Practising

I have a new camera. It makes up for some of the failings of its owner, but I still have a lot to learn about photography. Occasionally things work, though - like this curious little critter at the Butterfly House in Coffs Harbour.

This one wasn't too bad, either. My next step is to muck around with the aperture settings to see what I can get.

Children's Entertainment

My children have a new favourite TV show: The Night Garden.

When it was first played, I caught a brief peek and thought that I wouldn't bother with it. The pace was incredibly slow. The characters were infantile. Their names made no sense. There wasn't anything substantial in the way of educational content. Nothing much seemed to actually happen in an episode (in fact, the episode I first saw consisted entirely of one character washing the faces of all the other characters. very slowly.).

But then, a busy morning happened, and the kids watched Sesame Street while I put clothes on the line. One thing led to another, and a favourite was born. Boo has now decided that her favourite character is Upsy Daisy (pictured above), while Eldest's favourite seems to be Iggle Piggle. Having watched a few episodes, I'm starting to soften. It's a gentle entertainment: it doesn't move so fast that it creates attention deficits, it doesn't have the same psychadelic freak-out of Boobah, or the language problems of the Teletubbies (the characters really only speak their names, and the narrator is Derek Jacobi). The characters are actually very lovely and sweet (Makka Pakka is very cute). I prefer it to Dora the Explorer, who seems to train Boo to speak at a shout.

If you're interested, the official website has an episode commentary, which gives you the rationale behind the whole thing.

Do your children have a favourite?

Beach Girl

... Just because.

Movie Meme

Megan has tagged me for a movie meme, so here goes:

1. One movie that made you laugh - The Holy Grail.
2. One movie that made you cry - Sophie Scholl. I was crying buckets by the end of this one. You don't get many movies like this anymore, and it was a great tribute to a young girl's commitment to truth.
3. One movie you loved when you were a child - I think I quite liked Labyrinth and the Dark Crystal. Henson movies were the thing to see back in the 80s...
4. One movie you’ve seen more than once - Cars. We have an almost 4-year-old son.
5. One movie you loved, but were embarrassed to admit it - I really liked the Police Academy movies. Not very highbrow comedy...
6. One movie you hated - I really disliked Fight Club and A Clockwork Orange. They glorified a subversive attitude to violence. OK, so they were cleverly done. Still gives some young adolescent males the opinion that trashing people is a fun hobby.
7. One movie that scared you -There was a Red Riding Hood-type movie with Sigourney Weaver in it. Can't remember the name...
8. One movie that bored you - Repressed a lot of these ones. They tend to be "ensemble dramas" with a lot of self-indulgent angst and broken relationships...
9. One movie that made you happy - Much Ado about Nothing
10. One movie that made you miserable - Bridge to Terabithia
11. One movie you weren’t brave enough to see - Macbeth.
12. One movie character you’ve fallen in love with - When I was 12 I fell in love with Michael J Fox. I have since learned the stupidity of falling for movie characters...
13. The last movie you saw - Iron Man.
14. The next movie you hope to see - Prince Caspian might be nice.

I tag Faraja... :)

Holiday Snaps

Part of the refreshing time away was spent taking some happy snaps. Here are a few for your enjoyment...

Back again.

We're back on board after a few weeks. My grandmother passed away a few days before we were to begin our family holiday. However, it all worked for the good: our holiday was to be in the same town as she had lived (part of our holiday was going to be spent visiting her, so she missed seeing her great grandchildren by a matter of days). So while it was sad to be heading up north, we did not have to change travel plans, and we had a week after the funeral to rest and recuperate. It was still a lovely time, and surprisingly more celebratory than morose. I spent quite a bit of time reminiscing, as we've been travelling to the same place since I was around the same age my son is now. I miss my grandparents very much, but Paul's words in Philippians kept coming back to me:
"For me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain."

Grandma has now gained the prize. One day I'll see her again. For now though, my life now is to be lived for Christ.

Vale, Grandma

On Tuesday night, my grandmother went to sleep and didn't wake up.

She was a beautiful woman. Diminutive in stature, sure in her faith, strong in her character. Her love for her children was fierce but quiet. She was always stoic, with flashes of self-deprecating humour and a quick wit that would make her eyes twinkle. As her body slowed, her mind stayed strong, and her faith in the Lord Jesus burned brightly even though her sight dimmed. She would spend hours in her day praying, and would often talk of the letter she wrote to Bertrand Russell and her certainty in Jesus' resurrection.

She is with her Lord now, and reunited with her husband of 62 years.

But we miss her.

A Girls' Day Out

Today was a little first - a sign that the littlest in the family is growing up. Boo and I had an all-girls' day. We travelled down the mountain to the nearest city-type shopping centre to get some supplies, and to buy some things for Eldest's birthday, which arrives fairly soon after our holiday.

Some of the highlights:
* Boo loves escalators. In a very large and long shopping centre, I hardly had to carry her as she wanted to run to the next escalator. Needless to say our journey through the centre wasn't all that linear, but we had fun saying "Ready, set, step!" a lot. (We don't have much of that new-fangled technological gear out here...)
* Boo is learning limits. The last time I took her to a large shopping centre, she had a major tantrum in one of the shops, and had to learn that this wasn't appropriate. This time, however, she gave me her hand every time I asked for it, and came back to me when I called. I didn't need to be firm with her, either. Apart from one incident in JB Hi-Fi with a pile of iTunes cards, she also didn't touch much. (Obviously the people who stock JB Hi-Fi have no experience with small children. Why put the batteries and cards at kid height next to the registers where you're distracted?)
* Boo has a delightful personality. She smiles a lot, and listens, and wants to play games. It was a lovely bonding experience to spend the day with her. I didn't need to shower her with stuff. It was just nice hanging out, going to different places, seeing different sights.
* Boo's still the youngest. Her older brother obviously has an influence on her tastes. At afternoon tea time we sat at an outdoor area where we could see the passing traffic. She became awfully excited when two motorbikes pulled up at the lights, and proceeded to tell me that "[Eldest] yikes bwoo. I yike bwoo too."

Eldest would have told me the make and model of the bikes, so there is some difference...


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On holidays, and other trials

We're due for a holiday soon. In many ways we're overdue for one, and we've been hanging out for it for some time now. But it also presents challenges. For accommodation purposes, we can't really take holidays during school holidays, so during term is when we usually go. But the preparations for going away have been such that I've actually been thinking about the pros and cons of going on holiday...

Why not to go on holiday:
* People think our job is a holiday
* If we take a single Sunday off, people ask us how we enjoyed our week away (!)
* Organising people to fill in for the various groups is more stressful than just staying and doing it yourself
* Packing for small children is like packing for several football teams
* Travelling with small children for long distances is like being chased by several football teams
* If it rains you might as well have stayed home anyway.

Why holidays are absolutely essential:
* Well, it's obvious, really, isn't it? I mean look at the pessimism dripping from the list above. I definitely need some time out.