Louka's dolls

I bought Louka some origami paper the other day, but after trying a few origami things she just used it as craft paper. With the aid of a bit of sticky tape and some stickers, she made these two dolls (the bigger one holding the smaller one in her arms).

School centenary

Louka's school is 100 years old this year, and to commemorate this they decided to have all the kids and teachers photographed in 1912-style clothes. We weren't supposed to go out of our way to make them authentic, and I was going to have Louka wear an outfit she'd dressed up in last year as "The Bush Girl".

But over the school holidays it dawned on me that those clothes had been a little small on her at the time, and she's bound to have grown since then. So on the first day she went back to school I raced round all the shops at Warringah Mall looking for an old-fashioned outfit. And this is all I could come up with. (The apron is from the "Bake a Cake" tap-dancing item her class presented last year.)

Louka's pillow

Louka was rather restless in her sleep last night, so Graham got into her bed to cuddle her. It seemed to help.

Visit from Mervyn

My old friend Mervyn was passing through Sydney in his Delica so I invited him to stay for a couple of nights. Merv is an exhibited artist so Louka was very keen to see him work. She invited him to an art-and-craft competition (herself the other contestant). She provided materials from her "useful box" and oil pastels.

All agreed that Louka's artwork was more impressive than Merv's.

Merv entitled his artwork The crossy thingy thingy thing. Louka's is called People and Friends.

My half century

When Graham asked me what I'd like to do for my birthday, of course it had to be something Louka would enjoy too. So I thought back to something I'd found very exciting when I was young - sleeping in a train. This quickly expanded to a whole weekend in Melbourne, travelling there by train (with sleeping compartment) on Friday night, staying Saturday night in a nice hotel, and coming home by train again on Sunday night.

Louka and I took a taxi to Manly and the ferry to the city to meet Graham at Central. Then we went in search of dinner since the train was not scheduled to leave till 8:40pm. We found a hostel café just near the station and had fish and chips for dinner

There was no hurry to get to the station, but we couldn't hang around at the café for ever, so we went to see if the train had arrived yet so we could settle into our compartment. It hadn't. In fact, it was delayed till after 9 o'clock. The play board in the waiting room kept Louka amused for a short while. She also did her reading homework..

Then we tried walking (or in Louka's case running) to the end of the station to see if the train was in sight. Eventually it did arrive and Louka had great fun exploring the fold-away tables, bunk-beds and bathroom and all the objects in the little toiletries case provided.

Louka, of course, wanted to sleep in the top bunk. So I shared with her and Graham got the bottom bunk to himself. I don't think the beds are as wide as standard singles, but I did manage to stay up there, and slept ok. Woke next morning in Melbourne for raisin toast and tea for breakfast (hot chocolate for Louka). Then off to find our hotel.

We left our suitcase there and headed off for a ride on the free city circle tram - an oldish (1936) model.
That was fun for a while. We got out at the closest stop to Melbourne Museum and walked across the park. Louka enjoyed climbing on the carved stone blocks from a demolished building and running through a helical  bike rack.


We finally enticed her into the museum, and explored the outdoor rainforest exhibit. That was fun to look through, going along paths and through tunnels to see the plants and animals.
But unfortunately she was rather tired and soon got bored, only wanting to find a children's play area. Eventually we found a table where kids were making bee masks and let her make one too. Then we figured we'd had enough of the museum.

While searching for dinner we'd seen a few horse-drawn carriages waiting in a city street, so after dinner we thought we'd give them a try. It was a fun way to see the city, at a good pace and with the soothing rhythm of the horses' hooves.

Next morning we wandered round till we found a nice café for breakfast. The one in the Block Arcade had the added advantage of paper tablecloths where Louka could draw till the food was ready. Louka and I had pancakes with berries, cream and maple syrup, while Graham had waffles with poached pears, ice-cream and chocolate. Pretty decadent...

Then we took the free tram to near Victoria Markets. What I remembered was the delicatessen stalls, but there were lots and lots of cheap clothes stalls too, just like Paddy's Markets. However, we found a nice Mexican/Argentinian/Brazilian food stall for lunch, where I splashed out by having a sangria with my fried potatoes and rice. We did end up checking out the deli stalls, but with no-where to cook and no need for meals, all we bought was a chocolate each.

By then, there wasn't much time left for further activities, and we'd been on our feet a long while, so we sat in a park and rested before wandering off to dinner at the same café where we'd had breakfast. It was about halfway between the park we'd been sitting in and the station, so it seemed like a good idea. Louka drew on the tablecloth again. Then we wandered onward to the station, where the train was again delayed. They blamed the floods in Wagga Wagga.

We arrived in Sydney one and a half hours after the scheduled time, and I managed to get Louka to school one and a half hours late. The woman in the office was impressed with our reason for being late, and put an exclamation mark on Louka's late note!

6th birthday party

I wasn't going to bother blogging about the party, since I'd posted photos on Facebook, but I was browsing through old blog posts last night and realised what a great record they are. So, better late than never...

Louka's birthday is at an inconvenient time of year for parties. She's just starting to get to know her new classmates, and I have no contact details for the new classmates' parents. When I first mooted the idea of a party to Louka, she chose kids from last year's class. But over the next couple of weeks she kept wanting to add kids from her new class. I printed out invitations for them and relied on Louka to hand them out.

She wanted an aeroplane theme, and helped me choose pictures for the invitation. I found a nice picture of a propeller plane to paint for "pin the propeller on the aeroplane". And Woolworths had a couple of little toy planes to decorate the cake. But Louka also wanted a piñata. I don't think they make aeroplane piñatas. At last I took Louka to Spotlight, where I'd been advised there was a great range of piñatas, and she chose .... a toucan. 


I found parachute party toys, but the rest were pretty generic. I bought paper party bags and stickers for the kids to decorate them (I didn't think the boys would be into this, but they were). And Graham bought a water-slide and set it up in the backyard, along with Louka's old paddling pool from Trishy and Johnny. The slide was the greatest thing about the party - in between pass the parcel, pin the propeller on the aeroplane, musical chairs, paper plane folding, and piñata bashing, there was something fun for all to do. And I couldn't even drag some of them away to see the birthday cake.

Two of the kids were reported afterwards to have called it the best party they'd been to.

New bike

Graham gave Louka a challenge: if she could ride her bike, without training wheels, right round the bike path in the park without getting off he would buy her a new bike. So this morning, taking advantage of a break in the rain, she did it.

So we headed off to a bike shop to choose a new bike. It wasn't hard to choose. The Avanti Spice was the best ride of the three she tried. She rode it several times around inside the bike shop, with Graham or me jogging behind her to make sure she didn't crash into anything.

She rode it back to the carpark, then along a bike track beside the carpark. Then we took it home and she rode it in the park. It's a nice bike.

Bike riding

I bought Louka a bike with training wheels over a year ago. She enjoyed it, but the training wheels were restrictive out of the park, and Louka asked me to take them off. However, without training wheels she found it hard to ride and lost interest.

Recently however, a school friend was in the park riding his bike, and Louka's interest was reignited. Graham said he would give her lessons. They've been really short, just twice up and down the bike path in the park, and she's only had three so far. So I think she's doing pretty well.

Back at school

Louka went back to school yesterday after her big summer holiday. At her school, all years except Kindergarten started yesterday. The kids went back to their last-year's classrooms and teachers till mid-morning, when they were sorted into their new classes.

The mum of one of Louka's classmates has older kids at the school, and is very pleased that her son has this teacher. Louka said she was strict but understanding - made rules but didn't expect anyone to be perfect.

Perth post-Christmas trip: heading home

After eight days of sociability we were exhausted. I was looking forward to getting home, but Louka was reluctant to leave all her playmates. However, we weren't going to get home in four days, as the days are a lot shorter travelling East. Pandering to my lack of enthusiasm for dirt roads, Graham revised the route plan to include southern WA - Albany and Esperance - instead of the outback dirt road he'd originally planned. And instead of passing through Broken Hill and Cobar, we took the route through Mildura.

I have to say, after the weeks of dry, scrubby land-scapes in Perth and the Nullarbor, the southern route was delightful. Before we reached Albany the bush became denser, even (comparatively) lush. Just north of Albany I started to see gorgeous brilliant orange flowers on small trees beside the road. They belong to the West Australian Christmas Tree and are really common round the southern part of WA.

Near Albany ia Torndirrup National Park, with some spectacular rocky coastline. Signs warned of the dangers of being blown or washed off the rocks, so I kept a close I on Louka, who has a tendency not to keep to paths. The Gap was the most spectacular, a huge vertical split in the rocks into which the sea rushes with a great whooshing booming noise and the waves rushing up high in the air. We also drove round Frenchmans Bay to the Whaling Museum, but just played on the beach for a while.

Next day it was on to Esperance, a beautiful part of the WA coastline. Here there was green bush, bright blue sea and a cool climate. Actually a bit cold. We climbed the spiral stairs to the lookout tower then walked the Rotary track which included large expanses of strangely-textured rock.

Later we tried to walk out to the end of the ultra-long jetty, but it was only fenced on one side and Louka kept trying to climb the fence so we gave up about 2/3 of the way. But we did see the sea-lions swimming below the jetty and, on our return, another one sleeping in a bed of seaweed on the beach.

The next day it was back into arid country and we made it to South Australia. Graham got his wish to sleep beside the road. Actually it was a rest area, with tracks winding round for miles away from the road. Louka had fallen asleep by the time we got there.

We had issues with quarantine heading through South Australia. There was no quarantine at the border, so we thought it was OK to bring fruit into SA. Then we had to dump the fruit in a quarantine bin at Ceduna. We bought more at Port Augusta, then had to dump that at Mildura. The second lot would have been ok if we'd kept the receipt, but we hadn't known there'd be a second checkpoint. What a waste.

Next day we had lunch at Renmark. It was beautiful on the Murray River, with trees and grass and ducks. We went for an easy walk along the river, then headed onwards to Mildura for the night.




Mildura, also on the Murray River, also had trees, grass and ducks. The caravan park had fairy lights on all the trees and bushes.

Next morning we headed home, via the Blue Mountains. A quick phone call to my parents ensured a nice lunch was waiting for us at their weekender in the mountains. As we approached, the clouds gathered and for the last leg of our journey it was pouring with rain. 

First wobbly tooth

On our way back from our holiday in Perth, Louka complained about a sore tooth. I rang our dentist and made an appointment for when we got home. But the next day it transpired the tooth was simply starting to come loose, so when we arrived home I cancelled the appointment.

It took three weeks for the tooth to finally come out –– in the middle of the night. This morning when I woke up I saw the gap and asked what had happened to the tooth. Louka said "in the bed" so I carefully removed the bedclothes and there it was. So tiny.

So she can at last use the tooth fairy box she made in pottery class last year. And my contacts tell me the tooth fairy leaves a $2 coin.

Perth post-Christmas trip: staying there

Boy it was good to settle in and eat home-cooked food again. We'd been surviving on pasta with stir-through sauce for our dinners and either takeaway or chips and fruit for lunch, and Deb put on a wonderful spread for Shakey's birthday dinner. It was also good to sit down at a proper table with good company.

We stayed till late then drove down the hill to Graham's mum's place, where we shifted our bedding (king-size latex mattress, pillows and doonas) to the rug in the living room. It was very comfortable.

During our stay we visited Deb and Mark, Bruce and Josie, and Leonie and Tom, and Eddie and Jola, with rarely a couple of hours to ourselves. Louka has changed quite a bit in the past year: previously she preferred to play with me, or at least have me involved in her games with other children, but now she loves to go off and play without me. So she had a great time with Shakey and Samantha, Kofi, Tom and Dylan and Alice and Peter. In fact she enjoyed Alice's company (making another monster-repellent potion) so much we arranged a museum trip with her (and family). The Perth museum is smaller than the one in Sydney, but I think more interesting in some ways: the exhibits are arranged so that geology, paleontology and biology are all related to one another. It made the lumps of rock much more interesting to the girls.

As usual we drove to Hillary's Boat Harbour, not because the weather was so hot away from the sea - it was actually very pleasant weather. A pontoon was moored away from the beach, with a slide into the water. I took Louka and Kofi out to it and both had a slide, but after lunch when Kofi wanted another go, the slide had broken and was being removed from the pontoon. But we made a lot of sand sculptures on the beach, and paddled in the water, then did the usual tour of the aquarium.

Graham's dad had been to China (cheap trip for people of Chinese origin) and brought back a cheongsam for Louka. She looks lovely in it.

John and Steph seem to have decided to live in Perth (at least for a while) and are in the process of buying a house close to Deb's and Bruce's houses. We climbed the fence and explored the land while Louka played with her cousins. It is huge and rather steep, but they see it as a great place to bring up the kids they intend to have in a few years time.

In the meantime, John has been building a multi-storey cubby house for Shakey. It's not quite finished, but the lower levels are available for playing in.

Other pleasant outings included taking pastries from the Gooseberry Hill café to Mundaring Weir for lunch. Louka found a large Morton Bay fig tree and tried to build a "wild girl house" among its buttresses.

Another was lunch at the Core Cider House at an apple orchard. The kids were given lunch packs and pictures of apples and pears to colour in. The food was delicious and the view very pleasant.


And any time all the grandchildren got together, we tried taking a group photo: