Binna Buggered

I phoned ahead to French Nicole and arranged to meet up with the happy snappers an hour late up at Binna Burra, and second time lucky we set off again, down into the city and alongside the river along the Riverside Expressway on a bright morning, singing along to various artists.

Eloise fell asleep after a while and soon I found ourselves in a traffic jam leading up to the theme park megaplex of the Gold Coast at Coomera. Eventually I rubbernecked with the rest of them at some poor benighted soul standing stunned by their trashed car in the fast lane with its side and a good portion of its front missing. But on the bright side we were almost instantly up to 110 again and forging ahead.

Soon we were running up that hill (Kate Bush) at sixty miles an hour (New Order) along the autobahn (Kraftwerk) looking at the big sky (Kate Bush again) with the invisible sun (Police) behind us somewhere.

We met up with French Nicole, Val and Geoff and wandered really very slowly around a little rainforest track. Eloise didn't actually have much to do with the slowness of the affair; the others had been at it since 9.30 and had made it around 400 metres around the track.

Still Eloise made it her business to investigate Nicole's baggage (I should point out that, as usual, we were seriously underequipped) and made off with her car keys, which had an amusing mouse attached to the key ring which vibrated when she pulled on a cord which emanated from its rear end. It had to be recovered by stealth.

After she started begging the others for food, I thought maybe it was time to go back to the car and get some lunch, and was surprised that a couple of hours had passed already. I'd spent most of my time keeping half and eye on the little terror and making sure she wasn't getting her mitts on anything dangerous (in the baggage) or getting her feet on anything dangerous (in the undergrowth). The others had been merrily tramping about taking pictures of god knows what.

Halfway back to the car Eloise decided she'd had enough of this really and did one of those lay down on the floor and withdraw co-operation acts.

Still after a couple of sandwiches and an orange and a packet of crisps she seemed to perk up, to the extent that she started to chase away the brush turkeys and magpies that had their beady eyes on our food.

When the others caught up we decided to go up and do a short circuit up by the coffee shop.

I used the pretext of "toilet" (hopefully implying a nappy change) to take the opportunity to relieve the enormous pressure my gastro-intestinal tract was under by this point.

My eyes were starting to bulge a little as we went into the gents to discover the throne occupied.

So we repaired to the disabled toilet to find a note on the door saying "Please knock before entering as the door doesn't close properly."

My eyes bulged further at the thought of me on the throne squeezing out a monster derek whilst Eloise opened the door and legged it down the corridor into the coffee shop. But there was nothing for it.

In the event, there was no event, and nappies were changed and pressure relieved without incident. And yes, it was a monster.

We went up to the walking track, but having been in the coffee shop, and knowing what coffee shops sell, Eloise was no longer interested in rainforests and refused to participate further. At which point we cut our losses and bailed out.

Eloise slept a bit on the way back home but when we got back around 4 o'clock we were both pretty tired. My bottom hurt (from the three hours of driving) and we still had to go and get dog food and offer technical support across the road.

By the time Nicole got back home at 7.30 or so and Eloise was in bed, I was absolutely buggered after my extremely long day.

The Crack of Dawn

Another photographic expedition today.

The rendezvous was at Binna Burra, a section of the Lamington National Park which sits atop the Northern slopes of the now-eroded supervolcano, Mt Warning, on the border of Queensland and New South Wales. At ten o'clock.

So in order to get the dogs walked and all that I had Nicole wake me up at 5.45am.

Ouch.

We went in to get Eloise up and found her on the big bed in her room, sound asleep, and dead to the world. A little prodding later and all she wanted was cuddles. There was some event or suggestion that kicked her into life after a while, but I can't remember what it was, I was on another planet.

We got to the beach around 7am which I didn't think was too bad considering. The tide was mostly in though, which was a bit annoying, and the heat was starting to build up a bit even that early in the morning. There were shoals of jellyfish stranded on the tideline.

Things were going according to plan until we went to the café for our habitual post-beach coffee and baby chino. They just took ages to turn up as a bunch of cyclists turned up just before us.

Personally I suspect that the café may not be the best oiled catering machine in the world. Still it's a nice place for a coffee.

We got home about 8.30. The neighbours we out on the street conflabbing away so we joined in for a bit. But time was getting tight so we hoofed it around 8.45, at which point half way to town I realised I still had my flip-flops, sorry jandals, sorry thongs on, which is not good rainforest gear considering the ticks and leeches and all.

So back again back again jiggety jig to get some trainers on.

Now seriously late.

A Winning Smile

"I want it"
"I want this"
"It's mine"
"My fork"
"My spoon"
"My knife"
"My jellybaby"
"I want Playsicle"
"I want music on"
"I want CD"
"I want painting"
"I painting"
"I drawing"
"I want train"
"NEIL"
"Where are you"
"Where's Mummy"
"Where's Val"
"Where's Peter"
"Where's Alice"
"Where's Lexie"
"See Val?"
"See Alice?"
"Want to see Alice"
"Want to see Lexie"
"Walk dogs"
"Not bike"
"Not"
"No"
"I take picture"

It's enough to drive you insane. It has me.

Selective Hearing

....is being developed.

Sunset Over Brisbane River

Nicole had the day off yesterday, but we were both quite tired so had a quiet day.

In the afternoon/evening we went down to the river in the city and toddled around. Eloise met a little boy and she and Nicole sat down and made friends with his mum while I wandered around and climbed the cliffs and all that jazz.

Climbing up the stairs I met a guy I know who works with the chap across the road. I might do some work for him putting a website together.

When I got back down Nicole and Eloise had exchanged phone numbers with their newfound friends and who knows maybe playdates will follow.

Eloise performed once more in a public toilet so the toilet training seems to be going well. She had another success for me today.

Eloise's recent successes

We have been persevering with the toilet training. This evening I received a text from Neil saying that Eloise had wee-ed on the toilet (not the potty). She received two stars. Yesterday she had a poo on the potty, but I noticed she had been walking with her cheeks clenched so I shoved the potty under her, which is cheating really, but she got a star anyhow.

Eloise can wink. It is a very deliberate concentrated wink. Neil is impressed as his first wink was at 8 years old after weeks of practising. She can also inherited the ability to raise an eyebrow from me.

She is also beoming quite cheeky/literal. We ask her something along the lines of "Do you want to have your nappy off or not?", usually after several attempts falling upon that well known childhood disease commonly known as selective hearing, and madam will reply "not". Most of the time we are unable to contain our laughter - we are doomed as parents!

She is becoming increasingly sociable and spends alot of her time sitting by the gate shouting for Alice/Peter/Val/Carol/Paul. I think she just thinks Neil and I are boring. Luckily the gate is very difficult to operate at the best of times otherwise she would disappear to see the neighbours all the time.

Back to the Old Routine

With the departure of Chris, and Nicole's return to work, we have come back down to earth with a thud.

And it's the school holidays, meaning no swimming and no music. We have to make our own entertainment.

What a bummer. This means unpleasant things like going to the beach, walks down at the brook with the dogs, going to rainforests and all those unpalatable things like cooking, and napping and sneaking around the house while Mum is asleep during the day.

I have rebooted my repertoire of culinary favourites and we are back to stir-fries, lentils and haloumi. Which is nice, in a way. I haven't quite got back into the groove with the shopping though.

We've started to pay rent also, which is extremely painful to observe on the bank balance sheet. With our unusual spending patterns over the last few weeks, the jury's still out on how this will pan out.

Carol has lent Eloise some videos, and she's grown very attached to Thomas the Tank Engine. This particular video has stories interspersed with singalong songs performed by some school choir or other. If I hear "It's Thomas the Tank Engine/Hip Hip Hip Hip Hooray" one more time I'm going to... curse silently under my breath and wait for Squeaky to lose interest.

Now Nicole has finished nights, and I don't think she enjoyed them much. She's had worse-than-usual hayfever and one day her glands came up rather nastily. Though when mine did the same thing the next day we realised that maybe we've got something else. We have also had delicate tummies, today especially for me. So I've rested today.

Yesterday when Nicole had her bad guts she seemed inclined to feel that the best way to handle them was by doing housework in the morning and going to Bribie Island in the afternoon. We walked up the beach with the dogs as the heat of the day started to dissipate and Eloise borrowed someone's boogie board, though she didn't know quite what to do with it. Perhaps we should get her one and begin her transformation into a surf-chick.

The weather has been glorious, topping out between 28 and 30 degrees the last few days. Cloudless skies and all that. Very nice.

Over and Out from Uncle Chip

On Monday we gave a Chris a lift to the airport and put off the inevitable to the tune of two cups of coffee.

Nicole shed a tear but Chris was very stoic as he purposefully made his way up the escalator after having to go through the metal detector three times.

I'm a bit sad to see him go really as on and off he's been a regular fixture over the past few months and I've met some nice people through him.

And Eloise of course has loved having him around.

She was looking at her inflatable Airbus A380 the other day, pointing at a window and calling "Chrissy!" to it. Isn't childish imagination wonderful.

So life goes crashing back to some kind of normality for the next three weeks or so until Dad and Shirley grace us with their presence.

Beach Bum

What Eloise likes to do when we go to the beach is to hang around at the top of the beach making vague attempts at making sand castles.

Then she'll find some water, sit down in it, complain that her shorts are wet, and take them off.

Then she'll find some other water, lie down in it, complain that her shirt is wet, and take that off.

If we haven't planned for this and slathered her all over in sunscreen, this generally merits a premature end to the beach activities.

If we have, then she'll move onto the hat.

Happy Birthday to Her

At some point after we got back it became Nicole's birthday.

In fact on Friday we kind of chilled out in a let's go walking the dogs at Mount Coot-tha as it's Friday and Eloise is in Nursery kind of way. Then we ate some lunch and had Nicole do a urine test (remember that?) and wandered round town for a bit. Then we went to Paddington and bought Nicole some presents, those being thongs and some short shorts. Not too eventful.

On Saturday Chris and Nicky pitched up and whinged about sandflies, so we went to the beach. Naturally as it was her birthday Nicole chose this and all destinations for the day, although she was unable to keep any of us awake at lunch-time-nap-time. In the evening we were treated to dinner out at Citron in Wilston by Chris.

Eloise was on good form, especially after stealing and necking my Coke. Nicole was attempting to be on our best behaviour as she was feeling rather intimidated by the poshness of it all. I think that certain people got a little drunk.

We watched the last episode of Doctor Who on video. Unfortunately it was awful.

Happy Birthday, Nicole.