Tommy's Party

Audrey's friend Tommy turned 3 at the weekend. We were lucky to be invited to share in his family's celebrations. Both Audrey and Eli filled up on party food and had a great time. Audrey's known Tommy for quite a time and the two of them play together really well.

fun in the garden

Playing with blocks

Audrey's favourite toy by a country-mile is her building blocks. She is able to get absorbed in building intricate towers of different colours and interlocking shapes. It's great fun watching her work, even though it's perhaps less fun picking them all up off the living room floor at the end of the evening.

Here's Eli on his rocking reindeer - still his no.1 toy!

King of parrots

In amongst all of my talk of King of desserts, fruit, cheese, Spain etc I spotted a King Parrot in our garden the other day. They live on the East Coast of Australia and seem to visit Canberra during the winter where they gorge themselves on berries. They’re shy compared to a lot of birds that come into the garden (magpies, cockatoos and currawongs).

The males are mostly red with flashes of green and the females mostly green. I love seeing their flashes of colour as they fly across our garden.

Separated at Birth?

I was surprised to find that the Australian $10 note features Paul Newman as Butch Cassidy on it. I really think there's a case for putting Robert Redford/the Sundance Kid on the $20.

Alphaordernogood

Now the World Cup’s over I can’t wait for the start of the new football season. Despite being exiled 10,000 miles from the action it’s great that Wolves survived last season and finished in a lofty 15th place.

Added to that we’ve made some good close season signings and incredibly haven’t been tempted to sign some dodgy Nigerian centre forward who didn’t actually feature in their World Cup campaign but has been nicknamed (by his agent) as the ‘African Pele’.

I’m also becoming accustomed to looking on the BBC Sport website under ‘Premiership’ rather than having to scroll down to ‘lower’ leagues. The only problematic thing is that until teams have played one game BBC list them in alphabetical order.

It means that for many weeks leading up to the new season Wolves start the season in bottom place. Arsenal are top of the league, Villa runners up and neighbours Birmingham start in a remarkable (and slightly unbelievable) 3rd place. Blackpool, in their first season back in the top league since 1971 get a European spot and Man U are mid-table (something which might actually prove true once their gigantic debts really begin to take hold).

Regrettably due to the presence of West Ham and Wigan, West Brom start above the relegation zone. The only thing I can see ‘saving’ Wolves this future igmony of ‘starting’ every season in 20th spot is future promotion to the Premiership of Wrexham, Wycombe, Yeovil and York, something which seems a tadge unlikely. Alternatively perhaps they could take a Yellow Pages approach and become AAAA Wolverhampton Wanderers?

Audrey Painting

Audrey painting some works of art this afternoon...

A New Arrival!

Dora(?) and Boots

We own two female(?) guinea pigs (Dora and Boots). We’ve had them since the end of last year, but a couple of months ago Dora ‘went on holiday’ and came back from the pet shop with a slightly different coat on. At the time of Dora’s holiday we asked the pet shop to ensure that Dora was a female.

On Thursday I went to their cage and discovered a baby guinea pig in the cage (we’ve christened him ‘Tico’).

A friend of ours (Bob), suggested that we take a more liberal attitude towards the situation and that there was nothing wrong with lesbian adoption. Given that I’ve seen no paperwork being exchanged by our guinea pigs and guinea pig social services we suspect that a more likely explanation is that Dora (henceforth known as Dora/Diego) is in fact a dad.

Tico is very cute, but we need to do something about the situation before he is joined by other off-spring and we become overrun by rodents.

Tico!

Viennetta king of desserts

A few weeks ago I bought some Stilton from the supermarket that labeled itself 'Stilton, King of Cheese'. I contemplated its (self appointed) regal claims for sometime until I decided that they possibly had a point. Strangely last week we bought a pineapple which had a label on it 'Pineapple, King of Fruit'. The stately claims were all getting a bit much.

Tonight we had Viennetta for pudding. I think the kids would have crowned it as 'King of Desserts'. Here's some pics of them licking their bowls. If only it was possible to get a similar reaction with broccoli.

n.b Ashley Giles will of course always remain "King of Spain", despite the arrival of Graeme Swann

Bats in Commonwealth Park

Bats normally like warmer climates, so it's a bit of a surprise to find a 'camp' of bats (Grey Headed Flying Foxes) in Commonwealth Park in Canberra during winter.

If you want to see an article about them then click here

We wrapped up warm and decided to go along and have a look for ourselves. Sure enough several trees were hung with grey headed flying foxes. They're a really big breed of bat, but unfortunately they were sleeping with only a few stretching and looking around.

The children seemed more interested in the playground nearby. Here's a few shots.

Gotham City comes to Canberra

on the see-saw

Out of the mouth of Audrey No.9

This isn't really a 'funny' thing that Audrey has said, more of an observation about the English language. Generally Audrey's speech is pretty good for a (nearly) 3 year old. There's a lot of kids her age that neither speak as well or clearly as she does - her vocabulary (and things she remembers) never ceases to amaze us both.

One 'fault' that she has picked up though is rather than saying 'I am' when you ask Audrey a question about herself or her situation she more often responds 'Am are'.

It's an interesting take on the English language. "Are you eating your dinner?" Is usually answered "Am are" or alternatively (on a bad day) "Am are not". It means you have to do a second-take when you hear her, but you soon get used to her particular interpretation of the English language.

Here's some pics of her and her brother on the settee this morning.