Thought I should give you all a quick update before Christmas hits... I am in total denial about the fact that it is nearly Christmas as it just doesn't feel at all Christmassy here even though there are plenty of decorations and trees around. I suppose it's the fact that I know it's not winter, so how can it possibly be Christmas? 
Because I am in denial about Christmas, and because all my beautiful decorations are packed away in boxes in a warehouse in Duddingston, and because I could not bring myself to buy a cheesy plastic Christmas tree (and don't even get me started on the absurdity of Christmas trees in a land of hot Decembers and no native conifers), I decided to do something a bit different this year - obviously something to put the presents under is a given, but green and plastic? No sirree... So you can see the results here. I am pretty pleased with it, and the children still got to help decorate something. And yes, I am aware that a snow-covered bare-branch tree is just as absurd as a plastic conifer, but somehow I can live with this...Anyway, although I know it's not winter, I can confirm that it doesn't actually appear to be summer either. The weather here has been truly shocking recently - the odd hot day interspersed with cold and rain. At the moment the rain is hosing down, and has been for the last 24 hours. Predicted to keep raining until Tuesday. Splendid. Of course, it's great in the sense that the water reserves are very low here and we still have water restrictions, but not so great in that I was expecting to have good weather in Australia. Like I said to Nick, only we could move to Australia and get cr*p weather... But at least the worse the weather gets, the more if feels like Christmas. If I miss a white Christmas at home though I will really cry. I got so hacked of with the rain a couple of weeks ago, that I thought I would look up the average rainfall in Dunbar versus Geelong - not much difference, as you can see.... So I have come to the conclusion that they must not be very good at catching (and keeping) the rain which does fall here.
I've been quite homesick recently, but also starting to get quite comfortable here, if that's not too much of a contradiction. Two things have happened to address previous whinges - they have started selling Pampers nappies here (you have no idea just how exciting that is) and I have managed to make decent cake using Australian Flora marg. Small victories, but you take what you can get....Nick has been doing the odd bit of on call and private assisting, but his opportunities to wield a scalpel are still woefully lacking. Last week he was so stunned to actually get to do a knee replacement on his own that he had to phone and tell me. Apart from that, he has done three hip replacements as lead surgeon in 6 months - the rest has all been (some) assisting and (lots of) observing. Definitely not meeting the criteria for a fellowship in Lower Limb Arthroplasty and not one to be recommended. He is still hopeful that the upper limb component will be better from January, but even if it is awesome, he still feels that he has lost so much surgical technique just from lack of practice that he may have to revise what he was planning to do on his return to Edinburgh and /or try to extend his training to Feb 09 in order to get his skills back up to par. He actually taught a one-day surgical course in Melbourne last week during which he did more arthroplasty than in the whole previous 6 months... And it also begs the question, if they think he's good enough to teach... ????
It's been really wonderful for me and the kids to spend more time with Nick, but it also feels like such a wasted opportunity - knowing that maybe if we'd gone somewhere else, the tens of thousands of pounds it's costing us to have a family of four away for a year would at least have advanced Nick career-wise. We did consider briefly trying to do another fellowship somewhere else after this, but figured that that would be financial suicide and not an option! So, any answers to the following questions gratefully appreciated: (1) Stay here or go home? (2) Will there be a job for Nick if we want to stay here? Will anyone want to employ him if they have never given him a chance to show what he can do? (3) If we return to Dunbar, will there be a consultant's post for Nick in Edinburgh? (4) If not, where else in the UK will we end up? Is it fair to move back to Dunbar for 6 months to then discover we have to go elsewhere and uproot the kids again?
James has nearly finished Grade 1 and has been assigned his Grade 2 teacher for next year - though they of course have their long summer holiday between now and then and don't start back till February 2nd. In Australia, the classes are totally mixed up each year, so he gets to start on an even footing with a new group of children - a few from his old class, but most likely not. I have been in to see his Grade 1 teacher again - in trouble this time for saying 'ar*e' in gym class and because two girls in his class complained because he had told them to show him their belly buttons. Eh? Am I missing something here? Surely this is something a primary teacher can deal with? And allthough I like his teacher well enough, she has admitted that she has struggled to form a realationship with James this year. So fingers crossed for Grade 2...
In spite of the above, his report for the year was not quite as bad as expected!! Two years ahead of his class level in reading, on target for written skills, but starting to slip back a bit in maths - actually, I think he has lost some skills he had in Dunbar, so we have bought some books to do a bit of work with him over the holidays. From looking at his workbooks for the year, I can see lots of places where he hasn't done the work because I know he hasn't understood they way the question is worded, but obviously hasn't asked for an explanation...I definitely don't think the core primary curriculum here is a patch on the Scottish system, but then I suppose that would be why the Scottish system is held in such high regard worldwide! And then I suppose you have to also weigh up the fact that James has been on three trips in 6 months, has a playground full of play equipment, has had two weeks of intensive swimming, has dedicated library and art teachers and learns Indonesian once a week... All of which won't be worth toffee though if he can't add and subtract...
Aside from that, we have been trying to give James a bit more dedicated one on one time and has has started painting Warhammer miniatures with Nick and playing strategy games with them. James is really loving this - his accuracy with a paintbrush is amazing for his age, and he is loving the fact that his Space Marines routinely whip Nick's orcs. And those of you who remember just how much time Nick used to spend painting Warhammer will understand how pleased Nick is to have someone to indoctrinate ahem... I mean initiate....
He has started playing Milo cricket on a Friday evening with his brother and lots of other kids from his school, and is still doing swimming lessons on a Saturday morning, but we had to abandon the Scouts idea in the end as there are no local 'Joey' groups, which is the age group he would need to be in. Just as well, as I can't get past the fact that the 'Joeys' were the bottom rugby team when I was at school - but that's another story...
James still draws constantly - cartoon characters, knights, pirates... He came home the other day with his version of an Australian Christmas too - Santa appears to be a ute-driving Cats fan, but then, who's to say otherwise?
Will has only two more kinder days to go and then he'll be a school boy after the holidays... He is DESPERATE to start school with his brother, and James is really looking forward to having him there too. His kinder had a 'wear your school uniform' day last week and it was so nice to see him all dressed up, and although he has all new clothes, they still look so big on him that he may as well be wearing James'.He has finished with 'kindergym' gymnastics now and we are trying to work out whether to send him back into a boys development squad after the holidays - he is keen to do it, but it's more a problem of when the class is on and having to drag the three others along at the same time...
Will's biggest concern at the moment is that Santa won't be able to come in to deliver presents as we don't have a chimney - we have had to promise to leave the utility room door open in case he can't use his Santa magic to get in any other way. Ella, on the other hand, is generally horrified by Santa (because he's too fluffy, just like the candy floss) and we have had to promise her that he will not (1) come into her room, (2) want to cuddle her or (3) speak to her. James is wrestling with the fact that, apparently, some children in his class think that Santa might actually not be real and it possibly might just be your parents. Hmmm, as if...
Will is most excited about starting school as he knows that he will be learning to read. He does, in fact, think that he will be able to read on day 1 when he comes home and has plans to plough straight into some of his brother's BeastQuest books... Actually, we are going to be doing some letter work with Will over the holidays too as, although we got one letter from the Victorian Education Board which included the fact that Will is not expected to know his letters before school, we also got a letter from the school indicating that the current prep children had problems distinguishing upper and lower case letters, so could we please make sure our children knew the difference.... Sure. So you'll be covering what exactly in school?
Ella is her smart, stroppy, sassy self and is itching to start kinder in January. She had an orientation day recently and I barely saw her - home corner, doll, pram and playhouse. I know when I'm beaten. Still, it did give me a chance to have a chat with another Scottish lady whose little girl Ruby is starting in the same group as Ella. Kinder for Ella is only two half-days a week, but it will be enough to give us both a break from each other and or me to do mundane things like food shopping which are nigh impossible with Ella in tow.
She is now (finally!!) toilet trained and in typical Ella fashion, has gone the whole hog and is also dry at night. She is still a demon in the swimming pool and in January will move up a level into the first class without parents in the pool. She has started drawing people with arms, legs faces, hair.... and she does it several times a day, so when you add this to the drawings by Will and James, you can understand why we have a problem with disappearing computer paper here...
This photo shows Ella emptying every single toy out of her room. I told her to tidy up one day, and when she didn't do it, said I would take one of her toys away. Fine, she said, take them all, I don't want a single toy, I'm going to take every single one of them out of my room. And she did. Every single one. I am no match for her, I fear...
Phoebe has passed through her really difficult stage and turned into a much pleasanter baby all round!! She is a complete eating machine - this picture shows her eating tuna California Roll, seaweed and all... She's still a fairly petite soul though - just over 20lbs and around the 50th centile
She is also now a bottle-fed baby, having decided at 10 months that my services were no longer required. Wanted me Monday, had enough by Tuesday... It's fine on the one hand as I know it's baby-led and she is happy as can be, and I don't need to worry about how much I drink, or getting home to feed her, but on the other hand it was a bit abrupt and because she's our last baby, I'm a bit sad.
She has mastered the art of sidewinder-technique commando-crawling to the extent that she is as fast as any conventional crawler, and she has also started pulling herself up to stand (in fact I had to stop writing there as she has just pulled my camera on her head), usually in the bath... in between splashing and soaking everyone in range
Merry Christmas to all - will blog our Antipodean Festivities soon, as well as details of our Big Trip North in January, followed by the arrival of Grannie Jenny, Grandpa Royce and Auntie Kim, then by Gran Anne and Tony, then back to school... Our year will be over before we know it!!
