Hanky Tanky

The Ipswich Railway Museum is sometimes good for a bit of a laugh so in the absence of any other superficially alluring alternatives we hoofed it down there for a play. Eloise did have to navigate a bit, filling in for Nicole in the murky depths of Ipswich when I became a little unsure of the route but all was well in the end. Our main navigational issue was which end of the car park to park the car at. I opted for the end nearest to the Museum; Eloise was unfathomably opposed to this.

Thomas the Tank Engine sat proudly on the forecourt. We ate our healthy provisions admiring his large plastic face before shamelessly jumping the queue to manipulate his knobs and levers.

There was a sciency bit: Eloise enjoyed pumping air into a contraption which pinged a pong-pong ball up a tube when a button was pressed - she was most perturbed when boys kept coming up and pressing the button for her without asking. Lyra enjoyed walking over the finely constructed archy bridge.

Then we stopped while an unconvincing Fat Controller whose upholstery was clearly, well, upholstery read us some dodgy Thomas the Tank Engine story. Did I mention that the whole thing was Thomas the Tank Engine themed?

Though the Fat Controller was undeniably fascinating, after a few seconds we moved on to view a trainset and then on to the indoor playground where go-karts were being trundled about by little bastards people who wouldn't surrender their two-seat go-karts to Eloise even though many of them - for shame! - didn't have passengers, and even though Eloise hadn't actually asked them.

The time came eventually when a two-manner came free and then the gloves were off, by Jingo.

Temperature rising indoors, we headed for the air-conditioned play area where Lyra announced that she'd had a nappyful so that got changed, but tempers remained elevated and it became clear that it was time to depart.

Not wishing to start a paragraph with a letter other than T, Lyra was sound asleep within about, oh, three minutes, and we stopped off at Supercheap Auto to get some garage door lubricant.

Thrilling!

Glutinous Maximus

Our sort-of-real Christmas Feast happened a couple of days after Christmas. It bucketed down that day, if memory serves. It must have done because I have pictures of Lyra jumping up and down in the gutter, dressed in her Sunday best, with dirty dribbles running down her tummy from the puddle-guzzling she'd been up to.

It was a two-table affair with a posse of Nicole's work-buddies and assorted children demolishing some roast thingy the details of which I am unconcerned with which Nicole overcooked in the barbie. I, the difficult veggie, was served up with Nicole's signature nut roast and cranberry pie, which is lovely, to say the least, and was destined to last into the New Year as the staple leftover of choice. People brought nibbles and cake and cake. We ate the nibbles and cake and cake as well as the gastronomic piece de resistance.

And so, we ate and drank into the early evening, and in the immortal words of some poor mortal, "a good time was probably had by most."

I almost made it through without farting uncontrollably in front of Nicole's esteemed colleagues.

Post-Night Boxing Day

Poor old Nicole toddled off to work last thing on Christmas night, after a day bereft of preparatory sleep and not looking too terribly happy about it.

With the usual mixed success at night-time slumbering afforded to us by our recalcitrant junior team-member, I was somewhat jaded the next morning when she returned, though to describe her as jaded would be something of an understatement; still she discharged further Skype duties with admirable aplomb before collapsing in a heap while the remaining noisy Gavinators made ourselves scarce.

I must admit that we can't have to got up to anything very exciting. We may in fact have only really made it to the other end of the house. Certainly at some point a car appeared on our drive, and I thought either Christmas had come late or else next Christmas had come very early as there were no actual people associated with it, but then I realised that it was Carole's car and she was using our drive as a convenient parking space while she visited a couple of doors up before coming back to us to give those lucky kiddies even more presents. So no new car for us. In the words of Lyra, "Not funny."

At some other point, we had a visitation from Peter, and we talked about the inevitable impoverishment of almost everybody as the velvet glove of relentless automation makes our skills irrelevant and our labour redundant. And cuddly animals.

Later on, when heat permitted, we went for a very short walk with Peppa Pig, Lyra pushing her in the trike. As you can imagine, that didn't last long.

Christmas Day Amongst the Heathens and the Lonely. And the Outdoor-Oriented.

Christmas Day started at a pretty reasonable time, owing to Eloise not being a morning person, though when she did arise there could be no doubt as to the order of things.

She was always going to be in for a disappointment, Santa-wise, since she refused to disclose the content of her letter to him - citing a pretty credible lapse in memory - which pretty much scuppered any chance of, you know, actual real people backstopping the mythical merry man you may have seen in famous department stores such as Myer and David Jones or who knows even British Home Stores, if that still exists.

So no livestock deliveries for Eloise, just a make-your-own lip balm kit. What was he thinking. He did rather better with Lyra, delivering a huge Peppa Pig.

See that fan there? That came out of the top-notch crackers we cracked. Lasted about ten minutes, that fan. Still, the jokes were as usual totally awesome. How do you make Lady Gaga cry? We'll leave that one hanging in the air.

After Skype-mediated present opening was undertaken and the beneath-the-tree modest pile of present denuded, and breakfast consumed, we headed out to Tamborine Mountain to swim in the waterholes on the cascades of Cedar Creek.

Needless to say we had minor navigational issues which were of course completely my fault, but after we left Cedar Creek (the village) and headed up to Cedar Creek (the section of Tamborine National Park) and Lyra fell asleep we found what we had hoped would be a deserted approach to the waterholes completely inaccessible due to all these damned people who had the temerity not to have relatives who would host them on Christmas Day in their houses to have a traditional Anglo-Saxon Christmas Feast which would last all day and involve lots of telly and sleeping in armchairs. Jeepers! Some of them didn't even look Christian. Still, nice day for a spot of outdoors.

Instead they had all gone to Tamborine Mountain to have barbecues! Which left us a bit scuppered really. So we drove up to the top of the mountain where, at a different section of the National Park, we lucked out with a parking space, Lyra woke up, and we went to a lookout to snack while we considered our options.

The Knoll, which we were at, was blissfully free of anything remotely Knoll-like, but blisslessly full of the rest of humanity, many of whom were frankly unnecessarily loud on such a sacred day as this, and some of whom were hogging the barbies. Nicole got bitten by a bull ant almost immediately, so we retired to the lookout to munch Doritos, whinge about sore feet, and plan a segue to Burleigh Heads, since swimming clearly was no longer on the Alain Menu.

However, luck or perhaps Yahweh was on our side and just as we were thinking about departing for the Fair Shores, a barbecue became vacant and so Eloise and I played frisbee while Nicole cooked and Lyra chased bush turkeys with Peppa. Oink Oink.

We pulled more crackers. What did the fish say when he swam into a wall?

And then we headed home, for more Skyping. Ho Ho Ho!

Prancing About in the Mountains

To start off the Christmas festivities, last minute panic shopping notwithstanding, we headed out to Samford for the first of what will no doubt be many barbecues and picnics. Lyra had not slept and required sedation, and halfway to Samford was sound asleep in the back of the car so we carried on in that general direction, took a left, and headed up the winding mountain road to the top of the range, then back down to Mount Nebo, where as luck would have it Lyra woke up again.

So we stopped at Jolly's Lookout where we pulled crackers, drank drinks, ate lovely food, kicked balls, and pranced around, looking out over the valley. No-one else around really. It was peaceful.

Ten Years Of Unremitting Joy and Happiness Having Been Made Official

On Midwinter's Day ten short years ago Nicole looked me in the eye, thought "Oh Shit" and broke down in tears. But there were people watching and she couldn't very well turn back, what with me in my specially bought clean suit and everything, and all that food to be eaten. And her being up the duff!

Still in those ten short years, following the seven previous ones, we've made a few changes, just little things like getting degrees, changing jobs, having a child, looking after the child, challenging traditional gender roles, having another child, looking after that child, oh - did I forget moving to another country? Or becoming a Master of whatever it is? Or finally getting a sun-tan?

On Midsummer's Day Nicole found time in her busy schedule for us to having a small celebration of our Anniversary. We went up to the beach at Moolooloolababa where we re-lived old times with the dogs, only without them. The tide was low and the rock pools at Point Cartwright warm, as they say, as a bath.

I watched the girls pussyfoot around the Ocean's gurgling edge. Nicole made a pretty decent attempt at drowning Lyra, but she put it behind her pretty quickly. A nice man suggested that we might like to move away from the rocks as there was a "wicked rip," whatever that is.

So tempting was the sea that I decided not to trek back to the car to get my togs (as we call them now, rather than trunks, or dare I say dookers), instead just stripping down to my smallclothes there on the beach and leaping with gay abandon into the swell with Eloise aghast at my brazen behaviour.

We discussed the mechanics of hydrodynamic currents as we bobbed in the waves before they crashed gently on upon another. The seabed was soft and sandy and shallow and though the waves became higher we could still touch the bottom. Eloise thought she could feel things nibbling on her legs, or maybe jellyfish, but in fact all was happening really was that her unprotected back was surreptitiously pinking up nicely.

We drove up to Alex Heads for a bite to eat and ended up dining with the Common Man at the Surf Club, negotiating a Byzantine neo-Communist retail experience which saw us escorted to our table by what seemed to all intents and purposes to be a waiter, but informed by the bar staff we visited when our table failed to be waited upon that no waiter service was provided. Instead we had to order our food from a counter, unless it was restaurant food in which case a second counter needed to be visited, and our drinks from the bar, unless they were 'beverages' in which case a third counter was the place to order, all of which was paid for separately. Food was delivered to the table, but I neglected to ask the exact title these people enjoyed.

Of course we over-ordered on the pizza, pasta, bruschetta and chips. It was the bruschetta that really finished us off. Lyra greatly enjoyed the whack-a-frog-mercilessly-on-the-head game, even though she was crap at it.

The Fridge Helps Those Who Help Themselves

The Pregnant Sky

We were heading South to procure veal schnitzel for young Eloise when we saw these clouds, and made a quick diversion down to the flood channel beneath Pickering Street to have a look. We met a bare-chested fellow and his exotic-sounding companion who were coming to check on the ducklings living on the dirty, concreted stream. 

The clouds soared overhead, a thick dark base with a crown of violence, advancing right to left, a gathering breath of air beneath them promising to deliver the bounty of the day's heat and humidity.

Sleep Eludes the Infant On a Thing-Packed Day

Wednesday, like many days of late, was mind-buggeringly hot.

We had arranged to go out on a bike ride, to test out Eloise's new whizz-bang you-beaut bike, with Jessica. Her Mum texted to say that the wheels were pumped and she was raring to go, and I tentatively, not wishing to appear like a Jessie, replied to the effect that it might be a little warm, but no reply...

So off we rode round to their house, through the blistering heat, sweat running down my back and doubts running through my mind, to find Mum texting us back to say yes actually, now you mention it, etc etc.

So instead, we opted for Plan B, a revisit to the Obliteration Room, where the air conditioning is set to stun and a few hours of entertainment was sure to be had.

With the car parks full with the air-conditioned cars of air-conditioning seekers of like mind to us, we ended up parking at the far end of South Bank, and walking through the blistering heat with Lyra in my arms and a bag full of provisions, when who should we meet but Claire and Georgia travelling the other way, bound for the South Bank pools. After a brief hello-what-are-you-doing-here-isnt-it-a-small-world-goodbye we made our way on, stopping for a brief hello with a mystery Mum outside the Museum whose baby interested Lyra (now on foot now that we were under cover).

Jessica: "Was that a random stranger you were talking to then or someone else you knew?"
Me: "Yep, a random stranger."
Jessica: "You're not supposed to talk to random strangers, you know."

Anyway we obliterated the Obliteration Room for an hour or so, which was cool, and full of cool coolness-pilgrims. I took a call from Valerie and she requested a mercy mission in the afternoon to the dentist to fix her broken tooth - her car was at the fixer-uperers. Then Jessica, with Mum's money in her pocket, decided it was catering time, so we retired back to the Museum Cafe where they attempted to blag me into buying them fizzy sugary drinks. Instead we bought mountains of junk food, and ate it. Dinosaur Nuggets and Chips and Velociburgers. I ate the chips, and had a sandwich.

Back in the Hot World, we returned to Jessica's where swimming was done, and a lot of water splashed around, before leaving, just the three of us, and sojourning down to the dance school to pick up a DVD, then over to Valerie's to pick up Valerie, then to Ashgrove to drop her off at the dentist.

"I'll only be five minutes" she said. "We'll drive around the block and get this sleepy-looking child to sleep" I proclaimed. We drove around the block five times and we drove round the block five times more to get that infant off to sleep and I'd almost got her there before we hit a speed bump a bit too fast and she jerked awake and that was that. No sleep for Lyra.

Anyway, Valerie retrieved and delivered home, the question was, what to do now? And it being Christmas time, we went and bought our real tree and attempted to load it into the car.

Loading it into the car involved a wholesale rearrangement of the back seat architecture, with the booster/child seat swapping sides in order to facilitate the folding-down of the two-seat side of the back seat assembly, which allowed the tree just to fit in with its crown gently tickling my gear knob.

The needles got bloody everywhere. "We're going to be itchy" opined Eloise. "What nonsense" I archly retorted. "Since when did pine needles make us itchy!"

Lyra enjoyed our trip home in a miniature forest. If I could find our copy of Where the Wild Things Are, I would have showed her the bit where a forest grows in Max's bedroom. That's just what it was like in our car, notwithstanding that the tree was horizontal and kind of thrust into her face, with its fragrant needles tickling up against her most pleasingly.

Every time I changed gear my elbow rubbed up against piney twigs and needles. It wasn't long before I started to get itchy. Eloise got one of those looks on her face, when my ill-advised counterpoints have found me out.

We lugged the tree up into the house, and installed it in the living room, then installed the lights and the decorations upon the tree, and switched on the lights. We admired our handiwork, attempted to prevent Lyra from uninstalling the lights and decorations, and reinstalled the lights and decorations, beginning a cycle of installation and uninstallation that will no doubt last well into the new year.

Like the extra hoovering. Bloody needles.

Christmas Comes But Twice a Year

Eloise has been creaking about on a bike she inherited from Faye, rest her soul, for the last year or so, an ancient relic of the days when ladies' bike were real ladies' bikes, with low-slung crossbars and back-pedal brakes, no gears and a baggage tray at the back.

A girl of her calibre can't be expected to put up with that sort of nonsense for ever, especially potentially dangerous nonsense whose brakes don't really work that well and whose lack of gears prevent any meaningful multi-gradient progress.

So it was with great pleasure that, after forcing Eloise to march around Germside to buy Christmas presents for her friends and family and forcefully reminding her that we weren't shopping for her, I took her to a bike shop and allowed her to choose the Bicycle Of Her Dreams as a pre-Christmas Christmas present.

We spoke of getting the duck-blue, but there were none in stock, so we ended up with white; I don't think she'll tyre of it. (handle)Barring any disasters, this one should last her for years. But the deal is: she has to get her arse into Gear and go on a few more rides with us without complaining, because now she has a new bike we can't Tread the "my bike is just too rubbish" path any more.

She's delighted, but she knows that there won't be any more presents from Mum and Dad this year. Or will there?!!