My idea of bliss

The Household had a lovely adventure yesterday. We walked across the Sydney Harbour Bridge, Husband took the Sprogs to the Anish Kapoor exhibition at the MCA while I went shopping, then we met up for a roti-and-curry lunch and caught a ferry back to our car.

Now that’s my idea of a perfect family outing. Particularly the lone shopping bit … Nah, just kidding, it was all good.

Still, there hasn’t been a whole lot of personal time for moi – Pink Patent Mary Janes, your French-word-a-day resolution must be catching – this holiday so it was nice to get a few minutes to myself in Pitt Street Mall.

Being a chronic over-scheduler, we raced home to host one of those playdates that are for both the parents and the children. Well, more that the parents want to see each other and the kids have to suck it up, whether they like each other or not.

Then it was dinnertime. And the playdaters became spur-of-the-moment dinner daters. Luckily our Christmas housesitters had left Aldi buffalo wings and sausages in the freezer. God bless.

Then it was collapse-in-bedtime, cause I didn’t get a whole lot of shut-eye on Tuesday night in those farking searing temperature. We had air-conditioning in our bedroom, but it broke about a year ago and in our usual on-top-of-things fashion we never bothered to get it fixed. So we were relying on a $30-from-Coles fan that just swirled the hot air around a bit.

In long, there hasn’t been much blogging time in the last 24 hours.

What I usually do in such circumstances is check what I blogged last year and give it an anniversary outing … so here’s an excerpt from All you do to me is talk talk

“I’ve only got about two hours of talk in me during any 24-hour period. A bit more if I’ve been drinking. Then I go mute. Watch me at dinner parties, I’m a blast after 10pm. My idea of bliss is driving from Sydney to the Gold Coast by myself and only saying the words “fish and chips please” in the whole 10 hours. Really, I did it once. Loved every minute. The car would have to be one of my least favourite places to talk. It drives Husband crazy, having to play endless I Spy and 20 Questions with the Sprogs on car trips while I gaze out the window. Sprog 1 loves a game – or 500,000 – of 20 Questions, but she generally takes after me in the talking stakes. On the first day of Future Veterinarians Camp, a parent asked me if she was excited. I said, “Probably, on the inside.” Occasionally, when she decides to speak, the oddest things come out. Like yesterday, when she told me her finger was hurting because she stood on it. Yes, she agreed, it was very tricky to stand on her own finger. So how’d she do it? Well, she was pretending to be a monkey. No, it wasn’t a game at camp. She just wanted to see how fast she could run along the ground while pretending to be a monkey. And her feet were faster than her hands. She’s quite the character underneath that steely facade. Sprog 2, on the other hand, loves a chat. It’s usually stream of consciousness stuff – which toy is the cutest, how cool her new thongs are, begging for a kitten when she’s 16, telling me her dolly swims “gooder” than her, oh, and would I like to see how much money is in her owl purse? Feeling a little drained by the bombardment yesterday, I answered “no, I wouldn’t” to the amount-of-money-in-the-owl-purse question. Fortunately/unfortunately she didn’t hear me and said: “What did you say?” So I sighed and replied, “Show me the purse.” Come to think of it, Sprog 2 says “What did you say?” a lot. Sometimes several times in a row to exactly the same question. Which is tough on someone who wasn’t that keen to speak in the first place.”

Had any good adventures these school holidays?