Enid Blyton vs Beast Quest

Well, despite my best efforts it appears Enid Blyton hasn't quite made the cut for this one.  I know it is... a great disappointment.  The many years I have devoted to collecting First Edition Blytons, with the view to one day sharing them with my own children... has possibly been in vain, sniff.  He has become obsessed with something else.  The obsession part is all too familiar, the staying up and reading under the covers long after the rest of the house is asleep, the dreams about the characters and the nose continually stuck in a book.  Meal times, in the car, walking around, you name it, there is a book in his hand!  All of which is of course fabulous and I am delighted that he loves to read.  Curious, I picked up a copy of one of his Beast Quest books and was intrigued.  The author is Adam Blade (real name? not sure...) and he is prolific, there are 60 books in the series and counting.  We have 40 of them.  Hmmm, sound familiar?  Blyton wrote around 800 books over a 40 year period.  As Blade is only in his 20s there should be plenty of time for him to churn out some more.

Each book features a quest that the protagonist Tom (12 years old) and Elenna (his best friend) need to complete to help save the Kingdom of Avantia.  There are lots of dragons, weapons, wizards and beasts to keep things interesting.  The Captain clearly adores them and so I would recommend them to anyone looking for a series of books to engage a little boy starting out on their reading journey.

Pelicans

I just picked up this lovely little Pelican at the Salvo's for $2!  Such a lovely and unexpected find!  I have a bit of a thing for Pelicans despite two rather unpleasant incidents.....  

Incident 1

This event took place some time ago.  We were living in Clovelly at the time and had taken a two year old Captain over to Rose Bay to watch the sea planes taking off and landing.  On arrival we found the ultimate rockstar car park, right on the harbour front.  We couldn't believe our luck and off we went to the park.  Upon our return we saw a bunch of tween aged kids sitting on the fence near our car, holding their noses and giggling.  As we got closer we saw what they were laughing at.  A pelican, perched rather prettily on a lamp post in the car park, next to our car had decided to empty it's bowels.  All over the front of our car. The damage was extensive, it took us a few minutes to clear the windscreen enough to drive. It was the smell however that was the most shocking.  A pelican diet consists primarily of fish.  R and I stood looking at the car in dismay whilst the tweens on the fence were laughing at us like hyenas!  After a while we had to bite the bullet and drive home though and the smell was simply phenomenal, it literally permeated the whole car.  At one stage I can remember we stopped at traffic lights and even the people waiting to cross the road started gagging and pointing at our car.  We now know why that car spot was empty.

Incident 2

The second pelican poo incident, yes there are two.  Be grateful, I have taken the fall for a lot of people as surely the odds of this happening must be rare!  Anyway, this event took place on the little one's third birthday.  For his present we gave him a lovely new bike and in order for him to try it out I took both boys to Manly, to ride to Shelly beach and back.  Along the way I stopped to answer a phone call, simultaneously a Pelican perched above answered a different kind of call, all over me.   Once again it was the smell, but this time it was in my hair, down my shirt, it was everywhere.  I had to walk another 2 k or so back to the car dry retching the entire way.  When we finally got back to the car I took off my t shirt and drove home in my bra.  By that stage I was completely over it and beyond caring what I looked like.   Pelican Poo Incident 2 has taken a little while to get over but over it I must be as I still love Pelicans.  

I even have this fabulous one at the front door!

The Dulux House

Investigating my stats recently I discovered that a great number of visitors to the blog were searching for images of the Dulux House, so I thought for all the like minded house stalkers out there I would provide you with some more images of it's fabulousness!

The front entrance, so pretty with the frangipani tree and scattered flowers on the lawn.

The gorgeous backyard.  The whole of the downstairs looks like it is a huge open plan room, this now seems to be a pre-requisite when designing a beach house.

Love the old milk bottle basket full of vintage bottles and flowers on the dining table.

Gorgeous tap and butlers sink in the island.  Do you think the little room off to the left might be a butlers pantry with the fridge in it?  I would seriously love to have a good look at this kitchen!

Living room with an open fire and stone surround.  I am not convinced by the very high mantle though.

Another living area in the main part of the open plan area.

With views out to the backyard.

A perfect beach bathroom.  The vanity is lovely and simple and not unlike our one.   I am also pretty sure that they have used the same travertine tiles on the shower walls that we used on our bathroom floors.  

Such a pretty house.  All images are from here.

Convalescing

 My big boy is sick.  I needed to wash his sheets so I relocated him to the back deck.  The natural healing properties of fresh air and sunshine must have helped.

He rallied and asked for some Tintin comics to read. Crossing my fingers and toes that the rest of us don't catch it!

This child.....

The other day as I was quietly tapping away at the computer, writing the blog post about the sandpit boat I heard a commotion from the back deck.

"I am the King of the Superheroes!" he roared 

The Superhero King glances around to check if his legions of adoring fans are all ready and waiting to observe and witness his moment of glory.

 (Am just loving his underpants tucked into his t-shirt here, in almost perfect superhero form.  Although, technically they should probably be worn on the outside.)

... and then, OH MY!, he jumps.... 

Off the table and back on to the deck.

Love it! (Especially that look of intense concentration)

The old boat sand pit or as it's being called on Pinterest, the sand box!

After writing the guest post for Carolyn I have received numerous emails asking about the boat sand pit/box.  The photo I posted of the boat is apparently very popular on Pinterest...

Before I even had children I had daydreamed about creating a play area that involved an old wooden boat.  As a child I adored many books that involved boats:

 "there is nothing, absolutely nothing, half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats" (Ratty, The Wind in the Willows) or sailing to the end of the earth with Reepicheep and Prince Caspian in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (my favourite of all the Narnia series), or  playing pirates with the Walker and Blackett children in Swallows and Amazons and who wouldn't have wanted to run row away to The Secret Island?  One of Enid Blytons' first and possibly best books.

This early love stemming from children's books combined with my love for anything vintage and nautical and well, it is just simply something that I have always wanted to do.

So where did we get the boat from? Well, my aunt (technically my ex-aunt but she is still very much part of our family) and her husband live on the water.  Their garden is lovely green rolling lawns that wind down to a private sandy beach. After storms all sorts of debris washes up onto their little beach and they are then responsible for disposing of it. Often they find old tenders (or small row boats) washed up.  Naturally as soon as I wanted one there were none to be found.  However, the universe provided, one washed up on a nearby beach after a storm and remained unclaimed.  After waiting several weeks for an owner to materialise we nabbed it.  It was definitely not sea worthy anymore, so perfect to be re-purposed into a sand pit for my little pirates.  If you don't have access to a beach where boats might randomly wash up, try ebay and also the tip.  I have often seen old boats at our local tip, we do live near the sea though.

Do they play in it often?  In winter, yes.  In summer, not so much.  We have a pool though and in summer they spend a lot of time in the water.  In winter though they use it a lot.  Not just as a general sandpit for digging, trucks and the construction of elaborate waterways and dams. But also to play pirates and sailing around the world type imaginative games.

It is unique and I adore it.  I find the standard sanitised backyard play items available for children these days so boring.  An old boat, surrounded by sand, in a ring of old sandstone pavers truly is an enchanting and wondrous place for a child (or childlike grown ups!).

Skiing Thredbo

We have just returned from a fabulous week away at the snow and on our second night it snowed!  The boys were beyond delighted as they ran around outside in their pjs/thermals.  We sort of half managed to get them dressed before they escaped outside and engaged themselves in a snowball fight.

We booked the boys into Thredboland every day and I highly recommend it.  The Captain has also attended ski school at Perisher but was a bit luke warm about it.  This year was his first time at Thredbo and it was the little one's first trip to the snow, previous trips he has been dropped off in Canberra to spend quality time with Grandma and Grandpa. Thredboland was fantastic.  They kept the boys together at our request and the instructors that they had for the week were brilliant.  Both boys started off skiing Friday Flat on the magic carpet and by the end of the week had achieved the Captain's ambition of moving up to skiing Merritt's.  R and I ran into them both with their instructor as they were in the line to get onto the Cruiser Chair and The Captain was proud as punch that he was skiing the same terrain that we were! Speaking of Merritt's if skiing Thredbo and looking for somewhere reasonable to eat lunch on the mountain I can definitely recommend Merritts Mountain House.  The food was fantastic, we especially loved the Austrian Goulash and the styling of the restaurant is seriously gorgeous!  There is the most amazing collection of enamelware on display and whoever styled it is another Sound of Music fan, there were references to the movie everywhere.  Every meal we ate there I was wishing I had brought the camera! The photo below is from their site and is just a glimpse of the great styling and vintage enamelware decorating the restaurant. 

Sadly, the days of apres-ski are well and truly over for us... instead we spent several afternoons at the Thredbo Leisure Centre.  The boys adored the waterside and there is a convenient row of chairs placed in front of it for parents and carers to observe their charges at play.  For older kids there is one of those inflatable obstacle courses which also looked great fun.

The baby looks tiny coming down the slide but he was by far it's biggest fan, we had to drag him out of the pool when it was time to go home for dinner:

I know many people are very dismissive of skiing in Australia.  The snow is fairly unreliable and the runs are relatively short if you have skied abroad.  Even so I believe that skiing in Australia is one of the most beautiful places in the world to ski. The snow gums and their myriad of colours dotting the edges of the runs are truly beautiful and nowhere else in the world will you be able to spot wombat footprints in the snow from the chairlift.   I don't think I have ever been disappointed in the experiences that I have had skiing the Australian resorts.   From the wonderful holidays I spent at Guthega and Thredbo as a child with school friends to the many ski trips that R and I went on before we had the boys and now to the wonderful memories we are creating at the snow with our own children.