Nonfire...

Despite careful scrutiny of the afore-mentioned fire, it didn´t really happen - the Huge Heap Of Stuff was simply not dry enough to burn well. In fact, John discovered tomatoes growing in it, and it was more or less covered in healthy Nasturtiums ... So, in the waiting-room it goes for the next occasion, although we may well split the huge pile into four smaller ones...

Niki had a wonderful birthday, comprising of ...

1. Birthday breakfast (meaning freshly baked apple cake in bed), for which Tess and Yarrow were able to join us. The Birthday Cake In Bed is a bit of a family tradition which we´d like to uphold, if anything because the Apple Cake is scrumptious.... and it´s lovely to have breakfast consisting out of a dessert...
   
2. Playing with horses - we got Duchess up from the neighbour´s paddock, groomed and saddled her and lead-roped Niki around on her back, around the fig tree and home paddock. Duchess was / is still a bit fidgety, having been separated from her mates and not having been ridden for quite a while, so we thought it more prudent not to go for a full-fledged ride as yet. She underwent the grooming quite nicely, though, and even allowed us to clean her feet. Promise, Anjes´ horse, also became part of the festivities when we managed to get a head collar on her a few times. And Samson aka Big Boy, finally, who was unrecognizable because of a layer of caked mud on him, got himself a good wash with the garden hose and now looks like himself again, i.e. a big white lump of a Percheron cross.
3. A cold bath. After this equine activity, we decided to Be Brave and jump in the pool. Niki had gingerly tested the waters with her hands and deemed it quite acceptable, upon which she donned her swim gear and recklessly ran towards the pool and plunged ... into a bath of ice ..., or something that very much felt like it.... It is, after all, Winter. However, once in our bodies adapted to the cold, and the morning sun warmed our attempt at Watery Celebration ... it was lovely.
4. A hot shower. A cold watery adventure like that was appropriately followed by a hot outdoor shower, under the River Gum outside the Cottage ... lush! The outside shower was installed a few years ago and is much underused, but So Incredibly Nice and totally private - we´ve decided to spoil ourselves more often from now on.
   
5. Birthday dress. Refreshed from the shower, Niki donned her birthday dress (a recent present from her parents) and we made our way, with Chicco, to the Clunes cafe for a lovely lunch; at first in the sun, but when that got too hot (remember: it is Winter after all, and according to Ton temperatures reached 32 degrees Celsius yesterday) we moved to a sheltered shady spot.
6. Prepping the party. Back home to prepare for the party, cleaning, preparing curry and chasing the cats away who were making themselves An Utter Nuisance (especially Malouf). Yarrow was a great help - she took the school bus home and was a Trooper by chopping enough wood for both the inside fire (which we didn´t end up lighting as we spent most of the time outside on the back deck) and the outside barbecue (just off the deck). As mentioned before, the bonfire fire didn´t happen but as the old Dutch saying goes Wat in het vat zit verzuurt niet ... (What is in the barrel, doesn´t go off ... No doubt an ancient sea-faring Wisdom).
7. Party. From about six people rocked up for the party and we pleasantly hung out on the deck chatting, drinking, eating, milling, while the kids bundles themselves into Yarrow´s bedroom and hung out. John was extremely helpful in getting the barbecue fire successfully going (which was displaying equal reluctance to igniting as the bonfire) so that in the end some bangers and steaks could be fried after all to supplement the curry and other nibblies. It was a pity Niki´s friends from Portugal and England couldn´t be here... but there were many paper and cyber cards and good wishes from that side of the world, too.
   
8. Bed. Just after ten everybody had left, and Niki and I retired to a peaceful night´s sleep.
   

All in all, Niki had a magical birthday and enjoyed herself to the full!

Create your own photo album

Party

Friday evening we´re having a party at the Myth to celebrate Niki´s birthday, the fact that we´re back in Oz, and the fact that the bonfire needs to burn... so we´re hoping to see quite a few friends and loved ones, despite the incessant rain - it´s not likely, unfortunately, that we´ll actually have the promised bonfire as it´s rather, well, wet and might not even burn ... I tried to put a huge tarp over the pile of Burnable Stuff today but it wouldn´t fit... In case the bonfire doesn´t happen, this is what it would probably have looked like...

Work. Work? Work.

Getting back to work, after a wonderfully relaxing holiday, is Not Easy At All... I must say that right now I feel that Work is a rather overrated commodity ... But anyway, Realtime, Real English, 24/7, Inspiration and Magic Adventure are awaiting us ... We brought Niki´s silky oak desk home yesterday and my love is now installed and ready to go, too... Fortunately our study is overlooking the valley, wet though it is, so we have plenty to distract us... If only work could sort of just stay away for a bit longer ...

Rain, rain, rain, rain ...

It´s been a wet couple of days, or a wet week I should say: unlike last year in the same period, when Niki was also here, of late it´s been doing not much else but rain, rain, rain and rain ... the lawns have, in places, turned into mud pools and when walking across them the sound emanating from underfoot is, erm, ´squelch squelch´. Everything is wet, including the horses - Samson looks quite muddy, as does Promise but there´s not much use in cleaning them as the first thing they will do upon being rinsed and washed and groomed is a nice, satisfying roll in the mud. Duchess, in the paddock next door, looks fine but seems to be constantly looking for her mates.

Despite the rain, today, we spent quite some time doing more weeding and pruning, mulching and digging - this time around what is now our joint study, in order to prepare the garden bed for herbs. My love worked Very Hard Indeed and later, when we were watching Geoffrey Rush´s impressive Marquise de Sade in the much acclaimed and awarded film Quills she, and shadow, very happily fell asleep in the same chair, next to the fire ...

Planting

Earlier this week we bought six rain forest trees and this weekend we finally got round to planting them - most along the driveway, creating a nice passage from road to house; others in the shade of the canopy of the Moreton Bay Fig. A White Cedar (Melia azederach), a Red Cedar (Toona australia), a Cheese Tree (Glochydian ferdinandii), a Water Gum (Waterhousia floribunda) and a Doroughby (Syzygium mooreii), as well as a Finger Lime. Hopefully they´ll all grow into sturdy and healthy trees... The Lady Gardeners also had heaps of fun clearing the paths and driving up and down the property on the ride-on and in the trailor...

Promise

Anjes´horse Promise has grown lots over the past year. She is now 3 and ready to be broken in. She´s extremely kind and approachable already and always wants to be in on things. Today we put Duchess in Deb and Bruce´s paddock next door and Promise was the first to be right behind her as she walked through the gate.... She and Samson are now together in one paddock, and we will rotate horses over the next few weeks so they all get the benefit of some fresh grass - Deb´s horse recently died so there´s some lush grass to be had...

Midnight visitor...

In the middle of the night, Yarrow came into our bedroom and, worriedly, said: ´There´s a hedgehog in the house!´ Half asleep, I thought she was having a nightmare and quietly said, ´Just leave it alone, love. It will go away. Go back to sleep. now´ In the morning, when Niki woke up, concerned that the girls may have overslept (like yesterday), I told her, ´My love, stay calm, but you might find a hedgehog in the house somewhere when you go down. They´re harmless.´ Imagine our surprise (and I could have known because I don´t think Australia has hedgehogs), when a rather size-able echidna presented itself - rolled up behind a chair on the upstairs landing ... And imagine the trouble we had moving it. I called the Wildlife Service who advised me to load towels on it and scoop it up, but on doing so Mrs Echidna (or was it Mr? We did find out it is the mating season right now and many Mrs Echidna´s wobble around, snorting, with a puggle) showed a bit of bad temper and snapped at me through the towel. We then tried to shove a flat board underneath it, and a box over it, but it ensconced itself in a corner and wouldn´t budge or be budged. When I put Tess and Yarrow on the school bus I asked Peter, the bus driver, who initially had no idea but then came up with the masterful solution of using a big shovel to scoop it up. Chance (?) had it I had just bought a big shovel yesterday, and indeed - with a bit of wriggling and wrangling, the echindna rolled on its back onto the spade ... looking somewhat blurry and confused (scared probably), as if it was saying ´What the ...?´. We put her out to pasture in one of the gardens where she did not remain for more than a minute before scampering off to safety and shade... What an adventure so early in the day...

Good morning!

A visual, aural good morning message from the valley of Pearces Creek ...

The Sick Note

Niki´s dad, Peter, is preparing a Desert Island Discs event for the local Probus club. This is a kind of presentation, based on a radio programme, during which an interviewer talks with somebody about their lives - the stories are interspersed with excerpts of their favourite music. Peter also intends to include famous speeches in their version of the programme: speeches which people in the audience may have heard ´in their time´.

In his search for suitable excerpts he mentioned a recording of what sounded to me like The Sick Note which Mieke, Jur and myself, when we played in our band Under Milkwood, recorded on our first (and only) CD Making Tracks. It´s a fun rendition, and so different from the version Peter let us listen to, that I wanted to include it here. I can´t remember the artist Peter initially had in mind who did another version of this ´song´but I do remember while listening that we all came to the conclusion that different era bring forth different types of delivery: the original version we listened to seemed unnecessarily slow and drawn-out compared to many modern versions.

The week

Well, possums ... it´s been a very busy week. We´ve landed with all of our feet in wintry Down Under, with hot sunny blue skies during the day and cold moonlit nights ... A week, well, for me at least, characterized by slow-moving jet lag and the almost annoying inability to get rid of it ... a week of happiness for our family, especially Tess and Yarrow ... a week of excitement for Niki who is feeling very much at home and growing roots rapidly ...

The week started with a happy reunion with Tess and Yarrow and Yarrow´s birthday. On Saturday Yarrow had her birthday party with six friends. They partied till deep in the night and had loads of fun frolicking around, mud-sliding in Pearces Creek, singing, running, watching movies, having pillow fights, drinking creaming sodas and eating crisps...



On Sunday we presented ourselves at Tess´workplace, the Eltham Valley Pantry, where she works once a week as a waitress. This was actually her 2nd day ... She was very competent. and an excellent host. Earlier she had been saying that she wanted more variety in life; well, here it was, and at the end of her shift, she didn´t think she had any legs to stand on anymore... I´ll try and upload a video later.

The rest of the week was almost entirely packed with, erm, shopping ... ranging from grocery shopping to furniture shopping to clothes shopping. We´ve bought some lovely new furniture, such as a a beautiful English Oak dresser for the kitchen, a silky oak desk for Niki, a rather rose-patterned lounge suite, a coffee table, and a sideboard for Anjes´room, and lots and lots of utilitarian stuff ranging from buckets (which Yarrow today used to clean the gutters) to teaspoons, from tea towels to sheets, from a kitchen clock (only one!) to a computer for Yarrow.

We spent many an hour cleaning the house from top to bottom, and it´s still not done ... and furnishing Anjes´room which now looks like a five-star hotel room, ready for guests to arrive.

We also allocated an entire day (and a half!) to the Juvenile Wardrobe Enrichment Programme, with Tess and Yarrow, fitting them out in a new wardrobe, and I mean a completely new wardrobe, with the aim of avoiding them having to Trek between their houses with umpteen bags on their shoulders and in the car. Hopefully this will help to make the weekly transition a more pleasant experience.





On one of the other days, we ended up in the sheds down the hill where, rumour had it, a snake skin could be seen ... The snake who shed it, now affectionately known as Mr P, is a 3-meter long Diamond Python (totally harmless but impressive nevertheless) with an impressive girth - the photo shows his skin, shrunk so no longer representative of its real measurements.... Niki bravely held the skin...





On Friday we went out, dressed to the nines, to a Quatorze Juillet celebration organized by Ton in the local Eltham Hotel.






Today, Saturday, we spent the whole day gardening, weeding, tidying, cleaning, buying and planting six native rain forest trees, including a red and a white cedar, which we intend to plant on the property.

In short, it has been a Very Busy week, with Lots Of Activity and No Time For Blogging ... until now ...

The christening weekend

Just before we left for Australia, we spent a lovely weekend with Niki´s family and friends for Sophia´s christening. I met and spoke with many, many people, who were all aware of our then imminent departure for Down Under and am now able to place (some not all) faces with the many names that I´d heard Niki mention over the past year and a half. Niki´s parents had raised a marquee for the occasion and had a bouncy castle and slide for the kids, upon which many an adult (dressed in a sumo wrestling suit...) also ´had a go´. The christening itself took place in Polebrook church, dating back to the 13th century, which sports a one-handed clock. A pictorial impression.

Steven in suit... Peter in sumo hat...








Steven lighting the candle on the cake...








Flowers, flowers...








Lunch and the Sophia in mum (erm, mom) Julia´s arms...











Polebrook church and the one-handed clock...

Letter

6 July 2010

My love

Journeys have a way of continuing, and we are about to embark on yet another stage of ours. If anybody is, I´m conscious of the fact that you are boarding a ship you´ve not sailed before, never navigated. I know you want to be on it, as do I; for us to sail the seven seas, with all our hearts, knowing we´ll sail a confluence of currents where excitement and apprehension flow together like cold and warm gulf streams. It creates a life-giving, nurturing mixture that is just right to sustain this journey. So far we´ve managed admirably to navigate the waves without the wind being taken out of our sails - I might even get to like cruises if they´re as enjoyable as this one...

Where did all this begin? You were going about your way quite happily, thank you very much, when this knight in shining armor popped over and turned your life upside down. Mind you, you did a good job at turning mine upside down, too... Clearly, if there´s one thing we´ve learnt over time it is that we dearly want us, change, difference, new vistas, new feelings, new challenges, less city, more country.

Even though Australia is only a day away from friends, family and life as you have so far known it, you are (willingly, I know, and sensibly without burning your bridges) entering into this new world. A world where the trees are different from the ones you are familiar with; a world where the soil and the sky look different; a world where friends and loved ones (in the most well-intentioned and loving of ways) will perhaps see you in a role that is somewhat unfamiliar to you, having lived on your own for most of your adult life, but also a role you have so far assumed quite naturally; a world in which you will be (in the hearts and minds of at least two young people who have become as special to you as they are dear to me) a carer for children (without all the evil Disney-esque connotations of the term step mum); a world in which we will discover more about ourselves, who we are, and what we want out of life; a world in which I´m sure you will feel at home but will also sometimes, as I do in Europe at times, feel homeless, because we both have un-severable affections and ties in two continents at least.

I´m also very conscious of the fact that perhaps your life will change more than mine - after all, despite the fact that we will have the best of more than one world, you are moving country, gaining a new family and moving away from the one you have just a tad further than you had so far envisaged; leaving your school in capable hands but still not directly within your field of vision; changing the nature of your work from teaching to writing; saying spatial, if certainly not temporal, goodbyes to friends, creating the need to forge new bonds and friendships: just a few factors that may provide enough challenges at the best of times. Even though you feel a strong need for such changes, they´re still a few big forks in the road; your road, our road.

I want and need you to know that I appreciate all this and I´m thankful for you being in my life, and in my three daughters´ lives; for your love and loving, understanding, willingness, dedication, and adventurousness. I will never take this for granted.

It has been, and is, and will be a fascinating journey... ´I am a sailor, and you´re my first mate...´

From the other side

And here we are, on the other side - having travelled many an hour to get here, we arrived the night before last, much to our happiness and to the joy of those waiting for us: Tess, Yarrow, Mieke, Ton and Ellen. Thank you for picking us up and welcoming us back! Tess and Yarrow are now staying with us for the next two weeks, partly during their holidays, and partly during the first week of the next term.

It´s great to be back, despite the fact that it´s been cloudy and raining since we arrived... no sun yet ... The hills are green, the views are wide, the horses´soft and their breath feels warm ... the cats think it´s all great and snuggle up to us. The first night we slept like logs, well, waking up frequently but sleeping from 8pm to 7am- this morning, however, we woke even before the kookaburras, around quarter to four, hungry and very awake! So up we are, blogging, checking emails and waiting for the girls to wake up. Yarrow is having her birthday party today so there will be a gaggle of five, and Yarrow´s friend Jamie, in the house for a sleepover, mudslides, munchies and movies...

Recommedation

Isn´t reading one of the most fascinating and fulfilling achievements? I just finished a(nother) wonderfully absorbing novel, The Swan Thieves, by Elizabeth Kostova. The Swan Thieves moves backward and forward in time, telling the story of a disturbed artist named Robert Oliver through the eyes of his psychiatrist. Kostova weaves that together with the 19th century tale of the woman with whom Oliver is obsessed. It´s fascinating - read it!

Flores

The abundance of colourful flowers in the UK summer is lovely to see. A few photos of what I found in Peter and Ann´s garden. The photos are a bit dark, as dusk was approaching but I´ll make some lighter ones over the weekend. Now, Yarrow, there´s even some Yarrow among them...

Aaaah .....

Ah, relaxing days ... just fell asleep on the lawn: holidays are settling down in mind and body, methinks, which feels good ... A few photos of Peter and Ann´s garden, the Marquise in readiness for the weekend´s proceedings, some flowers in bloom (will take more photos of that, Ellen), a pleasant lunch...