Amy's Birthday

It was Amy's birthday today and after Audrey's weekly swimming lesson the four of us enjoyed a lunch at nearby Bite to Eat cafe. It was a pretty low key affair but we had a nice meal and the kids were both really good.

We really like the cafe and we booked an early table at 11.30am for the children. We found the place packed with the fashionyful enjoying brunch whilst pouring over the weekend papers. We'd eaten breakfast around 7.20am.

Audrey was very excited at the prospect of the impending scrambled eggs, bacon and milkshake but when she discovered she'd have to wait 45 minutes for it, she let out an ear-piercing scream which silenced the chattering crowd. Luckily there's a park just outside where we went to kill-time/calm down.

In the afternoon it was back to cake and the sandpit then I took Audrey out for a bike ride and she fell fast asleep after about 5 minutes and nodded around in her child seat till I peddled us home.

Eli using his 3 teeth to eat a chip

Bully ism

Wolves goal keeping legend Bert 'the Cat' Williams turned 90 last week. They threw a big bash in his honour which you can read about on this link.


Robin forwarded me this which made me laugh..


Sky interview with Steve Bull, talking about 90-year-old Bert Williams. Bull: 'If I get to half that age I'll be happy.' Bull is 45 in March."

Fun in the Sandpit

Here's some shots of Audrey and Eli enjoying the morning sun in their sandpit.

Australia Day

Australia Day this year was celebrated on Tuesday. Depending on your social and political persuasion it is also referred to as Invasion Day or Flag Waving Idiots Day. I actually really like it, although I guess it's important to make a distinction between patriotism and nationalism.

Anyway we found ourselves in Commonwealth Park enjoying a traditional sausage sizzle. The prospect of free sausages brought Canberrans out in droves. I loved one of the official slogans of the Day, which rather than getting tied up in the politics, history and meaning simply read Australia Day - Barbecue like you've never Barbecued before. nice.

Being on a Tuesday Australia also recorded it's highest ever number of sickies on Monday, with over half a million people calling in sick and giving themselves a four day weekend. The Retailers Association labelled them 'un-Australian bums' with no concept of 'mateship' which I found pretty funny (I went into work by the way).

thousands queue for 30 minutes for an early morning free sausage in white bread.

Day Trip to Kiama

On Saturday we took a day trip to the seaside town of Kiama. The town has a famous blow hole, which last time I was there was blowing sprays of water thirty feet or more into the air. Amy hadn't visited the town before, and so I was looking forward to showing her the natural spectacle, so we ventured down to the cliffs to see...a hole, minus any sign of spray.

The lady in the visitor centre told us (and probably thousands of other visitors) that the blowhole was a natural occurance and relied on a South Easterly wind (in other words, I had been lucky last time).

Despite the lack of blow in the hole we spent a really nice day on East Beach which was a really child friendly beach. We found a shady spot by the cliff and enjoyed a picnic before heading home. Here's some pics

self timer (balanced on the rocks) East Beach, KiamaMaking sandcastles
Eli sleeping after his swim with Dad

Casuarina Sands

We took a trip to Casuarina Sands at the weekend. It's only a short drive out of Canberra and it's recently been subject to a big revamp with new toilet blocks, parking and a deck area. It's basically the closest that land-locked Canberra comes to having a beach.

There were lots of swimmers and inflatable dinghies in the water and we had a really nice picnic on the newly laid lawn in the shade. Here's some pictures;

Mount Stromlo Observatory

Both the kids were awake just before 5am this morning. Eli was laughing and smiling (when all we wanted was sleep) and his sister joined his awakedness not long afterwards.

Given the hopelessness of the situation I took the two of them kangaroo spotting at nearby Mount Stromlo which is only a 10 minute drive from our house. The place is noteable as it is the site of the Stromlo Observatory which used to have the largest telescope in the Southern hemisphere (the 4th largest in the World). It is still home of the Australian National University school of Astronomy and Astrophysics.

Unfortunately the site was severly damaged by the firestorm that tore through Canberra in 2003 destroying five telescopes on the site and as a result much of the work previously done there has been moved to Siding Spring.

Despite it being so early in the day, there were already a number of cyclists who had impressively conquored the steep incline to the top of the Mount, presumably in order to beat the heat of the sun.

We were lucky enough to spot quite a number of kangaroos much to Audrey and Eli's delight making our quest a success. Eli flaked out in the car on the way home.

Early morning kangaroo spotting on Mount Stromlo