peacemaker gypsy

Midwinter solstice

And therefore a very short day.  For us it was short only in the daylight stakes.  First it was raining and overcast all day so not much light anyway.  And then my little house doesn't get a whole lot of light anyway (not direct sunlight) so... 

I swam 500 metres; which I am chuffed about being able to do - in one hit and all, (artificial light and underwater lights), Josh homeworked and put away sundry clean washing after cooking a modified "Josh stack" for breakfast.  Then we had Alison visit for the afternoon.  Had to block out what little light there was and fight with the portable baby cot (the cot won) so that she could sleep and then be awake and of sunny disposition so that her aunt could photograph her.  While she is an adorable child (of course I am not biased) she is naturally quite a serious child and the flashes of sunshine smiles are fleeting.  Which is a shame because she has inherited gorgeous dimples from her mum.  So after completely dismantling the house and endless dressing and undressing (we were down to nudity by the end) we have a thousand photos which I think are great but which Lis (in her professional mode) sees as flawed because of the quality of light (or just lack of light) plus Alison took exception to the reflector which further limited options.

After her parents collected her, Josh and I rushed into town to celebrate midwinter. 18 degrees and rainy; not exactly winter by other standards.  But we managed to get a ticket for the skating rink and the snow machine was working overtime.  Plus there were a million food and alcohol stalls and because we were there in the dying hours of the festival not only did we manage to grab a skating ticket but much of the food was reduced in price and I have a large number of coffee mugs that say "Sydney Midwinter Festival '09" on them.  A suitable celebration for the solstice: now we head into longer days.

Soul food

Yesterday I went to the Gong to see the olds and have a baked dinner.  (In that order).  The baked dinner (roast lamb and veggies) was soul food enough but the trip home was just gorgeous.  First there was the particularly golden winter late afternoon light and the long shadows across the grass.  It is a beautiful light that seems not to happen in Sydney (too blue and brash and in-your-face-beautiful).  Then as I climber Mt. Ousley pass (in the car of course) I was in shadow and the rocks and ferns sort of loom out and look all dark and mysterious.  Then there is the peculiar glitter of horizontal sun in the eucalpytus leaves (doesn't happen to any other trees - must be the way the leaves hang.  At the top of the pass you sort of burst out onto the heathlands.  These heathlands are particularly dear to me as I once (many many years ago did a major botany assignment on the plants of the heathland - imagine once I knew the names of over a hundred different natives that grow on that particular stretch of sandstone clifftop.  Yesterday they were there in all their glory: glittering in the sun glowing against the sandstone and every now and again the wonderful sight of a magnificent ghost gum trunk.  Just magic.

Further on of course I met the traffic of the outer Sydney suburbs and it was all going a bit downhill but then the sun was setting and we had this brilliant sky with salmon clouds and ... (if I had not been driving I probably would have seen it properly ... a silver coin full moon opposite a setting sun.  Truly food for the soul.

The big one

Last Friday Josh went for his exam.  This photo (and it seemed, hundereds of others) was/were taken on Friday evening.  How did he go?  No idea ... his response was "Well I was nervous and so didh't have enough presentation in the beginning but then later I was okay. "  He claimed that the other boy (that he knew) was better than him (the other boy apparently said the same thing in reverse).  The photos were taken amid much euphoric induced hilarity but this jump was actually really high (as you can see because his arms went out of shot. 

Now we just have to wait for the results.