So long, Mossy

 We'll miss your charms.

The end of days (ours, in Oz)

 Planting potatoes with Nan, and (2nd cousins, once removed) Perri and Ellis

 Naomi (mother of 5 and nearly my age) is the oldest grandchild; EBH is the youngest.

 I presume it's evident that EBH dresses herself. (Her panda's name is IM Pei.)

The world's gone topsy turvy

I know you won't believe this, but CQH got her ears pierced yesterday. And it wasn't even her idea, it was mine. She actually took several hours to contemplate the invitation, my little Twelve Point Turn.

We took her to what turned out to be a very swish spa in Bowral, Ella Bache -- much better than a dreadful five minutes at Claire's Boutique at the mall -- and she was very brave! Soft music and flowing water and a massage table... oh, and a weapon.

We got a meringue afterwards at the award-winning Gumnut Patisserie to mark the occasion. And then stopped over at Made By Others, an art and design shop in Moss Vale that is essentially a permanent Beehive Bazaar, and bought her her very first pair of earrings -- so darling they inspired the entire affair -- some sterling silver 3D carved birds with tiny feet and everything.

If she'd been overly eager for pierced ears, I may have balked at moving the date from age 12 to (almost) age 8. But she's never begged in any way, and we decided that twelve was an arbitrary age and why not now? -- it just didn't matter. It will be a fun memory to have done it in Bowral while visiting Nan & Pop.

I'm surprised by myself. And it's odd to see my baby wearing earrings. But she's happy and darling and we're happy and not weirded out, so all's well that end's well. Even when it's surprising.

Not quite haiku

Yesterday can be summed up in just a few words:

Cold rain
Howling wind
ANZAC bikkies
Cranford
sewing projects
afternoon walk
dinner visitors

Pssst

We came back to Moss Vale yesterday, to spend the last week of our vacation at Mum & Dad's house. This is the last time we'll ever stay at No. 3 Price Street, and we're trying to savor the details. One detail is that there's no wireless here and Dad's desktop is at an almost dial-up situation, so I'll add more photos next week. Until then...

 Parliament House

 No flash photography at the Magna Carta

 
Today we took a field trip to Canberra, the capital of Australia. We had great fun visiting Parliament House because Parliament was actually in session and we got to sit in the peanut gallery of both the Senate and the House of Representatives (no Lords and Commons here). In the House, we heard the useless Prime Minister ramble on about nothing at all and yet still manage to keep talking in an almost convincing way, if you weren't actually paying attention, and we saw the Boxes and the Mace.

But the real show was in the Senate, where they were doing something called "Questions without Notice," where someone can present a question and call on a particular Minister to answer the question, pop quiz style, but in a this is the issue, what're you going to do about it kind of way. This one particular Minister stood up to talk and went on at some considerable length about how he'd recently spent an hour with this leader of Israel and an hour with this leader of Isreal, etc, etc, ad nauseum. It was marvelous to see how the Ministers from the other party hollered and heckled him. "Well it's good to know you're so bloody important!" "Offer you a cup o' tea, did they?" "You're not answering the question!" Even his own party told him to sit down when he talked past his allotted time. Fun to watch. And I guess I'm just a design nerd, because I really liked how the Senate was decorated in an ombre pattern where the rows of seats went from dark to light.

We saw the Magna Carta, too (one of them, anyway). 

Then we went to the Australian War Memorial. I've been to both Parliament House and the War Memorial before, but it was a better trip this time. It's a really great War Memorial with an entire floor devoted to WWI and an entire floor to WWII (we didn't have time for Korea or Vietnam so I can't comment there). CQH was very interested in WWI nurses -- I think she liked the uniforms -- and it just so happens that Mum has her great aunt's WWI nurses uniform. We'll be looking at that tomorrow, and perhaps taking it off her hands, which could be rather neat.

The Memorial is a "poppy memorial," because poppies were given for and represented the fallen in WWI. We looked for and found our relatives, Charles and Samuel Jude, who both died in WWI, and put a poppy on their names in the Roll of Honour. It always puts a thickness in my throat! Something else that never fails to do that is bagpipes -- I'm so Scottish, it's like genetic memory -- and an old piper in full regalia was there to close the Memorial for the night. I turned around afterwards to find LBH all teary. Every single time, both of us.

During the day, we bought EBH a beverage -- a Schwepps lemonade, which is kind of like Sprite -- and when she opened the bottle, the carbonation hissed at her. She exclaimed in her typically loud and joyful voice, "My lemonade loves me!" I asked her if she meant that she loved her lemonade. She said, "No, it loves me! It pssst at me, just like you do when you say 'Pssst, I love you!'"

If you want some fun, sing Ob La Di, La Da!

The Camerons returned from Queensland, having spent their entire visit deathly ill, and got back to their real life of work and school and running kids around town. We had a few late afternoon hours to ourselves at the farm before we all had an incredibly delicious dinner at a favorite local restaurant. We had no transportation at that moment, and nowhere we wanted to go. I was feeling antsy and like I wanted to move, but I'd already visited all the animals and played tennis and done all the usual distractions. I needed an activity! So, I did the obvious: I called a Family Talent Show -- karaoke version.

The Camerons happened to have a microphone and the rest of us used other instruments and accoutrements as makeshift mics. We went through our best Supremes numbers, complete with the "Stop! In the Name of Love" policeman arm move thing. We went through the Beatles, the Carpenters, and some other family favorites ("My Girl" always melts my heart). My personal favorite of the day was our classic(!) rendition of "Ob La Di, Ob La Da." We took turns being the lead singer, but it was especially amusing when the girls were the back-up singers ("ring!", "sing!"). We danced in the best unison we could manage -- you know, Temptations-style -- and performed for no one but ourselves, but as night set in (early, it's winter here), the giant picture window made for a very nice reflection of our hilarity.

We crack ourselves up.

Scenes from Yesterday

 The view from Little Forest Road, our "home" in Milton.

 Ulladulla Harbour

 We had Racecourse Beach entirely to ourselves. This is where LBH used to walk and contemplate his future.

 Best Quote of the Day: EBH and I were running on the beach, you know, all "Chariots of Fire" like. Then, with total glee and unbounded joy, she hollered to me, "My cheeks are wiggling!" It was hilarious and I'll never forget it.

Hard to believe this is all the same (very, very small) community.

Sydney, the Aquarium and the Koala Park (oh my!)

 Pretty architecture.

 Many people don't realize the Opera House has three sets of shells (you can only see two of them here).

 After the ferry ride across the Harbour, we took a gondola ride up to Taronga Zoo.

 CQH with Mr. Tumnus in the Botanical Gardens.

 New South Wales Art Gallery

 St. Mary's Cathedral

 The giant arbors at Hyde Park

 Petting Junior. I feel so sorry for the koalas who have to sit there and be petted. At least we gave it some dignity, unlike the hoards of Japanese tourists who all had their picture made with Junior while giving him two-finger rabbit ears. 

 Tiny penguins, just like the ones we saw eight years ago at Philip Island off Melbourne.

 I think wombats are cute.

 With the zookeeper, to give you an idea of size.

This is the house that Dad built, to which LBH was born (but moved to a different house when he was two). Dad built this house with his own hands, alone, doing everything from scratch, including making the bricks himself.

Morning at Mollymook

Quiet

CQH threw up all night long. We're hunkering down today with the Camerons' collection of Disney movies -- a bootleg box set with about 50 films in it. This house is full of bootleg DVDs purchased on any number of vacations to Bali or Cambodia or the like; I have no idea what the languages are on the films' menus. So far today, we've watched "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" (good) and Disney's "Robin Hood" (absurd). I feel sure there are more movies in my future today, as well as snacks of crumpets and digestive bikkies. Oh, carbs, you always come through in a pinch.

Sammy the giant poodle has been dressed up and disgraced. He's currently wearing a yellow sequined number, and there's talk in the trenches of possibly trying to ride him like a horse later. The indignity! He's the mildest animal I've ever encountered; he doesn't put up even the smallest fight and even EBH loves him, despite the fact that his head is at least four times the size of her own. They must slip him Prozac with his kibble. No, that can't be right, because Janey told me nobody's fed him in weeks. (The Camerons subscribe to the laissez faire style of pet ownership.)

LBH checked on the farm this morning. All the chickens still have heads, unlike last week when a fox terrorized the coop, and the one little chook that did survive behaved afterwards like it was having a breakdown. Poor little chook saw things a chicken should never see -- all her friends murdered!

I'm bored out of my mind. This vacation stuff is hard to take! I'm appalled at the number of word search puzzles I've done in the last few weeks. I just wasn't created to sit still for this long. I do love Australia, and I certainly love the people we come here to see, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to visit. But the sitting around days are tough in a crybaby sort of way. A classic case of too much of a good thing. You're devastated for me, I know.

PS: Because I am a doer and not a sit-arounder, I'm spending today downloading photos to this blog. Scroll down if you care to see them, or not if you don't. And more on the way.

Second verse, same as the first

We spent several days in Sydney, during which time we had no internet access. Odd. But actually rather liberating. And then we left our laptop power cord and plug adapter at the hotel. Such a rookie mistake, and we're not even rookies! At some point we'll download and post photos, which will give this little blog some much-needed sparkle. We're lazy that way.

Seems we never do anything new when we come to Oz. We do all the same things we always do, and we always seem to enjoy them. Maybe it doesn't get old because we're here infrequently?

While we were in the city, LBH gave a lecture at the Con (the Sydney Conservatorium of Music), (one of) his alma mater(s). It's really quite fancy and elitist, and looks a bit like a castle. We went to the Aquarium and saw the sharks; did some children's clothes shopping at our favorite stores; walked around the city for hours upon hours (14 on one day); had lunch with Gerard Willems, LBH's former piano master; met up with LBH's oldest friend, Michael Black, and his partner, Tom Hamilton, both of whom were very game in playing with the girls; took the ferry across the Harbour to Taronga Zoo, which is leagues ahead of any other zoo we've ever been to; met up with LBH's brother, Mitch, and his lovely family at a cool restaurant that had only one salad on the menu, to my dismay, and it was $35, also to my dismay; got gelato at the great little gelataria at Circular Quay; went swimming; petted a koala named Junior (Lenny is no longer with us, may he rest in peace) and fed kangaroos at the Koala Park; and took a ride on a ski lift sort of gondola.

 

We've done it all several times before, and it's still interesting and lovely.

We've been in Milton now for a couple days. Milton is the tiny little country village where LBH's sister Janey and her family live. It's marvellous, and not exactly action-packed. I'm unsure of the population here, but Ulladulla, the next town over, is larger -- its welcome sign boasts 13,000 people. Milton and Ulladulla have some posh boutiques on the high street, but Ulladulla has become much more urban -- it recently acquired its very first escalator!

The South Coast of New South Wales is unlike anywhere I've ever been. I say this every time -- it's very difficult to describe -- but it's like Malibu and Vermont got together and had a baby. This is green rolling hills with cows and paddocks and trees and no houses as far as the eye can see... until the eye hits the beach with blue, blue water and white, white sailboats. I guess like all things Australian, it's difficult to describe because it's similar enough to be familiar, but different enough to give pause. Like a platypus or a kangaroo, I guess. Maybe the wildlife here can sort of speak for the place as a whole, like animal ambassadors.

Yesterday we took the girls to Pebbly Beach (which isn't pebbly) and had a delightful picnic. There are wild kangaroos there, but they were all hiding yesterday -- didn't see a one, although we've been there in the past when they were as numerous as birds. Janey and Craig have been laughing for more than ten years that they owe us a wedding present. Of course, we were totally unconcerned. Who cares? We know they love us and we love them. But they mentioned it every time we've seen them for ten years. Janey had given a glorious gift to Dad for his birthday last week, and I guess LBH verbally admired it. So, yesterday, Janey presented the same gift to us and said congratulations on your marriage! It's an RM Williams dream gift -- an oilcloth picnic bag lined in wool, and a wool chevron blanket. Inside the bag was a fancy little picnic with bubbly and brie and berries and pate, etc. It's fantastic and we love it.

The Camerons now have gone up to Queensland for a family shindig on Craig's side, and have left us in charge of the farm. I have no idea how to do anything on the farm, but am assured that as long as we keep everything alive and still standing, it's all good. And, even if it's not living or standing, it's still okay. Janey's easy! There are alpacas, chickens, sheep, goats, horses, pigeons, cows, no more pigs, cats and an obliging giant black poodle named Sammy who looks like a living cartoon. I'm a real life pioneer woman, out here on the farm in Milton.

The girls are dressing up -- no family on earth has such a vast and varied supply of costumes and fancy dresses -- and later we might head to Mollymook beach. Lamb grillers for dinner, with lemon lime bitters and lamingtons for dessert. Ah, yes. This is the life -- at least for today.