Summer kids

Summer downunder is an absolute wonder for those of us more accustomed to marked seasons and only a few months of the year when flip flops and shorts are the order of the day. So, here is Abby with our first watermelon ripe from our little garden after only 6.5 weeks from planting! Seed packet instructions give planting dates of spring, summer, fall and early winter for successful crops. By my reckoning, that means gardening pretty much 300 days a year!

Summer on the northern beaches also means pretty flat seas, with waves hardly suitable for surfing. However, last week a southerly blow drove some big waves into the beaches and our rock pools looked like washing machines on the cotton setting. Surfers materialized seemingly out of nowhere and one day on the bus we counted 7 long boards and 3 boogie boards. At Nippers on Sunday, the beach sign post said, "Beach closed. Dangerous Surf". There were at least 20 surfers out in the maelstrom of white water of course and when the Nippers arrived, the lifies took the sign down and the kids were all splashing gleefully in the water. Abby took her first big ride on a boogie board even through the heavy surf, and there I was, without a camera!




Summer also means multiple trips to my fave garden shop, Flower Power. As we were looking around last week, we spotted a red-bellied black snake hiding among the lilly ponds. Swell. It's one of the world's 10 most deadly snakes, and there it was! A fellow shopper opined that it was only a baby, being less than 1 meter in length, and he wondered where its mamma was...likely to be something like 3 meters. I headed out to the flowering plant area and left the snake wrangling to the mates.

The kids took several classes at the Coastal Evironmental Centre during summer hols, including water rockets day for Jack and his buddy. Using a 2-liter pop bottle, the kids fashioned a nose cone from Play Doh and covered the bottle with a paper wrap. Then we went out to the nearby oval (play fields are called ovals because that's where rugby is played) and using a specially adapted bicycle pump, the kids topped off the bottles, filled about half way with water, with pressurized air. When the air tube was disconnected, the force of the air leaving the bottle pushed the rocket into the air. Or sideways. Or in loops. And spraying the delighted rocketeers with water.

The beach is excellent any day of summer, of course, and living only a 5-minute walk from one of Australia's premier beaches makes life very fine. A local scientist, Dr Andy Short, has made the study of coastal Australia his life's work. He has personally visited all 11.580 of Australia's beaches and prepared baseline reports on size, sand type, gradient and more. That is amazing! Living near the coast as most Aussies do, knowing as much as possible about the beaches is critical as ocean levels have risen.


While Abby, Milly, Tracy and I went to Mamma Mia, Jack and Dan visited several museums. There was a special exhibit about legendary and mythical creatures at one and Jack was thrilled to see a display about a well-known Pokemon player. If you don't have boys, you might not know about these made-up creatures and the elaborate games andtoys that go along with them. Jack &and his mates love playing Pokemon games on their hand-held game devices.



For Abby and her mates, its been sleepovers, guinea pigs and gardens. Little, if any, sleeping goes on at sleepovers; giggling girls manage to spend most of the night whispering and being silly.

The guinea pigs went outside on an overcast afternoon, andenjoyed the tickly grass in our front lawn. Buffalo grass, I think, very tough and drought/flood resistant. However, it wasn't long before a couple of exceedingly large ravens appeared in the gum tree over the lawn and were making the oddest noises. The piggies were terrified and I suspect the bird

vocalizations were something like, "we can get you!"

We have a shortage of doll clothes which are the correct size for the piggies, but there are always flowers. Plus the piggies can eat their fine gowns after the girls go giggling off to find another summer activity.

Here are a couple of fun items. The image to the right is of a coral reef, as you may be able to discern. However, the twist is that it is made of crochet stitches by a group of math wizards!

Angel Place, a small alley in downtown Sydney, features an installation known as "Forgotten Songs" as part of Sydney's summer festival. It features a canopy of empty birdcages hanging in the sky, accompanied by the sounds of Sydney's lost birds which may have lived in this area, before the city including this laneway, replaced their native habitats. Very evocative.

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Summer garden party

What could be more fun on a perfect summer day than a garden party for some of Abby's friends! The garden has matured very nicely; the sunflowers near the deck have grown another 15" since these photos were taken. My favorite feature is the revamped fountain, formerly nothing more than a breeding ground for mozzies. Now it showcases some Australian natives and some flashy petunias.

Abby made garden party invitations and mailed them to her friends, all of whom were able to come. On the day, they arrived in summer frocks and Abby presented them with flower lei bracelets. We began by coloring tropical butterflies and diving into the snacks. Pink food was the major theme, so we had fruit kebabs, topped with real American marshmallows which I had brought down in my luggage. Pink punch, of course, which is called cordial here. The fairy bread is a little-girl tradition, just dreadful, but popular: white bread (yes, it must be white), spread generously with butter, then sprinkled with multi-colored non-pareils.




Next, the girls decorated little fairy boxes with garden stickers, glitter and paste-on jewels. They really were very cute!

The giggle level was reaching ear-splitting conditions, so Jack hid under his earphones and worked on a computer game.

Most of the girls had seen the stage production of Mamma Mia, and know all the songs and dances, so of course we danced out in the garden.




It is the Australian custom to send party guests home with a "lolly bag", a bag of sweets. That seems like such a bad idea after all the sweet things the girls had eaten, so instead we potted up marigold starts for the girls to take home. Not too messy.

The final activity was making dessert, worms in dirt. The girls had never seen this uniquely American concoction, and were most eager to try it. A dollop of chocolate pudding goes in the bottom of a cup, clear being better so the worms are more visible. Next, you deconstruct oreo cookies, eating the creamy part if you want. The cookie part you put into a mortar and grind it up very fine. This cookie powder is sprinkled on top the pudding. Finally, you drape at least 2 gummy worms over the edge of the cup, pushing the ends down into the dirt. Delightful!

There was just enough time for a few play-acting games with Abby's extensive Webkinz collection, then mums retrieved the weary ones, slightly gooey-faced from the worms in dirt, clutching their fairy boxes and marigold starts. Abby had also chosen little white stones decorated with words like "friend" & "love", which she put in little chiffon draw-string bags for her guests. I was so exhausted I literally sat still and quiet for about 2 hours!

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Beaches, beaches, beaches

Aside from the fact that the sun rises from the sea instead of setting into it, which makes me vaguely uneasy, I enjoy my morning walks along our beach. The only lifeguard on the beach at that hour is likely to be a kookaburra looking for a tasty breakfast. Since most Australians live near the coastlines, they are dedicated swimmers. Every morning intrepid souls are doing laps in our rock pool, even when the surf is breaking into the pool. No wonder another name for the swimstroke we call "freestyle" is also called "Australian crawl".

Further down the beach, a group of swimmers, mostly men 55-80 years old, I reckon, meets at the surf club for a morning ocean swim. They swim out beyond the break line for a few miles, then body surf into the beach. I am in awe of their dedication and surf prowess. I am not brave enough yet to swim that far out. As they come out of the water, they nonchalantly toss bundles of seaweed off their shoulders. Ugh. Several of them bring their dogs, who patiently wait for the swim's end.


I can take a steep track up the headland on the north end of our beach to the next cove, Bilgola beach. Their rock pool is much less wild than ours, with the surf never breaking into it. The track crosses an area called a hanging swamp, with the same kind of vegetation you would expect to find in a level swamp. Since the rocks are porous limestone & it rains a lot, the seepage keeps the hanging swamp wet most of the year.



Our rock pool takes a lot of surf on a high tide/full moon combo, when it's not much good for lap swimming. The Bilgola pool is much more civilized no matter the surf situation.
















So far,the kids are not tired of going to the beach. There are hazards that they now barely notice, like the bluebottles. Today at the rock pool, it must have been breeding season for the sand flies, who covered the sign near the rock pool inches deep. Another ugh for me, but the boys thought they were great scary good fun.

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Mamma Mia and the great outdoors

The Australian road show for Mamma Mia came to Sydney's Lyric Theater and Santa brought tickets for the show for 4 of us. Who should go? Abby, Tracy, Nonnie and Abby's friend Milly, that's who! We used Funday Sunday special bus tickets ($2.50 anywhere on any of Sydney's public transport), but due to a bus traveling at the speed of snail from Newport into the city, we grabbed a cab from the bus stop to the theater to make the curtain, so Milly and Abby had a treat right from the get-go. The giltzy lobby was full of little girls and their mums and nonnies, everyone dressed up just a bit.

For us beach girls, that meant shoes, which came off pretty quickly once we were seated. The show was wonderful! Good music, interesting set and a story line most everyone in the audience knew. The girls were fascinated with the changing of the sets between scenes. One of my fave scenes in the movie, when all the men dance on the pier in their swim fins, appeared in the show, though without the sea. The encores were delightful and many attendees by that point, including our little ones, were up and dancing and clapping. All in all, a grand experience! Thanks, Santa.

In complete and total contrast to a day in the city was our bushwalk/bushwhack up to Barrenjoey Lighthouse, at the tip of the peninsula called the Northern Beaches. We trudged up the steep path in the hot sun. Whew. The trail was used by early smugglers getting goods in and out of Australia. We envisioned them working in the dead of night dragging illicit cargo up and down the steep slopes. From the top, the view extends from Gosford on the north side of Broken Bay to the still water of Pittwater and the ocean beaches of Palm Beach, and Avalon; well worth the sweat to get up there. We took the short cut down the hill and dashed our way over the hot, hot sand to the beach to cool off.

Next, for the bushwhacking portion of the day: to visit a special shady glen Jack and Abby found on their last ascent, we pushed through a tangle of vines and shrubs. The spiders were huge! Of course, the vines for a Tarzan swing were still there, though Jack discovered he's grown so much his feet scrape the ground. It was somehow easier going back up to the trail than going down into the glen. Time for another cool off in Pittwater and an ice cream at the little cafe just outside the park boundry and it was time for weary bushwhackers to head home. Aaaah.

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