6/52

Littlest - giggling up at her brother and sister. A constant ( and very stubborn) delight.

Poppet - running in her grandparents back garden - I think she might be pretending to be a pigeon.

Sprocket - thoughtful. He's just gone back to school and it's a hard adjustment. There are tears every morning and much discussion of his old school back down in Victoria - you know, the good one, with all his friends. It breaks my heart in a thousand different ways.

Joining with Jodi for a portrait of my little ones once a week, every week in 2015.

5/52 - finding our feet

- Sprocket, heading into the mangrove swamp.
- Poppet, running on the beach at twilight. She seems to be all legs nowadays. Clothes in her size are too short and I have to go up a year or two.
- Littlest, so happy to be sandy, she crawls into the water without fear - "Da-da-da-da!" after her daddy. Here's too gorgeous pudgy, sandy, baby toes.

We're slowly finding our feet, starting a new school, new kindy, new activities. Working out where everything is, how to fit everything around the shifts and stresses of my beloved's new work as a freshly minted doctor - starting out in the emergency department.

We're all a little unsettled, but each day we find our feet a little bit more, and it's hard not to with lovely beaches so close!

Joining with Jodi for a portrait of my little ones once a week, every week in 2015.
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4/52

Poppet - with her favourite book at the moment. Jane Ray's beautifully illustrated and beautifully written The Apple Pip Princess. We've been reading it at least once a day and often two or three times all week.

Sprocket - his Grandpa aims to turn him into a pigeon flyer. He's just released one of the young birds to the sky.

Littlest - my sleeping beauty - with her little doll from Paris. Paris was a bit of a disappointment (possibly because I had a flu that turned very nasty) but we found a very good toy shop and went a little bit wild on a we're-sorry-we dragged-you-half-way-around-the-world-and-it's all-so miserable way. Note: even the toy shop owners in Paris are snooty. This made me giggle between coughing.

Joining with Jodi for a portrait of my little ones once a week, every week in 2015. 

Swan Love

"You really love swans, don't you mummy," my Poppet said sagely, in the tone of one clarifying the self-evident.
"Yes. Yes I really do," I said.
And while I also love the black swans of Australia, there's something about the way the light falls on the white swans of the Northern Hemisphere that increases my heart rate every time I see them. Maybe because there are so many beautiful stories about the white Northern swans? Maybe because when I do see them they're beneath snow capped mountains or on gently lit lakes - whatever it is - their beauty never fails to fill me with gratitude and awe.
I love the way their long necks twist so gracefully. I love the way they glide so serenely. I love the way they stretch their wings into such a light filled, angel-like, swan-rampant. I love the way they carry their young on their backs. I love the way their heads seek beneath the water while they float above, straddling air and water. I love the look of them in flight - they seem the epitome of romance.
I love them so much that my engagement ring (sent out from Ireland) is a stylised, Celtic style swan… Which I know is sort of getting into teen territory but… they are just so beautiful.
It is probably no surprise that one of my favourite manuscripts, that I've been tinkering with for years now, (oops, I don't like to admit it, but I've been writing and rewriting it for over a decade now. Cut. Paste. Rewind. I refuse to admit that!) is based around a re-telling of an Irish legend of four children transformed to swans for nine hundred years…
So when I saw these swans, so many and so close on a lake at Hyde Park in London, it was a little bit of Kirsty-Heaven. The kids were not quite so enthralled so the photos were taken on the run. But there was heart fluttering and exclamations of delight.
And they were just so beautiful.
(Just imagine them on a remote loch in the highlands instead, surrounded by snow - with snow falling around? let me consider - instead of the highly populated and tame Hyde Park, surrounded by people and city and close to cafes and winter wonderland rides!)

3/52

Littlest - her early morning weetbix is serious business. 
Poppet - dancing down the back of the garden. Only seven am and already unpleasantly hot and so muggy the camera lens fogged up. 
Sprocket - still a little jet lagged from our big trip. We've stopped falling asleep at 2pm and waking at 2am but we're still taking a little while to wake in the morning. 

Joining with Jodi for a portrait of my little ones once a week, every week in 2015.