Strings and Bows

Young Eloise is a keen little music person whose enthusiasm is considerable if not entirely unparalleled and whose adeptitude is potential and eminently hone-able. For those of you clinically unable to read between lines, what I mean to say is that she's keen but tone-deaf.

Damn though, we had to fight like cats in bags waiting to drown to have that child unwittingly negotiate the serpentine bureaucracy of the Infernal School. Our first application went missing, our second application filed directly into the pigeonhole went missing, then the teacher went missing, then the replacement teacher had to be contacted through the auspices of a well-placed third party before finally getting that child a place in the apparently legendary (though potentially mythical) Strings Programme.

A contract had to be signed by the child and countersigned by a responsible adult before being witness in triplicate guaranteeing that practice would be carried out and excitement maintained and all lessons, ensembles and activities attended upon pain of excommunication.

And Eloise duly began her lessons and ensembles and has practiced, if not religiously then at least enthusiastically, waning toward dutifully, edging towards sometimes. But then what can you expect when all they give her are tunes you have to play with open strings.

Anyway she went on a Strings Camp at Windsor School for a day and we were invited to attend the performance of a concert in the afternoon. To be honest we were expecting the worst, and while we couldn't actually source gumshields, we were certainly expecting to have to grit our teeth whilst the sixty-odd violins, violas, cellos and double-basses attempted to play together.

But as it turned out it wasn't actually too bad! Of course with open strings tuning wasn't exactly awful and though timing could have been better, it wasn't quite shocking. We were velly preased!

I believe I can crawl

But she can't yet. It's oh so very frustrating.

Foot in Mouth

Might get back to the blog in a bit, in the meantime, look! Lyra can put her foot in her mouth. Now that's what I call progress.

Bumbolina

The Lilac Bumbo allows Lyra to sit pensively eating grass while Nicole and I tend to the weeds, rampant from the chronic alternation of rain and heat we have had in recent months.

Blades

Rollerblading on the boardwalk on Noosa Main Beach, surrounded by Pandanus palms on the verge of the littoral rainforest. Can't complain really.

Noosa Main Beach

Mum, Eloise and I took a stroll along the boulevard along the beach behind Hastings Street. Mum and I strolled, Eloise rolled along on her rollerblades. Very stylish, dodging the silver surfers, the French scufflers and the knackered packers.

Some parts of the boardwalk were in good nick, some less so, which presented some problems for the wheeled cohort. However these were stolidly worked through and only small blisters developed.

Sunshine Beach

Dogs can be restrictive, and walking a dog around Noosa for us involved visiting the beach. A different one each day, to be sure, but in the end isn't a beach a beach, with the nuances just that; the height of the tide, the size of the surf, the feel of the sand under your feet?

This day was the one where Mum fell over in the surf, Eloise fell over in the surf, and Eloise was stung by a jellyfish, a dramatic event which involved trips to the chemist and therapeutic television viewing in the grandparently palace. It was a painful sting to be sure, but not such an emergency that anybody felt a need to wee on her.

Lyra's First Encounter With Illness

Little Lyra continues to do all the things that she is supposed to do, beaming merrily while she does many of them. "Mim," she opines, some mysterious request for what is most probably milk. And, if that is not understood, of course there is the Four Fold Way of Outrageous Demand that ends in desperation and strained eardrums on the behalf of her subservient parents.

All has not however been plain sailing. For the last couple of weeks, she has been beset by a vicious, racking cough, productive from time to time with a thick mucus. As often as not, it will trigger a bout of vomiting the projectile range of which would from time to time challenge even the most committed of teenage hedonists.

She was sitting in her Electronic Rocking Chair of Immediate Quiessence the other day after a bit of a feed when she had a bit of a turn, coughing then producing a fountain of chunder that left her with a pool in her mouth to deal with, which could have ended badly.

As so, parents on alert, in the still watches of the night we fret that an unfortunate accident will occur and we wake at the slightest sound, anxiously turning her onto her side or front for fear of a choking catastrophe. Lyra sleeps through it all, remarkably. We do not.

We took her to the doctor the other day, more as a derriere-covering exercise than anything, and she agreed with us that it's just a cold, but a sticky one and it's unfortunate that mini-immune systems can't shift sickness more quickly.

So, c'est la vie, but we're looking forward to this being over and getting back to a decent night's sleep.

Eloise's Holidays

Eloise has been on school holidays, and there have been rendezvouses with various of her little friends.

We have had days out to the beach, trips to the Railway Museum, Boxing Day meals, sleep-overs, both home and away.

The new tablet is a source of amusement and angst as extended sessions of Angry Birds, Where's My Water and Subway Surfers have caused her priorities sometimes to be called into question.

But all that notwithstanding, in general she's had a pretty good time in the hot weather with lots of swimming and a general reprieve from dog walking which for the last week or so has been occurring early in the morning to avoid the heat.

Heatwave

So, no doubt you'll have been reading all over the news about bushfires and record temperatures in sunny Australia.

And indeed, over the New Year period and into January, it's been pretty damn hot.

We were invited by one of Nicole's chums down to a farm down near Beaudesert for a day of camping/relaxation and had a lovely time messing about on the Albert River in some inflatables.

We rode a couple of cascades, modest little waterfalls between swimming holes, which was immensely enjoyable until of course we went that one step too far and tried to go over that last waterfall that had a dog-leg in it, and that all ended in fear and tears, but no harm done!

Matilda came down with us and made friends with the other dogs that were there - Nicole's friend Lis was camping with her extended family, and in true Aussie style this meant a canvas city, twenty people and several dogs. Matilda had a pretty good time nosing around, sniffing dogs' bottoms, and paddling around with us,

In fact, for reasons which remain murky, she point-blank refused to get into the car at the end of the day for the journey home.