moments: wintry with signs of spring

- a lily in the kitchen one very cold winters morning. all the windows were covered with condensation on the inside and ice on the outside. a bucket of water in the garden was topped in ice, washing on the line was coated in ice, and on the way to school fields were whitened with/frost snow. It was all very beautiful and exciting - a true winter wonderland, and the kids and I explored and exclaimed in great delight on the way to school.
-the first blossom. my jonquils are also coming out too now. spring is definitely on the way.
-quince blossom. this has been out for awhile, but for some reason I don't count it. it almost seems a winter flower it comes out so early.
-rolling hills of Jindivick.
-Poppet, just sitting up after rolling.
-Poppet thought Littlest should roll too. Littlest is not uncharacteristically cautious.
-a convention of sheep, curious about the rolling children.
-Littlest and me one wintry afternoon in the garden. that little fist has been rather desperately chewed on these past two weeks.

Joining with Em for wintry-almost-spring moments from our week. This has been an incredibly exciting week for us - full of wonderful news, but more of that anon… My beloved wants me to wait till it's all official before I make the big announcement...

32/52

 -Littlest, with her God-mama in a little cafe in Jindivick. I believe she's thinking she could get used to the cafe life. She continues growing far, far too quickly! (And look at da big eyes on de leedle darling… seriously, it's impossible to look at her without giving her a smooch - such a little cuddle-up-agus.)
-Poppet, running outside.
-Sprocket, rolling down the slope.

Last weekend we met up with a friend at the beautiful little village of Jindivick in West Gippsland. It is a ridiculously beautiful place with perfect, vivid green hills and a great selection of little cafes and restaurants. I might have squealed when I saw snow on the distant mountains. Snow! We saw snow! After a freezing morning the sky was high and blue and little birds chirped. The kids ran and rolled and played outside and my beloved and I enjoyed an (almost) civilised coffee with friends while we tag-teamed supervising the running and rolling. Bliss.

Joining with Jodi for a portrait of my kid every most some weeks in 2014.

Moments

- Driving home through the fire damage. For miles and miles along the freeway there is burnt forest. It stops at the edge of out town. If we had known how close and how extensive it was I think we would have driven to the next town along. The fire damage is on both sides of the freeway, and the strip in the middle is also burnt - no wonder the road was closed for so long! 

-Poppet and Sprocket at Healesville Sanctuary. They loved how tame the birds were and that in some of the aviaries they got to feed them. As residents from my town flee the smoke of home we've been offered free access to the zoos and museums of Melbourne - a lovely gesture and much appreciated! 

-Sprocket and Poppet inside a big, burnt out tree at the sanctuary. 

-A nest in the platypus pond at the sanctuary. I'm thirty-three weeks pregnant now, and thinking a lot about nesting! It's getting so close...

- A graceful carving of a swan at the sanctuary. I love the wood tones, the curve of the swan's neck and how the gleaming wood catches the light. I'm about to start editing a novel I wrote awhile back centring on an Irish myth about four children turned to swans, so I'm taking the carving as a good luck sign! 

-Poppet, explaining something to me. 

-The kids, playing with spinning tops at their Nana and Grandpa's. 

Joining with the lovely Em of The Beetle Shack for moments from our week. 

This week has been a little lot chaotic and for a lot of the week my computer has been at the apple shop so I haven't been uploading photos. (Thank you kids for getting watermelon all over the track-pad! A more heartfelt thanks to the great customer service at the apple shop - they cleaned it up for free… and made my computer all glossy and new looking at the same time. Not a lot they could do about the scratches and dents of a lot of love and use, but it's so clean it doesn't look like mine!) 

We just heard the wonderful news the fire in the mine in our town is 'under control' so we're doing happy dances and are deeply, deeply thankful to all the wonderful firefighters who have fought so long and so hard and in such bad conditions to put it out. The smoke this morning was worse than it's been in awhile… but it should all be cleared up soon! 

'All I need is the air that I breathe' (and to love you)

There's an old The Hollies song from the seventies that's stuck in my head at the moment.
It's 'The air that I breathe,' with the catchy rephrase 'sometimes, all I need is the air that I breathe and to love you.'
I think I probably listened to too many golden oldies radio stations growing up, but it seems very apt at present.
The air that I breathe is not something I previously considered a lot.
In fact, I completely took it for granted, although I know in the bad old days London had a smog problem and other cities around the world have massive pollution problems. (Check Beijing at the moment, which the WHO has declared 'barely suitable' for life.) It's just not something I expected to worry about in Australia. You know, land of wide open spaces and clear blue skies.
I took it for granted, like clean drinking water, again, something that people around the world have greatly differing access to, and with dirty drinking water being a major killer in majority world countries.
With the coal mine on fire on the edge of our town, the air is currently nearly ten times the 'very poor' level on the Environmental Protection Agency charts and five hundred times as bad as in Melbourne. On the chart above - we're the place in black. (This is the chart I've been checking every hour for the last two weeks. It's become almost an old friend. The places tested seem a bit random, and they only check the South and East of my town, while we're in the North West, but it's not that big a town.) You can see the Carbon Monoxide reading is also 'poor.'
Not that I'm stressed or anything.
But we've left and are living with my parents in Melbourne, with no clear idea of when we can go home. In one way it's fortuitous, as my Beloved is presently doing a rotation at a Melbourne hospital, and it cuts his commute time by at least two thirds. No more four am alarms. Yay!  However, my Sprocket just started primary school and we've had to take him out.
We did try to go back for a couple of days, as the air reading last week was generally good, wind dependant - but on Sprocket's first day back at school I was picking him up from the neighbouring town where his school is, happily telling myself that our town might suck, but at least the kids were away from it at school and creche, when we passed a heap of emergency vehicles. As we hurried in the door of home (hardly able to breath for the smoke) my Beloved rang to check we were okay - there was a grass fire heading from the mine to the power-plant and the town with Sprocket's school and Poppet's creche, and the town had a 'leave now' warning from the CFA. He wanted to check we were safely home. The 'leave now' advice only lasted about forty-five minutes before they got the fire under control - metres from the power-plant, but now that town has 'severe smoke' advice as well. The thought of being on the other side of a fire from my little ones sealed the deal.
No one really knows when the fires will be put out.
Next week has a forecast of winds and high temperatures and while two weeks is the optimistic forecast the word 'months' is being thrown around.
There are coal fires around the world that have been alight thousands of years, including one in Australia at Mount Wingen in New South Wales that's believed to have been burning for six thousand years. There are mines that are known to have been burning since 1802. 
I've always been a big supporter of wind, solar and water energy, but I think I've just been radicalised.
Watching ash and soot collect in our house under air vents, keeping away from closed windows as the scent of the acrid smoke gets in the cracks, waking unable to breath properly in the night, putting out the rubbish wearing a face mask, trying futilely to get the kids to understand they just can't go outside, it's dangerous, and watching them climb the walls of our tiny house with cabin fever, planning to get away from it all and go to the beach… only to realise it's a high fire danger day and the road to the beach is in a high danger area, and decide not to… only to be vindicated when fires do break out along that road… these are things I am happy to leave behind us.
We're enjoying Melbourne and quality time with Nana and Grandpa. But I feel for the people who just can't leave, for the businesses that are going under, for the households which are much closer to the mine than we are, to all the brave people fighting the fire under horrible conditions.
So now we're just waiting, and waiting… waiting for the winds to change and the rain to come… it's a bit like being stuck in the Dr Seuss book with 'the waiting place'.
Hopefully one day soonish we can go home. For now we'll just enjoy the bright lights and clean air of the city. 

Littlest (Week 30) Going Retro

Littlest - you're thirty weeks old today and I'm in shock.
Only another ten (or eleven) weeks to go. Just a few seconds ago it seemed like forever until we'd get to meet you and now it seems quite close.
You're getting very large now and are beginning to be quite cramped. You're also beginning to lose all the lanugo and you can move in time to music. You are beginning to react to light. I wonder when I write at night if you move towards, or away from, the glow of the laptop screen?
You're very much settled in a solid lump on my right side. I think the big rounding just below my ribs is your rump, and the movements I feel down below are your exploring hands.
After a stressful week we've fled our home surrounded by burning coal mines, to your nana and grandpa's in the city.
The sky here is high and blue, their garden richly green and shady. It's such a relief to be away from the smoke, ash and parched land of home. To wander in the garden, to stroll down to the shops, to breath deeply.
I feel a little foolish - the moment we decided to just pack up and leave the air quality in our home town improved almost two hundred percent! For the first time in nearly two weeks we could see the stars.
However, our decision was brought about by a Country Fire Association warning saying that high risk people (children, pregnant women and the elderly and the ill)  should try to take a break from the area, and as the wind could change direction again at any moment, I think we made the right decision. Smoke is not good for you little one, and here the air is clear.
I'm so sleepy now, as we came into the city with your daddy this morning, leaving the house when the moon and stars were still up, just before five, so he'd get to work in the city by eight am, but having all the worry taken away is more than worth the yawns.
We're missing your midwife appointment tomorrow, and I do regret not hearing your heart this week, but keeping you away from carbon monoxide does seem more important.
While stuck in the house on the weekend, kept captive by the smoke, I got your daddy to take some photos of your bump while I wore one of your nana's maternity dresses from the seventies. I love knowing that my mother wore this dress while I was growing inside, but it's not going to fit me for much longer! Your nana and my nana were both horrifically sick the whole nine months, twenty-four seven and lost weight rather than gained weight in their pregnancies. I, on the other hand, am feeling wonderful and haven't been sick since about week thirteen. I am however very hungry!
In this photo I'm sitting in a cain saucer chair -also from the seventies - in your nursery corner, that I found on e-bay, and the lovely joiners around the corner fixed for free. It's just like one from our family coast home that disintegrated. It always relaxes me and reminds me of hours spent staring out to sea.
Your brother and sister are very interested in your umbilical cord at the moment and how you receive everything you need through it - Poppet fed me blackberries and blueberries today telling me they were 'for Littlest's umbilical cord.'
Littlest, your daddy's just home from work, and your granddad's just finished putting dinner on the table so I'll be going, but it's so exciting we're three quarters of the way to meeting you.

Linking with the lovely TOI of Life of TOI and Erica of to the sea for blogger baby boom.

7/52

Sprocket - Asleep beside me when I awoke this morning. The kids are also still sleeping in our room as the heat hasn't left and their room is still too hot.

Poppet- uncharacteristically uncertain. Normally she knows precisely how the world should run, and will tell everyone, friend or stranger, at great length.

Photos were last minute and inside, so it took me awhile to get the light right. My camera charger went missing (finally found under my bedside table) so I couldn't take photos through week. We've also been holed inside a lot with fire and smoke and then carbon monoxide threats.

Outside the sky is still white and low with smoke and all windows and doors are shut. If we do step outside the air smells of coal-fire from the two coal-mines burning near us and ashes often swirl by. I've been reminded of all my ancestors who worked down the coal-mines in Scotland, fourteen hour days, often in narrow tunnels on their hands and knees, men, women and children.

I think I need more cheering thoughts! The promise of rain is in the air… so hopefully things will improve soon.

Joining with the lovely Jodi of Practicing Simplicity for a portrait of my little ones once a week, every week, in 2014. 

'Stuff'

 When they were evacuating the people a few streets from us, because of the fires, we packed the car.
All the essentials – twenty-four litres of water, woollen blankets, natural fibre clothes, boots - in case of the worst, but also the stuff we really didn’t want to lose.

It took a surprisingly short amount of time.

Laptops. Cameras. Documents. My wedding dress and cloak. Poppet’s christening gown. Some carvings from the Solomon Islands. Some old books from my Great Aunts.

Done.

Everything else… well… I’d miss the ‘stuff’, but I wasn’t going to try cramming it into the car.

If there were more options as to where to go, we would have gone in an instant. But with the main roads to Melbourne cut off, and the back roads uncomfortably close to fires, there weren’t. So we stayed, and checked and checked.

And waddling through the house as we waited, it surprised me how little the thought of losing all the ‘stuff’ upset me. All the books and knick-nacks and trinkets and clothes collected over a lifetime were little more than a shrug. More important was whether we had the dog’s lead and the phones were fully charged.

Even the stuff I did pack? If we’d been told we had to leave now, we would have done so without a blink. 

Not being particularly bothered about all my precious treasures – whether they’re heirlooms, or were lovingly gifted or gleefully collected from thriftshops… is both surprising and oddly freeing. Yes, I’m sure I’ll still be sad when they get broken, but I realised that if we’re told we have to leave it all and might never see them again, it’s not much more than a few heart tugs.

I’d always thought I’d be more upset if everything went.  Reading stories about people having to leave their homes and everything in them I always thought they must have been devastated. The immediate threat focused my mind amazingly. When it came to it, it was all just 'stuff.' Yes, I 'love' it. Yes, a lot of it makes me happy. But it is just 'stuff'. 

As soon as the heat and smoke clear, the iron tablets kick in with some energy, as soon as the fire danger lessens and I can go more than a few minutes without checking updates, catch up on the sleep lost over the nights we spent checking the fire updates, I’m doing a big cull.

It should be fun.

I'll just have another nap (or two) first. 

Moments

 -Studying the rock pools for crabs and fish. We saw a stingray in one of the channels - just a small one, but we watched 'River Monsters' this week and the kids were a little freaked. Oops. Might not watch it again… It was blissful swimming in the channels. Clear green, light refracted water with small fish swimming around our feet.
-Poppet, she had too be bribed to keep her hat on, and kept trailing it in rock pools and leaving it on rocks.
-Poppet painted her toe nails to match mine. I think she did a decent (artistic) job!
-Beach picnic. You can see the sand on the strawberries. They were sooo delicious.
-Week twenty nine. Our Littlest one is growing big! She is doing the most amazing kicks and punches. (In honour of Valentines day coming up this week I'm wearing the dress I wore seven years and fifteen kilos ago that I was wearing when my Beloved decided I was 'the one'.')
-Poppet. 'Enough with the photos, Mummy!' (But I love the light...) Poppet has decided she prefers taking photos to being in photos and keeps taking over my camera.
-Stuck in the house on Sunday while the smoke and ash of the fires swirled around and we listened to the sirens and the 'copters, Poppet played with a scarf. Two blocks from us they were told to evacuate so we were desperately checking for updates. All seems okay now though. Um, apart from the paper-mill and coal-mine being on fire and the grassfires skirting the town… So grateful for all the wonderful emergency workers.
-Mangos for breakfast. Our favourite.
-Roadside flowers.
-Smoke haze over our town. We went for a drive to fill up on petrol, get water and paper money and check how to get to the evacuation centre and which roads were clear, and took a quick snap. (We decided the Red Rooster around the corner where scores of fire trucks were stopped to re-fuel seemed a good option)

Joining with the wonderful Em of The Beetle Shack, and all the other wonderful bloggers sharing moments from their week.

Fire, Fire

One of my earliest memories is of waking in the middle of the night, when we lived in the heart of the city, and going into the garden with my parents and seeing the ash in the air and smelling the smoke.
It was the Ash Wednesday fires of 1983 and I vividly remember the stories of people futilely trying to out-drive the fires, of a friend showing me where the fire had licked her house's back door and then jumped the house, while all her neighbours houses had burnt.
Nearly exactly five years since the last tragic fires in this region, the fires are back. After a week of sweltering heat, we knew today would be a bad one and I'm so deeply thankful that so far no lives have been lost.
On Friday my little ones and I plodded our way up to the train station to meet my Beloved returning from the city. Although it was past six, the temperature was still over thirty five degrees, our arthritic dog panted the whole way up, and I wasn't much better as I laboriously waddled, the sweat trickling down my back. When we got to the station, the station master told us that all trains had been cancelled as a fire had crossed the tracks, as well as the freeway, but buses would be bringing passengers up around the fire. After waiting half an hour for the bus to return daddy to us, my little troupe and I made our way home to wait. Luckily, my Beloved made it home safely not long after, but not before I'd checked every fire alert website I could find.
Yesterday, going to the beach, we saw the plumes of smoke in the distance. Today, early thoughts of going to the beach to escape the heat were soon relinquished as we realised the fire danger. Thankfully we stayed put, as the road to the shore developed fires all along it, thought to be deliberately lit.
There are fires all around the outskirts of our town, one within a ten minute walk of us, and nearly all the roads out of town have been cut off.
While the ridiculous heat of the early morning has been replaced by a welcome cool, the winds are still strong and everything is hazy with smoke. The sky that yesterday was high and blue was today paper white and smoke hung thick as fog in the air. We watched as ashes flew into our garden, and had the car packed and ready to go by noon.
It still surprises me how little of all our stuff we chose to pack.
If it had been possible to get to Melbourne we would have gone without a second thought, but with those roads blocked, our place seems as safe as any. But we have our phones close, waiting in case of any evacuation text. We're checking the fire updates every five minutes. (Okay, maybe every two minutes. I do not foresee much sleep tonight.)
We're not hearing so many sirens now, not hearing or seeing so many helicopters overhead. Everything still smells of smoke.  Outside, even with the dark, the haze of smoke is clear and there's a glow in the distance that is unsettling. The light has been odd all day.
Our children slumber in a house reeking of smoke, but thankfully cool. We check and recheck the fire warnings and it seems things are getting under control. But we're thinking of, and praying for, all the people out fighting the fires, all the people manning the evacuation centres, all the people coordinating emergency efforts. We're thinking of all those people who have had to leave their homes, those whose homes have been burnt.

6/52

"A portrait of my children once a week, every week in 2014"

Sprocket - beach-combing. Searching for crabs and fish. A ridiculously hot day - you can see the heat and smoke haze -  and we shouldn't be out in the sun, but when the alternative is staying at home in the the stultefying heat, lumbering between the fan and cool baths… the beach won out. (And it was divine!)

Poppet - heading down the path to the beach. Her 'treasures' or 'sweethearts' (various dolls and stuffed toys) are packed in the bag under her arm. 

Joining with Jodi from Practicing Simplicity, and all the other wonderful bloggers taking part in the 52 project.

5/52

- My Poppet, walking down the boat ramp.
-My Sprocket, out of the sea, covered in sand and playing with sticks. There is no better toy than a big stick.

To wring the last drop out of the holidays before everything goes back to normal on Monday, we decided to go to a special beach. The magic beach. The beach that Alison Lester based her beautiful picture book Magic Beach on. It's called Walkerville and it's about a two hour drive from us, so it was a bit of a long day trip, but absolutely stunning. The sky was high and blue, the water warm and we jumped waves holding out little limpets, lolled in the shallows, looked for sand hoppers and played with sticks and spindle weed It was blissful and we hope to return soon.

Joining with the lovely Jodi of Practicing Simplicity for a portrait of my children once a week, every week in 2014.

Moments

- Away from the deep water, Poppet. Sprocket hauls his sister from the waters edge.
-Baby bump, week 26. Hard to believe there's three months to go!
-"I'm going to catch a mer-boy in my net!" Poppet chasing Sprocket.
-Poppet with her fishing rod. She rarely holds it for more than five minutes, but she likes the idea of it. A bit like me, really.
-Sprocket, about to plunge in with his net. He's happy to chase fish with his net for hours.
-Paperbark on the track back.
-Poppet, walking along the track.
-Our scorched back garden lawn, with fallen, cooked apples. I need to gather up the not-so-cooked windfall and make a crumble.
-Apples still on the tree.

We're taking things very slowly in the lead up to school and uni starting back. Sleep times and wake-up times are flexible. Pyjamas are staying on a very long time. Everything changes next week, but this week is the time for lazing.

Joining with the lovely Em of The Beetle Shack for sun-faded moments from our week. 

Goodbye Tropics (A heat induced ramble)

Yesterday I made the long journey down from the tropics of Queensland to the scorching heat of Victoria. While I am massively grateful I didn't endure the week of temperatures in the forties (and to all those who did, particularly those in areas around fires, my thoughts and prayers were with you, excepting my mum and brother who thought it was 'pleasant',) I was apprehensive about returning to my baked garden. 

I still can't quite bring myself to check on the worm farm and possibly see fifteen hundred fried worms. (The guilt, the guilt!) 

As I left our home-from-home in Queensland in the early hours of the morning, the cicadas were cicada-ing, the wind chimes were chiming, the pigeons were cooing and the air was moist and cool under a low grey sky.

As the plane flew over Victoria I looked down on a land dried to yellows and browns, the pale yellow fading into a haze of white heat and smoke. Stepping onto the tarmac beneath the high and unforgiving blue sky was like stepping into an oven - 40+ degrees. Knowing I still had a bus, a train and a walk from the station before I reached home, I meandered through the airport, making careful note of all the books I wanted to read in the bookshops. I have a list I'll share soon! (Thrills & Grins of palm rubbing anticipation.) 

I managed to miss my train at Southern Cross, checking out the new (to-me) shopping centre, but an hour in a cafe sipping iced tea is not such a hardship, although the poor air-con struggled and the sweat ran down my legs. My country train also struggled, jolting along the heat-buckled tracks at a snails pace, before giving up the ghost halfway home. We all had to get out and wait for the next train - but by the time it arrived I was so engrossed reading I missed it… I'm blaming baby brain. 

Twelve and a bit hours after I gave my little ones sleepy goodbye-and-see-you-soon-hugs in Queensland I hoist my bags over the gate of home while I racked my brain for the padlock combination, emptied the full-to-the-brim-letterbox and started as a huntsman spider ran up the local paper towards me. 

But I'm home now. About to commence making the house all 'shiny' for the little ones return. (Read, apply CPR to my poor roses and hydrangeas, rid the fridge of all it's past expiry Christmas stuffs, hide the evidence of their dead worms, and throw out and giveaway as many toys and clothes as I can so all the new Christmas goodies vaguely fit.)

I still have to meander up to the shops for food, but hey, frozen peas, tinned corn and olives is a healthy breakfast! 

Weekly Stills

-Blossom from the garden. I think this is ornamental plum, but I'm not sure. It's my favourite of the blossom trees in my garden.
-Our trampoline is under our big wattle tree - my Poppet loves scooping up the fallen blossom and throwing it up.
-Wattle blossom, shadows and little hands on the trampoline.
-My Poppet is just discovering the wonder of clothes. Unfortunately, the clothes she likes best are mine. At present she doesn't want to take off a little black silk cami I picked up at an op-shop last week. (You can see it peeking out from under her dress as a kind of petticoat. She wears it as a (very oversized) nighty and has to be (strongly) dissuaded each day from wearing it as a dress. I was looking forward to sharing clothes with her eventually - I just didn't know it would start this young!
-My Sprocket - climbing a tree trunk out over the lake.
-Crab City. We went to the beach for father's day, and the first day of spring, and because the weather was a balmy 25 degrees. This stretch was our playground for the day. This was where we found 'Crabby' last time, and this was where Sprocket made a bee-line for. (Forget the lovely stretch of white sand to the side!)
-My Poppet, exploring the rock-pools. As it has been so cold recently I foolishly didn't pack bathers. Poppet lay tummy down in rock-pools in her dress instead and lolled happily in the sun warmed water.
-Sprocket with one of the many crabs we found. This one was not Crabby, but only Crabby's friend. When it tired of being carried around it gave my Sprocket a nip, which, he assures me, Crabby would never do. Poppet also got a little nip, but the crab in question was only the size of my pinky fingertip, so she was more surprised than anything. (You might note that Sprocket's top is also covered in crabs, we are considering it our good-luck-in-finding-crabs-top and are looking forward to taking it on many more crab-hunting expeditions over the summer!)

Joining with the wonderful Em of The Beetle Shack for weekly stills, little moments from the week.