And a lovely weekend!

This has been my first proper weekend in Canberra. I’ve been home to the family each one since starting, and faced with two empty days not hanging out with the kids, well, that wasn’t particularly appealing! So naturally, I scheduled some socialising 🙂

Friday night I put the call out to any Canberra folk I knew or had connected with through writing circles to meet up at 5ish at a cute little vegetarian cafe/bar I’d found just down the road in Watson. David & Rob from CSFG and Kaaron Warren with Rebecca James in tow heeded the call and we spent several hours chatting over a couple of wines – great start! Well, it would have been though Kaaron and I compared notes the next evening and realised we’d both felt a LOT more affected by the small amount of wine (including headaches the next day!) than was quite logical, so now we’re a bit suss about the place! Otherwise it was excellent though 🙂

Saturday I had booked myself into several scheduled viewing of rentals – not that I’m actually looking right now, but I wanted to start getting a feel for the market and it’s also a good way to do some exploring. Thoroughly disheartened after THAT, luckily I organised to drive out to Donna and Matthew’s place at Conder, which is absolutely lovely, where I was fed and watered very well, with an accompaniment of great conversation. Couldn’t stay to continue enjoying their marvellous view, as I had to stop by Lorraine’s place for afternoon tea, more chats, and, perhaps most importantly, baby cuddles! Took bubs a little while to warm up (her brothers made up for that in spades!) but I did eventually get lovely hugs, which was very nice. I dashed home to pull my washing off the line and freshen up, before braving the local streets to find my way to Kaaron’s house. Canberra is terribly easy to navigate, so I made it there despite Google Maps trying its best to lead me astray, and some six hours later, after copious amounts of great food, wonderful wine, and smart conversation interspersed with raucous laughter, was dropped home by one of Kaaron’s fantastic friends. An utterly enjoyable evening to top of a really lovely day!

Despite the wine (and probably because of the water that flowed as freely!), I jumped out of bed feeling very chirpy indeed, albeit after a rather pleasant sleep in (8am is a Sunday sleep-in when you’re usually up at 6!). I did my housework (took about 15 minutes…there are definite advantages to tiny living space!) and wandered off for a walk around the suburb. This was somewhat delayed when I discovered another lovely cafe at the same complex as the vegetarian one and stopped for brunch, but I did then continue on and thoroughly enjoyed the pleasant weather and peaceful streets.

Home again for a Sunday afternoon of work – FableCroft and Aurealis work mostly, and still something I enjoy, so I have to say, on balance, this has been a great first weekend in Canberra! Look forward to many more 🙂

It’s like having a writer con that lasts for weeks!

I just farewelled the ever delightful Angela Slatter (and her also lovely other half) from a long lunch at our place. This was the culminating event of what I think I shall dub TasWriterCon, as in the past week I’ve also been gifted by extended visits with Tansy and family, Helen and family and Dirk and family, which means not only have I got to spend time with awesome brilliant people, but my creative brain has been completely overstimulated and is now bursting with must-do things! I’m very lucky to know the people I know 🙂

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!

Does the rollercoaster ever stop?

Not around here! I’ve just come home from an overnight stay with new Tasmanians Helen and Stewart, with bonus Tansy, Finchy and assorted children, and Amelia as well. So on top of the new friends we’re making here, we’re importing old ones from the mainland – we will steal your peoples for ourselves! Helen and Stewart are living in a lovely spot only 20 minutes away from Tansy, which makes me extraordinarily jealous of the many catch ups for tea they can have *pout* Still, it’s less than a three hour drive, which is a day trip if it has to be, and an easy overnighter for either family, so regular visits will be on the cards!

In other news, we’ve been working hard on unpacking the billions of boxes of *stuff* we’ve accumulated – not going as quickly as we’d like, but we’ll get there! We got the carpet laid in the new room on Friday, and the blinds go in tomorrow, which will see it finished. It looks fantastic, and Master Ten is most happy with his new space. Though it will be a bit longer before he has it to himself, as Miss Seven’s room is still inundated with boxes. Getting there…

Oh, and I have just been approved as the replacement judge for CBCA-Tas for the Book of the Year awards! I did one year (of the two year term) for WA in 2011 (for the 2012 awards) but due to moving and pregnancy, was unable to do the second year. Which has worked out well, as I can now pick that up for Tassie, since THEIR judge has been unable to do HIS second year! Everyone wins 🙂 Got my first box last week, so we’re off and reading.

Over the past week or so I’ve finally managed to get One Small Step and The Bone Chime Song up on Kindle – other online bookshops to follow! And there’s more stuff happening with FableCroft that I’m looking forward to announcing. Soon!

For now though, I really need to go to bed!

Saturday driving

Loaded up all the kids (plus bonus Flinthart offspring) yesterday morning and hoyed ourselves off down to Hobart. Dream run down (after 10 minutes by the roadside just after we left, when I realised all the podcasts and music were missing from my phone!) with no stops (no crying baby! no urgent toilet breaks!) to enjoy a lovely four or five hours with Tansy, Finchy & the girls. Far too many ideas now racing through my brain! I love having such creative friends. Not quite as good a trip home, but kids were generally pretty good. Was a lovely day, in all!

Spending today working on the very long list of completely and utterly urgent jobs that can no longer be put off. So much to do!