ANZAC Day

It is April 25, ANZAC day in Australia today.  The Australian version of Remembrance Day; a sober reflection of the sacrifices made by the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC).  

Australia takes ANZAC day VERY VERY seriously with dawn services at the Shrine of Remembrance attended by thousands (35,000 in a drenching rain this morning), and parades and events throughout the city.  J's class has been marking ANZAC day all week with assemblies and relevant curriculum. 

Today, the two of us made batches of the ubiquitous and very popular ANZAC biscuit.  He is writing an information report about the meaning of ANZAC day and the Battle of Gallipoli. 

In addition, he had to read this poem and write a reflection of what it meant to him.  My grandfather fought at Flanders in Belgium and I am always sobered when I read this haunting rumination by Canadian soldier John McCrae.  It matters to me that Australia believes so strongly in commemorating those that fell and those who served, and it matters to me equally that they pass on those heartfelt sentiments to J's generation lest they forget.

In Flanders fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place: and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

John McCrae (1872–1918)

Kinda Like Tofino but with Koalas

Just finished the end of the second week of J's April school holiday.  I'm in the middle of all the fun that is unpacking, laundry, and re-organization.  Unpacking, laundry, and re-organization following our return from our second Annual April Apollo Bay short break with my mum in tow this time.

We lucked out with some spectacularly warm Fall weather, dare I say,  it was hot!  How best to explain Apollo Bay...it is along the Great Ocean Road on Victoria's surf coast about 3 hours west of Melbourne.  The surf coast is most known for the spectacular surfing at Torquay (home of Rip Curl, Quicksilver and Billabong brands), Jan Juc, and pretty much any of the little surf towns and at any of the beaches lining this visually stunning and winding route which stretches 243 kilometres from Geelong to Warnambool.  It is lined with natural splendours galore, but Apollo Bay itself, is an unassuming quaint, quiet fishing village.  If you are Canadian, you will understand this analogy - think Tofino but warmer and with Koalas.

We rented a sweet little house with a Passionfruit vine winding around one side of the property and from here, beachwalked, ate lunch many times at our favorite Cafe 153, witnessed the amazing 12 Apostles at sunset, read our books whilst half-watching J at the skateboard park, chased Murphy into the surf, let mum mooch in and out of the shops on the little high street, and generally relished in lots of family time.

What J is doing now

What J WANTS to be doing now

One really memorable adventure was driving into Cape Otway, the southern tip of Western Victoria where the Southern Ocean meets the Tasman Sea.  The forests toward the Cape are home to a colony of Koala and we took a short stroll finding dozens snoozing in the trees or munching away on Eucalyptus.  We followed this with an off-road bounce down to a lightly travelled beach called Blanket Bay, one of the stopping points on the 91km Great Ocean Walk.

Another fave was a morning spent at our favorite Australian beach, Johanna Beach, a remote and wildly beautiful stretch of sand that is a balm to any troubled soul.

Our lovely Johanna Beach

Johanna Beach

Later in the day, we carried on to the 12 Apostles, an iconic Australian landmark.  They are a collection of limestone rocks jutting out of ocean adjacent to the massive limestone cliffs that line this part of the Great Ocean Road.  They have been formed and carved by erosion and the harsh weather conditions of the Southern Ocean.  We ambled about exploring various gorges before arriving to view the Apostles at sunset.

The Loch Ard Gorge from above

The Loch Ard Gorge from below and a little unexpected splashing

The 12 Apostles

We took out time driving home at the end of the week, stopping at Wye River for another beach walk, and at fashionable Lorne for lunch, another beach walk, and another go at the Skateboard park for J.

A Day in the Life of a School Holiday

We're at the end of the first week of J's two-week April school holiday.  C2 took the wise road and high-tailed it to the US of A for a week - coward!  That left my mum and I as event planners and we implemented an action-packed week designed to amuse the little man and crowd out any desire to lounge in front of the TV or computer.

Wednesday was a particular highlight and all three of us declared it the winner amongst a week of good ones.  To recap:

9:00  Walked Murphy in Hedgley Dean gardens, adjacent to our house, and listened to the Cockitoos, Lorikeets, and Doves welcome the morning.

9:30  Shoo J out of the house

9:35  Go back into the house for sunglasses
9:36  Go back into the house for market tote
9:37  Go back into the house for Grandma

9:38  On our way to Noisette, a French cafe in Port Melbourne about 20 minutes away.  All enjoyed spectacular drive along Beach Road and Beaconsfield Parade admiring long lines of Palms and the sparkling water of Port Philip Bay.  The Spirit of Tasmania ferry was docked for our viewing pleasure.

10:00 Followed my GPS's very circuitous directions, parked the car, and still walked 15 minutes to Noisette.

10:15 BREAKFAST consisting of: Viennoise with smoked salmon, prosciutto, baguette, croissantes aux amandes, jam beignets, hot cross buns, hot chocolate (for J), many skinny cafe lattes for Grandma and I.  Healthy it wasn't, reminiscent of breakfasts in France it was!

11:45  At the South Melbourne Market where we picked up fruit, veg, flowers, a new sofa pillow, new dish towels, and a cactus for J.

12:45 Walked across the street to the Chef's Hat Kitchen Supply Shop to restock some worn kitchen items including new kitchen measuring cups, cake pans, 2q All-Clad pot, cutting boards, baking trays, and pastry bag and tips.

2:00 I hit my shopping patience limit and danced from foot to foot trying to hurry Grandma up.  Grandma still raring to shop deeply ignored me while deeply examining a wooden bowl.

2:30  Finally on our way home.  Grandma went to nap, tired out from shopping.  I happily added to my pile of hard rubbish ready for pickup next Monday and purred at my new All-Clad pot.

4:20  Hurridly organized a picnic and shooed J and Murphy out of the house

4:35  Go back into the house for sunglasses
4:36  Go back into the house for towels
4:37  Go back into the house for Grandma

5:00  At St. Kilda beach, nibbling on ham/cheese/pickle sandwiches and fruit, throwing a tennis ball for Murphy, marvelling at J's swimming, and thoroughly enjoying a late summer resurgence in the middle of this Australian autumn.

5:30  Ooohing and aaaahing at an amazing sunset over the Bay.

6:00-7:00   See 5:00  but also laugh at J's judo rolls in the sand, played monkey-in-the-middle with J and Murphy and tried not to think about how much sand was about to get deposited in my car.

7:00  Dried everybody off as much as possible and took leisurely walk along the boardwalk to the St. Kilda pier where we joined many, many others in a balmy stroll admiring the city lights, the glow off the water, and the full moon.

7:30  Walk back to the Beachcomber Restaurant and Cafe on the boardwalk and get ice cream.

8:30  Home - J showered and in bed reading, Grandma showered and sitting down to watch last two episodes of Downton Abbey Season 1 with me.

A near-perfect day.

Random Things on my Mind

1.  Growing dismay and dread over the direction the U.S. is taking, witness:
(a) the contraception hearings, Susan Fluke, and the growing erosion by MEN of women's reproductive rights and freedoms;
(b) Trayvon Martin and the mindboggling "stand your ground law";
(c) the Republican nomination race: Romney's etch-a-sketchiness, Santorum's fanatacism, Limbaugh's lunacy;
(d) 17% or nearly 50 million Americans do not have health insurance.  That number is 27% in Texas;
(e) The acceptance by so many that this is all good.

2.  Finished Season 1 of Homeland - loved it...love Claire Danes...have always loved Damian Lewis

3.  Gratitude for the health of my son

4.  Missing old friends

5. Rediscovering my 30-something self with full-on, gnarly, exhausting yet exhilerating mountain-biking outside of Melbourne with my husband and son.  The only wild things we see are Kangaroos and Echidnas where my 30-something self was always on the lookout for Bears or Cougars.

6. Gratitude for the health of my mother who has just made her second trip in seven months to visit with us in  Australia.  Melbourne is a long way from her happy home in Calgary.

7.  Gratitude for all the laundry my mother does while she's visiting

8. Gratitude for the love my son has for all of his family near and far

9.  Horror at Mohamed Merah, Robert Bales, and George Zimmerman

10. Delight at our new The Atlantic digital and paper subscriptions

11. Wishing my son's hardwriting looked a little less like a caveman's random scrawls

12. Wishing my son's French teacher hadn't sent home a note admonishing said son for farting repeatedly in class.  Wishing I could somehow explain to the teacher the impact of large bowls of home-made lentil soup.

Spread the Word to Stop the Word

March 7 is "Spread the Word to End the Word" observance day.  The word is "retard" and it makes my skin crawl every time I hear it.

Don't show mean-spirited ignorance, respect yourself and others.  Pause for a minute and think about the vocabulary you use and that which you model to your children. 

Thanks.

My French Life in Melbourne

It's Monday evening; the day after the weekend, another Monday.  C2 left at 6:00 this morning for Perth, J went to school and I worked at Child Wise; pretty sure Murphy spent the day sleeping, without the fleas finally.  It was a good weekend.  J's first week of Year 3 French was pretty intense and he was exhausted and spent much of it catching up on rest.

J and his bestie Jules

My route to work is through a part of South Melbourne called Albert Lake.  Albert Lake is also the Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix track and I get to drive on it to and from Child Wise.  The Grand Prix is in a few weeks so it's been great fun watching the set up during my commute....when I'm not stopping to let black swans cross the road, they have the right of way.

My route to work along Albert Lake...that's not actually me; can you tell?

One of the great joys of living in Melbourne is our continued close attachment to all things French.  I speak French much of the time at J's school, most Melbourne home decorating shops are obsessed with Paris, there are more French bistros than in Paris (a barely minor exaggeration), and we are blessed with a marvelous French creperie "Le Petit Français Crêperie" in Toorak Rd.  Our usual group of mixed Australian-French, all-French expats, Australians-who-speak-French, and the rest of us French-for-a Reasons, about 20 of us in all, went there for a meal on Friday night.  Several crepes completes, crepes aux sucres, good conversation laced liberally with French, lyrical French music, and one $73 parking ticket later, we headed home sated.

Saturday afternoon, J headed out for a sleepover birthday party.  C2 and I cracked open a bottle of champagne, and indulged in a prosciutto and melon apero, followed later by seared tuna with avocado and mango, and a showing of the Australian classic films "The Castle" and "Kenny".  We slept with one eye open all night waiting for the telephone call from our sleepover-phobic son begging to come home; but the little fella toughed it out.  I was proud.

My mum has booked her annual 3-month journey to visit with us.  We're very excited and very blessed.  J is counting the days.  When asked by his English teacher today to write his interests and hobbies , the first item on his list:  Grandma!  Too sweet.

Home work

School started back last week.  J began Year 3.  It's very strange to have the first day of school on February 2 but we're getting used to it.  I haven't blogged much of late as I've been preoccupied with my new obsession, HBO's True Blood.  I'm new to the show and I've 4 seasons to catch up with.

Also keeping me busy?  For the first time in her nearly fourteen years, my poor Murphy is suffering the indignity of fleas.  She's suffering the indignity, I've been suffering the requisite daily vaccuming, washing all bedding, pillows, blankets, and bleaching of floors.  My house is clean but smells like a pool.  Don't know where she picked them up from but a dog beach we took her to shortly after our return from Canada is high on my list of suspects.  Apparently, it's a very common occurrence in Australia but my poor girl is mighty uncomfortable.  Still, ewwww....

J raced at a school swimming carnival today.   Swimming carnivals or organized competitions are very popular in this swimming-mad nation.  Considering, he's only been swimming proper strokes for a couple of months, he finished with a rather impressive booty of ribbons including a first in 50m freestyle, a second in 50m butterfly, and a third in 50m backstroke.  Comes by it naturally from me, clearly.

Yesterday, I finally went to Melbourne's massive and iconic Queen Victoria market with my friend Emilie.  She goes every week so knows the lay of the land so to speak.  My quest was for armfuls of late summer basil as it is pesto-making time of the year.  My mission was successful and after school today, J and I prepared to make a batch of our favorite stuff.

Unfortunately, my North American food processor didn't like the transformer we have, so we, horrors!, had to make it the old-fashioned way with a mortar and pestle.  My Italian ancestors would have been impressed.  However, before, you are all too amazed, we made enough for dinner, and are borrowing my mate Kerry's food processor tomorrow to make the rest.  Too much damn work!

Didn't end up too bad eh?  These beautifully dried basil leaves are waiting their destiny with the food processor tomorrow!  Apologies for the poor quality of the photographs, don't blame C2, these were taken with my phone.

We had a terrific weekend, C2 was home for four whole days and we "profitez'ed" by getting out for some mountain biking with J in the Dandenongs region of Melbourne.  That was followed by an amazing adults-only meal with our new friends, Kellie and Paul, at Da Noi, a Sicilian/Sardinian restaurant on trendy Toorak Road.  It was a six-course fixed menu based on the chef's whim of the day.  Old sheep would not normally be one of my preferred epicurean adventures but it was sublime and will be a memorable anecdote for some time!

Sunday was slow, late breakfast, lots of newspaper reading, many coffees.  A perfect end to the week.

Stream of Consciousness

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

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.