Aaand, relax

How I love a long weekend! But first, to finish this post.

The Riverina Regional Library has grown since we moved to our current building, and we are bursting at the seams. This is my office. Admittedly, I was having fun unpacking a new projector and have since tidied the boxes and paper away, but I am certainly looking forward to moving somewhere bigger in around a year.

Toby made the front of Wagga's What's On brochure. Joss is unimpressed to be just behind and, therefore, not in the shot.

I spent a day on the mobile this week, going to four places I have never been. One was tiny, two were stops outside little schools and one was the sweet town of Ganmain.

The last stop of the day was in my own suburb, and Bethany walked over to visit. It was a long day, around ten hours, but I do enjoy a trip around the countryside, chatting to people about books and movies.

I was out again the following day, visiting two branches. Tracey, who is in my team, is doing workshops in the libraries, making felted bowls. They are very beautiful; not for soup. I think I'll book myself into the Wagga workshop.

Now, I am home alone. Joss and Toby are at PY camp until Monday night, and Andrew is dropping Bethany at an orchestral workshop with the Sydney Youth Orchestra. I think I'll put the Eurovision album on and do some baking.

Complete

By Tony Curran

I think it a really lovely thing. Not just the portrait, but the fact that we, as a town, could do this; sit in front of an artist and have this experience, in our town. So cool, thanks Tony Curran!

Speaking of fine art and culture, we are so not over Eurovision yet. Some of us watched it live, then watched the replay, then watched our recordings. Andrew just downloaded the album and Joss recorded some footage of Bethany and me, singing and dancing to our favourites. Thankfully, the video only caught Joss singing, and no music, so she won't be tempted to post it anywhere.

Guy Sebastian did such a great job, his song was awesome and he was the best singer there. To be in the top five is an extraordinary achievement and I don't know if the joy of the experience can be repeated.

I am a wee bit tired, though. Thankfully, there is a gap to enable recovery before late nights watching some blokes cycle through France.

Dedication

Joss is a Eurovision tragic. She has been listening to all the songs she loves from semi-final one, watched on Wednesday evening. On Thursday night she announced that she would be getting up at five to watch the second semi. I wasn't so sure; Friday is a long work day for me, but I thought it would be a fun thing to do together, so I set my alarm.

I usually get up at six, and five is when I get up to go to the airport. I rugged up and wandered out but Joss wasn't there. I opened her door and whispered "Are you coming?". She piked!

There was little point going back to bed, so I made a cup of tea and enjoyed the show.

I enjoyed it again when the rest of the family caught up after dinner, and then we raced through the replay of the first semi to see the backstage interviews not featured in the live show.

Our favourites so far? We have quite a few, but can narrow it down to Belgium and Sweden.

Tomorrow morning I'll get up early again, though I am loathe to lose an opportunity to sleep in. I couldn't possibly wait until Sunday night.

SBS

It's like SBS conspires to make sure we don't get enough sleep. Andrew and Joss have watched a fair bit of the Giro (cycling tour in Italy) but I have mainly just caught up with the highlights. On Wednesday night, however, I realised just how like Le Tour it is, only with new, beautiful, Italian scenery.

In the end, I took the middle road. I didn't get up at 5am after staying up late for the cycling, I recorded the first semi-final of Eurovision and we watched it last night. Not the hardcore option that took advantage of our one chance to vote for real, but not the soft option of waiting until Friday night.

The first semi was awesome, by the way. Already, passions are running hot in our household as we disagreed with who went through (our fault as we did not vote ourselves!).

So far, no one has sported crimped hair. It turns out that while she enjoys the plaits, Bethany isn't a fan of the crimped look either. I don't think I'll spend another hour doing that.

The reader

By Tony Curran

My lovely friend, Sonya, is married to Tony Curran, an artist. Tony has an exhibition on at the art gallery and members of the public have been able to book a session with him, where he 'paints' their portrait on his iPad. I decided to book a session for my birthday lunchtime.

When I look through the Flickr collection of all the portraits, there are so many people I recognise from around town; people from my work, church, in my book club, who work at council. Even when their faces aren't finished, I can still tell, at first glance, who they are. Don't you think it's extraordinary what he can capture in one hour?

I booked another session so it can be finished, though I love this one as it is. I love my shoes and basket, my shirt and that he was pretty flattering in terms of size! In case you are interested, the book I was reading (and I did, indeed, read during the sitting, though I managed to chat a little bit - it's hard to pose as reading and not actually do it) was The Incredible Adventures of Cinnamon Girl, which I was reading for work, and the book on the top of the pile is Wallace Stegner's Angle of Repose, which I am not enjoying as much as Crossing to Safety, but that is a hard book to beat.

I think this is a pretty special thing to have; well worth the sore back and restless leg that comes from sitting like this for an hour! I can wear exactly the same outfit when I go for the second sitting, but the books will be different and my hair will have grown.....

Term Two

In term two, I stopped blogging, but here I am again. This morning, I really love where Joss and Toby go to school. Joss is off on an excursion this morning and it took me, quite literally, eight minutes to get in the car, drive her to school, make sure her phone was packed, give her a big hug and kiss (did you lipstick me? Hello, I don't wear lipstick before 6am! Actually, I do if I am going to the airport to catch a plane, but certainly not for a school drop off) and drive home. So now it still isn't 6 o'clock yet and I am dressed, lunches are done and the dishwasher is unpacked. Time to read! After I catch up on the blog.....

These are the photos I have had ready to go for weeks.

After we got back from Mum and Dad's we had a week of leaving for work before the kids awoke. I do love a quiet morning that involves no school lunches, hair brushing or dashing for the bus.

Soccer is in full swing, and I have decided that gumboots are the way to go. I deliberately walked through puddles on the soccer field in these babies. Bethany is living her new team and is actually winning games, which makes a nice change. She even won the award last week, she played so well.

These are the pear trees in front of our house. They are the same sort of tree. I have no idea why one is flaming and the other resisting Autumn, which has well and truly come. We have had rain, the heating has been on and sandals have been put away. I love it!

Post conference fun

We left Leura after lunch on Monday and headed down the mountains, surprised by the lack of traffic. We spent the night at Nan and Grandad's in Wahroonga, before splitting up for a day of Sydney fun. Andrew, Toby, cousin Jordy and Bethany went to the Easter Show, Joss went shopping in the city with cousin Alannah and I had a day to myself.

I started with a nostalgic wander around Wahroonga, where I grew up. The photo above is of a street where my best friend from primary school lived. There is a very steep hill down which we used to ride our bikes, and one day I fell off and scraped my face very badly and knocked a couple of teeth back. Fun memories.

I had coffee with my friend Shane who had her first baby at the same time I did and we used to go to Easter Convention together. We had a lovely coffee in Wahroonga village, so different to when I grew up there. It is like every second shop is a cafe, I am not exaggerating. I wonder how there can be so many coffee drinkers! It might have something to do with the fact that the house I grew up in has been replaced with four large townhouses, and the house next door with many fancy units. High density living, how glad I am to live in the country.

After our Sydney days we came up to the Hunter to see Mum and Dad. The weather has been lovely, we have relaxed and enjoyed the company and the vineyard. 

Yesterday, we drove down to the coast to spend time with Tim and the family. We went to Avoca for fish and chips, and had birthday cake for a nearly six year old niece!

Toby has had a nasty cold, yesterday's adventures (probably not helped by four hours in the car) did not agree with Bethany, but it has all been worth it.

Tomorrow, eight hours in the car and we will be home to our wooly dog and the washing. Bring on tomorrow night!