A welcome change or two

From Winter2013

We have had an eventful past week. The Friday before last we went on a mission to pick up Delhi VIPs, John and Nerida. They were coming home! We decided to make a weekend trip out of it.

We went as a family and drove separate cars from Canberra to Sydney that afternoon. We had a X-trail convoy. Phil drove John and Nerida’s car alone and I was with the kids. The drive went smoothly which was a relief. I was ready to make a few stops, but they were happy enough. It helped that Catherine slept a little more than half the drive. We hit Friday night traffic, but eventually arrived at our friend’s house near the airport after 3 hours of driving.

After a lovely cooked breakfast from our hosts and Phil doing the airport pick up the next morning, we relocated to the city. We stayed at Swissotel – very nice and central place. We met up J and N with their friends at Metro St James cafe in Hyde Park. It was good to be in the park as Catherine wanted to be outside most of the time. We then did the usual family tourist thing and visited the Wildlife Sydney Zoo and the Sydney Sealife Aquarium for the rest of the afternoon. For dinner, we met up with our local friends at one of our favourite spots, Westfield Food on Five. It’s an upscale and gourmet version of a food court – a place to get a variety of delicious food but casual enough to have children running around. They had a great time playing with each other and the adults were able to catch up.

Sunday morning we had breakfast at Food on Five before checking out the views from Sydney Tower. It was a beautiful day. Although they thought it was cool being way up high, Nicholas and Catherine were done after about 10 minutes from arriving.

Our last Sydney stop was the black hole that is Ikea. We met up with John and Nerida there and spent way too much time and money. Nicholas got to play at Småland for about an hour. Poor Catherine missed out because she’s still in nappies. She wasn’t too happy and was given an ice-cream voucher for compensation. So we filled ourselves up with a big lunch and ice-cream before our drive back to Canberra.

The next night Phil and I went out to celebrate our 15-year engagement anniversary. We left dinner for the kids, Mum, Dad, John and Nerida (it’s nice to have the whole family back in town!) while we had our dinner at Bicicletta (Italian food) in the New Acton precinct. Dinner was followed by choc-tops and a movie at Palace Electric Cinema. We saw Before Midnight and enjoyed the engaging dialogue, beautiful Greek scenery and the relatable relationship between the two main characters.

The week ended with Catherine starting the early intervention pre-school program. The first session she attended was on Friday morning from 9am-12.15pm. She was very excited to start “school”, but became a bit confused that it was in the same school and room as her previous early intervention playgroup. There were tears from her after I had said goodbye.

I managed to fill my first weekday morning alone with an hour long walk around Lake Tuggeranong, a brief coffee break at The Coffee Club and then grocery shopping. I had a relaxing morning. When I picked-up Catherine, she ran out happily and gave me a hug. Her teacher said she did very well on her first day. Not sure what my future Fridays will be like, but this is a welcome change to our routine. Nicholas already has plans for me to help out in his class.