HUNTING

Life as a “Womate” (see “Hopping over the ditch” post) presently involves a lot of HUNTING.

We have spent a goodly amount of time hunting.....for houses to buy/rent (how hard can it be to find something that doesn’t have 101 other people wanting it too?); food (so how was I supposed to know that the supermarkets shut at 5pm on Saturdays and Sundays?!); directions (since when did this road become a motorway?!); cars (I just want the cheapest red one you’ve got that goes, thanks); and all sorts of other stuff. You name it, we’ve searched for it this week! Nut free products, itchy-scratchy cream (on account of the voracious flesh-biting ants we seem to have somewhere in our apartment), the library, that important piece of paper I put somewhere very, very safe....

But it hasn’t been all work and no play.

We have made sure that we are out and about enjoying the glorious winter weather. Each morning, my husband flings back the curtains and jokes happily, “Oh, it’s another dreadful day again today...!” And each time, I find myself being somewhat surprised to see the clear blue sky and warm sunshine streaming in....yet again! It just doesn’t fit with my concept of winter.

But who’s grumbling?! Bring it on, I say!

So today, we were meant to be doing the hunting-thing for cars.

BUT the weather being what it was, and the fact that we really aren’t very dedicated hunters, meant that we ended up stopping off at a beautiful park with the most wonderful playground and enormous wooden fort! The pic above is entirely ‘fort’!

Briz does have some fabulous parks, and they’re not just for kids either!

The pictures speak for themselves:

I don’t think the locals consider the weather to be quite as warm as we ‘imports’ feel however.....I overheard one mom saying to her kids, “It’s time to get going....I don’t want you kids to get too cold!” The temperature HAD dropped to about 20degsC. Plastered, is how I would describe L’s hair after his stint at the fort....

And we have been treated to some magnificent sunsets this week. Really and truly, we can’t complain!

O Canada

(I can't figure it out... ever since I got Vista, the formatting goes funny. The text suddenly gets very large (see below), and becomes blue or underlined. I get tired of going back and trying to fix it - that explains why some is blue or big.)

Happy Canada Day!

We spent a lovely July 1, starting with a family brunch. The cousins always love being together, especially to eat! Phil and Christine put on a wonderful spread. Mmmm!

Sweet Bee loved showing off the new puppy, Keeley. An Australian... something. (Help me here, Christine! Leave a comment!)

And here they are, our wonderful children!

Big Bear and I then headed downtown to be tourists. We booked into a hotel and strolled down Denman Street, starting at English Bay. Many interesting people to watch! Everyone was out, enjoying the beautiful day and the many Canada Day events.

Phil was hard at work supervising police at the parade. Tough day...

Our destination was Canada Place, where we were to spend the evening at a VIP fireworks reception. We had plenty of this...

I decided that I'd like to be met with people bearing trays when I arrive home from school every day.

As the sun went down and the sky grew darker, I snapped many, many photos of the gorgeous view.

Finally, it was time for the fireworks. Alas, I had nowhere to plant my handy gorillapod, so I took a few hand-held shots. Not as clear as I would have liked, but it shows the beautiful backdrop.

After the fireworks, the party continued with a live band, dancing, and more to eat and drink.

We then hopped in a taxi and, in five minutes, were deposited at our hotel.

I could get used to this!

Cooling off

More abject apologies for taking so long to post more photos. Life continues to swamp me with its endless mountains of paper and admin. So many decisions to make. So many choices to confuse. So much to consider. So many things to see and do. So many people to consult. So much money disappearing into thin air. So many loose ends to tie up. So few hours in a day!

But it IS all an adventure and we WILL get there (she said through gritted teeth)!

Let me share some photos with you from the past few days.

Firstly, a few evening photos from the boys’ new school:

One afternoon, we ended up in a quaint old violin shop. It was the archetypal dusty old shop filled with endless musical treasures and wonderfully mysterious-looking instrumental bits and pieces. Sheet music, old concert posters, the eccentricity of musical ingenuity. I could almost imagine Paginini emerging from a dusty corner with some sheet music and his violin tucked under his arm. Such was the nature of the shop. The highly gregarious Italian owner was certainly not out of place.

E has needed an upgrade of his violin for awhile now. After about 4 hours, a meeting of the local clientele and a thorough gleaning of the local knowledge banks, we emerged one turn-of-the-previous-century German violin richer, and one purse a lot emptier.

We have been for some walks......and not just to check out houses and cars. One of the many lovely inner city parks is the Roma Street Parklands. Brisbane does very well with the development of its parks in my opinion. We walked through on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. Again – those trademark blue skies and sunshine. There were people everywhere – picnicking, playing ball, walking, or just enjoying a gorgeous afternoon. I was totally intrigued – we saw trees with autumn leaves right next door to trees with spring blossoms on them! There is a definite blurring of the seasons here!!! And the flora and fauna are so different

Do you like the look of this spider? You can just see K looking up at it in the left photo. What you can’t see, are the millions of tiny lil baby spiders all dotted in the highway of web above. Arachnophobic nightmare!

I know I’ve said this many times before, but Brisbane really does have the most glorious weather in Winter!

This is Brisbane city from Mt Coot-tha. The endless blue sky was so nice.

The boys are getting to grips with the drinking fountains everywhere – a necessity in this sun-drenched land!

And learning how to build huts in the Australian bush!!

Then again, it may be easier to cool off by jumping into a pool

I am happy for summer to take it’s sweet time to come!

Zippping along

Of COURSE we’re missing you all! This is a quick post before we head on out again to do more of THOSE ERRANDS (and liquidate ourselves of more $). I will post more photos soon, but for now (since the family is chomping at the bit with cabin fever) this will be necessarily brief!

You may wonder what this is. It was a touching farewell gift from a caring friend, who was concerned about the state of the (un)zipping mechanisms on my jeans! For those who are not in the know, not so long ago, I had trouble trying to extricate myself from my jeans in a moment of (great) need. A good friend who shall remain nameless, was a tower of emotional support as we scoured the restaurant (we were at) for suitable material in which to release me from my perilous situation…..forks, toothpicks, anything we could ferret away to the ladies’  washrooms was er, ferretted away. Unfortunately, there are very few things which can meet the need of a working zipper. Fortunately, the wire holding my camera SD card keyring fitted quite nicely…..thus extricating my release (in more ways than one). Since then, this story has been repeated with many embellishments, most of which are untrue (but provide good entertainment). And the keyring has remained on my favourite pair of jeans, for essential services. Till now. The Ozzie Adventure heralds a new day. And new mechanisms for coping!!