When I was about five, I was a huge monarchist.  HUGE.  I had an album called "Rule Britannia" with "all the songs that make Britain great", played by the BBC radio marching band, or suchlike.  I loved the Queen.  Especially 1950s images of her in her coronation robes.  One vivid memory of this period is from a trip from Brisbane to Adelaide at Christmas time - a trip we took every year to visit our grandparents who lived in Adelaide. Two days in our brown Renault station...

I can't believe it's a whole six years since I gave birth to this wonderful, spirited boy.  Seems like yesterday!  Mikus is a very happy six year old.  He is convinced that being older is the best thing ever.  He is waiting  for his teeth to start falling out.  Impatient to start school.  Demands to do things himself - things that are meant for much older kids.  He is also a big softie under his big-boy exterior, and give the best cuddles in the world.  We...

Nope, no Easter eggs up here.  We checked yesterday, when Jem crawled up onto the roof of our shed to put a webcam up by the stork's nest.  For years the storks had their nest on an unattainable old electricity pylon, and we had no chance of seeing what was going on up there.  We would only know there were chicks, and how many there were, after they started popping their heads up over the edge of the nest.  But after last year's midsummer tragedy (for a recount look here) the...

....and on my birthday yesterday, I was feeling old.  Happy - but way, way old.  Reason is, because WE MOVED ON THE WEEKEND!!  3.5 years after starting the house project we finally made the move.  Walls still need painting on floors one and two, lots and lots of finishing touches need to be made, there's boxes and bags and crap everywhere, but the main thing is - we are now living in our house!Saturday was a marathon - the movers, two young strapping Latvian lads (we'll call...

My eight year old son digs crochet.  Tiss came home from school last week all excited because they are learning in handcrafts class, and he had to crochet two 30 cm long chains for homework.  He has always watched my modest attempts at crochet with quiet awe (don't you love the fact that to your children, you are a legend.  Doesn't matter what the rest of the world thinks), although all I have ever knitted or crocheted successfully are scarves, which I join the ends of, like moebius...

After visiting the zoo in Melbourne years ago, and staring into the human eyes of the Orangutangs, I vowed never to set foot in another zoo again.  The manic repetitive patterns of the pygmy hippos and the desperately wise and sad faces of the apes left me so uneasy  that I knew I didn't want to pay to look at animals in a glorified prison ever again.  After the boys were born, though, I have changed my tune - partly because the amazement and learning that children gain from...

So, in January our house was near to being finished.  Still needed floorboards down, kitchens, bathrooms - not much in the grand scale of things.  I was totally sick of waiting and threatened everyone at home, that if we weren't moved in and having a huge combined 2-day housewarming party by the time I hit my birthday in mid-April, I would move out of home.  Forever.  Say goodbye to our old apartment, our new house, the family and take off by myself, with a jaunty backpack,...

Mikus is a ball-point pen man.  It his only drawing implement of choice.  He has never been interested in colour or making something pretty. Both he and his brother use drawing to act out situations - the point of the drawing for them, seems to be the ACTION that occurs during the drawing itself, a kind of extension of the games they play with each other. But to be honest his pictures worry me a lot of the time, because they are only ever renditions of ninjas, or monsters, locked in...