Sesqui Boardwalking

We started off Saturday in Sydney with a walk to Bronte; extra exciting for me because it was my first time on the new Sesquicentary Boardwalk, skirting the old Waverly Cemetery and bravely constructed on the edge of the sandstone cliffs overlooking this beautiful part of Sydney's coastline. Its a distinctly different experience to the old days of negotiating the narrow crumbling paths of the cemetery, fighting to keep your place against the oncoming waves of sweating, lycra clad joggers.

Apparently though the locals are a little daunted by the unusual name for their boardwalk, as reported in www.streetcorner.com.........


But the big question on the lips of locals was not “who did the wonderful design” or “which viewing deck was their favourite” but “who on earth came up with the ridiculous name”. Sesqui Boardwalk is named in honour of Waverley’s sesquicentenary, that’s right, sesquicentenary. It’s not really an oft used word in the average Australian vocabulary and why would it be. Afterall, 150th’s are not really the most common of anniversary’s to celebrate. Locals are wondering why the walk couldn’t have been named after a local flower, landmark or person. “Something pronounceable, something memorable. That wouldn’t be too much to ask would it,” said one local who didn’t want to be identified.


The only consolation for those we spoke to was that “ we hate the name, but it doesn’t matter because we’ll be calling it the Bronte Boardwalk”.



There were a lot of suburban "festivals" happening this weekend in celebration of the Sydney International Food Festival http://www.siff.com.au/ . We chose a little event from the dozens available and headed off to the Chippendale Food for the Future Fair in Kensington Street. This sweet little hippiesque affair (so not like Sydney) marked the launch of the Chippendale Fresh Food Co-op, and introduced us to the characters who make this pretty grotty inner suburb, with its converted terrace community Arts spaces, so interesting.



In one of the studio spaces in Kensington Street a small installation from the Big hART gold project told the stories of farming families in the Murray Darling Basin who are coping with the worst drought on record in Australia.

Zoe Serafina

Storms and rain in Sydney on Sunday spoilt our plans to meet up with Sydney Clare, Spiros and Zoe at the Dank Street Festival at Waterloo. Instead, we were invited to spend the afternoon with them at Glebe, admiring Zoe's walking and stair climbing (and descending) skills and her enthusiasm for blueberries and various electronic technologies. We enjoyed the opportunity to catch up with her and her Mummy and Daddy over great coffee and light as a feather pikelets and fresh cream.




Spiros is encouraging me to understand my beautiful Canon digital SLR camera better. He has been incredibly patient and generous with his time in taking me through the basics of the electronics and providing me with some wonderful web based resources (and organic chocolates). He is such a lovely man. No wonder Zoe loves him to bits!

Waiting

We've been looking after Nellie the Beagle all week while her family has been holidaying in Bali. She waits all day for us to come outside and pay her some attention. She's still very playful for a dog of such mature years, although she tires a lot more quickly these days.



We decided not to wait any longer for warm dry weather and we both got out into our rain soaked garden this week. Lawns to mow, lots of weeding, cow poo to spread, and pea straw too, planting out the petunia seedlings and setting up some new herb pots filled most of the weekend.


With dam levels at just under 52% and still more rain predicted we're even going to give our tiny patch of green grass in the back garden a treatment with organic fertilizer - first time we've bothered doing this in quite a few (drought filled) years.


This rhododendron in our front garden has waited the past 8 years to flower like this. Amazing Spring!

I waited since the 2 October to hear that the small lump on my face was perfectly benign. My clever doctor has left a very small scar on which I am now trying the organic rose hip oil treatment.

We are waiting with great excitement to see Ella and J&J again on their return from Bali. I hope Ella has scored herself her own pair of beaded shoes so she'll be able to stop clacking around in her Mummy's at last.

Sydney subdued

I celebrated my birthday last Friday by having an "excision" performed on my face (by a plastic surgeon), for strictly medical reasons I hasten to add, not for enhancement! It needed 3 stitches and a very noticeable dressing (which quickly became blood stained), so I felt very self conscious and somewhat subdued (sub Jude as Rob termed it) for our 3 day long weekend in Sydney.

Rob did his best to cheer me up on Friday night with a lovely birthday meal and beautiful wine at our favourite Morroccan Feast in Randwick. When Saturday dawned cold and rainy he extended his good cheer to tolerate a couple of hours with me at Westfield, Bondi Junction where I was able to update my collection of Metalicus staples.

To end off a day of self indulgence we walked up to the Randwick Ritz (in quite heavy rain) to see the enthralling Mao's Last Dancer. Although the critics don't seem to be overly excited about this film, we just loved it. I felt so proud to see that the amazing choreography in the dance sequences had been devised by Graeme Murphy, with dancers from the Sydney Dance Company and the Australian Ballet.

We explored the Danks St, Waterloo area on Sunday - another cool and rainy day in Sydney. We discovered the wondrous Sanoma bread at Fratelli Fresh Food (the bread Tetsuya uses), ordered organic coffee at Wholefoods House and checked out the groovy and stylish Danks Street Depot.

I was expecting the foodie delights. What I hadn't expected were all the beautiful quality homeware and interior design showrooms. We found Abode Bazaar in Danks Street very much to our liking and brought this beautiful antique Zulu meat platter home with us to celebrate my truly unique sub Jude birthday in 2009.

No one in the Eastern suburbs seemed to be showing any interest in the NRL final game on Sunday afternoon....until we just happened to be walking past the infamous Coogee Bay Hotel at 6.00pm on Sunday. The bars and courtyard were crammed with excited people and masses of balloons in the Storms and Eels colours (I can't believe I knew the teams!). I guess it's reassuring that the CBH has found its groove again after the great icecream debacle last year. The beachfront itself was pratically deserted in the grey, windy dusk with storms threatening all around us.

It took us longer than usual to do our end of stay clean up yesterday. I guess I had been too sub Jude when we first arrived to really notice the thick layer of red dust on all the window sills and skirtings. Our apartment obviously isn't very airtight in a dust storm.

My week

It's been an eventful week of friends, family, fine food, travel and some work excitement (for me). It started Sunday 20th with a wonderful lunch at Murrumbateman to celebrate Jennie's big birthday and her "retirement". I had a (tiny) opportunity to photograph her beautiful grand-daughter Annabelle. she was a bit sleepy from the long drive from Moe, but I was happy to get this one as it highlights her glorious halo of curls.
Sister Ros, from Sandy Beach arrived late Thursday for a few days of quality time with Ez (& us). There was lunch for 10 on Friday at Babar's and then lunch at Jerrabomberra on Saturday (so all the working boys could catch up too). The three little kids had a brilliant time, with Ella enjoying every moment, keeping up with (and demonstrating her affection for) the big boys.

Thursday night I made a date with Jeni and Irene to see Young Victoria. We started at Jeni's beautiful home at Manuka for champagne and nibblies before tackling the 2 minute walk to Greater Union. We all loved this beautiful film, exploring the first 20 or so years of Victoria's life with her beloved Albert.

Saturday night us girls braved the freezing, wet conditions to head for our favourite Parlour Room Wine Bar to enjoy an in depth catch up, a few of our favourite cocktails and some high class tapas in the comforting, girl friendly ambiance of the wine bar. We missed Claire being there. She needed her sleep after a week of less than perfect health. Ella came prepared to join us on our night out (wearing her mummy's pink beaded shoes) and was quite disappointed when Daddy took her back home for a home cooked meal and an early night.

On Sunday Rob and I headed off for Brisbane so I could attend the Stronger Smarter Summit at the Sofitel Hotel while he stayed a few days at Sunnybank having some quality time with his Mum. Brisbane was enjoying some mild, clear weather after the terrible dust storms of the week before. I enjoyed the gentle warmth, my walks along the river and the relaxed friendliness of the city.

The two day Summit was really inspiring and enervating. It was pretty thrilling to be there to hear deputy PM Julia's announcement of 16.5million federal funding (over four years) for the Stronger Smarter Indigenous Leadership Institute - great news for Indigenous kids and schools all over Australia, because the work of the Institute, under the leadership of the charismatic Dr Chris Sarra, really seems to be making a difference.

The leadership program I've been working on here in the ACT with my colleague Irene funded 4 other ACT school leaders to attend the summit. We got this picture of two of them, with Irene and me, under one of the Strong and Smart banners. We'd had fun the night before at the Summit dinner sharing laughs and stories with some of the local (Brisbane region) Aboriginal elders. They were about my age. I loved their capacity to laugh, in amongst dealing with their complex lives and considerable family responsibilities.

Springtime Ella

It's always good to have a wardrobe update in Spring. Ella has finally agreed to wear her jeans now they've had a bit of Springtime bling added from Spotlight.

But the lady beetle boots get a bit hot when you race around the garden in those pink, patchwork hippy shorts from Bali.

Making a girl very vulnerable to attacks by biting ants.

After the past three weeks of feeling very low from my killer flu virus I feel like I am slowly coming to life again, just like our Springtime garden. Rob has been piling on the cow poo and the pea straw and the beds are looking much more healthy (maybe that is what I've been needing too!).

After a few weeks of sleeping on the floor on her new big girl mattress Ella slept in her big girl bed for the first time this weekend. It was her Daddy's bed once too, so she is all set to dream some new dreams to add to all her Daddy's old ones about fast cars, fast wheels and fast hockey pucks.

Back to earth

In amongst all the excitement of our Father's Day get together - and reunion, with all the grandparents now back in Australia, I tried to get a group shot of all the little kids....

You can see I had mixed success, although this little series of pics does show the hilarity that goes along with anything they are involved in together. Ella continues to adore Ollie and finds Angie intensely funny, but a bit scary at the same time. She is Miss Business to his Mr Business, but in every other way they are at opposite ends of the gender stereotyping continuum.

This is Ella with her new favourite person especially since she presented Ella with her vintage (early 80s, mint condition) Strawberry Shortcake dolls (one black one white).

We ate & drank, talked, played and sang non stop, in between hearing all about London, Cheshire, Dave & Cath, our Bali/Lombok travels and Erin's Melbourne preparation plans. The girls all had fun trying on and making their choices from the suitcase full of Topshop jersey tops that Maxie brought back courtesy of London Cath. Our London Cath's jersey tops' department is now the biggest selling department for Topshop. The sales figures just sound astronomical to us. She is obviously a bit of a girl wonder.

Just to add to the mayhem Maxie downloaded a recording of the very ancient Chicka-boom song by Guy Mitchell, from Youtube. This is currently Ella's favourite song and we had to play it over and over and over again. Even Granny K. had to join in a little impromptu dance.

On a less positive note quite a few of the grown up girls are still nursing horrendous viruses, affecting various ears, throats, sinuses and eyes. I have felt sicker this week than I have for about 50 years, with the flu, a middle ear infection and conjunctivitis. Has there ever been a worse end of winter season for flu bugs in Canberra?