Party, Party

The last couple of days have been hectic and tiring - basically setting up and decorating the party venue, Em's lounge-room, preparing all the food for the guests including the very nice cake which Emily crafted herself with help from Dot and Ella, and then hosting five visiting families. Have a look at the evidence. Here's number one himself - Flynn!

Then all the decorations revolved around theme of twinkle, twinkle little start (aka Flynn). On one wall there pictures of the little kid taken monthly since his birth: all measuring his height gain against his favourite bear. Above that, there was a frieze of stars saying happy birthday, Flynn. The above that came the message Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.

Stars cascaded down from light fittings, windows, the hatch to the kitchen and even the wood-heater's flue! There were balloons filled with helium to keep them aloft - at least in theory, and of course the cake.

And here's the guest of honour with his #1 T-shirt.

There was a mass of delicious food, which the ladies of the house, Ella included, had taken a long time to prepare.

Lots of friendly playmates, afloat in a sea of toys.

And the birthday boy was placed in his seat for the lighting of the candle.

And, believe it or not, part of the proceedings were viewed by Mike and Moira, and Rebecca and Max a long way off in Canberra.

All the participants were complimentary about the hospitality and Flynn's participation in his own celebration.

AS

Unwrapping presents

Just before our going to bed on the evening before Flynn's first birthday, we piled his presents high on the lounge floor and topped it with a large helium balloon weighed down at the base.

The next morning they were still there and Flynn squealed with delight as he explored the pile.

Ella was so excited with all the presents that she took the lead in tearing the paper and opening them up while Flynn sat by curiously. Here she's tackling the biggest present of all -  Flynn's first wheels other than his planes!

And here she's unwrapped some stickers and a box of Leggo, which was so attractive that Ella immediately ripped open the box and started to build her dream home ... out of Grand  Designs!

Occasionally, a present did not appeal to Ella because it was too young for her, like this play cube with things to do on each face.

The piece de resistance, however, was that trike. It took me perhaps 45 minutes to assemble this fancy device and here is the fynnished product, please excuse the pun.

And Flynn readily took occupation of it. We guided him to a local park after lunch with broad smiles all over his face. He really enjoyed it! And guess who gave this present. I came from Dot and me and Bec and her family. Well done!

AS

Flynnair

It was Flynn's first birthday on Friday and, while he opened masses of presents on that occasion, his birthday party wasn't until today. That is the subject of a later posting, as is the tearing of paper wrapping his presents, ably supported by Ella.

The subject here is that Flynn now owns two jet planes and a helicopter. And they're parked at Ella's airport! So move over Richard Bransom! You now have competition from a low cost budget airline called Flynnair, provided he doesn't run into trouble from another well-known Finnish airline for infringement of their trademark.

It didn't take long for Flynn to work out that if he pressed the pilot down in his seat on one of the aircraft he got the traditional briefing given to passengers before they take to the air.

It was all very cute to see him and Ella playing with the planes.

AS

Grape Harvest

This posting is a little out of sequence, but please excuse me the order of the events given that I've just travelled half-way around the world.

Last year I commented that we had just bought in our first and disappointing grape harvest. This year we did much better with an abundance of Isabella grapes which are nice to eat. Alas, we did not quite have enough to press into a bottle of wine, so the first bottle of Chateau Kenalmac will have to await another year. we'll let you know when that startling event occurs!

AS

USS Hornet #3

We turn now to life below deck, and in many ways this was just as interesting as the previous two posts. Here for example was the operating theatre

Or the laundry.

Or the rather cramped sleeping arrangement.

And here's Ella in the briefing room awaiting orders for her next sortie.

Perhaps she felt more at home in the galley, though I cannot be certain.

But she seemed fascinated by the model of the first aircraft attempting a landing on the deck of a ship, which seemed to me a hair-raising endeavour.

So that's it! A grand experience and one I would recommend to anyone. Thanks guys for all your enthusiastic commentary and willingness to answer questions.

AS

USS Hornet #2

This part of the trip was interesting for us and young Ella. Indeed, she had a ball as we shall see. We progressed through rooms with charts, echo sounders and other devices to locate a ship and help it navigate difficult waters and on to the captain's suite complete with bed and shower right next to the steering wheel. Here's Ella imagining she's steering the vessel on the directions of the captain and adjusting the angle of the rudder and power of the engines

And here she is as captain - the lord of all she surveys from a nice padded chair.

With this view in front.

However, if the admiral of the fleet were to be aboard, he or she would sit here and could perhaps overrule the captain. So Ella seemed both more comfortable and reflective in this position!

Perhaps one day she'll be placed in command of a fleet, but that's some years ahead.

AS

USS Hornet #1

We're back visiting family in the US since Flynn's first birthday party is coming up. However, Monday 17th February was the Presidents Day holiday and some of us decided to drive across to Oakland to visit USS Hornet,an historic aircraft carrier long decommissioned. I and granddaughter Ella, as we shall see, were highly impressed with our experience. The personnel who received us and showed us around were knowledgeable and friendly, and I presume volunteers since many of them had served on the ship and were from my demographic. Talking to them I seemed to gain a realistic impression of life aboard the Hornet and how taking off and landing aircraft was accomplished. The ship also participated in many major US military campaigns and in NASA's landing of men on the Moon. Moreover, nearly all of the ship was open to visitors, though Ella's low height barred us from the engine room.

This is the first of perhaps three postings because the trip was so exciting and detailed. It starts with us crossing the Dumbarton Bridge astride the southern San Francisco Bay area. Colonials, Australian's included, often proved unimaginatively homesick in choice of names and nothing about the Bay area recalls an image of Dumbarton.And Glencoe, near where I live, bears no resemblance to the original! Anyway, here's the bridge:

We soon USS Hornet and it was an imposing sight!

And we walked up the gangplank on the left into the cavernous deck used for storing and maintaining aircraft. There were many exhibits of the aircraft used and also the vessel's engagement with NASA. Here are some of the many images I took:

This exhibit was, I understand, the capsule where the first moon-walking astronauts were housed after splashing down in the Pacific Ocean and being fished out of the water by teams from the Hornet.

And this is one of NASA's capsules used for testing the re-entry capabilities of the space-craft returning astronauts from lunar exploration. The test, in this case, was successful.

Up on the flight deck were more aircraft, the catapults that accelerated aircraft into the air, and the angled deck (added later) that enabled landing aircraft to take off for a second attempt if they misjudged the first or were beaten by the heaving of the ship. We also spied the towers of San Francisco across the Bay in the distance.

This shows the catapult with an aircraft parked at the end.

And here's SF in the distance with part of the bridge to Oakland and the angled flight deck. It was from this window that aircraft landing was supervised.

After this, we had an interesting tour of the rest of the superstructure where command of the vessel occurred - the subject of the next post.

Slowly Roasting

This has been the hottest Summer I can ever recall in Armidale ... or anywhere else for that matter. Temperatures have reached as high as 37 C and many days have been 30 C or above. This might seem onerous, but fortunately most days have been crystal clear with low humidity. The killer is a mixture of hot weather and high humidity, like that experienced daily in the tropics - places like Cairns and Darwin. The curious thing this summer is that Armidale has frequently been warmer than either Darwin or Cairns, but much more bearable. I've just had a look at the forecasts for the next six days and the maxima are more of the same: 32, 32, 31, 30, 29 and 29, but alarmingly the middle days might be wet.

That said we could so with some rain. The last 5 weeks have yielded just 17mm or just 2/3rds of an inch when we normally receive 750 - 800 mm (or 30 - 32 inches) annually. Moreover, there is a summer maximum, so we're massively under the  average for those weeks. And the landscape around is slowly turning brown, except our garden where I've taken to irrigation. Fortunately Armidale has a very large supply of water and no restrictions have ever been put in place.

AS