Broke

My enforced break from blogging has had its advantages. I have had more time to relax but there are many things I would have posted about that are too long ago now. So, I will just move on as if nothing happened and start from where we are now.

Well, I may back up little bit. On Friday I got up at five, made lunches (yes, I should have done that the night before) and drove to the airport for the 6.30am flight to Sydney. I spent the day at the State Library learning about what services and resources they offer public libraries and going down way underground to see the stacks and some of the wonderful things they have in their collection. It was a great day, but very long. I got home at 8.45pm and then packed so Toby, Bethany and I could leave irst thing in the morning.

Another 5am start had us all ready to go at 5.45. We encountered this scene on the way out of town. Next week daylight saving begins but for the moment, it gets light very early. We lasted a good while before eating what I had packed for breakfast and then, half and hour later Toby asked if it was lunch time yet. It was 8am. We stopped at Berrima to go to the Lolly Swagman and managed to get all the way to Broke by 2pm. I thoroughly recommend the early start!

What a delightful time we have been having! We have missed Andrew and Joss but Joss had a very special birthday slumber party to attend so they are driving up today. I have taken a ridiculous number of photos so will show you how we have been spending our days.
We've been walking in the vines.



Eating wonderful food (this is, or was for we scoffed the lot, orange bread and butter pudding).

Some of us have been riding on the tractor.



It seems to be taking FOREVER to upload these photos so I will return later with the rest of our little holiday.

The change

Well we've changed sites - all looks the same, but different address..

The Twins

Bethany was fascinated by the double banana we found at the fruit market. She was torn between opening it up and sharing it with me and waiting until the end of the day to show Dad. Obviously eating it now was always going to win, but we managed to hold off long enough to get a photo. (It was her decision to put the banana in front of her face).

I am going to Katoomba Women's Convention tomorrow with a number of women from church. I always think a weekend away with friends, good Bible teaching and food sounds great. I have come to realise, however, that it is an awful lot of work! This afternoon after bible study I have to cook food to take away, food for my family to eat while I'm away and dinner for tonight. Giving up a weekend is a difficult thing for a working woman, even one who only works part-time. I'm sure it'll be worth it and I should have some lovely Blue Mountains photos to show you when I get back.

Stormy weather

Thw weather has been bizarre. I am a warm person, I need fewer blankets than Andrew does, but it has been properly cold at night. I have enjoyed our flannelette sheets and woolen doona and have not been too warm. The signs of Spring have been obvious, the blossoms are out, it is light when I get up and staying light later at night but it has still been cold. Friday was warm, I didn't need my coat when I left work at 4.30 but yesterday it was summer. I know that the seasons change quickly in Wagga, I'm used to having the heater on one week and the air conditioning the next but this is ridiculous! I hope this isn't a sign of hideous heat to come.

Jossie had her last day of hockey yesterday and it was a round robin. Bethany and Toby amused themselves by running around and playing in the spare goal nets.

Jossie played pretty well. I was taking Bethany to the loo when she did a brilliant pass but I did manage to get a photo of some Jossie action.

After the games they had a presentation and sausage sizzle.

They all received a hat which would have been useful during the games. It was all over by 11.30 and we were very thankful because it started to get very warm indeed. During the afternoon I noticed that both next-door neighbours had their air conditioners on so I opened all our vents and put ours on too. By late afternoon the sky was looking ominous.


It wasn't so bad looking in the other direction and that side made a much nicer photo :)

We were treated to some a very loud show of lightening and 'funder' as Bethany calls it. As it was bedtime the kids all claimed that they were frightened but fell asleep straight away and didn't stir when thunder boomed directly above us making me jump.

It didn't rain for long and was so windy that the washing I had on the line was dry in the morning! We had friends over for lunch and I rather stupidly forgot to take photos. We ate porchetta, potato gratin, salad, choc-mint biscuits and banana cake. A highlight for me was when Bethany and William took the grate off a drain and dropped a ball in. William's dad, Glenn, did a MacGyver and used a skipping rope and empty play-dough container to rescue the ball!

I even bored myself to tears with that last post, sorry about that. Things haven't really become much more exciting. Jossie is spending a lot of time playing with the huge load of Bratz dolls and paraphernalia that the slightly older, and therefore too old for dolls, girls next door gave her. Toby is taking a break from his Pokemon obsession to read all the Captain Underpants books he can get his hands on. Bethany said something hilarious yesterday and I thought "I must put that on the blog". You guessed it, I can't remember it now. Andrew is in Sydney for a conference so I have just finished watching the first season of Nerds FC with Joss and Tobes (how we are loving it!) and will start on QI when I am finished here.

After such a busy week I would really appreciate a slow Saturday morning. It isn't to be, however, as Jossie has her last game of hockey. She will play from 9-10.30 and then have presentations and a sausage sizzle. The farmer's markets are on tomorrow so I am a bit put out that we will miss them but I suppose I really don't need a bacon and egg roll followed by dutch pancakes... as if need had anything to do with it.

I don't have any new photos to share so I will, instead, resume going back over our trip. I think I'm up to the part where we went to Ireland and, if I remember correctly (I can't be bothered to go back and check) I wasn't able to upload any photos from there at the time.

This is Avondale House which has a special history to it but we weren't there for that. Paul, Daniel and Ryan took us out for the day.A boys day out, except that I was there too.

See what a good photographer I am? There was something tricky going on with the ball....just out of shot.

I found it almost impossibly green. I love a sunburnt country and all that, but the green in Ireland, and Scotland, and also England, was mesmerising.


We were walking in Avondale Forest Park, looking for the river. It wasn't down that way.

We found the river, then walked along it until we could get closer.

Then the real boys' games began. How many times can you get a stone to bounce when you skim it? I'll have you know that I did my first real skim! Nobody was paying any attention to me though!

Who can hit a particular target on the other side of the river?


Who can pick up and throw the heaviest stone?

Hmmm... that looks more like dropping than throwing. It was very manly though.


When the river games had been exhausted we walked back up the hill, played a little football (no, I didn't play) and drove to a pub to have some dinner. I had a delightful Guinness stew. This was written on the wall behind us and I had to take a photo because my Dad's name is Oliver Goldsmith but he isn't that old, so it mustn't be him. It's a nice quote though. My favourite quote at the moment is from CS Lewis and I can include it here because he was born in Ireland - "You can't get a cup of tea big enough or a book long enough to suit me". I really, really love him.

History Week 2008 is history

For a local studies librarian, History Week is a big week. A lot of preparation, organisation and work goes into this week. Although it is only Wednesday, the hard work is over for me. The theme this year is 'At the water's edge' which is a great theme for us as Wagga was built on the Murrumbidgee River. On Monday I conducted a walking tour of Wagga bridges. Not all of them, we were actually walking, but five bridges we could walk to in 90 minutes. The weather was glorious, the walkers were interested and interesting and the tea and scones at the end were most delicious. This is the group standing at one end of the Beckwith Street bridge, which is the prettiest of the bridges on the tour and which I have carefully not captured in the photo.


Last night we held the second event which we called 'Crowing at the water's edge'. The magic is lost when you have to explain it but Wagga Wagga means place of many crows. Anyway, we had five speakers talking about the history of Wagga and the river - steamships, floods, Wagga Beach, Dixieland (a jazz dance floor built on pontoons on the river in the 1920s), the Gumi festival and the 5 o'clock wave. I encouraged people to start adding to the Wagga Local History wiki I set up. This is the main street in 1925. It is hard to imagine this happening now after years of drought.

Toby has hair like Harry Potter. Not jet black, but constantly messy! I made him a hair appointment this afternoon and we played in the park while we waited until 4.30. I love this park, it is right across the road from the library. It was under water once too.

Happy Fathers' Day!

Happy Fathers' Day to Andrew, the wonderful father of our three children, and to Andrew's and my Dads too.


All children like to please their fathers by loving the right football team. At school on Friday the children paid a couple of dollars to the Cancer Foundation for the privilege of wearing footy colours. Jossie and Toby were the only Celtic supporters in the whole school! You can't see it but Jossie's pink cap says Celtic too. I also have Celtic gear, but the kids wouldn't have been impressed if I dropped them off in my huge, fluffy, super-pink Celtic dressing gown.


The blossoms on the tree next door are all out now. Don't they look pretty at sunset?

Spring is here!

I am a winter girl as opposed to a summer one. I would rather be cold than hot because you can always put more clothes on but you can only take so many off. That said, in truth I would like to be neither hot nor cold, I like being just right. I noticed last week that it is no longer dark when I get up at 6.15 and I like that very much. We don't need the heater on at all times and I like that too. My favourite indicator of Spring's arrival however, is small, pink and floaty. I wish they lasted much longer. They remind me of Japan, ahhh Sakura....


Last night at dinner Bethany cried out that her finger hurt. This happens regularly as things that go into her mouth tend to get bitten. I have learnt that sympathy is required in this situation so I asked which finger was hurt. Then I had to ask her if I could take a photo of her showing me which finger and she really appreciated the fuss I was making, though she didn't consider it a laughing matter.

Congratulations Jossie!

Since my last post.....

Toby lost the second of the two wobbly teeth you can see in this photo taken last week. At Bamma's wake everyone was encouraging Toby to pull the wobbliest tooth out. It was driving me mad I wanted to pull it out so much! Tim even offered him twenty dollars but he wouldn't let anyone touch it! It fell out on the way home to Wagga and the second one fell out yesterday.

It rained! It wasn't exactly drought breaking rain but it was very loud at times. It didn't keep Andrew and Toby from playing Pitch and Putt. I wish I could have fit the whole rainbow in the picture, it was spectacular.

The first of Toby's Little Big Day Out photos was in the paper.

I was in the paper too.

And..... Jossie came first in her piano eisteddfod! She and her friend Elizabeth won the duet section and she got a highly commended for her solo. She was so thrilled, as was I.

Also, Toby watched the beginning of his first Old Firm game (hence the inclusion of the photo above). Sadly, it was on so late that Toby couldn't watch much but that may have been for the best as Celtic lost and he does get so involved.