N & E

Tess and Yarrow's cousins, Nick and Esmée, have 'descended' on our home and are spending the week with us. They're enjoying the pool, and spend time with us and Tess and Yarrow, getting to know 'these distant cousins' better every day. We had a lovely Christmas lunch on Christmas Day with the whole family, and today (Friday) we left for Natural Bridge where we admired lots of natural beauty, waterfalls, lookouts, animals, vistas etc. A great day (admittedly quite a few kilometers...), after which we dropped Tess off at work to return to an enthusiastic Daleedlephuppie who had been patiently waiting our return tied up on the deck (with food and water, of course).

Here is another fantastic picture, taken by Tess made of the Natural Bridge cave! Wow!

 

Mystery

Going through piles of old paperwork I came across a document stipulating that our cat Elliot was sterilized in the womb. According to the document it was done before she was born! How good is that ... (I know, of course, that her 'official' birth date was only decided on after she had come to us, but still, it looks kind funny, doesn't it.

Mystery

And suddenly five girls, among whom were Tess, Yarrow, Bryony and Bella descended on our home today. They specifically aimed for its pool, with great delight and a lot of squealing, which they rapidly descended into fully clothed. Of course. The fifth girl, Jess, seemed to be on photographic duty (but got thrown into the pool for good measure once they were finished, without camera I hasten to add). We wonder what they are concocting ... They seem happy enough going about their concocting business ...

China

It's very interesting to see one's books on websites that are linguistically so different, but visually quite recognisable. The first level of English Grammar for Teens (FLTRP, China) is for sale on the Chinese Amazon site and on another Chinese site, dangdang.com.

However

However... today's batch of tough-touch, or chewy-chewy came out really well (thanks partly to advice from Anjes who suggested less cooking time, and I also got the measurements right!) and was enjoyed by all and sundry at a lovely pre-Christmas party at our friends Ken and Louise's. I'm keen now to bake many varieties of this yummy stuff, so beware of more taai-taai Down Under! Thank you Ann, for the recipe for pepernoten - slightly different but next on the list of gourmet bakery products...

Not taai taai-taai

So, here I go, getting all enthused to do some Christmassy cooking, making a batch of lovely traditional Dutch spiced cookies called taai-taai. Hey, it's the season! The name, literally, means 'tough-tough', as they should be chewy when done. Well, hmm, something must have gone wrong because even though they were chewy when taken out of the oven, not 'alf an hour later they were rock (as in rock) hard! Now, could this be because I mistook 200g of honey for 200 mls? Or because I doubled the amount of honey (in mls, not g) because the dough was still too crumbly? I don't know. Any advice gladly received! In the meantime I will try another batch and do gs instead of mls.

Formal

Here's Our Yarrow, or The Lady Yarrow, as she may call herself on account of owning a plot of land in Scotland, just before her Year 10 formal with school friends, dressed up and anywhere to go! Isn't she lovely?

One more night

Ooh, and tomorrow my love will arrive back home from Pacific Noumea where she has had a very successful and fulfilling time examining, training and promoting for Cambridge ESOL. Can't wait - but will have to, for a bit, as she will still have to drive home from Brisbane and won't be able to rest her weary travelling feet till midnight or thereabouts! Bon voyage, minha amorada! (I believe, though, weather gods permitting, there will be a relaxing beach day ahead of her on Thursday).

Orsey stuff

I went out for a ride today with Hans, a neighbour down the road, who I met some years ago but have recently got to know better via the Richmond Valley Riding Club. I rode over to his property about three clicks from ours, and then we continued down a lovely lane called Lavis Lane (forest track it feels like). All in all I was on the horse for a bit more than two hours, which was lovely! We'll invite Hans over to our neck of the woods next week and take him on "our" rides around the hills here.

Oh, and another one ...

It's as if I'm getting a book a day in the post, at the moment. Level 3 of Realtime, the secondary (teen) course for Dutch schools was published recently and arrived today. There are so many books in this series: 4 school years, each year consisting of 4 or 5 'streams' linking to the Dutch school system, that sometimes I can't remember what I've done for what book! I've been working on this series for, what, 3 or 4 years now ... Anyway, nice to see another one done and dusted. We're writing year 4 over the next 6 months.

12 12 12

December 12 is the 346th day of the year (347th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. Today is the twelfth day of the twelfth month of the twelfth year, a date that only comes around once every century. There are 19 days remaining until the end of the year. Oh no, hold on:  the Ancient Mayan calendar speaks of 12-12-2012 as the end of times as we know it, and the beginning of a new cycle of evolution for planet earth, humanity and the cosmos. Mayan elders say that the Ancients were informing the modern world to be ready for a giant transformation for the human race. Interestingly, traditions across the world including Buddhism, Tao, Hopi and Vedic knowledge predict a ‘Golden Age’ or ‘Satyug’ in their calendars around the same period. December 2012 is being looked upon as a significant spiritual event and a momentous shift in the collective consciousness of the planet.

Right ...

Fortunately, there is also earthier news ...

Twelve on 12/12/12 ... Happy birthday, kids. 

THESE 12 youngsters are turning 12 today which is, of course, 12/12/12. And most of them expect to blow out the candles on their birthday cakes at 12.12pm.

For Lucy Roberts, her birth was yet another 12, with mum Wendy in labour for 12 hours."I'm hoping that seeing as I'm 12 on the 12-12-2012 that I might be lucky enough to get 12 presents," Lucy said.
Kings Langley twins Christian and Daniel Marman are on to that trick, too. Mum Elaine said the pair "are using the occasion to leverage better presents".

Northern beaches tweens Jaime Sinclair, Sophie Thomas, Claudia Bowden and Riley Wilson, who will all attend Barrenjoey High School together next year, share their birthday today. It's been a long time coming for Claudia, who worked out she would turn 12 on 12/12/12 when she was nine. "It's not going to happen for another 100 years so it's pretty special," Claudia said. "All my friends are talking about how lucky I am, saying they wish their birthday was on a special day as well. "I'm hoping that I will have something good happen." Claudia, Jaime and Sophie all met at dance class and "just clicked", before discovering they share their birthday.

A record 123 couples are also registered to marry today at the Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages - more than on January 1, 2001 and 08/08/08.

So, where will you be at 12:12 pm on 12/12/12?
Source: The Daily Telegraph

Surprise

Chinese edition

UK edition

How pleasantly surprised can one be? Expecting the teacher's book accompanying my new Business course, Business Update, in an envelope from Garnet (one of my UK publishers), I was happy to find a Chinese edition of my (co-award winning) book English for tourism and hospitality in it. I had no idea even that they had licensed it. Made my day!

Timeless

Just a nice image I came across the other day by Renée Louise Anderson.

Proud to present

Here's the announcement of Niki's Saturday workshops in the Pacific. The YLE Monkey refers to the Cambridge Young Learners Exams.

Mixed bag

Pottering about somewhat desultorily, on a somewhat aimless, lazy Saturday morning. Not much happening: weather a bit unstable, rain coming later I think. I managed to get myself to do some 'poisoning' around the place to keep the weeds along pool, paths and patios down, but other than that I can't quite muster the enthusiasm to do much else. A bit unmethodical, but rather a nice feeling nevertheless. 

Missing my love muchly, needless to say: she's working hard today somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, giving teacher training workshops on 'Generation Me' (teaching English to teenagers) and music or games (the second topic escapes me at the minute).

About to go off to a lunch at Ton and Ellen's in Eltham with neighbours, family and friends. Taking a plate of 'desserts' of sort - good ole Dutch 'peperkoek' (Bolletje, of course, to be eaten with a thick - I said 'thick' - layer of butter!), 'speculaas brokken' and fruit loaf, as well as biscotti and fresh fruit. Couldn't get hold of 'schuimpjes', 'taai-taai' and 'pepernoten' this year, but my friend Jacomien did send us our 'annual' stash of speculaas spices so we can bake our own! Muchas gracias, Jacomien!

Tess and Yarrow are working today (and tomorrow) at the Clunes store, and the Channon market, so they are keeping themselves busy. Tess is studying really hard (aware that she will miss out some time when we travel in her important Year 12 - last year of high school) and is eagerly saving up as much money as she can for Europe (seeing as I have given her a birthday present saying I'll top every $100 with $10 when she shows me her savings balance in March). I better start saving myself then ...

Well, I'm not sure where the past few weeks have gone, but gone they are and I feel hopelessly behind on everything that happened to us.

Noosa

Niki and I went to a town called Noosa, up the coast, on the Sunshine Coast (not to be confused with the Gold Coast). Niki had to work at a language school there and while she did that I worked in what appeared later to be the staff room where everybody normally had lunch: only this time I was there and hogged the place. We had decided to spend two nights there and had a couple of pleasant nights there. The apartment we had rented was really nice, quiet, lovely pool. On the way back we unfortunately drove through Maroochydore (if the name wouldn't keep you away from there, then at least its reputation should, because it's the pits), and then detoured through the wonderfully quaint Glasshouse mountains where we had lunch. Lovely weekend, and Noosa is a very friendly and interesting place to spend some time.

Horses

Another weekend we set off on a horse-riding adventure with the Richmond Valley Riding Club. With the help of John, who proved to be a horse whisperer of sorts, we managed to convince Duchess it was quite OK to walk on to (and stay on) the horse float; loaded them both up on Saturday morning and made our way to the lovely, erm, location of Mummelgum. That afternoon we had a fascinating, scrambling-type of a ride with a group of about 25 or 30, on and around the property of our host. A warm fire kept us in meat and warmth at night but we soon succumbed to sleep and when the rain started to tumble, nay, bucket down we hid in our tent (the outer tent, that is, as this nincompoop had forgotten the inner tent). Despite said lack of bedroom, the outer tent kept us dry enough while outside the weather became ominous: lightning, thunder all through the night. In the morning there was great hesitancy among the horsey people as to whether the planned 4.5 hour Sunday morning ride was going to happen, and when an almighty thunderclap struck at 7.30 am you could hear numerous voices piping up around the field where we were camping: ' Right, that's it. I'm off.' Within ten minutes the site was empty and we, too, made our way through torrential rain, homeward to freshly rained on paddocks.

Other than that we have been working hard, trying to ensure a little break over Christmas and as I write this my love is waiting at Brisbane airport to go to Numea for her week's Cambridge work. It's been a goodly while since we've been apart for this long and neither of us are liking it, really. No doubt we'll settle into a temporary routine and the week'll be gone before one can say, erm, well what one says under circumstances like that.

Summer

Summer has, in the meantime, entered the fray with a vengeance, and is smothering us in hot, tropical, humid weather - which I actually quite like, although it doesn't help the hot flushes I have to say... Our friend's the green tree frogs are back in action... and we're using the pool lots, both during the day and at night.

English

On the work front, a new website has just been launched for my 25-year old " blockbuster"  (lol) course Real English (www.realenglish.nl). The site contains, amongst other things, a video clip in which a teacher talks about her and her children's work with the course. It's so nice to see it being used in a classroom: one of apparently more than 3,000 (which is 37.5% of Dutch schools).

Banana

Ton and Ellen once gave us five banana plants, one of which grew up to be a substantial banana tree - the other day Niki ran in excitedly to announce the birth (?) of a bunch of bananas. I must admit it's amazing the way they grow. 

Beautiful, no?

Another piece of the puzzle

The pieces of the puzzle of our European trip are slowly falling into place - this morning I booked an apartment in Paris, right slap-bang in the middle of the city, 2 minutes' walk from the Notre Dam and the Ile de la Cité: these are literally around the corner! Out of a choice of three this 'loft apartment' was favoured by all involved. We decided to go for apartments rather than hotels as this would give us more freedom and independence and also allows for more family life than separate hotel rooms. (Also, they are way cheaper).

On Google Earth, I found this image of the street and the apartment, which is on the top floor of the building the lady is walking past. How exciting is that!

From the website: a few words about the apartment…

If Phileas Fogg rented an apartment in Paris, we imagine he would stay here. We think the character from the Jules Verne novel would like the mixture of exotic ornaments and artifacts. Here, you can travel around the world in much less than 80 days. Ok, maybe not around the world, but you can certainly get to the central Paris sights easily. Sartre and de Beauvoir used to argue over existentialism at Les Deux Magots, but we guarantee your stay in the 6th will be as sweet as a strawberry macaron.

St Germain des Prés is the upper-crust corner of the city, filled with chattering classes hanging out in sidewalk cafes. What could be more chi chi than Ladurée, the legendary local patisserie? Grab a box of sweet meats and a bottle of vin and head to the Jardin du Luxembourg for a très chic picnic by the lake.

Finally!

On the day that Obama won a second term, it was time for something ceremonial at home as well. After months of negotiation, I was finally able today to sign the publishing agreement establishing the partnership with our Chinese friends Qingdao Publishing Group and Professor Lianzhong Zhang. We will be producing a new graded readers series, consiting of - for starters - one hundred (!) 42-page illustrated books for Chinese students learning to read in English between 7/8 and 18 years of age. It's going to be a big project, potentially big (lots of Chinese out there) and an intense collaboration with all parties involved (including Niki, who is one of the writers on the project). DVDs, a magazine, animations will be explored in the future. I felt the signing, which couldn't happen in China with all parties there, deserved a pictorial commemoration at least - hence the photo which I also sent back to the Chinese (I know they are fond of pics).

Another achievement

And Yarrow, in the meantime, is having end-of-year tests at school. She started with singing, and the glowing report (20 out of 20, after she had claimed earlier she had "never performed so badly in her life"): "Lovely vocal tone ... Intonation is accurate. Stylistically sensitive with vocal maturity demonstrating outstanding technique." Say no more: sing on, Yarrow!

Passed

And yes, we have another driver in the house (well, on the roads): our own Tess, after having slogged away at racking up 120 or so hours with her parents as driver supervisors and herself as a learner driver, passed her Ps test in one go with flying colours (Hans: 'So what are those ticks on your form?' Driving examinator: 'Mate, nothing worth discussing, really: she did great.')

Great being something along the lines of 125 points out of 128. Tara! Worth a little celebration with Ongel, Grandpa, Bryony and our own little family with a specially baked P-cake!