See her grow

This is the oldest photo I could find of Claire on the computer, taken I think in December 2004. A gorgeous 4 1/2 year old.

Now she is 12, in her birthday dressing gown. She is clever and kind and an all round wonderful person. I am proud.

Suzi

Our lovely Suzi has suffered from arthritis in her right leg for some time now. She would be sore from time to time and stiff, and was being successfully treated with cartrofen and glucosomine to keep things fairly under control. And then she went severely lame. The vet's diagnosis was a ruptured cruciate ligament, requiring surgery. (Expensive surgery - enough said).

The vital part however, once the surgery is done, is the recovery process. Six weeks of confined rest, with little walks for ablutions. It is important that she doesn't do anything to strain the leg, like jumping or going up and down stairs. So of course, when we got home from the vet, and I was struggling to get the huge crate out of the car, what did she do? Jumped out of the car and went up the stairs.

So now my playroom looks like this. The children are sleeping there to keep her company. Not that this made any difference last night at 3.30am when she stood up in the crate wagging her tail against the bars. Enough was enough and I picked her up and put her on my bed.

That being said, having a large, lockable crate in the house does have some advantages....

Now we are nine

This is a late one, but of course, there has been a birthday.

Celebrated with lunch at the dumpling shop and then Toy Story 3 at the movies. Dinner was Rosemary's choice, with prawns and a chocolate chip ricotta tart.

We were Melbourne girls

I haven't told you about the weekend escape my friend Kym and I had to Melbourne, courtesy of arinex. After a rocky start, where we were left hanging around Canberra airport for over four hours, we finally got to Melbourne and checked into our room at the Crown Metropol, the newest and funkiest in the Crown stable.

This was the view from our room. The sloping shot I actually took in bed.

Dinner Saturday night was at the hotel, in the swish 28 lounge on the 28th floor. Spectacular views over Melbourne, lovely food and of course, the best part.

Jersey Boys at the Princess Theatre was fabulous - a great show with really clever production. Then back to the hotel for a dry martini before heading off to bed.

Sunday was a beautiful day and we had a lovely walk up the river to the Southbank Markets. They have now installed hubs along the river where you can rent a bike.

Did a bit of shopping, sprinted back down the river to the Convention Centre for a look at the International Applied Psychology Congress, then off to Nobu for lunch. This was really delicious, interesting Japanese food. And they have amazing toilets!

Having not quite finished the shopping, we walked back up the river to the markets, Federation Square and Collins street, then back down again to the hotel, where we had a swim in the pool, which is on the 27th floor. The pool goes right up to floor to ceiling windows overlooking the city - simply magnificent.

Dinner on Sunday night was at Maze, which is part of the Gordon Ramsay stable. Here is the poussin (baby chicken) which was cooked sous vide (this is when they cook the meat at a low temperature by poaching it in water, then marinating, then chargrilling to finish it off).

Yum, yum, yum.

Monday morning 5am came quite quickly. But we had a great time and would go back in a flash!

Happy Birthday

I love Daddy because he is roly poly.

I love Daddy because he takes me climbing.

I love Daddy because he is wonderful.

Happy birthday my love. We miss you.

Walk to Christo-Rei: the hard way

Walked to Christo-Rei the hard way - up heartbreak hill to the third checkpoint, then hard left up the ridge. Follow the ridge as best you can.

Warning: These snaps are all out of order.

Close to my objective. Christo-Rei in the background.

Looking down on the Christo-Rei carpark.

A bit further from my objective. Due to a cliff, I was unable to follow the ridgeline at this point, and had to track around the side. Seriously steep.

Looking East. Yes, that is all coral shelf. The cloud covered peak is the one above Bob's rock, about 3000 ft ASL.

Looking West towards Dili.

Swans on Sunday

A netball Saturday, fortunately not playing in the fog. The Shooting Stars did well and the Thunderbolts only lost by two.

We also saw Pat Longworth, her daughter Stephanie, husband Phil and children Zoe and Sally. It was great to see them and the girls all had a rampage together.

Grandpa is here to help out for few days in the school holidays, so we had the now traditional yum cha at the Hellenic Club today.

We took advantage of the beautiful afternoon and had a run around at Black Mountain Peninsular.

There was tree climbing, swan feeding, sketching, playing on the playground.

Steph practiced her writing and drew a picture of me with the caption 'Mum doing a funny face'.

All in all, a lovely afternoon.

Look who's growing up.

Check out the plaits!

The kindergarten classes ran assembly on Thursday. They had to dress up as toys. Steph was a very sophisticated ballerina doll in pink and black.

Taken from up the back of the hall, it is hard to see her, but she could see me! She waved and waved when she caught sight of me.

They sang some songs and were incredibly cute!

Canberra in winter

We've had frost every morning...

Lots of cockies hanging around (filled the bird feeder today)

And a foggy Saturday morning. Fortunately this cleared before we hit the netball courts.

The winter sunshine shows up the dirty windows, so I put the children to work.

Now the winter sunshine shows up the smeary windows!

For those of you who weren't there...

The best of Bali in photos

Incredibly lush gardens at the hotel - beautiful ponds, trees, flowers, little bridges, statues. Just gorgeous.

Children imitating the angry gods.

A textiles factory - beautiful weaving. And great photos taken by Edward.

Rice paddies up in the mountains. Lots of ducks, presumably to eat the snails.

Lake Kintamani and the volcano, which erupted in 1974 (ish...)

With our tour guide Karles.

Even the statues wear flowers.

In the monkey forest....

...there were three wise monkeys

plus one extra.

We saw elephants up close, and had an elephant ride (at which point the batteries in the camera went flat). It is amazing being so close to an elephant.

The fisherman out the front of our hotel - this is about 7.30 in the morning. Apparently they can spend up to three hours standing chest deep in water fishing.

We had a great time in Bali - the heat and humidity a huge contrast to Canberra. The girls had a great time swimming, exploring and eating at the breakfast buffet. But we all agreed that the best thing about Bali was seeing Edward.