Metal Sculptures

Dot  and I regularly go to the Markets in the Mall on the last Sunday of each month. Armidale's main street, which is pedestrianised, is covered in stalls selling all sorts of things - fruit and vegetables, jars of honey and jam, second-hand books and tools, crafts - we saw yesterday some excellent wood-work for example, toys, hand-made soaps and cosmetics. There are also stalls for political parties, local action groups (one yesterday was campaigning for money for a new public library), and environmentalists and lots of different foods - Asian, Dutch poffertjes, lovely French croissants, spectacular ice-creams and so on.

One of the vendors is a creative bloke who takes scrap-metal and turns them into sculptures. We love his work and bought the metal dragon with mesh wings shown here - like something out Lord of the Rings - a few years ago as a Christmas present for Emily and Greg. Well, for some reason they didn't want it and it has graced our garden ever since.

Well, yesterday we decided to buy another object. This time it was a blow-fly! Yes, one of those pesky insects that blight our summers. This year, the extremely dry conditions until the last couple of weeks when it has simply poured day after day has led to an absence of the critters and I was having blow-fly withdrawal symptoms. I persuaded Dot to buy the metal blow-fly instead of a lizard or something similar and here it is! Rather nice, eh?

AS

Pop-Ups Concert

This morning we took Ella to a concert in a nearby hall given by two young musicians and targeting toddlers and early school age kids. There was a large and very enthusiastic young audience for a duo who have been nominated for a grammy. The music was catchy and the themes were what you'd expect for an audience of that age - counting songs, stories about animals, life in a large city, and so on. I guess the show was quite short - about 35  minutes because the tots' attention span was limited and the volume of the sound was so loud that many families migrated to the back of the hall, ourselves included (Emily, Ella and me). Ella liked some of the sketches, but was fearful of the booming speakers. She wore her tutu to the performance because she was expecting to dance to the music, but that never really happened. As an aside, will she be wearing a threethree when she reaches that age in May?

After the show we stood in long queues for (a) cheese melts and (b) a present of a balloon creation. She wasn't ecstatic about the melt, but the balloon artist made her a monkey climbing a tree with green foliage and that blew her away.

AS

Train Ride!

I've noticed that Flynn, when I take him for a walk in the stroller, is nervous about being near train tracks with their noisy and clanking engines and rolling stock, not to mention piercing horns. So, it was with some fear and interest that I found myself today taking him and Ella, who loves trains, together with Emily and Dot on a return train journey to Belmont - about half way from Mountain View to San Francisco. Towns en route include Palo Alto (high pole in Spanish), Menlo Park, and Redwood City - a who's who of ICT firms. The journey took about 25 minutes one way.

The line is served mainly by CalTrain services, which are often quite frequent on workdays. They tend to have a large diesel locomotive and 5 enormous double-deck carriages, with the former always at the southern end. So, services are pull southwards from SF and push northwards and look like this:
going north and south respectively.

Coming back from Belmont, the carriage we were in housed bicycles and I was surprised at the enormous amount of space provided for cyclists.

The route roughly parallels the El Camino Real (Royal Road in Spanish) road running from SF to San Jose and beyond and this picture taken from Belmont station shows the park we went to in the background.

We mainly had lunch in the park, but both Ella and Flynn used the play equipment enthusiastically:

I had a bagel for lunch, which I rather enjoy and Ella and Flynn both liked the slippery dips. Flynn even managed to climb up to the top of the slide himself even though he doesn't as yet walk - an event that's only days away I think. And, of course, he had to be helped down the slope..

All this action took place in yet another Eucalyptus forest. We were surrounded by massive specimens of various species, which rather made us feel at home:

Finally, after we returned to Mountain View ... well San Antonio station, which was apparently named after me ... we finished the day's trip with an ice-cream. Mine was a "small" (i.e. actually large) cup of two flavours, one of which was "computer chip". This was a delicious soft chocolate surrounding chips of hard chocolate. I must have some more of that in the next few days! Ella loved hers too!

AS

Keeping the Kids Occupied

Oakland Zoo had much offer little people and, on a Friday here, a large cohort of the visitors was in the under-10 and indeed under-5 age group judging by the enormous array of strollers. Apart from viewing the large numbers of animals associated with the Africa Sahel belt or tropical Asia, there were (A) children's play areas, (B) a chair lift which went a long way up the hillside way above animal enclosures so that one could float above lions and tigers, (C) a rather nice train trip to the Australia Outback, and (D) a small fun-fair. Ella sampled all these and Flynn most of them except for the chairlift where getting him on and holding him still would have been a challenge.

Let's have a look at this side of the Zoo:

Flynn standing beside a tortoise shell which Ella had just climbed through.

Ella and Flynn playing with a large red frog - just a model I'm afraid.

View over the zoo.

Ella takes to the steering wheel of a Jeep

And Ella's first ride on a carousel.

AS

A Day Out to Oakland Zoo

Yesterday, five of us including Ella and Flynn took a trip to see the animals at Oakland Zoo and the kids in particular had a ball. The zoo, located on a hillside above Oakland, was well maintained and the animals were often housed in very large enclosures which gave them some privacy alongside good viewing opportunities for the public. It also had great views across the Bay area towards San Francisco to the north-west and Palo Alto to the south-west.

Let's just do a roll-call of the animals Ella and Flynn saw on a brilliantly clear and warm day:

Flamingoes and spoonbills

 Tiger

 Eland

 Lions

 Buffalo

 Eland, again

 Giraffe

 Hephalump

 Zebra

 Python

Hyenas

 Sun-Bear - the kids' favourite

 Unidentified  Monkey

 Macaws

 Unidentified Small Monkey

 Unidentified Monkey

  Unidentified Monkey

 Tortoise

 Bonobos

 Worthog

 Emus

I should say one other thing. The vegetation enshrouding the animals was, in places, heavily Australian. There were plenty of Eucalypts, including enormously high stringy-barks, wattles in flower - including a Cootamundra, and something that looked like an Illawarra Flame tree. In fact, there are Eucalypts over many parts of Silicon Valley. Apologies, too, for my lack of recognition of our primate relatives!


AS

Walking with Dinosaurs ... or I did it my way

Flynn is becoming impressively mobile and it will not be long before he takes his first steps.

Yesterday we uncovered one of Ella's toys, a dinosaur on wheels, and Flynn became hooked. We brought it indoors and this morning, instead of pushing it around the floor on his knees, Flynn stood up and pushed while holding on to the handlebars. In this position he managed a maximum of about 18 steps in one hit and many smaller distance journeys. And his happiness at succeeding in this left a broad smile across his face - just about broader than at any time during our visit. What a happy chappy doing it his way!

AS

Taking the Tots to Monterey's Aquarium

After the exertions for a week or more packing and unpacking dozens of boxes of belongings during Emily's move to a new apartment, we decided yesterday to make the 90 minute journey to one of my favourite spots in California, Monterey. It has a world-class aquarium which was the focus of our visit and for maybe 3 hours Emily, Ella, Flynn, Dot and myself were bewitched by beautifully produced marine settings and displays.

The aquarium runs movies; touch-pools where kids like Ella could stroke star-fish, kelp, shell-fish and other sea creatures; feeding sessions - we saw sharks, penguins, and sea otters all being plied with their rations, but along with interesting commentaries about their lives and idiosyncrasies; and huge tanks with all manner of interesting sea-life. There are particularly large and impressive collections of jelly-fish, swarming sardines and anchovies, blue- and yellow-fine tuna of massive proportions, hammerhead sharks, turtles and so on.

Here are some of my favourite images of the day, ending with us eating ice-creams in a little park with sculptures of characters from the novels of John Steinbeck, including the well-known Cannery Row. He lived here and is indelibly associated with the town. I add a picture of Cannery Row, which actually exists. First up, Ella and Flynn  met one of the seemingly hundreds of helpers and guides who showed them a container of jellyfish.

Then we went to the kelp forest to see a diver feeding all manner of fish, including some smallish reef sharks.

Here Ella is having fun touching shell-fish.

And here we have some of the many beautiful jelly-fish, which so attracted Ella and Flynn.

Hanging out together they are in the midst of viewing tuna, sharks, turtles, sardines and so on.

And more jelly-fish.

Viewed by these three dudes.

Feeding time for penguins from South Africa.

More time in a touch-pool, but this time looking at kelp.

Cannery Row.

Memorial to Steinbeck's novels.

Eating delicious ice-cream nearby.

By the way, we also saw wild sea otters and seals afloat in Monterey Bay. A visit is well-recommended.

AS