W-Ms in Australia: March 2012

Saturday, March 31, 2012

March 2012 - footy season commences

Once again all three boys are playing for the Forestville "Ferrets". This is Tenzin's 2nd season and he is on fire, scoring five tries in three games!

March 2012 - favourite artworks from 2011

We don't have enough space to put each artwork up, nor the favourites up forever so I have decided to at least photograph the pictures that each child loves (or the ones that we love) so that we don't lose the image forever.

Ship by Arthur:

Aboriginal style "Two men going to get bush tucker from the dam" by Arthur.

The poster drawn up by the kids for Dunc before his major surgery.

Tenzin's interpretation of a chicken with four legs - because his magnetic fridge chicken DOES have four legs!

Tenzin's pet quail - "Jo".

Tenzin's interpretation of a rainbow done at art workshop with best mate Charlie's Mummy, Fi.

Barney's tool collection in Fi's art workshop.

Santa by Tenzin (about 4 foot tall in reality and the teachers at kindy were gutted when I asked to take it home!)

March 2012 - new budgies, and growing animals

Well what normally happens when Dunc and the boys go away without me?? A new animal arrives, exactly. At least that is what happened five years ago when I went to the Blue Mountains with Helen for a weekend and came back to find a grey rabbit called "Graham" had joined the family! This time was no different, except I stayed home with Iona and the boys all went camping. They managed to come back with two budgies!!! The striking blue male was instantly named 'Tashi' and the paler female has since been named 'Pema' which means Lotus Flower in Tibetan. Apparently lots of couples in Tibet are called Tashi and Pema so although the boys had named our own 'Tashi' after the elf-like character in one of their books it seemed appropriate to give the name 'Pema' to his wife.

Lulu is now 10 months old so may still grow a tiny bit but as you can see she is way bigger than Pumpkin. Lulu weighs in at around 34kg and Pumpkin at a mere 19kg!!

Baby Jesus is also coming on a treat. Nearly the size of his Mum.

The three ducklings are easily bigger than their surrogate mother now. Hilarious how they all stick together and waddle around in threes at all times.

March 2012 - a visit from Eliza and LOTS of rain

My beautiful Eliza (from Alastair Sawday's Tours days) came to Sydney as her gorgeous daughter, Rosey, is based in Melbourne. It was such a brief visit - they arrived in Manly at lunchtime, I collected them and took them home to the ranch, then we had school collection and a quick coffee/ice cream at Little Manly before I had to drop them back at the wharf but it was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO amazing to have that window of time with Eliza. We worked together for about 3 years from 1994-1997 and she was such an incredible presence in the tiny office room that we shared - me, Eliza and Louise. Bloody marvellous to have her here having seen her in Sydney when Arthur was a tiny baby and then again in London when we had two kids. Cannot quite believe that I haven't made it back to Bristol for about 15 years!! Something must be done about this...

We have had lots and lots of rain this summer and no one notices in our local area as much as we do - the creeks swell and we go from a trickle of water to a 'white water rafting' style flow of water on the outer creek. The pictures below show the smaller of the two creeks touching the underside of the bridge (usually about two feet below the bridge!!) and the whole expanse of front lawn underwater as the creeks have risen on both sides and the water has had to just join in the middle. Fortunately these water levels sink as quickly as they rise and the house is on stilts at the front of a sloping block so we feel quite safe. Honest!

March 2012 - gardening and grenades

An industrious morning in the garden chopping/pruning and tidying. The kids were thrilled to find hundreds of lime shaped fruit things which they called "grenades" (displayed below by Iona) from one of the trees that they removed with Duncan.

2nd March 2012 - COASTREK

Well the big day for our 50km Coastrek from Palm Beach to Balmoral finally arrived. It was TIPPING it down with rain when we all got up at 4.30am. We met at Moo's place and her hubby, Don, was a legend and drove us all to Palm Beach for our 6am registration. Our wave was not due to set off until 7am but we were all guns ablazing and eager to go way before 7am. This picture shows a lull in the the rain just before we set off.

The course was long, wet, very windy at times but always good banter. We had done NO rain training and NO darkness training so I think we coped bloody well as a team. The worst bit was due to be the 'no shade, no rest' 5km stretch of sand from Narrabeen to Collaroy. Laura's hubby, Matt was a total lifesaver as he had devised a trivia quiz to occupy us throughout that horror stretch. It worked wonders to take our mind off the 5km of sand. Needless to say we were battling the wind-whip from our rain ponchos as opposed to the beating sun that we'd anticipated!!

The finish line arrived for us after a slow 15 hours 10 mins and after a total of 54 km. In all that time my running watch tells me that we had stopped on and off for a total of 2.5 hours (in snippets) so essentially we'd walked for 12 hours 40 mins but without the stops you may well not have made it so in essence we did it very slowly. For me and Moo the knees were in pieces by the end and there was no way we would have considered another 50km (some people were walking through the night to make the 100 km mark at Coogee!!!) but Fi was bouncing around thinking she could have just kept on going. The killer for me was the last 10-12 kms in total darkness from Manly to Spit, wearing our head torches and walking in the splits either side of the pathway to avoid the muddy mosh pit in the middle. A brilliant experience but not sure I will put my hand up for the 100 km, at least not until the others do, then I won't want to miss out on the banter!

Friday, March 30, 2012

February 2012 - training for Coastrek

The pictures below sum it all up. Training every Friday for 2-3 hours while the kids are all at school/kindy and training every Sunday from 5.30-6am onwards for the month of February - check out the AMAZING views/sunrises we got to enjoy every time.

February 2012 - Arthur moves to St Augustine's

On 9th February, so the very day after Arthur's 11th birthday, we got the phone call from St Augustine's College offering Arthur a last minute spot for this year's Year 5 intake. We were thrilled as we knew how much Arthur had wanted to make the move this year. When I arrived in the playground and told him to ring Dunc (who had important news) it was quite interesting. Dunc told him he'd been offered a spot and both of us expected him to jump for joy as he'd been badgering us to call them in the holidays. However, when it came to the crunch he passed the mobile back to me and ran off saying "I just have to check with my mates!" Now I look back on it I'm actually pleased that he cared what they might think/say as oppose to thinking 'stuff them'. Anyway, he came back shortly saying "Yes, yes please, my mates tell me I am so lucky and I should just 'go for it'!" So...lucky Arthur did decide to 'go for it' and his super friend, Hugh, also got the call and made the same decision a few days later.

So far so good. They both seem very settled and happy.

Just a quick snap to show HOW MUCH Lulu has grown since last June!!

8th February 2012 - Arthur's 11th birthday & short haircut

WOW - my first born has just hit '11 years old!' Seems totally unbelievable really.

Here is my gorgeous Arthur on his 'pink Penny' birthday skateboard.

Cake time...

Why the short haircut so suddenly??? The phone call the day after his birthday offering him a spot at St Augustine's perhaps???

February 2012 - Cole Classic Ocean Swim

Once again Dunc and I put our names down for the manic Cole Classic. Dunc's wave set off early around 8am. He did the 1km this year and felt he should have automatically done the 2km but I kept reminding him that not only had he had a shoulder reconstruction in August 2011 but a facial reconstruction in September. It is quite amazing that he was doing the race at all, I am bloody proud of him.

Laura and I also did the 1km race but set off over an hour after Dunc's wave. It was super choppy so I switched to 'breast stroke' as I knew how weak my finless freestyle could be. Managed to do it in about 7 minutes faster than last year when I did freestyle!

I could not walk past this wee fella without talking to his owner and of course asking for a photo. Poor thing had been in a 'doggy wheelchair' for the past 8 years since slipping a disc. It had worn nappies for that whole time as well!! Seemed very happy and bolted gaily along Manly beachfront - bless.

February 2012 - AHPS Swimming Carnival

Another fun swimming carnival but this time in the pouring rain. Barn swam well and although not going through to zone he came 2nd and 3rd in his heats. Arthur did well too and qualified for zone coming 3rd in freestyle. This was with no race training (yet again) - imagine how much better he could do if he made an effort before the event.

Mid January 2012 - London visiting Gummy & Gumpa

I flew to London mid January with Arthur and Iona. Much as I'd have loved to bring all the kids, this trip was about Gumpa and Gummy without overloading them. All the kids will be over in June 2012 so this was a special visit just to make sure that Gumpa was being looked after, staying strong, hanging in there etc.

Iona took to chilly London life very stylishly.