Thongs

Oh yeah, Miss Julie Seldon, thong enthusiast: these bleeding thongs have given me a bleeding toe! I now have a welt cum blister cum open wound in the inside of my poor little toe number two.

Eloise this afternoon after waking up from afternoon nap, wanted a push in her little tuk tuk truck around the garden. Nap was in afternoon today because she fell asleep in the backpack on the way around the long circuit at Samford Forest, which I was exploring from the other direction. Very steep climbs, quite hot weather. A big thermometer sign on the way proclaimed it to be 38 degrees but that's just nonsense.

Dogs exhausted after walk, Matilda hopped into a trough for feeding animals - horses I presume, arrgh! - but didn't try to get in the boot of the car this time. Water handed out, but Squeaky still downed two glasses of milk when we got home.

Nicole having trouble sleeping today after first night on, got up and I treated her to beans on toast, which delighted her, obviously, and at that point afternoon naps started. I pulled a fast one and went out shopping, planned on rice with sweetcorn and chilli, but unfortunately forgot sweetcorn in my excitement over 36 cans of Coke for $18, and chilli got lost somewhere along the way. Never mind eh! Fell back to Spiced Vegetable Pilau with Cashew Nuts which was quite tasty.

Storm rolled in later on, plenty of low-grade thunder and distant but nevertheless spectacular lightning. Precious little rain.

Little pic from walk this morning:

The Pied Piper

101 uses for a straw, number 17: the Penny Whistle.

A Tuesday, Like Any Other

Just for a change we went to Nudgee and indulged Eloise's newfound fondness of paddling.

We didn't get up there til about eleven due to one thing and another. It was windy, which disguised the strength of the sun and blew the receding tide back onto the shore along with some foamy substance of dubious industrial provenance. Tiny ran after sticks into the sea; she had a great time. The tide was going out and was at the stage where you could get out onto some of the sandbars with a very slightly courageous paddle, so I took Eloise out and she got water up to her waist - which she didn't mind as she'd already sat down in it anyway - while Nicole snapped away from the shore.

I re-discovered someone-or-other's theory of fluid dynamics as my thongs (flip-flops to you other-worlders) mysteriously remained behind on the sea bed when I moved my feet in any direction other that straight forward. A little helpful hint for you first-time thong paddlers there.

Matilda rolled in something disgusting and had to be dragged into the sea for a wash.

A little nap was had by E in the car on the way back which extended itself past hometime, but she woke up in time for houmous sandwiches in Lebanese bread and then to swimming where again Nicole was the Divemistress. Eloise was somewhat exuberant and yet strangely focused as she performed her tasks very well, in particular the one where she walks along an underwater table, swims to another one, slides down a slide, blows bubbles underwater and swims to the side then holds on until parent comes along. I was a very proud dad.

Good Verbing

I have discovered that there is an acceptable form of Good Verbing. Specifically the sarcastic form, such as I used earlier today, viz. "Oh, Good Indicating" as some driver, no doubt of the female persuasion, and very possibly from Suffolk, hurtled around a roundabout turning left with no indication whatsoever.

Exploration

Late to bed means late to rise. For the past couple of days Nicole has been working long days and I kept Squeaky up late so that they could see each other so that Nicole wouldn't have to go three days without seeing her.

This was accomplished mainly by going for late afternoon walks down to the Brook where on Sundays chaos rules. There must have been thirty or forty dogs being walked down there last night, which Eloise was delighted by. Also there was a "young man" riding his bike from the raised embankment by the bridge and hurtling straight into the brook making on enormous splash. The water is only about three feet deep so how he did this without hurting himself is anybody's guess. Maybe he didn't.

The happy side-effect of all this was that I had to wake E up at 8 o'clock this morning, get Nicole out of bed at 8.15, in order to get to Nursery by 9.

I then took Nicole up the Stringybark Trail, so to speak, which is the name of the circular walk we do up at Mount Coot-tha on Mondays. It wasn't too hot but was quite humid and the dogs became quite hot. By the time we got back to Simpson Falls, sorry Simpson Pools, they were panting like... very hot dogs, and Tiny just laid down in a pool, which was like cool bath. We were a little sweaty by the time we got back to the car, to find a lost, sweaty German student waiting for us by the car. He said he wanted to look at a map to find out how to get back to the City as he'd taken a wrong turn on a walking track. I think he really wanted a lift, so we offered him one and dropped him off in the City. I think I managed to conceal the fact from him that I was actually quite lost when we dropped him off, but it looked built up on the right hand side so I expect he wold have been OK!

We dropped the very hot and panting dogs off back at home then went to Latrobe Terrace in Paddington for lunch.

We found a nice little café where we sat on a balcony on a hill overlooking the city and ate a very nice lunch. The area was quite oldy-styly and quaint; there were a lot of antique shops, one of which had had its roof blown off in the recent storm, and quite a few boutique type establishments, and a bookshop. It was nice to see a new area in Brisbane, there seems to be quite a variety between the different suburbs like Paddington, Wilston, Fortitude Valley etc.

Needless to say, Nicole decided to check out some shops, bought a dress, and didn't try very hard but succeeded anyway in persuading me to buy some Havaianas which for the terminally fashion-ignorant are flip flops. They are totally necessary for beach activities as I am sick of taking off trainers and socks to go paddling etc. However I am not used to them yet and am currently walking around like a chicken.

Nicole bought a nice dress which I will leave her to comment further on.

We finished the day off, after picking Squeaky up from nursery, by going for a toddle up at the brook at sunset, then tucking in to pasta a la Neil with a modified nutty salad with roasted pine nuts, raisins and cashews. Yum.

Kedron Brook

Looking from the Montrose Street bridge back up Kedron Brook. On the right hand side people walk their dogs "unofficially" off the lead; behind us on the right hand side of the brook is the official off-leash area.

Home is on the street behind Crushers' League Club which is that large building in the distance. You can walk through the car park of Crushers, down to the path and cross the brook on a rock bridge, when the brook isn't at capacity.

Art, Walking and Cricket

For the past few mornings, Eloise has preferred to paint rather than anything else, including watching TV or eating breakfast. She has signalled this by fetching her apron, marching to the utility room and pointed to the paint pots and bruses, grunting meaningfully.

Her work so far can best be described as Chaotic Impressionism.

We walked down at the brook this morning. It is starting to get quite hot. Matilda found the huge bone she dropped last night, but didn't hang on to it long, I think it was a little sun-baked.



Tiny and Matilda spent a while wading underneath a little foot bridge. There were quite a few other dogs there, but no-one was hanging around.

Eloise has gone to bed now, and I am making a token attempt to watch the cricket, which with England at 42 for 2 is not making me very enthusiastic. Coupled with that is the presentation on TV, where there is an advert break literally every five minutes. They even play advert tickers across the bottom of the screen while things are going on. Much gloating is going on on the radio which I listen to when cooking and washing up. They get Brits on to bemoan the English performance. Turncoats.

What is a follow-on anyway? Is it like a follow-through?

Jumping Fridge Monster

Eloise is making great leaps and bounds, if that's not an unfortunate turn of phrase, in the art of jumping. She's got the leg movements sorted out but just can't quite manage 100% of the time to get the momentum required for both feet to leave the ground. I've tried to demonstrate the contribution that arms can make, but she doesn't quite get it.

She has been using the word "toast" a lot this week. She needs to work on "yoghourt," but pronounced in the English, sorry correct, way with the short "o" rather than the Aussie "Yoh-gourt" which I kind of object to, in the same way as Zuchinni and Eggplant. But I digress... you can see her on the left, or can't because of the long exposure time, reaching for the yoghourt pots again in the fridge. Whenever the fridge is open she aims for the yoghourt. Or the grapes. Or the eggs actually.

She's a fridge monster.

She had her top-up jab for Hepatitis B the other day, so we're keeping a close eye on her. Though she's a bit lacklustre on breakfast, she's eating like a horse the rest of the time. Jumping, as you may have gathered, is very popular, along with drawing on anything that moves, me and dogs included, painting, and driving the pushchair into my legs from behind. My pain is very enjoyable it seems.

Who's sleeping in my bed

Just before bedtime, as Eloise was getting her pyjamas on, Tiny decided to get into her bed. Fifteen minutes of sheer delight it this discombobulation of reality had us all rolling in the aisles as Eloise climbed up the outside of the bed to see what the hell that dog thought she was doing.