"Seven miles from Sydney and a thousand miles from care"

This morning we felt like going out for breakfast, so we got in the car and drove to Manly. We tried a café we'd never been to before ― Whitewater. After a little consideration of the menu, I chose the toasted pear and walnut bread with bananas, rhubarb and whipped cream, with a Parkers organic apple and raspberry juice. Graham went for the eggs benedict with smoked salmon, and a passionfruit, orange and apple juice. For Louka we'd brought a jar of apple and mango delight.

The pear and almond bread turned out not to be a yeast bread as I'd expected, but a cakey loaf like banana bread. I couldn't detect much pear or walnut, but the stewed rhubarb set it off perfectly, the banana went well, and the whipped cream, while rather unnecessary, was pleasant enough. The eggs looked nice and fresh, topped with a good sprinkle of salmon roe. Louka's apple and mango purée was less runny than some, and contained a higher percentage (19%) of mango than another brand we'd tried in the past. She seemed very eager to eat it. She also ate a slice of banana from my plate.

After breakfast we wandered round to Shelly Beach. We got out Louka's brand new swim nappy and the rashie she'd been given, and changed her on the sand. Then a big wave came and wet the towels and clothes, so we rushed to move them and hang them over a railing.

While Graham went to the change-rooms to change, with my help Louka walked down to the water. When a little wave broke over her toes she gurgled with delight. Another, bigger wave swept over her thighs and she laughed again. She sat on the sand and let the water run around her. When I saw Graham returning I picked her up to go to him, and she cried to go back in the water.

However, she may have got a bit cold, as she no longer enjoyed it when she went back in. I took her up to the grass and gave her a breastfeed, which cheered her up, then went to change too. But she still wasn't happy going back in the water, so we decided to call it a day. Louka fell asleep as we walked back to the car.

Crawling

This morning the mothers' group planned to get together in the park, and for once the weather was warm and sunny. I was looking forward to letting Louka play outdoors with the other babies. As usual she fell asleep about an hour after breakfast, so she shouldn't be grumpy... but then she was still asleep at 10:30 when I planned to leave. She was still asleep at 11. Still asleep at 12. She woke at 12:10 and wanted a feed. By the time I'd fed her, changed her, caught the train to Chatswood and walked to Beauchamp Park, it was after 1 o'clock. Of course the rest of the group was long gone.

Oh well, it's a lovely park. I laid out Louka's rug and put her on it. She promptly dragged it aside to get at the dead leaves thickly carpeting the grass. She quickly had a big crackly one in her mouth. As fast as I removed them from her hands, she had more. So I tried giving her lunch to distract her. No, not interested. Never mind, lets try out the swings and slide. They're good fun.

As we walked away, a tiny, fluffy, white dog came trotting up to us. I knelt down to let Louka have a better look, and she reached out to put her fingers on the dog's face... and in its mouth. The dog gave her a good lick, then trotted back to its owners.

When we got home, I put her on the floor with some toys, and turned to check my email. Turned around to see she'd crawled halfway across the room! Rang Graham to tell him the exciting news. She did it once more before Graham got home, then crawled to us when he got home and put her on the floor.

More hearing research

When Louka was six months old, she participated in some research for the National Acoustic Laboratories. However, it was a long process and she got tired of it when only the data from her right ear were collected. Today we went back to get data from her left ear.

This time I asked Kirsty what the actual sounds are that Louka hears in these tests. They are just an "aaah" sound that goes on for two seconds. When the sound starts, there is a change in the brain-wave pattern, and again when the sound finishes. Then they play the "aaah" sound again with a gap of a few milliseconds in the middle. In adults with normal hearing, there's another change in the brain-wave pattern, but in people with auditory neuropathy, there is no change. Before this, no-one had tested it in babies, so no-one knew whether babies would show the same brain-wave patterns ― their reactions are slightly different from adults' reactions to the continuous sound.


However, the results of Louka's first test showed that there is a reaction to the gap in the sound ― a W-shaped dip in the brain-waves. This is good, because it means they'll be able to test for the condition in babies, and do something about it early. But of course they'll need more tests. Kirsty is hoping to test 30 babies, though she said she's be happy with 20. I hope she finds them!

After the data were collected for Louka's left ear, we went on to Eastwood to see my parents. Louka showed Trishy how she could crawl (two steps) and spent the afternoon saying "mumumumum"...

Lunch with Michaela

My sister works at Sydney University, and it dawned on me that it wouldn't be that hard to get there and have lunch with her. The day was forecast to be hot, so we decided to eat at the café rather than bring lunch and sit outside.

The train to Redfern was not air conditioned so it was pretty hot and Louka got sweaty. It was better when we got out; at least it wasn't so stuffy.

We arrived at Micky's office and she had just finished being busy, so after introducing Louka to Micky's colleague Ricardo, we went down to the café. While my lunch was being prepared, I fed Louka with apple and sweet potato.

While I had my coffee, Micky took Louka to see the exhibition of staff and student works. Louka enjoyed the ever-changing projected wall display, and the bicycle that made a funny shape move and wriggle on a screen as you pedalled (except Micky had to pedal for her).

Then it started to pour with rain! Since Micky had a relatively free afternoon, we stayed in her office, where she has a box of toys for visitors with small children. Later there were drinks for staff and partners to farewell the Dean, who is moving to Melbourne. One of the staff there greeted me by name ― I'm sure he wouldn't have remembered me studying there, except that Micky is there to remind him.

Then Micky had to leave at half past four to take Elin to baseball, so we walked together to the station. The rain had reduced to a sprinkle, and it was now fairly cool, so of course we scored an air conditioned train to go home ☺.

The coastal walk: Otford to Bundeena

Last week we walked from Otford to South Era, not quite a third of the coastal walk. Today we thought we'd try to get a little further. The weather was cool, with a pleasant breeze and an occasional spit of rain: yesterday at 37°C we wouldn't have considered it.

We got to Otford about 8:30 and had breakfast at the pie shop there, along with a couple of dozen cyclists (actually I didn't count them). At 9am we set off, hoping the rain would hold off.


The wind last week did have the good effect of keeping the flies away. Today they were horrible! But otherwise it was lovely walking, neither hot nor cold, and no sun to get in our eyes and give us sunburn. And the flowers were out to show it's Spring.












We got to our last week's finish point without stopping, and pushed on to the estimated half-way point: the steep hill at the north end of Garie Beach. There we took a break and debated what to do. Graham was keen to try going all the way to Bundeena, while Liz was more concerned that we hadn't planned how to get home from there. We decided to make the attempt.

Despite the assurances of a resident of the cabins at Garie that there were "lots of porcupines about", we didn't see any, or any echidnas either. We did see a female lyrebird, at the same spot we'd seen the male last week, and four giant native cockroaches.

This time I did carry Louka some of the way myself, but after a while my shoulders got very sore and at Wattamolla I had to hand her back to Graham. After Wattamolla for some reason the flies disappeared, which made for much pleasanter walking without the constant arm-waving (which annoyed Louka, who didn't really mind flies on her face).













Just when the track turned inland to Bundeena, the rain finally set in. By 4:30 when we reached the town we were pretty wet, and some people hanging out in their carport offered us a lift to the ferry wharf. We didn't accept, but we did ask them for directions to the ferry. We asked in a café whether we'd be able to get a taxi (to take us back to our car at Otford) but apparently we'd have to call for one to come from the city. We decided to take the ferry instead and go pick up the car in the morning. But when we got to the ferry wharf, no-one knew when the next ferry was due, or even if there was another ferry. But while we waited in the shelter, some more walkers turned up and told us the ferry was due at 5pm. So, only about quarter of an hour to wait. Then another quarter hour wait for a train at Cronulla, no wait for a change of trains at Town Hall, but unfortunately no trains running on the North Shore line so we had to change to a bus at North Sydney.

Update: Graham went to fetch the car on monday morning: it took him 2½ hours to get to Otford by train, then 1¾ hours to drive home in the peak hour traffic.

Some small advances

This afternoon Louka crawled! Well, at least she moved both hands and both knees forward, but unfortunately we were on the bed and if she'd gone any further she'd have been off the bed.

Now she's trying to stand up on her own. She pulls herself up to her feet and lets go of whatever she pulled herself up on. Then she falls over.

The coastal walk: Otford to South Era

Before Louka came on the scene, we used to like to do the coastal walk in Royal National Park, camping overnight at Providential South. Before Louka gets too big to carry, we'd like to do it again, but we've let ourselves get out of condition, so we thought we'd work up to it.

On saturday, the forecast was for a mostly sunny day, but by the evening they were predicting windy weather, and in the morning they'd updated it to windy with showers. It was still sunny though when Louka was finally ready to set off. We'd never driven to Otford before, and even with the GPS the route was a bit confusing, so we didn't arrive till 10:10.

The weather was still hot and sunny, but after a while the wind picked up and the sky clouded over, with the sea looking grey and rough with white-caps. Louka seemed to enjoy the wind in her face (I've heard of babies who are terrified of the wind) and in fact stayed cheerful for the whole walk. She's not afraid of heights either: despite the warning signs, she tried to climb over the railings on the cliff edge.



After a couple of hours we stopped for a snack. We ate apples and muesli bars, and Louka had pear and banana purée. Then we headed on for a little longer, reaching South Era before the weather looked threatening and we decided to head back.





She had a bit of a nap on the way back, but it was Graham, who'd carried her the whole way, who was really tired when we got back to Otford.

Another farewell lunch

As I said last week, Rob resigned a week after David, so today's farewell lunch was for him. (Hulda has also found a new job, so the next one will be for her ☺. Anton is now the whole team.)

Rob chose to go to the rather classy Oliveto, located in the park across the road. It was a lovely day to be sitting in a glassed-in room overlooking the water.

Giving a dinner

Graham had asked his former manager round for dinner last night, and I was dreading how it would go. He helped me start dinner (roast pork) before he left for work, so I just had to turn the oven on when I got home in the afternoon.

Keith turned up with Graham before I expected, bearing a bottle of Moët! Which for some reason really upset Louka. I gave her a little comfort feed and put the champagne in the fridge, and she made friends with Keith.


From then on all went well. The roast was excellent, and so was the bottle of 1991 shiraz I'd been "cellaring" under the bed. The chocolate ice-cream I'd made on the weekend was rich and delicious, and we were all enjoying ourselves when Louka started to get upset again. But surprisingly she went to sleep and it didn't take long for me to leave her in bed and rejoin the others. She woke once, for a few minutes, then slept again till we'd finished washing up and joined her.

My little pirate girl

Graham had some work to set up so we went to the office. While Graham did his stuff, Louka and I checked out the chairs in the lunch room. They were good fun.

We went on to the new Sydney Wildlife World, but there was a long queue, so we gave it a miss and visited the Maritime Museum instead. There they had a children's exhibition about pirates. Louka enjoyed the pirate ship, the slide, the loot hunt and the treasure chest.


I was a little disappointed there was no actual information about real life or fictional pirates. That would have made it more interesting for parents and older children, and is more what I would expect of a museum exhibition. Still, it was well done for what it was.

The museum also has a nice café, where we had lunch and Louka had a nap after the excitement of the pirates exhibition.

Camping out, and other new experiences

Shopping on saturday we put Louka in the child seat of the shopping trolley for the first time. She wasn't at all sure she wanted to get in, but once seated and strapped she gave up the struggle and decided to make the most of it.

Saturday night we practiced camping out in the safe environment of my parents' back yard. We arrived mid-afternoon and set up the tent, built a fire and invited mum and dad to partake in our barbecue. They kindly provided the gas light and a salad, while Graham cooked sausages, onions and pineapple. (Louka ate carrot and apple purée from a jar.)

Then came the real test ― sleeping in the tent. We put our sleeping bags on either side and made a soft spot for Louka in the middle. We carefully laid her down in her place, then settled into our sleeping bags. Just when we'd got to sleep, Louka woke. It seemed cold, and she wanted mummy, so I took her into my sleeping bag. It was pretty cosy in there together! but we slept pretty well.

When the morning light woke us, we made a cup of tea in the "camp kitchen", and ate the muesli bars we'd brought. (Louka had carrot and apple purée again.) Then mum and dad provided a second breakfast of croissants and coffee ☺.

After all that food, we needed to go for a walk, so we set out along the Terry's Creek walk. It goes as far as Brown's Waterhole, but we didn't get that far: two and a quarter hours seemed enough to work off the breakfast and get us ready for a nice cup of tea.