Tall Paul

Paul "please leave with the minimum of fuss' Chinnery came back to Sydney this week after two weeks tripping around Oz, taking in the rock and the reef and came for dinner last night with Melissa, Larry and Paul D. Jamie Oliver's pea and mint soup and fantastic fish pie made an appearance at the table alongwith Larry's rhubarb and strawberry crumbles. All top winter fare. As ever the night was all about laughing our pants off, with Paul bearing the brunt of a volley of personal questions about his love life and different coloured eyes. Paul and I were such great mates in London and it was brilliant to see him. Unfortunately, as is the way with two children who rise early and with Rob due at work at 7am this morning, it was not a late night and Paul flies back to London today. Seeing him made me incredibly homesick and especially nostalgic for the summer of 1990 when Paul, Oliver and I lived near each other in Notting Hill, with my sister just up the Portobello Road. Happy days.

The Queen's Birthday

Despite being a nation of avowed republicans, Australians have no trouble celebrating the 3-day Queen's birthday weekend and making the most of the Monday off work by heading away for a few days. We joined the throng by heading back down to Gerroa with our mates Chris and Steph and their children Genevieve and Harrison. Steph rented the same house we rented with Martin and Drew last September when apalling storms lashed the coast for our entire stay, keeping us inside. As the house had a fireplace and spectacular views of the spectacular storm, we didn't mind. On this visit we couldn't believe that the same violent weather pattern turned up again, affecting most of the NSW coast causing havoc and more. Although we stayed safe and warm inside, attempting a couple of walks on the beach, by the time the storm had finished, 8 people were dead, roads were washed away, a tanker was blown aground near Newcastle, 2 hours north of Sydney, and in the city one of the harbour ferry wharves was washed away and sank. After all that, being trapped inside with 4 children under 4 didn't seem so bad. There was much book reading, watching of DVDs and playing with dolls to keep all amused. Finally, come Monday morning, the sun came out and we got to play on the beach all morning before heading back to Sydney to check on the state of our house which has been known to leak a bit. Top fun. With the winter nights drawing in, we have taken to popping on the heating and in lieu of anything any good to watch on the box, have been perusing old home movies. Tonight we watched all the stuff from 1999 - Thailand with Fraser and Moira, my sister's wedding in Connecticut with Sarah and Scott, Ruth and Hom and Ol, the Whitsundays sailing trip with Moira and Fraser, Harriet's and Scott and Anne's visit to Australia where Scott got so sunburnt we had to call the fire brigade, and our Christmas on the Hawkesbury river with Phillipa and Paul and baby Finn, Moira, Fraser, Neil, Dad, Alexandra and Zoe and Paul, smoking fags and looking like a right couple of publicans. It is so much fun looking back at these tapes we haven't looked at probably since we made them and calculating how many children we now all have between us. Will we ever show them these tapes I wonder.

Courses and horses

Winter is well and truly here. Bizarrely although it is very chilly in the mornings and evenings hardly any houses here have heating and any fireplaces in old houses have become 'feature' spaces for presenting piles of logs rather than burning them. So we were thrilled when we moved into this house to find it not only has ducted air con but also heating. As I type the girls are playing and cooing in the family room in a balmy 20 degree heat while outside it is dewy and nippy. Weren't they two of Snow White's dwarves? We went out to dinner on Friday night en famille, meeting up with our friends Melissa and Larry and their baby. Our babies slept silently throughout, Scarlett was well behaved thanks to a Margarita pizza and and a small serve of hazlenut ice cream as a reward for getting 3 stars on her chart for being good. On Saturday we headed to Orange Grove for the organic markets and after a Honey cured bacon and egg sandwich and a latte, for us, and a babycino for Scarlett, she lept astride one of the ponies available for rides, with her kilt-laden father at her side. With a loaf of spelt bread under one arm and a baked sour cherry cheesecake under the other we headed home to make dinner for Martin and Drew. Mart had just returned from 6 months working for Amex in Manhattan and was full of stories shared over bowls of moules washed down with a few too many wines. We also found time to crack open an old box of home movies and watched one of the four of us on a weekend away in the cotswolds in 1996, presenting our own drunken version of Through The Keyhole. Embarassing isn't the word. On Sunday we headed up to our local church to see the vicar Andrew about organising Florence's christening in late July. Rob's family missed Scarlett's as it was in England but this time his Mum is travelling from NZ. We then enjoyed a well needed two-hour lunchtime sleep as a family. Bliss. Paul Chinnery and his 'friend' Nyree came for dinner on Monday night. It was brilliant to catch up with him. He hasn't changed a bit and it was an evening filled with laughs and reminiscing. They've headed off to Uluru and Cairns and Paul is coming back to stay in two weeks. Can't wait.

Viva Italia - unless they're playing England

We got a surprise parcel in the post last week from Mario, our Italian friend. In 2004 we stayed in one of Mario's properties in the grounds of his family's castle near Todi in Umbria. Once we had got over the shock of discovering that Mario was only in his 30s yet ran a thriving castle, farmhouse renovation business, lectured at the university in Rome and still found time to have his contemporary art exhibited in galleries in Manhattan, we liked him. Plus he had a way of saying Scarlett's name, rolling the r's in a way only Italians can. I digress. Last week he sent a full football strip from Italy's Fiorentina club for our Florence. Scarlett nabbed the football top at once and now won't take it off, oblivious to the gorgeous dresses that hang, unworn in her wardrobe. Here she is looking, like a mental, but clearly happy in her top. plus another shot of her in Rob's scooter gear. Florence continues to become a mini me of her Dad, so much so that when they were both in bed the other day, it was only Rob talking that alerted me to the fact that he was Rob. Other than that, there was no way of telling them apart.

Dead cat, new scooter, old friend

It's officially the start of winter on Friday (June 1) but the weather is still shorts worthy. I met some Aussie friends at the beach last week and while I was factored up and in shorts and flip flops they were in rolls necks, scarves and one even in a sheepskin jacket. I mean seriously, what are they like.? It was 70 with a light breeze. As I type I am trying to ignore the large dead white cat that seems to have met his maker on the road right outside our house. Someone has kindly shifted his ant-infested corpse to the end of our driveway so now every time I negotiate the car out through the gate I have to try not to turn its head into a giant cat-head pancake. Have so far managed to avoid Scarlett seeing it, but am not sure it can be avoided when we head off for her ride on her pink fairy bike this afternoon. Maybe it's time for the chat about death. I'll spare you a photo. Rob has bought himself a zippy red scooter which he rides to work when he is on day shift so I can have the car. It's handy to have two modes of transport, much better for the planet and of course cheap to run. He looks very cool heading off at sunrise. Another blast from the past arrives in Sydney this weekend. Paul 'Please leave with the minimum of fuss' Chinnery is heading to our shores for the first time and I can't wait to see him. We spent most of the period from 1989 to 1991 living in and around Notting Hill laughing. Just laughing. Paul also hosted me on my first trip to New York in 1990 and was also briefly a member of the group that took on Umbria in 1991. He and I also shared a memorably funny weekend in Amsterdam that had us talking and laughing so much we didn't realise we had sat through the same sex show twice. Paul is famous for his appalling posture, having different coloured eyes and for being the head of channel five's legal department. As you can imagine, with their programming, he's kept pretty busy. Long may the laughter reign.

Does whatever a spider can

This morning Scarlett, Florence and I met Spiderman. I know. Amazing isn' t it? And creepy. We were at Sam's 4th birthday party and not surprisingly almost every child burst into tears when the webbed one arrived in the park where we were all waiting with Zoe and Paul's Spiderman jumping castle. I'm 39 and he gave me the shivers as he emerged, half running and crouching from behind a set of bins in his tight lycra costume. The mask alone is enough to give the kids nightmares for weeks to come. It was hilarious however. He had them all chasing around, looking for bad guys, fighting with balloon swords and teaching them superhero skills while the grown ups stood around eating sausage sandwiches and remarking on how low his overheads must be - he charges $190 for an hour ( and presumably fits in about 6 performances every weekend) and only needs to get his suit dry cleaned once a week. We speculated that during the week he is probably either a tax accountant or high court judge. As Rob was at home 'sleeping off a night shift', someone even suggested he might be the one inside the webbed suit.

Old friends and new

The Autumn weather is amazing at the moment - chilly mornings and evenings but clear warm sunny days of around 20 degrees. I'm still in my shorts at the beach and swimming in the open air pool but my Australian friends are in sheepskin-lined jackets and winter boots. Scarlett tried her hand at babysitting at the weekend when we looked after 4-week old Saskia Baker, the new baby of our old neighbours Rob and Freya. Our house come bedtime took on the air of a small baby production line as each child was plopped in the bath, dried, dressed, fed and put to bed. On Sunday, my old mate Simon Dimascio came for lunch. Simon and I went to Manchester Poly together at the end of the 80s but we haven't seen Simon since our wedding 12 years ago. Since then he has split up with the woman he brought to our wedding, met someone new and produced twin daughters now aged nine. He was in Sydney from England on business for 24 hours and arrived for lunch at 3pm at Sunday, in typical Manchester wide boy form, with a carton of 24 beers on his shoulder. He left at 10.30pm when I called him a cab. You join the dots. Needless to say, hangovers and small children who rise at 7am do not mix. Florence is almost 10 weeks old and changing so fast. Her eyes have opened into two huge dark pools and the long eyelashes we love so much on Scarlett have popped out too. She is easey peasy compared to chasing a 3-year-old around. Scarlett is her biggest fan which is a relief as I have heard horror stories of parents walking in on their older child just in time to stop them hoisting the rope-bound baby to a tree branch.

All change

It was Mother's Day here on Sunday. My favourite present was the first smile Florence has given me when I went into her at 7am. Big, big smile. Scarlett brought me two lovely gifts she had made for me at nursery - a fridge magnet in the shape of a heart with her photo on and a keyring with a pic of her on, plus a voucher to use at a local spa for a facial and pedicure. Yippee. For breakfast, we met up with our lovely friends, Chris and Steph O'Brien, who let us tag along on their Mother's Day breakfast plans at Clontarf Reserve. Steph is one of 9 children ( that's catholics for you) and many of them were in attendance along with their spouses and children for bacon and egg rolls prepared on the bbqs in the park. The kids made use of the massive playground, Scarlett flew a kite all by herself, and Florence, just for a change, slept. Rob started his new job the next morning. His first day at work after 9 months off. Needless to say he didn't look very happy and he sloped off down the street to the train station. The good thing is the job is only a few km away and it's easy for him to get there by bike or train. He's also thinking of getting himself an Italian scooter to whizz around on so I can have the car for the kids. So this week is also my first managing both girls on my own.
Flo is very beautiful (we think), dark and big eyed like her handsome dad. her thing is throwing a gigantic hissy fit, every night at about 5pm ( the chardonnay hour as our friend Melissa calls it), but looking back in my diary, it seems Scarlett did the same at the same age, until she grew out of it. I wonder which type of gin we used to fix it. Why didn't I write that down too? Also new this week is the gorgeous personalised blanket sent to us by our wonderful friends in the US, Sarah and Scott and their twins Ruby and Jacob. They sent the same gift when Scarlett was born and it has hung over her bed ever since. We intend to do the same in Florence's room.

Relay For Life

Today we spent the day taking part in Relay for Life, a sponsored 24 hour walk in aid of the Cancer Council held at a sports oval in North Sydney. We were part of the Good Eggs team put together by our top mate Steph. It was a really emotional day, beginning with a special lap for cancer survivors and their carers that we took part in, and ending with a candlelit lap in memory of those who were lost to cancer. Then it was just a matter as walking as many laps as possible. Many teams had tents set up and were planning on walking all night, there was loads of entertainment - bands, jumping castles, kids entertainers etc. Scarlett and I took part in the egg throwing game where partners face each other and throw an egg to each other. Every time you catch it without it breaking you take a step away from each other and throw again. After a few successful throws and catches Scarlett slightly misjudged her throw and instead of the egg landing neatly in my waiting hands, went sideways across another couple and landed squarely on the forehead of a 10 year old boy, breaking on impact. I swear to God, I lay on the floor I was laughing so hard. The boy was not amused. Just the thought of him now is making me laugh. I fear the wonky aim gene maybe from me. Just last week at Balmoral Beach, Scarlett and I were playing football on an almost deserted beach. After receiving a neat pass from Miss S, I kicked the ball hard back up the beach to her, instead striking an elderly gentleman strolling past straight in the chest at a distnace of about 5 feet. Again apologising was made difficult by my snorts of laughter. Anyway, we had a great day, raised over $1200 for cancer research and education, so many thanks to everyone who sponsored us.

Rick's visit and happy birthday to me

Our fabulous mate from Blightey Rick has just been to stay for 9 days - Rob is driving him to the airport as I type. I was gutted to see him go, as is always the way when a little piece of home goes back. As well as being Scarlett's Godfather, he is an old mate from years ago, our friendship sealed during an unforgettably funny holiday in Umbria in 1991. Rick loves Australia and we were thrilled when he rang a couple of months ago to say he was coming for a visit before starting a new job at home. We have such a brilliant laugh while he's been here, eating out, going away to Gerroa last weekend for my 39th birthday, hanging out at the beach, early morning swims at our local pool and lots and lots of wine and storytelling.

Happiness

Life is good. Yes, we live beside the busiest road in Australia in a house that is not our own. A house that needs a bigger bathroom and less leaks in the roof when it rains, but it's a lovely big house with a huge garden and lots of space for us all. You might have guessed it has been raining a lot of late. I find myself muttering under my breath a lot when it rains here because it's not supposed to. The weather is one of the reasons we moved here. To live the outdoors life, in a city by the sea. Not much point being here if it's going to rain. And yes, I know it's good for the farmers, we've been in drought for 5 years blah blah blah. But I want to go to the beach and the park and the zoo. Anyway, it's going to be sunny again tomorrow. Rick arrives on Monday from London via NZ. We are very excited about his 9 day visit and have many excursions, a weekend away and some dinners in and out planned. Scarlett is excited about spending time with her Godfather. Rick sends her postcards from every trip he makes, no matter how small, and we have saved them all for her. Florence is less excited, but then he isn't her Godfather. I have found myself bursting into tears at simple domestic scenes we are enjoying. This morning in the family room at the back of our house, Flo was kicking on her baby gym, Scarlett and I were playing catch with the 'indoor-only ball' and Rob was reading the paper on the couch and I looked at my family all together and was welling up. I have become ginormous sentimental sook.

A few days away

Feeling a bit house bound of late, getting Flo into her routine, we decided to change the scene with a last minute trip to Gerroa, one of our favourite destinations from Sydney. Less than two hours south of the city it's a gorgeous village with one shop and one cafe that sits at the northern end of Seven Mile Beach , a spectacular arch of surf, stretching down the coast for, ahem, seven miles. The house we rented was gorgeous, with the most amazing views along the beach. It's so easy to entertain Scarlett at the beach. All she needs is a football and somewhere to dig a big hole. We liked our 3 day break at the house so much, we've booked it again for the weekend of my birthday with Rick who arrives from England at the end of April for a holiday with his Goddaughter Scarlett. Florence is now a month old and putting on weight and feeding well. Her big eyes have opened up more now and we are starting to see the family resemblances and differences between her and Scarlett. I think she has my mum's Welsh nose, while she seems to have Rob's eyes. Here are a few pix of us messing about at the beach and in the bath, and some shots of the house - check out that view.

A visit from the Russells

Our old family friends,the Russells, hit Sydney this weekend. Despite the age gap between her and 12-year-old Matthew, Scarlett fell helplessly in love and thought everything he did was divine. While Matthew and Ben camped on our lawn in a tent, Mark and Laura and us caught up on old times, reminiscing about our times together in London, before children. Long gone the days of multiple fag packets, cigarettes between courses, late night board games and early hour runs to the garage for more fags. However, we remained quite certain we preferred life now. Scarlett was a stunningly behaved child and Flo, mostly, snoozed throughout.

A very Happy Easter

What a top easter. It begun on Good Friday with a birthday party for one-year old Bronte Cummins at Zoe and Paul's house complete with Easter egg hunt. Our freakish offspring being the only child among the hoard who doesn't like chocolate used her time with her collection of egg booty licking it before spitting it out on the lawn. On easter Saturday we had Kendall and Brett, the godfathers, and Lara and Adam for lunch with their new baby Toby, born three days before Florence. It was my first opportunity to exercise my long dormant 'long boozy lunch' gland and, may I say, I used my time well. It was a glorious day with Scarlett bonding even more with Godfather Brett, at one point even inviting him to wipe her bottom after a poo, high praise indeed when you're three. On Easter Sunday we walked up the road to the local church for the Easter Sunday service. We were checking out the church as a possible site for Florence's christening and found and extremely friendly and family-oriented bunch. In stark contrast to my Catholic church upbringing, where the priest was often a terrifying, booze-laden, crazy-eyed weirdo, here we found an extremely friendly vicar who likes jazz and made jokes during his sermon. Happy easter one and all.

Top weekend

We started the weekend with a visit to Wylie's baths on Friday afternoon to catch with our old mate Saska on her last afternoon in Sydney before flying back to London. Saska lived in Sydney for 10 years before heading home to England the year before last. Her leaving celebrations, dubbed the festival of Saska lasted some days and even made it into the paper. She was back in Sydney for her pre-40th birthday celebrations and the second festival of Saska was on again. We hosted a dinner and went to her 40th birthday dinner as part of the 3 week festival. our afternoon at Wylie's was quite the mother's meeting - us with Florence (Scarlett at nursery) Sue sans her son Wilf (also in nursery), Melissa with baby Lotus, Tracy pregnant with her first and Saska, being honorary bottle feeder of the Duthie offspring, keen as ever to give Flo her bottle. After an afternoon swimming in the ocean pool and basking in the sun, we headed round the corner to Barzura for champagne and rose before Saska had to leave. That night the Duthies headed out to dinner en masse. Florence slept in her pram throughout despite it being a very busy noisy restaurant, but then they sleep through anything at this age. Scarlett was a model diner, only drawing on the table cloth a bit and not throwing any of her pizza at the waiter. Saturday was a scorcher devoted to kicking a ball in the back garden, riding bikes, stocking up on food and heading to the pool. In the evening we packed up the pram and the esky and walked up the road to the local church where a brilliant jazz trio played among the gravestones. About 100 or so people gathered at sunset to listen with picnics and we dined on double smoked ham, pecorino, ciabatta, red wine and champagne, again while Flo slept throughout. It was quite magical. Then at 7.30pm we headed home in the dark to observe Earth Hour until 8.30pm where pretty much the whole city turned off its lights for an hour to bring attention to global warming. Even the harbour bridge and opera house had their spotlights turned off and most of the skyscrapers turned off unnecessary lights making a dramatic difference to the usual city skyline view at night. We lit candles and kept the telly off to do our bit too.