W-Ms in Australia

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

April 2012 - more Seal Rocks

Here is a lovely shot of Kirsten and wee Claudia.

Bean got lots of action with his new board.

A spot of beach football.

Maggie and Iona were like two peas in a pod despite the year in age difference.

Barn getting a bit of wave action.

The Easter egg hunt finale - dividing up the eggs and sharing them out!

Our favourite spot once again - Seal Rocks for a ten day stint over Easter with the Howes (sadly minus Laura as she had to go to the UK) and the Highnams. The pictures below show a fabulous evening spent at Fisherman's Beach for the obligatory campfire, marshmallows, sunset and then a stunning tawny frog-mouthed owl awaited us in the car park as we left.

March/April 2012 - trips

Duncan took Arthur, Barney and Tenzin for a boys' camping weekend to One Mile Beach near Nelson Bay. It turned out to be far too civilised compared to what they are normally used to - the camp site even had a pool. They had fun though.

Then it was Arthur's turn for a big boys' only trip to visit his godfather, Pezza, down in Melbourne. The economy flights were so extortionate that I booked them business class tickets on frequent flyer points instead!! There was Arthur, aged 11, settling into business class with his Dad when I have NEVER flown anything other than cattle class and am nearly 42!! They had a top weekend mountain biking on the Saturday then watching an Ironman competition on the Sunday which one of Annie's mates was competing in.

At the beginning of April it was Lenka's 40th so we went over for a lovely family meal and superb birthday cake - presented on the Wedgewood cake stand that we had bought at Lenka's request. Always fun with those guys.

29th March 2012 - La Traviata on Sydney Harbour

One of Duncan's clients, Tourism NSW, invited us as guests to see the performance of La Traviata on Sydney Harbour. I am not massively keen on Opera normally but this was out of this world. The setting at Mrs Macquarie's chair was incredible and we had fabulous seats. The giant crystal chandelier had the main soprano hoisted in the air singing her heart out at one stage. They really made use of the Sydney setting with opera singers arriving by water taxi as part of the story, drag queens appeared at the interval and then formed part of the operatic group on stage for the 2nd half. It really was superb.

7th March 2012 - Penguin Cafe Orchestra

Duncan bought tickets for us both to see the Penguin Cafe Orchestra perform at the Opera House. He didn't know that I'd owned one of their 'cassettes' (that's how long ago it was!) about 20 years ago. I loved them at the time and was thinking how old they must now be. It turns out the 10 musicians were all mid thirties and are headed up by the son of the original founder. Such incredibly talented musicians. The strings and two percussionists kept their instruments throughout and the keyboard, guitarists, ukelele players all interchanged. I was so inspired that I went out a couple of days later and treated myself to a really good quality tenor ukelele, donating my orange $30 one to Iona!

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: