Weather Clearing, House Clearing

The rain has gone and so have our short-term visitors.

The rain cleared away on Tuesday, and the sun came out on the morning for music.

Eloise, previously reportedly ebullient on the classroom floor under the grandparently wing, was out-disrupted by the boy on the left, who was quite overcome with emotion of the joyful variety at various points.

Decision time will come pretty soon as at 3 1/2 Eloise should by rights graduate to the actual piano classes, which as far as I've been told aren't quite so structured and involved plinkety-plonking on keyboards, but we're not convinced she's really ready for that kind of thing yet.

But with George and Ant around with their recreational guitar usage Eloise was showing keenness on the musical front, strumming away on the guitar and using a crayon as a fretboard slider in a passable imitation of a below-par U2 pre-teen tribute band who've had their ears removed.

Tuesday afternoon saw the "Cheeky Boys" get an offer to inspect their van which they were trying to sell. So we led them down to the Cultural Centre where a French couple met them and inspected their ware.

Afterwards they went to park up and meet us back at GoMA and I planned later to reshoot my dawn to dusk which were underexposed last time.

From the top floor of the gallery we looked out from time to time to try to see the "Cheeky Boys" and spied les Francaises meeting up with a succession of vans.

"They're pros" said the travelers, awe in their eyes, hope of dollars drifting away on a slow breeze.

The sunset was disappointing. I may have to do it again. Again. Though the photos, which I processed the next day, came out OK.

In fact they sold the van the next day, and got reasonable money for it from a bloke who'd totalled his van the day before and needed a replacement pronto. So all's well what ends well, what.

And, having sold the van, they had accomplished their Brisbane mission and were off up the coast today to Noosa again on their way to Cairns and god knows what.

So empty house again which is really nice, in the nicest possible way. We went swimming, and Eloise received rapturous praise from Fiona who said that she did everything that she was asked to do when she was asked to do it.

Unlike the other Mums (ahem) I didn't bury my noise in a crappy women's mag while my cherished offspring showed off her swimming skillz but paid rapt attention to every kick, roly-poly arm and death-defying leap into the water. Whilst nursing my flat white.

After napping, we went out to the brook for the first time in weeks. The brook was somewhat swollen after all the rain we've had and all the rock bridges were uncrossable.

Not to be defeated, and never to take the easy option (that is, using a bridge) we found a shallow section and waded across through the fast-flowing water which was quite exciting, especially when the shallow water became not quite so shallow and the fast-flowing water became a near-irresistable flume. But resist my legs did though my shorts go wet, and follow the dogs did, though poor Tiny almost got washed away.

What a lot of effort to get to a playground. We went across the bridge on the way back.