Sportsman Max

We were staying in Canberra with Bec and Max three weekends ago to celebrate his 11th birthday and, while there for a few days, we saw him take tennis lessons and play rugby league. The latter has replaced soccer as his main winter game.

These pictures provide a sample of what we saw, but let's start with a birthday photo. I've already noted Max's like of ethnic foods, which because apparent when we celebrated his second or third birthday some years ago held in a sushi bar. Well, this time we dined in a Vietnamese restaurant near where Emily used to live in Page, a Canberra suburb.

The tennis coaching session was held in poor weather: cold and misty as the pictures suggest. In these shots Max is returning shots back cross the net - and in the first you can just the yellow streak of a ball on the right.

The weather cleared for league fixture, but a failed to get any action shots of Max running with the ball or scoring a try. Here he is standing on the left.

And watching the ball on the ground during a warm-up session.

But another team did turn up, and here's Max a long way from the ball!

AS

Santa Cruz Beach

After the research station visit, we had time to head down to Santa Cruz's beach. The water was freezing as usual and the kids expressed little interest inn having a dip. I dipped my toes in the less than inviting water near to the spectacular arch shown here.

The attraction for the grand-kids was building an imposing collection of sand castles:

And then knocking them over. Where have I seen this before?

AS

Ocean Research at Santa Cruz

One day, towards the end of our visit to California, we all went to Santa Cruz to see the Research Centre dedicated to marine life and the grand-kids had a lovely time. Indeed, they were engrossed in the exhibits much more than we expected. Here are some of the dramatis personae: crab Emily, octopus Ella and sea otter Flynn.

Ella and Flynn say hello to a rather large female blue whale.

Flynn is chatting here to another whale species that thoughtfully donated itself to science.

Grandma, Emily and the grand-kids admiring the rocky coast and Pacific Ocean from a cliff-top.

Treading warily around a group of elephant seals.

The research centre had lots of petting tanks where one could touch fish, anemones, crustaceans, and even a shark

Here are some sharks that I managed to stroke.

Some anemones and a lobster.

AS

Concert in the Park

I'm running very late in postings from our visit to Mountain View, which ended 4 weeks ago!

Nevertheless, I have a whole lot of great pictures to report, so here goes.

Mountain View has a great library and it treats the needs of very young kids exceptionally well. Apart from lots of books to borrow, the library runs story-time for the youngsters and, as we'll show here, occasional social events. One evening we headed to a kids' concert and picnic in the park adjacent to the library. Ella and Flynn had a great time, as did the adults in attendance. Library staff provided some eats, though families also brought their own. They'd hired a band and kids were invited to dance or otherwise move around the musicians whose tunes targeted toddlers.

Our spread.

The band and enthusiastic ravers.

Ella a little bit hesitant at joining the throng.

Dancing with grandma.

AS

It's Snowing

Winter has finally arrived! As I write, we're being hit by the strongest blast of Antarctic air in 15 years according to Met forecasters. When I awoke this morning - the pictures were taken at about 7.10 am - I found a light covering of snow in our back garden. However, the system is moving slowly north and Hanging Rock - about 110 km south of here - has accumulated 20cm (c. 8 inches) of snow. It's now snowing again and the expectation is that we're in for perhaps 3cm during the day.

As a precaution, motoring authorities have closed a 110 km stretch of the New England Highway north of Bendemeer to north of Guyra where the land rises to 1400 m or more. And the maximum temperature forecast for today is 6 degrees C (43 F).

Yet, just a few days ago, we were experiencing mid-winter temperatures of 16 C (62 F) and I was riding my bike around wearing shorts.

AS

Almost There! Venus and Jupiter Converge

Almost there! My daughter, Rebecca, took this picture using a tripod this evening, and it shows the convergence of Venus (the brighter of two planets) and Jupiter which despite its size is dimmer given its remoteness. And, tomorrow (July 1) they are expected to align themselves in a single image. The picture was taken in Canberra, but is no doubt similar everywhere.

AS

Pass of Oaks

Last weekend, we travelled three hours or so by road to the town of El Paso de Robles (tr. Pass of Oaks). Emily and Greg wanted to treat us to a weekend away in a pleasant place to celebrate our imminent 70th anniversaries, so they booked two nights in some lovely accommodation through airbnb, and that turned out to be the homestead at a vineyard high on a hill west of the town. And to get all 6 of us there they had to hire what looked like a tank! Well, it turned out to be a large 8-seater Ford which Emily drove there and back. This post recounts some of the events of the first day or so of our trip.

Here's Emily at the wheel of our 'tank' - though I have to say that it was well appointed. And I was inn the second row, alongside Ella and Flynn. Dot managed to squeeze into the third row whose remaining two seats were folded down to accommodate a mass of luggage.

California is in the grip of a devastating drought, but amazingly we had a shower on the way down, which created this lovely rainbow. With a great piece of timing we arrived just on sunset so that we could marvel at the vista from our house's verandah - with the sun painting the sky in soft colours.

Our house was well appointed - here, for example was our bedroom.

And the following morning we awoke to the sight of circling eagles no doubt looking for prey

Our first destination was the Sculpterra winery for a lengthy tasting of some eight wines, many modelled on those of France's lower Rhone valley. I liked many of those I tasted, but alas for Dot, many were reds whereas she likes whites. The vineyard's name hints at one of its key features - an extensive array of excellent sculptures, including this door with a dog looking through the window which attracted Ella's attention.

Some exhibits, like that above, were allegorical, but others depicted wild-life. Ella loved the telescope. Look also at the manicured gardens.

In the afternoon, we roamed around some of the town's lovely old buildings - Paso Robles is home to about 20K people, so it's slightly larger than Armidale and has similarly retained its charm.

One of the leading residents was the renowned concert pianist, Ignacy Jan Paderewski, a Polish patriot and eventually Prime Minister after WW 1 who visited this part of California.

Just down from our house was this large solar energy 'farm' which we debated before heading off to an olive oil production facility for our final tasting of the day - various types of olive oil! The views from this hill-top were also lovely, though Ella and Flynn could not take part in the tasting ceremony where the ins and outs of making olive oil were debated.

The plantation we visited also had sculptures like these insects.

After a nice evening meal in a nearby Mexican restaurant, the kids played in a very 'large' toy house across the street before we headed off home to put them to bed.

We loved day #1.

AS

Strange Trees in Gilroy Gardens

Apart from being a lovely destination for kids, Gilroy Gardens holds interests for adults and especially those with green thumbs, The gardens are home to a collection of spectacularly sculptured trees, many of which are shown here. The founder in particular had a lovely way of shaping them in weird forms. Have a look and tell me what you think.

AS