AUSTRALIAN FAMILY HENDRICKS

Stream of Consciousness

2012-01-18T00:03:00.003+01:00

Where to start, where to start? Where did I leave off? Half-way through our one-month summer holiday in Canada in December I think. Summer holidays since that's what it is in Australia. Have you ever had to leave on holiday in summer clothes but arrive at your destination in winter ones then do the reverse upon your return? It's complicated people!

Victoria, BC city hall

Anyhoo, when last I blogged Christmas in Victoria had just happened and a joyful one it was. We had two intense weeks with the family, warts and all (to quote my SIL). J was DEVASTATED to leave. Pretty hard to quantify the beauty and value of family when they have that kind of impact on us but we are very very blessed.

New Year's Eve with family and friends at THE best decorated house on the island!

This was followed by five full-on ski days at spectacular Whistler-Blackcomb. Lousy weather, but great conditions way high on the mountain which is where we kept ourselves, punctuated only by really good lunches at the restaurants on the top of either mountain. The poutine at Blackcomb was particularly memorable. It was some much-needed family focused time. Our routine was pretty easy: breakfast, ski, lunch, ski, complain about sore quads and uncomfortable rented ski boots (ok that was me), ski some more, moan that J and C2 never stopped on the 50-minute ski-out at the end of the day (ok that was me too), hot tub with beers, sauna with beers, dinner in Whistler village, bed; idyllic!

On the Peak-to-Peak gondola between Whistler and Blackcomb mountains

The three of us flew on to Calgary for a weekend with our great friends, Jen and Jeff, and five days holed up at my mum's cozy apartment with the most amazing view of Calgary EVER! While C2 worked out of the little office in the apartment, J and I reconnected with old friends, visited Tim Horton's a time or ten, and spent gift cards. My mum and I carried on our fine Christmas tradition of playing hours of our family card game Au Mille. I think my Calgary highlight though, was my mum, J, and I trudging (ok mum and I trudged, J sprang lightly) through wind and ice in my beloved Fish Creek Park to locate my Dad's memorial tree. We decorated it joyfully with Christmas decorations. It sparkled proudly in the snow, and it made all of us happy.

Alberta Prairie Palette

I'm not going to revisit the looooong trip home for J and I. Calgary to Vancouver to Los Angeles to Melbourne with many hours in all of the above airports. Nope I won't really discuss it despite its' actual relative ease, or the fact that instead C2 headed off to Panorama (near Banff but on the British Columbia side) with work colleagues for 3-days of skiing, nope definitely wouldn't touch it. And I certainly won't talk about C2s travel schedule that is keeping him in North America until his return on January 28 or that he leaves on January 30 for a month in Perth, nope don't want to talk about that at all!

I am having some kind of delayed frantic Spring cleaning episode. Delayed in that Spring in Australia runs right into the busy lead-up to Christmas and therefore didn't happen at the time. In the 30 hours since I've been home, I boxed all the Christmas decorations, scrubbed my kitchen pantry and fridge, vaccumed, washed floors, washed pillows and blankets and put them out on the line in the sun, unpacked five suitcases and two backpacks, re-arranged J's book and Lego shelves, thrown out a garbage bag full of broken and unused bits and bobs from J's room, worked with him to identify toys for donation, and re-organized my shoe shelf. Did I mention the 30 hours part? Still on my must-clean list are the inside and outside of my car, J's school backpack, my back terrace, my front garden, and Murphy's ears.

It was stinking hot today, 35+ degrees. We worked and played in the house all day, both of us enjoying being home. Murphy hasn't left our sides for a minute and is happily charging up and down our steep stairs just to be near us. At 5:30pm, we packed up a quick picnic, heaved Murph into my car, and sped down to the beach for a couple of hours. Now my clean house smells like wet, well-exercised dog...good thing that happens to be one of my favorite smells.

Canadian Christmas

2011-12-28T21:16:00.002+01:00

We've been in Canada for over a week. Our trip from Melbourne to British Columbia was remarkably easy; a total of about 18 hours door-to-door which is about as fast as one can possibly travel those distances. All bags arrived, we were adequately rested and the jetlag was minimal.

Since then, we've done what we always do, fall into those easy rhythms with the family; 9 of us sitting around the table at breakfast drinking coffee, sharing the paper, and fighting over the Sudoko. J loves to wander sleepily into the kitchen to the noise and busy-ness of a large family. We've run Mount Doug a few times, hiked steeper Mount Finlayson to spectacular Pacific Northwest views, played about a hundred hands of Au Mille, and had about a hundred more laughs.

It isn't easy getting this many of us under one roof for this many days. Many of us were weary in the lead-up to Christmas and all of the concomitant planning and executing. Some were missing girlfriends or dogs, some were missing space or our own beds. Nerves can get rubbed the wrong way, and some of us talk too much during movies.

But this is us. This is how we do it. The bulk of us travel here from where we live because this is where we want to be and who we want to be with at Christmas. This is when we can spend intense moments of quality time together; where we make large deposits into our collective banks of family memories. When I see the love showered on J by his extended family, I feel blessed and I know he gets it. He understands the ties that bind, the value of family and his place in it.

Family is about my sister-in-law waking J early on Christmas morning. We all emerge at dawn into the magical environment she has created. Candles flicker in every room, the aroma of coffee wafts throughout the house, music softly plays, and a pile of presents beckon. Every year, four stockings bulge with goodies for the kids. This year, the three eldest surprised the five adults with our own overflowing stockings. It was unexpected and remarkably thoughtful. More of the ties that bind.

Soon we will all be on our separate ways. Three head back to Calgary. C2, J, and I leave for a week's ski holiday to Whistler-Blackcomb. The house will be cleaned and life will return to normal. But my soul will have been recharged for another year, I will have been reminded who I am and where I come from. When we fly back to our home in Australia 15,000km away, I'll remember we're really not far away at all.

Christmas at 29c

2011-12-14T09:38:00.001+01:00

I am struggling with getting my head wrapped around December's temperatures down under. If the word 'December' is referenced in passing, I immediately envision snow covered Christmas trees, hot cocoa, and red cheeks. Problem is, in Australia in December, red cheeks only happen if I've forgotten the sunscreen.

Choosing a Christmas tree in shorts and bright sun at the park near our house

Blame it on 40-something years of conditioning. December.equals.Winter. With Christmas fast approaching, people keep asking what we are doing for the summer holidays and I keep replying that I haven't thought that far ahead even as I stand under a Jacaranda tree seeking shade from the blistering sun. I tell you, it's playing havoc with my mental equalibrium, and packing ski clothes for our trip to Canada in a couple of days is not helping with my disorientation.

The kids table

This past weekend, we had a small dinner party to celebrate the festive season with friends. It's a Family Hendricks tradition. A couple of weeks before the big day, we cook up a storm, pour many glasses of champagne, and unwrap the gift of friendship. In Geneva, we had it just right, the same families every year until one by one they moved on. That's the thing about being expats, friends enter our lives for a season and become the extended family we're missing.

This year's menu:
Seared tuna with mango, avocado, and wasabi
Australia's Chandon Blanc de Blanc
Filet mignon au jus with roasted rosemary potatoes, panzanella, and roquette salad
White Box Cabernet Sauvignon
McLaren Vale Shiraz
(both fantastic full-bodied Australian reds)
Individual chocolate molten cakes with coffee gelato

The Grown-Up table

The kids craft - making reindeer food

Now, we are mentally gearing up for the long haul flight back to Canada where we will spend a month in the embrace of family, reminding ourselves how lucky we are to have each other, and replanting those Canadian roots a little. Two weeks in Victoria, one skiing at Whistler and one in Calgary. I can't wait! First stop after we stretch our legs following the 30-hour journey? Tim Horton's for an extra hot double double!

Comin' At Ya from WA

2011-12-03T11:16:00.003+01:00

WA - that's Western Australia for those of you not in the know. We also call it the place where C2 works. We figured it was about time that J and I had an insight into C2's other home and if a tan happened to be a side-effect two weeks before leaving for Canada, well so be it.

Perth was the gateway for the goldrush and remains the center of Australian mining today; it's why we're here!

We are four days settled into C2's lovely home away from home, a suite at the Pan Pacific Perth hotel where they know him well. We've fallen into a routine of sorts, rise early (given the 3 hour jet lag), head to the Pan Pacific Club for breakfast and newspaper, return to our room where the beds are made and the bathroom tidied. I could get used to that part! Spend the day on some adventure, return to the hotel, shower, head back to the Pan Pacific Club for drinks and games of chess, and then to a Perth restaurant for a late dinner. No dishes, no house-cleaning, no changing sheets, free food; golly where do I sign up? It's been a nice break for all of us, even if C2 worked through much of it and Murphy wasn't with us.

Did you know that the city of Perth is THE most isolated city in the WORLD? Australia is such a contradiction and perhaps nothing embodies that contradiction more than Perth. This land of Australia is hostile, prone to extreme heat, deadly bushfires, cyclones, the most dangerous spiders and snakes in existence, beautiful beaches prowled by Great White sharks, fields of jellyfish, and other lethal sea creatures, and yet these people impose themselves on the landscape, force it to resemble a first-world European nation with a twist, and pretend that Perth isn't actually the end of the world and thousands of kilometres from anything else resembling civilization.

If Melbourne is the Australian London on the Southern Ocean, then Perth is the Australian Tuscany on the Indian Ocean. Bizarre but true. The climate is hot, dry, and arid, the architecture decidedly mediterranean, cyprus trees, palm trees, cacti all grow though dusty red soil down steep hills to the Swan, the salt water river that spills into the Indian Ocean. The CBD, (central business district), downtown to the rest of us, is well-planned, architecturally interesting, respectful of its' history, and has some killer shopping, yet another surprise from the most isolated city in the world.

Thompson's Bay Rottnest Island

Quokka!

But it is the sea, oh, the sea that is so seductive in this part of the world. The impossibly azure blue of the Indian Ocean. Earlier this week, we took a ferry 22kms off the coast of Perth to a small haven called Rottnest Island. It was so dubbed since the original Dutch founders were convinced that the small marsupials populating the island in large numbers were large rats. Rottnest means Rat's Nest in Dutch, charming no? In fact those marsupials were not rats but Quokkas, a small member of the Kangaroo/Wallaby family which exist only on two islands off the Western Australian coast.

Rottnest Island

Anyhoo, Rottnest is a lightly developed, car-free refuge of magnificent natural wonder. From the ferry dock, we hired bicycles to explore this scrubby island, play "spot the Quokkas", and frolic in the natural reefs and basins. We were particularly enchanted by the breathtaking beauty of the basin at Thompson's Bay with its' hard coral reefs, stunning water colour contrasts, and powder white sand. These beaches are not surrounded by tall resorts and chain restaurants but instead by natural sand dunes, wind-swept bush and Eucalyptus, and the occasional day-tripper parking their bike before hurling themselves with delight into the water.

Thompson's Bay Rottnest Island

That these waters are also the play and hunting grounds of the Great White Shark and several other species of shark as well as other nasty sea creatures is a concern only that one is reminded to always be alert and to exercise appropriate caution. Pretty sure, I wouldn't dive off of a boat off of Rottnest to swim, as it was I got stung by a Marine Stinger (jellyfish) off of Geordie Bay close to shore.

Closer to Perth, we spent a few hours at the local beach, Cottlesoe Beach. Cottlesoe which rivals anything I have seen in the Caribbean or the Mediterranean has a very different vibe to our Melbourne beaches. St. Kilda beach which is our local beach in Melbourne has an energetic, frantic vibe, music throbs in the background, frisbee games are played in the water, skateboarders and rollerbladers range up and down the boardwalk, and the barbie is always sizzling something. Melbourne does not get a lot of really hot weather so when the temperatures do rise, everyone heads to the beach.

Cottlesoe Beach - Perth

Perth on the other hand had over 60 days of temperatures in excess of 30c last summer. Cottlesoe has a languid, calm, organic vibe. People here are used to heat and days at the beach are as familiar as vegemite on toast. To us Canadians, who mostly experience beaches on 7-day Air Canada charters where we use minimal amounts of sunscreen to maximize sun exposure only to mournfully watch our burns flake off on the flight home, the novelty of living near a beach has not worn off.

Cottlesoe Beach

Last evening we celebrated C2's birthday at the King Street Bistro. We were seated at a small table beside an open window offering full views of the Friday night revellers drifting by the Louis Vuitton, Tiffany's, and Prada shops on King Street. As we chose wine from a most comprehensive list, and were amiably served by one young man from Paris and another from Stockholm, I think it's safe to say that Perth has arrived.

Harbour Bay - Fremantle

The Fête, the Fête, I Cannot Wait

2011-11-29T10:12:00.000+01:00

The title of this post does, in fact, rhyme, if you pronounce "Fête" like an Australian, as in "fate" not the french way, as in "fet". A fête, is an event of enormous planning that serves as a large-scale school fundraiser. A carnival or festival is set up on the school grounds, parents and sponsors donate huge amounts of food, goods and time.

The kids raced from the giant bouncy slide to the rock climbing wall to the cake table to face painting while we parents peeled bill after bill from our wallets whilst sipping Australian wine and eating fish tacos and almond croissants in the shade out of the hot sun.

Since our school is 50% French, we benefited from food stalls laden with croissants and pains au chocolat, fine cheeses, french macarons, fois gras and baguette, and a wide selection of french books. Our school also has a large Hebrew population so we also were spoiled with middle eastern food like crispy falafel and bowls of creamy tahini. Murphy ate about a kilo of spilled popcorn, approximately a thousand bits of discarded cupcakes, and an undetermined amount of forsaken pita bread.

The day started grey and cool but quickly changed to blue skies and hot hot sun. By 5:00pm, sweaty, more than a little sunburned, and with an aching back, I was happy to corral my purple-haired face-painted skeleton, bid adieu to the fête and bonjour to a cold glass of beer.

Back at home, we packed up Murphy and set out for the dogsitter. Murph will spend the next week in Brad's chaotically welcoming home while J and I fly to join the erstwhile C2 in Perth to steal a little quality family time. Stay tuned for a post from the pristine beaches of Western Australia.

Squirminess Arrested

2011-11-15T10:25:00.006+01:00

It's Tuesday evening, C2 is, as usual, in Perth, J and I are back from swimming lessons and a late dinner. He's watching Phineas and Ferb while I have a glass of wine and try to muster some energy for the bedtime routine.

I am assuming that the reason for my crushing fatigue of late is owing to my new job! If you recall, in several posts from the last year, I referenced my desire to re-engage my pre-baby, pre-trailing spouse, pre-round the world adventuring brain.

I was on the cusp of professional re-engagement in Geneva last year when we decided to move down under. We've been here 11 months now and I continue to seek balance in my life. Life has tilted badly out of balance during the last several months. C2's professional life keeps him in Western Australia too much, he is exhausted too much, I am single-parenting too much, and J and I are adapting to his absences too much.

In the midst of all of this, the ideal job entered my world. During many of my laments about being squirmy but stymied about how to co-mingle professional fulfillment with our complicated family life and travel commitments; many comments centered around engaging in meaningful volunteer work. A commitment that would get my head back into the game, make a difference, but at the same time be flexible. My background is in the not-for-profit sphere and that is where know I can make a meaningful difference.

Enter the wonderful NGO Child Wise. An Australian organization that is all about making a difference. Dedicated to the prevention and reduction of child sexual abuse and exploitation in Australia and Asia Pacific. They focus on programs to identify and eliminate opportunities for child sexual abuse and child sex trafficking. If there is a more noble cause, I haven't seen it. Child Wise survives with a skeleton staff dedicated to the cause. Part of the team work day to day to keep the organization afloat largely through private philanthropy and charitable donations. That's where I come in. I am working in Development 2-3 days a week, researching potential revenue streams and writing grant proposals. I am engaged, I hope I will make a difference, I am fulfilled, and in spite of my current exhaustion, I have found some balance.

In addition to my own fulfillment, I think that it is critical to J's evolution into a well-adjusted young man, that he see me as more than a one-dimensional person. More than the mum whom he takes for granted to pick him up from school, feed him, and do all his bidding. He needs to understand that women are equal in any family dynamic. I am happy that he has a Dad who is a gourmet cook, I am happy that all three of us sit around on Friday nights and watch 'Better Homes and Gardens', I am happy that he knows when the new edition of the magazine is released. I am tickled that he loves to watch 'Junior Masterchef', has a desire to cook, and planted tomatoes this year. I am delighted that all three of us ski, mountain-bike, hike, and engage in similar adventure sports. I am thrilled that all three of us are curious, open-minded, and increasingly see ourselves as citizens of the world and less of one particular nation. I sincerely hope all of his experience will mold him into an enlightened man with no pre-conceived gender notions. A man who respects women and ultimately enters into a partnership of equals.

A Poem and Then Some

2011-11-09T09:41:00.001+01:00

I don't have perfect recall of the kind of homework I did in my early years of primary school. I don't particularly recall doing any. I do remember song time, rows of single digit arithmetic (I guess it was too simple to be worthy of the moniker 'mathematics'), and reading the Bobbsey Twins.

I certainly don't recall being given 10 days to memorize this poem and recite in front of the class in second grade:

La Cigale et la Fourmi

La Cigale ayant chanté

Tout l'été

Se trouva fort dépourvue

Quand la bise fut venue

Pas un seul petit morceau

De mouche ou de vermisseau

Elle alla crier famine

Chez la Fourmi sa voisine

La priant de lui prêter

Quelque grain pour subsister

Jusqu'à la saison nouvelle

"Je vous paierai, lui dit-elle,

Avant l'août foi d'animal

Intérêt et principal

La Fourmi n'est pas prêteuse

C'est là son moindre défaut

Que faisiez-vous au temps chaud?

Dit-elle à cette emprunteuse

Nuit et jour à tout venant

Je chantais, ne vous déplaise

Vous chantiez? j'en suit fort aise

Eh bien! dansez maintenant

God bless the French and their mighty curriculum. It's nice to see them pouring cream instead of skim milk into those young open minds. Pretty impressive for an 8-year old doncha think? At J's age, I was lucky if I could remember what time Get Smart was on TV...and it didn't get me any smarter.

“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.”

2011-11-02T10:31:00.006+01:00

One of my favorite bloggers, the full-of-grace Elizabeth over at A moon, worn as if it had been a shell blogged her version of the following literary faves today and as I have been rather blog-blocked of late, I thought I'd plagiarize her idea and share the same.

1) What authors do you own the most books by?
J.R.R. Tolkien, Cornelius Ryan, Pierre Burton, Stephen Ambrose, Ernest Hemingway, Winston Churchill, J.K. Rowling, Thomas Friedman, Jon Krakauer

2) What book do you own the most copies of?
Does the complete and dog-eared Harry Potter series count?

3) Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions?
It kind of did

4) What fictional character are you secretly in love with?
The Scarlett Pimpernel or Aragorn (Lord of the Rings), I'm a sucker for a man with a noble heart

5) What book have you read the most times in your life (excluding picture books read to children; i.e., Goodnight Moon does not count)?
And the Band Played On

6) What was your favorite book when you were ten years old?
Anything by Enid Blyton

7) What is the worst book you've read in the past year?
The Shack

8) What is the best book you've read in the past year?
The Book Thief

9) If you could force everyone here to read one book, what would it be?
The Old Man and the Sea

10) Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for Literature?
To quote Elizabeth "Good Lord, who knows? Who cares?"

11) What book would you most like to see made into a movie?
Life of Pi

13) Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book, or literary character.
Aragorn and it wasn't weird and I'm not describing it...

14) What is the most lowbrow book you've read as an adult?
All by Dan Brown and dang it, I've read them all

15) What is the most difficult book you've ever read?
Freedom at Midnight - Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre

16) What is the most obscure Shakespeare play you've seen?
Pass but I've been inside his reconstructed Globe theatre in London and that was pretty cool

17) Do you prefer the French or the Russians?
Let's go with the French if you're counting Sainte-Exupery

18) Roth or Updike?
Neither

19) David Sedaris or Dave Eggers?
Easy - David Sedaris

20) Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer?
Milton

21) Austen or Eliot?
Austen

22) What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?
The French and the Russians

23) What is your favorite novel?
The Sun Also Rises

24) Play?
Pass

25) Poem?
Ozymandias - Shelley
The Road Not Taken - Frost
W.H. Auden

26) Essay?
I'm not fussed so anything in Atlantic Monthly or Vanity Fair

27) Short Story?
The Snows of Kilimanjaro

28) Work of nonfiction?
Ambrose's Band of Brothers or anything by Jon Krakauer

29) Who is your favorite writer?
Ernest Hemingway

30) Who is the most overrated writer alive today?
Jodi Picoult. I HATE derivative writing and contrived plots

31) What is your desert island book?
A Farewell to Arms
A Moveable Feast

32) And... what are you reading right now?
Worst of Days - Karen Kissane
The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien
Picnic at Hanging Rock - Joan Lindsay

The Rose

2011-10-21T02:17:00.001+02:00

"But he that does not grasp the thorn should never crave the rose." Anne Bronte

I've been musing lately over the life we've led and how grateful I am that we grasped the rose by the thorns. This voluptuously beautiful floribunda rose graces the entrance to our house and assaults us with perfume the moment the door is opened.

Red Hill and Other Epicurean Fun

2011-10-12T10:40:00.002+02:00

During the last week of J's Spring (nothing says Spring quite like October) school holiday, I managed to convince my overworked, overwraught, overseas husband to take a four-day break and venture together into Melbourne's epicurean heartland, the Mornington Peninsula for a little quality family time.

The plan was for beachwalks, bushwalks (Australian for treks or hikes), wineries, cheeseries, patisseries, and all and sundry epicurean providores in and around the town of Red Hill about an hour or so south of Melbourne.

We rented a little cottage, sweetly dubbed "King Louis's Cubby" in reference to the plethora of King Louis and Rosella parrots that arrive regularly during the day on the cottage's landing strip to feed off sunflower seeds and jasmine flowers. Our Cubby was set deeply in thick gum forests and surrounded by a large and wildly fragrant herb garden which J and Murphy thoroughly explored and fossicked (Australian for foraged).

Our Rosellas

Upon our arrival, we headed straight to Tuck's Ridge Winery for a gorgeous al-fresco lunch, glass of their own Chardonnay and beautiful views overlooking the vineyards. We followed this up with a Brownie the size of Tasmania from the iconic Merrick's General Store and a walk on Point Leo beach.

I think all of us, including Murphy, dip into some magically peaceful part of ourselves when we discover these beautiful, deserted Australian beaches. We have almost an unspoken, collective pact to search them out, discover their secrets, and let their magic go to work on us.

The following day, we spent FIVE hours, yes, FIVE hours at an amazing place called the Ashcombe Maze and Lavender Gardens. Here we embarked on a Gnome and Fairy Hunt (9 hidden gnomes, and 8 hidden fairies), through stunning gardens, winding mazes, and little bits of Australian wilderness. J was completely enchanted and even hard-to-impress C2 was seduced by the beauty of these natural gardens.

Naturally, we followed up this very busy day with a glass of wine at a winery just up the road from the Cubby. This time it was the Vines of Red Hill winery and an excellent glass of Pinot Noir overlooking the vineyards and bordering red gums.

That night, we walked from the Cubby down our red dirt road through the Eucalyptus forest to The Long Table restaurant, a '1-Chef Hat' (think Australian Michelin stars) for a meal so wonderful in an ambiance so beautiful that we went back the following night and would have again had we stayed another night.

Day three took us to the tiny coastal town of Flinders and another beach walk on quiet Flinders Beach followed by a lovely lunch and a visit to the Mornington Chocolaterie.

We spent the afternoon on an amazing walk down the cliffs from the Cape Schank lighthouse. The lighthouse is on the scrubby southernmost tip of the peninsula and separates the wild seas of the Bass Straight from calmer Western Port Bay overlooking Phillip Island. We bore witness to some truly amazing scenery and again found that spiritual, calm place these Australian seas seem to give us.

A quick stop at the T-Gallant winery in Main Ridge for a glass of Pinot Grigio before we had another memorable meal at The Long Table. We followed dinner with glasses of champagne, games played with large tic-tac-toes, and dominos by candlelight in the restaurant's front room. J won all the games...he might have cheated.

Our final day dawned cool and cloudy. Our original plan was to head into Mornington National Park and a 6km bushwalk. Upon arrival at the trailhead, however, Park rangers were present and dogs not welcome, so we turned around and undecided, headed back in the direction of Flinders. C2 spotted a tiny carpark off the road a few kilometers outside of the National Park and pulled in. What followed was the crowning glory of our time on the Peninsula, and one of life's memorable moments. A short bushwalk led to a walking track (Australian for trail) down to a wildly beautiful, utterly desolate beach littered with sand dunes, 50-million year old lava rock, a waterfall, and the sea which offered monster barrel waves that exploded onto rocks explaining the lack of surfers or swimmers.

Where else but Australia do you encounter this fella on your bushwalks?

We spent a couple of hours alone, together. C2 experimented with his amazing photography, J slid down sand dunes and clambered over lava. Murphy swam in the shallow water near the beach chasing sticks, and I watched everyone's backs for rogue waves.

We climbed back to the walking track up the side of the waterfall. Murphy drank fresh water from it, and provided our comical moment of the trip by confidently stepping into what she thought was a few inches of shallow water and what was actually about a meter. She sank like a rock, emerged covered in moss, ego damaged, and further humilated by our howls of laughter. Still how many 13-year old Labs can still climb up a waterfall?

Murphy's epic "swim" and pride damage, J and I were howling with laughter

Pride restored if a bit muddy

We ended our lovely little holiday with woodfired pizza at the T'Gallant winery sitting in their herb garden, the scents of rosemary and sage wafting by.

A Wet Thursday Afternoon

2011-09-29T09:30:00.001+02:00

How do you pass a stormy late Thursday afternoon during the school holidays whilst fighting the second nasty cold in as many months and after spending a busy morning visiting friends and running errands?

This did for a start...

Murphy thought chewing on her boney was a great option...

J thought playing with his new Ninjago lego worked...

These bright Spring tulips on my dining room table kept reminding me that despite the cool weather today, Spring really has sprung...

I should have been exercising but I ate a home-made Brownie instead, c'est la vie!

A "J" Day

2011-09-25T09:28:00.001+02:00

Term 3 ended on Friday, and as J and I had Saturday to ourselves, I decided to gift him with a day under his direction. That is a day where he made all the decisions, chose what to do, where to go, and what to eat, when to go to bed provided it didn't cost much money.

To back up a moment though, we celebrated the end of Term 3 on Friday after school with two of our favorite things, cupcakes from one of the iconic cake shops on Acland street in St. Kilda and book browsing.

Ok, back to Saturday though, it started with a 7:00 am wake-up call...groan, quickly followed by Peanut Butter and Jam sandwiches and NO FRUIT! A game of Ninjago lego versus Harry Potter lego was succeeded by a wand fight between Harry Potter (J) and Lucius Malfoy (me); Harry won, big surprise!

Then we jumped into the car to collect J's bestie Jules and back out to St. Kilda, clearly one of our favorite parts of Melbourne, to the St. Kilda Adventure Park, a community built and run playground not for the faint of heart.

St. Kilda is a fascinating mix of neighbourhood gentrification, unique cafes, restaurants, and community interests on Acland, Fitzroy, and Barclay streets. St. Kilda is also a beach community during the long summer months with a fantastic boardwalk and pier. This neighbourhood can still reflect its' red light history after dark and be just this side of dodgy but it is staunchly individualistic, revels in its' eclectedness, is colourful, has heaps of of character and we love it. But I make J keep his shoes on whilst playing at the above-mentioned park in case of needles or other undesirables left on the ground.

J loves this park. It's a no-holds, no-prisoners, and most importantly no-rules venue where the slides are built by locals, go-carts tear down inclines (at your own risk), and the trampoline doesn't have nets. It's a "check your helicopter-parenting at the door" free-for-all that is reminiscent of the way I played when I was a kid.

J and Jules

Community donations to support the park - ya I know he kinda freaks me out too!

After the park, J requested that we go to Danny's Diner for burgers and coke. Danny's self-proclaims to have the best burgers in Melbourne. Well, I don't know about the best but they weren't bad. Hours of out-burping each other followed leaving me despairing of these two orangutans.

After lunch, we spent a short-time having a fast run-around on the beach before the wind chased us over to the St. Kilda community gardens where we had a fantastic time laughing at the whimsy, marvelling at the colours and size of everything growing, and making wishes at the wishing well.

We staggered home late in the day, popped some popcorn and flopped in front of 'Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix', and a whole lot more burping. After Jules left, I whipped up J's favorite dinner of Pesto Pasta with shredded chicken which we ate in front of 'Lord of the Rings - The Return of the King'.

"J" Day was a pretty awesome day and funnily enough, not all that different from what I would have chosen had I been in charge. Except maybe for all the burping.

Two Goats Don't Make a Sheep

2011-09-15T14:56:00.006+02:00

When I was pregnant with J, I remember visualizing calmly working in the kitchen while my baby slept peacefully and contentedly in the nearby baby swing; classical music was playing quietly in the background and all was serene.

Reality, J never went into that d*&% swing more than twice without hollering his head off, he always wanted to be held, facing out to confront the world and bellowed his protest the minute we wearily set him down. Little has changed.

Nobody would describe C2 or I as being placid or hard to ruffle. We are both loud, opinionated, quick to get a rise from, love to debate, bicker (it's our thing) and get the final word. Consquently, life has always been colourful, interesting, and entertaining for us. So why should I be surprised that our child is the same. With him, everything is a debate, a challenge, an often-times sarcastic argument, a reason why it shouldn't be done our way but his way. Boundaries are continually tested for weak spots and impulse often rules. Sweet as a Tim Horton's maple donut as long as things are going his way but prepare for a showdown at the OK corral if they're not. It's exhausting. But as my darling sister-in-law has reminded me on more than one occasion, two goats don't make a sheep

After another showdown this evening...in fairness at 9:00pm after he refused to eat pasta with sauteed kale (can I entirely blame him?), ripped a napkin in protest, and flung a curse from his wand at me (really a chopstick but that's not the point), C2 and I questioned what we were doing wrong. Are we too lenient, are we not lenient enough, do we coddle him too much, do we give in too easily, do we escalate arguments rather than defuse them because we are just as stubborn as he?

I don't know the answer, but I know it's not always easy being J's parent. But is parenting ever easy? This week, I had a friend dub her two seemingly angelic boys whom I have never seen do wrong "Attitude" and "Feral". I have witnessed other kids disrespecting the sensei at judo or teachers at school; J has never done that. He has a healthy respect for all authority but us, and, thankfully, a clear command of the right side of wrong. OK, so maybe it's not just J, maybe it's parenting in a world where we compete for the attention of our children with the Cartoon Network, Wii, DS, on-line games, and other electronic stimuli. A world where role models are not always positive, influences are many, and where the line between child and adult has become blurred.

I don't have the answers, and I don't know if any parent has it all figured out, but once the dust has settled, I am reminded that my little goat makes me laugh, charms me, fascinates me, amazes me, and utterly slays me with the depth of love, pride, joy, and gratitude he makes me feel....when he's not making me want to rip my head off.

Australian Spring

2011-09-08T12:40:00.005+02:00

Ah September, the most wonderful time of the year, when children head back to school all bright-eyed and full of summer stories, there is a slight chill in the air heralding the arrival of Fall, glorious colours abound, gardens are being put to bed, we dream of hot apple-crisp with vanilla ice-cream, cozy sweaters, and... STOP THE PRESSES!

Down under in Melbourne, we are coming out of winter, such as it is in Australia. Children have been in school for 8 months now and are anticipating Spring Break (ok we call it Spring half-term here). There is warmth in the air heralding the arrival of Summer, trees are budding, our gardens are waking up, Spring flowers are blooming furiously, and we are delightedly shedding our cozy sweaters.

It feels so unnatural to think of Spring in September just as I imagine it will feel terribly odd to decorate our Christmas tree when it's 30c degrees outside and the air-conditioning is cranked up. Aussies don't do Christmas turkey either, it's shrimp on the barbie all the way mate!

But I digress, back to Spring. As a Canadian girl, I had never experienced the tropics except briefly on holiday. The tropics are exotic, not-quite-real places to where us pathetic northerners occasionally hop a chartered Air Canada flight in order to temporarily escape the miseries of howling winds and freezing temperatures. Real people don't actually live in the tropics do they?

They do now! Despite the fact that, barring the island of Tasmania, Melbourne is the southernmost and therefore, coldest region in Australia, this is still a place where lemons, limes, and oranges grow madly in winter, olive groves and vineyards abound, there are palm trees, birds of paradise, bromeliads, jasmine, camelias, cacti, yuka, and azaleas pushing wildly on every corner.

I covet the lemon trees groaning with fruit the size of small footballs in the backgardens of all my friends who laugh sympathetically when I confess to having to buy lemons at the grocery store. During my late evening walks with Murphy, I practically float into the air following the wafting fragrances of jasmine, frangiapane, citrus oil, boronia, and wild freesia. It's an incredibly heady experience!

Well hello there little Lorikeet, I see you under the Palm fronds!

I Love Love Love Neil Young - Who Knew?

2011-08-22T13:39:00.011+02:00

My husband is a wirehead. And I am forever thankful that he is! I like to think that I am technically savvy, I mean, I use a MacBook, I try to remember to back it up regularly onto an external harddrive, I know how to navigate my remote control to access cable tv, Apple tv, Netflix, and can update my iPod but honestly that's about the breadth of my technical know-how.

C2, on the other hand, is always on the bleeding edge of everything. I guess it helps that he engineers some of the most forward-thrusting technology in the resource sector but does that necessarily translate to the comforts of home? I mean, my dad, bless his heart, was a senior electrical engineer with Hydro Quebec for years but never did our toilet flush properly or the entry door close without some jerry-rigged solution.

Meanwhile, our little Australian house is uber-wired. We watch Madmen via iTunes on our iPad in bed, watch Harry Potter wirelessly from iTunes through our Apple tv onto our bigscreen tv, and Seinfeld and Saturday Night Live reruns courtesy of Netflix either on our iPad or our tv from our Apple tv. For the most part, it all works beautifully, just don't ask me how, but C2 knows!

A couple of years ago, we bought a Bose docking station for our iPod to compensate for our stereo which didn't work so well in Switzerland thanks to differing frequency...something about a 50hz cycle C2 informed me. Anyhow, the Bose allowed us to access our collection of CDs on our iPods with fantastic sound and fidelity.

But, frankly, all of this pales in comparison to the best thing C2 has introduced to our home entertainment suite EVER; a little app called Pandora. Imagine creating a genius playlist based on a favorite song from your own iPod's musical library, but now imagine instead a genius playlist based on a favorite song from almost ALL music in the known universe. Pandora allows us to legally access this music and therefore has offered us far-reaching exposure to amazing music that we might not otherwise have heard, invested in, or benefited from.

Now, I must admit, I love my Canadian music, nothing makes me happier than singing mightily along to Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, K.D. Lang, Tom Cochrane, Blue Rodeo, Jann Arden, Alanis Morissette, but I admit sheepishly, I've never been much of a Neil Young fan. I had minimal knowledge of Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, and pretty much nothing outside of "Heart of Gold". It all seemed kind of like 'boys drinking beer and toking in front of a bonfire' kind of music.

Well no more, my friend, thanks to Pandora, I have discovered the brilliance, the complexity, the story-weaving of "Ohio", "Long May You Run", "Old Man", "Helpless", "Southern Man", and "Only Love Can Break Your Heart". Add in a little CSN&Y's "Just a Song Before I Go", and "Woodstock", and holy cow, have I been missing out on some fantastic music for the last 40-something years.

Now if you'll excuse me, C2 and I are about to watch Scorcese's "The Last Waltz" which we just found on iTunes. By the way can anyone recommend any other artists about whom they are passionate, and no, Jeff, I don't mean Metallica!

Harry Potter, A Bad Cold, and a Travelling Husband

2011-08-16T12:22:00.001+02:00

What do the above three things have in common you ask? What is the common link here, think, think, think....

Well let's start with Harry Potter. It was around 10 years, two international assignments, and several thousand kilometers ago, that my youngest nephew Jordan and I (OMG, he was like 7 at the time, younger than J is now), started going to see the Harry Potter movies. It was a thing we did every 18 months or so, dinner at Eastside Mario's and Harry Potter. The two of us, plus his older brother Justin, also devoured the books and shared them in turn. All three of us, addicts for 10 years. I personally think that J.K. Rowling is a freaking genius with the most fertile of imaginations that I stand in utter in awe of, a Tolkien for a different generation...but I digress. Good so far?

Over the course of the last six months or so, on the odd occasion that C2 is in town, he is reading the Harry Potter series to J whose fascination with all things Hogwarts is beginning to rival his cousins' and my own. They've finished the first two and we watched the associated movies in rapid succession.

OK, next. I don't fall sick very often, in fact, I don't think I have been downed by a cold since a nasty one morphed into an unhappy sinus infection about four years ago. But 4 days ago? Whammo! Add to this merry mixture, my currently continent-hopping husband whose frequent absences have at times occasioned casual dinners in front of the tv, and you have all the makings of a movie-watching marathon. Getting the picture yet?

OK, let me spell it out in more detail. A week ago, I picked the final Harry Potter book "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" out from my bookshelf. Over the next three or so days, I reread it with fierce focus. As my ill-health began to intensify, and I started resting more, I began re-watching the Harry Potter movies from where C2, J and I had left off; that is numbers 3, 4, 5, 6, and the first half of 7. It's so easy to buy movies on iTunes!!! By the time, I had finished number 7, aka Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I, I was in a sort of wizarding frenzy desperate to see the concluding chapter.

So yesterday, I packed my red-nosed and hacking self off to the movie theatre at mid-day alone to join a throng of similarly child-free adults with equally wild imaginations for the best two-and-a-half hours I've spent in a movie theatre in quite a while.

I've never been quite so grateful for a cold before...or a travelling husband but that's just between you and me!

Stream of Consciousness

2011-08-03T19:55:00.000+02:00

I miss my mum. She returned to Canada this week after spending 3 months with us. It was great and now I'm bummed. I'll get over it and life will return to the rhythm of just us but at the moment I'm sad. Having her around was like having a sidekick who permanently saw the sunny side of life; she is an eternal optimist and the best Grandma I could have hoped for J. He will miss her enormously. We are very blessed with a close family who actually take great joy from being with each other. Maybe if we didn't live so far apart we wouldn't. Maybe distances are a disguised blessing which allow us to live in the moment with each other and really cherish it. I'm sure there are many Grandmas who wouldn't spend the small fortune and 24+ hours on an airplane to come hang with us down under and sing "Would you like to swing on a star" every night to an 8-year old; we're really lucky.

A couple of days before her departure, we spent an afternoon walking on Brighton Beach, a Melbourne landmark because of its' charming multi-hued beach cabanas. It being winter, Murphy hadn't been on a beach in quite a while. She's paying the price of racing up and down the water's edge chasing balls, sticks, or anything that moved. In the bigger scheme of things, I think it was worth the sore legs.

Speaking of Murphy and winter, you have presumably heard of Paunxsutawney Phil, who every February 2 emerges to predict more winter or early Spring? Well, permit me to introduce you to Melbourne Murphy who in early August in Australia (more or less the equivalent of early February in the southern hemisphere) began to blow her coat to announce the imminent arrival of Spring. She is shedding on every carpet and soft surface in the house, all over my car, and on every piece of clothing we own. She even managed to shed on to C2's brand new suit while he was trying it on at the shop and she was at home - don't ask me how; she is talented that girl!

I walked her early Tuesday morning in the Hedgley Dean gardens adjacent to our house. Usually in the early morning, I am running with all ambient noise drowned out by my iPod; today, however, I stopped and listened to the amazing amount of birdsong. I've never really heard anything like the amount of birdsong we witness in Melbourne. The Lorikeets, Parakeets, Cockatoos, Wattlebirds, Turtledoves, and Australian Magpies joined in a choral cacophony, a symphony of song which soared and swooped all around me. It was a bewitching almost mystical moment.

J's French-side Grade 2 class had a school presentation this week. They had been reading and learning about New Zealand and Maori culture, so each kid presented a small section about something they had learned. They followed this up with a fair dinkum (old Aussie expression meaning 'genuine') demonstration of the Haka - how cool is that? Even cooler was watching him up on stage singing the Australian national anthem "Advance Australia Fair". Guess he's forgotten the words to "Cé qu'è l'ainô", the Genevois anthem whose haunting melody never failed to bring me to tears. I really love watching him be culturally curious and think the gift of insight and empathy into other cultures is and will continue to be one of the greatest benefits of this expat experience of ours.

Chapters

2011-07-31T04:55:00.000+02:00

Lately, I've been thinking about the lives I have lived. Not, of course, in the metaphysical sense but rather the specific passages of my life. In the early 1990's I was newly-graduated from University, forging a path in the non-profit sector in Montreal and living the life of a single footloose and fancy-free young woman flush with my own money, dating freely and joyfully with few real cares beyond my rent.

By the late 1990's I had met and married him, moved to Calgary, travelled extensively with my consulting business, explored the western Canadian great outdoors, and raised my dog. The early 2000s brought late and beautifully unexpected motherhood, amazing friendship, my family briefly united in the same place and then a leap of faith into expat life.

It has been both complicated and a privilege being a trailing spouse for the last six years. Geneva was an incredible life experience, J was so little and for a few years, I happily embraced a professional sabbatical to raise him in our tiny idyllic Swiss village. I wrote, I read, I raised and I revelled.

No more snowstorms, no more -30, no more frigid 5:00am cab rides to the airport, no more waking alone in hotel rooms. For us, the global financial crisis offered a surprising port in a storm. C2's job with the mothership survived and his travel was greatly reduced. Together, we explored Europe, relished in family life, inhaled other cultures, and exhaled insight and elucidation, and have been enriched in ways I cannot even begin to quantify.

Last year, I began to experience something I can only describe as 'squirminess'. Restlessness, a stirring in the back of my mind that I needed something more. J didn't need me quite as much, he would be ok. After several months of squirminess, I arrived at the conclusion in mid-July after our summer holiday that it was time to rediscover my professional self. Two weeks later, C2 announced that we had been asked to relocate to Australia.

I have described the difficult wrestling we did before deciding to make the move and I don't regret it for a second. I have loved discovering this part of the world, we have adapted extremely well to our adopted new home. The climate is fantastic, the culture remarkable, and the lifestyle has much of the charm of Europe with the ease of North America. Six months in, though, I'm squirmy again.

For the last five years, I have been principally defined by my roles as wife and mother. While that role is within a 21st century context as I, thankfully, have a fully-engaged 21st century husband, I also have a husband who travels 80% of the time. How then do I balance raising my son, ensuring his needs remain my priority, child-management during the two-week school term breaks every 2.5 months, our travel and discovery ambitions, our return visits to Canada in order to ensure that J knows his family, my personal desire for professional fulfillment as well as wanting my son to recognize me holistically as more than just his mum?

Anyone got the answers?

Life's a Beach!

2011-07-17T08:02:00.004+02:00

Australia is a BIG country! Unlike our European experience where we explored largely by car, here one is required to fly to see just about anything outside our state of Victoria. For J's July (winter) school holidays, we decided to tick a bucket item and head up to the Great Barrier Reef in Northern Queensland for a week of sun and snorkling.

We (me, C2, my mum and J) carefully researched and prepared for this trip by re-watching "Finding Nemo", and on a chilly Wednesday morning, we flew from Melbourne to Brisbane, then on to Cairns before driving another hour and a half north to the tropical town of Port Douglas. We were greeted by soft fragrant salty air, lush tropical surroundings, and the most beautiful beach I have ever seen.

We quickly booked a pair of trips with the Quicksilver company who pioneered much of the snorkling adventures on the reef. The first trip was on a huge catamaran which raced 70 km to the outer Great Barrier Reef where we moored on to a permanent platform. From here, we donned "stinger" suits for protection against marine stingers, a particularly nasty type of jellyfish (again remember the jellyfish in "Nemo"?) and snorkled the reef for hours. Mum took advantage of a helicopter tour of the surrounding reefs and was speechless upon her return.

I booked a long and farther snorkle with a marine biologist which was unforgettable. From the crystal clear waters, we witnessed an amazing array of fish life, coral, and colours. Amy, the marine biologist played with the giant clams (the size of an armchair), tickled anemones to encourage the anemone clown fish to come out, and instructed us on the differences between branch, brain, hard and soft corals. We learned about the fragility of this eco-system, and as tourists, the importance of being respectful stewards of this magical place.

Long-nosed Butterfly Fish

Angel Fish

At the end of the day, and after a hot lunch, we returned to the catamaran for the 90-minute journey back to Port Douglas, I was drunk on beauty, my brain as stimulated as it has ever been. My body felt as if it oscillated in harmony with the sea. Then my cup ran over when our pilot slowed the boat so that we could all witness the passage of a pair of playful Humpback whales who dove and surfaced, exhaled through their blowholes and waved their massive tails at us.

A couple of days later, we boarded Quicksilver's smaller "Wavedancer" catamaran and sailed to the inner reef islands called "Low Isles". On Low Isles, one could be forgiven for feeling like the Tom Hanks character in "Castaway" but for the other snorklers around. It was a pristine tropical island of palms, powder soft sand littered with coral, and surrounded on all sides by shallow coral.

From here, we waded into the clear shallow water and snorkled over coral that was mere inches below us and followed graceful sea turtles as they explored their underwater playground. Reluctantantly, we returned to the boat late in the day for the sail home. This time, we saw a large Hammerhead shark, and several flying fish on the journey.

In between these two extraordinary days, we indulged in some much-needed downtime. We walked Four-Mile beach for hours, swam in its' warm waters, and let the sun and salt water rest and restore us. We played cards with a glass of wine on our apartment balcony overlooking the salt-water pool, and watched for the 6:00pm flight of Rainbow Lorikeets. Some dinners were out, some were in but every evening ended with a walk to the Gelateria for the best gelato this side of Levanto. Mum took advantage of the great shops on Macrossan street, and J made a daily pilgrammage at the funky "Jungle Island" shop whose staff had great fun helping him spend his earnestly-saved pocket money.

Kangaroos, Koalas, and Kookaburras - Oh My

2011-06-16T06:38:00.002+02:00

Penguins in Australia you say? If you are anything like me, I would've cocked a sceptical eye and pointed you in the direction of the nearest map. But sure enough, the southern (and colder) part of Australia is home to several colonies of Little Penguins. Little Penguins are so dubbed because of their tiny size, about 33cm.

The fam spent a few days on Phillip Island, about a 90 minute drive south of Melbourne (next stop Antarctica). It's an amazing place that is home to many of the animals unique to Australia including the largest Little Penguin colony in the Southern Hemisphere, about 60,000. The State Park has taken advantage of people's natural affinity for all things cute and waddly and figured a way to squeeze $150 out of us to partake in the nightly "Penguin Parade". At least all the money goes into Penguin welfare.

Little Penguins are very industrious tiny tykes. They emerge from their sandy burrows along the Summerlands Peninsula before dawn and spend the day fishing the cold Southern Ocean before returning to their nests at sunset. So just before sundown, thousands of us (365 nights a year) scurried to our beach-side benches and sceptically awaited signs of the penguins' return. Sure enough right on-time, the first group emerged from the waves, looked around suspiciously for foxes, eagles or other predators, craned their little necks at us silly humans all agog, and waddled up the beach and far into dunes in all directions "huk huk'ing" at each other. More and more groups followed. It was in a word, magical!

We are not allowed to photograph the little fellas so as not to frighten them so I 'borrowed' the above pics from the official Phillip Island Penguin Parade web page.

And that was just our first night.

We spent the next couple of days at the Phillip Island Wildlife Park feeding free-range Kangaroos whose soft beautiful mouths and sweet little paws clutched our hands in search of the pellets we were carrying. Many of the mamas had joeys in their pouches. Did you know a group of Kangaroos were called "a mob"? Me neither!

A blue-winged Kookaburra

A large flock of emus stalked us searching for the food too. They were a little creepy with wild eyes and sharp beaks that practically pecked a hole in your hand as they leaned in for food. They also snuck up behind us quietly and peered over our shoulders in search of the treats making us jump in surprise more than once.

The free-range Wallabies were more shy that their larger brethren and appreared less social and 'mob'-like but were still happy to bashfully seek food from our eager hands.

There were some very unusual species at the Wildlife Park too:

A lovely fat Wombat

A spikey Echidna

A Cassowary, Australia's heaviest flightless bird. Looks like he has a rock formation growing on top of his head.

The Philip Island Koala Conservation Center is a natural habitat to 14 Koalas in 6 hectares of natural bushland. It was shocking to learn that even 6 hectares of Eucalyptus were inadequate to provide sufficient sustenance for that Koala population. The Center has to truck in additional supplies of Eucalyptus. It made clear how the greatest threat to a thriving population of indiginous species is a loss of natural habitat.

Koala sleep 20 hours a day in the crux of two branches high high in the tree canopy. This fellow was about 15 meters up a Gum tree.

Our hotel faced a pretty beach that even in the cooler winter temps beckoned us for walks, shell-collecting, rock-climbing, and opportunities to showcase C2s photography.

J's imitation of a Cassowary in the early morning fog.

The fog lifting off Cowes beach and Westernport Bay

We finished our mini holiday with a celebration birthday dinner for my mum at a beachside restaurant on the Island. It was the cherry on top!

And Now He is Eight

2011-06-05T12:12:00.000+02:00

J was born and celebrated his first two birthdays in Canada. He celebrated the next five in Europe. This past weekend he turned eight in Australia. This is one well-travelled kid who has been nothing short of heroic in his adaptation skills, his sense of adventure, and his glass-half-full perspective on life.

The Number 8 birthday cake

As an only child, J doesn't have another with whom to share new school fears, or to kick a footy around with after school, or to share bunkbeds with. He has learned to be self-sufficient, curious, and has developed a confidence that I never had. He embraces friends as brothers and sisters, and thankfully, has been socially brilliantly successful.

The "J" club - Josh, J, and Jules

J's favorite gift was a Geelong Cats Footy jersey. The team he barracks for.

J loves his extended family, enjoys hanging out with his parents, spends a lot of time in the company of adults, and never forgets a friend. He is a cool kid who has spent loooooong hours travelling on airplanes without complaint, is learning a love of reading, and speaks French beautifully.

He is strong-willed (not surprising, as my sista reminds me "two goats don't make a sheep"), opinionated, hard-headed, argumentative, occasionally mouthy, funny as hell, and adores his Grandma and dog. I am very proud of this kid, love his heart, and am privileged to be his mother.

He LOVED the birthday party we threw him this past Friday night at a local adventure venue. All the kids he invited showed up and had a ball; there was much laughing and hollering and some very odd Haka thing that followed the 'Happy Birthday' song. I cannot believe J is eight but also cannot wait to live the next year in his company as we embark more fully on our Australian journey.

A Decorating Challenge

2011-05-30T13:05:00.003+02:00

We are four months in our Melbourne house now. We are loving our neighbourhood and enjoying the amazing local parks and colour. As experienced intercontinental travellers, we now recognize that moving presents a wonderful occasion to shed the 'stuff' from our life that hadn't yet been regifted or recycled. It's a chance to pare down to the essentials, the furniture and bits that matter, that represent a life lived thus far. It's an opportunity to recreate new living spaces that reflect our newer and matured experience and taste.

Both C2 and I are passionate about interior design. We love great textures, shapes, lines and materials. I am no Sarah Richardson (my style and decorating icon) but we have tried to infuse every room in our home with elegance and design appeal but have also kept in mind comfort and use by an active family with a sofa-loving Labrador. Most items in our house have a story. A place it was discovered, a meaning behind it, a reason it belongs. We eliminated a lot of flotsam on this last move from Geneva. However, once we had placed everything in our new house to our satisfaction, we were left with a challenge.

We had two items left to occupy our near-empty family room. A large red painting I have never liked (but C2 loved) bought in Calgary for a song to temporarily occupy a large wall in that house. Somehow it is still with us. The second item was a chair purchased impulsively many years ago which I love but is ugly and PINK. Therein was our challenge: to economically create an inviting living space around an inexpensive red painting that I hated, and an ugly pink chair that I loved.

My mum and I scoured design magazines in vain looking for inspiration but nothing suggested how to reconcile red and pink. I couldn't imagine creating a pink space - blech! After hours of debate and reflection, I decided that red would be the focal colour supported by other bright colours against a neutral background hoping to have that incipid pink recede in the process. The other focus would be squares. The red painting was based on a series of squares, and squares would be reflected throughout the space. I also decided to include things I love like mirrors, wool rugs, and books - lots and lots of books!

Squares in the mirror, squares in the magazine rack and squares in the sofa pillow - score! Do you see the square Sid Dickens tiles reflected in the mirror? An old and beloved Hudson's Bay blanket helped to anchor the red. I originally wanted to find a red throw but my wise mum advised that two much solid red would "argue" with each other - wise woman.

My library corner, where I can curl up for a read embraced on all sides by my books both classics and classic mysteries.

Here is the end result. I still want to add a couple more large orchid plants; the natural light in this space should help them thrive. Also perhaps a corner lamp and a candle lantern or two. Otherwise, I think I managed to make the pink work? What do you think?

Il faut profiter!

2011-05-23T13:38:00.000+02:00

Il faut profiter is a French expression and one of several that just works better in French than in English. A direct translation means "to take advantage", but its' nuances are much broader and romantic; more like "savor, luxuriate, revel or as one of my favorite bloggers puts it 'suck the marrow from the experience'". And that, my friends, is just what we did this past weekend!

Saturday dawned a sunny and warm Fall day. I bustled everyone, including Murphy, out the door mid-morning, and in spite of a garage door that wouldn't open, misplaced keys, and a forgotten jacket, we made it to St. Kilda beach by 11:00. There, we walked the beach looking for shells and starfish, stopping for lunch at The Beachcomber and for coffee on St. Kilda pier. While on the pier, we spotted a pair of Fairy Penguins nesting in the breakwater; a treat for my visiting mum. Murphy chased sticks and ambled happily in the surf.

After a couple of hours, my mum and I deposited ourselves and Murph on a bench with a view and a scent of the sea while C2 and J spent an hour on the rides at Luna Park.

Counting Starfish

That evening, C2 and I made ourselves beautiful and headed out on a date night. Our destination was the Cafe Provincial on Brunswick St. in the funky and fantastic Fitzroy section of Melbourne. An epic Boeuf Bourgignon later, we made our way to the Cinema Nova for a late viewing of the Canadian film "Incendies"; it was searing, brilliant, and calamitous; all in all, a terrific date night.

Sunday, again, we all piled into my car (minus Murphy this time) and drove into the Yarra Valley to the Healesville Animal Sanctuary. In spite of a steady downpour, we had a great time visiting and learning about the animals native to this land.

J and C2 had some special one-on-one time with a lovely pair of Dingos; while mum got up close and personal with a sleepy Koala named Benny. We learned of the medical crisis threatening the iconic Tasmanian Devil. Healesville acts as one of 4 "Arks" keeping pairs of the Devils to safeguard the future of the species.

One of the gorgeous pairs of Dingos. They clearly thought C2 was delish!

We witnessed a magestic flight show of native Australian predatory birds like Wedge-tailed Eagles, and Black-breasted Buzzards, as well as amazing parrots such as Sulfur-crested Cockatoos, and the endangered Major Mitchell's Cockatoo. We laughed at the indignant stare of the Emu, and the bored air of the Kangaroos. Florence the Wombat indulged in her usual thrilling deep sleep while Storm the Tasmanian Devil posed for pictures puffed with self-importance.

Bored Kangaroos

A Tasmanian Devil - looks meek and charming but ferociously hilarious

We ended the weekend with a late dinner of crepe completes, crepes with lemon and sugar, and crepes with Canadian maple syrup; a perfect ending to a perfect weekend.

Easter Happenings

2011-04-26T14:05:00.002+02:00

In the Family Hendricks, we look for reasons to mark an occasion. Really any will do. Dog's birthday, stuffed dog's birthday, Valentine's Day, 1/2 Birthdays, you imagine it, we will celebrate it. But few, with the exception of Christmas and Hallowe'en are marked with as much joy for J as Easter. Sorry foks, it ain't about the holiest day in the Christian calendar. Chez nous, we worship at the altar of the Bunny and all things pastel and Easter-like.

There have to be Bunny-shaped pancakes, cupcakes wrapped in pretty green paper, the Easter tree, the ubiquitous chocolate egg hunt, and about a hundred pre-school decorations with wilting bunny ears, oddly shaped egg cutouts, and window-mounted paper baskets shot with shiny paper through which the sun twinkles magically.

This year, our first in Australia, a chocolate Bunny shared our mantle with a chocolate Bilby, a chocolate Koala, a chocolate Wombat and a Canadian Inukshuk; a little cultural melting, I mean melding.

This year was also the first that J posed the question "is there really an Easter Bunny or do you and Daddy hide the eggs?". Well I am not yet ready to burst that bubble, so we protested madly and for the moment are still riding the Bunny trail. However, J did ask us to hide our own eggs for him which were clearly unique so that he could identify just how clever the Easter Bunny is.

It helped that while stashing chocolate in our tiny back garden, unbeknownst us us, C2 trecked possum poop into the house. On Easter morning J was convinced that the Easter Bunny had relieved himself by our back door.

For a holiday project, J planted a Thyme garden with five different types of fragrant and flowering Thyme. He will make sure they have proper water levels and sunshine in the days to come. Together with the memories I hope we have made for him, J's garden is something to last a little longer when all the chocolate has been eaten and all the decorations carefully stored away for another year.

Hanging at the Hut on Australia's Surf Coast

2011-04-22T02:20:00.005+02:00

We took our first Australian holiday over J's April school holidays. We wanted to go somewhere where Murphy could join us because (1) I wasn't prepared to be parted from her again so soon and (2) I haven't yet figured out doggie care. Though it is Fall, we rented a sweet little villa appropriately dubbed the "Beach Hut" in Apollo Bay on Australia's surf coast about a 3 hour drive southwest of Melbourne.

The drive itself was an amazing part of the journey along Victoria's storied Great Ocean Road. En route, we travelled through Torquay, considered by many as the birthplace of surfing and headquarters for such iconic surf brands as Quiksilver and Rip Curl.

Apollo Bay is a sleepy, coffee-lingering beach town. Most people in search of a beach holiday this time of year have headed north to the heat of the Gold or Sunshine coasts. We were in search of salt-air, peaceful beach walks, rainforest treks, good restaurants and great coffee. We found it all!

Beauchamp Falls in the rainforests of the Otway National Park

Rosella parrots

J discovered the joys of boogie-boarding. We had to buy him a wetsuit as the water was too cold to swim for long. Murphy discovered the joys of burying then finding her leash in the sand. A great bonus to being in Apollo Bay this time of year was dogs were permitted on the beaches; and my girl, Murphy, loves herself a beach!

The most amazing part of our journey was a morning we spent at the near-deserted, wildly spectacular, incredibly peaceful Johanna Beach further down the Great Ocean Road. We walked miles of golden sand to the roar of the pounding surf, watching in awe a clutch of hardcore surfers. We were each lost in our thoughts seduced by the siren call of the sea. Mental cobwebs were swept away making room for clean spirit.

We ended that day at the 12 Apostles, a tourist-popular destination close to the end of the Great Ocean Road. Amazing limestone rock formations created by the restless and relentless pounding of the Southern Ocean. Impressive for sure, but more touristy than we were in search of so we admired and then beat a hasty retreat back to the calm of our beachy hut, a game of charades, a glass of wine, and a satisfying meal.

Just for Laughs

2011-04-12T11:19:00.001+02:00

Spent the day in town today on day two of the April school holidays. J and I wiled away some time in a bookshop, eating cupcakes, and exploring downtown Melbourne. On the way back to catch our tram, we stopped in Federation Square to wander around the Melbourne Comedy Festival grounds and experience a really funny maze.

Then I spotted this. Kinda made real just how far Australia is from everything I used to call home.

Our Picnic at Hanging Rock

2011-04-03T13:43:00.003+02:00

Anyone familiar with Joan Lindsay's classic and eerie Australian mystery 'Picnic at Hanging Rock'? It is the novel published in 1967 detailing the never-solved Valentine's Day 1900 disappearance of a group of 4 school girls plus teacher during a school outing to the mysterious and ever-shifting six million years-old steep volcanic rock formation outside of Melbourne called Hanging Rock.

Part of the intrigue swirls around whether the story is based on fact or lore, and many theories have evolved as to what happened to the girls and why one survivor had no memory of what had occurred when she stumbled back to the larger group. It is a lasting puzzle whose mystery surrounds and imbues this stunning place.

Armed with delicious curiosity and delightful trepidation, we drove up into Mount Macedon today for an afternoon of discovery and hiking on Hanging Rock. J was on the other side of a nasty croup and Murphy was still recovering her hiking legs so a short 50-minute prescribed hike was just want we were all craving. J needed some fresh air, C2 was desperate to get out of the city and I was desperate to see some kangaroos.

We hiked about 40 minutes through Eucalyptus and Gum forests winding our way around looming rock formations. The trail is riddled with caves, tunnels and overhanging boulders, the enigmatic shapes, echoes and peeling Gum trees all lended to the spooky feel of the place. Signposts advised that Koalas, Kangaroos, Wallabies, and a wide variety of snakes all called this place home but the only wildlife I spotted was an ant the size of my thumb.

As we approached the summit, it was apparent Murphy would not be able to ascend the steep rocks to the top, so she and I held back to wait for C2 and J. Thirty minutes later and trying in vain to calm an increasingly frantic Murphy, I was giving some credence to the mysterious disapearances. The two of them finally re-emerged some time later and J returned with me to bear witness to a summit full of barely balanced boulders, caves, ravines, and steep cliffs plummeting hundreds of meters to the flats. I began to register some ideas of what might have befallen the schoolgirls more than a hundred years ago.

Thirty minutes later, we were back at the Discovery Center drinking coffee and watching the magnificent Rosella parrots chase each other through the Eucalytus trees.

No luck on the kangaroo front though.

A Moment

2011-03-31T02:40:00.002+02:00

There we were all curled up in J's newly decorated Australian bedroom. Stories were finished, songs were sung, Little Murphy was being hugged to his chest. It was those last few sweet innocent moments before sleep drooped his wee eyelids. He looked at me all drowsy and adorable:

J: "Mummy what was your favorite toy as a little kid and as a grownup"

Me: "Hmm, probably the little plastic German Shepard I took everywhere since I wanted a real one. And as a grownup, ummmm, maybe my iPod Touch"

J: "My favorite toy is Little Murphy"

Me walking out of the room: "I know" Reveling in the beauty of his childhood innocence, I am now out the door.

From his bed, I hear muttered wickedly.

J: "But my favorite toy when I'm grown up will be my credit card!"

He is his Grandmother's boy!

Welcome to Fall

2011-03-24T00:15:00.001+01:00

It's March 24 in Melbourne and it has been Fall for two weeks now. It feels odd, out-of-kilter; March should be warm breezes, snowdrops poking their heads through the ground, and the last few frantic weeks of skiing. Fall here feels an awful lot like Summer anywhere else.

I have been told that Melbourne, more than any other city in Australia experiences the closest thing to four seasons (which can sometimes happen in a single day). Most of the country is tropical or desert-like, but Melbourne, being slightly inland and on an ocean bay feels more temperate and less prone to extreme temperatures. If this is Fall, I'm curious to experience Winter. J's school only issues light jackets for warmth so I'm thinking Winter may be rather delightful to this Canadian-girl-still-recovering-six-years later-from-brutal-Calgary-winters.

We are out of boxes now and feeling more settled. Murphy is doing well, J is enjoying school, C2 isn't travelling, I've figured my way around, and mum has booked her ticket to visit so all is well with my world at the moment. If only I could figure out how to stop the bats from pooping all over my front terrace at night, things would be pretty perfect. Though confronted with the horror of the tsunami in Japan, the growing violence in Libya, and a questionable western foreign policy where our leaders never seem to take heed of historical lessons, bat poop seems pretty inconsequential.

J's first school term ends in two weeks and I need to book a Murphy-friendly family holiday. I'm thinking about a trip down the Great Ocean Road stopping in Apollo Bay for a few days and visiting some of the world's great surf beaches. Some hiking, some surf-watching, some beach exploring, and some good eating sounds pretty great to me. I'll post details and pictures.

The Well-Travelled Dog

2011-03-11T11:42:00.007+01:00

It has been five days and I have yet to find the words to describe how complete I feel now that Murphy is back with us. It hasn't been the easiest of days, however, as she came out of quarantine clearly psychologically traumatized. She was uneasy on walks, stiff and uncomfortable after short bouts of exercise, slightly aloof, and demonstrating moments of incontinence. All things completely unlike her.

Murphy and baby J Calgary 2003

A quick trip to the vet, some meds, a lot of affection and TLC later, and a few days have put right most of her anxiety, but I still watch her with concern. Why why why don't dogs live longer lives. However, the fact that she has made it this far means that I will devote much energy to ensuring her a comfortable and happy life for how ever many years she has left. Have I mentioned that I love this dog???

With her two favorite guys Calgary 2004

Unless you are a dog person and I mean REALLY a dog person, I cannot explain the joy brought from her constant companionship. Murphy follows me from room to room quietly, unobtrusively, content only in my presence. She looks at every man passed on a walk to check for C2; her disappointment palpable when proven mistaken, her delight physical if she finds him. I'm not sure that she will completely recover from her experience until C2 returns from his long trip to Western Australia.

Murphy in Stresa, Italy 2006

C2, J, and Murphy Levanto, Italy 2006

Unlike Geneva, she is allowed into the schoolyard at J's new school in Melbourne. She happily wiggles from child to child seeking pats and attention but always, always on the lookout for J. The other day, I turned away to chat with my new Pilates friend, Magella, and Murphy wandered into the after-school care program looking for him. Most embarressing...especially after she found the cookie stash.

J and Murphy Aix-en-Provence, France 2007

J and Murphy Puplinge, Switzerland 2007

Unless you are a dog person and I mean REALLY a dog person, you cannot feel the warmth and contentment from the trust and unconditional love of a dog, her unwavering gaze as you move about your business. The sound of her happy sighs after a good walk, her dinner, or a treat of grilled salmon skin. The frito smell of her feet as she rolls on her back during a good belly rub always brings a smile to my face.

Murphy Les Gets, France 2008

On the shores of Lake Geneva 2009

Murphy is a part of our family, a meaningful and real member. We plan our vacations so that she can be included. Living in Europe for the last five years meant that we drove on most holidays and we always chose places where she could join us. Experience taught me that renting Provence and Tuscany villas meant sourcing places with stairs into the pool for her. She has been to Lago Maggiore on both the Swiss and Italian sides; to Burgundy, France; the French Alps; Cinque Terre (five times); Tuscany; Provence, the French Ardeche, and throughout much of Switzerland.

Les Gets France with J 2010

Tuscany, Italy 2010

Murphy is a well-travelled dog. She was born in 1998 in Kingston, Ontario and at 8 weeks of age, we flew her to join us in Calgary. She has been travelling ever since, from the foothills of Alberta, to the Rockies in eastern British Columbia, across the Atlantic Ocean to Switzerland, and now after the longest journey of her life, to Melbourne Australia.

On St. Kilda beach, Melbourne on the first day of freedom following her release from quarantine,

March 2011

Unless you are a dog person and I mean REALLY a dog person, you will think I am waxing nonsense, but if you are, you get it.

Australia Week 4-3/4

2011-02-25T12:21:00.004+01:00

Much to report during the last 10 days or so.

Let's start with Murphy who thankfully seems to have recovered well from those hot hot days last week. She has a new neighbour, some kind of mastiff-cross whom I have named "She-who-needs-to-take-a-chill-pill".

"She-who-needs-to-take-a-chill-pill" and Murphy's neighbour on her other side "Boo-from-Revelstoke" (only people familiar with the Royal Canadian Air Farce and Mike-from-Canmore will get this reference), spent the day barking madly at one another across her kennel; each one setting the other off time and again. Poor geriatric Murphy looked at me with a martyred expression as if to say "those younguns have been doing that for days now, can you please make them stop!" She's ready to come home and I am more than ready to welcome her.

Eight more days...

Next, we happily received our sea shipment which finally cleared inspection and quarantine. I remember clearly C2 commenting as we were preparing to leave Geneva:

"We have next to nothing to ship...what do we have? A couple of beds, a dining room set and some living room furniture". I laughed at his righteous certainty.

Remember that six years ago, we left a 3000 square foot house in Calgary for a 2000 square foot house in Geneva and have now taken occupancy of a roughly 1500 square foot house in Melbourne. You do the math. Day 3 post-shipment and our house still look like a hurricane hit it. Hope to make more progress this weekend before C2 leaves for a 3 week sojourn to Western Australia.

One interesting tidbit to setting up the new house...now don't get grossed out people. In Geneva, we never had our lovely carpets professionally cleaned as the average cost was in excess of 300 CHF per item. My succession of crappy vacuums also left much to be desired. So imagine 5 years of dogs and cats, less than stellar though frequent vacuuuming, and 8 weeks stored in an airtight container. Suffice it to say that the perfume of wet dog and musty dust isn't entirely masked by mandarine-cranberry candles.

On the J front, things are much improved. Nascent friendships are budding and the school appears to have taken my complaints seriously and have addressed the bullying issue thus far to my satisfaction. I am increasingly impressed with the school; with their celebration of multiculturalism and multilinguism as well as their progressive pedagogy.

With respect to our social life, last Sunday, we drove to Portsea, a tiny seaside town sandwiched between the calm and passive "front" bay beaches of Port Philip Bay, and the wild rip-filled 25 foot wave crashing "back" or open sea beaches. We spent the day with Kellie and her family. Jack and I ran up giant sand dunes at the back beach and got knocked off our feet by a powerful incoming wave while standing watching them. Much fun was had. I think I have found a kindred champagne drinker to boot!

This evening, we had drinks with our charming neighbours, Michael and Ann, native Melbournites who welcomed us into their home for a lovely couple of hours of gin and tonics, and conversation.

All in all, a pretty good report I'd say. Stay tuned...

End of Week 3

2011-02-18T12:29:00.001+01:00

It's Friday night and we've just finished dinner. A roast chicken bought from the free-range organic chicken vendor on our high street and roquette salad. Outside at dusk, to the scent of mandarin-cranberry candles on the dinner table, we chased possums through the trees with flashlights, then threw our heads back to witness a lengthy flight of fruit bats or flying foxes soaring overhead. Flying foxes are an impressive species. According to Wikipedia, "On average, P. vampyrus is the largest species, with a wingspan of up to 6 feet (1.83 meters) but a weight of only 1.5 kg (3.3 lb.).

J had a rough week at school, his second full week morphed from his first week marred by bullying from the same boy he had initially befriended during his first few days of friend seeking. To his credit, he recognized and acknowledged our initial trepidation of that child and sought out the boy's mother to complain of his treatment. It didn't stop the bullying and by the middle of this week, I had to formally complain to his teachers. Not a great way to start a new school and there were many tearful days this week.

However, today, seemed a turning point. Today, he marched into school without tears triumphantly grasping his first birthday party invitation; always a measure of a child's acceptance amongst his peers. I exchanged dinner invitations with the first family who extended immediate kindness to us in the school yard, a French-Australian couple by the name of Marco and Marie-Pierre whose 6-year old daughter Amely is in the same CEP/CE1 class as J.

It was another very hot day today, hitting 35c in the parking lot of the quarantine kennel. Murphy was not dealing well with the heat. I found her subdued and a little gurgly today. That is concerning since the facility is dealing with an outbreak of kennel cough. I took her to a grooming room for a good brushing and she was clearly desperate for a walk. Poor girl, she is confined to her kennel and away from the exercise yards due to the kennel cough issue. I left her this afternoon unusually passive and not her usual self. Not a great way to spend 4 days apart, sigh. Still, one of the principal attendants, checked on her twice today owing to my concern and promised to check on her regularly over the weekend. Hopefully, it is just a heat thing, and a forecasted cooler weekend should help. At 12 years old and confined to a kennel, I fret over her physical and mental health. Thunderstorms are also predicted which she hates, and I abhor the idea of her enduring them alone.

16 days and counting...

Grateful

2011-02-08T12:03:00.005+01:00

Today was a day where I thanked my lucky stars, celebrated every bit of good karma, wished hard on a wish bone, and felt gratitude way deep into my soul.

Last Friday morning, J had a rough start at school being transferred three times into different classes. He was stoic but tearful. I fretted all day that his initial nervous excitement would be dampened but he emerged at 3:30 smiling and happy. He has shown nothing but gumption, positive energy, and optimism through all of the last several weeks. He finds beauty in everything he sees, is eager, brave, funny, profound, insightful, and I have learned much from him this week.

I worried all that day about Murphy's long journey through the day, night, and international date line. From Geneva to Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur and finally to Melbourne. Surely, some critical document would go missing, a file misplaced, a flight delayed or missed. But thankfully that night both C2, from Perth, and my Murphy flew into Melbourne on the tail of the immense Cyclone Yasi; they landed late but safely. At last, we were all in the same city again, though separated by quarantine for 30 days. I feel like I exhaled for the first time in months.

Quarantine has very strict visitation rules and today was the earliest I was allowed to visit. I mustered all my backbone (no left-side driving was going to get in my way today!), and drove to the far side of Port Philip Bay to the rather dodgy area of Spotswood. I was there at 10:20 for the 11:00 opening. They took pity on me and let me visit my girl right away (sshh don't tell anyone, or that I convinced them to let me spend extra hours with her during the week). She was so happy to see me, she didn't stop crying and whining for several minutes. Then she happily let me throw her kong for her to chase before taking me into a little protected area to show me her bed. The whole experience was somewhat reminiscent of a Prison Break episode, but truth be told, Murphy appears much better than I expected. I am dancing from one foot to the next in anticipation of her emancipation so that we can celebrate with a long walk on the beach.

Finally today I was grateful that I drove from Spotswood to downtown, without so much as blinking (though not so grateful for the $20/hour parking charge), to meet a friend of Sher's (from my Geneva Writers Group) for lunch at the Oriental Cafe. She was funny and effusive and welcoming. A lot like our initial impressions of Melbourne.

The Australian Welcoming Committee and Part of My Heart Gets on a Plane Today

2011-02-01T08:25:00.000+01:00

We are well into our second full week down under and things continue to move slooowly but surely ahead. C2 has been been travelling for about a week now but J and I have been managing. We took the tram from our high street up to Glenferrie Road about a kilometre away to wander it's busy high street. Another day, we took the tram all the way downtown and spent a couple of hours at the magnificent Melbourne Aquarium and then wandered a bit around downtown before stopping for coffee in one of Melbourne's famous laneways, Degreves St., for a coffee and lemon tart. Don't call a tart a pie or you'll get something of the savoury variety. Pie is savoury, tart is sweet.

We've also visited the beach a couple of times, and today spent the day with Kellie, the sister of Sheila's great friend Gina, at the Prahan market, a wonderful fruit and veg destination and a Melbourne landmark. Then she made me drive around our end of town, practicing right turns and pointing out furniture and appliance stores.

It has been HOT!!! to put an emphasis on it. Hovering around 40+ degrees for the last several days. We've largely been immune to it at the beach or in the car, or at the mall (getting hair cuts and school shoes) but upon returning to Kel's today, my car thermostat was stuck solidly at 40c. J insisted on going to the park in front of her house, I limped over beside his quivering little body and posited myself on a bench while J played like it was no big deal. At precisely 2:34pm, however, I perked up to feel a cool breeze pass over me, and a very very brisk wind. And just like that, the temperature plummeted to a civilized 26c. Melbourne is apparently like that.

I had been warned about the spiders and snakes in Australia. We know to be particularly watchful for the redback spider, and in general to give all of them a wide berth. Poor J exited his bath this morning, reached for his towel, dropped it and hollered for me. This is the fellow we trapped and carefully tossed from our balcony watching him gracefully spin his web down to the ground. To provide some idea of size, Spidezilla was the full size of my hand. J made sure he was dressed properly for Spidezilla's forced removal from the bathroom.

All good thoughts, wishes, prayers or whatever positive energy you can muster would be appreciated over the course of the next 48 hours. Murphy gets on a plane today from Geneva bound for Melbourne via Amsterdam and Kuala Lumpur. I am resigned to live with what will be but a big part of my heart is getting on that plane today. Watch this space.

Our First Week Down Under

2011-01-24T11:30:00.001+01:00

In general, our first week as been pretty good, fantastic 28+ sunny days, cool mornings and evenings. Our long plane journey from Victoria to Vancouver to Los Angeles to the 14-hour non-stop to Melbourne was completely fine. We all slept adequately enough to hit the ground running. Rented a car with C2 behind the wheel accompanied by my constant refrain of 'keep left keep left'. We found the estate agent, got our house keys and headed Home.

The reality of our new Home, thankfully, is better than our scant memories. Lovely old house with soaring ceilings, architectural moldings and arches, and large-scale rooms which are perfect since this is a fairly small house. The neighbourhood seems great, our street is quiet and populated by gorgeous old homes with one end adjacent to the Hedgley Dean gardens. These gardens are like walking through a tropical botanical park. The other end of our street is Burke Road, our high street, and also a major throughway, but across it is Central Park. This amazing place has a running oval, off-leash dog park, play park, gardens, fountain, conservatory, and all of next week is hosting 'Jazz in the Gardens'.

Most of our first week has been caught up in the 'hurry up and wait' phase (to quote my good friend Melissa). Hours spent at Telstra trying to ride the red tape and 100 points of identification necessary to open accounts for phone lines, internet, mobiles, cable. Opening our bank account was easy by comparison.

C2 has been doing most of the driving as we get used to driving in the right-hand side of the car on the left-hand side of the road. Yesterday, however, I figured I should get at it since it was a 'quiet' Sunday. Apparently 'quiet' Sundays only exist in Switzerland, Sunday in Australia is more like a day at Nascar. It wasn't completely pretty and there was a lot of tense intakes of breath from C2 but it was a first step. Biggest problem for me is how large the left hand side of the car seems when the wheel is on the right.

We've discovered during our exploring of this part of Melbourne that we live about a 13-minute drive to the main strip of beaches on Philip Bay. Yesterday, we spent from 3:00-5:00 at the beach much to J's delight, and in spite of 30+ sunscreen and hats still managed to burn the bits that were not fully blocked. Guess the sun really is incredibly strong down under.

C2 went to the office for the first time today, turns out it is about a 30-minute commute. Long by our historical standards but overall not too bad. I spent the morning making lists and priorities. Glancing at it now, I haven't checked much off of it yet. J needs to go back to school, he is getting cagey and stir-crazy. He has been a great sport through everything but hasn't played with another kid his own age in almost 6 weeks. I think I am starting to bore him, and a bit of lego-building frustration almost sent him over the edge.

POSTSCRIPT
Today is Day 6 for us Down Under, and in the spirit of all things Australian, on the menu for dinner tonight chez les Hendricks: Kanga Bangas...yep you read it right and they weren't half bad!

Next Chapter

2011-01-14T22:35:00.002+01:00

It's Friday morning, C2 returns tonight from his trip to the U.S. The weather looks ok so not anticipating our usual weather delays. We have the weekend in Victoria with Phil, Marge, and my mum; and then C2, J, and I embark on our next chapter.

There is much to do in the coming days, we depart for Melbourne January 17, arrive on January 19, must collect keys from the house agent and open our new house. Feels a little odd since we only actually visited this house for about 10 minutes and largely forget what it looks like. Is there a downstairs bathroom? Is there an upstairs shower? How big was the garage? We've got to get bank accounts opened, money transferred, two cars and GPSs purchased, and figure out how to get around on the dang wrong side of the road.

This is the only part of relocating that I am not particularly fond of. The figuring out of new services, finding the nearest grocery store, feeling like the only one in the city perpetually lost, and perhaps most profoundly, feeling like a visitor waiting to go home. I remember from our relocation to Geneva that most of this uncertainty passes in a couple of months as familiarity settles in. Just kinda wish I could fast forward to that part.

I am also trying to be very zen about Murphy's pending journey. She is scheduled to ship in early February out of Geneva to Zurich then to Amsterdam where she will overnight before transferring to Malaysian Airways to Kuala Lumpur, changing planes, and carrying on to Melbourne. She will be met by the Australian Quarantine Inspection Service upon arrival and driven to the quarantine facility for a 30-day stay. She is a healthy 12-year old Labrador but still a 12-year old dog.

I expect a minor miracle if she survives the journey with her health and complex documentation intact. I would expect a second minor miracle if she survives the quarantine. I fret about her distress and feeling of abandonment. This is a dog used to sleeping in our bed and receiving much love and attention. My heart gets stuck in my throat every time I think too much about her. I am trying very hard to acknowledge that between myself, Nathalie (who has her in Geneva right now), our wonderful Genevois vet, and our Melbourne-based pet relocation agent, we have dotted every "I", crossed every "T" and done everything in our power to ensure her a safe experience. She will soon be in other, and I hope, equally compassionate hands.

A New Year and A New Start

2011-01-04T05:58:00.001+01:00

Well, didn't mean to leave you all hanging since my last post. We did, in the end, make it to Victoria after a three-day delay and via Amsterdam instead of London. For the last two weeks, we have been heavily immersed in family time, Christmas time, New Year's Eve time, and intense down time and it has been wonderful and rejuvenating, and refueling, and happy.

C2 leaves for the U.S. tomorrow on a somewhat unexpected 10-day sojourn to the mothership. Not the greatest of timing as we were hoping to leave for Australia in a couple of days but, in the spirit of silver linings, it's all good to hang with the family for an additional couple of weeks.

There has been much letting down of hair, letting loose of anxieties, and letting go of old attachments. I find that I have hid myself in the embrace of my family's love, breathing in their support, and temporarily removing myself from the minutia of detail that has been our existence for the last three months. It is Monday night, newly into 2011, and time to re-engage the detail, remind myself whom I have left behind and of what is yet in front of me.

I have been dreaming about missed buses, missed trains, missed cabs and missed flights, all of which I guess relates to my anxieties over the very protracted and emotional exit of our old life and the start of our new one. Still, Victoria has been a profoundly satisfying limbo, where I can mourn the old, celebrate the now, and anticipate the new.

Another Christmas Another Cancellation

2010-12-19T12:21:00.002+01:00

Global warming, global shwarming bah! It has been an INSANELY emotional week of tear-filled goodbyes, farewells, stay-in-touches, and we'll miss yous. Leaving Murphy with Marc and Nat was wrenching and I feel like I left a part of myself behind.

I have been frantically watching weather forecasts all week with one eye on anticipated heavy snow all over Europe. We have been down this road before with cancelled Christmas plans thanks to snow and I was not eager to repeat the experience particularly since this will be a unique holiday as we head directly to Australia in early January to begin the next chaper of our lives.

Sure enough on Friday, Geneva airport closed for snow, Saturday, Heathrow airport closed for snow and British Airways subsequently cancelled our Sunday flights to Vancouver. After spending hours on hold with agents to rebook our flights along with thousands of others, we are going nowhere until Tuesday morning on KLM through Amsterdam and even then must overnight in Calgary. Maybe that will be a slight silver lining since we can spend the night with our great friends Jeff and Jen.

Oh but with more snow in the forecast, C2 is ready to bail and head straight to Bali.

Everyone's a Critic

2010-12-10T11:03:00.001+01:00

It was the end of a busy Thursday. C2 and I had spent the day at our house helping the movers identify, inventory and pack all our wordly possessions, manage our freaked-out dog, and move 9 suitcases plus groceries to our temporary Geneva apartment. J had a full-day of school, Judo including a test to move up on his belt, and a 7:00pm public piano recital.

At 8:30, we hauled our tired selves to Da Paolo's for a meal. J was so tired, he almost fell asleep in his plate. Driving the short distance home after eating, the following conversation took place as we passed a 'happening' Geneva nightclub.

J: "Mummy" what is the V-e-l-v-e-t N-i-g-h-t C-l-u-b

Me: "A nightclub is where people in their 20s and sometimes older go to have a few drinks, meet new people, have a good time, dance a lot and then hopefully make a new girlfriend or boyfriend".

Pause...

J: "Mummy, you must have been a better dancer back then."

For the record, I dance like nobody is watching. Guess it was a good thing my first date with C2 was for coffee.

An Epic Goodbye

2010-11-22T21:45:00.004+01:00

I am not good at goodbye's. I studiously avoid them. I run out the door or drop at the airport with an over-the-shoulder quick "call you soon, e-mail me!" My feelings run deep for the people that matter to me and to let my welling feelings show as I take leave of someone I love risks some epic emotion so instead I do my best to suppress those feelings until alone. My friends and family know this about me...the more quiet or removed I get, the more they know something is amiss.

This past weekend, my oldest friend in the world, Sheila, and I met in Paris for a 48-hour meeting of our minds and hearts in an effort to minimize that inevitable goodbye. We have been so blessed in the last five years to have seen each other as often as we have and for our children to have bonded. For the previous 18 years, we had lived oceans apart, so these last few years have felt like we were 14 all over again. With our move to Australia, however, the oceans will separate us once more.

I took a morning TGV from Geneva and Sheila a morning Eurostar from London, and we met at a small hotel in the Latin Quarter on the left bank. We spent the rest of that day wandering St. Germain and stopping on boulevard Mouffetard for a coupe de Champagne before discovering a charming little resto behind St-Germain-des-Prés, the oldest church in Paris for dinner.

After dinner, Sheila indulged my desire to sit at the nearby Café de Flore which like its' neighbour the Café des Deux Magots, was the favorite haunt of intellectuals and ecrivains like Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and Ernest Hemingway immediately after World War II. Being intoxicated on friendship, laughter, and the kinds of conversations that only people who have know each other for 30 years can have, we barely blinked at the 32euro charge for two coffees and two glasses of warm grog (warmed rum sweetened with sugar and lemon).

The next day, we explored the alleys and charming squares of the Le Marais district pausing for steaming cups of café au lait whenever we felt like it; perched on straw chairs at round tables at typical Parisian cafés watching the impeccable Parisian world wander by. We later followed some locals into a small Brasserie for a wonderful late lunch of an omelette and a glass of chilled Pouilly-Fume.

After our meal, we strolled through the grounds of the Louvre to the Musee d'Orsay, home of the bulk of impressionist art in Paris. I had been before but had wanted to revisit many of the Monets after just completing the beautiful novel Claude and Camille. Unfortunately, most were on loan to the Grand Palais for a special Monet exhibit, and I had been unable to secure tickets.

We ventured out late in the evening for a wander around the circuitous alleys of busy and boisterous St. Germain, stopping for a glass of wine before finally settling on a charming Brasserie for dinner where I indulged in a perfect entrecôte à point, and we shared a bottle of Nouveau Beaujolais whose season is currently being celebrated in Paris.

Sunday dawned grey and wet, so we opened our umbrellas and wandered to the Pantheon, final resting place of great and honoured French, such as Pierre and Marie Curie, Louis Braille, Victor Hugo, Emile Zola, Voltaire, and Rousseau. We made our way into the Luxembourg gardens, and around it's great palace before again stopping for hot fragrant coffee and croissants to warm our chilled bodies.

All too soon, came the time I had been dreading. On Friday afternoon, I had tried to cling to the anticipation of two delicious days ahead to swap enough stories, share enough soul, and store enough memories to last until our families meet again. You know what, it wasn't enough, it never would be, but I'll take what I got and feel blessed for it.

Long Time No Talk but Much to Tell

2010-11-15T20:50:00.006+01:00

I really need to get back to blogging more regularly. I am out of practice, rusty, pre-occupied and other-wise distracted. Why you ask? Well, for those of you not part of my Facebook world, Swiss Family Hendricks is moving...and for added drama...to Australia.

Ok, first things first. What in the heck am I going to rename my blog??? I need help and suggestions. Hendricks Down Under?, Kangaroo Hendricks?, bah too pithy, I need something a little more clever. So throw your ideas my way.

I must confess when the word first came down, I didn't deal so well. The two reasons I had been opposed started with my aging beloved dog Murphy and ended with my aging beloved mum in Alberta, a long way from Melbourne. However, with the benefit of some perspective, and a house-finding, school-finding trip in October to Melbourne, I am reminded that with the beauty of rapid air travel, the world is indeed a shrinking place. Also, did you know that there are International Pet Relocation Companies? And for the price of a second-hand car, they will do their darndest to get Murphy successfully to Australia and through 30 days of quarantine.

So not to bore you with the minutia of details invested in a move of this magnitude, let me summarize our current state. We have rented a house in Malvern East, a leafy south-east Melbourne suburb, and a few minutes drive to J's new school, l'Ecole Francaise de Melbourne. That was a VERY big deal, J sat on the EFM's wait list for a couple of months, but a bagful of Swiss chocolate and many many pleading phone calls, and personal visits later, he's in! Poor C2, however, faces a brutal and long commute to north Melbourne. He hasn't commuted more than 15 minutes in his entire life. Still, in general, this part is all good.

The icky part, however, is the exit from our house in Geneva, with all the fun that is wrapped up in a system that gives all rights to the owner and virtually none to the renter. Suffice it to say, it will cost us the price of another second-hand car to vacate this property in a state that will satisfy our impossible owners. Then there is the selling of two cars, outdoor play equipment, excess furniture, electronics. C2 straddling two stressful jobs and travelling during 2.5 weeks of our remaining 4 weeks here.

The even ickier part, of course, are the good-byes. Ick Ick double Ick! I have already bid farewell to dear friends who have moved on with their own lives (Melissa, Jawahara, Elin, Lavi) but still had the comfort of remaining meaningful friends. Leaving my remarkable writers group, Katie, Sher, Tima, Sharon, Paula, and Moyette (Jawahara relocated to Boston last week); my book group, Kathy, Kathy, Helen, Barbara, Barbara, and Lula; my fantabulous neighbours, Ioli, Marlys, and Amelia; my dog walking posse; and my only remaining fellow expat soulmates, Nat and Cindy will be wrenching. The ripping out of tender roots hurts. Extremely difficult will be the renewed physical separation between Sheila and I and our very-attached children; so used are we to the quick journey between Geneva and London.

I am torn between the wanderlust inside of me, and the desire for a moment of permanence. Still as long as I have my immediate family beside me, my Canadian family supporting me, and my far-flung network of friends and fellow wanderers to talk to, I hope all will be good in my world.

Adieu Angus

2010-10-12T20:17:00.002+02:00

Sad day for Swiss Family Hendricks. This animal-loving, animal-centric, animal-focused family lost one of our clan today. My lovely 15-year old cat Angus.

Angus was picked up off of the rough streets of Montreal's south shore in 1995. C2 actually chose him at the SPCA, intrigued because this small grey and orange kitten insisted on boxing with him through the wires of his cage as if saying "pick me, pick me!". Once home, that small grey and orange kitten stretched out his legs, had a bath and presented himself as a snow white and orange full-grown cat. He's kept us laughing and loving ever since. He loved to walk on the balcony flower boxes of our 2nd floor apartment in Snowdon systematically chewing the tops off of my Pansies.

In 1998, he and his cat, Cobie (he's never been our cat, always Angus's) made the move to Calgary with us where I worried about our busy street and they lived their lives largely as reluctant indoor cats, perched in the kitchen window, secretly pushing out the screen and seeking escape at all opportunities. It was in Calgary, that Angus met Murphy, our yellow Labrador. Murphy has always viewed Angus as her surrogate mother and higher on the Swiss Family Hendricks food chain. He also welcomed J, whom he viewed with considerable more suspicion.

In late 2005, Angus, Cobie, and Murphy made the move with us to Geneva. I spent an anxious, sleepless night, awaiting their arrival. The only comment made by customs upon receiving the 3 animals was"'Quel beau chat, ce Angus!". In Geneva, Angus lived the best years of his life. The doors to our garden were open 9 months of the year. He loved to chase butterflies, stretch out under our enormous Rosemary bush or behind a terracotta flower pot and watch the world go by on the other side of the fence. He adored prowling around late into the evening, blatantly ignoring my whistles and calls until it suited him and then slept every night curled up on some part of me purring like a runaway motor.

I am relieved that at his age, he does not have to be subjected to another move, that he was able to finish his life in the place where he was happiest. As painful as today was watching him die in my arms, it was both peaceful, and beautiful. My voice was the last he heard and my face the last he saw. It was a gift to both of us.

Thanksgiving Reflection

2010-09-27T13:58:00.001+02:00

I have been silent of late. Much going on but complicated to summarize at the moment. Instead in the spirit of Canadian Thanksgiving in two weeks, I am reflecting...

1. Melancholy at finally acknowledging that beloved family pets are in their sunset years.

2. Being ok with the realization that some friends enter your life for a reason and a season.

3. Savoring every precious minute from an evening with Jawahara and Bijoy spent on a coupe de champagne at the Cafe de la Poste in our Swiss village and then walking across the street to the Cheval Blanc for the best Italian meal this side of Rome.

4. Loving the soul mates in my writers' group despite my lack of meaningful writing.

5. Amazement at my rock solid family in Canada who rise to every challenge and are with me every step of the way.

6. Gratitude for my really really good man.

7. Crisp Fall mornings where sunflowers still bloom madly in sun-drenched pockets of the garden.

8. Mix of melancholy, delight and horror that my 7-year old almost reaches my shoulder, is still afraid to watch Indiana Jones and has discovered the f*** word.

9. The pleasures of a good book: 'Suite Francaise' by Irene Nemirovsky, a horrifying book: 'Raven: The Untold Story of the Rev. Jim Jones and His People' by Tim Reiterman, and a beautifully written but otherwise average book: 'Tinkers' by Paul Harding but who am I to pass judgment on the Pulitzer committee.

10. The dog walking posse in my lovely Swiss village. We are all bonded by our canine attachments and we all get it. No judgment.

11. Running and its' emboldening freedom.

12. Wishing I could be a part of the Rally to Restore Sanity in D.C. on October 30.

13. Flabbergasted at the rise of the Tea Party and wishing that those who are indignant at the thought of government standing between them and their doctor would realize that their insurance company or HMO already stands between them - if they're lucky enough to have one of course.

14. Missing Canada but still embracing all the possibilities.

My Levanto, Redux V

2010-08-02T10:46:00.001+02:00

I am sitting at my MacBook beside my open dining room door watching a mid-summer Geneva rain gently water my thirsty coral geraniums. A lovely breeze cools my cheeks. I am pondering how to justify with words the beauty, peace and attachment that our fifth (yes fifth!) visit to Levanto brought us last week.

My Levanto, for that is how I feel now. I intimately know its' glowing colours, the smiles that greet my ernest attempts at Italian conversation, the smells of garlic and rising dough mixed with salt air, the tastes of prosecco and pesto, the crunch of the sand that inhabits every part of our apartment and which I sweep out of my bed before falling pleasantly exhausted into it every night.

Lucky us spent our beach holiday this year again with our wonderful friends Marc, Nat and their Labrador Ben. Joining us this year were her beyond-charming parents whom we all referred to as Mamie and Papie. J was particularly charmed by them (attached as he is to grandparents). Their attachment was cemented when they insisted on keeping him for an evening all to themselves. While Marc, Nat, C2 and I had an evening of Morettis and Margaritas, they had an evening of brioche con gelato for dinner followed by a dessert of gelato. Seriously what kid wouldn't be in love?

You reveal a lot when you holiday with friends. Either you get each other or you don't. This week was not the easiest parenting week. I continue to find age seven a wondrous journey down a bumpy road. Marc and Nat don't judge, they just get on with it and love us in spite of our efforts or because of our failings. Friends doesn't come close to covering it, Marc and Nat are the family we got to pick.

Did an amazing 3 hour hike from Levanto to Cinque Terre village #1, Monterrosso al Mare. Absolutely stunning gnarly, hot coastal walk - unforgettable! Particularly the self-made entrepreneur about an hour and a half into our hike who beckoned with "mineral water and organic lemons". Translation: reused plastic cups filled with tap water and a half a lemon for 2 euros a cup. We paid for the privilege of repeating this story in perpetuity.

J discovered cliff jumping this year....be still my heart. He watched with fascination teenagers climbing the large pile of hardened lava on our beach and launching themselves into space. He immediately determined this was the thing for him. No beach football or volleyball for my boy, nope it's extreme sports all the way. Everyday, he ventured a little higher. C2 kept watching that he could clear the rocks below while I covered my eyes.

Under the (Scorching) Tuscan Sun

2010-07-21T22:31:00.007+02:00

It has been long on my list of places to experience. Just the imagery conjured up by the name...TUSCANY... In my mind's eye, I envisioned sweeping vistas of rolling Tuscan hills dotted with Cypress trees, vineyards, and olive groves. I imagined classic Etruscan architecture, the simple grandeur of organic structures born of naturally hewn stone, terra cotta, travertine glowing an ochre coloured light.

We rented a villa with Canadian friends outside of the village of Anghiari about a half-hour from Arezzo bordering Tuscany and Umbria. It was at the very top of one of my imagined Tuscan hills. About 10 minutes, straight up a dusty, winding, hot trail ending at our villa with the dreamed-of spectacular view south over Umbria.

I had also imagined that it would be hot and boy was that an understatement. The temperature hovered between 37 and 40 degrees celsius everyday, phew. Thank goodness for the beautiful pool at our villa. We couldn't keep Murphy out of it, she was the first in everyday and swam laps around us for hours.

It was too steamy to daytrip much or venture too far afield. Instead we lounged poolside reading, swimming with the kids, wandering the surrounding olive and fig groves looking for Scorpions and Lizards. Late in the afternoon, we would sit under the Wisteria and Jasmine pergola drinking ice cold white wine, eating pears and parmesan, and melon and prosciutto.

C2 and I left J happily with our friends and their son Tomas one day and took a train north to Florence. We had an adult-only culture date and we revelled in the beauty of this lovely renaissance city. We wandered over the Ponte Vecchio to the Pitti Palace, marvelled at the wonder of the Duomo, and stared in amazement at the open air sculptures of the Palazzo Vecchio.

We discovered a little out of the way restaurant near the Uffizi Museum populated by locals and had a wonderful lunch of braesola, fresh crisp salad, strachietelli mozzarella (the result of the first skimming of the cheese and unlike anything we had ever tasted before), and a gorgeous glass of Chianti. We drooped with the heat by the time we returned anxious to plunge into our delicious pool.

Most evenings, we lingered either on the sun-drenched kitchen terrace or under the cooler pergola eating pizza made in our own pizza oven, or taking pleasure in C2's or Jon's wonderful cooking. Long evenings spent in the laughter of our children, listening to the Cigales (Cicadas) song, drinking Super Tuscans or rich Chiantis, and talking and talking.

We explored the medieval village of Anghiari thoroughly, letting the kids lead us through the old castle walls, seeking out secret passages where they could find them, and rewarding them with granita or gelato. We wondered at the lives of the people living behind the colourful shutters or in the tiny houses up the winding stairs. Our imaginations and curiousity were on full alert.

We also wandered the Tuscan jewel that is Arezzo sitting high on a hill rising up from the Arno River valley. Arezzo was empty of tourists perhaps kept away by the killer heat or by the killer economic climate. A shame, since it's medieval core was an unexpected delight and its' cathedral or duomo, the most stunning I have seen outside of St. Peter's in Rome.

Our children had a wondrous adventure, our empty tanks got filled, our curiosity satiated, and our palates more than pleased. We reluctantly bid arrivederci to Tuscany and returned home for a few days. Happily, we head back to our beloved Italia shortly when we make our annual pilgramage to the beach town of Levanto.

Dog Day Afternoon

2010-07-18T22:26:00.001+02:00

When does the subtle childhood shift happen, at what uncertain point in time does the magic emit a little less light. On what inevitable future day does real life trump imagination? I don't know but I long to hold on to the innocence and delight of participating in an evening birthday party for one of J's favorite tou-tou's (stuffed animals), Schnitzel, the Saint-Bernard.

Schnitzel apparently just turned seven, even though he only arrived four years ago. An interesting coincidence that J is also seven. I noticed in this picture that J's beloved Little Murphy seems eager for cake. Real Murphy's also looks like she might be tempted too. We sang 'Happy Birthday' in English, French, and Italian. J helped Schniz blow out the candles.

It was a tou-tou free-for-all for lemon cake with lemon glaze. No chocolate chips, J instructed during the baking process, since chocolate is not good for dogs. Dogs tussled with cats while koalas, pandas, panthers and giraffes jockeyed for position.

What's a birthday party without gifts?? Lucky Schnitzel received among other things, a roll of toilet paper, 4 dog cookies, an empty Lego container, a travel toothbrush (J informs me that he has dog breath), a sponge J used to clean my bathtub after he took a bath with my mascara a few days ago, and a small Panda bear.

Heading to Tuscany

2010-07-08T21:43:00.001+02:00

To a villa outside of Arezzo "looking south over Umbria" with my man, my babe, my dog and meeting up with friends from Canada. Hope it's as great as it sounds.

Let's get serious...I don't really look like this a bikini, but I can dream... Look for the details in a week or so.

Promotion in Puplinge 2010

2010-07-05T15:45:00.002+02:00

It's hard to believe but this is the 5th time that we've experienced Promotion in our village of Puplinge. From 2 years of pre-school through 1ere and 2ieme Enfantine and now 1ere Primaire (1st grade), scary! I think that with the exception of Christmas morning, Promotion is J's most anticipated day of the year.

Adam and J, best mates, on their way to the parade rendez-vous

Promotion is a really unique event, and something yet undiscovered in North America. The entire village, where almost everyone knows everyone, celebrates the end of another school year, the efforts of our children and their parents. We let loose with a heck of a party complete with carnival, dinner, free-flowing wine (from the local Chateau, of course), and a live band with dancing.

The village sapeurs-pompiers lead the way

The kids are incredibly proud to participate in the parade, and take it all very seriously. The parade, though, is just a precursor to the 2 hours of free carnival rides upon arrival back at the main celebration site.

J follows his 1ere primaire class in the parade through the village streets

Jawahara, Bijoy and I "enjoying" an apero of green barbapapa

Now that J is seven, he disappears with his mates within the Promotion grounds until around midnight. He checks in every once in a while when he's hungry or needs money for rides and games. Could you imagine that happening in North America...I think not!

J on the monster bouncy slide

All of this freedom allows us parents to chill out, visit, drink some wine, and discuss summer plans. While we are friendly with many of the Swiss families in our village, we tended to visit mostly with the expat community in our village made up of Canadians, Americans, South Africans, and Scandinavians. I guess, it's always slightly easier to make merry in your own language.

Dinner under the tent

It was a very hot afternoon and evening with temperatures topping 30c, but the kids didn't seem to mind. They sprinted between bumper cars, the bouncy slide, the mini roller coaster, the games stands, and the dance floor.

Adam and J mesmerized in their quest for plastic toys at the carnival

By midnight, a little too much fun was being had on the dancefloor by me and Cindy

My Heart Went a Walking

2010-06-08T19:34:00.015+02:00

Someone once described having a child, as your heart walking around outside your body. That's about right on the money.

Among his many many admirable traits, J is not a crier. He typically cries only if he has genuinely hurt himself or at the return to Canada of his much-loved Grandma after 3 months with us. If he is very very angry, he will sometimes spout tears of rage, but really that's about it.

If you recall my prior post, there is something of a love triangle happening between the three best friends of J, Adam, and Alyssa. If one gets invited to another's for lunch, the third ends up feeling isolated and left out. If two play a game in the classroom or at récréation (recess) without including the third....well you get the idea. All very cute in a 90210-for-the-seven-year-old-set.

Today, J had Alyssa over for lunch and they played together beautifully, bouncing on the trampoline, comparing who could burp or arm fart loudest, typical stuff. Adam came over about a half-hour before we needed to return to school since his mom had an appointment downtown. I was a little worried about the dynamic of the 3 of them but again they all played beautifully. "Phew, I worried for nothing", I thought, as I rounded them up at 1:20 to return to school.

When J came through the front door in to brush his teeth, I caught the tail end of his comment to Alyssa "non, c'est toi que je déteste, tu n'est pas gentile et vous deux ne joue jamais avec moi a récré!!!" (Translation: it's you I hate, you are not nice and the two of you never play with me at recess anymore). He then stomped off to find his shoes. Alyssa and Adam attempted to explain their side of the story to my general amusement at all this drama. I listened then went off to locate J whom I found sitting on the back kitchen door stoop sobbing for all he was worth. All amusement instantly disappeared.

So often parenthood is rough road to navigate and seven-year olds don't respond to rational explanations of small jealousies and unintentional slights. Childhood drama it may be but my heart still broke today watching my child's break for the first time.

PS By the end of school today, the 3 of them were best friends again.

Voices From The Back

2010-06-04T10:39:00.012+02:00

Scene: In my car on the way to judo yesterday. Sitting in the back seat are J and his best mate, and fellow Canadian, Adam...

J: "You know Adam, today at lunch Alyssa told me 'je tu promis, c'est toi qui est mon amoureux'(translation: "I promise, it's you that I love")

Adam: "Well she told me this week 'c'est un secret, mais c'est toi qui est mon amoureux', so I don't think that you're supposed to know"

J: "I'm telling you I'm her AMOUREUX"

Adam: "I'M HER AMOUREUX"

Pause

J: "I know maybe we're both her amoureux"

Adam: "Ya!"

J: (With a mild note of panic in his voice) "What if someone else is her amoureux???"

Later in the day back in the privacy of his own home...

Adam: "Mom is J moving away soon"

Cindy: "Not that I know of but maybe someday"

Adam: "Well at least I won't have to share Alyssa anymore"

Sheesh, they're 7, imagine when they're 17!!

And Now He Is Seven

2010-05-31T09:23:00.011+02:00

Another year has passed, another twelve months where my little boy belongs that much less to me and that much more to the outside world. Time is a mother's thief. It's a funny conundrum, I relish watching my child grow, develop, learn, connect the dots, realize his potential. However, on the other hand, I desperately miss being his entire universe, his preference to my lap over entering a room full of strangers, rocking him to sleep, and reading "Good Night Moon". Time is a indeed this mother's thief.

However, enough introspection, this weekend was birthday party time for a bunch of seven-year olds at a local bowling alley. It was complete with girl drama and resulting tears, breaking-up of wrestling matches on the bowling pistes, and the unexpected doling out of a small fortune on the game machines. But it also included 'Happy Birthday' sung in 3 languages (French, English, and Italian - I love Europe), lots of laughter, a pretty fabulous homemade birthday cake, and one very happy seven-year old birthday boy.

Happily C2 couldn't come up with an excuse to miss the party this year so both he and my ever-obliging-game-for-anything mum were on hand to help with the fun. Of course, I've chosen to ignore C2's muttered comment about preferring to venture into Niger's Al-Queda controlled territory (a trip he is currently considering) over the party as he doused another small drama and placed another franc coin into another outstretched hand for yet another air hockey game.

As I gazed at my slumbering little wonder last night, one arm clutched tight around the genuine bowling pin party gift, his other around the same stuffed Labrador he has slept with since birth, I realized that while he sometimes provokes the worst in me; packed into his 130cm 18 kg body is the absolute best of me.

There Are Worse Ways To Spend My Birthday - thanks Kevin!

2010-05-19T09:00:00.035+02:00

Nobody outside of Iceland can really pronounce 'Eyjafjallajoekull', so in a nod to Jon Stewart, I have taken to calling it 'Kevin'. Now Kevin the Volcano has been causing no end of trouble to people travelling within western Europe of late, so I was a little concerned in the days leading up to a planned trip to London last Wednesday, especially since my visiting mum and I were both flying to the U.K. but into different airports.

Thankfully, despite erupting a few days before our trip, the wind swept Kevin's ash south towards Spain allowing us to fly into the U.K. without incident. So began, a terrific week spent in the company of my oldest friend, Sheila, and her kids whom J desperately wishes were his brother and sister. We spent our days easily picking up where we left off in March. Like always, it was as if our sentence was interrupted, we paused for breath, and 2 months later resumed our conversation. Such is the gift of friendship.

Sheila, me and our kiddos during a walk in High Elms Park, Kent

My favorite things to do when I visit Sheila is to stock up on english language books at her local Waterstone's, indulge my addiction to Marks & Spencer's organic stem ginger biscuits, and go for a walk in the English countryside followed by a pub lunch with a pint of lime and lager. This visit, I even left J with Sheila for the day and travelled up to Hertfordshire to visit with some favorite cousins and my mum. We had a grand day together visiting stately Hatfield House and touring a bit around charming St. Albans.
Beautiful Hatfield House in Hertfordshire

A small part of Hatfield's gardens

It was a few days filled with laughter, love, food, friendship and family. I can't ask for much more from life than that. Well maybe for Kevin to behave, but I guess that was asking a bit much.

Pub lunch time

Sure enough by Saturday, Kevin's belching resulted in twin ash clouds headed directly toward the U.K. By the time we went to bed Sunday night, all predictions were that London airports would be closed the next morning. I rose at 4:30am and though Gatwick was indeed closed, it was expected to reopen by 7:00am, just in time for our 8:00am flight back to Geneva.
Sceptically, I roused J and we began our journey. One car and train ride later, we arrived at Gatwick just in time for Easyjet to cancel our flight. Back to Sheila's we headed, sigh.
Easyjet offered us a new flight two days later but I was fearful of missing that flight too since predictions indicated Kevin's continued grumpiness. So after discussion, J and I decided to traipse through Europe by train instead. The following day, which happened to be my forty-ahem-something birthday, J and I set out on our great European rail adventure.

We caught the 6:44am train at Penge East from Sheila's village into Victoria Station in central London. We then rolled our bags to the Victoria tube station and travelled directly to King's Cross/St. Pancras International Rail Station. From there, we stepped onto the elegant 8:02am Eurostar rapid rail service (through the Chunnel - very cool) to Paris's Gare du Nord. Now for those of you who don't already know, the Hendricks family LOVE LOVE LOVE Paris.

J and I wandered around a bit, breathing in as much of Paris as we briefly could before jumping into a cab to the Gare du Lyon. From there, we caught the 1:10pm TGV (Tres Grand Vitesse) directly to Geneva where C2 picked us up. Door to door about a 10 hour journey, really not too bad and actually more than a little fun. Of course, our European rail adventure cost about as much as my nearly full-fare Easyjet ticket but I'll take that up with Easyjet and Kevin later.

If I Can't Be A Soccer Mom, Can I Be A Marathon Mom?

2010-05-10T15:33:00.007+02:00

You may recall from earlier postings such as "Where is Tim Horton's When You Need One", my lamenting of J's team sport playing abilities. To summarize again, he celebrates when his weekly football (soccer) practice is cancelled, flinches when the ball comes anywhere near him, and would rather blow the fluff off of dandelions than be caught chasing anything resembling a football. Apply the same analogies to hockey and baseball, and you get the general picture.

However, as I have also said, put the kid on skis, in water, or on a bike in the woods with logs, roots, and hills to climb, and I would challenge you to either catch him or match the volume of his 'woo hoos'.

He was equally impressive during his participation in the 1.7km Course de l'Escalade this past December. So, I was given to indulge his pleading to run in the kids race in the annual Geneva Marathon this weekend. Thanks to my friend Sher, I mentioned the race to him and the pleading ensued.

I gotta say, for a dandelion blower, he was darn impressive. Nerves of steel all day, cool as a cucumber at the start and smoked that girl in pink.

Receiving his medal

OK, so if the NHL and the 2022 World Cup are not in his future, maybe the Olympics or the Ironman, or the Boston Marathon, or the X-games...

A Rainy Sunday Afternoon

2010-05-02T16:20:00.008+02:00

It's a quiet, rainy, cool Sunday afternoon in Geneva, I should be blogging about something meaningful, cleaning the cat barf off the upstairs carpet, recycling my mountain of recyclables, teaching my son to read, walking Murphy or feeding the fish. Instead this is me today...

Walking Into A Watercolour

2010-04-11T15:06:00.024+02:00

The Grand Canal near the Accademia Bridge

Stepping into a painting is exactly how it felt visiting Venice during the Easter break this past week. Certainly this city is all about beauty, expressed time and again, around every corner, down every canal, and over every one of its' 400 bridges.
The Rialto Bridge

C2, J, and I spent 5 days together with my mum and Auntie Harriet in a gloriously charming flat around the corner from the Piazzo San Marco, near the Campo San Moise, facing a canal and where from our windows we watched gondolas drift by and listened to the gondoliers singing old Italian love songs. If one was cynical enough, one might teeter toward thinking it a tad schmaltzy, I, on the other hand thought it perfectly lovely.

A gondola along the Grand Canal

The best advice we discerned from our travel guides was to 'get lost' walking in this car-free city. So we did....again and again. Kinda hard not to. Every narrow road led to another bridge over another canal. It was the best lost I've ever been. As long as we followed the sign posts to either 'San Marco' or 'Rialto', we always had a fair idea of where we were.

A narrow canal and one of 400 bridges spanning them

J chased pigeons in the Piazzo San Marco in the shadow of the San Marco Basilica while my mum and Aunt had a glass of wine and sang along to the orchestral bands at Florians. We all toured the art-filled wonder that is the Doge's Palace. Ever intrepid J decided we must take a gondola ride (expensive but when in Rome...) down the Grand Canal and so we did admiring the fading but still noble beauty of the hundreds of 15th century palazzos including the Gritti Palace, the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, and the Ca' d'Oro.

The pigeon chaser of Piazza San Marco

Another highlight was travelling by vaporetto (water bus) to the island of Murano where beautiful cut glass continues to be made by hand and fashioned into jewellery and objects d'art. We did so much 'mooching' (to use my mother's term) in and out of murano glass shops in Venice that we all felt blinded at the end of 5 days.

Our gondola ride

To best see authentic Venice, we ventured off of the principal touristy areas and wandered into the lesser known but more 'real' campos and neighbourhoods. In one small campo, though I have no idea where, we stopped at a little art shop and bought a lovely watercolour of a canal at dusk. Real art sold to us by a real artist with a real vision of Venice; it is perfectly lovely.

Tracing the Steps of Giants

2010-04-01T23:54:00.023+02:00

My mum arrived a couple of weeks ago for her annual 3-month visit with us. My Auntie Harriet followed her last week to spend 2 weeks, including a planned 5-days in Venice with us next week. We've spent the first part of the week trying to occupy rainy-filled days with memorable outings. Last weekend, and still on an Olympic high, we had a great visit to the official Olympics Museum in Olympic capital Lausanne, about a 45 minute journey up the lake from Geneva.

The Olympics Museum in Lausanne, home of the International Olympic Committee

This week, we "profitez'ed" and devoted our efforts towards three things for which Geneva is most suitably proud. We took a guided tour of the United Nations and we spent a day at the Red Cross/Red Crescent Museum. It was interesting to realize that my new home continues to keep as a high priority the offering of succour to others less fortunate, and support to those most in need.

First World War Prisoners of War documentation archived in the Red Cross/Red Crescent Museum (Auntie Harriet)

Perhaps the ideals of modern Switzerland can cause one to raise a doubtful eyebrow but I was undeniably moved at the story of the founding of the Red Cross/Red Crescent and its' mission. The efforts of one man, Henry Dunant, have evolved into the modern images of an organization assisting in national disasters, and inserting itself into conflict zones; the red cross on white background emblem (the reverse of the Swiss flag) its' only defence.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Eleanor Roosevelt under whose chair(wo)manship, the U.N. Commission on Human Rights drafted the 'Universal Declaration of Human Rights'

I was equally moved to realize that the United Nations in Geneva focuses its' efforts on the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights (OHCHR). It was from the hard work of dedicated individuals working together for the promotion of others that such landmark conventions as the 'Universal Declaration of Human Rights' and 'The Convention on the Rights of the Child' were drafted and adopted here.

We followed up these serious endeavours with a trip to the Caillier-Nestle chocolate factory in Broc at the south end of Lac de la Gruyère in the green Alpen valleys of Switzerland's Fribourg region. If you can quantify a good time based upon amount of free all-you-can-eat chocolate at the end of a historical tour plus making your own chocolate Easter bunny in the Atelier de chocolat, then a good time was had by all of us!

Memories of Cantor's Bakery

2010-03-10T10:40:00.006+01:00

Yesterday, J had his weekly speech therapy appointment. Afterwards, I took him for lunch at a little patisserie in Carouge. For dessert, he decided on a chocolate donut - not the transfats-laden varieties offered up by Tim Horton's or Dunkin Donuts but a real donut made from real ingredients. He lifted it to my nose to sniff and I was transported back, too many years to reveal, to Cantor's Bakery in Montreal.

When I was J's age, I would regularly visit my Nana at her apartment. It was an exciting adventure, and holding her hand, I loved exploring her N.D.G. neighbourhood. We grocery shopped at Steinberg's on Sherbrooke St., wandered the aisles of the Cumberland Drug on Somerled, and most vividly, ate chocolate donuts from Cantor's Bakery on Walkley.

Cantor's was a Montreal tradition. Walking inside, I took flight on a cornacopia of smells from the fresh baked challah bread and bagels, rugelach cookies, strudel, and gingerbread. But, it was never a competition; my 6-year old tongue always watered for Cantor's chocolate donuts. I can still taste the first bite of that donut handed to me in wax paper; the hardened dark chocolate topping had a slight snap before my teeth sank into the dense, thick sponge-like dough. I chewed it slowly, savouring every memorable morsel. Yesterday, J had the same look of epicurean ecstasy on his little face.

Not unexpectedly, Steinberg's, Cumberland's and Cantor's have long closed their doors, absorbed by big box one-stop shopping goliaths, and corner depanneurs. I still think of my Nana often but until yesterday, I hadn't thought of those chocolate donuts in years.

Skiing in the Rain AKA Ski Week 2010

2010-02-28T10:19:00.017+01:00

I know, I know, I have been silent of late. As stated in my prior post, January and February are pretty quiet months for us without much worthy of mention. Add in my Olympics obsession, and it all adds up to little time to blog.

The Point Nyon, highest point at Les Gets looking down to the village of Morzine

We did just return from our annual ski week to Les Gets in the French Alps though. The past few years, we shared this holiday with our great friends, the Millers, however, they abandoned us to move stateside last year, sigh. Marc and Nat joined us for the first weekend, and we had a great time exploring Les Get's pretty village on Saturday while C2 and J hit the slopes. Les Gets is part of the larger Porte de Soleil group of 12 linked resorts in France and Switzerland. This year, we skiied both at Les Gets and at adjacent Morzine.

Point Nyon again, J's first time skiing the challenging Aigle Rouge run

J started ski school on Sunday morning and we had beautiful weather all the way until Monday - yep a whole 2 days! After that, we had a spectacular buffet of rain, freezing rain, sleet, snow, punctuated by the odd clear moment. But you know, in spite of the less than stellar weather, we had a wonderful time. We holed up in our cozy chalet by the fire, ate well, drank great wine, ventured out when we felt like it (the big advantage of a ski-in/ski-out chalet), read, played board games, and kept the TV permanently tuned to the Olympics.

J approaching a jump in Morzine's jump park

Our routine was for C2 and I to ski hard during the 2 hours of J's ski school, then pick him up and at his insistence, ski over to his favorite restaurant on the hill to indulge his passion for a crepe complete et chocolate chaud avec creme chantilly. To translate, a crepe stuffed with ham and cheese with a raw egg tossed in for good measure, and a hot chocolate piled high with whipped cream.

The ubiquitous chocolate chaud avec creme chantilly

After lunch, we would do our best to keep up with the little skiing dynamo, who would literally ski until the lifts closed every day when the weather permitted. It's a good thing C2 can keep up with him because the non-stop top to bottom skiing on the steep red runs was exhausting (for me, not him). Still, I cannot explain the joy it brought me to watch this joyful 6-year old skiing moguls singing the White Stripes' "Seven Nation Army" at the top of his lungs.

J earned his deuxieme etoile from the Ecole de Ski Francais

Every evening, following dinner, J, Murphy and I would bundle up, and walk down our little hill to explore the chair lift in the dark, then climb part way up the adjacent ski hill to admire the twinkling lights and pretty chalets of Les Gets. On our final evening, C2 joined us, and we climbed very high and then rocketed down the ski run on our toboggans, the quiet night cut by our peeling laughter.

J taking a jump at the Morzine jump park

January's Busy Blahs

2010-01-27T08:44:00.004+01:00

If you look back at previous January blog entries, they are thin and not particularly interesting. January for me is anti-climactic after weeks of Christmas and Canada anticipation. It's grey, grey, grey, and damp, damp, damp. My hair is at its' flattest, and my skin it's driest - blech. In short, I'm not a fan of January. This year it's even been a challenge to run which usually cures me of any mental malaise. It's icy underfoot and did I mention the damp, damp, damp part?

To be honest, I am not really a big fan of winter. There I said it. Living in Geneva has cured me of most of winter's charms (skiing is really the only charm left). Here, it mostly only snows in the mountains where snow belongs. We open our doors and leave them open as early as March and often begin a 7-8 month season of eating outdoors shortly after. Spring flowers poke their first heads out of the ground in February and my roses usually bloom until November.

January is also the month when all of the insurance bills arrive en masse, and the Christmas present-laden VISA bills. My to-do list gets carried over from the previous January with almost all items still intact (booking a colonscopy has been on my list through 3 Januarys now). It all just makes me want to pull the covers over my head and go back to bed. Can't do that though, because life restarts frantically after the December lull. Book group, writing group (now if only I could get writing again), my feeble attempt at blogging and all of the weekly to'ing and fro'ing for J: speech therapy, English school, piano lessons, football, judo, french school homework, english school homework, piano practice, blah blah blah.

In spite of my January blahs, the optimist in me is slowly percolating up to the surface. Skiing started this month and has been great. Our annual ski holiday is less than a month away (minus the Millers this year, blah!), I am deep into planning our Easter (Venice), Spring (London) and summer (South of France and Levanto) holidays. Sheila is coming for a long weekend in 5 weeks, and my mum arrives for her 3-month long stay with us in 6 weeks. Several Canadian friends are also travelling to see us this year. There are lots of aperos and dinners with friends and neighbours on our agenda.

We're all healthy, J is doing fantastic in school, we're speaking french more fluidly than ever, and there is a delicious aroma of Boeuf Bourgignon coming from my kitchen; can't eat that in July! It's January 27, only 3 more days and it's February. Time to perk up and banish the blahs.

Another Year Over

2010-01-12T14:14:00.025+01:00

We returned a few days ago from our 3 week Christmas break to Canada. Thankfully unlike last year, our journeys on both ends were uneventful. Well, uneventful except for the fact that my fear of flying phobia which had pretty much resolved about 12 years ago is back with a vengeance.

I'm chalking it up to our 'turn-around from nearly landing in Victoria last year and hightailing back to Calgary before we run out of fuel' flight last year. Stupid really, I am generally a glass half-full kind of person but in the case of air travel, not so much. You know how some people like to live their lives on the edge by parachuting or climbing frozen icefalls? I literally feel like that getting on an airplane, sigh....a necessary means to an end.

The Tawtel women and our famous Crantinis

Anyway, on to the good stuff. We were all healthy and arrived in Victoria via Vancouver via Frankfurt, 9 hours jet lagged and a mere 2 hours late but otherwise in great form. The next 2 weeks passed in a blur of wonderful family meals, lots of games (Au Mille and Balderdash being our favorites), movies, girls nights, boys nights, swimming, beach walking and generally revelling in the mild west coast island air and each other.

One particular highlight was a family hike we did through an old growth forest on Mount Douglas. We were a little ways up the trail when a friendly Golden Retriever assaulted us with affection. His owner arrived shortly thereafter, whereupon I coolly sputtered, gasped, fell over my words, and finally spat out memorably "I know you, you're Silken Laumann". OK, well you have to be an Olympics fanatic and a proud Canadian to understand the significance of the moment but trust me, it was significant!

You also have to be a pretty tight family to live 9 people in a house (a pretty big house but still....9 people!), still love each other 14 days later, and cry upon bidding our farewells. J became particularly attached to the clan this year and was loathe to leave. He kept begging us to stay a little longer "but I'm not going to see my cousins for suuuuuuch a long time" he moaned. This is one kid who really gets the value of family and good friends, and who blossoms under the attention and love of his teenage cousins.

We flew on to Calgary to spend the weekend with our great friends Jen and Jeff and their 2 kids. J and Nate have been pals since birth. We spent a quintessential Alberta weekend; tobagganing under the brilliant blue western sky, dining on Alberta beef, driving on notoriously icy Calgary roads but most importantly - reconnecting with dear friends.

Some good old Canadian tobagganing

Hanging with Jeff and Jen

C2 flew back to Geneva at the end of the weekend and J and I drove our rental car to my mum's apartment to spend the remainder of the week with her and my clutch of Calgary girlfriends. J and their boys have been friends since they were babies. We spent several intense days together and then it was done. The night prior to returning home, J was inconsolable about leaving his Grandma, his 'fabily', his friends, and Tim Horton's (in that order). I love his loyalty and the breadth of his love; really he is such a unique individual for a 6-year old.

The guys have been friends since they were babies

...and us almost as long

A foot of snow greeted us upon arrival in Geneva which thrilled J. It's great returning to Canada as often as we do but it's good to come home too. We have many things to look forward to this year. J starting piano lessons, my wonderful bi-monthly writers group 'The Birks', spending time with the really terrific band of international wanderers we are honoured to call friends, and "profitez'ing" from every chance to explore this place we are blessed to call home.

La Fête de l'Escalade 2009

2009-12-14T10:06:00.041+01:00

Geneva during la fete de l'escalade

One of my favorite times of the year in Geneva is the celebration-filled week of the Fete de l'Escalade, the annual festival comemmorating with joy, pride, solemnity and song, the victory of the Genevois over the invading army of the Duke de Savoie (les Savoyards).

On December 12 1602 the forces of the Duke de Savoie, launched an attack on the city-state of Geneva. The troops marched along the Arve River at night and assembled at Plainpalais, just outside the walls of Geneva, at 2 o'clock in the morning. The original plan was to send in a group of commandos to open the gate door and let the other troops in. The Geneva citizens defeated the men by preventing them from scaling the wall (a climb in French is an escalade). The night guard Isaac Mercier raised the alarm, church bells were rung, and the Genevois were alerted. The populace fought alongside their town militia. The duke's 2000-plus mercenaries were beaten.

According to Genevois legend, Catherine Cheynel, the wife of Pierre Royaume, ("Mère Royaume"), a mother of 14 children, seized a large cauldron (marmite) of hot vegetable soup and poured it on the attackers. The Royaume family lived just above the La Monnaie town gate. The commotion that this caused also helped rouse the townsfolk to defend the city.

The story of L'Escalade is told in a song called Cé qu'è l'ainô, written in a Franco-Provençal dialect around 1603 and has become the "national" anthem of Geneva.1

1 Wikipedia

Friday night was spent escorting J and his schoolmates on a torch-lit cortege through our village and back to his school steps where the children gathered next to a piano and serenaded us with the anthems Cé qu'è l'ainô and Ah! La Belle Escalade. My little citoyen Genevois sang his heart out; makes me cry everytime. The evening ended with a dinner of traditional vegetable soup made by the kids during the day, raclette, saucisses, frites, wine, and the ubiquitous smashing of the chocolate marmite and distribution to we Genevois of chunks of chocolate and marzipan vegetables

We spent the rest of the weekend at Marc and Nat's apartment in the Vieille Ville where the celebration is centered. For these 2 days, the old town is majestically turned back in time 400 years and populated by chevaliers, townsfolk, blacksmiths, fusiliers, and steeds living as they did and where they did at the time of the attack.

The blacksmiths hard at work in the Place de Bourg du Four

A secret passage through the old town is opened during these 2 days of the year below the old La Monnaie town gate. J loved going through it, especially at night, in the dark, when it was lit by torches.

Inside the secret passageway through the old town

Marc and Nat don't spoil this kid much...

The previous weekend, both J and I ran in the annual Course de l'Escalade, a running race through the twists and turns of the old town. I twice ran through the elegant Place de Bourg du Four and past la cathedrale St. Pierre with its' clanging bells. About 20,000 people participate every year in various races throughout the day. The smaller kids ran 1.7 km, while I ran 4.7. It's a short race but remarkably memorable with spectators lining the sides of the historic route cheering us on as we grunted up the steep but picturesque hills.

Here is J running in his first Course de l'Escalade. About 10 seconds into the video, you will see him in the middle of the screen, green fleece, black pants. You might have to hit the PLAY arrow a couple of times.

Things you Definitely Don't See in Canada in December

2009-12-06T20:40:00.015+01:00

I took Murphy for a walk this evening after dinner. She needed to stretch her legs I told C2 and J, and I fancied enjoying the Christmas decorations adorning our Swiss village on a quiet, warm early December night.

We wandered through our village's square, past the giant Christmas tree decorated by the little kids from our village jardin d'enfants (pre-school), and through the orchard of trees dripping with icicle lights and shooting stars. We ambled down the main street, and paused in front of the Auberge Cheval Blanc (aka 'the lovely place to eat' as J has dubbed it) to admire the candles softly glowing through the windows and the pretty tree shining on the terrace.

Then I realized that I wasn't alone. Less than a foot away from me, Mario the chef, was quietly plucking olives from the tree growing in the restaurant's garden behind a low stone wall separating the Auberge from the street. We exchanged polite "bonsoirs", he offered me an olive which I accepted with thanks, and then I carried on as if this was something a Canadian girl experienced regularly. He didn't hear me chuckle in amazement.

Culture Clash

2009-11-27T12:45:00.005+01:00

For us North American expats, lunchtime is an interesting anthropological study. For example, lunch during the school week is pretty laid back, a tuna sandwich, some fruit, a yogurt are standard fare. On the weekends, we might upgrade the sliced bread to a baguette, and add some cheese and olives. The emphasis on all of the aforementioned is 'cold lunch'. As in most Canadian households, dinner is the hot meal.

Not so in Geneva! Lunch is the big meal of the day and it's usually multiple courses. Salad and bread, followed by soup, a hot meal, and dessert. And never never never is milk offered as a drink, no it's always l'eau de robinet (tap water) and if you're really lucky sirop, which is a sickly sweet substance added to sweeten the l'eau de robinet.

Consequently, J has learned never to spontaneously invite anyone home for lunch from school. I need at least a day to ensure adequate groceries and time to prepare a large meal. I will never forget when J's copine (girl friend) Olivia looked at the sandwich plunked down in front of her 2 years ago, looked at me and moaned 'mais je ne mange pas des sandwiches pour diner!' (but I don't eat sandwiches for lunch). I was mortified.

So yesterday morning while getting dressed for school, this conversation occured with J:

J: Can I invite a friend for lunch?

Me: Oh sorry bud, I'm going grocery shopping this afternoon, I don't have any food in the house to make a hot meal.

J: Oh, okay. Can Adam come then?

We Canadians gotta stick together eh Cindy?

Detoxing Diary

2009-11-18T09:23:00.010+01:00

I am now in the middle of a 5-day detox. My life is absent of some of its' small joys: morning toast, nespresso coffee, cookies, evening glass of wine. I'm not sure exactly what prompted me to initiate this and to corral 11 of my friends from around the world to join me. In general, I eat healthy and largely organic, and am pretty fit thanks to regular running and weight training. I try not to indulge too plentifully in the inexpensive and fantastic wines available when living adjacent to vineyards.

Maybe it's living in the time of swine flu where kids are dropping like flies in J's class. I am working hard to strengthen all of our immune systems. We are taking vitamins C, D, multivitamins, omega 3, sirop du pere michel (a particularly vile concoction of essential oils and trace minerals) in addition to lots of fresh organic fruit and vegetables. Maybe it's my suspicion of the negative impact of cow milk and gluten on my family; we've moved to goat and soy milk. And lastly, maybe it's the knowledge of the coming assault of food and drink in the lead-up to the Christmas holidays.

So I thought I'd see how I felt after 5 days of eliminating specifically wheat, dairy, sugar, alcohol, caffeine, red meat, and fats while consuming lots of healthy lean proteins, legumes, nuts, oats, rice, fruit, vegetables, water, and green tea; and continuing to exercise. And since misery loves company, I managed to convince a group of friends that it would be good for them too.

It's halfway through Day 3 and most of us previously caffeine-addicted souls seem to share the same common complaint thus far. We all have headaches which we are chalking up to acute caffeine-withdrawal. Everything else has gone pretty well, cravings are largely in check, aside from a cookie craving that naughtily beckoned me most of yesterday evening. I find that I have good energy during the day especially in the mid afternoon when it normally wanes. Or it may be that I'm keeping busy so that I don't gravitate toward my usual tea and biscuit. I'm also sleeping great which is a bonus.

In any case, it's an interesting experience and can't be anything but positive health-wise. Maybe now I won't feel so guilty indulging in my mum's Christmas shortbread or my sista-in-law's peppermint chocolate chip cookies in a few weeks.

My Brother, the Superhero

2009-11-13T08:49:00.007+01:00

Today's posting is in honour of my big brother who celebrated his 40-ahem-something birthday this week. He is one of my heros, having served honourably for 25 years with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in addition to leading Calgary's ERT force for many years. He's also just an all-round wonderful person who has managed to stay happily married for 27 years, raise 3 terrific children into near adulthood and is always there whenever I need him.

It's nice to see that J feels the same way. Today while walking to school:

J: You know Uncle Phil is like a superhero!

Me: Yes, he's a pretty great guy, why do you think so?

J: He made his hair invisible.

Love you bro!

Where Is Tim Horton's When You Need One?

2009-11-05T13:52:00.018+01:00

I spent 2 cold, soggy hours sipping tiny, tepid cups of espresso standing in icy rain watching J play in his first tournoi de foot (soccer) yesterday. It could have been the same as watching my eldest nephew Justin, currently competing for the national university football (soccer) title in Toronto but it wasn't. It could have been the same as watching my niece Renee, a former elite national level Ringuette player, but it wasn't. Or it could have been the same as watching my 15-year nephew Jordan play football (soccer) with fire in his belly, but again it wasn't.

You see J is something of a sports mystery to me. From infancy, he was climbing like a orangutan up anything scalable. "Oh what an athlete he's going to be" everyone proclaimed. He could cross monkeybars with ease by age 2, and was riding a 2-wheeler by 3. He loves mountain-biking, mountain-climbing, and skiing, and is really good at all of them. He dislikes baseball, detests hockey school, and spends the last hour of football training yelling at me from across the field "Is it over yet?" When I told him at the beginning of the year to pick a team sport for the winter, he suggested tennis. See the pattern??? A team player clearly he is not.

I wasn't much of a team player myself, even now I prefer running with my iPod than a friend. Neither was C2, he ignores friends at the gym, so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. But still, when I look at the brotherhood of friends Justin has built from his early days playing with his Foothills soccer club in Calgary, I lament that J may not have that. Even much of the strong and loyal social network that my brother and sister-in-law enjoy was birthed from the shared experience of watching their children compete in team sports. Not that I lack friends or social networking, far from it but you get my point.

I will encourage J to find his passions in life and will enthusiastically support them no matter what they are. Still, is it wrong to secretly want J to have a tattoo over his heart pledging brotherhood forever like Jus's?

So, yesterday's tournoi was comprised of 6 teams playing 4 mini matches. J was fully engaged for the first two. By the fourth, he was picking up leaves and playing pretend sword fights. Sigh.

My life as a Tim Horton's commercial isn't looking promising.