What's in a name?

This picture WAS taken by 'Chris Martin', but not by this one. Good innit! Whoever thought of that name?
The ship has been taken by Pirates... (Somali ones)... wonder if they're into that sort of thing?

Ooops!

I confess to a little embarrassment.

We received a mail a month or so ago saying that I'd been invited to the cast and crew screening of Narnia and that I could bring one other.

I wasn't all that bothered about going, thinking that it would be better to go all together as a family, but Daile pointed out that perhaps Molly would appreciate going, and when I asked, she said she'd really like to.

She had some thoughts (she openly declared) of perhaps meeting some of the stars that she'd grown up watching. I felt a bit short sighted not to have thought of that... so was chuffed to be able to take her.

Tonight as we were driving down to the cinema at Pacific Fair, a massive shopping centre on the Gold Coast that had been selected as the venue, and where the cinema has 10 theatres, 2 of which were to be taken in the entirety, I told her that since it's a year since the wrap party, there were likely to be several crew that I didn't remember the names of, and that she should be prepared to introduce herself. I spent some of the time on the way down, re familiarising myself mentally, with faces to names so that I didn't embarrass anyone.

We found the place in good time, and after a quick dive into the loos for a widdle, we ascended the escalator to the cinema level. Now I've been to several of these kinds of events now, and usually they're the same. You arrive to find crew and cast milling around outside the entrance catching up on what they've been doing with themselves for 20 mins or so before the show. We were about 10 mins early, so we were both a bit surprised to see that there wasn't a throng of people. In fact there were hardly any people milling at all! We got some Maltesers and a couple of small bottles of water to go and headed to the cinema. I imagined that everyone must have already gone in.

Turns out it was the day before! The ticket lady felt sorry for us and let us come in for nothing anyway... and so we went in with the proletariat. Worryingly, there were only about 10 other people in the cinema! I'd be pissed off if it had been MY $100m, dollars that had been invested!

So we sat in an almost exclusive show, and then left as soon as it ended... completely forgetting the need to see the credits role.

It WAS enjoyable though. … and Molly was STILL proud of me anyway! Bless!

Getting away

A couple of weekends ago, we went to the beach down at the Gold Coast to see if we could get some good pics... thinking of Molly doing some Karin Jurick type paintings in the style of these...









As it turned out, the sun was a bit 'challenged' that day. Never-the-less, she got some fairly interesting ones, of which these are a few: Note the little dog going for the ankles....!



and again here....!



The view down to 'Surfers Paradise'...



and the rear view of me watching the girls play in the surf... between the lifeguards flags of course....!



Later the following week, I made some Sari's for the little ones to dress up in for a cultural thing at school. They both won a prize of $10 book vouchers each... so that was good!





...and then Phoebe lost ANOTHER tooth. The pair of them did up a real spread for the tooth fairy including of all things... 'toothpaste buns'... which she apparently loved as she ate the lot!



We went to North Stradbroke Island last weekend. It was predicted to rain, much like it was predicted to rain when we went to Moreton Island.. and it didn't this time either. Daile came this time, and Molly, so it was get out the big tent time. We arrived in the dark and pitched it in the dark, which would have been bad enough without the additional complication that neither Daile or I could remember how it went together. It took us quite a while, and was actually quite amusing!

The next day the girls were out early tying knots in things and collecting shells off the beach which was right next to where we camped.





Going barefoot on the sand is a bit of a risk... here's a blue bottle jelly. If you step on one of these and you're sensitive to them, they can cause a very nasty reaction, and even shut down normal breathing.. not to mention being very painful. The girls like the sound they make if you stomp on them... they go 'pop'. Actually they're not one animal but four.. that all operate together to make up a functioning organism. They're called Zooids.



We like to go on the beach at night and look at the stars...





...and Matilda loves to build camp fires...



We found a little 'lake' of sea water at low tide. It has lots of little fish that are fun to try and catch.



... or you can just read a book.





...or stay in the shade.



Anyway, it was great to get away.

Thoughts...when it's quiet at night...

When I was a younger man, I felt that life was going to be good to me. I expected that I would have wealth, that I would have luck, and that I would have good things. So it was. But the shape that these things came in was a surprise. My wealth is something that seems to come from within. I am rarely impoverished in spirit, and when I am it is a temporary thing…quickly overcome. Luck is a false trickery, because you make your own. I have not taken opportunities for acquisition of money, being too stupid or perhaps too wise to see them for what they are, but I have the best kind of luck with my children, all of whom are wonderful, kind and well balanced, and I was lucky enough to find a woman who has been a basis for building their concept of worth, and reinforcing mine. The day I met her was the best bit of luck I’d had in a long time, and I had the grace to recognise it as such. The good things are not what I really had in mind either…a smile from Phoebe, a glint in the eye from Matilda, a prod in the ribs from Molly, and a hug from Josh. Not much of worth to anyone else, but priceless to a father, and a teacher.

That was the weekend...

When you look at art in a gallery, particularly abstracts, do you feel something inside you taking offence? I do. It seems so shallow and facile dosn't it. We went to the gallery on Sunday after the museum. It was Matilda and Luis and I, having a boys morning, and we did the whole nine yards there. Museums are SUCH an important thing to help us to understand our aetiology,



and this one is particulaly good because it has a very good cross section of stuff from the insects and stuffe animals to the dinosoar skeletons, to significant machines and cultural artifacts. In the basement they have the last remaining example of a German tank. Apparently they only made about 14 of them all up... which was a surprise.

We went to the art gallery cos someone had said that there was a picture there like the one I did of Josh...



We didn't find it, but we had a lot of fun not understanding what we were looking at. Here's a statue of a bloke with dog poo on his foot,



and here's one going 'pick me!, pick me!'. (Actually dear reader, I do like these)



So we went home... and found this fat little blue tongue in the back garden. Must have just eaten a mouse or something...





... and Matilda made some scary cookies for Halloween with the cookie cutters that Gannie had sent to us. (Thanks Gannie)



...while Feeb and I cut out the pumpkin.