It’s holidays again!

Time really does speed up as you get older, I’m sure of it. I mean, yes, I had two weeks off work post-appendectomy, but still, term 3 absolutely flew by and here we are again at school holidays. And if every day in the next fortnight is as productive as today, by gum I’ll be taking over the world!

The kids were up early (surprise surprise) but also happily did some tidying up and got ready in a timely manner so we could head out to drop off drycleaning, swing past the hardware store for some gardening equipment, then head to dentist appointments (which I managed to snag just yesterday!). On the way we dropped the car to the lovely Star Wash to be beautified while we were elsewhere (it was SO filthy!) and after our appointments (all good, though we’re looking down the barrel of some major orthodontics for at least two of the kids – and I booked in for wisdom teeth extraction in two weeks, eep!) we even took ourselves to lunch! 

Came home in our lovely clean car, put the little boys to bed, and who knows why but I started in on the gardens again. Master 12 hauled the pruning I started last week into the skip that got delivered Thursday, and I continued with my mission to tidy the darn yard and gardens. For two hours. I don’t even know who I AM anymore!! It’s starting to look a lot better, though I was very cross that the (admittedly cheap) spade I bought didn’t even get through one digging job before the handle snapped! Will be returning THAT tomorrow…

Spent a lovely hour after that colouring (don’t judge me, it’s very relaxing when you have no brain left) and watched the short web series Airlock, a fantastic Aussie scifi production – it was great! 

So what’s in store for the rest of the break? Miss 9 has some swimming commitments (and will become Miss 10 in the second week). Hoping to get Master 5 to some holiday gymnastics again. More garden tidying. A book or two to work on (and several to read). Mum & Dad visiting, which we’re really looking forward to, and flying visits from husband. And I’m guest at the Conflux convention here in Canberra on the middle weekend of the hols, so that should be great! One of the events is the launch of our latest book, Dirk Flinthart’s debut collection STRIKING FIRE – looking forward to sharing that one with people. (You can win a copy or preorder here!).



For now, I think I’m in for an early night – all that fresh air has worn me out!

What have we been doing?

An AWFUL lot of socialising! We decided to host Christmas here in our lovely Launceston house, for Tassie friends who would otherwise be on their own – most of our friends here are also not originally FROM here, so we ended up with a good batch on Christmas Day, which was just lovely. I made one meat and one vegetarian lasagne, and with the marvellous contributions by visitors, we merrily ate all day while the kids enjoyed the pool, trampoline and new Chrissy pressies. We put the computers away on Christmas Eve and didn’t get them out until Boxing Day, which was a good move, I think!

Christmas night the big kids and I went with a couple of friends to another family’s property for a fantastic dinner and good company – husband stayed home after overindulging in desserts during the day and to put the little boys to bed early (Master Three was particularly in need of the sleep rather than social life!), but we enjoyed ourselves nonetheless.

Since Christmas we’ve had several play days, including a birthday party Miss Eight attended on Boxing Day, and chauffeuring children to various locations as well as receiving them here. On the weekend, Tansy, Finchy and the girls stayed over Saturday night and most of Sunday, when we were joined by the extended Flinthart clan for lunch and the afternoon – there are drawbacks to having creative friends, and the inspiration for new projects is one of them! We sent the Flinthart home with a story idea to write and I came away with even more things to do!

New Year’s Eve we again hosted a fairly impromptu get together with two other families – this time I said I wasn’t cooking but I ended up deciding my pizzas were nicer than Dominos so while we chatted and imbibed around the kitchen island I made and cooked several which were eaten with gusto by adults and kids alike, so I’ll call that a win. Given we had celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary at lunchtime with a meal at Hogs Breath (new to Launceston!), a lighter evening meal went down well. Oh, and it was certainly nice to relax with friends and watch the kids run riot, as Master Three had a spill off the trampoline (not jumping, but trying to drop the ladder off so the baby wouldn’t hurt himself climbing up!) and we spent a couple of hours in the morning at the Emergency room – a minorish break in the arm, requiring a half cast for a week. The resilience of youth is amazing, as he was literally bouncing after a meal and a nap!

We’re now awaiting the arrival of Helen, Stewart and J, for an overnight (and several day delayed, so we’re very excited!) visit, which will be followed on Friday by a catch up with mainlander Dr Slatter who is travelling about, and no doubt the next couple of weeks will continue to be hectic with child-wrangling in multiple forms. Gotta love a social school holidays!

Visual catch up, in lieu of actual content…

We’ve had a fairly busy few weeks round these parts. Two kids’ birthdays, school performance, fishing, parties with friends, job applications, lots of work stuff. But here are some photos from the goings on, in lieu of an actual decent catch up post! 

Okay, so I’ve been busy, what’s new?!

Yes, the last time I posted properly was on the first day of our holiday. Yes, that was nearly a full month ago. GOOD GRIEF WHERE DOES TIME GO?! I know; it disappears down the vortex of university marking, family, reading, publishing and well, life.

We had a lovely time with the grandparents in Queensland. The kids are SO not country kids anymore (well, to be fair, Master Three never has been, but Master Ten and Miss Eight spent an awful lot of time on the farm when they were younger and have no excuse!), and are nervous of bugs, flies, ants, snakes (reasonable) and scared of the dogs. Especially M3, but after some intense conditioning, he was happily interacting with them in the second week of the holidays. A big improvement on screaming in terror when the puppy so much as looked at him!

Was really nice to catch up with friends and family. I had planned to attend GenreCon in Brisbane on the final weekend of the holidays, but due to various factors, that didn’t pan out. Probably for the best in the end, as I was pretty busy anyway! We had Miss Eight’s birthday while we were there, and despite my intentions of no parties, Granna decided we would have one! A couple of little friends and cousins, the excellent Miles Historical Village and Museum as the venue (Mum works there), and a swim at the pool after. I made the cakes, party bags came courtesy of Mum’s strategically stocked party box, and it was most pleasant.

We got home from the trip with absolutely no issues – I’m pretty sure the plane into Launceston landed on the dot of the itinerary flight time, and we had excellent hosties on both flights. We absolutely froze for the next couple of weeks though, as it turned back cold here, and after warming our blood in 30-35 degrees for the QLD trip, it was a bit of a shock! Since then, I’ve marked two batches of assignments, started work on writing a new university unit for a new course, published nearly three books (and fixed issues with some others), started a new publishing project (surprise surprise), read eight zillion books for CBCA judging (so far behind, trying furiously to catch up!), started organising two more birthdays (M10 and Bubs coming up next week-ish!), written (and co-written) and edited essays on Doctor Who, helped husband with a bunch of stuff for his new projects, and gosh so much else I can’t even think. And I’d best get back to it! Hopefully won’t be another month before I manage another post!

 

Six hours in an airport with four kids … and counting.

I’m taking the kids to visit my parents in Queensland for the school holidays, leaving husband home alone in blissful peace pining for us. Yesterday arvo we got a text from QANTAS saying our Launceston-Melbourne flight was cancelled. Cue panic. Rang to find they’d already replaced the plane, flight still a go – thanks for the heart attack there. Then got a phone call in the evening to say it would be delayed 40 minutes in the morning – not too bad, will still make connecting flight and cop a little extra sleep. We arrived at airport 6.15am, checked in, waited a while, boarded on time as advised. Taxied out, plane began runway speedup…and then slowed down and plane returned to terminal. Technical issues. Disembarked. Fed children very expensive breakfast. Waited. Got food vouchers. Waited. Husband thankfully came to kid wrangle and brought pram for bubs (which we hadn’t thought we would need). Call to say all connections would have luggage unloaded. Collected bags. Eventually new flight arrangements given. Bags rechecked. Waited. Further hour delay advised. Still waiting – now fifteen minutes past revised departure time, and we’ve been at the airport for over six hours. So much for catching the early flight in order to get to Queensland in time to drive out to the parents’ place!! Now we will have to overnight somewhere because there is no way I’m doing a five-six hour drive this late in the day, especially given how little sleep I’ve had the past few nights. Most annoyed. Oh well, I guess that’s what they say about the best laid plans… Oh, and if we don’t get underway in the next 15 minutes or so, we won’t get our new connection to Brisbane either…