The week passed quickly, and saw 3 people get the sack, and 2 get hired. The political undertones are becoming more audible to me now, and I'm beginning to see behind those who on the face of it are performing well. I am of course plagued by my own failings, and have to concentrate pretty hard to make sure that I don't drift off into a world of psychological theory that I love too much. However, I am finding that my sense of justice and fairness is holding me in good stead as I resist the pressures to impose warnings of one magnitude or another on the hapless pawns of internal politicking.
On Friday night, stuck in traffic, I saw this:
This was an exodus of bats. If you can imagine this going on for a good 10 minutes, you'll have some idea of how many past overhead.
This weekend we went to 'White Water World' on the way to the Gold Coast, and met up with Andrew and Leigh and the kids. We'd ostensibly just gone for a couple of hours, as we all had other things to be doing. In the end, we stayed for nearly 5. Its a fantastic venue, and everyone except me has a two year membership. Its not normally something that I'd bother with, and that was the first time that I've been, but not the last. Because you're just in your trunks and sunnies and cap, there's not a lot of room for a camera. However, I grabbed a couple before we left, just to put on here. They give you an idea of it...but some of the rides are WILD!
Later, we went 10 pin bowling. One lane for the adults and one for the kids. Matilda was really sweet, really getting into it, and trying to work out the trajectory carefully, whilst the other 4 of them playing were much more slapdash about it. The kids game is different from the adult one, because there are rails running along the sides of the lane to prevent the balls from going into the gutter. They also have a shute to run the ball down that they can pre-set. The lane has a subtle but significant convexity to it, so that a slow moving ball can easily roll off the centre line and scutter along the rail until it takes out a skittle or two at the end. Matilda was really careful to send them down the middle, or more creatively, bounce them off the rails back to the middle. It was quite intelligent play. However, there's a lot of fluke in it, and she didn't win. I was impressed by her thought process.
At Easter, we're going camping at Tweed Heads on the other side of the river from Coolangatta. Its actually in New South Wales, and the camp site is right on the river bank. Once I realised this, I decided that we have to have a boat. I looked at the hire ones, but I've not found one yet that is cheap enough. Needless to say they're going to be fully booked in any event...being Easter, so I'm looking in the equivalent of 'Car Mart' here. It's called Trading Post. (Internet based of course). There's quite a bit for around $1500 that would do. A 'tinny' [tin - ee] and something like a 15hp motor or so would be about right. Typically a tinny is about 3.5m long, has a couple of welded benches as strenghening, and is polished aluminium. (At least they're polished when they're new). Some, come painted. This is one that I'm interested in.
They come with trailers too, and in Australia, you have to have both the boat and the trailer registered with the powers that be...which of course you have to pay for. They're really efficient at this kind of thing here. The UK Ministry of Transport has missed a trick with trailer registrations, allowing us to just attach them to a car and use the same plate. My trailer had to have its own plate and I had to fit manufacturers plate too, with all the specs on. While we were at the Water World place, walking from one ride to another in bare feet was almost undo-able because the pavement was so hot that it felt like it was burning your feet. It got to 40 degrees this weekend. I mention this because one of the things that seems like a prerequisite for a tinny is an awning that is put up over the boat. Its called a 'bimini'.
We've not heard any more from Josh, but Ali has, and he's doing OK apparently. Got him a job lined up, and one for Emma too, so they should be able to augment the coffers whilst they're here.
Matilda has really clicked up a gear this week, has been reading at full tilt, (two books this week alone... like James and the Giant Peach), and I've noticed that she's loading programs onto her computer now too. She won an award for story writing at school this week. Fascinating kid. Shame I had to smack her bum again today. Been feeling rotten about it since.
Phoebe has really started to look like she knows what she'd doing with her dancing too. The highlight of her week is her ballet lesson. I don't have any pics of her practising sadly, as I decided when she was doing it this arvo that it was a video moment. (One day I might figure out how to get video on to this site). Never-the-less, I got these pics, whilst she was doing her 'floor exercises'.
Notice the fringe? She did it again!!! Daile is NOT amused! It was about 10 minutes after they'd been talking about how her hair was getting lovely and long '..like Mummy's and Matilda's..'
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