The Dreaded Dance Concert

And so, back to Dance School for us, for the Dreaded Dance Concert.

But with this school, no punishing schedule of rehearsals, costume fittings, photo-shoots, no outlay on tickets for the Queensland Conservatorium.

Just a simple concert at the Dance School.

Not that this was without its drawbacks: the room was big but the crowd was bigger, and there was no room to swing the proverbial cat behind the tape on the floor past which no member of the unsuspecting public could venture without fear of unspeakable injury.

But that was the only drawback really. The concert itself, in stark contrast to previous affairs which lasted for HOURS somewhere in the distance with kids dancing frankly not very well to rubbish music, indistinguishable from one another under layers of stage makeup, this was short with the kids right in front of us, and the dancing was actually OK! Less said about the music though, the better.

Oh, and Eloise got a "high merit" for her ballet exam too. From the Royal Academy of Ballet.

She took the sun away with her

In the morning after school drop-off it was time for airport drop-off, with Mum away on some travels.

And do the weather drew in. As usual bad weather indicates a trip to the beach, though this was more to do with it being near the airport than anything.

Birthday

It was Mum's birthday then, and not to be discouraged by her injury we frog-marched her from one thing to another.

In the morning, before school, we took breakfast at a local coffee shop and ate unusual things. I had toast with something or other on top, involving honey and some kind of non-cheesy cheese. There was probably salmon and such like things, though maybe not. Lots of coffee though.

Then we had a morning tea to attend at the school, in recognition of the parent helpers, such as our reasonably good selves.

In the afternoon there was dog walking to be done, though the leg conveniently needed to be rested.

In the evening we went out to West End and ate at a Tibetan Restaurant, though none of us chose Tibetan food. It wasn't bad though.

Still fighting off the jet lag, the Birthday Girl was in bed before too long.

We'd seen there was a Matisse exhibition going on. I looked it up on the Interweb and unfortunately "going on" was actually "going to be going on" but we decided to head down to town anyway and have a traipse around the Galleries and whatnot.

Modern Art, hey.

Inverted Visitor-Weather Correlation

I was expecting rain, protracted rain, for Mum's visit, but it was sun, sun, sun all the way, or at least for most of it, as far as Leg One was concerned.

Legs and liquid were however a theme. Legs, and the liquid that leaks from them.

We spent a couple of days trying to keep her awake, successfully as it turned out, by taking her to markets and feeding her with coffee, and making her ride bicycles.

She brought a child-sized violin. That was enough to keep the dead from their slumber.

We took her to the beach on a nicely sunny day and wandered up with the waves lapping at our feet. We gambolled, if that's the right word, in the surf, but Mother did not join us.

That day we were planning some sort of roast something and while "we" were cooking it the rest of "we" went to the playground for some play.

On the way back, on the bikes, a fateful decision for which I feel somewhat responsible, to take the shortcut home across the Oval (that's Australian for playing field, and it isn't oval), was made.

A chain of events was set in motion from which we could not back-pedal.

Eloise spoke of being tired. I held back to give her a push, and ended up saddled with her. Mum pushed on, unstoppable.

When we came to the "easement" (that's Australian for path) that connected the oval to our street, I observed the bike, prostrate and riderless.

I followed the trail of blood across the street to find dear old Mum sat down with red Mum-juice pulsing from a gashly gash on her shin.

Cutting a long story less long, Casualty: stitches: recalcitrance: bravery: stoicism: logistics. Not necessarily in that order.

Rest.

Lovely weather though.

Swim Carnival

Things are coming to something of a culmination as far as the school year goes. The other day it was the end-of-year swim carnival for Year Ones, which involves a morning at the school pool, with a hundred and twenty kids swimming in a variety of events and at least that many parents and siblings observing. They should have warned me that I needed my ear protectors for the acoustic levels were challenging and somewhat enthusiastic.

It was a cloudy morning - initially - and Eloise rode to school in her swimming gear and we decamped to the pool as soon as we got to school. Pretty soon things got underway with the Freestyle events.

Events unfolded as follows: for each event an "Elite" event was held where kids who were selected by some means or other - some classes had time trials, others had kids who were already accomplished and members of the swim club - and then the remainder of the children did their thing in rapid-fire races.

Although Eloise isn't a bad swimmer there are several kids who are really very good in her class. One in particular, Lucy, is quite an amazing swimmer, and won every single race in every single stroke. Not only that but she broke every single record there was to break. Quite phenomenal. I don't recall the exact timings, but she completed a 25m freestyle in less that some small number of seconds and left the rest for dust.

Eloise's race came around. At swim school she'd just about got the freestyle looking good the previous week, keeping her body reasonably straight and her arms were getting less windmill-like. The only fly in the ointment really was that she'd lost her goggles and her hat somewhere between, well, somewhere and there. I procured some goggles on a temporary basis; she scored a free hat. Winner.

You can see the events as they unfolded. You'll notice the pause at the finish, where she thinks she's reached the end but hasn't. That's what 2nd place turning to 3rd place looks like. That's silver turning into bronze.

Anyway she did creditable on the backstroke, 4th place of 6, and skipped the breast stroke and the butterfly. They did request that only kids who could actually do the butterfly try it. Frankly I was kind of looking forward to the 25m flail.

Whilst all this was happening the sun came out and my skin turned pink.

Paws for a moment

The temperature continues at several degrees above average. The sun is hot and the very air embraces us like a warm, slightly damp cloth.

Matilda, not really designed for heat, what with black fur and all that, has been shedding hair for weeks, creating drifts of the stuff in her wake. Post-walk she's just flopped down in a corner or a shady spot in the garden and panted. When she finds water, she likes very much to stand in it.

Tomorrow, though, it will rain.

Almost Summer

It's almost summer, and the temperature is climbing past 30 degrees. So what better time to break out the woolly hat!

Kids These Days

The backstory here is that we've had a few parties to go to this weekend, and one of them was a birthday party for Jessica who lives around the corner from us and who is in Eloise's class at school.

The Jessica Family wheeze for her birthday parties is to produce a CD for all the invitees which contains songs which are requested by them. So they nominate their favourite song of the year, and all the songs go onto CDs then the partygoers get them back.

Jessica's party was at the Skate Centre yesterday - and yes, I did skate - and Eloise put on her CD today whilst I was doing something or other of a domestic persuasion.

So I heard this song emanating through the house, which I happen to know is a class favourite as well as being totally unappreciated in any context other than being a bit catchy and something that everybody is apparently supposed to like. I have tried to explain who Mick Jagger was/is, but just got blank looks.

Anyway, I poked my head around the corner to see Eloise in action, and whipped out the camera phone.

Jacaranda

The Jacarandas have been out in force this year, perhaps reflecting the general moistness and the explosion of vegetation everywhere. It has been a good year to be a flora. Although November is shaping up to be the dryest on record, with the Official rain guage having registered no millimetres, in defiance of the nocturnal emission that awoke me a couple of weeks ago but which had evaporated by the morning.

Notwithstanding all that the blossoms of the jacaranda tree, prone to emerge in October stroke November, evoke cliches of chromatic unrest, striking and rioting as they are and do.

They rain from the trees as they go, leaving magenta shadows beneath the trees which soon fade to a sharp-smelling yellow-brown.

You might observe, incidentally, the monstrous pile under construction behind this tree, an edifice of monumental size which leaves not a square metre untapped for lifestyle exploitation, spreading the identikit tentacles of boutique urbanity with its grey-and-white homoge to build-it-quick and sell-it-fast. The real estate ad features computer simulation pictures.

Waiste Not

It was the annual rubbish pick-up weekend in our little nook of Brisbane last week. This is a tradition whereby those who don't have the facility to take large pieces of rubbish to the tip can leave them by the side of the road and the Council will collect them.

Perhaps it's an unintended consequence, but what in fact transpires is a mass recycling activity, with people cruising the streets inspecting the stacks of stuff to see if there's anything worth salvaging.

Eloise got a hula hoop, and wasn't afraid to use it.

We took a ride up the street and bagged ourselves an old but functional stereo stack, record player, cassette player and all.

The irritating thing was that some dastardly dastards of debris redistribution thought it would be a profitable enterprise to extract the oh-so-valuable copper from anything electrical. They achieved this by chopping the mains lead off everything they could, thus rendering the appliance practically useless to anyone else.

So we had to forego what may or may not have been a working whipper-snipper and any number of other things that had been crudely emasculated.