Ayla Turns Eighteen

Yesterday Ayla partied with family and friends to celebrate her eligibility to vote and drink alcohol and if she chose to, to die for her country.

Eighteen years of ridiculous statements and silly questions what we coined "Ayla Moments" .

Last night hundred twenty revellers celebrated with her at the Ballandean soccer club from 5pm till 5am some very sore heads in Stanthorpe today.

My son Sebastian broke his collar bone playing soccer early in the evening, and had to spend some time in What Shaun calls "the family chairs" at the hospital .

A few of the young men learnt some valuable lessons in etiquette at parties, from Sebastian and his best Pal Daniel.

Young men in Stanthorpe, at parties get inebriated and then tease each other till they fight,.. well after a little tease, Daniel wasn't having any one fighting, he stopped all possibility of fighting, by punching the cheekiest and loudest of the young men ,the ring leader if you like.

He was unconscious for some time and remained quiet for the duration of the party.So as I understand it a reasonably quiet night.
Happy Birthday Ayla.
We hope you had a sensational time.

fireworks over the National Capital

Our excursion to the dinosaur museum ended on a high note. we stopped over the commonwealth bridge, parked in the median strip, and walked the hundred metres to the edge of lake Burly Griffin as the sun was going down. The concert on the opposite shore was spectacle of vibrant colour and lively party music.

We sat between Australians of the year 1994 and 95 and watched people walk up and down reading about previous recipients of that great honour.
Ce'nedra went off to climb trees until it became dark .
It wasn't long before the aeroplanes flew over and at last sky divers floated down marking the beginning of the Show.
Jet skiers with pyrotechnics attached to their backs, zoomed past the crowds, and an expectant crowd showed their appreciation instantly, and were rewarded with an amazing display of lights colours and sounds from the bridge to our left and directly in front on a barge.
Electricity filled the air, So this is Australia day celebrated the Canberra way.
The most civilised of all Australia Day functions I have ever participated in and highly recommend it, Come and join in the spectacle and see how it is done.

Maybe I am a dinosaur

The girls and my Mum and Paula, went off to the Dinosaur museum. Dinosaurs in the dark.
This is an informative and unique experience , I would recommend to anyone with a paleontology interest.
It really isn't for babies, although parents seem to consider their infants and toddlers of an age to absorb the complex differences in Latin names for dinosaurs . Small children explore with their mouths and sticky hands and dismantle displays and then screech and cry and grizzle.

Oh, its just too delightful, trying to hear our host and information presenter, over the dinn of 6 infants, either hungry, dirty, frightened, excitedly exploring the dioramas and going where no visitor has gone before.
And then there are the doting parents, who are equally ridiculously noisy, the cacophony of, shhhh, don't do that! , don't touch, come back here!, sit up!, my son wants to ask a question!, are they alive? and the running around after small children, I was completely worn out!

At the end of it I had a few Latin names of my own ,for what should be Extinct delinquent parents.
Researchers are constantly discovering new aspects of how dinosaurs probably appeared and their behaviours but sadly totally lost on so many of our companions on the journey through time the other evening.

If you are a parent of a dinosaur loving toddler, keep it simple won't you? don't inflict them on a paying public.
They just don't have the attention span required to participate in a discussion filled with words bigger than ugg and ooh and potty and dog and dada.

Life in Aus capital takes shape

I joined a team of eager hopefuls as a customer service representative for Australian Gas and Light company . Eager because there is so much to learn about this company, it is dynamic and interesting and has a voracious appetite for growth.
The workplace is open with a great view over the city, has terrific facilities and the atmosphere is exiting, friendly and vibrant . I am loving it!

Shaun and Ayla return to Stanthorpe

Shaun and Ayla have gone home.

Shaun is painting our house on the vineyard while the weather lasts.

I asked Ayla if she is helping Dad and her answer came,

" He won't let me help anymore, because I accidentally painted my name on the wall,......"!

Ayla has a talent for being ridiculous, it also allows her to control what she participates in, and in this case it is painting that she is choosing not to be involved in.

Oh to be 17 and this wise and wayward at the same time.

The Decimation of a Wildlife Area

Across the road is flattened!, the heavy machines have made short work of the Nature that "was at our door".

No more wombats, kangaroos or fishing. I guess they will dredge and pave the pond so that the residents can put shopping trolley fish in it and coke bottle dolphins, to bob and play in amongst the plastic bag weeds and broken glass anemone.

I enjoyed the company of my mothers Friends last night at dinner and we discussed global injustices, environmental and social, in third world countries how can we help? We all questioned
But in reality...
We can't even save a wombat living right across the road!
How can we even imagine involving ourselves in global politics.
"There was no consultation about across the road.
Two months the sign has been up 'Designated for future development'

But we live such busy lives journeying to our goals neglecting our immediate environment, and the impact our daily decisions has on our surroundings,and before we know it, we've achieved our goals, but there is nowhere left to sustain our well being.

Perhaps I complain to much.

On the bus this morning people were talking about the development, My Neighbour wondered how far they would encroach on 'Pine Island' a nature reserve.

It seems this is the Big yellow taxi song all over again;
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone
The pay paradise,
put up a parking lot. Or in this case a suburb.
Welcome,
To the ever expanding ,dynamic Cosmopolitan Metropolis that is Canberra and the dust bowl that is now across the road where the park used to be.

wombat waddle

A wombat was on the road outside our house.We live on a busy main street, becoming busier ,because of the construction of new houses going on right in amoungst the wombat's habitat.
We have kangaroos and lizards as well ,but the wombat was something else.
He waddled onto the road the other night and back onto the nature strip then just munched on grass, oblivious to us creeping closer and ever closer.

Ce' nedra tempted him with a carrot, Ishta insisted he would enjoy a tickle. No one listened when I said he is a wild animal.If you touch him do it when the road is clear in case he does something to endanger himself,.. like run on the road.
Demelza reached out and touched him and he bucked like a donkey kicking her, he turned 180 degrees and snorted at her, then waddled indignantly off into the bush.
Seems he didn't mind an audience but doesn't wish to encourage audience participation.
I hope he finds somewhere else to live ,away from civilisation,but this community is encroaching more and more on wild habitats. Not like at home( Glen Aplin) where we have a land for wildlife property and the animals are safe.

Demelza turns 13!!!

Demelza received many gifts; Hand made paper from Nepal and a beautiful hand made book mark from her thoughtful elder sister Ishta, credit for her phone, bling for her neck ,another watch, lunch in a Turkish restaurant with Nanny and Paula, a hand made card and clothes.
But she missed sharing her day with her friends in Stanthorpe.
They rang and wished her well and her Granddad called and wished her many happy returns of the day.
Nanny who lives not far from, us cooked a delicious meal for dinner. Absolutely and completely stuffed with birthday treats, Demeleza had difficulty playing the wii sports games.We walked home to spend an evening watching charmed with Ishta.

Shaun and Ayla Leave

Early in the morning Ayla And shaun left to collect the hire car and set off for Stranthorpe.
Calling in progress reports on the way. It only took 10 hours to get home.

Shaun watered everything checked the lizard and budgie, ate a meal and rested, then set off early in the morning for Brisbane to return the hire car to the airport by 8am.
The bus back to Stanthorpe took 5 hours.
This is one holiday we won't forget in a hurry; surviving long trips with wombats in the way, surviving long trips with teenagers, surviving long trips with Ayla,surviving long trips listening to techno dance music, ..
And now, surviving in a new city with 2 girls who miss home and daddy and embarking on job search. Relying on public transport ( only two more weeks and the car should be ready ) and the Internet for communication as the phone bill still isn't paid.

Movies at Civic

A movie day. The children wanted to see A Night at the Museum and Shaun and I wanted to see Valet.

So we walked into Tuggeranong from Bonython again ,caught the bus to civic and walked around town looking for the theatres.

Being New Years day, nothing much was open, so it gave us a chance to explore and window shop uninterrupted and without the jostle of a work day.

The movie for the Children screened at a different time to ours, so whilst the girls were entertained, Shaun and I walked to the Hire car agency to find out where it is situated from the bus stop, then around the shopping precinct, looked at fountains and sculptures and enjoyed coffee in the city walk mall area.

The Girls did similar things whilst we watched our movie and we met afterwards and shared the movie experience on the bus journey home.

Questacon visit

Once again a bus journey to Questacon. We walked along the leafy avenue to the entrance and waited for Ce'nedra to finish playing with some microphones outside and a giant granite ball,then entered, paid our money, received our stamps and joined a balloon show.

Side show alley was the most fun, the guillotine and roller coaster simulator came a close second to the giant drop on the list of the scariest things to volunteer to do. The ball throwing whilst spinning was a tremendous hoot ,co ordination diminishes the faster you spin so I just laughed.

Demelza is a softball Representative for Darling Downs two years running, she discovered her pitch is 68km per hour and her throw is 86km per hour.

Ayla and I both had confirmation that neither of us can drive in video games, we spent most of the time allocated trying to stay on the track.Ce'nedra balanced for 2 and 1/2 minutes which is pretty good.

To the Bells of the Carillion recital ,We lunched, outside Questacon, on the avenue like lawn between the old Parliament house and the view over looking the lake to the other side to the avenue leading to the war Memorial. I felt really moved in a patriotic kinda way,enjoying the Capitals' public spaces, and sharing it with my family.

The weather was still overcast when we set out to see the Egyptian exhibition,we caught the bus and alighted just outside the Treasury building. We walked along the lakeside past the library and Questacon to the gallery. Discussing the flags of the foreign embassy's that are represented in Canberra ,and the architecture of the buildings, and the gallery itself .The suspended ball above the road and other sculptures in the public spaces, there is so much to see and touch and be a part of.
Ce' nedra (8 yrs) wanted to play in the revolving glass entrance doors and would have been happy to spend the day doing so until reminded of the mummies and hieroglyphics we were about to see.( she loves Egyptology)
Once inside and tickets were purchased and our water bottles had to be checked into the cloak room before we could enter.The exhibition is wonder full .
Demelza (12) said the Egyptians invested as much time in promoting an afterlife as modern Christianity does; with the return of the son and a better place to reside at the lords side.
She found lots of parallels between today and the philosophies of the ancients.

Demelza is a thinker and created her own religion at age 11. She has borrowed some elements like how to maintain a following , by insisting on the rule Pay Pray and Obey. and Believe and Live., from some of the more fundamentalist teachings. Now at 12 and 5 days off being 13, her journey through the worlds belief systems has led her to the Tao.
Demelza has mellowed somewhat in the past two years.
Purchasing an amulet from the exhibition for her religion.
Ohan is it's name by the way, but only because she has been pressured to give it a name. She believes if you name it then you are only naming a tiny part of it and understand less of it's power .

So, enough about Demelza, we left the gallery and enjoyed a lake cruise, the girls were able to captain the boat and the skipper was incredibly welcoming warm and generous. He informed us of Canberra's history, the stories behind the landmarks, the Australian of the year Walk ,the bells and we also stopped to watch some cormorant chicks and take photos of them.We got very wet under the captain cook jet it was just great fun .

Getting Around Day One

With no car, and no fixed telephone line out, as daughter hadn't paid the phone bill, we had to find a telephone box to begin the process of Insurance claims and find out when work would begin on the car and get an estimate of when it would be ready.

Then there was sight seeing to do and shopping and movies to see. Thank goodness for the great bus service in Canberra!


The following day we went to see the Egyptian exhibition from the louvre, at the museum .( it isn't actually at the museum, it is in the gallery on the other side of the lake) however as we had arrived at the museum we decided to enjoy the exhibits.

The sky was looking a little grey, not a great concern I thought , Canberra hasn't had any rain in over 10 months why would it rain now?

We settled into the revolving theatre and during the second movement the lights came on and a voice informed us of evacuation procedures as water was entering the building!

Hail pelted down and the girls collected snow balls and played catch and made mini snowmen!

Photo opportunity emergency crews in the background

Emergency crews arrived and closed the museum we went home and enjoyed the storm on the way.

This is Shaun threatening to pop this hail ball down my blouse!

Arrival

What a relief to arrive at the station and see familiar faces! We separate into two cars for the journey to Bonython.

Ishta (number 2 daughter) is so grown up now and quite the young woman; she is here with her boyfriend Evan and they take the girls in their car, and Paula a friend of my mums takes Shaun and I in her car.

Well we arrived at the house where my Daughter had recently had a party for Christmas and the aftermath of the bomb that had hit was very much evident.

So after travelling for 23 hours from home and not really recovering from our whirlwind 5 day Christmas break with my brother and his family, we had to set about cleaning up Ishta's house before we could be comfortable in a clean tidy environment.

You know those people who are shown on TV where they have to get a front end loader in to clean out the years of rubbish, well that's what Ishta's place was like. I just wanted to sit down and cry, there was food and rubbish everywhere.

Well it had to be cleaned before we could rest so we set off for the shops and brought some cleaning products and set about cleaning the house. So 3 hours later we ready to have dinner and go to bed.
Surviving teenagers is hard work.

Finally Arriving At The Nations Capital

How exciting, boarding a train with unconventional luggage (everything stuffed into pillow cases and plastic bags) and wide eyed and weary daughters marvelling at the novelty of the experience.

A few phone calls to family in Brisbane and Canberra and to Mum who masterfully co ordinated a rescue operation at the train station and we finally arrived, wearily, at our destination.

Mittagong Madness After Midnight

just in case you missed it here it is again

Next stop was not on the itinerary but I have to say Mittagong is an interesting Place.

Why are we in Mittagong??????

We had a narrow escape at 3am, on the twice paid for highway, with a wombat. The wombat came off second best but we were stranded on the side of the road with no front on our car and a front wheel that refused to co operate. Plus a whole bunch of girls requiring to answer the call of nature. While the girls were relieving themselves, Shaun phoned a tow truck company to come and collect the car and tow it into downtown Mittagong.

The tow truck operator was terrific, he loaded the car onto his truck and all of us into the cab and took us to marvellous Mittagong (very exciting to travel in a big truck). Whilst he attended to paper work, we unloaded all of our belongings making the parcels as easy to carry as possible for all members of the family. This was a disaster and we had to pull together.

We walked the main street from 5am waiting for a hire car agency to begin operations at 6am, only to be told the agency wasn't opening for business until 8am. So more walking around until
8am only to be told there were no cars available as they all had to go to Sydney.

So next discussion was around how we were going to continue our journey to Canberra.
The bus pulled in at 9am but there was no guarantee that we would be able to get seats. The next option was the train, which was to leave at 9:30am. So Shaun booked the tickets and came back to the car hire agency to collect us. I had managed to stopped whinging by this stage. Thank god he is such a patient man, he has such a lot to put up with and finds that parking us somewhere and going off and doing things by himself is the best option.

We got a taxi to go to the train station, and what an interesting experience that was. As the taxi hadn't familiarised himself with the layout of the train station, he dropped us on the wrong side of the tracks and we had to carry everything over an overpass. On the way to the train station the driver undertook a number of interesting maneuvers on any side of the road that took his fancy, and didn't seem to have any idea of the road rules that state "thou shalt stay on your own side of the road". However, he did help us unload the car at the station, so snaps for the taxi driver.

The train pulled out of Mittagong station with all of us on board. We settled down to a two hour journey. We were all very tired by this stage and with the man behind snoring and the announcements on 'the next train station is', no one got any rest.

Are We There Yet??????

No we are in Glenn Innes, I'm hungry . So we stopped in a beautiful park and had a a late lunch of frozen chicken (it was cooked just not thawed), which had sat at my feet in a cooler bag under the air conditioning vent.

Then we had another late lunch, but this time not a frozen chicken, in Tamworth, parked high on the look out. The scenery from the look out is just beautiful, especially at sunset!

One of the most talked about sights on the way were the fabulous lights on the power station and Simpson's style cooling towers at Singleton.

We drove on into the night towards Sydney but decided to pull off the highway, which is a toll road and we were confused over how to pay for the highway toll. The instructions on the highway are very unclear as to how to pay and being from the QLD countryside, we were unaware that we could just phone a number and have the toll debited from a nominated bank account.

So we arrived at Blacktown in Sydney and as we were totally lost by this time, we asked for directions from a Sikh taxi driver. Filled with new knowledge anf following his instructions we re-entered the highway, but we were going in the wrong direction!
OH MI GOD what next.
Well there were some interesting comments from the backseat drivers as usual and especially mutterings about having paid twice to travel one stretch of highway in both directions.
With Shauns patient urging we phoned the toll number who advised that we had 48 hours to pay for the toll. I finally stopped complaining and we settled back into a peaceful journey, the girls quiet now and anticipating our arrival in Canberra in about three hours.

Rushin' Around at Home

There had been no rain at home in Glen Aplin while we were away, not like the weather in Brisbane where it rained every day. We started the pump and watered the vineyard and house garden.

The mid season peaches were perfect and ready to pick, so we loaded the car with peaches to take to Canberra. We rested in the early evening until Ayla (17, 18 in 4 weeks) walked in from work and greeted us and after the joy and emotion of seeing each other again after 5 days away ( growing up and being independent is a very gradual process for Ayla) she complained about being ditched at home again not just for christmas but for our next trip to the Nations Capital to see our second eldest daughter Ishta for a few days.

After much negotiation we agreed to take Ayla with us , the other two girls complained that the journey would be a squash! We have a Proton Savvy ( it's my shopping trolley, very economical, but not quite the family road trip kinda car).

So, family Rogers set off for Canberra packed the car to the brim around three noisy girls ,a collection of house and dance music CD's, DVD's to watch on the way down, pillows, doonas, christmas pudding and cake, presents, shoes and peaches!here we go!

Surviving boxing day

We, that is Shaun (husband) Demelza (12 almost thirteen) Ce'nedra (8) and myself left my brothers house where we have spent some of our Christmas
break ,and began the journey home to Stanthorpe where we have a vineyard and orchard.The first stop was at Shaun's mothers house. Every year we spend Boxing Day with His family. We admired how quickly she has settled into her new house just three weeks before Christmas and spent a convivial couple of hours sharing news.And hit the Highway.