French Connection

The closer we get to C's due date, the more things we remember we should already have done. In the main, it's knock on effects and tasks caused by other tasks that I've forgotten to account for. For example, I had allowed cupboard space for a load of baby gear, but I had not accounted for the time and effort required to rearrange and repack all of my stuff into what was left of the bedroom.
It's looking like Christmas week itself will be very busy, so I have broken with Stephens family tradition, and set the tree up in the lounge in the first week of December.
Rose has had an interesting first week in Nimbin - as we got home on Monday evening, there was a large lizard caught in the wire fence next to the carport, and I must have looked hilarious as I gingerly cut it free using wire cutters - they are only a foot long but those claws look vicious. Luckily, the poor thing was too terrified to do anything except freeze up, and it didn't even scamper away until I had cut its neck completely free of the fence. Later in the week at Nimbin pool, she got to observe at first hand how I react when bitten in the foot by a large Australian red ant, which is probably even funnier. I think.
At the end of the week, Tity finally turned up - he managed to make it all the way from Auckland to Nimbin this time, making up for our complete failure to hook up when he and Morganne were in Australia on holiday earlier in the year. He almost didn't make it again, as his alarm didn't go off, and he woke up after the Kyogle train was due to leave - luckily, the train was delayed by almost 2 hours!
Given how tired we are at the moment, it was lucky that Tity was up for an extremely chilled weekend. We pretty much reverted to type; showed Tity round the strange architecture of the village, made sure he got some good souvenirs from the candle factory, got coffees, got cold beers, and chilled out on the deck watching the sun go down. I am fairly certain that Tity will be our last pre-baby guest! It was fantastic to catch up with the old bugger, and he certainly seems to have enough plans to keep him busy for the next few years - and with a bit of luck we might even catch up with him in Montpellier sooner than he expects!
Talking of babies, Ian and Eri in Tokyo have just had their son, Louis. As Eri did not look as big as C, and her due date was a week after C's, it's quite a surprise that she got there first!
Though today has been a very full week, it will be a very short blog post as at least 90 per cent of my time has been taken up with mundane crap that is best forgotten.
Forgetting stuff - ahhh... something I do well.

Frost!

We were back in Nimbin this weekend. In our absence there had been a severe frost. All tropical plants and most of the subtropical plants, including everything growing in exposed areas and plants in shaded hollows that trap cold air, are dead. For annual plants like the banana trees, this doesn't matter - they will have offspring next year. Unfortunately, it looks like all our pineapples are dead, and in Nimbin village, some of the old trees, and many of the plants in the main communal garden, are either dead or dying. The minimum temperature was only minus six, but the last time it fell that low was the mid 1980s, and people have planted a lot of tropical plants since then. In our garden, the strangest thing was the carpet of dead leaves blanketed every open area and make it look as though the grass itself had been killed frost.
Despite the plumber showing up on a Saturday morning to hammer in a few large pieces of fibroboard to the bathroom and make a start assembling the shower and vanity units, it was still a much more relaxing weekend than in Brisbane. There is a new weekly Saturday market in the small lane that runs between the Rainbow cafe and the museum, and this features all sorts of naughty local goodies like fudge, jams, preserves, biscuits and cakes. There is also an amazing amount of local craft on display - jewelry, clothing, woodwork, and completely unexpected things like bonsai trees. Hopefully this new weekly market will grow and grow, and eventually rival the monthly market in both size and variety. What makes the weekly market special is that so far the organisers have restricted stalls to local residents.
On Sunday morning we caught up with Jillian, C's midwife, and C was able to swap the books which she borrowed two weeks ago, and we confirmed that dates and times of the antenatal classes that she is organizing. The more of Jillian's books she reads, the more reassured C seems to be - Not only is she now keen on trying for a home birth - she's even decided to book Jillian's warm-water birthing pool!
On our way through Nimbin afterwards heading for Brisbane, we stopped off for the first time at the candle factory by the creek. We spoke to the owner and explained that we are hoping to set up a candle themed campsite at this year's Splore festival, and hopefully Nimbin candles will be able to give us some interesting candles for our campsite. We were treated to the standard guided tour, which includes the impressive pyramid room, filled with multicoloured pyramid shaped candles. The highlight though is undoubtedly the replica medieval dipping mechanism. Wax is built up on the candles by dipping them many times into hot barrels of melted wax. The process itself is little different from any other candle factory, what is unique is that the entire process is water powered. With a twist of a tap, nearly 800 wicks can be dipped at once.
We drove back to Brisbane tired but refreshed once again, facing one last week at work before a well earned break!
PS - please excuse the American spelling; I haven't figured out how to attach the Vista dictation software to the locale's Australian dictionary, even though MS Word and my browser default to it...Ah, the mysteries.