Friends

Nearly 30 years ago, when we moved back to Australia after our posting to KL,   I made two very dear and special friends.  One I met on my first day at my new school, which was actually my old school but Canberra has such a transient population that there were hardly any recognisable faces.  I was allocated a seat at a double wooden desk next to D and promptly handed a Hymn book, a Bible and a sheaf of photocopied Prayers and Hymns that needed to be glued into both.  I must have looked quite bewildered as D kindly offered to do it all for me.  V I met shortly afterwards at Girl Guides.  Come around the back she enticed and I'll let you feel my bra strap.  I have been best friends with both ever since.

Last year for my 40th birthday they gave me a very generous voucher for one of my most favourite shops. 

Black and Spiro.

 As V lives in Brisbane nowadays she was able to accompany me for the grand shopping trip but D now lives in the Hunter Valley and thus has not yet seen the divine things that I purchased with their very thoughtful gift.

Thank you both so very much for my lovely 40th birthday presents.  Every time I look at the Pineapple painting it makes me smile and everybody that visits the house loves it and asks after it.  I use the butter dish everyday and it's vintage gorgeousness makes me so happy, as does the lovely hammered silver trinket box which looks perfect on my bookshelves. 

Thank you for being such marvellous friends, you have both enriched my life in so many ways.

Harry Potter vs the various Landrover Publications

Really.... I don't know why I was worried.  Saturday morning a quick trip to the library and a bunch of new books were borrowed for distraction purposes.

He slowly made his way through them as I wandered through the shops.

He is quite a good shopping companion really.

By Saturday night however all the new library books (and Harry Potter) had been abandoned for the Landrover Discovery 4 Brochure and the new Landrover Onelife Magazine.

This morning on the way to school it was still the current favourite.  I foresee a future with Top Gear in it.

I've been busy....

...but first,  Friday Phone Dump...

My sidekick, we both love Pablo & Rusty's

.

This is what he orders.  

I tend to have either a Flat White or a Piccolo Latte, depending upon the time of day.

Cute bedroom ideas from a magazine in a coffee shop... I think it was Country Style...

So love this!

And this!

Alfresco Emporium

Dinner with husband at Manly Wine, food so so.  Atmosphere... fabulous!!!

Armchair Collective (consistently good coffee, food and homewares!)

Love that orange piping.  Trying to convince husband to do something bold like this with the Parker Chairs he has in his office.

The Captain's latest art work.

It's a Thorny Devil!

Marc Jacobs Mouse Ballet Flats that I think need to come home with me. 

Also, think I need this.  My favourite drink is a toss up between a Pimms and a Champagne Cocktail!  

...and now to the busy side of things.  I have been organising a Trivia Night Fundraiser for 80 people and have been canvassing Sydney for prizes and donations!  Anyway, it is tonight so I have my fingers and toes crossed that it all goes well!!!  Have a lovely weekend everyone! xx

The apple didn't fall far from the tree after all.

 This is how I found him as we were about to walk out the door this morning.  Can you make out the cover?  I am beyond delighted.  (Apologies for the rubbish photo, I had to capture the moment quickly and get said child to school before the first bell at 8.25).

The Horse Whisperer ...

  The part of Sydney we live in is truly spectacular, a string of coastline dotted with stunning beaches on one side and the lovely calm of Pittwater on the other side.  In between there is a lot of national park and the odd rural hamlet.  We take a shortcut to the boys schools through one of the more rural areas and in doing so drive past several paddocks that are home to horses.  And yes,  I was one of those girls that was horse mad.  

Here I am aged around 15/16 on a pony camp.  Loving my very 80s Akubra (the hat) and my Drizabone that I have rolled up and hooked onto the saddle!  I think I must have been channelling The Man from Snowy River!  Although I am appalled that I am not wearing a helmet!! 

  This childhood love of horses has never really abated and I often stop at one of the paddocks we drive past on our way to and from school.  It is home to half a dozen horses and they always come over to the gate to say hello.  The other day though as we were driving home we came across one of the horses and a little Shetland Pony out on the road.  A bunch of people had stopped and there were a couple of men trying to catch them with a bit of rope.  Both the horse and the pony were very agitated and the horses in the paddock that hadn't yet got out were also very distressed, cantering up and down the length of the paddock beside the road.  

The two that had got out were in serious danger of being hit by a car as they were dashing back and forth across the road, dodging all the cars.  Fortunately, as more and more people came across the mayhem all the cars created a sort of roadblock that stopped the horses moving further along the road in either direction.  All the extra cars and people though certainly weren't helping to calm the horses.  

Watching all this from the safety of my car I was at a loss as to what to do until the Captain said to me, "Mummy I still have some apple in my lunchbox!"  I grabbed his lunchbox and jumped out of the car, one of the men yelled at me to get back in the car and that they had called the RSPCA and the Police and I was all like, oh yeah just watch this and waved The Captain's green lunchbox at him!   He probably thought I was crazy!  Ignoring the Shetland, (I figured he was probably a companion pony and would follow the other horse back into the paddock), I walked straight up to the horse and with one quick wave of the apple under the horses nose she was putty in my hands.  My audience of onlookers watched enthralled (if only they knew!) as she followed me calmly back into the paddock, the little Shetland trotting along obediently beside us!   I felt like the horse whisperer, it was hilarious!  The Captain is now working hard on me to start horse riding classes!  I guess it looked pretty impressive to a 6 year old!

The school dilemma

My little pirate is a June baby.  In terms of school enrolments this is not such a great date of birth.  In NSW children are supposed to start school if they turn 5, on or before the 31 of July of the year they would start school.  If everybody followed this guideline then Baby Pirate would be one of the youngest in his class but there would be no more than a years gap between the children.  However, what is more common is that children that turn 5 from January on are held back to start the following year, yes so already 6 or almost 6 when they start kindergarten.  

The Captain, born at the end of October is the third youngest in his class.... 

So the dilemma is if I send Baby Pirate to school next year he could be up to 18 months younger than some of the kids.  In his pre-school group there are kids that have already turned 5 in January/February.  He doesn't turn 4 till the end of the month.  Are you following?  I barely can make sense of all of this!  He is fine in Pre-School and academically he is so far ahead of some of these kids that I know he would be more than fine at School.  Physically however, these kids are huge compared to him and they are probably more emotionally confident.

When I have discussed with friends and family the situation we are in almost universally people have said, "send him next year."  I have decided not to though and not because of noble thoughts about an extra year at home of play based learning or because I don't think he would cope or because I have read Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers.   In fact I know he would be totally fine and would settle very happily into school next year, but I am holding him back (and yes I really feel like I am holding him back) because I think that it is absurd that he will be in a class room with kids up to 18 months older than him.  In primary school this won't be such a big deal but when it comes to high school it will be and so another year of Pre-school it must be little Pirate!  Anyone else out there with thoughts on this?  

Life lately...

Nicasso's latest masterpiece on display at the school art show.  Sold to Mummy for the princely sum of $20.  It is called  "Mr Peacock feather"

Money well spent I say, it will look fabulous hanging in our house!

Library bags that I have been busy whipping up for the school fair and would you believe... I made all of them in a week.  Considering I don't sew, this was no easy task!  I even lined them all.  My Grandma would have been so proud of me for this.  I copied the ones that she made me when I started school,  a long long time ago... in the 1970s (shudder) and that I still use to this day.

 Lastly, me modelling my lovely Mother's Day gift.  A gorgeous necklace from Dinosaur Designs, thank you my beautiful boys.

Now that the school fair is out of the way I kind of feel, for the first time in ages that I have a bit of spare time on my hands again.  Woohoo, and now that I am getting into sewing (so can't believe I just typed that) I am thinking of trying to make some cushions.  Is it hard... does anyone out there know how to make them?  I really want to learn as firstly lovely cushions are always super expensive and half the time the inserts are still polyester rubbish, grrrrr.  I would rather buy some decent feather inserts and make my own cushions from gorgeous fabrics if it isn't ridiculously hard.   Although, I do have to start planning the little one's 4th birthday party.  How can he be nearly 4 already?  I am going to have to stop calling him the Baby. Oh  no, does this mean I will have to change the blog title to Two Pirates.... they are hardly little anymore. Sob!

Back into the swing of things

It was an interesting week, last week...  the Captain's school partially burnt down and all classes were cancelled whilst the damaged classrooms and library were demolished and all the hazardous materials removed from the school site.  I volunteered to help out any of the parents from the Captain's class who were struggling with child care issues and thus found myself operating a day care centre for 6 and 7 year olds.  It was great fun.  Amazingly I either ended up with all boys or all girls each day.  The day that I had all girls (save for the Captain of course), we did lots of craft and a lot of dressing up!  We have mostly "boy" dress up items but that didn't stop the girls... I had a couple of cowgirls and some medieval Knights and would you believe they had an all out battle in the backyard!

The Captain was King of course!  I would love to show you some more photos but there are too many faces in them to put on the web unfortunately!  Yes...I am one of those Mums that lets her kids play with toy swords and the girls were thrilled with them. Much more so than any boys that have ever been here to play!

Apparently this is my future daughter-in-law.  

The days that I had boys were dominated with Lego, Thunderbirds and a trip to the local Waterfall.

They spent hours trying to build a dam and yes, one fell in and yes, I am pretty sure it was an accidentally on purpose thing.   Ah, you just have to love little boys! 

If anyone has any good fundraising ideas for a small school to do I would love to hear them.

Hurrah... I have a computer again!

I started to write a long and lengthy post trying to explain about the rather difficult past 3 months we have just had but in the interests of keeping things in perspective, ie.  there are others that that have to cope with so much more on a daily basis that I decided to abandon it and instead update you all as what we have been doing.

I will say though that as we haven't had a computer for the past 6 weeks (details were in the explanation now abandoned!) and have moved out of the house twice and been on holidays, also twice, that blogging and all that it entails were temporarily put on hold.   Apologies to those that I alarmed with my lengthy absence and Jane a card will be in the post on Monday to you my lovely!

The house is now painted. The colours that we ended up choosing are Dulux Oyster Linen and Taubmans Aspen Snow for the trims.  A lot of people have emailed me about the colour of the house.  The number is actually mind boggling.... anyway, if I haven't replied to your email yet I apologise and am getting around to everyone slowly.  Hopefully I will answer all the questions here now:  Oyster Linen is not on the standard colour chart but if you go into Dulux or Bunnings they will be able to mix a sample pot for you.  It is full strength.  The front door is Dulux Domino in a gloss finish.

The little blue strip above the door is yet to be painted!

The inside is very slowly getting there...

My clever clogs husband built the bench seat! Well, he/we did most of the work inside the house!

It is a lovely spot for a cup of tea in the morning, actually just lovely all the time! The floors are blackbutt with a matt finish.

The laundry is in, I absolutely love the long bench top but do not recommend the product.  Ceaserstone Snow and it stains if you just look at it with a cup of coffee, some red wine or even a slice of fruit... don't ask... Unless you are considering using it somewhere, in which case be aware that it STAINS easily. VERY EASILY.  It does look nice though.

Will do some more house updates soon but in the meantime the Pirates are well.  We had a fabulous break at the beach house.

They are both their father's sons and love the surf.  The little one, although quite a proficient swimmer scares me with his confidence.  He is always the smallest person out in the surf.

He started pre-school last week.  First time away from me and I was prepared for tears and drama.  Nothing.  Indeed, the little traitor practically rolled his eyes at me when I was saying goodbye.

I will be along to visit all of you soon!  xx