Happy Birthday to Zoo

Our nephew Jack turned 5 this week. I can't believe it was 5 years ago since I watched him being born in San Francisco. It doesn't feel like yesterday but it doesn't feel like 5 years ago either. Maria organised a pirate party for him and by the looks of it there were some right rum sorts there. The nutters above are my Dad and his wife Alexandra. Below, Maria with Jack.

As we couldn't be there in person, we celebrated by going to Taronga Zoo on one of the coldest days of the year. This winter really is like a proper northern hemisphere winter. (I got into bed for my afternoon nap yesterday wearing all my clothes and my scarf. My SCARF!).

Scarlett enjoyed finding out what it would be like to be really hard of hearing and we enjoyed hanging our with the meercats, surely one of the planet's coolest creatures as they chilled out in the sun. I wonder where they buy their sunglasses.

Flo, as ever, slept throughout. She is now 18 weeks old and a right little charmer. We are looking forward to her christening next weekend and in particular having a gathering of family and friends at a champagne reception afterwards. If it's anything like the knees up, I mean, function we had after Scarlett's christening there will some sore heads the morning after. Amen. Hic.

Parrrrrrteeeee!!

It was a busy weekend of socialising for a certain three year old what with a party, two play dates, a good old sing song up the church where Flo will soon be christened and batches of muffins to be made. Goodness me. Saturday morning saw us adorned in pinnies, slaving over a hot oven (preheated to 180 degrees) making a batch each of banana and chocolate chip muffins to take to James and Amelia's son Oscar's 1st birthday

party. As is commonly the way with any function thrown by James and Amelia, it was spectacularly catered, thanks in no small part to their secret weapon - James's mum - who seems to have a buffet permanently ready in her handbag to be pulled out at the drop of a hat. While an extravagant party was being laid at the party house Scarlett and I were larking about in ours and someone - not mentioning any names - let the muffins burn. We had to discard 3 three of the muffins for looking too much like the contents of a charcoal kiln I had recently seen a photo of in National Geographic and arrived at the party with just 9, an odd number by anyone's reckoning. On inspecting their darkened tops, James's mum plunged her hand into her Mary Poppins-like carpet bag and pulled out a small icing sugar shaker which she then applied to the burnt muffins giving them the renewed appearance of ice capped mountains. In the afternoon we set off for Julia and Richard's amazing new house for an afternoon play date with Ella, ending with dinner, a bath and an exciting drive home in PJs in the dark. Sunday morning we popped up to the church for a spot of light recreational God-bothering and loud singing to hymns written in the last 5 years (i.e you've never heard of them - what happened to Jerusalem?) so we can't be accused of only attending so we can get Flo christened there. After a refreshing nap, Scarlett's best friend from nursery, Milly, came over for a late roast chicken lunch with her Mum and Dad, Karl and Alison.

Wet week

The weather continues to be totally unseasonal and utter pants. We have not had a day at the beach all winter which is very unusual. Being stuck indoors with two small children and a husband sleeping off a night shift in a nearby room means one has to use one's imagination. Pretending it was fun to spend all day in our pyjamas - including going grocery shopping in them - had worn a little thin by day two, but the chance discovery of a small pile of party hats in the larder around dinner time brought some unexpected light relief to an otherwise dull day. You know you're getting desperate when the creation of a pretend laptop from an old box makes a 3-year-old's week. We however managed two great nights out. On Saturday night our friend Dave took 10 of us out to dinner to one of Sydney's great restaurants, The Boathouse, to celebrate his wife George's 40th. It was a truly great night of wonderful food and plenty of laughs. The evening started badly when Scarlett became hysterical when we left, eventually making herself sick. Lauren our babysitter - who also works at Scarlett's nursery - has babysat for Scarlett since she was a year old, and has never had to do a thing except sit and watch our telly while Scarlett slept. Now Scarlett is older and often still awake when Lauren arrives, we are trying to nurture a relationship between them. However when we told her we were going out and that Lauren was coming over she declared 'I don't like Lauren!' with full pout and the accompanying hysteria and vomiting. Last night we were going out again and this time decided things might go smoother if Lauren read Scarlett her bedtime books - including our new favourite Walter the Farting Dog Goes on a Cruise - the difference was extraordinary with Scarlett barely looking up as we left. We went to the Opera House to see Burt Bacharach perform all his top hits with the Sydney Symphony. Thankfully as the king of the love song is now 79 and with a voice much rougher than his smooth personality, he had three incredible singers on stage with him. It was a top night of singing along to his compositions including Walk On By,Say A Little Prayer, Alfie, What The World Needs Now, Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head, Close To You and many more. As often happens when I attend places i know I can't talk, I got a fit of the giggles. It happened during a Kiri Te Kanawa recital, at the opera - when I was saved by a pashmina I was able to stuff into my mouth, and again last night. At one point Burt was telling us about some new material, but his mouth was so close to the microphone you could hear his dentures whistling. It made him sound as if he mispronounced someone's name and I said to Rob "he probably said it right but his false teeth clattering around made it sound wrong.' Rob snorted with laughter and then turned to me and made the noise of gnashing teeth and saliva. At that moment the talking and applause stopped and room fell quiet, save the noise of a human making a half snort half honking noise from row C of the gallery. I had to keep waiting for loud applause just to let all the laughter out. Finally, a pic of our daughter the Hollywood actress, asleep in her eye mask.

Welcome home

Our lovely friend Julia and her daughter Ella arrived back this week, from 18 months living in Tokyo. Richard is there for another month before he comes back. We have missed them so much while they have been away, and our girls have done so much growing up since they last saw each other. Ella was really still a baby when they left and now she is the sweetest 2 and half year old. We have managed to gestate and produce a child while they have been away and Julia is now pregnant with their second child due at the end of the year. We all went out for dinner on Saturday night, alongwith Martin and Drew, with Scarlett under strict instructions to be nice to Ella and it was a great night. The only let down was Drew having to send his pizza back to the oven as it was too cold and it failing to ever materialise again. This week we also booked up a week on Lord Howe Island for my 40th birthday next May. I mention this only as it's a place you have to book up a long way in advance and to see if anyone else wants to join us. Lord Howe Island is two hours' flying time from Sydney and is an amazing Tahiti-type island in the Pacific, complete with perfect lagoon and mountain, amazing snorkelling and fishing and is actually part of NSW. Only 400 people are allowed to live there and visitor numbers are strictly controlled - a bit like Dollywood - hence us booking it today for a trip next May. There are no cars, only pushbikes and only one shop. Fancy it? The website for the place we are staying is http://www.arajilla.com.au/

The return of Pam

Pam is back. When we moved in January, Pam the cat decided the move to leafy Ashfield was not for her, preferring the gritty back laneways of Leichhardt. No matter how many times we went back to the old house and called for her she never appeared. We assumed she was hanging out with other alley cats, listening to smooth jazz, smoking slim Panatellas, eating spaghetti from bins and generally being cool. While I felt a tad guilty to leave Pam behind, Rob couldn't have cared less as he and Pam had never seen eye to eye - Rob is a trad jazz man while Pam enjoyed the cool stylings of Miles Davis. Six months on, this week we got a phone call from the Cat Protection Society saying they had Pam. It seems she had been looked after by a new family - who renamed her Gina - but she had one too many punch ups with their other cat so Pam had to go. So Pam is back. She seems to know who we are and all the furniture is familiar if not the house. There has been one unfortunate incident involving number twos but other than that, now she has found the cat flap in the laundry, all is well. She has a big garden to play in and lots of really annoying loud cockatoos and other birds to chase off our deck for fun. Welcome home Pam.

Open wide, come inside.....

...it's Play School.

Scarlett is quite the Play School groupie and on Saturday I took her for a special Mummy and Scarlett outing to the Play School concert. It was brilliant, with lots of singing and dancing along with Big Ted, Jemima, Humpty et al. Scarlett amazed me by knowing the words and actions to songs I had never even heard of and her smile was so big when the Play School song began that I confess I got right choked up. We are having such a great time with Scarlett these days after a couple of difficult months with her after Flo was born. The things we have had to say 1000 million times - like 'wash your hands after you go to the loo', 'sit down when you eat', put down that flick knife' - finally seem to have gone in and she does things now without being asked. 3 is a really fun age - long conversations about bonkers things, a real interest in things like the words in books, talking on the phone, riding her bike and swimming. She loves any kind of 'special treat' like being allowed to stand on the front of Rob's scooter. Flo continues to be an absolute joy, full of smiles which have so far elluded any camera. As soon as one appears she frowns and just stares at it. After carefully concealing the camera behind a book, I finally managed to capture one.

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.