Due to Josh taking an impromptu nap at an inopportune time and not waking up in between me leaving to take the dogs for a long walk and getting back from taking the dogs for a long walk, we got Chinese from the Golden Castle Chinese Restaurant down the road last night.

It would have taken just as long to cook in the end but anyway.  The food is good.  One of the dishes Josh got was prawns for himself and Tao (mostly, as I'm allergic and Ruan doesn't like them, and Cub gets to have one).

Tao joked about slipping me a prawn, I casually responded, "Do you want me to die?"

It wouldn't happen as I'm not anaphylactically allergic to them, I just get rashes and very sick.

Ruan was horrified.  "NO! You give me and Leo booby!"

Nice to know people care ;)

Walking distance down the road from my place is Pioneer Park.

It's marked "A" on the map.  Josh and the kids went there to pick figs.  I decided to take the dogs (and the toddler, who had to come with me as Josh was taking his car) for a bush walk.

A good, long, decent bush walk.  On a subsequent walk along this trail, I went past this huge expanse of open area Tao and I had reached before we'd walked up to the road and walked home as it was getting close to dinner time (but not dark yet, because it's summer in Perth and it doesn't get dark til 7:30-8pm).

This time I kept going and after I walked under this really high bridge for a very wide road, I decided to check with the trusty iPhone to see where the heck I was.

It told me Tonkin Highway.  More specifically, it reckoned Tonkin Highway where it crossed over Albany Highway.  I was walking along the river so follow the big green snake.  Got some photos with the crappy camera on my iPhone, might have to head back that way with Josh's camera.  Also, was busy keeping an eye on a certain toddler.

Yesterday was an awesome day.  To counter, I had a rather average day.  Compared to yesterday it was bad, but seriously in the grand scheme of things, it could have been a lot worse.

Okay, maybe not quite on my doorstep.  But it was a big fire.  And it was possibly deliberately lit.  First I noticed of it was the smoke.  Not really that unusual, it's Australia in summer.  It happens.

Then Josh and the kids got home from City Farmers.  The kids were terribly excited, rushing in yelling that we have to wake up the baby and get going.  Josh came in and asked if I'd noticed the fire.  I said I smelled the smoke but otherwise hadn't been concerned about it, there's occasionally fires up in the hills.

1. when you have autonomous big kids who can set themselves up, poke head in every so often
2. make sure they know that the glass jar the brushes stand in is the paintbrush rinsing jar and that they shouldn't use drinking glasses
3. ditto palettes, so they don't substitute food bowls
4. choose non-toxic paints in case the above happens
5. never leave toddlers unattended.  Ever.

It's the hottest driest summer ever in Australia (except in Queensland and northern WA where they're experiencing floods, and meanwhile in Europe where they're having longest coldest winters with craziest snowfall).  Here in Perth most of our rain happens in winter with drips and drabs here and there in late autumn and early spring.  We don't usually get rain in summer.  The last few days I've felt quite at home while a large number of my friends have been complaining of the oppressive, stifling, terrible humidity.

Yesterday, I noticed the humidity, which probably means it was pretty damn high, and not helped at all by the fact that there wasn't any wind worth mentioning.

Today, the radar looks like this:

Right now there is a particularly heavy cloud going over and my big kids are outside whooping excitedly about it and jumping in puddles.  The temperature is lovely and cool and very much like Christmas Island, which is making me simultaneously happy and homesick.  The rain smells lovely.

When my little big boy and his agemates hit kindy age (normal 4 year old kindy), I commented to a long time friend from back when Southies (better known now as Perth Natural Learning Network, website in the works and there is a Facebook group) first started up sometime near the beginning of 2007 that their social life had suddenly exploded with everyone's kids having birthday parties and playdates and whatnot.  She quite enthusiastically said yeh, she loved it.  I also find it enjoyable, though at the time for me it was more of a conscious noting of the fact that I had a child that was getting towards the stage of "big" (ie school aged) kid.  I was slowly but surely moving out of the realm of "mum of babies and toddlers" and into "mum of big kids" land.

Mostly for family, as I mentioned in the last post we're usually with one of our families at Christmas time.  This year is a rare occurrence, the last time it happened was almost 6 years ago when I, at the end of gestating Tao, decided flat out that I was not going anywhere.

Firstly, let it be known that we have no Christmas tree (though I am seriously contemplating one of these Fruut trees).  My family, who love their Christmas trees, may or may not be aghast to discover this was the best I could do:

The lovely Ursula (also known as SulaMoon) over at deviantART gave me and another friend of hers pearwood a dragon for Christmas.

I think it's agonisingly cute.  Ursula is an amazing artist.

[imported from livejournal and backdated]