Birthday

It was a big round number birthday for Tim this year. All he wanted for his birthday was a trip to the Healesville Sanctuary. So I rented a car, and that's what we did.

And the visit totally lived up to all expectations.

The cassowary was out.

And the emu along with the galahs and the corellas. And only one of those was not actually a wild bird come to get a free snack.

A koala woke up and climbed its tree and jumped a couple of branches, before settling back down to sleep again.

A kangaroo consented to be patted gently on its back.

The gang gangs kept watch.

A wombat went out for a walk.

Three little Tassie devils growled at each other as they fought over raw eggs.

A pair of wild king parrots came to visit a pair of captive ones. Not all the king parrots in the picture are inside the cage.

The rainbow lorikeets were acting social.

And a female bower bird landed on Tim's arm to take a selfie.

And then tried to check out the snacks in his bag.

The regent parrots were friendly.

A lyre bird gave us a song and dance routine. The bird is a mimic. It copies the calls of other birds, very loudly.

And shows off its long, lovely tail.

I got my photo taken with a wedge tailed eagle. Kind of.

And a pair of wild rosellas stopped by.

On the way home, we stopped by the fancy bakery. 

Happy birthday, big guy.

Thursday with the car

My aunt and uncle came to visit for a long weekend, arriving Thursday morning and leaving Monday. They were en route from the Philippines, where they had spent the last 18 months serving as church missionaries. I figured that in the spirit of celebrating their arrival from tropics to winter, we should all drive south to Philip Island to see the penguins climb up the beach in the cold.

So I booked a car for the Thursday they arrived. It was my first time using the car share program that I had signed up for soon after deciding to buy a car. I didn't buy a car. Tim talked me into trying car share first. But I haven't needed it yet. Until my aunt and uncle came to visit. The plan was to leave soon after they showed up from the airport, spend the afternoon checking out the harbor where we saw the large sting rays a couple of years ago, hike around the cliffs at the far end of the island, then watch the penguins at dusk. Which is just 5:00pm in the winter. Maybe grab fish and chips before the drive home. Doesn't that sound like a lovely winter afternoon to you?

But my aunt and uncle's plane was delayed. When we realized they wouldn't arrive for two more hours, Jonathan and I went out to try the car, and to pick up some groceries before they arrived. But for some reason, my card didn't unlock the doors on the car share car. I tried several times, then finally looked up the company phone number and called.

The lady at the end of the line tried to help me out. She was able to unlock the car remotely, and asked me to find a replacement card in the glove box. There was no replacement card in the glove box. She apologized, and directed me to a different car, parked not right outside my door, but on the other side of the park. Jonathan and I headed across the park.

Fifteen minutes later, I couldn't get into the new car either. My access card didn't work. This time, the kind lady speaking to me on the phone helped me find a replacement card, and 90 minutes after our reservation began, we were finally off to the grocery store around the corner. Finally!

Except the gas gauge showed low fuel. The previous driver was supposed to leave the tank at least a quarter full. It was about 1/8 full. So we stopped at a gas station first. The gas card provided, the one that we were supposed to use to pay for fuel, didn't work. I tried it twice. So I used my own card, saved the receipt to mail back later....

And then we were off! 

Only the traffic on Commercial Road was pretty much stuck, moving nowhere. So we were pretty much stuck. We inched along, wondering if we should try to turn back, but finally made it to the grocery store. Paid $1.50 for parking. Picked up groceries! Decided to get two extra toilet paper packages because we had a car! We wouldn't have to walk home with it. Somehow forgot in the mean time that we had been switched to the car on the opposite side of the 100 acre park. Woops. We did have to walk home.

Tim texted that the aunt and uncle had arrived. Where were we? Um, trying to drive home? [Edit: Jonathan received the text, not me, as I was driving.] A little while later, parked back on the side of the park, I texted Tim. Come now with the rolling grocery bag. We need help carrying things back.

And then we waited. And waited. And waited. Finally, Tim appeared, with my aunt and uncle meandering along behind him. My aunt was dressed in a light skirt and sweater, my uncle in a regular suit. They looked cold.

So we abandoned the penguin idea. Instead, we took a tram to the city centre, to a charity shop there, and purchased warm jackets. And then it was dusk, and aunt and uncle confessed they were exhausted -- even though they weren't traveling from across an entire ocean, they had still booked the red-eye flight. Early night.

Friday morning, with a few hours left on my car share booking, we drove 30 minutes to a nearby park to see where the bats roost.

So we had a successful adventure with the car after all. Kind of.

Election

There was a major election yesterday in Australia. We aren't eligible to vote, because we aren't citizens. But for anyone who is eligible to vote, voting is compulsory. That means if you don't show up to vote, you are fined.

I saw a line of people waiting to vote earlier in the day, but otherwise being ineligible to vote made me pay less attention. There have been flyers at train stations, and large political ads. I received an automated phone call recently asking me to participate in a poll, but I wasn't eligible. So not really paying attention.

However, yesterday evening and this morning my news is filled with election news. The Liberal party, which is very conservative here, was in control, but the Labor party, which is more liberal, may have won some seats. And the papers are reporting that there may be a possible hung parliament or bare coalition majority. And since I didn't know what any of that meant, I asked Tim, who looked it up. He recommended reading the materials for the Australian citizenship test. Here's what I read.

Australia, it turns out, is a Constitutional Monarchy. You already knew that. The Queen of Australia, who is the queen of England, is the monarch part of that. She is head of state. And since she lives in a different country, she appoints a Governor General to act for her in Australia. The Governor General's job is to signs laws and regulations -- to give "Royal Assent" -- and to take care of "ceremonial duties." Probably things like holding afternoon tea during important cricket matches. And each of the seven states of Australia also has their own Governor, who can also give Royal Assent, I guess, and give the stamp of queen's approval to state business. And shows up to appropriate fancy dinners. The Governor General is part of the executive branch of government, along with ministers appointed by the Prime Minister.

The legislative branch of government, which actually makes the laws, is Parliament, and includes the House of Representatives and the Senate. And these are the ones elected democratically. After an election, they count up the number of elected MPs (Members of Parliament) in the House of Representatives, and the political party with the most members becomes the Australian Government! (With leading capital letters.) The leader of that party becomes the Prime Minister.
 So that's why a hung parliament is a big deal. Who will be Prime Minister? And who will form the Australian Government? Or the Opposition, which is the party with the next most members.

I know you are on the edges of your seats with anticipation. I certainly am, now that I know what the newspapers are talking about. Kind of.

If we're here in four more years when we're eligible for citizenship, I promise to become more informed. Meanwhile, it will be interesting to see what effects an election will have.

Nutcracker

I've mentioned before that I let Jonathan decide, a little over a year ago, what physical activity he was going to try. Because balance, people. Balance. He needed something physical in his life. If he hadn't made a choice, I threatened to put him into swimming lessons. In January.

He chose ice skating. He started in basic lessons a year and a half ago. And he's kept it up, even after three moves and two countries. And he's getting good, I do think. He is.

This year, for the winter school holidays, which run from the end of June through the beginning of July, the local ice skating arena decided to have a Nutcracker theme, and put on a Nutcracker-on-ice show three times a day, every day. They invited the kids from their top skating classes to be in the performance.

At about the last minute, Jonathan told me that he thought it sounded kind of fun. So I contacted the woman in charge, signed him up, and he was in. 

I'm so glad he has participated. It's been a lot of work -- he spent several hours rehearsing, basically giving up weekends before school ended. And since school let out, he's been spending about five hours every day at the arena to do the performances. He's gotten to know a few of the other kids, though, which is really great. And he's done a really good job.

Tim and I watched the performance twice today, and we are prodigiously proud of our old-fashioned-gent:

 And also our mouse minion:

He jumps. He spins.

And now he even knows the names of some of the other jumpers and spinners.

So awesome.

Midwinter

Yesterday was the shortest day of the year. From now on we'll just get more and more daylight until we over take the northern hemisphere in number of daylight hours sometime around my birthday in the spring.

Tim has been away. He left for a trip for work, then stayed a few extra days to attend his grandfather's funeral. It's a lot quieter without Tim. We'll be happy to have him back.

I don't really have very much to share today, so I'll entertain you with photos from my phone.

The above picture was taken a little over a week ago, to highlight my poor quality phone camera. Jonathan and I were walking through the park on the way to the grocery store, and I noticed that some of the pigeons were looking a little pink. And then I realized they were actually a flock of galah cockatoos. I love the birds here.

And speaking of birds, this picture was taken just three days later. As I was walking to my office from the bus stop, this little guy came down to check out the big poof ball on the plant. This is a rainbow lorikeet, also native.

On Saturday there was a public protest for refugee rights in the city center (central business district). Jonathan and I were trying to take the tram home from skating practice, but the roads were blocked off in the CBD. So we watched the marchers instead.

This one is Jonathan heading toward our home later on Saturday. This is the front entrance to our apartment. I still love living here.

Jonathan and I played trivial pursuit two nights in a row. The first night, Jonathan and I were tied for a long time, before I was able to slip away for the win. The second night, Jonathan didn't have so much luck. But I did! For example, the answer to my question in the "sports and leisure" category (always the topic I answer last) was "the Australian open." Oh yeah. I didn't even have to guess!

Last picture.

I have a lot of pictures like this on my phone. This is one way I save ideas at work. There is an error in the argument on the bottom left, though, so this idea needs more work.


That's all for now.

Upside down seasons

It's kind of fun to have completely inverted seasons.

While others are talking about picnics and sunblock, we're pulling out sweaters and rain jackets. I'm trying to figure out how the timer works on the heater in the living room without resorting to pulling out the user's manual. Somehow I turned the stupid thing off last night, and when I came out at seven, rather than snugly coziness and a rosy gas fire, it was COLD. Dark and empty and COLD.

It's winter -- deep winter here. That means a chill wind blows through the tips of the palm trees in the morning. The leaves of the deciduous trees have all turned yellow and brown, and many of them are actually falling off now, onto the grass that has grown greener with rain. Natives bundle up in black and grey wool, occasionally even a hat and scarf, depending on how well it accessorizes with the rest of the outfit. People whinge a lot about the weather. Here, whinging is the same thing that whining is where I'm from, but you get that extra G for free.

This morning, watching the breeze ripple those palm trees in the early morning sunlight, hearing the tram driver complain about the temperature to a passenger ("it's four degrees outside"), I thought of the neighbor boy who would walk to school with us. The first day in March when the sun came out, and the temperature was above freezing (4 degrees centigrade certainly counts), he would show up in shorts and a T-shirt to walk the three-quarter miles to school. Just because the neighbor was a crazy child doesn't mean I can't continue my whinging.

Now that we are in the deep winter, I can verify that am happy with deep winter here. The winter school holidays are just around the corner. Jonathan was asked if he wants to audition for a holiday performance of the Nutcracker on ice, over the winter week of the 4th of July. All upside down and backwards.

But Nutcracker is fun, and winter is cozy. I got to wear my yellow sweater with the long gray skirt yesterday, for the first time in months. I love that outfit. And it's citrus season, so the oranges are sweet and cheap and tasty. On Saturday, Jonathan and I visited a small local bookstore. We've been reading books and watching movies, cuddled under the blankets in front of the gas heater in the living room. Outside, the wind blows or the fog settles or the raindrops fall, and the lorikeets scream in happiness over the blooming eucalyptus tree outside our window, and the sea gulls fly in from the bay to nibble the grass in the fields in the park, now marked for soccer or Aussie rules football rather than cricket, and all the while the palm trees sway gently in the chill breeze.

Melbourne in June. I love it.

Important things

Lots of important things have been happening here.

The most important thing, I believe, is the yellow tailed black cockatoos. A family of yellow tailed black cockatoos has been visiting the large conifer outside the office window. They've come several times in the last month. We all saw them, and heard them squealing. But Tim has seen them several times. He watched them out his window picking giant pine cones and flying away with them. Tim is very excited about yellow tailed black cockatoos.

Photo from Wikipedia

Another important thing is that Jonathan got a suit. He really wanted a suit for his birthday. So he got a suit. Happy birthday!

Still another important thing is that winter came. By decree, the first of June is the first day of winter here. On this blog, we have been unhappy about winter in the past. But this year, we are going to be very excited about winter. Winter is the time when you get to wear cozy jumpers (sweaters). You get to go to bed early like the sun, and snuggle under the blankets while rain falls gently outside. Winter is snuggly and cuddly, and with temperatures around 15 degrees celsius (about 60 degrees Fahrenheit) every day of winter, we are going to love it and stay very excited about winter. Winter! Where the snuggle comes!

The final important thing is white chocolate Tim Tams. While Tim Tams are important, the white chocolate ones are the most important ones. But you only get seven in a package. That's pretty cheap.