Jul 24, 2010

Dawn Patrol

Dawn at Red Beach

Will phoned suggesting a trip out on Friday and it so happened that Nicole would be around as she was going onto nights.

With an optician's appointment in the afternoon for me, it would have to be the morning and someone mentioned dawn. Once mentioned it cannot be taken back so we set the alarm clock for four in the morning and I padded around the house gently imbibing coffee and eating toast before we set off at four thirty for Bribie Island.

Notoriously bad at timing, we expected to be there very early so we stopped off at a servo for coffee and a croissant and got to the beach as darkness began to recede.

We'd hoped that the tide would be higher, but it wasn't, and there wouldn't be clouds in the way of the sun, but there were.

And a chill wind was blowing off the sea which went to my very bones.

But when the sun came over the trees and started to skim the crests of the waves and they were lit up with the golden light, it was undeniably pretty.

We got back to Brisbane by nine o'clock in time to see Eloise off to school.
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Jul 23, 2010

Well Done Award

Well Done Award As briefly mentioned previously, Eloise had a surprise in store on Thursday.

Nicole and I went along to the Grand Assembly where there were hundreds of kids in the undercover area... assembling.

Eloise finally spotted us and gave us a look of considerable perplexity but didn't seem unduly perturbed. Ironically it appeared that she hadn't put two and two together.

After the National Anthem and various details the awards started, and an epic awards session it was. Appreciation was overflowing, without wishing to in any way detract from the value of each individual award.

When Eloise's name was called out she temporarily removed her thumb from her mouth and looked around at us in surprise then confusion before making her way up to the front to be presented with her laminated well done award. She stood at the front with the other kids with the award proudly displayed just beneath her nose.

And she was and is terribly proud. She ran up to us before returning to her seat and said "Mum and Dad I got a well done award!" jumping up and down and showing us her little laminated card.

Ms Dale her teacher told me on the QT that the award was for great counting and telling her about adding numbers together. It's nice to get some encouragement.

She made Nicole take the card to the eyebrow-plucker to show them. Back came some haircare products by way of further congratulations. And the excitement continued.

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Jul 22, 2010

lucent lake

lucent High cloud blew in the other day, the kind where it's not quite a blank sheet but has waves and regular repeating patterns, so I determined to go off and take photos at sunset in the hope that conditions would prevail.

Reflections are nice, so I though I'll find a lake, and Lake Samonsonvale isn't too far.

Naturally Eloise point blank refused but Nicole came home in good time for work so I toddled off in the hope of being back for tea.

So half an hour by the side of a lake watching the sun go down, no waves lapping at my feet, just a couple of ducks and a pelican messing around on the water.

The low clouds were pretty just as the sun went down but then the high cloud lit up and for a while there was a blanket of red covering half the sky.

I got back just as tea was put on the table.

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Jul 20, 2010

Low Grade

Hard Day at the Orifice Eloise didn't really want to go this morning.

She said she was ill. She even stuck to her guns for a little while until I suggested that she couldn't spend all day in front of the telly - at which point she mysteriously perked up.

At pick up time though she was somewhat lacklustre and Teacher Stacey said that she hadn't been herself and she should get some rest.

She told me she didn't feel well in her tummy before requesting a trip to the bakery, where she ordered a sausage roll with tomato ketchup.

She decided she didn't like the sausage roll when we got home. Lucky dogs.

Anyway all this raises the spectre of mild illness... which is a bit of a worry because secretly, and don't tell her, she's up for an award at school assembly on Thursday for being able to add two numbers together or something.

Naturally I take credit.

Jul 19, 2010

D'Aguilar Mountains

D'Aguilar Mountains Julie and Gary were in town at the weekend with toddling son Jarrah who is now capable of rudimentary speech and unafraid to exercise said capability to the best of his ability.

I took the opportunity on Friday to got for a little trip into the mountains to feel the breezes and watch the sun go down.

Jul 18, 2010

New Day, New Forest Car Wreck

Wreckage In the ongoing quest to provide Tiny's final days with as much doggy pleasure as possible, we are becoming prone to go off-piste and scramble the dry leaf-littered slopes of the local forests.

When we diverge from the true path, for sometimes the true path deserts us, it can be easy to lose the sense of direction.

We stumbled on this car wreck on the side of a valley and stopped for a break before ascending upwards to find the path. We found the path and began along it to find that it was not the path that we expected it to be at all, and in fact we were on the other side of the valley to where I thought we were.

Jul 13, 2010

Frostrailia

Frostrailia For you lot in sunny heat-stroked arid dried out Angleterre, here's the evidence that here in Australia it's winter and therefore a tad chilly.

The day this was taken I think the temperature was down to about 17 degrees or so. Brrrr!

It's warm right now, well I mean it was today. We got up to around 24 degrees, so totally unable to compete with the reported 32 of yesterday in the Mother Country. But our warm spell is set to give way shortly to windy weather so we'll look forward to that.

Jul 12, 2010

Medieval Festival In a shock development, for a short while Nicole and I (who are as you will know married) instantiated for a few brief hours a vestigial social life for the second time this rolling calendar quarter.

We went out to the QPAC place (what cultural afficionados we are) and visited a certain Bill Bailey in order that he might entertain us.

And entertain us he did, perhaps not to the extent that our ribbles were tickled back in sunny (today) Ipswich those many years ago, but enough that we felt that we had laughed. High praise indeed. And not one swear word, which is something for a stand-up these days. Well there might have been one I suppose.

While we were out Eloise went for a sleepover with young Hannah and of course she enjoyed herself there, I gather. It was certainly difficult to extricate her from the situation, as when I got there after having walked the dogs they weren't even dressed yet; and I'd had a sleep in myself.

So the days activities from there were for us to go to the Medieval Festival which was being played out up at Caboolture at the Abbey Museum.

Quite a sizeable event it was too, with a field of several acres caparisoned with buntingry and pennanted field tents with quite literally hundreds of in-costume historical types roaming around granting indulgences, teaching swordplay, indulging in trade, looking bored, and beating the living crap out of one another.

We were unable to attend the actual joust as were unable to procure tickets for the arena but the knights obligingly held a tournament on a supplementaty field of honour in order that we might be able to appreciate that real life ancient figures tended to enjoy fighting, quite a lot, and underneath the shining armour generally look like bikies.

There was a slightly more refined and less brutish interlude where we watched a demonstration of burgundian swordplay with rapiers and daggers which was terribly civilised even if, ultimately, sword-and-fighting related.

You'll no doubt be aware the the Almohads conquered Spain in medieval times. What an excuse for a camel ride.

And medieval donuts were small round things which have only evolved slowly as one Donut King has inherited the crown of another.

The day was topped off by a Morality Play where we found out to our not quite surprise that the morality of the day was based around good-natured brawling and interpersonal violence, carried out in a long-winded, aristocratically-accented but ultimately under-cerebral doggerel version of Sheriff of Nottingham English.

And a good time was had by all.

How Very Cultured We Are

Grand Design 'Tother day we decided to go down to South Bank and had a little tourette of the Cultural Centre, did Eloise, Nicole and I.

We started off at the Library where we played Noughts and Crosses on the wall then a strange game called... something or other... where you had to tesselate shapes. It would have been good if there hadn't been missing pieces probably.

The kids' corner in the library was closed so we went to the Modern Art place where we visited an exhibition called Ghost Town for kids, which was all jolly interactive and a bit strange. We drew little pictures in a mock-up supermarket with mirrors at both ends so we felt like we were in the longest corridor ever and the, ahem, space was decked out like a modern high street that had been abandoned.

All terribly deep and meaningful I'm sure.

We then went to the other Art Gallery and looked at sculpture, like you do. Eloise was very impressed by all the avant garde stuff but not really so much by the paintings.

She was most impressed by the little mouse hole though where Trevor and Matilda live. She loved that. We had to go to find Nicole in some unknown depth of some mysterious gallery of the museum to show her the mice's little hideyhole.

Jul 8, 2010

Walking Walking Walking

Eloise The school holiday routine, when not doing "something special," is to get up, not too early, not too late, watch a bit of telly, and walk the dogs.

We've been stepping up the dog-walking and are now doing a few kilometres each day, a new walk each day, up hill and down dale.

Eloise is taking to it very well as long as there are snacks available and plenty of patience applied as she needs to rest and have a play every now and then.

If things get a bit frazzled she can play some music on the iPod or she'll take some pictures. She likes posing me and the dogs, although the dogs are somewhat reluctant to comply.

In the afternoons, after lunch, we'll visit a playground or go shopping.

It's pretty chilled out really.

Tiny is going slowly downhill. Her glands are very pronounced now. We had a panic the other morning when she wouldn't get out of bed. We phoned the vet thinking that this could be the fateful day but when Nicole got the chicken stock out she mysteriously perked up.

We agreed with the vet to increase her dosage of anti-inflamatories and now she has a definite spring in her step and even on occasion running around, but she has developed a cough that's reminiscent of a wood-saw which is quite unpleasant to listen to and no doubt quite unpleasant to perform.

Jul 5, 2010

Generation i

Generation i So the little technocrat pretty much has the ipod sussed.

When we get in the car and the radio goes on, generally it's "can we have some music" then it's "can I choose it" then it's "can I have Justine" (Clarke) then (after no) it's "can I have James" then (after no) it's "can I have Keane."

Jul 4, 2010

Winter

Tall Thin Eucs The weather is reminiscent of a British spring at the moment. That sort of British spring day when it's nice and sunny and quite fresh.

When it's a bit chilly in the shade but when the sun is shining on you it's quite pleasantly warm, but the breeze is cool.

So it isn't shorts weather.

If it's cloudy then the night retains some warmth but clear skies as ever herald a precipitous dive in temperatures and we'll be sitting on the sofa watching TV under a blanket.

A Moment

Mean, Moody or Just Plain Miserable What better way of exacurbating a moment of confrontation than to laugh and take out your camera to record the flounce for posterity.

"It's not funny"
"It's NOT funny"
"It's NOT FUNNY!"

Um, yes it is.