Of horses and utes

We celebrated our first ever public holiday for the Melbourne Cup last week. We drank champagne, ate chicken, ran an in house sweep and tried to rekindle a bit of the old spirit around Melbourne Cup day in this year of the equine flu virus (EFV).

Ollie learnt about the difference between "the" favourite as opposed to the familiar "my" favourite when he drew Master O'Reilly in the sweep. Little A strutted around the house exercising his two week old walking skills in between being very interested in Rob's vintage Matchbox car collection. Little E smiled a lot and observed everything intently.

Josh lent us the ute for the weekend so we could transport another table up to Coogee. It went like a rocket up the highway. The table fitted the space in the kitchen perfectly and will join with our other one to make a larger square table when needed.

The ute looked right at home parked outside the mansions of Dudley St. We took it for another ride on Sunday morning to Rhodes Ikea to pick up a wall unit for J&J. Rob survived our two hours there without getting PTSD like he did last time.

Everyone stopped in their tracks at 11.00am of the 11th for a short Remembrance ceremony conducted over the Ikea loudspeakers. It was kinda bizarre. It didn't have the respectful ambience I needed - but full marks to Ikea for attempting it. We picked up a rug for the apartment at the same time.

The Victorian mansion over the road from our apartment goes up for auction this Tuesday evening.

This is Ella at about 7.00pm on Sunday evening - usually a time when babies get a bit crabby - but not our Miss Peach (Piarchay).

Lions, tigers, bears and monkeys

I treated myself last Friday to a day with the year fives at Old Mogo Town and the Mogo Zoo. Although the mobile phone was running hot throughout the day with assorted crises happening back at school I was able to get in some quality time with our gorgeous kids, their teachers and the lions, tigers, bears and monkeys at the Mogo Zoo.

A little treasure of a zoo...so up close and personal to the brown Syrian bears, the Sumatran tigers, the pride of exotic white lions and only 3 metres away from the most expressive and active family of black chimps. I know some little boys who would love the intimate scale of that zoo - feeding time was a thrill a minute when you can be that close to the animals.

We have had good rain intermittently over the past week or so. It really lifts everyone spirits to see rain at last...but not enough yet.

We were lucky to catch up with J&J & little E this morning. Little E was highly sociable and gave us a great show of her ability to touch her toes and roll around on her rug. She loves being pulled up into the sitting position - her little neck is looking very strong.

A weekend in Canberra

We enjoyed our weekend in Canberra: seeing "Inside Paris" (Dans Paris) at our favourite Dendy theatre on Saturday afternoon followed by an all out chocolate binge at KOKO Black; rudely woken on Sunday morning to daylight saving time..rushing out for a quick hello to a dreamy Ella (with daddy and her dummy) before taking Nellie the beagle on a long walk...back in time to see now smiley Ella refreshed after her morning nap.

We enjoyed our long talkative lunch today (lots of Bali news) with Jo A. & friends and struck it lucky with some of Jo's great Indonesian food to take home (including delicious urab urab) in doggy bags.

Two weeks back at school now and only eight to go. I have announced to everyone I am retiring and this term will be my last. I am determined to enjoy every minute of it and am already feeling like a weight is lifting from my shoulders.

Last weekend was very busy - a special night at the National Gallery of Australia for all us founding members (25 years) for a private viewing (and lecture) of the Culture Warriors exhibition.....then up to Coogee on Sunday for some more furniture acquisition and removal. The Moran sofabed has finally landed (thanks to the 4 "boys" who grunted and sweated it up 3 flights of stairs). The Chinese bench and side table from Coco Design, Rosebery have found their homes. The Coogee apartment stage 1 is almost finished now, just needs a rug and J&J's table to match the one under the window.

Holiday's over

We tried one last time to get the new Moran sofabed installed at Coogee this weekend. The delivery "boys" arrived on cue at 12.00noon but then declared it would need 4 boys to carry it up the 3 flights of stairs. Only 2 boy teams work on weekends. 4 boy teams work Monday to Friday!

I had to disallow Sam the electrician his best service in Sydney award from last week. He "forgot" to turn up on Saturday as arranged to do the electrical work. He had also forgotten to let Vera the painter know she was meant to meet with us too. I rang Vera the painter and felt quite intimidated by her dour Slavonic(?) demeanour.

Anyway our last holiday weekend at Coogee was still great - even more fun now we have found a few of the antique/asian furniture emporiums around Rosebery & Waterloo. We didn't catch a glimpse of Rodney Adler, fresh out of Muswellbrook prison even though a lot of the pundits were predicting he'd visit Gertrude and Alice cafe/bookstore at Bondi (one of our favourite cafes too!)

Our timing was just right this afternoon to see baby Ella drying off after her bath - what a peach! Her smiles light up the world.

We had a big girls day out at Floriade two weeks ago. The big girls had a chance to catch up while Ella, big O and little A stayed very mellow for many hours in the spring sunshine, amongst the tulips

The nation has breathed out a sigh of relief today as "Wimpy" (my mother's favourite nickname for JH) has finally called the election date. At least it will bring an end to the avalanche of thinly veiled political advertising that is jamming the media at the moment (and being funded from the public purse).

The 10 "best ofs" for this week

1. Best meal: Although the Nokia's flash found it hard to cope the atmosphere and food at "The Jimbarin", Avoca Street Randwick was the outright winner for us. Sharing wonderful Indonesian food with a Balinese twist in the outdoor courtyard with Ros, Pete and Rob on my 56th birthday was pretty wonderful. Eggplant with green chilli and anchovy sauce, kangkung, pancakes stuffed with beef and the sea food curry were our favourite dishes.

Rob and I returned to Binh Tranh at Cabramatta on our way home yesterday. The sugar cane prawn rice cakes (number 58) keep calling us back (along with the sticky rice cakes for dessert at the nearby bakery - the best ever).

2. Best walk: In a week where we walked everywhere, walking to the Clovelly Hotel with Ros and Pete was pretty special. We had the deck, the million dollar view and reasonably priced Coronas all to ourselves. I like the way Rob has managed to get my favourite Strylitzia (spelling?) plant into this picture.

3. Best Coffee: Cafe Mado, Auburn Road, Auburn - Turkish coffee and pastries to die for. Fascinating to sit and watch the multicultural passing parade- very strong traditional Muslim presence. Rob and I found amazing Afghan bread and hand made (in Auburn) Turkish delight to take away as souvenirs from our visit to Turkey in Sydney.

4. Best show: The only show in town for us this week was the Saturday matinee performance of Miss Saigon at the Lyric Theatre, Star City Casino. The theatre was packed, with a predominantly Asian audience. We were mesmerised by the show - not a particularly joyous one with its tough subject matter - but quite moving even with all the burlesque sparkle and helicopter special effects.

5. Best movie: We fulfilled my little Sydney apartment living dream of walking to the Randwick Ritz to catch a movie: "The Bourne Ultimatum". I experienced every knock, thump, bash and smash in the small but well set up Ritz theatre number two - here's to seeing many more movies at our "local"!

6. Best ice cream: Just to be sure I had two, both enjoyed sitting on the circular steps down to Coogee Beach as night time descended over the sand and rolling waves - my favourite was a double cone gelati - blood orange and pistachio from Gelatissimo, on Coogee Bay Road.

7. Longest walk: On Monday Rob and I walked to the Sydney Antique Centre, South Dowling Street, Surrey Hills - took us about one and a half hours. At least we can say we've done it. Without internet access it was really hard to locate where all the cool Antique shops are in Sydney. They are definitely not cool at Queen Street Woollahra (which we tried exploring on Tuesday). Way too posh; I felt a complete outsider, too intimidated to even enter most of the shops!

8. Best shopping experience: I spent nearly seven hours at Bondi Junction (by myself) on Wednesday. I had promised Rob I was going into every single shop I fancied. The time just flew and I only went into a couple of shops but I had the luxury of time to try lots of things on. Came home with heaps of parcels - new sunnies, David Lawrence coat, two pairs of jeans, a few Country Road tops; all good fun - lucky me!

Rob and I spent five hours at Ikea, Rhodes near Homebush Bay on Thursday. I swear Rob has been permanently traumatised by this shopping overdose, especially in the hyper controlling and consuming Ikea environment. We were very pleased however with our Expedit TV cabinet. It was delivered (exactly as promised) on Friday after which we spent three hours putting it together. We only made two fairly big mistakes despite Ikea's clear instructions, but they are not too noticeable in the finished product. We enjoyed sitting watching TV on Friday night and admiring our handiwork.

9. Best hardware store: One of Rob's happiest moments this week was when he discovered there is a Mitre 10 hardware store close by, on Clovelly Road at the Randwick end.

10. Best Service in Sydney Award: This has to go to Sam from Accept Electrical who responded to our temporary lighting problem on Thursday night with speed and diligence. We are going to get him to install more power points for us next weekend. He's keen to refer an excellent painter to us - she's female, paints like an artist and "doesn't charge too much". We are keen to talk to her!

Maxie and Rod hosted a big family get together last Friday night 28 September to celebrate Ros and Peter's visit. I came straight from a "hard day at the office" but didn't take long to enter into the celebratory spirit.

Travelling Davey

A birthday wish for Travelling Davey

It’s been thirty years now

Since he was a baby

He’s now an IT Journeyman

Plying this trade like a true Artisan.

But there is much more to the Davey I know,

And some secret stuff is beginning to show

In his travelling journal

Stuff that's bubbling down there

In his very own kernel

But like that skilled playwright

Bill Shakespeare

Travelling Davey gives them

Only what he wants them to hear

But he is in a joust with the ‘force’

I am referring to the Kenyon Tarts

Of course

Who decrypt each line

Working out the metre and time

In this time of self discovery

I send my best wishes

To my friend

Travelling Davey

I hope that it’s not too long

Before we can share a beer again

Down under in Coogee

The best zoo in the world

The early morning bus number 373 from Coogee Beach takes us through Saturday morning awakening traffic to spectacular Circular Quay. It's still too early for the indigenous buskers to be working but it's fun to watch them applying their body paint straight out of the Chromacryl bottle.

Armed with our Zoo passes we board the Taronga Zoo ferry and take the best seats in the house to capture that amazing bridge, that amazing opera house, Kirribilli, Garden Island, and, best of all according to Ollie: the bumpy waves.

We had to see the crocodiles first. Ollie quickly became impatient with my map reading ability so tried to find where they were himself. Jeremy also became disillusioned with my map reading ability and took over the job too. He ended up as lost as I was - we just zig zagged back and forth around the "best zoo in the world" on this perfect Spring Sydney day with both O and A finding delight in every ordinary and wondrous thing - even the sleepy crocodiles who were doing a great impersonation of big hunks of logs in the water.

The cable car ride was too thrilling for words - gave us the best view of the elephants and that stunning harbour view.

Ollie's day was made perfect by the crocodile treat to take home and an extra bumpy ride back to Circular Quay on the ferry - this time up on the top deck.

Back at Coogee there was time for a quick drink and then some beach time. Angus caught up on some sleep as I tried to emulate the womb experience for him by trundling him up and down the paved boardwalk in his stroller. Ollie headed straight for the water and ended up getting happily soaked as his "paddle" went a bit out of control.

We ended a perfect day back at the apartment with imported beers and great takeaway from Coogee Thai. 

We woke today to another perfect Spring day. We enjoyed breakfast at Barzura's with the Davies who were recovering from a noisy night at Coogee Sands. We handed over the keys so they could enjoy the next night at our apartment while they caught up with son Gareth. We envied them being able to stay on.

Back in Canberra we were able to catch up with the beautiful Ella who dazzled us with her smiles and her dumpling soft thighs. She is very settled at the moment, sleeping well and just starting to roll onto her side. She slept her first full night in her cot her last night.