Nightrider 2011

Not to be confused with the hit TV show starring The Hoff, Nightrider is a sponsored bike ride around London all night on June 11. I'll be getting on my bike for it and if you'd like to sponsor me - and let's face it, what kind of person wouldn't want to? - please press the big button below. 
I thank you.

Spring!!!!

The weather this week has been amazing here, dare I say unseasonably warm. I shouldn't really because traditionally trying to make any comment or forecast on British weather means that the weather will immediately change and return to the ice age. 17 degrees, no less. Like a perfect winter day in Sydney.  I have dug  borders in the garden and planted herbs and a collection of plants donated by Maria, to try to make something more interesting out of our rectangle of grass.  Tomatoes, beans etc to come. Yesterday I went on a long bike ride along the prom. People were out running, pushing prams, fishing off the beach and sitting in the sun with shirts off. Once I managed to force my breakfast back down at the freakish sight of an alabaster Englishman with his knockers out, I noticed two blokes in shorts - just shorts - jumping into the sea. The English Channel. In March. I can only assume two more men, in white coats and carrying a large net, came running along moments after I left this "only in England" vignette, to return them to the warm padded rooms they usually call home. In the park this morning I was positively gay with joy at the sight of the stunning display of daffodils, snowdrops, bluebells and crocuses bursting through the grass and among the trees in the wood. It was absolutely gorgeous. As ever, in Hastings, I am always brought back down to earth having to skid and slip my way through piles of dog poo that seem to be more prevelant here than on the Champs Elysee. Yet strangely I am yet to meet a dog owner who doesn't declare "Oh no, that's awful. I always pick up after my dog."

Sick Bay 102

We have been hit by an aggressive bout of sickness this week. We can't blame the weather as Spring has sprung and it's getting warmer and lighter in the evenings each day. I think I mentioned my ear infection earlier, but everyone has been ill. On Tuesday Flo crawled into bed at 6am, complaining of a tummy ache, before falling into an abrupt deep sleep. A few minutes later she woke up vomiting all over our bed, me, the floor and the toilet. On Friday Rob started complaining that he felt full and unwell. By Saturday night he was doing relays to the loo. On Sunday Scarlett started hacking away with croup and by Sunday afternoon, durng lunch at Maria and Lol's, I started feeling a bit ropey. I was in bed by 5.15pm, feverish yet chilly, aching all over and drifting in and out of sleep. At 6pm Flo appeared in bed next to me and fell straight to sleep. Hoping for a good night's rest, Rob left her there and slept in her bed. I slept fitfully all night and stayed in bed most of today. It is now 4pm and I'm finally coming right. Onwards.

Florence is 4

Florence Elizabeth Mary Duthie turned 4 yesterday. She appeared at my bedside at an alarmingly spritely 6am, on the prowl for gifts. As I am suffering from an acute bout of sleeping sickness at the moment, (not helped by an ear infection) I was able to divert her with a film, which she watched patiently for an hour while we snoozed on. At 7am she started ripping into her presents and was most thrilled with a cardigan from Nanny because "It's just like Scarlett's!!" She was more uncertain about her main gift - her first bike. Scarlett got hers when was 3  and it was bit too big for about a year and at that age it was harder to get her to follow directions. Flo is the perfect age and we spent a lively couple of hours in Alexandra Park with her zooming about, thrilled to bits with how well she could whizz down hills, turning and braking carefully at the bottom to execute perfect turns. We stopped in at the cafe for a massive hot chocolate (it was freezing outside) complete with whipped cream and a Flake. After a relaxing afternoon in front of Sleeping Beauty, we picked up Scarlett from school and headed into town for Flo's birthday dinner, which had changed during the day from"fish and chips and burger" to "pizza". We played a few rounds of cards and did some colouring while waiting for our food to arrive and Flo was thrilled when Maria, Lol and the boys appeared in time for her banana cake with pink icing and strawberries made by Dad. Hip hip hooray.

During the week we also managed a trip to Camber Sands, a few miles down the coast. I hadn't been there since I was 19 for a day out with school friends. Camber is a massively long sandy beach which gets packed in summer but on this blustery spring morning was all but empty. After a run along the beach, we headed for the warmth of a cafe in nearby Rye, an ancient hillside town, with higgeldy piggeldy cobblestone streets and an old priory. 

In other news I have been elected to the board of governors at Scarlett's school, so that most amusingly (probably only to Fraser) Rob can now say he has shaken hands with the govenor.

Scarlett and Flos' birthday weekend treat

In lieu of birthday parties this year we promised the girls a special surprise day out on Saturday, chosen as it was about half way between their two birthdays. Flo, bless her, was convinced we were going to Disneyland Paris, not helped by the recent ad campaign on tv at the moment. Scarlett made me tell her the first part of the treat, so by the time we made it to London they both knew we were all going on the London Eye. We drove to Giles and Lucys' in Wimbledon to park the car and then caught a bus and train to Waterloo, using public transport arguably just as exciting to Scarlett and Flo as the big wheel itself. After about only half an hour of queuing, we were stepping into our glass bubble for the 30 minute spin over the London skyline. It was  a lovely clear day and we had great views for miles. My favourite bit was seeing the quads and courtyards inside all the big government buildings, whereas Flo was immediately mesmerized by a performance artist dressed as a lion back on terra firma. We did our usual face pulling, ruining the group photo of everyone else in our car, before coming safely back to earth. We walked along the south bank, running the gauntlet of performers including the world's most pierced woman, the lion and a very strange group of girls dressed in bonnets and pink frills and having a tea party. 

Best of all were the Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck lookalikes who had Flo convinced we had indeed made it to Disneyland. All during lunch, she kept saying "Can we go back to Disneyland after we've eaten?" After yet more cuddles with the Donald Ducks (who we thanked warmly for saving us about a grand in airline tickets and Disneyland passes) we moved onto part two of the treat - the London Aquarium, which the girls loved but Rob and I found massively overcrowded, claustrophobic, hot and noisy. What a pair of miseries. It was also pretty lame on the wildilfe front, probably because we've seen a lot of the stuff in there, swimming around the beaches of Sydney. One display featured an empty mussel shell. Seriously. 

We finished the day back at Giles and Lucys' eating Indian takeaway and being very restrained on the drinking front - we were all in bed by 10.30pm.  On Sunday morning the kids played beautifully (read quietly) allowing Rob, Lucy and I to devote our energies to drinking tea and watching back to back episodes of trashy reality tv shows. Giles lifted several fingers by playing football, grocery shopping and throwing together a delicious lunch.

 In other news, the girls have now both learned to revolve their eyes away from their noses at the same time, a skill that is sure to come in handy later in life.

Deck cleaning - no, really - it's great

The weekend began with a highly satisfying afternoon of deck cleaning on Friday, using a hired high pressure hose. Few things have given me such cleaning pleasure as seeing years of damp moss, mould and grime being blasted off the deck, leaving it looking like new timber. The laughs continued at the school fundraising quiz night on Friday. Maggie put together a team of 8, which quickly dropped to 7 as Popi was bedbound. We soldiered on with Maggie and Adrian arguing throughout, at one point actually physically fighting over the question sheet. Rob was in favour of cheating and at one point even went off for a stroll around the room in an attempt to see the answers the other teams had put down, Maggie phoned home on her mobile to get one of the answers from Popi (what was detective Columbo's first name?) and Cathy, Dom and I smiled on inanely. All very entertaining.

 On Saturday we took the kids to the cinema to see Arthur and the Great Adventure. Arriving 10 minutes late didn't help us work out the plot I'm sure, but very soon we realised we were watching the strangest film of our lives. Rob and I repeatedly exchanged bemused expressions and hand gestures to indicate we should leave but the girls wanted to stay. By the end I felt I had a modicum of insight into what a 1970s afternoon in the company of Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda must have been like. Back home we took our annual birthday photos of the girls wearing the same pair of jeans and a t-shirt that will fit them by the time they are 18, to see how much they have grown.

 On Sunday the Holyoakes finally made it down from Surrey for lunch. After an absolutely freezing walk along the beach and a pint in the fishermens' club we retreated home to sit by the fire before a roast chicken lunch.

Scarlett turns 7!

Can't believe Miss S turned 7 yesterday. We started the day with a small mountain of gifts from us, the highlight being a Zhu Zhu Baby. These small battery-operated hamsters come in a variety of types and are apparently quite the thing as they zoom about the room making cute gurgling sounds. The add-on car and garage thrilled her completely. I also got an old VHS copy of the first Harry Potter film in a charity shop which she was over the moon about as we have started reading the series of books and are on the second one. I sent her into school with a huge bag of fruit for her class (no cakes allowed as it's a healthy eating award winning school), a Hawaiian lai around her neck and two large birthday badges. I then raced to Sainsburys to grab a few treats for the last minute birthday tea we pulled together. We are taking both the girls to London for their birthdays later in the month so decided we wouldn't have parties this year, but felt it was a bit sad not having some mates there to see her blow out her candles. Nanny and Grandad came too with a bigger mountain of gifts - all receiving wide grins from Scarlett - plus Maria and Ethan, and after lots of running around screaming (by me) I managed to get the kids into the kitchen for a plate of shepherds pie (Scarlett's choice) before the screaming began (by them).

I was very pleased with my baby bunting on the cake stand with Scarlett's vanilla cupcakes and we managed a few sparklers too. Happy birthday Scarlett.

In our house birthday time is also Oscar time, as Scarlett was born on Oscar night 2004. We missed them this for the first time in years as they are not on free to air in Britain anymore. Our neighbour tried to record it for us but we discovered, as we made ourselves comfortable in her sitting room for a Monday morning viewing (complete with Champagne and canapes), that she had recorded only the red carpet arrivals. Silence from us followed by small reassuring smiles as she was gutted to have let us down.

A visit from the Iveys

It's been half term here this week so we've had a bit on. Richard and Kath came to visit mid week, we had our neighbours Janice and Roger  in for a curry on Friday night, with Cathy and Dom dropping in for a drink, and on Saturday the Iveys drove down from Wimbledon for the night.  After a trip to the re-opened funfair for dodgems, carousel and mini rollercoaster, it was time to run home, through the rain to a warm fire, the Saturday papers and some games. Children in bed, we had a wonderful grown ups dinner, cooking our signature pork fillet dish, before falling like felled trunks into bed. This morning, Giles ventured out into a stunning sunny, spring morning, returning with piles of newspapers. After 36 rounds of tea, croissants and hot cross buns, Rob returned from work and we hit Pett Level for a lovely walk, stone and shell finding expedition. The kids were also invited aboard the lifesaving boat by the boys in the wetsuits, much pant wetting all round. Back home, the grown ups fell on the papers while the kids watched  films, played games and dressed up before a roast chicken lunch. The weekend ended with Scarlett and I curled up in the armchair, in front of the fire, watching Dancing On Ice.  Spring has sprung, daffs are in vases, our bulbs are up, so not sure how much longer we'll have that fire going. 

Och aye the noo

Lucky me -  I got to have a last minute long weekend in Scotland with Moira and Fraser leaving Rob and the girls behind. The main purpose of the trip - apart from to allow Moira to feed my undernourished frame with her regularly delivered meal service, was to see Sarah who had also flown over for the weekend from the US, with her twins Ruby and Jacob. Sarah and Moira were my bridesmaids and Sarah and I were Moira's and they both spent part of their honeymoons staying with us in Sydney, so we all go way back. Despite all seeing each other regularly over the years, in the US, Britain and Australia, we worked out the 3 of us hadn't all been in the same room together for 13 years. There was much to catch up on, aided and abetted by Fraser's beard which poured the wine and attempted rudimentary childcare so us girls could catch up unencumbered by children. Visits to Stirling Castle and Balmaha punctuated the trip which mainly involved long chats on the couch and around the dinner table. Great stuff. 

Laughed. A lot.

The weekend began with a trip to the Saturday morning movies to see Megamind - hilarious. One of the funniest kids-films-that-parents-like-more than we've seen since Toy Story. Voiced by Will Ferrell, Megamind is a giant blue-headed superhero who uses his powers for evil. There were so many jokes only grown ups would get, that it was sometimes hard to hear the dialogue over Rob's hoots of laughter.  After lunch I got the girls ready to drive Scarlett over the hill to nearby Fairlight for the birthday party of one of her classmates. Only a few hundred metres along the road I felt we had a flat tyre so turned around and drove home, parking the car on the pavement to make it easier to change the tyre, and by that I mean for Rob to change the tyre. Even though I have, bizarrely, written a column on how to change a tyre I have never actually done it. After much rummaging in the boot, producing a sucession of metal objects and tools we were totally unfamiliar with, we worked out the jack and the thing for undoing the bolts on the wheel. A third oddly shaped object drew expressions of bemusement from us both so we used it to hold the pages of the car manual open. Moments later a bloke appeared from across the road offering help. He was what I think my grandmother would have referrred to as a 'rum sort', with a broken boxer's nose, a cropped hair do and large 'diamond' earrings. The cynic in me imagined that after effectively finishing the job for us that he would ask for money. While we waited for him to tighten the bolts on the wheel, during which he pointed out our bookmark was actually a tow bar, I casually mentioned I had been on my way to a kid's party when I spotted the flat tyre. "Was the party in Fairlight?" he asked. "Yes," I replied. "We've just dropped our daughter off there," he said. It turned out our good samaritan was the dad of one of Scarlett's classmates. Handshakes all round soon put me back in my box as did the realisation that he had been driving in the opposite direction when he saw us and had done a u-turn to come back and help us. As we waved him off I noticed his wife had been sitting in the car all along, just happy to wait while her husband did a good deed for someone else. Hastings 1, Duthies 0. On Saturday night our giggly babysitter Debbie arrived and Rob and I walked to Maria and Lol's for a dinner party with Maggie and Popi and neighburs Wendy and Mike. It was a very entertaining night with lots of laughs and storytelling. On Sunday morning while Rob was at work, the girls and I watched the DVD of Ring of Bright Water, I found in a charity shop last week. It was the first viewing for them and the first for me in about 30 years. Once you get  used to the beyond annoying flute and other irritating woodwind instruments that mimic the movements of the otter Mitch, it's very enjoyable and made me want to move immediately to a remote croft by the sea in Scotland. That was until Mitch got his head bashed in by Angus the local ditch digger. Tears dried, we had a really lovely Sunday lunch with our neighbours Janice and Roger and  two of their friends before collapsing into bed at 8.30pm exhausted.

Now I really must draw your attention to another extraordinary British TV series called Embarassing Bodies. Each week members of the public, who have some sort of unplesant and therefore, as the title suggests, embarassing problem with their body, comes into the mobile surgery manned by three TV doctors to get a diagnosis. They then show the Dr, and the rest of Britain let's not forget, their embarassing condition. In close up, on camera. Now I'm not sure whether they give the people who come on the show drugs, booze or money to get them there, because for the life of me I have no idea why the young and otherwise attractive young woman on this week's episode would want the rest of her nation to see the rash on her vagina. Anyone?

Likewise the woman whose anus we saw or the man whose leg sore was really more of a fizzing open wound (see above). Are these people unaware they could simply pop to their own GP, A&E unit or psychiatric hopsital for treatment? When I finally managed to drag my eyeballs back in from their stalks and back into my head long enough to roll them in Rob's direction to check his reaction, I found him similarly engaged, his gob agape like the doors to a cross channel ferry. Needless to say we will not be missing this week's instalment.

Busy bees

We managed to pack lots in this week. On Thursday after school, we took the kids to see Tangled, the brilliant new Disney film about Rapunzel (just as good for grown ups as for kids). On Friday, our car, the interior of which resembled a mixture of a child's playroom, a student house and a nuclear waste dump, was in need of a good clean. Not since I discovered a plate with a pizza on it in Sarah Robertson's bed in Kew, have I seen such a mess. Rob was sent out into the cold to do the job but within moments a pyjama-clad Flo was hot on his heels. Once I had wrestled her into a jacket she was off, working her way through a series of vacuum cleaner attachments until the car sparkled. We can't seem to get rid of that smell though.  On Friday night, keen to catch up on our pre-Oscar film viewing, Rob and I watched and enjoyed The Social Network, the nerd-tastic story of the creation of Facebook.

On Saturday we drove across Romney Marsh and on into Kent to Canterbury, where we planned to show the girls the cathedral. I hadn't been since I was 18 when we watched a performance of Murder in the Cathderal in the crypt.  This plan was aborted when we discovered it was 8 quid each for adults and 4 each for the kids to go in. To a cathedral.  Instead we had lunch in the city and then drove on to Whitstable to see Liz and Charlie in the run up to Charlie's birthday party. A bottle of prosecco was opened, cupcakes for the party were decorated and then Charlie and Flo, who are now strangely inseparable (strange because in Sydney last year they fought all day long), disappeared upstair to mix toothpaste and shampoo in a bucket and make a big goo perfect for rubbing into carpets. Downstairs the parents sipped wine in blissful ignorance because they were quiet. The evening continued it would seem in a similar vein of wine dirnking. At some point a curry and pizza were produced ad consumed. I'm guessing the last bit as I have no memory of actually eating it, but the tell-tale curry stains on my dress on Sunday morning gave that away. Oh and the fact that my head felt as if it had actually been split open with an axe. I have never, ever had a hangover like it - the closest being the one the morning after my 30th birthday when I cried, I felt so bad, and Rob had to drive me to and from work, I felt so ill. Now I've mentioned we drank a bit but on surveying the empties there were only 3 and there were 3 of us and this didn't seem to be the sort of hangover  you get from drinking a bottle of wine, more like 4 or 5. I spent 5 days last week on a protein only diet and I'm pretty sure this may have had something to do with it - no carbs, fruit or veg, just protein and fat-free dairy. Needless to say, after being helped into the car, I started to feel better on the drive home but didn't touch a drop of wine at Maria and Lol's where we had a lovely Sunday lunch with Dad and Alexandra, where stories of drunken nights were shared around the table...

...and the other one

Scarlett's second big tooth leapt to freedom last night, apparently missing its partner. She now resembles a young Dracula and has developed a pleasant lisp. Looking at this photo, I realise how long it's been since any of us have seen some serious sun. Scarlett looks positively anaemic. For myself, although I'm pleased my skin is getting a break from 13 years of sun, I'm finding that not having a tan shows up all the lines, wrinkles and other consequences of sun damage.  Pass the fake tan.

Big teeth

Scarlett looks quite demented in this photo which shows the departure, yesterday, of the first of her two big front baby teeth. After a night and a morning of fiddling and twisting, it evidently fell out during lunch at school. She now looks like a young Nanny McPhee.
Also new this week, the dance exercise class Maggie and I attended on Monday night at the local high school. After some anxious minutes in the car trying to guess the age group of the other exercisers we would encounter - Maggie thought 16, I thought 65 - we were beyond elated to discover a gym full of middle-aged ladies who'd had too much pie. Just like us. An hour of marching, agonising leg lifts, cha chaing and, bizarrely, grapevining, later we were two sweaty but happy individuals and will be back for more next week.

Full moon

The most beautiful full moon hovered over Hastings this week, sending the local residents even more insane than usual. For example, some bright spark decided to start a fire at the back of the castle, the most visible building in the town. I was on the phone to Maria and in front of my eyes thick, black, smoke started billowing  accompanied by high orange flames. I quickly hung up and called 999, something I have never done before (not on purpose anyway) and which I found rather thrilling. Luckily it wasn't the castle structure itself burning, which was a relief. After losing the pier last year, things would be pretty grim if one of the main reasons tourists come here was also destroyed.

 On Friday, after Scarlett's assembly, we drove straight up to Suffolk to see Rick and Justin for the weekend. As ever the welcome was warm, and it was lovely to be in their cosy cottage in winter, with the curtains drawn and the fire blazing. We normally visit in summer and the difference to their garden and the surrounding countryside was amazing. Their garden, a vertible supermarket produce section during the warmer months, had completely died back and we were able to see through their back hedgerow straight into the field behind.  Friday night Rick made meatballs and spaghetti from scratch and we sat up for ages catching up and checking the gin has gone past its expiry date. On Saturday morning after a huge breakfast and two Panadol each, we drove to Justin's wood for a walk. We had to leave the cars at the bottom of the field as the day before Justin's car had got stuck in the Somme-like mud and had to be towed out with the tractor. We were impressed at how much work Justin has done in the wood, cutting back lots of the overgrown areas allowing so much new growth. The girls and I were looking forward to seeing Justin's pigs who we visited in the summer, but were informed they were now comfortably residing in the chest freezer back at the cottage. 

 After a nice walk we huddled around the wood burning stove in the little house in the wood before Justin let the girls take turns driving the tractor back down to the road. Athough Flo looks a little unsure in this photo, she was wetting her pants with excitement moments later when she took the wheel.

Saturday night we had a late celebration of Burns Night with haggis, neeps and tatties with Rick and Justin's neighbours  Jo and Stuart invited in too. We had a brilliant night, stayed up very late due to me not being able to stop talking - a consequence it would seem of spending too much time on my own at home. Sunday morning we headed to church where a new woman vicar was giving her first sermon. Her cool credentials were secured when she was first at the bar in The Queen's Head afterwards, wearing jeans and drinking a pint. Back home Rick pulled yet another feast from the oven - a full roast lamb lunch. It was sombre drive home. We are very jealous that Rick and Justin leave for NZ on Saturday for 4 weeks, spending much of their visit touring the South Island in Rick's brother's Porsche. Lucky sods.

Big Fat Gypsy Weddings

Following on from our recent 'only in Britain'  theme of last week, it would be remiss of me not to draw your attention to the Channel 4 documentary series Big Fat Gypsy Weddings. Billed as a fly on the wall series detailing the secretive world of gypsies and travellers in Britain, it is an absolutely compelling look at the extravagant lengths gypsies go to to celebrate the first holy communions and weddings of the young girls in the community. The dresses are extraordinary, most weighing the same as the bride, and designed to show off as much gigantic bosomage as possible. Imagine a dress a child would draw of a fairy princess wedding and then multiply it by a 1,000, then add sequins and lots of pink tulle and then double it, then add small top hats and 300 metres of veil, then multiply it by 50 and your halfway there. Last night we watched a young couple tie the knot with the bride wearing a gown she half dragged and half kicked down the aisle, made of voluminous layers of pink and lit - yes that's right, lit - from within by fairy lights and fibre optics. Girls as young as six have spray tans, wear full make up and dress in miniature versions of very grown up clothes. Much is made of the strong culture of the gypsies which they seek to protect with such events, even though they seem to bear a strange resemblance to the hip hop culture of east LA. We are only into week 2 and not much has been mentioned of how these extravagances are funded. Cannot wait for next week.

Extraordinary

There are many things in Britain that still take my breath away. Some good, some bad, some, well, extraordinary. Leaving aside for now that you can park facing into or against the traffic on the side of the road, and there are unisex changing rooms in swimming pools, I wish to discuss an item on this morning's TV. A show called 'This Morning' or 'So You're Awake Then?' or some such, this morning featured for nine minutes, an item in which five men (or was it six?) clad only in flimsy G-strings, lay on treatment beds while Louis Spence, the gayest and lispiest man in England, if not the world, applied a variety of hair removal products to their buttocks. THEIR BUTTOCKS! On television. Am I connecting with anyone here, cos, to be honest, I'm not feeling it. He then scored the results by writing on their buttocks on red lipstick. Yes, you read correctly. A lipstick which at one point broke because, to quote Louis "I pressed too hard." This wasn't part of a humourous late night game show on the Dave channel you understand, this was late morning family style TV. Anyway, between lisps, the presenter, a man who was able to make Paul Denham look happily married with three children, decided the Nads cream was the best. That's all.

This is the link to the website
http://thismorning.itv.com/thismorning/style-and-beauty/grooming-gents-louie-spence
 You really need to watch this segment.

Staying local

With both the girls back at school this week, and fairly rubbish weather - lots of fog, drizzle and wind - I've been staying close to home this week. My new best friend Cathy and I went to  the local cinema to see The King's Speech, the film about the lead up to King George VI's famous speech to the nation to announce Britain was at war with Germany. Colin Firth was terrific as the king and Geoffrey Rush does a fine job as the Australian speech therapist who works with him.  It was refreshing to see an Australian character depicted in a film without a corked hat, a barbecue busy with prawns or a single "she'll be right" type comment. 

Last night I went out with my other new best friend, Janice, who lives a few doors down, and another neighbour, Jem. We went to the residents' association meeting of an adjoining neighbourhood to register our objection to the demolition and redevelopment of an old warehouse at the back of our row of terraces. Aside from the blot on the landscape it will result it, it's a lovely old building that we'd rather see renovated than replaced with an unimaginative modern box. The meeting had all the elements of an episode of The Vicar of Dibley, with a rum collection of local nutters, councillors and old people with loud voices all talking at the same time. Afterwards we all retired to a local bar to put the world to rights.

We've been glued to the box all week, watching the tragic events unfolding in a flooded Queensland. Rob grew concerned mid-week when he was unable to get hold of his brother Craig and family who live in the suburbs of Brisbane. Eventually we made contact and had a skype session with him this morning, in which he bashfully admitted that while most of his city is under water, he was able to mow his lawn yesterday. My understanding is that both Anna Bligh and  Julia Gillard have shown what they are made of in impressive style. 

I know it's cold but...

...is it really cold enough for all this wood? The BBC reported this week it has been the coldest winter in 20 years. Not cold enough for the Duthies unfortunately. After the cruel flirtation with snow in late November and early December, we have had nothing remotely passing for solid winter weather in my book. Even our recent  trip north to Scotland delivered mild weather in the high single digits. I mean come on. We've been living in  temperatures between the low teens and low 40s for the last 13 years - we want a prolonged period of cold please. Anyway, Rob spent more than two hours this afternoon stacking the wood that was delivered at lunchtime. He's done a great job, despite reporting some upper body aches, and I just hope no-one turns up at 2am and nicks it all, as it is stacked on our small drive, right on the street.

Scarlett finished her first week at her new school, that brought with it, many tears and some anxiety for her. But by Friday she was all smiles, which is great. She has been out all day on a playdate with a friend from her old school and tonight we have some of our new neighbours in for dinner which we're all looking forward to.

Craft-tastic 2011

Thanks to the incredibly attractive ladies at Prints Charming in Annandale (www.printscharming.com.au), I took receipt of a fabulous care package just before Christmas. In it are enough sewing and embroidery projects to keep me busy by my fireside for months, and it is there you will find me, bifocals firmly wedged halfway along my slender (some say Romanesque) nose making door hangers/festive decorations and cushions. Here are 3 I've done so far (I've already given others away as gifts), the cushion completed today thanks to my totally brilliant, Santa-delivered, sewing machine. Aside from my handiwork, today was also special because Scarlett started at her new school. Once again it was I, rather than Scarlett, that shed a tear as we parted in the unfamilar corridors of Robsack Wood community primary school. She burst through the front door this afternoon with news of new friends, fun lessons and a desire to return tomorrow. Not bad considering she had to be pumped full of  Panadol this morning to bring down her raging fever. Also burning up big time today was Flo who has croup and is keeping us up at night with her uncanny bullseal impersonations. They both remain in high spirits however and as yet Rob and I have not succumbed to their lovely new British germs. We spent the early evening before the kids' bathtime in front of the fire playing the brilliant new card game (delivered for Christmas from Uncle Brett from his holiday in San Francisco) Rat-A-Tat Cat. It took some explaining - it is a Mensa- rated game - and was almost as much fun as Trading Pit. Almost.