Friday, January 26, 2007

Music

Our car tape deck decided to kamikaze itself about a year ago, after one too many playings of a well worn Miffy tape. An honourable death, but one that left us with limited aural entertainment for the kids in the car. It hasn't really bothered them; they prefer to make their own music, usually a mix of thrash metal and the chipmunks singing Enya. But lately, Mari has been amusing us all by her eerily accurate impersonation of a 14 year old. Amusing how many more grey hairs we're sprouting too for that matter. Since the introduction of two iPod shuffles into the household a couple of months ago (a his and a hers) Mari's interest in music has evolved into an obsession with plugging herself in to a pair of headphones in the car. Her favourite (and I mean f.a.v.o.u.r.i.t.e.) is Fidelity by Regina Spector. This is actually very, very especially lovely if Rosa happens to be asleep. One child unconscious, the other singing out the occasional "It breaks my heart! My hea-a-a-arrrrt!"

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Comet McNaught point two


All taken with the Nikon D100. 30 seconds at f3.5. 640 ISO.

Did you see that?!

James came in from a late evening walk last night with news of a comet in the sky. I think I greeted the news with casual interest, 'Oh yes? I'll come have a look.' ...Wandered outside. 'Umm, that slightly smeary looking star over there?' 'No no, you can't see it from here - go up to the corner.' "ok' (Still blase at this point) Stroll up the hill, wave from the dark at the neighbours partying on their deck...Up a bit further... Then. (To paraphrase the kids of today, of which I'm SO not one of any more, but that's another blog post altogether. Anyway...) OH. MY. GOD! Is the world about to come to an end? This is what we saw. Comet McNaught.

Monday, January 15, 2007

I remember you...

Gosh, I have a blog (or three). I knew there was something I was meant to be doing. We've been in summer holiday mode. The day after the last post, we disappeared down to Lavers Hill (in the Otways where rainforest meets the sea) to visit our very good friends Ross and Anna. Russell, Linda, Keiren, Caleb, Micah, & Allanah also took advantage of the wonderful hospitality. Their new straw bale house is truly something. I could wax lyrical, but maybe just imagine heaven with a bit of nirvana thrown in for good measure. Since then, there's been a lot of garden work (ok, watching someone else do our garden work, if you must know), slogging through the complete New Yorker Cartoon archive (It's tough work I tell you!), and eating, well, cheese. Mostly.

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Summer Holidays

We're a third of our way through our three closely aligned trips away this summer. The first was spent with our very good friends Russell & Linda. Too much fun to talk about in detail, but it involved the pool, the beach, a yacht, New Years Eve, a 'family fun fair', the beach again, and lots of laughs, good food and wine; pictured here in no particular order. I'm going to bed so we can get up and pack for next few days away.