Cousins Together

One of the great delights of our current trip to Canberra is seeing Ella, Flynn and Max play together. A few days ago we travelled in convoy from Sydney to Canberra where Emily and kids were to stay with Greg's parents, Mike and Moira. Dot and I are staying with Bec, Rob and Max a short distance away and we're seeing quite a lot of each other.

During the journey here we did something really imaginative and stopped at an eatery with golden arches at a motorway stop half-way between the two cities. This is where I whipped out my camera and took pictures of Ella and Flynn sitting in high chairs:

It was a day later that we got Ella and Flynn together with Max. Incidentally we were going up Gininderra Way when I saw a remarkable sign at the roadside. It read FLYNN! Most suburbs in Canberra are named after prominent people, so I was stunned that the locals saw fit to name a suburb after someone who is only 9 months old. Anyway, here they all are sitting on of Bec's sofas.

After this shot and play with some of Max's toys, we headed outside on a nice day and Ella was taken with Max's trampoline. She was soon outside and bouncing on it furiously despite being a little less than 2.5 years old!

We soon added Flynn to the menu and he seemed to express great pleasure at being able to join in - and to Ella's delight.

And soon Max joined Ella for some serious bouncing.

Ella wound up with some gardening. She's very attracted to plants and here she is watering one of Bec's flower pots.

Later in, Ella tried on Max's crash helmet - the one he uses with his BMX bike and skate-board.

Sixth Rebirthday

Today marks the sixth anniversary of my cardiac arrest in November 2007. Well, I'm still going strong and hopefully I have another 30 or so years left to enjoy. Meanwhile, I've now reached Canberra and we're staying with Bec, Rob and Max while visiting Emily, Ella and Flynn, who are staying nearby with Greg's parents. We'll all get together from time to time over the next 7 days.

AS

Babes in the Wood?

Yesterday, the six of us (Emily, Greg, Ella, Flynn, Dot and me) had a lovely trip by train from our apartments in Sydney city down to circular quay, the opera house and the botanic gardens. After that, we back to our apartments to meet up with David and Shlomit and have afternoon tea in a nearby cafe. Here some pictures of us in our walk around some of Sydney's attractions.

Ella makes a donation to a couple posing as a gilded statue at Circular Quay.

Strolling to the opera house.

The Opera House precinct had some construction work, but it was hidden behind a lovely mural which Ella inspected.

Her she's almost encaged in a barbed wire commemoration to the wife of Lachlan Macquarie, one of Australia's early colonial governors. It's right next to government house, home to the NSW state governor.

And it's fun playing among the massive roots of a Moreton Bay fig tree.

Or tapping on a wooden drum from Vanuatu. Notice Flynn enviously looking at her performance.

Then to the botanical gardens' cafe for tea and coffee - none for wither Ella or Flynn.

And a stroll uphill through the palm grove towards Macquarie Street via the NSW Art Gallery on the Domain. That had a visiting exhibition of American (USA) Art and large letters spelling AMERICA in front. Here's Ella sampling the letter C, observed by Emily and Flynn.

Later that afternoon we went to the cafe with David and Shlomit and we see several members of our party studying the menu.

AS

Em's Arrival

We reached the airport terminal early on the 14th November to be sure of meeting Emily, Greg, Ella and Flynn as they exited from customs. And here they after a longish (maybe 15 hour trip from San Francisco.

AS

Great View

Dot and I are visiting Sydney to greet Emily and her family on their two-week visit to Australia. Coming down we took our now favourite route down Thunderbolt's Way - named after a lone bush-ranger called Fred Ward (alias Captain Thunderbolt) who held up stage coaches in the 19th century. Fortunately, he's long been gone in a shoot-out, so we were in no danger ... except from the many glorious views en route.This is one of the most scenic roads in Australia in my view and for perhaps 150 km doesn't go though any settlement. We stopped for a while at our usual resting place to admire the view. I can't remember the name of the lookout, but you can find it at 31 degrees 39 minutes and 21.08 seconds south; and 151 / 48 / 33.06 E!! Look it up on Google earth. Anyway I attach a couple of photos looking south towards Barrington Tops which rise to 5000 ft asl.

Despite all the rain we've had recently, the countryside is still a dull brown colour. On this occasion, however, we had a crystal clear day and could see vast distances.

AS

Big Win

I've just spent 14 hours over two days playing contract bridge at our local club's annual spring competition. It was a Swiss Pairs + Swiss Teams event and attracted players from all over New South Wales. We had 28 tables (112 players) for the pairs and 25 tables for the teams, both the largest attendance for some time. On Saturday I and my regular partner, Barbara Gates, played 56 boards and came in the top quarter of a strong field. Indeed, we got to 3rd position at one stage.

However, the Sunday Teams was a great triumph. Barbara and I teamed up with Nick Wall (who is now my Tuesday partner) and Ed Hahn and we won the event by a mile. Our IMP score was almost three times second spot and the victory point tally was 30 ahead of second spot. Indeed, we'd won the event after 6 of the 7 scheduled rounds, but we massively consolidated our position in the last round. In one round we played the starting favourites for the event by 65 IMPS to nil! Our whole team played an almost faultless game over 7 hours of play (8 hours including a delicious lunch). However, both Barbara and I were exhausted at the end, though that was tempered by our winning $400 between us for coming in first.

Normally, the President of the club would present the rather large Jean Stokes memorial bowl shown below, but since I'm the President that role fell to my friend, Ian Price. There is an official photo of that event, but I don't have it at this stage. So here's a photo taken by Dot at home. I'll return the trophy to our club-house round the corner early this afternoon.

Update! I now have the official picture of the four of us:

AS

Uralla Open Gardens

Dot and I headed out to nearby Uralla mid-morning to visit four open gardens there. They were part of a suite of ten or so gardens open to the public for a small fee in the Armidale district. We went along with two of Dot's friends who are also interested in viewing garden flowers and ornaments. We interspersed these visits with coffee and lunch in Uralla itself, an attractive little town acting as a dormitory suburb of Armidale located 22 km away.

My first pictures show some of the garden landscapes we saw - trees, shrubs and flowers.

Here's a beautiful white bottlebrush.

And a formal vege garden!

An avenue of flowers with a statue at the end, somewhat Romanesque.

Some Tasmanian (?) dogwood.

And a formal lily-pond.

Many of the gardens had metal sculptures like this pear.

And these dancing Brolgas.

Not to mention fake birds of prey flapping in the wind - designed to scare off birds that might damage flowers and shrubs.

Then there were lots of fountains or bowls full of water for the birds - giving us some ideas about how to improve our own garden.

And here's a child's personal sculpture garden, which we rather admired.

Not to mention this fancy barbecue are which had its own pizza oven.

I hope you enjoyed these pictures as much as we did visiting the various gardens, each of which was attached to a private home. Some were close to the centre of town, but others were some distance away on what we call rural residential subdivisions - maybe 3 or 4 hectares (7 - 10 acres). The gardens are in effect the sort of thing that you or I might create using our own labour, money and imagination.

AS

A Fast Ride

After playing contract bridge all afternoon, a four hour session which I also directed, I felt like a spot of exercise. So, I changed and jumped on my bike and headed off along one of my usual routes. I covered the 10.9 km in just 32 minutes, my fastest ever. That's an average speed of 20.5 km / hr (12.8 mph) over quite a hilly route, with home being the highest point on the route at 1013 m (3290 ft). The lowest point was 978 m, about 35 m (112 ft) below where we live. Not bad for a 68 yo? However, on second thoughts, that's not too much different to a marathon runner. Maybe I should up my training schedule.

AS

Bush School Sesquicentenary

The city of Armidale turned 150 years old the other day, but so also did a tiny bush school at Kelly's Plains maybe 10 km out of town. We went there today to the celebration and look over where Dot's uncle, Bob Burling, taught for 27 years until his retirement in 1973. I've never met him, but have caught up with his recently deceased son, Jim, who went to school with Dot.

Kelly's Plains is a tract of flattish grazing country south of Armidale as this picture shows and we surmised that the school opened to the service the children of workers on the surrounding pastoral stations. I have no idea who Kelly was!

At the start of the 1970s, this was the only school building - I presume it was a one-teacher primary school of which many still exist in remote locations. There was also a now demolished teacher's house. Dot, with her back to us, is looking at photos of her uncle.

Nowadays, paradoxically, the school has more class-rooms and facilities, but not because of an explosion in farm population. Quite the opposite. Most farms require little labour, but the locality has an explosion of hobby farms owned by people working in Armidale. The class-rooms and the library were open for inspection, and even the canteen was producing meals for visitors like us. Note the straw bales for seating.

There was some art-work painted on corrugated iron and the obligatory jumping castle.

And, in a covered area behind the school were some money making ventures helping the school's finances selling lemonade, second-hand books, jewellery, food and so on - even a grade 5 pupil busking on his violin. It was interesting trip down memory lane for both of us out in the countryside.

AS