Christmas 2015

We're home again, after ten glorious days away, celebrating Christmas. We had a couple of days in Sydney with Andrew's parents, and had a lovely lunch with Mal, Marlee, Alannah and Jordy. It's so great that Joss and Tobes each have a cousin close in age and temperament. It was awfully hot and humid, until a cool change arrived and it never became hot again!

Up to Broke on Tuesday, we set about preparing for the hoardes. First we came, then the Melbourne five and finally, on Christmas Day, the Central Coast six. Eighteen slept in the house on Christmas night, then Joss went to camp, and we started saying goodbye until it was just Mum, Dad and us again. We even had a visit from our Gloucester family on their way home from Sydney, which was so delightful.

The kids were all desperate to swim, though it was often raining and never hot, so a sunny morning was spent in the pool, while the rest of us watched under the vines.

We had family photos taken, and revelled in the luxury of being all together. There was so much food, lots of games, big kids giving the little ones piggy backs, coffee on the verandah, everyone loving Sunny (the dog) until he had had enough, and just a bit of noise. Let's do it again, but not straight away......

Almost.....

Today is our last day of work for the year! More importantly, it is Andrew's birthday. Happy Birthday Andrew!

After last year's blue adventure, with its rather harrowing recovery dramas, Joss decided to start early and make a choice that is more likely to be acceptable at school. As she is fair skinned and freckly like I am, it looks pretty fabulous.

The kids have been spending their holidays having sleep overs (new rule - take your PJs just in case your play day gets upgraded because I am sick of making a second trip), doing make up (Emilia goes to a school with a year 10 formal) and reading.

The shopping has been done and the presents are wrapped, tomorrow we head off and begin to celebrate!

All over

It gets light so early. I took these photos just after 5.30am, walking Milo. I like the golden highlights in the long grass, but I prefer to run in the dark, so am looking forward to the sun rising later.

We picked Nan and Grandad up from the station last Tuesday, and had a great week with them. Work experience for Joss, one school presentation night, a piano concert and two Christmas parties. It was all happening.

Joss went to the media department at council, so we kind of had the same employer for a week. One morning we stopped for coffee (salted caramel hot chocolate in her case) on the way. Playing ladies.

We had noisy, messy fun at my Christmas party with my stamping friends. The massive pavlova all went.

Toby played beautifully at his concert, though I missed it in order to stick with recent tradition and take Bethany and Charis to the Estella Christmas party. Slushies were consumed, hair was sprayed, castles were jumped on and a suds machine was adored. Jane and I set up camp sipping cool drinks in the shade. Not a bad afternoon.

After Sue and Ron went home on Monday, we went to Bethany's presentation night. All three children received an award at their respective celebrations, which is lovely, and Joss and Tobes have enjoyed activities week (Joss went surfing at Murramurrang, Toby went on day trips to a water park, zoo, bowling and laser tag. Such a hard life.

Now, they have all finished. Yes, today was the last day for each if them. Tomorrow I hope to get up, ready and leave before they surface. The race to be ready for Christmas begins!

The beginning of the end

On Wednesday night Bethany had her end of year drama event, an evening of theatre sports. I'll confess that my expectations were low, probably because improvisation on the part of children is always a little painful, and also because last year I hadn't realised it would go so long and hadn't had dinner. I wasn't hangry this year, so it was pretty good; Bethany did really well and when the teacher asked for parent volunteers, at Bethany's insistence, I allowed myself to be chosen. It wasn't a nightmare, but I will expect brownie points.

When it was all over Bethany informed me that she had been dizzy and feeling sick all evening. She ended up staying home for two days, poor poppet, but finally had a good night's sleep last night and is, hopefully, on the up.

Tonight is my work Christmas party, we have a Christmas dinner with friends on Monday and Andrew's parents arrive on Tuesday to stay for a week. There will be two school presentation nights and a piano concert for them to attend, and after we say goodbye, there will only be one day until the end of term! Yikes....

Switch 2015

I'm back after this year's NSW Public libraries conference in Sydney. There were lots of great speakers and I am bursting with new ideas. The Australian Technology Park is a great venue, though quite expensive to get to (it costs $8 to get a return ticket from Central to Redfern - that's one stop!) and they had coffee carts with free coffee. Yes, I had three each day!

There is always a theme to the conference dinner, and while I was resistant initially, I managed to borrow an outfit and muster enough enthusiasm to fit in. This is the management team of the Riverina Regional Library and the director of Environment and Community Services at Wagga City Council!

The dinner was held at the Australian National Maritime Museum, which is a reasonably spectacular venue at Darling Harbour. There were fifteen of us from RRL, as we brought two councillors from Wagga City Council, librarians from Gundagai, Bland and Cootamundra and a director and councillor from Bland. We won best dressed team and received a bottle of wine as a prize - one sip each?

On our free evening, a few of us went to Grill'd for dinner and then went to see The Dressmaker. I read the book years ago, it's one of our book club books, and I think they have done a brilliant job. It's funny, sad and a bit dark, with gorgeous costumes and scenery. The only slightly jarring thing was that Kate Winslet, beautiful and looking much younger than her years, still looked significantly older than the two actors playing her contemporaries. Other than that, totally fabulous.

We drove home yesterday, through a heatwave. At one stage, the highway was closed just behind us because of a fire. It was perfect fire weather, boiling hot and blowing a gale. It's still windy but beautifully cool today, happy weekend!

Growing

Our garden yields! We eat rhubarb, baby spinach, silverbeet and spring onions. I have cut roses in my kitchen. It will take years until our garden fills and looks established, but we do enjoy its progress.

Here's more progress for you. Those coloured lights in the distance? Christmas lights in my street. You may as well get as much happiness as possible from the anticipation, I suppose.

I'm off to Sydney for the public libraries conference tomorrow. Librarians on a road trip!

Social

I had a lovely lunch with work friends on Saturday. The garden was almost inspiring. Almost, because I'm not sure I'll ever fully catch the gardening bug, but I do really like being in a lush garden.

Bethany had three events on Saturday. One morning birthday party at the Botanic Gardens, where she received the best face painting ever, an afternoon with Archie and Mackenzie who took her to another birthday party at the Botanic Gardens, and then an evening of bush dancing at Downside! She got home at ten to twelve (Andrew and I were rather beside ourselves as we hadn't expected her to be so late, and , typically for a third child, hadn't asked for a phone number)!

Andrew and Joss are off to Melbourne for track cycling this weekend. Matthew Keenan is going to be there, commentating, which I find extremely exciting (Tour de France fangirling!) Toby has a bye for tennis, I don't have to drop Joss at work, it sounds like a proper sleeping in occasion for me, Tobes and Bethany.