Como House celebrated its 50th Jubilee by opening its doors to the public and throwing a nineteenth century style garden bash. Grandad was visiting for the weekend and cheered Tor on as he 'came to grips' with his first game of tug-of-war. Tor quickly out-paced his grandfather 'round the vege-patches, gaining (for the first time) the upper hand in the all-time classic Grandad game 'I'm a cumm'n to get-cha!!!'
Tor asked to learn violin after visiting the See family in Brisbane last winter. Their daughter Velvet plays, inspiring Tor to turn various house-hold objects into stringed instruments until his parents finally relented. This is his third group practice session. Neighbour and wonderful friend Alexandra wears a purple top.
When you have a job interview....when your hot water fails...when you ask to borrow your aunty's shower...when her water gets turned off for maintenance...when she has a pool...even though its winter there's no option but to...
When there's some-th'n strange, in this neighbourhood...you can bet its Melbourne City Council. Why, I hear you ask would men clad in white and fluro suits stalk the streets at 10pm weilding fire-guns and driving a buggy rigged up with bubbling cauldrons? Apparently to re-paint parking lines! Full marks for the best council costume Blog Bettanin's seen yet.
Grandma visited recently during a Melburnian cold-snap. Undetered, we ventured to the Collingwood children's farm where Grandma proved bravest feeding the horses, and Tor speediest in chasing the lambs!
Grandma further proved a dab hand at 'Mastermind', surviving more than five challenges during the afternoon.
This fabulous picture of an Australian kangaroo was created by Dash Biesemeyer. What makes it particularly impressive, is that Dash lives in San Fransisco USA and has never travelled to Australia. Anthony visited Dash and his family during a trip earlier this year. We understand that Dash and his energetic brother wore out Tor's daddy, who we all know to be a calm and peaceful fellow who is not at all enthusiastic about playing :-) !!!
Tor painted the picture below after our recent trip to the Kimberley region in remote Western Australia. It is a picture of a boab tree with large boab nuts.
Anthony accepted the Sunday afternoon challenge of trying to fix our tele, which had most inconveniently stopped working ahead of the final episode of "The Chaser's War on Everything".
But as the Chinese say, "one man's misfortune is another's opportunity". For, once an autopsy confirmed the machine was headed for the dumpster, Tor was allowed unfettered access. Being a dab hand with the old tool-box, Tor had a go himself and when his efforts proved fruitless, conveniently converted it into... a spaceship of course!
At 3 and a half, Mum and Dad reckoned me old enough to take on the Gipp River Road in remote North western Australia. They suggested we do something called 'camping' - first in a place called Broome and then in a different spot each night for 10 or so days.
I helped them pack. We agreed my 'motorbike' could come and I suggested that bigger bags were needed to fit in the furniture - particularly my bed. Mum said 'no', I said 'yes', Dad said 'wait and see'...
It turns out there are things called 'sleeping bags'. This is my Mum's, where I usually ended up from 5am each morning. Also, there are 'hammocks'.
Dad said we were in Broome to 'see stuff'. In Broome, this means pearling museums, historical buildings, pearl shops and indigenous art gallerys. (Yes, Mum was in heaven).
My motorbike carried me happily around town, and when it wasn't allowed inside the Nintendo DS usually was! (Here's Dad and I at the Sun Pictures open air cinema).
Gantheaume Point has lots of rocks and this is where I started learning to 'scramble'...you know, that funny cross between walking and climbing! Scrambling is great exercise and I was determined to prove myself "big and strong!"
Its 5km from the point to the surf club along Cable Beach and you guessed it, my parents wanted to walk it. They said 'motorbike?', I said 'no', they said 'icecream?', I said 'try and catch me' and the race was on! That night I was pretty tired.
We had lots of fun in Broome, but the best fun of all was the Courthouse markets. I scored a whistle in the 'lucky dip' and was eager to join the local muso's with some cool feet-tapp'n busking action!
We drew a quite a crowd, particularly my indigenous partner who announced our act as 'mid-day and mid-night!'
Cruis'n on a pearl lugger was also fun. Dad's cousin Diana joined us for the day and she likes hammocks too.
The captain stopped the lugger so that we could swim 'round the back, cling onto the ropes and be dragged through the water. I didn't like this as much as they adults who kept calling it 'spa treatment' or something. More fun was when Mum through me off the boat to swim 'round to the ropes with my Dad. She told the panic-stricken crew I could swim, which of course I can :-)
Diana has cool parents called Vic and Pat. They have a huge teddy collection and let me borrow one each day to motor around Broome.
There was plenty of wild action too, but I'll leave that for mum to blog once she's finished sorting the 2,000 odd snaps we clicked on the trip!
Catchya, Tor
