Australian Days – Highlights

We’ve had a wonderful trip home. There has been flying fox riding.

Bonding time with some of the cousins.

Gorgeous Girl has really been enjoying the public parks and the playgrounds available in the malls.

A certain Gorgeous Man tried out a weird skateboarding thing.

Gorgeous Girl borrowed her cousin’s scooter and was off.

There was also knitting.

I put the finishing stitches and sewed in the ends of this cardigan the day after we arrived. I’ve been wearing it as much as I can because it is staying here in storage (along with 95% of our other winter clothes we brought with us) as there is no use for it in Papua New Guinea.

In the evenings there was knitting.

This was the first time I’ve put a pattern on the nook, but it works really well and I think I’ll be using it quite a bit.

There was also colouring.

But the main reason for this visit was so that Dr Gorgeous Man could do this.

He actually finished last year, but because we were in South Africa he couldn’t do the formal graduation in December and so deferred marching until the July graduation ceremony.

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Holiday

We are part-way through a brief trip ‘home’ to Australia.

This week we have done things that we used to take for granted.

1. It’s been cool enough to wear long sleeves and hand knitted socks.

2. Sleeping under a blanket.

3. Eating at McDonalds.

4. Eating sushi

5. Playing on the free playgrounds at the shopping centre.

6. Catching up with family and friends.

7. Driving home after dark

8. Driving with the windows down. (Gorgeous Girl actually asked if it was safe when Gorgeous Man wound down his window).

9. Bought craft supplies (fabric for my brother’s quilt and some journalling tags for scrapbooking).

10. Bought clothes for Gorgeous Girl and bought her birthday present (birthday isn’t until October, but we need to plan ahead.

11.  Used the public library (two visits in 5 days – yeah, we read a lot).

12. Haven’t been bitten by mosquitoes since we got here.

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New Things

There are new hexagons being added to the quilt.

Has anyone made one of these? I’m finding that the hexagons made of lots of pieced pieces are slightly bigger than the other hexagons and so it’s making putting them together challenging. Advice on this welcome!

Recently we were invited to the ex-pat playgroup. Gorgeous Girl is usually in school when they meet, but it’s school holidays at the moment so we went along.

It was held at a very fancy hotel which has a play area for  kids. You don’t need to be a guest to use the play area, just go along and pay a fee. The hotel was very swish with a water feature running though it and an armed guard on the main entrance (complete with large semi-automatic weapon).

It was nice to meet other people from ‘home’. Best of all I met someone who attends the local quilting/craft group. There is much to be said for knitting in public 🙂 I’m going to try and get there this week. Gorgeous Man has agreed to drive me, and wrangle Gorgeous Girl for the morning. The next time I’ll go I’ll have to drive myself, but I’m a little unsure exactly how to get there and what parking is like, so Gorgeous Man will take me the first time.

This last weekend we went up to Crystal Rapids, about a 45 minute drive, and Gorgeous Man and Gorgeous Girl went for a swim.

She was so excited to be getting in to water.

They started on this side of the river where the water was nice and slow.

And swam around the curve in the river. Gorgeous Girl swam most of the way on her own.

Until they got around the bend to the rapids.

I think we’re going to be spending a lot of time at this place. It’s really lovely.

Oh, there is also a new sewing machine which I got for Christmas (thanks to Gorgeous Man and my Mum) and have finally had a chance to use. It came with me on the plane to PNG, but I had to wait for my stash and tools to arrive… I’m looking forward to spending a lot of time getting to know it better.

There is also a new quilt, which I can’t show as it is a gift. Pictures once it has been received. I’m actually taking it to Australia with me to post from there (it’s going back to South Africa to live with the not-so-new-now baby of a dear friend) as the post is more reliable from there.

 

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