more beautiful friends

Okay time for a quick exhale...........

Tonight we are "friendless" for the first time in two and a half weeks. It has been oh so lovely but it is also so great to be sitting here just with Scott. Today was a slow day, ahem, well Scott did work all day, but Poe, Ilo and I eased into the day, headed to the library and then spent a while in Vintage Espresso, reading, drinking and watching the world. We then spent the rest of the day crafting, I made two skirts for myself, whilst Ilo created with play dough and Poe experimented with water colours.

But now to catching up on the last couple of weeks. When Jen, Rod, Lily and Saul arrived they were greeted with a bit of a whirlwind greeting and haphazard but totally delicious pizza night as we were in a rush to head up to the Lodge, Scott was playing an early set and we finally had a chance to see him without having to rush off to put the little ones to bed.

It was so lovely, not only was Scott great but the kids were so delighted to be out at night, for most of the set they sat mesmerised until the last song (one which was very upbeat) which inspired them to dance around in front of our table with huge grins on their faces. After some tasty treats, we scuttled back home with a sleeping Ilo on my shoulder, excited to settle in with dear friends in our new home.

Luckily our fortnightly markets were on and the kids had a ball running about with various friends of Poe's from kindy, enjoying the spring celebrations and the crazily delicious creamy mushrooms on sourdough, actually Ilo managed to eat the largest proportion of these, he is mushroom mad.

Our pre-birthday sweatshop, creating a fairy dress, pixie pants, floating fairies and heart rocks in preparation for Poe's fifth birthday celebrations.

So wonderful having these special friends here to celebrate with Poe.

Despite our intentions to keep games at dinnertime to a minimum, Scott had everyone at the table in stitches on a regular basis. As you can see Saul is absolutely enthralled, so enthralled he can't quite believe what he is seeing.  Scott was implementing that age old ploy, you know the one where the adult pretends to get ready to eat the spoonful of food but then the clever and cunning child manages to eat the spoonful whist the adult is distracted and then the adult is absolutely distraught when they discover their food has disappeared.
It is so wonderful seeing the way Scott has changed since our move, having more available time makes everything easier, more relaxed, not that Scott hasn't always been relaxed and easy, but now it's like never before. I guess finally we are living our dream, everything has slowed down and it's working. Pretty sweet.

we have quite the collection of wheels

It was a seemingly pleasant day, we had spent the day doing a variety of things and decided to set off to the Lodge for a chai. There we were enjoying the relaxed environment until out of nowhere came a huge black cloud and a downpour of rain. Before we could make it up the street the wind came a howling, branches were falling, leaves scattered everywhere, it all felt very exciting. Ilo and I quickly made a run for Kombu as the others headed for home but as we were heading towards the door, we were turned away, "sorry blackout we can't serve you". By this time we had been warned by a toothless person running by that a storm was coming, they'd seen it coming in from Coffs. We quickly ran home, catching up with the others who had stopped to check out a sizeable branch that had fallen. Getting home however (we are 200 metres from Kombu, this journey was not a lengthy one) the sky had suddenly cleared and it was blue and even sunny.

Nevertheless we were blacked out, we searched for candles, prepared the fire and realised we didn't have much to eat, oh but what a treat to just make do. We toasted bread on the fire, heated tempeh bolognaise in a saucepan on the fire and ate lots of crackers and cheese. As dark fell we had the blinds up in the loungeroom so we could fully appreciate the darkness in town.

Could you imagine how excited the kids were. To highlight the awesomeness of this experience, the kids had also spent the week reading "Little House in the Big Woods", and not just reading they had been playing this for the past few days but this took it to the next level. The power was out til about 10.30, plenty of time to eat chocolate, drink wine and listen to Scott play guitar by candlelight. Blackouts remind me very much of my childhood, growing up in a semi-rural area guaranteed most storms to be accompanied by a blackout; trees bringing down wires a common culprit.

Yes, more river shots,  no visit to Bellingen is complete without a visit. It was especially great for us to see a bit of floating action happening, see inflatable inner tubes, pretty cool (will need to check any health risks of said inner tube before rushing out and purchasing one for everyone member of the family).

Ah the love, Ily, Ily

Scott had the awesome idea of setting up some mikes and recording the kids, to put it mildly they were totally awestruck and took it all very, very seriously. There was a load of instrumental tracks which included mandolin, glockenspiel, piano, guitars, ukelele and drums. They also did a couple of vocal tracks and had ended up with their very own cds.

There has been a lot of music this past week, Lily has been enjoying experimenting with the piano, Saul was enthralled as he held a violin for the first time and had a little play, Scott created lots of tunes of his own and rarely did an afternoon go past without some impromptu percussion session. Ilo has been extending his love for a variety of instruments creating double basses out of any guitar or a ukelele to a fiddle, banjo or mandolin.

Experimenting with space at the skate park.

On their final day we headed down to the river and watched these six women from Vanuatu create the most amazing percussion with the water. The sounds that they created were fascinating, deep whooping noises partnered with slaps and claps. What made it even more impressing (and it was totally impressing) was the fact that not only was it freezing in the water, not only did their outfits not slip despite the vigorous movements but it is also really hard to walk in the water on account of the stones in the river and they managed magnificently with barely a grimace.
Just to clarify, this doesn't happen every week, this was part of the Global Music Carnival which was held in Bellingen that weekend. Yes this doesn't happen every week, but something does happen every week here, in the next few weeks there will be the Dorrigo Bluegrass Festival, where Scott is playing, the Bellingen River Festival, Kalang Festival and a Local Food Film Festival. But have no fear, we do have some downtime before then and really it is all pretty relaxed anyway.