Winter depths

Any spare time we had in June was spent doing final preparations for our long awaited trip to the Top End of Australia (Darwin, Kununurra, Broome and Karratha (Murujuga NP). Our departure date was Sunday the 27th June - the day that everything went pear shaped all around Australia in terms of border closures and lockdowns. This was the drastic response to a small number of Delta variant COVID cases escaping from hotel quarantine in Brisbane and overseas traveller transmission in Sydney. Our trip was off - indefinitely - and at such short notice!!!!

This picture taken from our front windows on the 24th June - it sums up our mood pretty accurately - we've had lots of these foggy, rainy mornings lately.......they're drab and a bit dispiriting.

Luckily Ella and the fam got in a quick day trip to Sydney JUST before all hell broke loose there (COVID wise) so she was able to complete some birthday wardrobe purchases. It was great fun to see what her choices were (mostly from her fave Culture Kings just off Sydney's Pitt Street Mall).

Those very desirable Air Jordans are so clean and new - and perfect!

And we loved the story behind this T-shirt - a satirical take on Elon Musk and the dogecoin phenomena - typical Ella sense of humour!

As well as the letdown of our cancelled trip (at very short notice) we're even in a heightened state here in Canberra with mandatory mask wearing as of this week (although not outdoors or at home) and a range of other restrictions. We have no cases here but there is concern that we're so close to the Sydney region and all the breakouts there!

But one nice outcome of missing out on our trip is that we're around for the Winter school holidays. We were lucky to have the young ones over for lunch during the week and caught up on all their news..

This pair are probably the tallest kids to ever use our Hassett Park swings ...

the North Melbourne supporter!

All the kids are loving that our small creek is flowing better now - thanks to all the rain and the efforts of our Park weeding group.

Some very special pics of these funny, gorgeous kids and their Mums  .......

Abi's had some quiet one on one time with us too. She loves getting the paints out and doing a bit of creative construction when she's here. This visit she made a wonderful horse float from a box I'd saved for her. It was very involved and took her a few hours of concentrated work ......

But it was perfect when she finished!