Time flies...

Another top weekend. Richard Quance, who I met on my first day at Manchester Poly 22 years ago, came for the weekend from Perth where he now lives. The girls adored him, following him about and insisting he read books and play board games.While Rob slept off a night shift Quancey joined the girls and I at the organic market for a coffee and bacon and egg roll followed by ballet. Then while Quancey went for a swim Rob and I entertained our lovely friends from NZ, Glenys and Gerald, alongwith Glenys's sister June and her husband Jack. They were only on a stopover of a few hours on their way to Bali so once they had deposited their full duty-free allowance of 8 bottles of Bombay Sapphire on our kitchen counter, we fed them prawn and tomato stew and cupcakes and they were off again..Then while Rob went back to bed, Quancey and I assembled the bed that was finally delivered for our guest room. It was a hot and bothered affair as it was 30 degrees. That night, with Rob finally upright and the babysitter in place, the 3 of us walked to the next suburb to meet Quancey's old mate Gavin Dodd. I hadn't seen him for about 19 years and had never met his wife Bev or their two lovely kids, who moved to Sydney 4 weeks ago and don't know a soul. It was lovely to catch up over a bottle or two in the local Italian before heading home by 11pm so Rob could go off to work. On Sunday, it was all go again as Gav, Bev and the kids came overfor a late lunch at ours, complete with amusingly-named ice creams, finally heading home at 7pm. Gav was back on our doorstep at 8pm for more drinks and laughs. Gav used to play guitar for Jamiroquai and is still a musician and composer and Bev is a commissioning editor with Random House. We all got on famously, including the kids, and we are looking forward to lots more laughs with them in the future.

In other news, this morning I had my annual check up with my oncologist and it's something of a milestone this year as I have reached 10 years since diagnosis without recurrence of the cancer. While there was no band (promised by my doctor Jane, when I reached 5 years) it was lovely to see Jane again, note how much had happened in the last decade and to have her tell me how well I had done. Today is also the 13th anniversary of my mum's death, so I stopped in at the hospital chapel on my way to work to say a little prayer of thanks for my life and had a chat with Mum while I was in there.

Sisters

The girls have been busy bees this last week. Scarlett has started enjoying some of the toys that she didn't show a jot of interest in when she was younger. She was consumed for a day last week with seeing how any different shapes she could create with a set of Beatrix Potter building blocks given to her when she was born. Could there be a future architect in the family or a demolition expert? Florence meanwhile seems to have suddenly grown into a little girl, helped in part by us putting her into dresses Scarlett cast off years ago. She looks adorable. Scarlett loves having a little sister to show stuff to, and when she isn't pushing Florence out the way, holding her head under the water or jealously sulking when Florence and I are having a cuddle, she loves to show her the books she loves so much. She is working out more and more words every week and is very excited at the prospect of reading by herself. Scarlett has energy in buckets and is always running around in the garden (see her chasing bubbles above), on the beach or at the park, but was mowed down by a dreaded lurgy this week and spent most of the early hours of Monday morning vomiting and then laying low for a day. Poor old Rob got up to her from 4am onwards even though he then had to stay awake all day looking after the girls while I went to work and then had to do a night shift that night. That explains why he keeps nodding off on the couch. The weather has been glorious again since Saturday. Godfather Brett joined us for ballet on Saturday morning followed by brunch and that night Zoe, Paul, Bella and Duncan came over for a dinner of spring leaf salad with fresh peas and feta followed by tomato and prawn stew and ice cream. On Sunday we decided to leave ourselves open and after pottering a bit, and soon getting bored with that, we invited the neighbours in for a last minute bbq.

We are really looking forward to seeing my old mate Quancey when he flies in from Perth this weekend and I have been rushing about buying curtains and trying to get the guest room ready. All efforts to get a double bed delivered by Friday have failed, so it's the old blow up bed again, I'm afraid, mate. He's slept on worse. Once won a trip to see us from the UK, he came camping with us and had to sleep on the cold, hard, damp earth. This made for an uncomfortable night's sleep for us too as we had to listen to all his complaining. We will certainly be packing it all in while he's here as we have a lunch with friends from NZ on Saturday, plus a dinner out that night and a lunch on the Sunday. Lorks!

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.