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!
There were dancing kangaroos, fireworks and a performance by The Hooley Dooleys, serious icons when you're 4. On Saturday we were joined at ballet by Uncle Brett (Scarlett's godfather) and Amelia (Florence's godmother) for Scarlett's very first Christmas show (see video below). It was hilarious and sweet at the same time. My favourite bit was when instead of simply doing the dance steps, counting them in their heads, they all sang the numbers of the steps out loud drowning out the song they were dancing to. At the end Brett presented Scarlett with her very first bouquet. Priceless.
To farewell him, Brett organised a picnic today in the beautiful harbourside grounds of Strickland House. With the bridge and opera house in the distance we ate, drank and caught up with lots of old friends. Magic.
Clover Grace is sooooo cuuuuttte and we did the usual oohing and ahhing, commenting we couldn't believe babies were ever sooooo small, while toasting her good health. Then the girls and I dropped Rob off in the city to meet his old friends from London Kathleen and Robin, Stacey and Darren. 
Rob lived with Darren in North Finchley when I first met him, so they go waaaaay back. On Sunday after breakfast at our favourite bookshop cafe, I browsed books and pretended I didn't know my two children who were going crazy in the kids section. I will be spending a lot more time in book shops soon as I have been promoted at work and will soon be taking up the role of Managing Editor, Fairfax Books. As well as newspapers, Fairfax who I work for, also publish a range of books including restaurant guides, cook books, crime stories and more. I am thrilled to have got the job as 75 redundancies were recently made at work, and my job as I know it now, might not exist at all in the next few years. This move into a different side of the publishing business will hopefully widen my experience and mean my job will be safe for years to come. 
around the restaurant while we sipped champagne on the deck before dinner. A little worse for wear on Sunday morning, we went to the local park where a bike fair was on. As well as face painting and a bike decorating contest for the kids, there were mechanics doing bike checks, BMX stunt riders and races. At lunchtime Rob's old work mate
Wayne and his wife Jen came over for lunch. It was lovely to see them but I was sooooo ready for bed that night. Monday night we were out again, this time at the Young Chef's Dinner, one of the great events of Good Food Month held every October in Sydney. Six chefs from some of the city's best restaurants plan a menu on their own under the guidance of a top chef and a young sommelier matches all the wines. We went alongwith Julia and Richard, 
but the evening ended with us catching up with a couple of restaurant reviewing mates who were a few parts to the wind and full of hilarious stories. In other news, it's raining today and when that happens all the massive huntsman spiders around our house start moving indoors. Here's one of the smaller ones, found in a mug I was about to drink from, after hopping into the sink. 
made from scratch, using his big bag of kitchen utensils, pizza pans and ingredients. Another lovely impromptu get together with great company, food and wine and super kids.
Once he got home, Rob popped out again to the dr to be diagnosed with bronchitis. Needless to say it was an early night for us last night. 
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.
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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 over
for 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.
