Hot Stuff

We have just had a very busy and very hot weekend. Instead of ballet we crossed the bridge to the north shore on Saturday morning for brunch at the fantastic new home of our friends the O'Briens. Chris makes a mean omelette and while we tucked into a feast of eggs, bacon, yoghurt and fresh fruit, the kids went crazy on the trampoline in their garden. By lunchtime the mercury had climbed to 30 and we were feeling completely unclimatised seeing as it was 20 degrees the day before. Back at home, there was only one thing for it, open up all the bifold doors and windows that run along the back of the house and invite some mates over to drink cold beer and wine while the kids played in a tub of water. Once the Penberthys had left it was time for me to start cooking for our dinner party that night, the evening remaining so warm we had the doors open all evening and it felt like Summer. The next day it was pouring with rain and while Rob entertained the girls I got stuck into preparing lamb shank pie for a late lunch with our neighbours - 7 adults and 4 kids. This soon swelled to 9 adults when Laura, our newly discovered neighbour, saw Bretts' car outside and knocked on the door to say hello. Soon she and her fiance Ben, a navy diver bomb disposal expert - I know, that's what I said - had joined us around the table, too. It was chaotic with so many people but brilliant fun and great to live in a house that has the space for gatherings such as these. The pie was a triumph. Flo was super cute poking out her tongue at people and then sitting quietly looking at books, while her nutcase older sister amused everyone with zany outfits including running into the room dressed in her swimmers and goggles, just for a laugh. I don't know where she gets this show off attention-seeking behaviour from.....
Naturally, the weekend ended with children all thrown into the bath, and in tears.

My head hurts...

...and I have no one to blame but myself. On Monday night Rob and I slipped into our gladrags, hopped in a taxi and headed to the fabulous and glamourous Good Food Guide awards. As well as the wonderful food and wine, it was lovely to catch up with old mates, have a good laugh with some chefs and to see my name in very large letters on a big screen when my fellow reviewers and I were applauded for all our hard work on the book compiling restaurant reviews. Smashing. I started with champagne then switched to cosmos, then to wine, back to champagne, cosmos again - you get the idea. Scarlett called out at 4am having a nightmare about her new ballet shoes and then the javelin landed in my skull. I'm never drinking again - you read it here first. It does not help that I have a streaming cold and possible temperature - that could always be a hot flush, of course.
The woman in the photo above, with Rob, Kendall and Brett is called Laura. She was one of the organisers of the event and by strange coincidence not only lives in our street, but was the woman who approached Rob at our house auction to ask if he needed help after Florence vomited all over me. Small world.

September 1st

Today is the first day of Spring and the day has dawned with blue skies and a chill in the air. While Rob is sleeping off his night shift, the girls and I will go to Callan Park for a play. Callan Park was once a huge psychiatric hospital, not unlike Oakwood, but now, apart from a few, rehab facilities, has become a beautiful public park with harbour front paths and playgrounds, sports fields and lovely views. What happy memories I have of walking to school through Oakwood, encountering happy, bonkers patients only too happy to discuss their corduroy trousers. This has been my last week of sick leave, so Rob and I managed to squeeze anothermovie in - Tina Fey's pretty funny Baby Mama. I'm back into the office on Wednesday, jonly just missing the strike action that ended this morning. The walk out was in response to  Fairfax Media management announcing 550 redundancies across all the company's papers in Australia and NZ. The previous round of redundancies was only l18 months ago, so it seems unlikely they are going to get 550 volunteers and some people are going to get a tap on the shoulder this time.

I had book club this week which is always great. There are 8 of us in the group and each of us takes a turn, every 6 weeks or so, choosing the book and then hosting a night of dinner and drinks to talk about it. Unlike most book clubs I have heard of, we actually read and talk about the book. (My mate Nick's book club comprises 10 middle aged men who meet in the pub every Thursday and get drunk.) We just finished the very heavy going Seven Types of Ambiguity by Eliot Perlman.

It's my turn next, so I've picked The Mayor Of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy, mainly because I did it for my English A level, many moons ago, and hope to appear very knowledgeable as a result by re-reading old notes. Ha!

Tonight Rob and I slip into high heels and evening wear, and something nice for me too, and go out to the Good Food Guide Awards. It's always a brilliant night of great food and wine, where Sydney's best chefs are awarded one, two or three chef's hats according to their culinary excellence. We get to catch up with lots of mates and drinks a lot of champagne.  After years of reviewing bars for the book, this year I have reviewed restaurants for the first time. You can look forward to tomorrow's blog on hangover cures.

Photos, friends and iphones

We have had two very busy weekends in the trot comprising the usual ballet and soccer hilarity and strops in the mornings followed by consecutive Saturday night dinner parties (no children allowed) and Sunday afternoon gatherings, with lots of unruly children (not our own) breaking things. I had a small tantrum on Sunday night when I realised one of our friend's kids had broken Scarlett's rosary,  which we bought for her at the Vatican when she was a baby. Middle age now means that despite wanting to pack in as much as we can into the two weekends a month Rob doesn't work, Sunday morning hangovers do not work when you are 40 and have a small child who routinely wakes at 7am. Also the thought of entertaining again only a few hours later can only be prepared for with a large gin with just a splash of tonic.  Anyhoo, we have enjoyed seeing our friends without kids on the Saturday nights and being able to hold a conversation without a child asking for something, crying about something or grassing on someone about something, although to be fair our adult friends make just as much mess when they are eating as our children. Here are some pix of a lunch, of  Florence checking in with her posse on her iPhone, and another of her just looking very cute. Plus a moody shot Scarlett took of Rob - she loves taking pictures and is going through a  Mario Testino phase. 

Taking it easy

Since my op last week I have been trying to take it easy, but also experiencing sudden bursts of energy that make me organise things that, once they come along, I am too exhausted to enjoy. With the girls in daycare on Thursday, Rob and I did something we have done little of since they arrived and actually went to the cinema, to see the hilarious The Savages. It was so long since we had  seen a film that wasn't either on a dodgy DVD we bought in Vietnam or pirated DVD a mate gets from a lorry that's fallen off the back of a truck, that we were amazed to discover there is no longer a short nature film about otters on before the main film. Also you can't smoke, drink or throw gum in cinemas anymore - who knew?  Also in line with Fraser's reflections on what makes us realise we are old - how's this - I took my own snacks to the cinema 'to save money" and the snacks were chopped up fruit in a  Tupperware container. What am I like? Later in the week, while I put my feet up, Rob had Scarlett earning her keep by washing the car, with a bucket as we are still in drought. It seems due to some new politically correct laws, we are no longer allowed to push children up chimneys . Feeling more energetic on Friday, and no longer attached to my pain killers, I arranged for friends to visit  on Saturday afternoon and for other friends to come for dinner that night. While the friends - Kendall and Richard - are super of course, I was exhausted before they even arrived and played an under-whelming game of TP, managing only to correctly answer questions relating to Catherine Zeta-Jones. Must be my Welsh heritage. Despite feeling pooped on Sunday morning, I dragged Scarlett off to soccer skills before disappearing off for a sleep at lunchtime and Rob dressed Scarlett in her favourite ballerina dress and wings and took her to Maya's 1st birthday party. Today, with Rob sleeping off a night shift I packed sandwiches and took the girls on the tram for a ride into the city to visit the Chinese Friendship Garden. Built to commemorate Australia's bicentenary in 1988, it also pays homage to the large Chinese population in Australia and in particular, Sydney. It was absolutely gorgeous with lots of peaceful places to sit and look at reflection pools, waterfalls and ponds, lots of massive fish and a lovely tea garden to sit in and feed the fish while enjoying steamed dim sim and Chinese tea.

I have another 3 weeks off work on sick leave and am looking forward to a bit more of this sort of gentle recreation. 

We enjoyed watching the pretty amazing opening ceremony of the Olympics on Friday. Astonishing to think we were there 8 years ago with our flag-painted faces with Sarah and Scott, here from New York on their honeymoon. To find out how Britain are doing I have to watch the BBC news as Australians are the most competitive, sports fanatics on the planet, there's no chance of hearing about any other country's medal hopes.  Australia's soccer team are the 'Olyroos', the hockey team are the 'hockeyroos' and the basketball team are the 'Boomers'. You know I couldn't possibly be making this stuff up.

Loving our neighbours

We have had the nicest weekend with our neighbours, who we think may soon believe we are weirdos from a neighbour-loving cult. (Which is ridiculous because everyone knows we formed our own splinter cult from the neighbour-loving cult months ago.) Saturday started with aslightly more successful ballet class for Scarlett who only had to be talked into dancing for the first 20 minutes of the 30 minute class, before finally joining in, and then only with Margaret the 56-year-old teacher. In the afternoon we went in to see our next door neighbours Kirsty and Simon for a bbq. Scarlett and Gabe play so well together we hardly saw them and Florence and two-year-old Charlie pottered about in the garden. Watching the kids play swingball, took me back and made me feel old all at the same time. The grown-ups in the meantime settled in for an afternoon of Singapore Slings, thanks to the generous donation of bush limes from another neighbour, while the sausages and chicken cooked and the potatoes roasted. When it was time to eat the kids all sat together at 'the kids table". My god, it really doesn't seem that long ago that I was sitting at such a table, when mum and dad had friends over to our house. After dinner they jumped in the bath together before being snapped, ensuring embarrassing incriminating photos to be produced at 21st birthday parties in the future.

This morning was gloriously spring-like, despite the season still officially being about 4 weeks off. After soccer,  and with Rob sleeping off a night shift and Florence out for the count in her cot, I sat on the front verandah in the sun reading the papers, chatting to Kirsty and Simon, doing the same on theirs, while the kids zoomed up and down the footpath on their scooters. It feels like home.

The new weekend regime

In an effort to keep Scarlett occupied during the winter, in absence of an open air pool or ocean warm enough to swim in, she has started a new term of gymnastics once a week. She loves it, works up a good sweat and is very good at listening to the teachers, if not us. Something goes wrong whenever we try ballet, however. We have already had to get a full refund from the first ballet school we tried, when after begging to do ballet for about a year, she refused to join in after the first class. A good deal of stroppy arm folding and marching away accompanied any attempt to persuade her to go into the school hall where the classes took place. We suspected the problem was either the formality of the lessons - which were very much of the 'first position, second position' variety - and the fact that parents had to wait outside during the class.

Last weekend at the local market, we bumped into a friend of a friend who told us about a local ballet school that sounded much more Scarlett's pace and that would appeal to her sense of humour. The class is run by 62-year-old Barbara, who looks about 45, who has run the classes since 1972, prompted by a sense of community instilled in her by her old Welsh commie dad. Wearing just a pair of tights with knickers over the top and a woolly jumper, she and her sister (in her late 50s) run about like fairies, followed by a parade of small girls in fairy and ballet dresses. It's hilarious. Again for reasons unknown Scarlett refused to join in... until Rob agreed to join in too. It was agreed by the rest of the parents in the room, that this was the best laugh anyone had had in years, as Rob was put through his paces. One of the other mothers there is the director of Play School and suggested Rob would make a great Play School presenter. On Saturday night Rob and I booked our babysitter and went out on a date. We realised recently that it had been years since we had been out for dinner when we weren't with other friends or the girls or reviewing restaurants. We booked two seats at the counter of the fantastic Glebe Point Diner, a new place in Glebe that has received terrific reviews since it opened. High demand meant earlier attempts to get in were impossible. We started off out on the deck with blankets over our knees sipping champagne before going inside for duck, rabbit, chocolate mousse and other comfort food. Apart from the food, what we enjoyed the most was that, as it's only a suburb away from our house, we were able to walk there and back through a lovely harbour front park.

This morning, we were out and about again, this time taking a stroll down the hill to the local football pitch for the soccer skills class put on every weekend for free by the local football club. Being Australia, 'football' means rugby league or Aussie rules, so what we poms call football is known as soccer here. Attempts to educate Aussies otherwise is met with laughter and name calling. They are not interested in hearing the words "world game".Once again, Scarlett was really looking forward to it and was great practising her ball control skills, but as soon as the kids were split into teams to play she was having none of it. While she stropped about the edges of the pitch, we caught up with some mates and drank coffee. Florence in the meantime seems like a natural, and I am officially a 'soccer mom'. The weekend finished with our friends the O'Briens and the McPhersons coming over on Sunday afternoon for drinks.

Food and photos

Today our dining room took on the appearance of a photographic studio when a Sydney Morning Herald photographer and stylist came to shoot a number of dishes I had cooked. It was all for a cover story  I am writing for the food section of the paper, comparing the cost and convenience of home-cooked food with takeout. Yes, these are the serious and lofty journalistic endeavours I now undertake. Kate Adie look out. For a week Rob and I ate only takeout followed by a week of eating home-cooked food. Eating a lot of takeout started off as a fun novelty but then very quickly became BOOORRRINNG. Today I had to cook all the meals again for the stylist and photographer to make look incredible. Suddenly a pile of brown casserole looked like something from the pages of a Roux Brothers cookbook.  Now we have 14 portions of cooked food to eat, so tonight our next door neighbours are coming in to help us eat a roast chicken, a mushroom rissotto, a lamb casserole, a chicken casserole, roasted salmon and fillet steak. Food poisoning anyone?

This is Winter

The Pope has brought spectacular winter weather to Sydney this week alongwith zillions of happy, singing pilgrims, road closures, prayer vigils and funny t-shirt sightings. This week he took to the water on a huge boat full of priests and cardinals for a big harbour tour. He ended up outside my waterfront office surrounded by hundreds of boats. The 8 helicopters hovvering outside our office windows was more than a little distracting.

With Greg, the world's best handyman banging and crashing about the house reorganising our miniscule laundry, fixing things and filling in things I took the girls to Balmoral beach for our first beach trip since the Autumn. It was spectacular. A cloudless sky, not a breath of wind on the harbour and hardly anyone else on the beach, save for a few hardy folk - usually in their 80s - who swim in the ocean all

year round. It was perfect for a morning of shell collecting, sand castle construction and paddling and, for Florence, her first walk along the beach since getting on her feet. Here are a few pix of our beach trip and our house.

Pope on a rope

Sydney has been overrun with zillions of rapidly reproducing Catholics this week, all here on a pilgrimage to see the Pope who arrives this week for World Youth Day aka the Catholic Olympics. The arrival of his eminence is imminent, as Pope Benedict, or Benny as he is known to his closest friends, flies into Australia on Sunday for the week long Catholic knees up. However he will not be seen in public until next Thursday when he holds a massive mass. One can only assume he will be spending these three days getting over jetlag, pottering about the shops around The Rocks, taking surfing lessons and attempting Bridgeclimb like every other tourist in the city. T-shirts sporting the logo "I've been touched by the Pope Down Under" have been spotted, but so far no sign of the must have bathroom accessory of the year - the pope on a rope.

Happiness is a house in Lilyfield

We have had our first complete week together in our new house all together, since Rob got back from New Zealand. We are so blissfully happy here, it works so well as a family house and there's so much space for everyone and everything. On Friday we had the fireplace in the sitting room opened up and had our first real fire that night which was fantastic. Rob hasn't quite got over the novelty of it yet and has been lighting fires in the mornings as well as at night. We really need it now as winter is upon us, and despite lovely sunny days, it's still chilly in the morning and at night. We had a our first lot of visitors here at the weekend for a couple of boozy afternoons, including one with our lovely new next door neighbours. On one side we have Simon and Kirsty with their new baby Maggie, 2-year-old Charlie and 6-year-old Gabe. Scarlett and Gabe hit it off immediately and are in and out of each other's houses and gardens on a regular basis. Scarlett starts school next year and will hopefully be going to the same school as him too. On the other side are Steve and Barbara, and their grown up kids, who are incredibly friendly. We are a short walk from the organic markets held every Saturday, are only minutes from the tram stop to the city and my bike ride to work is now only 15 minutes instead of 35. There's also a massive park at the end of the road which all the kids love going to, and another one down the hill that connects to a wetland walk for spotting turtles, blue-tongue lizards and fish. In other news Florence is now walking. It took her until 15 months, just like Scarlett. She is the happiest baby I have ever known and is a super cuddler. She and Scarlett are starting to spar a bit more now, fighting over toys and books but they love each other to bits.

Quite a send off

Barb had an amazing send off last week at her funeral in Carterton, followed by an enthusiastic wake in Greytown that went on until the early hours. Rob brought a DVD of the funeral service back to Sydney with him and so I was able to watch what was a moving, funny and fitting tribute to his mum. Lots of different family and friends got up to speak about Barb's love of family, wine, and argument, her open door policy and lots of late nights playing cards.  I was especially proud of Rob overcoming his fear of public speaking to deliver a fantastic eulogy. Despite going to bed late on Saturday morning, Rob and his siblings got up and drove down to Wellington, to Island Bay where they grew up, and scattered Barb's ashes in the ocean.

Barbara

Rob's mum Barbara died in hospital in New Zealand this morning. Rob was with her.  She was diagnosed with lung cancer towards the end of last year and her health had been declining steadily ever since. She was here staying with us just a month ago and although she was clearly a shadow of her former self,  we had a great visit with her with plenty of laughs and a chance to say goodbye. Barbara was very popular and had many friends, many of whom she had known most of her life, and who were still coming to see her until the day she died. Barbara spent her last weeks with all her family around her.  Rob's brother Craig, his sisters Catherine and Helen and Rob's dad Ian, had all been staying near her in Greytown, where she lived for the last few years, and were taking turns caring for her until a fall, that broke her hip, sent her to the hospital in Masterton, where she died. Barbara was a super mother-in-law, always up for a white wine and good long chat. She leaves her four children and an affectionate ex-husband in Ian, and six grandchildren - Nicole and Ryan in Brisbane, William and Libby in London and Scarlett and Florence. She was much loved and will be missed and remembered with affection and a smile by all of us.

Above are a couple of photos of Barbara taken at Florence's christening in July last year. x

Packing

We are about to vanish into a black hole of packing boxes and there maybe radio silence for a week or two on the blog. That last couple of weeks have comprised mainly of trying to fit work and children's activities in around packing and organising all that has to be done before we move in next week. There are now soooo many boxes piled up around the house that we have made a fort in Scarlett's bedroom by throwing a blanket over four of them. I can't complain as I secretly really like packing. Have decided to splurge when it comes to the kitchen however and we are paying for it to be packed for us ( by 'us' I mean 'me' as Rob is not 'into' packing). The hardest bit is knowing when to pack the girls' rooms and all their toys. Yesterday Scarlett asked for something that had already disappeared into a cardboard box abyss. Greg the handyman is working at the house this week knocking the hell out of the hideous blue tiled water feature in the garden (in terrible rain that shows no sign of stopping), planing and rehanging doors now the carpets have been laid and generally being fab and adding more jobs to his list every time I think of something else I know we can't do. Yesterday we went and chose our Jetmaster fireplace and tomorrow, with the girls in daycare, we are off to buy wardrobes for their rooms, curtains, a tv cabinet and a new bathroom vanity unit. All very exciting. Today is my last day at work for 2 weeks. Huzzah.

This week I had to go back to the ABC to visit the Play School set to watch the filming of the epsiode I had seen in rehearsal. At the last minute the Play School director invited Scarlett to come with me. Rob leapt into action and delivered her to the studio to meet me at 10am and we spent two blissful hours meeting the presenters, the toys (there are 3 Humpties), helping make icing for the gingerbread making segment and watching all the action. Scarlett was thrilled and was made a big fuss of by Georgie Parker. I will post pics of this dazzling event when we get the mac set up in the new house.