RED LETTER DAY

I couldn't let today go by without some sort of recognition of the end of an era for me. Today,after 26 and a half years, is the last day I am the mother of a child. Andy turns 18 at midnight tonight (well officially in my mind at 6.00am), so when I wake in the morning I will have 4 adult children. I know nothing changes in terms of loving, caring and worrying, and since the youngest two still live at home, in practice, nothing will change either, but it feels a little weird and a little sad:(!!!!

Best wishes Andy. We love you very much and wish for you a happy, joyful, productive, bountiful, and loving life!!!!!!!!!!! and and take it easy And!!!!!!!!!!!!!!xoxo

What Andy got for Christmas

Agapanthus

I don't know why people in Sydney generally seem to think Agapanthus are weeds. I think they make beautiful cut flowers!!!

Christmas Day 2007

It was a lovely Christmas day - lots of food and lots of loot - bit of a bonanza I think!
Of course, we missed Chris but I decided it was not a good idea to set a place for him at the table as we did last year, as I didn't want to set a precedent and tradition, in case one year all four of the kids can't make it to Christmas lunch and Barry and I would have to sit up at the table with the feast prepared and four photographs to share it with!!! This vision had me simutlaneously laughing and crying ...twould be just tooooo sad!!!!!!!!!! On the menu this year was a seafood platter entree, followed by glazed ham( which our baby magpie liked the smell of - it kept trying to get in the kitchen window) with cumberland sauce, barbecued chicken breast and various salads, followed ( much later) by christmas pud. After lunch we played Chocolate Cluedo. That was very fun, but we were all too full to eat the chocolate and Tim kept winning ( maybe he was the only one not under the influence of the Pimms and free Moet!!). Then the boys played with their new toys..can you guess what they got??????????!! Finally, Chris, a pic of the 49 varieies of jelly bean that had you so baffled - sadly, they look so much more tempting than they taste!!

For as long as we've lived in this house ( 22 years), this beautiful gum tree ( all 80 foot of it) has been providing beauty and shade from the hot westerly sun for us. Unfortunately, just over the last few months, the roots have started cracking the walls in the laundry, so it was with a very sad heart that I had to call the tree choppers to have it removed. Here are a few pics of the process:( These tree climber blokes are VERY brave - I was impressed by the way he scaled the tree with a chainsaw dangling nonchalantly from his hip!

Weather

It's just as well Malin hasn't come from Sweden to experience an Australian summer this year - it seems to have rained every day so far this December - I'm not complaining - we really need the rain and it's so nice after the drought of the last few years, but it's not a good time to be showing off Sydney to overseas visitors expecting hot sunny conditions!!
I especially love sittting on the balcony looking across the valley when it's raining - it gets all misty and atmospheric!

World's Craziest Funniest Advent Calendar

Chris sent me this from Stockholm. "Mmmm" I thought.."Why is Chris sending me a pack of smarties masquerading as pills, all the way from Stockholm??????" ..turned it over and voila! - it's an advent calendar featuring a very fed up looking Virgin Mary - it's the funniest thing I've seen in a long time!!! ...and I can totally relate to the fed- up "will this baby ever come look!!" hahaha

Snow Monkeys in Japan

Back in September, Megan and I discovered a live web cam from Jigokudani - yaenkoen Park near Nagano in the mountains of Japan - home of the snow monkeys. We became quite monkey obsessed and checking on the monkeys became a daily ritual. Today, two and a half months later, I was checking the monkeys and waiting for Megan to appear in the picture. She had been attending a conference in Kyoto and had included the snow monkeys in her post conference sightseeing.
Here she is in a pink beanie - beautifuly coordinating with the pink faces of the monkeys!


In her words : "Entry to the monkey park $A 5. Cost of transport to the monkey park$250.... Seeing the monkeys..priceless!"

Also priceless..seeing your daughter visit the monkey park in Japan via live monkey cam from your home in Sydney.

Christmas Tree and Sibling Rivalry.

The most treasured Christmas decorations on my Christmas tree are four beautiful little photo frames containing photos of my four beautiful little children. Each year as the tree went up, there would be jostling and scrutinsing amongst the four to ensure no -one had a seemingly more favoured or more important position on the tree than the others.

As they grew older into teenagehood and were no longer interested in decorating the tree themselves, I would decorate the tree and carefully position each photo so as not to offend. However photo placement became an obseession with Chris, who would walk in the door, see the tree had been put up,and immediatedly check for his photo. If it didn't have star billing, he would swap his around and each night carefully check to see no-one had interfered. It became a family ritual and tradition to see how lomg it would take him to reorganise his picture on the tree. This went on for years until he left home at the age of 23.

Now he is grown and living in London, and because we will miss him at Christmas, I decided this year to give him the starring role at the top of the tree. Tim however feels that since the older two have left home, they have forfeited any rights to the top of the tree and that it is finally his turn. He has a point I guess.!!

It seems jostling for position never changes - the protagonists in this story are 24 & 22!

Monkeys playing Dr Kawashima!

This was published by New Scientist - a research study by some university somewhere- it seems to be a version of Dr Kawashima's brain training game! I am very bad at it ( I have a brain age of about 100!!) - loook at the chimps go -they are so fast!!