So back in October, we went off to the Supercross bike championship's Geelong meet - for which they had taken over Skilled Stadium, the home of the Geelong Cats. Didn't really know what to expect from this, but it turned out to be a really enjoyable day. First of all, the weather was cracking and since we were there for four hours, luckily we were in a covered stand.
Learned that being in a 'dry' stand doesn't include beer... after all, it's just like pop, right? Nick said he felt under-tattooed for the occasion. Come to think of it, so did I.
We watched some racing, then some freestyle stunts, then more racing. Loved the height they go over the jumps and the kids loved the crashes - but then they just all jump back on their bikes and keep going...
And we've become fans (at least temporarily) of Chad Reed - he won every race he was in and is currently leading the championship...
Yes, I confess, the place is getting to me. Thursday here was a chilly 21° and I did wonder whilst dressing whether I should pop on a cardi in addition to the vest top and t-shirt I was already wearing. And I was distinctly miffed that the weekend forecast was only for 20°, thus forcing me to rethink my plans of doing something nice with the children. Eh? Someone slap me.... quick. That would be a Dunbar heatwave, for goodness sake. Flesh would be bared at Lauderdale, children would be launched down the beach at Gullane and ice cream would be consumed in North Berwick. I fear that if we stay here, 21° will be overcoat weather!!
Anyway, I have got so behind with the blog that I thought I would take this opportunity to give you an update on me and Nick, accompanied by photos of our children as that's much easier in the eye that photos of us!!Well, my news in no particular order:(1) I am now 38. This is not a good thing. But it is better than the alternative. And, for the first time in my life it was sunny and warm on my birthday. Quite liked that bit...
(2) I have been responsible for the global financial crisis. I moaned about the Aussie dollar. I wished it was worth less as everything seemed so expensive. And now my wishes have come true. The Aussie Dollar is now basically worth two peanuts and a fag-end, and of course now that Nick is earning dollars, I am, as they say, hoist on my own petard... Nevertheless, those of us with no savings and a huge mortgage are reaping the benefits, but not so good if you were nearing retirement and have now had to put it off (again) till your mid-nineties. Erm, sorry about that Dad...
(3) I have discovered that my alter ego is apparently Mrs Tibbles. It must be, because people keep phoning here and asking for her. Surely no-one is really called Mrs Tibbles? That's a cat, right? I am still working up the courage to miaow at the next person who calls...(4) I still have tennis elbow. This is most likely not clearing up because I am old. See (1). According to Nick, it will probably not get better till I rest it. Hmmm. In about 2015 then.(5) I have joined a gym. This is because I am still wearing four children and would like to return to a less rotund state, but have struggled to get myself moving. This is because I am old. See (1). I will, of course, only be able to do exercise not involving my right elbow. See (4)... The gym has a creche. This means that I will have no excuse not to go. Except for the elbow - see (4)... and being old - see (1) again...
(6) I have managed to fill my diary to bursting point and am now moaning about how many things I have to fit in, rather than the fact that my diary is empty. This leads me to believe that I am just an old (see 1) moanbag. But it's good to be busy and life here has taken on a turn for the normal - I feel like I could quite happily stay here, or at least give it longer than a year, but equally I'd be just as happy if we decided to go home. Life from January will be very different with Will at school and Ella at kinder two half days a week. Should be able to make the most of that gym membership!! (7) Ah yes - forgot to mention that the kinder gods have been smiling and Ella has been offered a place at St Lukes Kinder, which is where Will goes just now. It was totally unexpected as we had basically been told that we were too far down the list to be likely to get one, but we jumped at the chance when offered. The fact that it's in Highton makes it a bit further to drive (less than 10 minutes) but if we do stay here, I'm fairly confident that Highton is where we'll go, as it's got bigger houses and plots for less money than here in town, but also has a village atmosphere with all the shops and services you could need. And we know lots of people who live there already. OK, lots is an exaggeration, but a few!!
(8) Australia is full, apparently. I know this because a ute parked around the corner has a bumper sticker which says so. Actually, it says F*** off, we're full, which is nice. And patently untrue. This place is bloody empty!! Even the busy bits are, well, not that busy. Anywhere that still mostly builds one storey homes is not full. OK, there are plenty bits of Australia you might find it challenging to live in, but then the bumper sticker doesn't say 'F*** off, the easy bits are full'. Actually, maybe I'm attributing punctuation beyond his capabilities to this muppet, and maybe it's 'F*** off were full' (so I had to come and live in Geelong). Either way, Nick reckons it's more racist than South Africa here. I'm not so sure about that ( I think in SA they've just stopped saying it out loud) but I will agree that the lack of political correctness here makes me wince. And generally I hate all things PC, but some comments here have had my jaw hitting the floor...
(9) I can no longer bake ANYTHING. Everything I have tried to bake here has pretty much been a disaster. Sunken cakes, burnt flapjacks, floury fairy cakes..... I think this is either (a) the fact that there is no baking marg here and they bake all their sponges with butter or (b) cake karma, as I can clearly remember Nick's mum telling me about 15 years ago how when she moved from SA to the UK that none of her baking worked out, and I can remember thinking 'and this has WHAT to do with me, exactly????' (Sorry J!) So now it's payback time. And even Mary Berry's cake book has failed me. And sponge cake made with butter is horrible and greasy and even James won't eat it... So I announced that I was going to buy all my cakes from now on and Nick was so outraged that he bought me a KitchenAid mixer for my birthday - pink, of course... A dream to use, but Ella's birthday cake still sank and was greasy.... Methinks I need an Australian recipe book and to investigate margarines here to see if any will do the trick.
(10) and finally - we have escaped the clutches of the Australian police. We got a speeding fine the DAY we arrived in Australia for doing 114kmph in a 100kmph zone and it eventually caught up with us, having been sent to Dunbar, redirected to my dad and sent back to Geelong. Well, I was all set to cough the $220 till I spoke to a friend at playgroup who said 'No mate, you don't wanna do that, you wanna appeal. It'll be roight' Or something like that. So I appealed on the grounds that we had just arrived on an overnight flight, were in an unfamiliar car, on unfamiliar roads, with unfamiliar speed limits and were trying to navigate our way into Geelong at the point we were zapped. And I though about adding the fact that their speed limits are ridiculously low (100kmph is the top) but felt this might not help.... So anyway, two weeks later, we get a lovely reply telling us that our infringement has been withdrawn in favour of an Official Warning, and a reminder that road laws are for the safety of all road users. Which I agree with, except for the fact that, as far as I can see, the speed limit is the only road law in Australia. The rest of the time it's pretty much a free-for-all where half the cars are neon utes driven by testosterone-fuelled 20-somethings, and the other half are 1970's saloons driven by old folks on a day pass and held together by prayer and denture paste.And now for Nick's news:
(1) He has been to two conferences. One in Sydney, one in Hobart in Tasmania. Now, I'm sure bits of them were interesting, and bits were boring, but I'm also sure that at no point did he have to accompany anyone to the toilet, wipe someone else's drool off his clothes or rock someone till they fell asleep, so sounds like a good deal in my book. He really enjoyed catching up with some old friends in Sydney, and said that Tassie was gorgeous, so I think we will try to get over there as a family sometime soon - we can go by boat and take the car, or fly, so will see what the cheapest option is...(2) He has (wait for it) Medicare number for all three hospitals, provider numbers for all three hospitals and a spot on the on-call rota for the odd shift here and there. So this means that he can bill for private assisting and also get paid for on call. Result! He would still like to be doing more on a day-to-day basis, but things have settled down into somewhat of a routine and we are loving having him home for tea every night and around for the odd afternoon too. He changes rotation after Christmas and is hoping that he will be able to do more operating from then on.(3) He has been cycling to work every day - takes less that 10 minutes door to door, though I think it's a lot easier on the way home as that is mostly downhill!
(4) He has gone Aussie and purchased a black leather 'swagman's hat' to keep the sun of his shiny bit (yes, yes, I know, he's not bald, it's a solar panel for a sex machine...) Sounds dodgy, looks rather dashing. But obviously I will keep taking the mick.
(5) He is the world's best husband for taking the kids out to let me get the blog done!!And finally, some quickies:Phoebe is crawling Ella is toilet trainedJames and Will have started cricket We have booked most of our January roadtrip - details soon...
Okay, lots of blogging to catch up on here so I'll start at the beginning...Fresh on the heels of the Melbourne Show came the Geelong Show. Smaller, yes, classier....no!! Though the food hall was still good and we did indulge in chocolate strawberries on a stick again.Showbags were still a big part of the day, but this time I thought we'd go with non-character efforts since we really didn't need any more Cars/Dora/Wall-e/Ben 10/Simpsons/Iron Man/Disney Princess anything in the house. So after much to-ing and fro-ing up and down the aisles, the boys declared that they would like the pirate bag and cowboy bag and Ella went with pink fairy. Usually I don't let the boys have weapons, partly because I'm trying to do the whole responsible-parent-weapons-are-bad kind of thing, but mostly because they beat the bejesus out of each other within minutes and there are always tears and tantrums. So anyway, for reasons of sun/wine tasting/mummy magnanimity, I gave in and we piled the pram high with swag including one rifle, two pistols, a blunderbuss, a bow and arrow, a pirate cutlass, a dagger and a fairy wand you could have someone's eye out with. And in the animal petting tent we met James' teacher. And I had to decide whether to (a) pretend the pram didn't contain an arsenal big enough to mount a country-wide coup or (b)try to pull the sun shade over the whole lot whilst conducting an uninterrupted hello-nice-to-see-you-yes-isn't-that-a-lovely-fluffy-lamb kind of conversation. Either way, I just know she was walking away thinking 'it always starts with the parents...'
The Dodgems were a big hit too - James and Will loved driving their own car and after James worked out that he could just keep the wheel on full lock and hit everyone else by doing small circles in the middle, he was happy. It was supposed to be a two minute ride, but time is flexible here and I think they were on about 15 minutes.
Apart from that, we saw snakes and baby crocs - the snake man told the kids never to touch a snake but always to back away slowly and get a grown up, who will presumably know what to do. Or, in my case, scream hysterically and run away as fast as my ageing bones will allow. And if the children can keep up, they can come too... Apparently, more people are killed in Australia by horses than snakes each year. Knew there was a reason I didn't like horses!
We went for a wander around the craft tent, and in the middle of an enlightening discussion on spinning with one of the local ladies, I turned around to find all of my children on stage... in some kind of dodgy pirate show with a scientific purpose. Ella did a great stage whisper of 'Mum, these pirates are really bad' and got more of a laugh than she was expecting!
We also went in a huge shed full of old steam engines and generators ranging from full size train and tractor engines down to tiny steam miniatures - all working, Nick was fascinated! Children not so much...
And yes, the pig diving was back at the Geelong show - but that is old hat now... This time we were fortunate enough to witness the goose fashion show. I'm still wondering what kind of person gets up in the morning and thinks 'today I'm going to dress my goose'. And having had that bizarre urge, presumably then moves on to 'today I'm going to custom-sew clothes for my goose. In several colours. And then I'm going to build a cat(goose)walk. And see if my geese want to walk up and down it for the amusement of the general public'. Sheesh....
And finally, here are my beautiful children in full show regalia. Yes, I know Will looks like Jimmy Somerville in his Bronski Beat days. Nuff said...
At the risk of actually being up to date with this blog, I will herewith give you all an update on each junior member of the family, in ascending order of age...
Phoebe (or Chubber as Will is now calling her) alternates between absolutely lovely and absolutely heinous. Basically, as long as she is stuffing food into her mouth or being held by a parent (or, ideally, both at the same time) then she is happy. Otherwise she is generally screaming in a meet-my-needs-now-dammit kind of way. She can scream through car journeys, supermarket trips, getting dressed, getting undressed, being spoon-fed (more about that in a mo), being put in the pram.... It's become the soundtrack to my life, and in fact she is doing it now so I think I'll just go and pour myself a glass of wine!! 
Her repertoire of sounds has expanded past dadadadada and now includes 'the coffee machine' 'cccccccchhhhhhh ccchhhh chhch chhh chch'. And of course, 17 different ways to scream!
Food is a big part of Phoebe's life, but now that she has discovered that she can feed herself from her highchair tray, she completely refuses to be spoon fed (though will make an exception for yoghurt) and is rejecting all 'mush' food. In the last few days she has powered her way through pepper and ham omelette, chicken sandwiches, tuna and brocolli pasta, pork and peanut noodles, avocado, watermelon, strawberries, raisins, breadsticks, ricecakes, toast and marmalade, grated cheese, banana, fishfingers, peas.... Probably more but that's all I can remember recently! In spite of this, she is actually rather a petite soul - well, as far as this family goes anyway - being just under the 50th centile for height and weight.
Part of the eating frenzy has also probably been triggered by the fact that she now has four top teeth to go with her two bottom ones. Putting a finger in her mouth is NOT a good idea. Actually, putting anything with pain receptors in her mouth is not a good idea - she decided to try out her new pearly whites on me a couple of weeks ago when I was feeding her and I yelled so loudly she didn't feed again for three days!
She is mobile in so far as she can roll to get anywhere she wants to, but she is also now pushing herself backwards and also pushing herself up into a bridge shape on her hands and feet. I keep telling her there really is no rush, but she's not listening (that's how I know she's a Shortt)
Ella continues to be a cheeky wee minx with attitude, but is still our greatest source of amusement on a daily basis. She has taken to pluralising everything ending in a consonant with '-ses', like brainses, kneeses, pramses, spoonses...., describes something vaguely pink as 'pinklish' and is apparently attending 'playgroupery' on a Tuesday...
We have a huge world map on the wall and I thought (at first) that geography with a two year old was going exceptionally well. Foolish woman.
'Mummy, what's that country?'
'The Russian Federation'
'Rush-in Federay-shun. What's that one?'
'Libya'
'Libby-ya'
'And do you know where this is that we are living in now?'
'Australia!!'
'Well done Ella!'
'And what is the blue country?'
'That's the sea and it goes all around the world.'
'Oh. And where are all the ducks?'
'Ermmmmm...'
But she's not daft. The other day's conversation ran as follows after I told her off:
'Ella Shortt! Don't you dare stick your tongue out at me! Come here for a smack on your bottom'
'Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo'
Well, do you have something to say to me?''Don't smack me!'
And finally, finally, toilet training seems to be going well. Smartie bribery is working (one for a number one, two for a number two) as is having her own mini-seat for the toilet. Not in the conventional sense, you understand.... She refused to sit on the big toilet without being held, I bought her her own special seat so that she didn't need to worry, now she goes every time without the special seat to prove what a big girl she is. Worth every penny of the $9.95 I spent on it. But really, oppositional or what?
Will has a mutual appreciation society going with Phoebe at the moment - he loves her, she loves him, they grin at each other...
He has had his first orientation session at Manifold Heights and is so looking forward to starting school. He has another four sessions culminating in a big parents and pupils picnic so he should meet lots of the children he will be at school with - important, as he isn't at kinder with any of them. I do think though that the fact that he will be at school with his big brother will help too.
Apart from that, he has been a bit of a wee horror recently - I suspect just doing a bit of boundary pushing, but it comes as a bit of a shock when it's Will in trouble most of the time! Apparently he is an angel at kinder though... and I got to see a day at kinder last week when I was on 'parent duty' - Will loved showing me all the toys and all his friends and showing off his sisters. Ella of course thought she actually was at kinder- she loved sitting down for storytime and snack and helping with the weather report.
Will has also started asking the kind of questions I used to expect of James - most recently 'Did Triceratops have teeth?' and 'If there were no people, who looked after the dinosaurs in the safari park?' and 'Why does there have to be sand on beaches, cos I don't really like the sand. Could there not just be grass?' Good question Will, I don't much like the sand either!
If you think Will and co look a bit odd in this pic, it's because they coloured their faces in with chalk to be Red Indians. Actually, Ella coloured all of herself in.... We also made headdresses with 'feathers' and they whooped around the garden for hours.
James has been - wait for it - an absolute gem in the last few weeks. So helpful and well behaved. He says it's because he's 7 now, bless! He loved his week at Cartoon Camp and I have scanned some of the drawings he did here. Not only did he really improve his drawing skills, but he has picked up a lot about the different styles and now points out Manga, Disney and so on when we are out and about.
He got a new Quiksilver scooter for his birthday (the boys have really been missing their scooters from home) and has been putting it to good use on the ramps at Sparrow Park. We also got him some books, DS games, Star Wars figures and DVD's and he got lots of generous gifts from the UK too.
We also finally got the results from his assessment - interesting but inconclusive. It said he was of above/high above average intelligence, but not off the scale (which we knew) and that he should not need any special provision in a normal school. It also said that he might be bored at school here as he has come from 'one of the strongest education systems in the world' (so there!!) but that he is also what is termed 'hypercompetitive' which basically means that although he is obsessed with winning and coming first, he doesn't want to learn the skills required to do that. This means that often he doesn't try if his success is not assured, or will not attempt something if he considers it 'too difficult'. Which we also knew!!! It has reminded us of how long it took James to learn to ride his bike because he refused to try in case he fell off, and how he refused to try to catch a ball in case he didn't manage... Both of which he can now manage with considerable skill, so presumably there is light at the end of the tunnel!
We suspect that either boredom or his lack of persistence may be at the root of his intermittent disruptive behaviour in the classroom, so we are going to see another educational specialist in a couple of weeks to see what we/he can do to sort it out. We are well aware that in the grand scheme of things, James is absolutely not a 'problem', but I think it's worth seeing if a bit of a tweak now could make his journey through school a bit smoother- for all concerned!
We have had school holidays here in the first week of October, and as this co-incided with Nick spending three days in Sydney, I thought I'd better get out and about with the kids in order to stave off insanity...
First we went off to the Hatching The Past exhibition at the Wool Museum in Geelong where we learned all about dinosaur eggs and babies. It isn't a big exhibition, but was pretty hands-on with the kids excavating eggs and bones and messing about in dino suits.... 
Raaaarrrrr!!! Didn't actually kill enough time with the dinos, so went round the Wool Museum too. Geelong apparently has a big wool/weaving history and the Wool Museum was surprisingly interesting, or at least it would have been if not for the screaming (mine) and running (kids)...
So in order to calm them down (ha ha), and as a birthday treat for James, we went for large quantities of chocolate at The Chocolate Room We have one just near the end of our street - 20 flavours of Italian hot chocolate , chocolate fondues, chocolate melting pots, chocolate cakes - the kids always have a chocolate fondue with strawberries, bananas and marshmallows for dipping and in spite of its generous proportions, it lasts about 20 seconds.
The next day (scorching) we packed a big picnic and headed off to Jirrahlinga Wildlife Sanctuary about half an hour outside Geelong to see some real Australian animals. Now, I should point out that I did take pictures of dingoes, emu and a wombat called Sebastian, but they weren't being hugely co-operative, so I won't bore 
you with the dull pictures. But you can see the koalas (the one the kids are petting is called Billy), kangaroos and an echidna which is basically a big hedgehog.... except for having that whole egg-laying-mammal-mutant-freaky-marsupial-only-in-Australia thing going on. I did laugh when I read on Wikipedia that a young echidna is called a puggle and spends 45 - 50 days in its mother's pouch until it starts to develop spines at which point she deposits it in a burrow. No kidding. If only we could all deposit our children in a burrow when they become problematic!
After Jirrahlinga, we made an unscheduled trip to the beach at Barwon Heads for a little paddle which ended in the usual head-to-toe soaking.... Hence the 'drookit weans', which for those of you not fortunate enough to be Scottish, means 'soaked children'. This is a really lovely little safe beach running along the side of the mouth of the Barwon River just as it meets the sea and I'm sure we'll be there many times over the coming months.
The kids had a great time throwing water over each other with their newly-acquired dollar-shop buckets, and then proceeded to trek half the beach back into my car. But then, I am driving a Kia Carnival and I don't really care. It's very liberating driving something which is so trashed that it's hard to see how you could make it worse... though the kids are trying!
Headed back to Geelong West, stopped at the new ice cream shop for yummy cones, did a quick mental calculation of the increase in my hip size likely to be attributable to said shop over the next few months... and vowed to walk to the shop from now on in a kind of calorie-offsetting exercise! Children exhausted from all the fresh air , mother exhausted from all the children... Job done!
So back in October, we went off to the Supercross bike championship's Geelong meet - for which they had taken over Skilled Stadium, the home of the Geelong Cats. Didn't really know what to expect from this, but it turned out to be a really enjoyable day. First of all, the weather was cracking and since we were there for four hours, luckily we were in a covered stand.
