woman and best shoes with a fashion designer and Rob is judging best tie and best jewellery with a jewellery designer. I won't be able to go crazy on the pop this year - this is a good thing - last year I was so smashed I had no recollection of picking Scarlett up from nursery - but I'm sure that won't stop Rob.

yup, definitely a baby

We had a Duthie family outing to the hospital yesterday (with Scarlett, and Rob's mum in tow) for our 19 week anomaly scan. I love going back to the RPA - it is where Scarlett was born and where I had all my treatment and surgery. Even though this is second time around, it still moved us enormously to see our growing baby jumping around, swallowing great gobfuls of amniotic fluid and jiggling its hips. Shake it baby. It has a tremendous spine and at one point I queried whether it might be a greyhound. This was better than the question Rob asked of the doctor when we were pregnant with Scarlett - 'how will we know if we are having a dwarf?'. I managed to pass this off as the idle remark of a New Zealander obsessed with hobbits. Scarlett took more interest in what the lady with the jelly stuff was doing to Mummy's tummy. I think she thinks the lady is hurting me because she climbed onto the bed and hugged and kissed me during the scan. We saw the four chambers of the baby's heart, the brain and the little feet. Anyhoo, here are a couple of pix of our baby.

Matron, pass the smelling salts...

...I was heard to mutter on hearing the news that after seven months - SEVEN MONTHS - our flat in Islington will finally exchange and complete next Friday. I'm not sure if it is wise of me to believe this information even though it came straight from the trusted keyboard of my solicitor. We accepted an offer in March. MARCH. Ever since we have had delay after delay mainly as a result of the gibbering idiot our buyer put in charge of his legal affairs, a lawyer our buyer has since reported to The Law Society. To say I am relieved would be putting it mildly. On top of Rob's job loss, the realisation that as a result we can't afford to buy a bigger house, a pregnancy and facing up to having to move from our beloved house to a larger rented house to make room for our growing family, having to deal with all of this flat sale stuff from the other side of the world too has been, shall we say, a strain. Bring on completion date October 27. What a glorious date it sounds. Having said that we love having Rob at home all the time (he does all the cleaning, laundry, driving us about, cooking, shopping), are looking forward to our move in January to the lovely new house and can't wait to meet the new Duthie in March or as Scarlett refers to the non-existent bump 'my baby or sister'. October is Good Food Month in Sydney. Last night after work I met Rob and Scarlett in Hyde Park and we went to the Night Noodle Markets. The park is lit by red lanterns and 50 odd food stalls sell all kinds of Asian food, wine and beer accompanied by a DJ from Cargo Bar. We drank wine and beer, ate noddles, chicken and rice and took it all in. Sydney does outdoor events so well,it was a magical night.
We are house sitting again at the moment at Zoe and Paul's house in Curl Curl on Sydney's northern beaches. It's quite a bit further out from the city than where we live but feels like such a friendly self-contained community with great local shops and surf beaches a-plenty all within a few minutes walk or drive. It's so nice to be able to pop to the beach for just an hour rather than the whole day. Wednesday afternoon was baking so we went to Freshwater Beach, had a lovely walk along the beach and around to the ocean pool where we swam. Pulling the plug on Scarlett's bath water and finding all the remnants of sand left behind is so lovely.
We have an early dinner with friends tomorrow night before Rob picks up his Mum from the airport - she's staying for a week, and on Sunday a late lunch with friends. Shame the forecast is for rain all weekend. In fact as I type rain has just starting lashing the window of my 26th floor office. Oh joy.

The house that Rob built

Just had a right laugh on a weekend away in the Megalong Valley (yes, that really is it's name and it is mega long) in the Blue Mountains.I always laugh that this region west of Sydney is described as mountains when it is in fact a long range of canyons that you look down on. I just don't get the Blue Mountains at all. Ok, they are quite a bit higher than sea level than the rest of the state but mountains is really pushing it. Let's just say as you drive along the flat road that runs along the top of the range, you are hardly transported to the cuckoo clocks and leiderhosen of Switzerland. The biggest town, Katoomba, is quite a tip, full of crummy 'antique' shops and fudgeries and apart from a view hotels with nice views down the valleys, being the home town of 'yulefest - the annual Christmas in July festival' doesn't impress me one bit. Give me the alps any day. That said we headed off on Friday evening to meet up with neighbours Rob and Freya and friends Deb and Ewan and their son Joshua at a house Rob built for Ewan's uncle (pix to come). It is in the middle of nowhere deep in the Megalong Valley and is accessed by dirt track and after passing through 3 separate farm gates. Kangaroos, hop, cows moo, horses neigh and really loud sqawky birds wake you at 5am. That's if you have been kept awake all night by possums on the tin roof and a bird that makes a sound likes it's opening an closing an umbrella. The house is a huge wood and glass structure with a main house and two guest cabins connected by a wooden walkway. The loo is one of those composting ones you don't want to inspect too closely with a torch but which is entirely odour free and fantastic for the environment - the human 'compost' going on to be reused in the garden. Thought Scarlett would freak out when she saw the big dark hole but she couldn't care less. The house sits at the bottom of a huge sandstone escarpment that looks amazing as the sun hits it throughout the day. It was 35 degrees on Saturday so we entertained the kids with a container of water and a sandpit. After a big lunchtime sleep we all piled into the back of the flatbed farm truck and bounced off across the fields to see horses and cows. The kids LOVED the truck, no seatbelts, in fact no seats, just lots of bouncing about. Later we fed the horses carrots which sent Scarlett into hysterics of laughter as their big teeth and lips snaffled the food from her little hand. Salivatastic. We were shattered when we got back home last night and were all in bed by 8.30pm fast asleep. Today we're off to the north shore for 3 weeks to house sit for Zoe and paul. They have a house you could fit ours in at least twice, it has a pool, a big garden and best of all is 5 minutes from two fantastic surf beaches and I get to commute to work by ferry which I'm looking forward to. I'm sure Zoe and Paul think we are quite odd wanting to move into their house, but for us it's like a holiday. Then there's only 3 weeks after we come back home that we head to Blightey. Yahoo!

Finally...

We've had a few balls in the air recently and it looks as if a couple of them are falling into place. We've been trying to sell our flat in London and despite having had an offer made and accepted in March, it has been dragging on and on and on because of the wording in one sentence of the contract that our buyer's lender's lawyers didn't like. I could scream. This week it looks as if all will finally be approved and we can move on. Since Rob was made redundant, it has played on my mind. We have also been waiting to find out if we could rent a house owned by the family of good friends of ours. It is much bigger that our house with avery large garden and now that we have another baby on the way, it's a move we need to make in the early part of next year. We heard this week that the house is ours from January at a terrific rent. We'll rent our house out and move to the new place in plenty of time for the baby's arrival in March. Best of all it'll have a guest room so we can finally have people to stay with us without handing them a blanket and pointing them in the direction of the couch. Also after a few weeks worrying about the baby's progress, all appears to be well. At 17 and a bit weeks, I am still not showing and have no symptoms of pregnancy (just like with Scarlett) so was relieved to hear a lively heartbeat at our four-weekly check up at the hospital this week. In two weeks we have the big 19 week scan when we make sure its arms and legs are in the right place and that it only has one head, although two heads are better than one. It's been great as two good mates here are expecting at the same time and we are all due within a week or two of each other. The weather is gorgeous at the moment, we are spending lots of time at the pool and beach and are going away this weekend with our neighbours to the Blue Mountains to stay in an amazing house our neighbour Rob built for our other neighbour Ewan's uncle. Confused?.

Action packed

Here is the pic of Rob and Scarlett at the launch party for Good Food Month that appeared in the social pages of the Sun-herald our sister paper. I am out of the shot, because I work at the paper, and Scarlett is looking at me.
What a great three days we've had. I took Friday off work as it was Mum's 11th anniversary. Every year I like to take the day off if I can and do something nice. This year we packed ourselves off to Clontarf reserve, a gorgeous park, beach and shark-proofed pool on the middle harbour, overlooking yachts at anchor and enormous harbourside homes. We bumped into Zoe, Sam and baby Bronte who were there meeting other friends. Zoe ended up leaving Sam with us for a couple of hours to play with Scarlett while she raced off to the shops. It was a gorgeous day that allowed me plenty of time to think about the good times with Mum, but also made me sad to see my beautiful girl running around so happy all day knowing she and Mum will never meet.
On Saturday we spent the morning at the pool where Scarlett delighted all with a display of serial pooing that led from the baby pool to the toilet. By the time I managed to race her into the shower, almost everything she had deposited in her bathers had made its way out of the leg, creating a trail of poo piles even the sloppiest detective would have no trouble following. Thankfully the lifeguard thought nothing of the drought and whipped out the fire hose to clear it away. After the pool it was off to Coogee beach for Cait and Pete's son Max's 2nd birthday party. It was lovely to sit in the sun and catch up with them over a few fruit juices and slices of birthday cake. We all had a big sleep on Saturday afternoon in preparation for taking Scarlett out for dinner. We used to take her out a lot when she was a baby as she'd nod off in the pram but we wanted to see if she could behave well eating with us in a restaurant. We booked a table for 6pm at a great local Italian place that is used to families and young children and it went without a hitch. She loved her share of our pizza and pasta, entertained herself watching the other diners and enjoyed drawing on the paper table cloth with her pencils. The staff were all over her and she loved it. We then did the promenade thing through Leichhardt a popular pursuit in our suburb, lifted straight from Italy, when families get all dressed up and walk up and down the main street eating gelato and watching people in bars and restaurants. Young lads in tricked up cars drive slowly up and down the main drag blasting their car horns that play the theme from The Godfather. Scarlett enjoyed herself so much she cried when it was time to go home for bed. On Sunday morning we raced to get the paper to see if Scarlett's picture made it into the social pages and it did!. She flicked through looking for pix of Uncle Brett and photos of our other media mates who are normally in there. When she saw herself she was so excited. We had a brilliant afternoon at the home of our mates Chris and Stef and their kids GG and Harrison. They have just moved back to Stef's parents' enormous home on the harbour. It has a pool and overlooks yachts and multi million dollar houses. The kids ate, played and bathed together while we had dinner and a good catch up. Fell in to bed shattered last night but was kept awake by various parties going on around the place as it was a big Rugby final weekend and it's a bank holiday here today so no one (except journalists it would seem) had to come into work today. Was very sad to be dropped off at the office today by Rob and Scarlett knowing they were heading off to the fish market to provoke crabs and then onto the pool for the day. Sob.