Well may he hide.

I'd be hiding too.

Using the miracle of modern technology, combined with slackness in writing, I have been able to reproduce this photograph of Matt four days before it was taken!

It came about because of those lovely pre-Christmas smells from the kitchen. The culmination of a day of buzzing and clanging and washing up.

There, on the bench, on the cooling rack was the Christmas Cake.

"I can't wait for it to cool", I recall saying, or words to that effect. They were hollow words though, for if I'd had the slightest hint of approbation the knife would have been despatched in an instant, as indeed would the first portion of cake.

Instead of the reply that I was expecting, I was told in no uncertain terms that I was not to touch it lest I should surely suffer an unimaginable fate.

"It's for Matthew" she intoned, and to emphasise the impact of this unwelcome news, added "he likes Christmas Cake."

And that is how it came to be, that we didn't need a Christmas Cake this year, apparently, and Matthew (bless him) declined to be photographed whilst eating that first wonderful slice.

I hope it gives him the runs!

You'd better not Pout

The week before Christmas always seems to be a hugely productive time at our place. One of us picks up things, and looks at them wistfully running away to plan a new project or twelve and steadfastly failing to complete anything, while the other just plugs away, finishing all sorts of tasks and projects.

Perhaps it was the pressure of other things, or the hour of the night, or maybe at this time of year Santa himself gets a bit testy after posing for all those photographs, but whatever the reason it was initially a very grumpy Santa whose visage appeared on a bag marked "Elliott" this year.

The Big E is not yet too secure with his place in life. As seven week olds go, he is a happy chap although quite prone to wearing a perpetually startled expression which may or may not be due to the fact that his nearest and dearest continue to surprise him by picking him up, or putting him down, or patting him, or not patting him as the case may be.

One can only imagine the horror that could have been wreaked by this image, had the furrowed brows not been surgically restored to a more sympathetic angle before delivery.

Mister Four meanwhile is amazed at just how, despite his lack of maturity, the Big E seems quite confident that the bearded one will deliver all he desires in a few days time.

Baby Wipes, Disposable Nappies, Baby Oil…..

How does he know?

More Driving Rain

Unsurprisingly the sound on our roof when we woke was a familiar one.

While neither of us really mind the odd drop of rain, nor do we mind driving several hundred kilometres to catch up with a group of friends we hadn't seen together in twenty years, it has to be said that the combination of the two is not one of our preferred methods of spending a morning.

Never the less, we gave the "stupid" gene a bit of a polish, and set off doggedly into the gloom in direction Coolangatta. Lights on, mid morning, wipers on fast.

Summer, and the wet season doesn't begin for another month or two.

Lunch was OK, the company splendid, but neither did enough to lift the gloom of the return journey. 

That was up to Lily.

It's amazing how ten minutes reading a good story can make one forget all else.

The Big E goes to the Beach

We went to the beach today, Elliott and I. The rest of them came too, his brother and mother and father and grandmother, but they left us to our own devices and disappeared into the surf.

It's summer after all.

The rain stopped for barely long enough for them to squeak in a swim among the flood stained waves, but we didn't care the Big E and I. We had our tent and our hats and pillows, and somewhere to lie insulated from the grit of the beach and the glare of the cloud.

We thought about going for a walk for a time, but with the UV index hovering at an improbable sixteen on a scale of one to ten it was not the sort of day that inclined one to test the durability of five week old skin, so we stayed snugged in the shade, talking blokey stuff.

Getting things done.

Why is it, I wonder, that when we are on our boat doing nothing, we seem to have no difficulty in completing many things, yet here at the place we call home, we attempt to do many things yet complete nothing?

Storms

As if to remind us that we've been praying for rain for ten years so we'd better jolly well enjoy it, the storms arrived today.

Not grey skies and intermittent showers interspersed with big rain dumps that we've been seeing for weeks. Genuine good old fashioned summer storm fronts.

Thunder, lightning, and hail the size of mothballs, golfballs and pinballs or chupa chups or match heads. Why can we not just use dimensions to measure the size of hail?

Darkness as though the night had come. The Ashes are playing in Western Australia and we wish they had the same storms.

Hiatus

Some have noticed that a few days have elapsed for which there is no report. Well some have noticed that it's been more than a week actually.

For my part it's been a strange mix of guilt and helplessness as one day goes by and then another without the urge to combine photographs and words. Some days there are the words but as yet no photograph, on others there are photographs but no words.  It is perhaps a measure of just how quickly time seems to be travelling that when I uploaded this photo, I dated it November.

I have come to within two weeks almost of completing a daily report for the year, and a small corner of my brain seems to have run out of inclination, although I suspect it is more to do with that small corner being needed for other things.

The missing days aren't actually missing though. They actually happened and the reporting of them will slowly return over the next few days or perhaps even hours, filling in below, just as surely as the ladies from the gym filled our house last night, while I discretely retreated to the contemplative silence of the river bank, and the stinging repostes of the midges.

It's the better part of valour they say, discretion.