Evening of the first day - Ishbel and Heidi's Girly Trip to Canberra

Monday 14th January 2008 - Now it's just before 5pm and we've managed to find our motel; basic but clean. We'll head off about 5:30pm and try and find dinner. Ishbel wants Chinese tonight. But she also wants to be back in time to watch Top Gear - tonight they are showing the episode where we see Richard Hammond's crash.

National Dinosaur Museum - Ishbel and Heidi's Girly Trip to Canberra

Monday 14th January 2008 - The National Dinosaur Museum is just across the road from Cockington Green so we popped in there next http://www.nationaldinosaurmuseum.com.au/ .
At first I thought the $17 it'd cost us to get in was a rip off - there's not a huge amount to see and we were most of the way round the place within 10 minutes - but then a woman came to give us a guided tour and she was really good and I felt that I'd got my money's worth after all.
Down on the ground floor there were two enormous T-Rex's made from Knex - cool.

Cockington Green - Ishbel and Heidi's Girly Trip to Canberra

Monday 14th January 2008 - Our first 'attraction' visited was Cockington Green, a miniature village http://www.cockingtongreen.com.au/pages/index.asp .
It was there that we discovered the camera had no batteries in it. The first lot of batteries were the wrong ones and didn't fit and then I discovered (after an SOS call to Ian) that the film wasn't properly loaded and the camera wouldn't work until it was. Ishbel then ran off all 36 photos in under 10 minutes! I took the camera off her at that point.
Cockington Green has grown since we visited here with the boys in about 1998. The older part consists of miniatures representing quaint English village life. A new 'international' area has been created with buildings from various parts of the world, (castles, palaces, temples etc.) most of them sponsored by the embassies of the countries concerned, although a few have been sponsored by individuals. They really are very clever.

Drive down - Ishbel & Heidi's Girly Trip to Canberra

Monday 14th January 2008 - We left home at 8:05am. We had our first break in Bowral, having a nice Lamington and a custard doughnut with drinks. We also stopped at the Scottish shop outside Bowral where we bought a couple of mugs, one a with a Charles Rennie Macintosh design that I'd coveted when Gillian and I had passed through in October, and a Colquhoun tartan one for Ishbel.
Ishbel also wanted a little Westie dog but didn't like that I expected her to pay for it with her own money. After paying for the mugs I found her outside the shop in tears. I explained to her that the money in her account was money that had been sent to her at Christmas so she could buy herself presents with. She cheered up and we went back to the shop to purchase James Hawthorn Colquhoun.
And on to Canberra. We arrived at the Visitor Centre about 12:30pm and grabbed a pile of pamphlets and sat perusing a few as we ate our rolls.

Girly road trip and bits of news

Ishbel and I head down to Canberra this morning for a few days look around. We've booked in to an hotel for two nights and will head home again Wednesday afternoon.
We've had no news from Jamie. Since we haven't heard otherwise we are assuming he is still alive and kicking. His host family is probably giving a sigh of relief because today the school group reforms and they start travelling about.
Great news from Karen as you will see from her email this weekend. Our kids were very excited to hear that Ben will be staying down in our part of the world for a while. We learned this last weekend when Karen and Ben asked if Rob would give Ben a quick cook's tour of Springwood High School.

Jamie's itinerary

I've put his itinerary in the left hand column for those who are interested. We are unlikely to learn much until he comes back. He has been sent off with stickers to assist with postcard writing and has strict instructions to use each sticker but who knows . . .

Eve of Jamie's trip to Japan

Jamie leaves for a fortnight in Japan tomorrow morning.

I have spent all day running around getting him organised while he reads a book or XBoxes. Was getting a bit tetchy about that earlier.

We took a trip up to Echo Point (the Three Sisters), Katoomba this morning to get some touristy gifts for Jamie's host family. I thought it was the only touristy place in the mountains and had also been told that Blue Mountains City Council staff get a discount. I was wrong on the first - there is the Information Centre at Glenbrook - but right about the second - I got 20% off the cost of our purchases.

Asked the helpful man at the Echo Point Info Centre what the Japanese buy when they are there and came away with some native flora soaps, an aboriginal print scarf for the mother, a mug for the father, a baseball cap and wallet for the brother and a stuffed wombat and wallet for the girl, Nanako to add to the book and calendar we'd bought a little while ago.

When we left Springwood this morning the skies were dark and it was very cool. Katoomba is usually much colder than Springwood but by the time we got up there it was all blue skies and warm. The Three Sisters were looking lovely and we'd not thought to bring the camera (thinking it was going to be a lousy day) so bought a disposable one for some last minute snaps.

When we got back to Springwood I then had to go and find somewhere that could develop the film quickly. Also got some Tim Tams - biscuits which are very much like the British Penguin biscuits - apparently the Japanese think they are wonderful so I got 4 packs in different flavours.

I'm going to leave it at that, we have a rendez-vous at 7:30 tomorrow morning in Springwood. There is a bus taking the students, teachers and some parents down to the airport.

Sydney Festival First Night 2008

Yesterday afternoon I went up to Katoomba to meet with the ladies of one of my book groups (Read Astray we call ourselves) for our Christmas lunch. We went to the Avalon, the restaurant we went to when Karen and Dan got married. It's our third year there and the only disappointment is that the menu has not changed a jot in that time - I guess they are working on the 'if it ain't broke don't fix it' principle and that's fine, especially where their exquisite dessert menu is concerned. We had a lovely afternoon eating yummy stuff and talking books and travel and stuff.
It was very wet and misty in Katoomba. The Avalon has a huge picture window, usually with nice views, but we could barely see 30m at times. It was still wet when I got back down to Springwood and thought it might put off our plans for the evening but when I arrived home it was to be told we were still going out. I had time for a quick change of clothing then headed down to Sydney with Sharon, Janet and Steven. (Ian and the boys didn't want to join us and Ishbel had her mate Zanny over to play).
It was the first night of the Sydney Festival http://www.sydneyfestival.org.au/events/firstNight.htm and Sharon had enticed me with the promise of a ceilidgh on Macquarie Street.
We walked through Hyde Park where a swing band was going to be playing. A dance floor had been laid all around the fountain at the northern end but it was too early for them to have begun and we continued down to Macquarie Street. There a latin American band was playing - all the tunes sounded the same to me - and three couples were due to get married before the Scottish band, Shooglenifty, were due to play.
We then headed down to Martin Place where the young folks were enjoying a rave. We noticed how it was all young people going in to the crowd down there and only old people coming out!! Just as "Romeo" came on, singing Talking Heads style, and I started to enjoy myself, the others, not wanting to take any chances, decided we should check out the Domain so we headed back east again.
Paul Kelly was playing at the Domain and that was good. He was followed by Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys. Steven, Sharon and Janet all enjoyed that but I've never got the Beach Boys thing so it wasn't the highlight of my evening. We left there and got back to Macquarie Street just in time for the last (very good) two songs from Shooglenifty. They were great and had an Aboriginal digeridoo player playing with them too. An interesting mix of music.
After something to eat at a Japanese restaurant (my first time in one) we headed back to the car park and home. We got back after 1am and then I was up and out with Robbie to be at RFS training by 8am.

Ishbel cooking

Karen, Dan and Ben gave Ishbel an Ikea baking set as part of her Christmas (also undies set and beautiful fairy book). We weren't sure if it would survive OK in the oven. Yesterday we tested it and baked a banana loaf. It worked great!

Took the banana loaf on a use-all-the-stuff-left-over-from-Hogmanay picnic with Sharon & Holly, Janet, Steven, Kate and Georgia at Buttenshaw Park.

Ishbel ate the banana loaf ALL to herself!

Hogmanay 2007

Hogmanay was at our place this year. Karen, Dan and Ben came, as well as the usual suspects, our other family: Sharon and Holly and Janet, Steven and Georgia Addison. Kate was at a party at a friend's house. We were also joined by a mate of Jamie and Robbie's, Nick.
Robbie had wanted to spend Hogmanay at his friend, Lee's house. He had been invited to also stay the night before but when I dropped Rob off and spoke to Marie, Lee's mum, to ensure she did want him for two nights, Marie asked was I aware that she wasn't going to be home on Hogmanay. Rob had failed to bring that to my attention so later, after talking it over with Ian, we decided not to let him stay over on Hogmanay; we would pick him up at 9pm.
At 6:10pm the phone went and someone was asking for Robbie. I told them he was at a friend's place until later, could I get him to ring back then? It was someone from Eagle Boys where Robbie works - he was supposed to have started work at 6pm!!! I rang Robbie and quickly grabbed his uniform. Ian arrived home from an errand just as I got to the driveway so I sent him to get Rob from Lee's and take him to work. We'd been nagging him to check his roster - he'd been getting two or so shifts a week before school broke up but suddenly appeared to have a few weeks with no work which seemed strange. (Funny thing was that on New Year's morning Sharon answered the phone and had an almost identical phone call from McDonalds. Holly was supposed to be working that morning and hadn't turned up. Quick fly down to Blaxland for them!)
During the day Ishbel and I went to see the film Enchanted. It's about a cartoon character who gets sent to real life by a wicked stepmother and the adventures she and her prince charming have in New York and the power of true love. We absolutely loved it; laughed ourselves silly. Can't wait to get it on DVD.
Our evening with our family and friends was very pleasant. As is traditional at these events we all brought enough to feed the forty thousand and there was WAY too much to eat. We played games, saw in the New Year, watched the Sydney fireworks on TV, saw the visitors off the premises and went to bed.