That was the year that was*

There's been bits I could have done without and there's been times that have not been fun for anyone living with me, but I'm finishing the year feeling not too bad at all and on reflection 2010 had a whole bunch of pretty fabulous bits too. Here's a few of them.

A beautiful day at the beach at Terrigal in January

Armidale Dark Ages camp at Easter

The kids at Cruickshanks farm stay after the Armidale camp.

A fabulous Mothers Day feast

A trip to Cockatoo Island with my Mum.

Yulefest in Moss Vale with wonderful friends

A walk with the family - extended family that is!

Taking Caitlin to meet Joss Whedon at the Opera House

More reenacting fun - this time Beorgwic in October

My kids being lucky enough to know their Great Grandma

Our Christmas party / Adam's birthday party - good friends, good times.

Christmas day at our place with my whole family,

the second gingerbread house of the year,

 and a postprandial Nerf war.

And to finish it all up there was today, a lovely meal at Manly Fish Cafe, then ice creams from Royal Copenhagen and a paddle at the water's edge as the day ended.

Tomorrow night we will see in the New Year with the usual suspects and probably way too much seafood - what more could one ask for?

*Bonus points for recognising the title!

Thankful Thursday

I'm taking a leaf out of Ariane's book for this one (oh, and I believe there's some sort of big holiday about giving thanks happening overseas somewhere...), here's what I'm grateful for today:

Friends who respond to a very last minute invite to a candle party (like a Tupperware party only with, well, candles), and turn up at my place to provide great conversation and remind me how lucky I am to have wonderful people in my life.

Children who rise to the occasion when I really need their help and do a terrific job cleaning up and, as David did tonight, offering to cook dinner while I went to grab some groceries.

King Island cheeses.

Dried leaves in boiling water...

...an exercise in associative blogging.

Tea.

My Nanna (Dad's mum), who I remember as teaching me to drink tea - no sugar, a bit of milk, strong and hot.

Breathing in the steam from the mug, cupped in cold hands, sitting around a campfire at night. So many glorious camping holidays with my family and my mum's twin sister's family when I was a kid.

Yum cha, the brew getting stronger as the meal progresses until the pot is refilled and it goes back to hot water lightly tinged with colour and flavour.

The ritual of Grandma's teapot, readied before every meal and filled with boiling water as dessert was finished, the cosy tucked around it, and cups of tea poured when perfectly brewed.

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and the cup of something that was almost but not quite entirely unlike tea which was all poor Arthur could get out of the Nutrimatic drinks dispenser.

Cold tea being used as a burns treatment in one of the Sue Barton books.

The Swallows and Amazons were always drinking tea; Lucy had tea with Tumnus the faun; Bilbo drank tea with Gandalf; the Mad Hatter had a tea party; Bunyip Bluegum, Sam Sawnoff and Bill Barnacle brewed tea in a billy to have with the puddin'; and there's nothing better than sitting down with a nice hot cup of tea and a good book.

Standing at the bus stop waiting to go to school in the morning with my cup of tea, the bus stop was right by our letterbox, when I finished my tea I'd put the empty mug in the letterbox and retrieve it when I got home in the afternoon. I once dropped and broke a favourite mug (given to me by my best friend Rowena) juggling too many belongings while trying to open the front door.

Tom reaching for my mug of hot tea from his perch on my left hip at maybe 9 or 10 months old and demanding his share of it before it got cold. Asbestos mouth that child.

Sitting on our front deck with my gardener, drinking tea and listening to tales of him growing up on a farm in South Africa and becoming a cheesemaker and eventually emigrating to Australia. He's moved up to the Central Coast now and has passed the Sydney part of his business on to his son. They're both lovely people but the son sends minions rather than coming himself (he's also living on the Central Coast) and I'm not at home as much so the tea break with the gardeners isn't happening any more.

Comfort, the cure for all ills. Peppermint tea for morning sickness (or rather morningnoonandnight sickness as it was), chamomile for sleep, English Breakfast tea for fueling up for the day, Earl Grey tea at night.

Watching Star Trek with Adam and wrangling cups of tea from each other with humerous orders "Tea, Earl Grey, hot. Make it so?"

Smoko at the shearing sheds when I went on a Scripture Union Agriculture camp during school holidays in year 7. It's called a smoko but it's really all about the mugs of tea. And the enormous trays of slab cake. I rode a pony bareback (and fell off) and drove a car across a paddock on that camp too. Then sprained my ankle so badly I couldn't walk for several days because I tried to chase sheep over rough ground wearing gum boots. My friend Rowena carried me piggy-back from the paddock back to where the camp staff were.

My kids bringing me cups of tea when they see I'm stressed or upset. On Wednesday night after Caitlin's dance concert this week I was so exhausted and strung out that when we got home I collapsed on the lounge and cried a little. Next thing I knew I had two cups of tea, both Caitlin and David had independently made one for me. I drank them both.

Drinking tea with my Mum and my brother on Saturday night. We sat at the kitchen table at my Mum's place after having left Grandma's room at the nursing home. We talked and cried a little and remembered and smiled and even laughed a little.

Tea.

Dried leaves in boiling water.

50 Things post No.18

This isn't quite a usual Friday Fragments style of post, not least because it doesn't just cover the last week - more like the last 40 years - but it's certainly fragmentary and it does include a couple of bits from the week just gone, so I'm linking up anyway. Don't forget to visit all the other fabulous fragmenters too!

Hosted by Mrs4444.

Sleeping - a picspam post

I was going back through all my photos on my laptop looking for images for another post that's sitting in my drafts folder and I kept coming across photos of me or one of the kids with either a child or a pet asleep on top of us.

Here they are.

Tom, post spag bol, with Samantha

Aug '05

Me with Samantha

Sept '04

Me with Tom

April '03

Ok, we might be foxing just a little bit in this one.

Me with Tom

Dec '02

Caitlin with James

not sure of the date, she'd have been 2-ish

50 Things post No 17

Sundays In My City

Hosted by Unknown Mami

Today I was treated to breakfast in bed. I received flowers, tea and chocolates, lots of cuddles, and the mini french press for coffee that I've been coveting for a while. Then I lay in bed with my book, my laptop (so I could write my post for my Mum) and a cup of tea for an utterly indulgent extra couple of hours. I had to get up in the end because the amazing smells that were drifting through the house as Adam cooked up an Anglo-Saxon feast for lunch were making my tummy rumble.

We sat on the front deck for lunch with the sun filtering down through the tree branches and the occasional leaf falling into our plates.

We mostly don't get proper autumn leaves here in Sydney, they just go vaguely yellow-brown and fall off.

Lunch was an Anglo-Saxon feast.

1. Chicken and clam soup, 2. Buttered beets, 3. Honey carrots, 4. Barley, 5. Beef roast, 6. Side dishes, 7. On the plate, 8. Dessert, 9. The chef

Afterwards I took my camera into our front garden to capture the little bits of autumn colour we do get. Our tibouchina trees are in bloom with masses of purple flowers.

Tibouchina flower.

The bees are making the most of the last few grevillea flowers.

I hope all you wonderful mums out there had a fantastic Mother's Day. I've been thinking of those for whom Mother's Day is a difficult time, I hope for you that there was kindness and love in your day from the people around you and possibly chocolate too.

Good things

It was a little scary how much of this I ate before thinking "Hmmm, that might be enough."

I blame @The_Ausmerican

On Monday afternoon Caitlin arrived home with these

They're from the lovely Juliette who I know through the kids' school and who occasionally comments here, she decided to spoil me with real flowers instead of virtual ones after reading my recent posts. Thank you so very much Juliette, they made my day and I've been enjoying sitting here on the lounge with that gorgeous display visible over the top of my laptop screen all week :-) Almost all the blooms are open now and they're lasting beautifully.

Today's lunch with my Dad - rockmelon, proscuitto, haloumi, tomato, token baby spinach and turkish bread

I went along with Dad to see his psychiatrist today and had a quite reassuring chat about what the family can contribute to looking after Dad and helping him to get well and so on. Apparently we hadn't done too badly on figuring out the right things to do - everything we'd come up with got the nod from the doctor. We then went and grabbed a few groceries and headed back to my place for lunch. I discovered Dad had never had haloumi cheese, an omission that could not be permitted to stand. "It's a bit more-ish," he said. "Isn't it just!" said I.

18 years

I was 18 years old when we first started talking about "when we're old and grey." When I came home and told my Mum that we were planning on getting married her reaction wasn't quite what I was looking for, she was wary of me committing so young.

One of Adam's friends took it upon himself to tell me to back off, I asked why he was telling me he had a problem with Adam and I being engaged, wasn't he Adam's friend? I was so furious that I made him drive me to Adam's place and tell Adam what he'd said to me. I don't think he was expecting that.

In the end we took the path of least resistance and agreed to wait a while before making anything official. It didn't really matter to us in any practical sense as we had no intention of either moving in together or marrying till a few years down the track anyway. But I'm still kind of irritated by the assumption that I didn't know what I was doing way back then.

Eventually there was a dinner, and a proposal, and a ring. Which all felt kind of staged, as though we were going through the motions in order to satisfy other people's need for formalities. I think I'm a bit deficient in the romance department because I'm quite sure Adam remembers it all rather differently. We told my parents and his, my parents threw an engagement party for us and I gave up half my wardrobe to storage of household goods that wouldn't be used for another 18 months or so.

Originally we'd planned for a wedding date after I finished my university degree, but after a year off to work in a bookshop and then starting over in a new course I was still a student when the 1st of Feb 1992 arrived. We were married in the church I'd grown up in, I was 21 and as long as there was no mention of the word "obey" and we were "husband and wife" rather than "man and wife" I was happy.

18 years, 3 kids and a whole lot of living later I'm still happy, still married and still in love.

Not too bad at all, I think I'll keep him.

An afternoon at the beach

This afternoon, just after lunch, Adam decided to bake bread rolls. I do like that he's impulsive sometimes but it would be nice if he didn't so frequently decide that he can do something in x minutes when in actual fact it is going to take x minutes + 1 hour. Anyway, Tom had a great time helping to make the rolls so it was totally worth it!

The bread rolls came with us to the beach, filling the car with the scent of freshly baked bread for the 40 minute drive. I completely failed to take a photo of them because we were in a hurry to get going once they were cooked and by the time we were sitting around the picnic table with dinner laid out before us everyone was way too hungry to allow for such frivolities as blog photography.

We took both Adam's and my mum along with us and, when we arrived at Avalon beach, were able to plonk ourselves down in the shade of one of the huge pine trees that overlook the sand.

Avalon Beach

Sunscreen was applied and Tom, Caitlin and Grandma made a bee-line for the water. David had decided that being sandy and salty was over-rated and settled down to sit with Nan.

David has engaged his anti-camera device.

Adam and I wandered down to the water's edge and stood knee deep in the waves watching the kids in the water with my mum. We ended up staying there, talking about stuff, with only the occasional larger wave interrupting us, for most of an hour. It was probably the best conversation time we've had in weeks. Eventually we thought we'd better go back and be friendly to Nan and Dave. A little later Adam and Tom headed over to the ocean pool and Dave and I followed.

The ocean pool is down where the sand meets the rocks at the base of the headland.

Ha! Got him before he could engage anti-camera device!

I was planning on just walking in far enough to get the sand out of the legs of my boardies but ended up going in for a swim after all, the water was just too enticing. We swam over to the edge where the waves of the incoming tide were just beginning to slosh over the concrete wall and rested there watching the surf break on the rocks. I'd have taken some photos but my camera was in David's pocket and he'd got fed up with watching us in the pool and had buggered off back to our spot on the beach.

After all that swimming and walking over soft sand and floating in the pool Tom was exhausted.

Grandma, David and Caitlin, however, were still going strong.

Adam and his mum went off in search of dinner while the rest of us lounged about on the beach, Grandma and Tom did go back for one last surf before the food arrived. Fish and chips and prawns and, of course, the rolls. At the end of the meal, after having devoured a huge amount of food including 4 of the, admittedly small, bread rolls, Tom asked "Seeing as we've been so good, can we have ice-cream?"

So we did.

Pictorial fragments from the past week

Hosted by Mrs4444.

This week's Friday Fragments has, very conveniently, been put off till Saturday which means I didn't have to be incredibly rude and spend part of Christmas Day hiding away behind the laptop in order to participate. Of course just because I didn't have to have net time yesterday doesn't mean I stayed completely away.... I'm so addicted. Head on over to Half-Past Kissin' Time for more fragments from the festive season.

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Our camping trip to Fingal Bay last weekend kicked off to a great start with us stuck in a traffic jam on the freeway, we took 2.5 hours to travel about 5km. I was able to get online from my phone and find out that the reason for the jam was a caravan accident, that there was a rescue helicopter on the road and that all lanes were closed. So we resigned ourselves to being late and were very grateful for cool weather, fully charged Nintendo DS's and that it wasn't us who'd managed to flip their huge caravan and have the roof of their 4WD removed (not sure if that was due to the accident or the rescuing). We arrived with just enough time up our sleeves to get the tent all set up before the light faded.

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The next morning Tom was ready to head to the beach at 7am but, as it was still quite overcast and cool and we had shopping that needed doing, we made him wait for a while. By the time we got to the beach there was not a cloud in the sky and we were all well and truly ready to get wet. The water was crystal clear and FREEZING but that didn't stop anyone - not even me, but there are no pictures to prove that ;-)

This was about as big as the waves got.

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On Christmas Eve we went to Adam's brother's place for lunch. I made a Greek salad and a pear, blue cheese and walnut salad, and we took some prawns along as our contributions to the meal and we sat around eating and talking while the kids played in the swimming pool. It's possible Caitlin may have been in there just a little too long.

Wrinkly fingers!

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Christmas lunch was at my Mum's place and we were very happy that my 99 year old Grandma was able to join us. It was quite an effort for her to be there but she was glad to be there and, as I told her, it's such a wonderful thing for the kids to know their Great Grandma and be able to share special occasions with her. As we sat around the table after the meal Caitlin ran off and grabbed her new sketchbook and Derwent pencils and drew a portrait of Great Grandma which she then gave to her to take home. I think it was a bit of a hit.

Caitlin with Great Grandma

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Caitlin scored big on the art front for Christmas, as well at the set of 72 Derwent watercolour pencils, she got a desk easel with paints, brushes, a palate and a couple of canvases, they seem to have gone down well.

Caitlin painting a dragon

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One of Tom's presents was a drawing kit with a book on how to draw mythological creatures, this has been a huge success with Adam and Caitlin getting in on the act as well. This one is a collaborative effort between Tom and Daddy.

Dragon by Tom (with some help from Dad)

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Today we have eschewed all the traditional Boxing day pursuits of movie going, sales shopping, cricket or Sydney to Hobart yacht race watching and have spent the day lazing around doing nothing much. Adam did get a bit energetic for a while though and whipped up a loaf of Ginger Beer Bread using the Spiced Ginger Loaf recipe from our bread machine's instruction book and using Lord Nelson Old Admiral beer in place of water. It was pretty damn good.

Bread, cheese, ham and pickles. Perfect.

Party time!

Our Christmas party on Saturday afternoon and evening seemed to go well, I certainly had fun and I'm pretty sure I wasn't the only one.

We began the afternoon with the traditional sharing of diseases. What? That's not part of your usual Christmas celebrations?

Viv, aka tigtog, fared particularly badly on the contagion front.

A little later on, just as Adam had been obliged to duck out for a few minutes, this strange man dressed in a completely inappropriate fashion for a summer day in Sydney, turned up carrying a sack full of goodies.

The kids seemed to know what he was there for!

After Santa left we got stuck into serious eating of all manner of munchies brought along by our wonderful guests - delicious dips, munchable veggies, scrumptious fruit, tofu balls of awesomeness, salad, shortbread, brownies, cookies, gingerbread, icecreams - thank you so much to everyone! (I'm not going shopping for at least a week.) Clara had a field day clearing up scraps of ham as it was carved but was saved by the wonderful ZB many, many times over from potentially disastrous encounters with chicken bones from the BBQ chooks.

Margaritas and mango daiquiris were distributed, the children stuffed themselves silly with chips and sugar, and we settled down to party on into the night.

Browncoats sure know how to have a good time!


(Ok, that may have been a little bit staged...but only a little!)

Eventually it all got too much for Clara, even the screaming slingshot monkey wasn't enough to get her moving.

There are photos, and even a video, of the exploits of rather later in the evening, but, as both photographer and subjects were rather worse for wear by then, those images will not be seeing the light of day. Suffice to say there was raucous singing along to Meatloaf and The Blues Brothers and I shall leave the rest to your imagination. We finished up with a viewing of Dr Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog, we had to, there was someone who HADN'T SEEN IT!!!

Adam and I got to bed at 4am. It was totally worth it. But I did rather wish I could spend Sunday doing what Clara decided was the best way to deal with the morning after.

Find sunny patch. Flop. Snooze.