Fireworks

The Water Lookout lived up to its name.

It took about twenty minutes to walk up there for the 9 o'clock fireworks. The view of the city was very good. It looks totally different when lit up at night. We could see the hospital where Nicole works in the distance ahead of us, then further on the skyscrapers of the CBD.

We milled about among the 50-odd people there. Eloise managed to make some friends and was given a blue light stick which rapidly got exchanged for... yes, a pink one.

On the dot of nine o'clock, guess what, it started to rain. Not very hard, though, and not enough to get rid of us. We watched the fireworks blossom from above the skyscrapers.

Life is rosie

This morning I dressed Eloise in her purple knitted dress with the lilac star on the front pocket. She was adamant she didn't want her nappy on with a vocal chorus of "no no no". Later, after breakfast I was fetching in the dried washing off the line to make way for the new freshly washed washing when she spyed the dress that Grandma Mary bought her for Chrsitmas and she pointed at this and started taking off the dress she had on already. She is certainly becoming a pink girlie girl against all of Neil and mine best efforts.

Neil reliably tells me this evening that Eloise now says the work "pink".

Okay, you all win... we lose... big time. What have you started? Atleast she has plenty of tomboy characteristics. She will be a pink peril.

A Tea Time to Remember

It all started to go wrong when the bag of rice split. The water was boiling, the leeks were frying. The peppers were on the grill. The rice went everywhere.

Eloise was emptying out the pan cupboard. Noisily. Matilda was, well, being Matilda, and snooping around waiting from manna from heaven.

The smoke alarm went off. Did I say smoke alarm? I meant heat alarm. It goes off whenever the heat in the kitchen varies by more than a couple of degrees. It's very loud. You fix it by blowing hard in its general direction.

The lentils went on to the leeks, and Eloise decided she wanted some milk. So she hung on to my shorts shouting "Daa'ee!! More!! Pease!" until I relented. With a straw.

The alarm went off.

My concentration hampered, I attempted to get rid of some of the excess rice that was occupying portions of the hob.

Whilst engaged in this I temporarily became, how shall we say, aloof from the peppers.

The alarm went off.

The lentils were doing fine, the rice needed another five minutes. Eloise had put down the milk and was now playing frisbee with trays.

I remembered that the peppers existed.

Peeling peppers is a bastard. It takes me ages because I haven't figured out a quick way to do it yet. Especially when they're hot and you're in a race against time and the other cooking.

The alarm didn't go off.

I put Eloise in her high chair with her milk.

I decanted things, mixed them together, and served up.

I went over to the table. Eloise's milk was no longer in the cup. It was all over the chair, the floor and the dogs.

I vented my frustration on the dogs by banishing them to another room, and fetched more milk for the Monkey. Mopped up the milk, which was all over the place, with kitchen towel, while she giggled at me. Went to put kitchen towel in recycling bin.

Recycling bin had been removed from casing. Had been placed in middle of table and covered with tea towel.

Frustration built to a low growl in the larynx and a slight bulging of the eye sockets.

Sat down, took deep breath, started to eat. Eating went well for a few minutes. Eloise then decided she wanted to pur her milk all over her food. When she decides to do this she slowly tips her cup, looking you straight in the eye with a knowing smile on her face which says "Go on. Stop me. Try it."

We had a tug of war over the cup of milk, with me calmly stating my disapproval through repeated use of the word "No" and her feverishly stating hers through repeated use of the word "No." And squeals.

Something had to give; the cup flew away across the room, milk flying everywhere.

My calm "No"s gave way to a roar of animal rage and frustration and my eyes bulged until they pushed my spectacles off my face. My T-shirt began to stretch across my biceps... oh hang on, you can probably tell I'm exaggerating now.

As I mopped up, underneath the high chair, Eloise patted my head a ruffled my hair, and I couldn't help myself smiling.

The cheeky little bugger.

Scout

I spent the afternoon with Eloise strapped into the back of the car scouting out locations from which to espy the fireworks which will light up the city tomorrow.

We mooched around Grange on the city-side of the hill then down to Ashgrove and Paddington to some likely looking spots, and there are some decent views but you need to be camped out in front of someone's house, which wouldn't be ideal.

We were thinking of going up to Mount Coot-tha so we went up there and checked it out, and indeed the view would be very good, but Nicole was talking to some people at work amd guess what, everybody else will have the same idea too. So I checked the possibilities of the road leading up there, but nothing doing I think, too many trees.

When we got back I was talking to the neighbour Peter and he said "I know where you can go that's only 400 metres from here and it'll knock the socks off anything else" and he went and got his keys and drove us up to this hidden-away covered reservoir on a hill not far from where we live. It has 360 degree views of all the city, and we looked up the D'Aguilar Mountains and out across to Moreton Bay, then South to the city.

It looks like a likely spot. 400 metres seems a bit hopeful, but it's definitely walking distance.

Blossoming

Nicole was on a late today, so she partook in the morning routine. She complained about, but I think secretly enjoyed the morning viewing from the cringeworthy "Big, Big, World" with the most incredibly patronising West-Coast American Three-Toed Sloth you can possibly imagine through to Bananas in Pyjamas by way of Charlie & Lola which she (we're still talking Nicole here) loves.

Then we went on a bike ride up the Brook, all 3km there and back with babe and dogs in tow, which was fun. The sun is out again today, hurrah!

I lashed up a salad for lunch to go with some hummus from the fridge and toast, then Nicole went off to work with us waving goodbye from the gate. Eloise ran after her up the road, which was slightly, but only slightly, reminscent of a scottish camping trip in the Tay Forest when Tiny chased Nicole up the road as she went to get supplies one time. Only differences: Nicole was driving, and Tiny caught her. Ahhhh, back in the days when Tiny could run like the flaming clappers for prolonged distances.

Squeaky went down for a nap with only limited "No"s and slept for a couple of hours, then we hopped back onto the bike and went to the bakery in search of bread and croissants, neither of which was on the menu owing to the bakery being closed.

So we (I) cycled back the way we had come, down and across the Brook and back up the other side to Stafford where we went to Fresco's and got the supplies we needed.

We stopped off at a playground on the way back and played on the slides for a while, which Eloise loved, as there was a wood bridge and a metal tunnel there which could be banged and clanged on to great comic effect.

Then I thought it would be a great idea to take the dogs out for another walk and see if Eloise would be more progress-orientated if she was pushing her new pram. This went pear shaped shortly before we reached the front gate as the pram got ditched in the excitement, but it was too late to turn back.

It took us half an hour to get to the Brook, all of four hundred metres, as gates, dogs, ants, kerbs and (tennis) balls all had to inspected and played with where possible.

Similar approaches were taken to crossing the brook, which was frankly a bit hairy as the flow was getting towards being semi-prodigious and any reasonable crossing point was literally hours of travel away, ie 500 metres or perhaps even more.

I don't remember if I recounted the story here about the woman who fell into the brook up to her neck after it was swollen from a storm a few months ago while we were debating whether to cross a tributary, but this same tributary faced us on our agonisingly slow passage back home. Flippy-floppies - sorry, thongs - came off and wading was done at this point. My skill as a forder of inhospitable bodies of water is obviously greater. No harm came unto us.

By the time we got back home (Eloise had to collect some of the flowers fallen from the tree pictured above) two hours had passed and it was tea time.

Now you may have picked up on Eloise having become a little more assertive of late. Her favourite word is definitely now "No." Her favourite phrase is now "No, No, No, No, No!!" It's a little wearing. We are trying to look on it as a gesture of independence. She is certainly becoming more independent, wanting to do everything for herself, and rejecting many apparently reasonable proposals out of hand. For instance, "Would you like some milk Eloise?" (thinks) "No." "With a straw?" (thinks) "No." "Some juice then?" (thinks) "Juice" (thinks) "No." (milk handed to Eloise) Eloise drinks milk.

Another day of amazing accomplishment then.

The End of the Rain

The dogs scratched at 5am this morning, wanting out, which is not that unusual at the moment but is still annoying. My normal tactic is to lie there and pretend it isn't happening, eventually my patience runs out. Nicole's patience runs out sooner.

On the bright side it gave her a chance to engage the booster on the hot water, which is solar heated and so not that hot after the last couple of cool overcast days.

I slumbered, vaguely aware of showers happening and breakfast TV, the next I knew Squeaky was squawking to be let up.

She hasn't been eating so well at breakfast recently which we put down to having it too soon after getting up, so we footled about for a while, I can't remember doing what... I may have been in bed at the time. Eloise probably handed me my glasses, shouted at me, pulled my hair, or all three. I could convincingly construct a memory to that effect anyway.

So we got up... watched some telly... played with the random animal cubes... put some croissants on, ladled out some yoghourt... and the croissants went down a treat while we watched Little Princess, Little Robots etc. I switched over the Channel 7 for Breakfast TV but Eloise didn't find that enjoyable so we watched Peppa Pig and Charlie&Lola instead.

After a while I started to attain what might obliquely be referred to as consciousness and observed in a dispassionate way that it seemed no longer to be raining, though the cool and overcast continued.

Then off we went to the forest for what I hoped would be a trek and a half, but Eloise began flagging after climbing up and down too many hills so we opted for the shorter version after all.

After a kip and lunch we tootled off to the library and were joined there by Nicole. We borrowed many books. Which is good, as we were short on fresh reading material.

We played at the playground for a while until Eloise slipped out of the swing whilst in full effect, which was a bit frightening at the time but she doesn't seem to be damaged other than a little bump on the head. Oooops!!

She was well enough to non-verbally chat up a little boy at the playground anyway and play on the slides.

Later, Nicole did experience a tantrumette (which sounds like some Buddhist ritual doesn't it?), which she tells me she failed to take seriously though it didn't look like that from where I was lying.

Other than that it's washing, washing, washing, cooking, washing, hanging, drying, cooking.

Christmas Lights

I took this while Eloise was happening to the lights. Whilst I was unsnarling them afterwards they ceased to be lights unfortunately.

Rain Falls

It has been raining for the last 48 hours now, fairly lightly, so maybe it's the kind of rain that will go into the ground rather than run straight off.

Yesterday, I gave Nicole a lift into work and she got a lift back. Today she braved the drizzle on her bike.

We went for a walk to the Brook after she left for work today, after a morning of not really wanting to go out, on my part at least. There was a break in the rain which we took advantage of, though it started again later. Eloise has now worked out how to work the taps on the dog water dispensers. This kept her occupied for quite some time! The Brook was, needless to say, practically deserted.

Nicole had hung some Christmas lights over the door downstairs. Whilst I was preparing supper, Eloise happened to them. Oh well.

Aussie Jingle Bells

Check out this Aussie version of Jingle Bells. We heard it on the radio while we were doing the cooking yesterday. It had us in stitches! Well, I say stitches... it had us jigging around the kitchen. Well, I say jigging... it had us tapping our feet. Well, I say tapping... it had us shouting "OI!" at the appropriate moments.

Oh, what fun it is to ride in a rusty Holden Ute!

I'm Dreaming of a Pink Christmas

Eloise, in her new pink pushchair, wearing her new pink dress with accompanying pink cardigan.

She loves pink. She loves pushchairs and dolls. She loves dressing up and dresses. Why?