School holidays

We are now into the second week of school holidays and despite shocking unseasonal wet, cold weather we have managed to entertain the kids.  Thank God for the Children's Festival which has saved the day twice this week. Held in the huge warehouse spaces of the old railway carriageworks, there are live performances, craft areas,  music, singing and drama workshops and a massive room full of acrobatic equipment.  Scarlett was thrilled to discover she is a dab hand ( or should that be hip?) at the hula hoop, see short film clip below,  and Flo loved doing craft.  This week was also our first opportunity to meet the latest addition to the Fleming family. Alice was born last week and came home at the weekend. We spent a lovely afternoon cuddling her and keeping Rob well away from her, as he has a history of letting Fleming babies fall on the floor.

We had a busy Sunday. Rob was on nights on Saturday night, but thanks to a 5 hour sleep on the sofa at work, returned home on Sunday morning well rested and not in need of a daytime sleep allowing us to all go out for breakfast.  In the afternoon we had a late lunch, which became an early dinner, at Bella and Duncan's house alongwith David and Lara, who are expecting twins any day. There were a lot of children running around and Flo felt the need to don  Hulk hands to defend herself against assaults from the Wakes-Miller boys. Bella and Dunc's 3 sons are full on, as boys are, despite Dunc's best efforts to, literally, keep them in line in the style of the captain in The Sound of Music. With her boxing skills now highly tuned, Flo landed a great right hook on David during dinner. In retaliation David showed Flo how he can take out his eyeball and polish it - see second video clip.

 

The girls are great fun at the moment. Flo is developing such a funny sense of humour which on top of her sweet nature makes her quite the package. Scarlett continues to amaze us and fill us with pride as she strides ahead mentally and physically. What am I trying to say - she's smart and she's quite the athlete too.  She has this amazing ( I think in a child) ability to set her mind to something - like mastering the monkey bars or learning how to skip with a rope or reading a whole book -  and she just plugs away and away at it, day after day until she gets it. She's not a quitter. Both girls were so well behaved over the weekend in spite of the rubbish weather and multiple stop offs at different houses and places. When they are not punching each other, slamming fingers in laptops and pulling each other's hair, they are almost perfect. Morning cuddles in bed are the norm and it is the best feeling in the whole world to feel their warm little bodies under the covers with us.

On Sunday we also dropped in for a cuppa with old mates Sam and Christy, who knocked us for six with the news that their great friend Liz Montgomery had died earlier this year from secondary brain tumours, that progressed from melanoma. We had met Liz and her partner Sasha Reid many times over the years and Liz and I were  pregnant with our eldest children at the same time. She was only 38 and leaves behind Sasha, a talented sculptor, and their children Cooper and Audrey who are five and two. I  have not been able to get them out of my mind since we heard the news and have been on autopilot at work today. Sasha's best known work is the sculpture at Coogee Beach for the victims of the Bali bombings.

Spring forward, fall back

The clocks changed here this weekend so we have gone forward an hour and essentially lost one too. This was an hour we would have liked to have kept as we had a long lunch on Saturday with 12 grown ups, 4 kids and lots of wine, which ended late. Ben and Laura provided an incredible box of cheese, Gav and Bev brought a side dish, my new friend from work Naomi was on bread, Lara and Adam on Pavlova duty and I did a new take on my whole salmon dish stuffing it with limes and a coriander aioli. It was a lovely long lunch though it was interrupted half way through by our kitchen sink mixer tap bursting it banks and spraying water everywhere. We had to find the stopcock and switch off the water at the mains, much to our distress and the great amusement of our guests. We have had to keep it off as the plumber won't be here until the morning. Subsequently the dishwasher and washing machine are out of action, the washing basket is over flowing, the dishes are piling up and any time we need water we have to stand by the sink with cloths and containers to catch the deluge while we fill water bottles and the bath.
With wet weather during the whole long weekend we stayed indoors a fair bit, finally getting around to our prject of assembling Flo's big girl bed. Her cot is now packed away ready to go back to friends, her old baby sleeping bags are about to be put up for sale on ebay and her new bedroom looks lovely.
Inspired by Rick and Justin and my sister-in-law Helen, all long distance runners who have completed at least one marathon each, I am now on week 7 of my running training podcast and have been managing to run for 25 minutes. This might seem lame, but I HATE running. I've always loved the pool and my bike, but running challenges me greatly. I was chuffed to bits this morning making it 3/4 of the way around the Bay Run near our house. This week I have to run 28 minutes 3 times. Pray for me.

Wild week

It's been a week of crazy weather. On Thursday the day of the red dust all the kids at Scarlett's school were kept in doors for the day. On Friday we joined the throngs of parents packing out the school hall for the annual concert. It was a zoo animal theme and each class performed songs and sketches as different animals. Scarlett's class, KW, were crocodiles and sang Never Smile at a Crocodile and I Like to Move It - see movie clip .

On Saturday we headed to the local markets for bread and flowers for our Saturday night dinner party and to buy 'footy food' for our afternoon in our next door neighbour's house. Simon and Kirsty are big Aussie rules (AFL) fans and their team Geelong, aka The Cats, were in the Grand Final on Saturday. After getting the kids faces painted in support we spent a few enjoyable hours in their house eating, drinking and cheering on a team we didn't know, playing a sport we didn't understand. Shouting 'back of the net!" whenever anyone scored wore a little thin after a while, as there is no net in AFL.

Luckily the cats won, albeit in the final minutes of the game, as there is nothing worse than a grown man crying into his beer at 4pm on a Saturday.
I managed to pace myself so I was in a much better state to cook for our dinner party. Melissa and Larry and Carolyne and Johhny joined us for smoked trout, salmon with fennel wrapped in proscuitto and passionfruit tart. We had a right laugh but everyone was exhausted and we were all yawning by 11pm, farewelling by 11.15pm and in bed by 11.45pm. A sign of our age. This morning we woke to more blustery weather so have been pottering indoors. We played charades, looked after a caterpillar we found in my banana(!) and raked the leaves.

Then, against my advice, Rob decided to dye his beard, as it's full of grey. As the girls looked on fascinated, Rob's beard turned very dark very quickly. I think he now looks like Brian Blessed.
Beard done, it was time to clean the car, still thick with the red dust from earlier in the week. Rob and Scarlett made light work of the job, enjoying being able to use a hose again to wash a car since the hosepipe ban was lifted earlier in the year after about 7 years.

We finished off the weekend with a late lunch early dinner with our friends Essie and Simon. We became friends when their daughter Juno and Scarlett were at daycare together and now thie son Finn and Flo are in the caterpillar room at daycare together. they recently moved into the neighbourhood, and Juno will start at Scarlett's school in January. Their house is spectacular - what was once a corner shop and small adjacent cottage is now an amazing light-filled oasis with polished concrete floors, high ceiling sand floor to ceiling glass doors opening out to the garden. While the kids chased each other around the house, we managed a civilised lunch before getting the kids into a big shared bath, into PJs and back home to bed.

A Streetcar Named Desire

I finally got to enjoy my birthday present from Rob last night, when we went to see the new Sydney Theatre Company production of Tennessee William's tragedy A Street Named Desire, starring Cate Blanchett. Cate and husband Andrew Upton are the new artistic directors of the STC and this is there first season holding the reins. As well as Streetcar - which was directed by Liv Ullman - there is a new play written by Steven Soderberg coming up, so Cate's got the pulling power alright. Once I'd got over my first 5 minutes of being totally starstruck that it was Cate Blanchett on stage 12 feet from me - nice work on the tickets, Rob - she was utterly convincing and beguiling as the unravelling Blanche Dubois, a southern lady whose past catches up with her in the heat of a New Orleans summer. We're both big fans of Tennessee Williams  and had seen also this play on stage in London about 15 years ago with Jessica Lang in the Blanche Dubois role. Strangely neither of us had any recollection of it when we discussed it last night. I found it amusing that we have tried to fill our lives with interesting experiences and then are unable to recall them in later life.  Early onset dimentia?  If you're interested, here's one of the newspaper reviews of the play.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,26035245-15089,00.html 

Red sky in the morning...

Last night there was a big storm with lots of welcome rain to cool the 30 degree day and lots of wind. We awoke this morning to this bizarre red orange sky caused by a sandstorm blown in from the desert. Flights into the city have been delayed (hooray - we live under the flight path), ferries have been cancelled due to low visability on the harbour and the traffic throughout the city in disarray. Here are some pretty amazing pictures taken by us, from inside our house and garden, and the newspaper. It feels a bit like living on Mars and meteorologists have said they have never seen anything like it before.

Hangovers and hulks

We had an unexpectedly great time at the school parents' party on Saturday night. The band, made up of parents, were fantastic, the Champagne flowed freely and the food was pretty good too. It was really nice to see familiar faces from the playground after a few glasses of wine. One mother was completely tanked and fell from the top stair of the stage to the bottom, landing sprawled on the dancefloor. As the night progressed, the band finished and a karaoke machine materialised. As always I began watching the proceedings with an air of superiority and only 20 minutes later was myself guilty of wrestling a microphone out of someone's hands so I could perform Copacobana. Several songs later Rob drove Kirsty and I home, giggling all the way. Rob was lucky enough to be at work on Sunday whereas I had to function all day with the girls after only 5 hours' sleep and a hangover. Things weren't much better next door at Kirsty and Simon's house. Simon had stayed home and watched the football with a bottle of wine and a 6-pack and Kirsty had managed only 2 hours' sleep thanks to 'an upset tummy' and their baby waking at 5am. We decided early on Sunday that the only way to make it through the day was to join forces. After a morning at the park, I managed to make it alone until 2pm when we went next door for a late lunch. The kids played beautifully and Kirsty, Simon and I were able to sit about chatting with a hair of the dog.

This morning we met up with Sarah-Kate who was down for the weekend from the Gold Coast for a friend's birthday. She showed us photos on her laptop of the huge boat Mark is constructing on the film set of Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the 3rd Narnia film.

After dropping Scarlett at school Rob, Flo, SK and I went to Balmoral for lunch and walked straight into Aussie movie star Eric Bana coming out of the place we always get our coffee, he of Black Hawk Down, The Hulk and The Other Boleyn Girl. He sat right next to us with his wife and kids while we pretended not stare. He was very handsome but also very normal -playing with skipping ropes and scooters with his kids - despite earning big bucks in the movies. Here is a picture of Rob and SK providing me with an excuse to take a photo of him sitting on the bench behind them. Click on the pic for a better view.

Leichhardt Council 1 - The Duthies 1

This covert shot was taken from behind Flo's curtains on Saturday morning. It's of the council workmen coming back with pickaxes - seriously - and new wet cement, to relay the section of the path where we immortalized the glorious victories of both New Zealand and England against the Australians in rugby and cricket, as well as the girls' names and handprints (see earlier blog). The Aussies love to think they are great sports and really laid back, but it's all a nonsense. Before the blokes took their picks to our handiwork, they moaned to Kirsty and Simon about finding out which Pommie did this and even asked them for the names of their neighbours' kids to try and track down the culprits. Kirsty rang me, warning me not to leave the house while the men were outside as they were on the lookout for 2 gitls called Scarlett and Florence and their English parents. If an Aussie had done this in England and the council came to remove it, it would have made front page news here in protest against the 'larrikin' spirit of the Aussies. But when the boot's on the other foot...Pathetic.
This is what it looks like now. I'm sure you'll agree it looked better, more fun and more colourful with our original work. If I didn't know it would cost Kirsty and Simon to have it relaid, we would have been out there again, pointy sticks in hand ready to start again.

The skier returns

Rob came back on Thursday night from his mini ski trip to NZ, looking fresh, tanned and relaxed. Unfortunately he's had to go straight back onto day shifts so once again the girls and I are entertaining ourselves this weekend. We're off to the markets now and then, as it's a hot one again, I think the paddling pool will be getting another work out. Tonight Rob and I have the Annandale Public School parents' cocktail party . Should be a laugh. We're mates with a few other parents and there's a band made up of parent musos.

Saturday night, Sunday morning

Fantastically entertaining dinner party at the home of our friends Jo and Mark last night. It's always a food spectacular and last night was no exception. Jo and Mark are infamous not only for arriving very late to other people's dinners but also for always appearing to be totally unprepared for their own guests' arrival. Jo has usually only just stepped from the shower moments before we appear on the doorstep and food prep seems miles from completion. But then as time passes, while we all sit around devouring bread, olives and Champagne and having a great time chatting and shelling peas, something magnificent emerges from the kitchen and we are suddenly sitting down to an amazing meal. We had a great time but I feel a tad on the Boris Yeltsin side of things today. The girls and I have just taken Rob to the airport for a teary goodbye and now have an empty day ahead of us in 30 degrees.

Phew - what a scorcher

It might only be the second week of Spring, but someone forgot to tell the weather. It's 30 degrees this weekend. In other words, it's paddling pool o'clock. We bought this brillliant sports car pool in England in July for 15 quid - for some reason paddling pools here are really expensive - and Scarlett did a great job filling it up on Saturday afternoon. We'd spent the hot morning indoors at a drumming workshop at Carriageworks. There was lots of singing, dancing and drum playing and as Flo has always been a bit of a groover and she in particular loved it.

Here's a shot of Scarlett enjoying the legacy of Kendall's recent visit - a lollipop shaped like an enormous fly. Deeply unappealing. Plus another (increasingly common) sight of the girls playing well together. This time on a trike Flo borrowed from the library.
Scarlett is giddy with excitement this weekend as it is her turn to look after the class toy - Ed the Ted. Each weekend, Ed gets to spend the weekend at the home of a classmate and his antics are recorded by the family in a scrapbook. So far he has taken control of the car, stuffed his face in a cafe and rocked out some drum beats at the workshop.

While we are sweltering away here, Rob leaves for NZ in the morning for a short skiing trip with his old friend Jenny. They'll only manage 3 days skiing, but it's the first skiing he's done since our brilliant trip to Stowe in Vermont with Sarah and Scott in 2002. Rob is a very good skier and he'll have a ball in 8 degree temps and on a 25cm base at Mount Ruapehu on NZ's North Island. Oh and he'll owe me big time for the chance to fly without children - enjoying films and booze unencumbered - and for multiple lie ins and nights out. Oh yes, he will pay.

It's Spring!

If she's good, Scarlett gets to stay up later than 7.30pm on Friday and Saturday nights. Last Saturday, Scarlett joined Rob and I on the couch for viewing of ET. Those who know me intimately know as a youngster I was a proud member of the ET fan club. When I wasn't sitting in my room tearfully staring at my ET posters, I was sitting in my room tearfully listening to the 7" recording of all of ET's speaking parts. I saw the film when it first came out and immediately fell in love with the small alien and with the films of Stephen Spielberg. The second time I saw it at the cinema was several years later, with Richard Hand, while we were drunk. Needless to say it was not the emotional journey I had expected. Instead we found the whole thing hilarious. Three pints of Strongbow will do that. So almost 20 years later, here we were last Saturday watching it again. I made quite a big deal of it to Scarlett and told her not to be scared and not to be sad as it was just a film. She was very good, seemed to understand most of what was going on and sat quietly throughout. Towards the end when ET 'dies' and later when he has to say goodbye to Elliot before boarding his spaceship before the scientists arrive to take him away, I looked over at Rob, with tears flowing freely, to see him similarly moved. Scarlett? Nothing. Rather she looked amused at her pathetic parents.The first week of spring has sprung and the weather has been a mixed bag of beautiful hot days in the high 20s, drizzly rain, massive thunderstorms and chilly nights. We are secret pyromaniacs and are dragging out the last of the firewood knowing the days of open fires at night are on their way out. I've been doing lots of stuff outdoors with the girls including making chocolate brownies, and today Flo and I made our first trip of the season to Balmoral Beach.
We also had our lovely mate Kendall to stay for a night this week. He was up from his home in Melbourne on his way to Lord Howe Island. Kendall makes his living as a freelance travel and food writer and is always off somewhere around the world on a fabulous jaunt. He was looking very relaxed and fit.

I'm a big kid now.

Scarlett had quite a week. As well as the annual book week parade, in which each student dresses as their favourite character from a book, Scarlett also had to lead the school assembly in a group of 6 kindergarten students. While I missed the parade, I did help make the 'costume' - Scarlett went as Slinky Malinki, rapscallion cat - and I did manage to sneak out of work to see her on stage at the assembly (no pix - I know, I'm a terrible mother). She delivered her lines with confidence and panache, and also had to stand up when the weekly awards were announced to receive a merit award. As if this wasn't all too much for me, watching her sing the school song soon had me in floods. I'm not ashamed to say I was the only parent in the room crying.
This week Scarlett has also jumped up 3 reading levels. She absolutely loves reading and keeps saying "Aunty Maria used to read all the time, so do I," as if this is a good thing. She absolutely loves reading to Flo as a distraction from pinching, hitting or shouting at her.
The other new craze in our house is for Scarlett to give Flo piggy backs. Here they are with Gabe and Charlie from next door.
Flo continues to create hilarity and dismay with her various toilet arrangements. Some days she's brilliant at using the loo all day, the next, you'd think she'd never seen the inside of an Armitage Shanks showroom before.

This weekend is the Hallmark holiday, Father's Day. The GFC has called a halt to our usual practice on Mother's and Father's day of buying each other a spa treatment. Instead the girls made Rob this beautiful painting which was presented to him today, as he is at work tomorrow (actual Father's Day). the girls and I will be spending an oestrogen-fuelled day with Julia, Ella and Tess, as Richard is out of town.

Finally a word from our sponsor - Rob.

Whilst Kate says that due to the GFC we have suspended spa treatments for the year I did see that Kiri Te Banana (one of the founding members of Bananarama) was perfroming at the Sydney Opera House with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, so I proposed that we reinstate the giving of extravagant gifts from our children for hallmark holidays and took myself off to see the glorious national treasure that is Ms Te Kanawa. Anything at the Opera House is a perfect evening but Kiri was, unsurprisingly, superb. I liked the whole show but as with all the times I've seen her, the highlight is the encore when she sings O mio babbino caro, her signature song used in the film A Room with a View. Heavenly.