And Now He is Eight

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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.