The Slimms They Have Arrived

It seems like an awfully long time ago now but after a brief frenetic period of pointless housework undetaken by Nicole and some bed re-shuffling owing to back problems etc we went to the airport to pick up the mythical grandparents who only existing in three-year-old memory in a computer from the airport.

Apparently tears were shed (though I didn't see them) when they came through the Door To Australia to be confronted by a much-grown and reasonable lucidly-vocabularised redhead and of course there were much hugs and kisses before we headed back to our place for the obligatory guided tour.

Day One, with Nicole in attendance, followed the Brendan and Shirley pattern with lunch at Mount Coot-tha looking down at the city. Jet lag caught up though and when we got home afternoon naps were had followed by a chestnut casserole thingy and reasonbly early to bed, for me at least.

Nicole was at work the next day and I was at college, and Eloise at nursery, but we kicked them out of bed before we left. What they did all day is a mystery but I'm pretty sure it involved housework and ironing. You can't keep a good nanny down after all. It's probably more use in a single day than the iron has had in two years.

Dad had sent a Rolleiflex camera over with them (thanks Dad) and in the evening of Day One Mick and I had tried to work out how the infernal thing worked, ruining a film in the process. But try as we might we couldn't get the damned machine to recognise the first frame of the film and the exposure counter was decidedly not functional.

So I took it into the college to get an expert to have a look.

Two films later we were none the wiser but he suggested I take it to a bright Vietnamese tinkerer in town which I duly did to discover that the trick we'd been missing was to thread the film between two rollers in the feeder mechanism.

And joy of joys this did the trick and now I am gingerly playing with it as it doesn't have such a thing as a light meter on it.

So after all this plodding round town I got home at sundown to find Nicole had knocked off early, the dogs were walked and supper had been cooked and chairs were arrayed in the garden, for the genteel activity of basking in the Queensland sun.

Day Three was swimming day and Eloise and I kicked the lazy (alright , jet-lagged Slimms) out of bed in an attempt to get there on time, which was achieved by lying point-blank about when we had to leave.

Eloise had been transferred to a new teacher for her third stint in the Big Girl's Pool and she did very well, for someone who refused to do what she was asked precisely when she was asked to do it.

Then we went up the mountain again, as is our habit, for post-swimming refreshments and in the afternoon I took the dogs out for a walk while the others rested.

Day Four was a bit more adventurous as we did the tourist thing (after bally as Anne calls it) and went up to Mount Glorious to the restaurant there with which you'll be familiar if you're related to me, and for a walk around the lovely rainforest.

Worm Torture

Unfortunately I left my stylish floppy Aussie hat wot I bought at Mission Beach years ago at Pam's Cafe so we had to go back to Nudgee Beach after spending literally minutes on housework pre-parents-in-law (Nicole spent hours, literally).

The tide was out and in the little rivers of run-off our favourite green worms were wiggling around very invitingly.

So Eloise did a spot of worm hunting, not the most challenging of sports by anybody's standards. But the twist with Eloise is that, no matter how much we try to prepare her for the inevitable by explaining about death, mortality and the ultimate futility of it all, she just doesn't get it.

"That worm is going to die you know. It can't breathe in the air. It lives in water. It needs to be in water."

"Why?" etc etc etc

"Just put it back"

"No"

One more sleep

My mum and dad arrive tomorrow morning at 09:50 - just over 12 hours to go. We have been busy these past weekends getting things prepared for their arrival - buying duvets, rearranging beds, cleaning and shopping for dairy free produce. I even tried to cook a meal this evening in preparation for tomorrow but forgot to buy a couple of ingredients. So the house is tidy but not too clean. We are ready but not too over-prepared.

I last saw my parents in December 2006 when I returned to the UK for my nan's funeral with Chris. They last saw Eloise and Neil in September 2006. Miss Gavin has certainly changed in those 20 months. She is no longer a baby. They will see a big change in her. I am ready for all the comparisons to me when I was her age. In a funny kind of way I think I am quite looking forward to them as every time I look at Eloise I see Neil and wonder where I am as I have offered up 50% of my genetic material to make her but see little of it externally.

Chris is left behind with Nicky in Gamlingay to look after the fort. Chris is now out of plaster and will recommence the land of employment shortly. Lucky that Nicky is over from Brisbane on a long holiday as she is looking after Charlie whilst Chris goes off to Buckinghamshire to work.

We spoke to Matthew, Sam, Maisie and Violet this evening. Eloise and Maisie had a great chin wag on the phone. Eloise was showing Maisie the room where nanny and grandad will be sleeping and suggesting she should come a visit soon too.

It has worked out quite well with me doing this nursing research into pressure ulcer development at the moment as I am able to take all my accrued hours when it suits really. So I have the day off to meet my parents at the airport. It would have been rude not to afterall. Here's to three weeks of tourism, although mum and dad's main attraction is Eloise.

There's Life in the Old Girl Yet

We reckon Tiny's twelve years old now, or so, give or take, roughly approximately.

Certainly we've had her for as long as I can reliably remember. And that's a reasonably long time.

While we didn't exactly rescue her, we sort of did, and we've managed to turn her from an underfed whelp who crapped on the carpet into a dignified princess, admittedly with personal space issues.

She's the flip side of Matilda who is of course evil and possessed of a heart of darkness.

Just today at the brook Matilda stole and apple out of a baby's hand. Luckily she's pretty accurate and it's not often that fingers suffer. But nevertheless. And discipline doesn't help either. She went on the lead straight off mind (and it's actually the first time she's done it while we've been here). Nasty naughty dog.

But the strange thing about the dogs is they work as a team. So as soon as Matilda was on the lead Tiny took it upon herself to make up the naughtiness quotient by running away and refusing to come back.

Yesterday at the beach Eloise and Nicole went off to paddle near the mangroves while I went looking for nice ripples in the sand and little holes with crabs in them that were bubbling occasionally. Tiny was a bit torn between looking after Eloise and following me around.

So what she ended up doing was following me around for a bit, then looking meaningfully into the distance before leaping off and dashing at great speed across the sand to Eloise, who she would follow around for a bit before repeating the exercise in reverse,

Gardening: a Hotbed of Conflict

After we got back from little India's party today Eloise mysteriously failed to go to sleep, while Nicole went out to do some secret shopping.

So after a while I relented and released the tiger from her cage, and suggested that we do some gardening. Just some sweeping up in preparation for the arrival of you-know-who. We wouldn't want our garden looking like a tip now would we.

(Not that it did, mind you)

So yesterday it was mowed - hasn't grown much in the last few weeks actually since I can't really remember the last time we had any rain. Things are rather drying out and the grass out front is starting to turn yellow... still three mowers full went onto the compost heap.

So today's task anyhoo was to sweep up leaves and Eloise embarked on this with great enthusiasm and aplomb.

There wasn't really any conflict. Eloise in the picture is yelling at me to stop messing around with the camera for goodness' sake and pay more attention to the valuable contribution that she's making. Approximately. I think the expression may convey slight hostility because I was ignoring her.

Women!

Tree Climbing 'Tilda

So we were walking down at the brook today, and between Eloise's totally unfocussed pram-pushing and the dogs' inattention to direction, I was doing a lot of counting to ten.

Just to set the scene, as it were, the sun was out, a few clouds dotted the sky and it was rather pleasantly warm with perhaps a hint of a sea breeze channeling up the little valley the floodway makes.

After a while, Matilda, who was sniffing around up at the top of the bank, obviously saw something up a tree, because she started rearing up on her back legs to see what it was.

Then some sort of epiphany happened for her, and she actually jumped up in the tree and had a look around up there.

Jumping down again, she must have thought this was a pretty brilliant wheeze because before you knew it she was up there again but climbing ever higher until she was gingerly walking along boughs that were more than ten feet in the air and jumping from one to another.

Until she went a step to far, fell out, and ended up rolling down the hill.

Only her pride was injured though.... if that.

Serial Fashion Crime

We were over at Paul and Carol's yesterday when this visor thing mysteriously appeared on Eloise's head.

It's the only hat she will willingly wear, and she won't willingly take it off.

Hats are a struggle as they are quite important in the strong sunlight to keep the sun out of her eyes and off her face, and her ongoing reluctance to wear them is an ongoing thorn in my side.

So it's a relief, in a way, to have one she'll wear, though vaguely embarrassing as she looks like a wannabe golfer.

In Uniform

Back to ballet again.

As I was the sole guardian this time I hung around and watched through the window as the girls pranced around in their uniforms and hair in buns having a whale of a time doing whatever it was they were doing, which was, well, prancing around.

I let Eloise keep her dress on so that when we got home I could take some snaps of her, though I had to prevent her from getting into the painting with it on, which didn't go down well.

Matilda's Paradise

With all this photographic acquisition going on at college, and what with it being my birthday and all, I decided to upgrade my five-year-old digital camera to a slightly more upmarket version with 13 megapixels and a full-frame sensor (I'll not go into the technicalities).

I elected to pick it up from the Gold Coast and save the $40-odd delivery charge. Even with the scandalous petrol prices here, it costs a mere $60 to fill up the tank (that's thirty pounds to you Limeys, which will no doubt make you grimace... it costs the same per litre here in dollars as it does in pounds for you).

So after swimming we went home, picked up the dogs, and headed off to Surfer's Paradise, got the camera, then went to the beach. Hurrah!

There's a great dog beach at Surfer's which lovely smooth sand and crashing waves with probably wicked rip currents, but none of us was really interested in getting more than our ankles wet.

It was all going dare I say swimmingly until Matilda went on a raid and stole some fat bloke's KFC and chips. At which point we beat a hasty retreat.

Well honestly what sort of idiot takes a KFC to a dog beach, then lies down for a sleep with it half-finished next to him.

Which isn't to exonerate the behaviour of the Evil One, but she is just a primitive tube with a one-track mind.

Streamlining

Swimming again today and the second adventure in the Big Pool for Eloise.

Only one other in the class today, a little girl called India whose Mum may or may not have tested my eyes once in Ipswich.

Eloise was looking forward very much to swimming, going through what she'd do, more in terms of waiting patiently on the chairs by the side of the pool and not running around anywhere, and she was terribly excited as her swimming hat and goggles went on.

The lesson itself went very well, and she and India had a lovely time together.

I scored us an invitation to India's birthday party on Sunday, which I'm sure will be nice if we can make it there by 9.30am...

But I don't think India will be back for a while as her namby pamby Mum thinks it's getting too cold now that winter is arriving (Just 24 degrees today). Ha!