Good Food... mostly!

Ella wanted to make gingerbread people by herself, so we left her to it. She did a great job even trying to decorate them! We all enjoyed nibbling on these although there was a strong bitter after taste. It wasn't until the next day, she realised that she left out the main ingredient - the ginger!!!











As for spoilt food, the gingerbreads weren't the only casualties. Despite trying to carefully and regularly check the nectarines, I managed to miss their prime. On realising that lots of the fruit was damaged due to insects, possums (who managed to get through the net) or being too ripe, I picked everything which ended up being quite a bit! Unable to eat the nectarines like they were, I cut the best bits off each one and stewed the fruit. It was delicious especially with yoghurt!






For the first time I've been successful in growing a crop of yummy cucumbers which the possums haven't discovered yet!

New Lease on Life

Cathy was quite disturbed about the lack of eyes, Ella's soft toys have. We have Pippa to thank for that - she had a thing as a younger pup to chew the eyes out of any soft toy left lying on the ground with many tears shed by the girls!

A little bit of eBay searching and new eyes were sourced! Then came time to fixing and restoring sight!  Jessi also had a nose job thanks to Nana's fine patching skills! Ella was excited :)

 

Hoggie meets the Hoggs!

Andy's awareness of how cricket works, enabled us to get newly released tickets for the 'sold out' BBL match at Manuka Oval! It's all to do with the seats behind the wickets. Apparently a large section is blocked off until they decide 5 days prior to the match which wicket they will use. Once they know that, the seats not affected are then released for sale. We managed to score two family tickets plus spread the word amongst friends who also manage to purchases tickets to!

So in the end there was a small crowd of us- our family, Cathy, Maki, Luca, Nana, Rob, Gareth and Jessica and Balir who was in town for work! The Melbourne Renegrades were up against the Sydney Thunder.

Andy, Ella and Katy arrived in time to see the WBBL. The Sydney Thunder won the toss and elected to bowl first. The Renegades were all out in 15 overs scoring a total of 68 runs. It wasn't all that easy going for the Thunder girls but they eventually got there losing 6 for 69. This win also saw the Thunder return to the top of the table. Ella nabbed some more autographs for her top!

Coming straight from work, I arrived at the game while the pitch was being readied for the BBL match. This match was to be a showdown with both Renegades and Thunder requiring a win to have any chances of making it into the next round. Thunder won the toss and elected to bowl.

The Renegades final score was 6 for 189 with an impressive 25 runs off the final over. We were being entertained by a very lively Renegades fan who was enjoying their batting efforts and the friendly banter with the Thunder fans. He was certainly enjoying the action as the Thunder batting order stumbled and so did he when he stood on his chair to celebrate only to topple onto Sandra. Luckily the seat took most of his weight. Andy wasn't too impressed and told him but he was too intoxicated to care. Thankfully security gave the guy a visit almost straight away and although we couldn't hear what was being said, he quietened down immediately. The kids were all a bit scared.

At one point we realised that Brad Hogg had not made the cut for the Renegades and was running around the boundary offering hydration and encouragement to his team mates as well as occasionally signing autographs. So Ella, Luca and Cathy decided to head down to the outer and try to get his autograph. But they did one better, when Cathy said they were all Hoggs and he thought that was cool and said that needs a photo then....

Anyway the game continued and at 4-51, it looked out of reach for Thunder however the youngster Nair put in a solid effort before being joined by Rohrer who smashed 28 run on the 13th over (6,4,4,4,6,4). Suddenly the tables had turned with the Thunder needing 55 runs from 36 balls.

The overs continued, runs kept trickling in and a few more wickets fell. It all came down to the last over with Thunder needing 14 runs. It was not to be with the Renegades claiming the final two wickets and Thunder finished all out for 180, 10 runs shy of a win. Unfortunately it also meant their BBL07 season was over.

Perfumers in the Making?

School holidays, time for making perfume? Ella and her friend randomly decided to make perfume with Katy who was allowed to join in! Their choices of peppermint, rosewater and vanilla essence expanded to lemon, orange, strawberry, grape, watermelon, honey before gathering flora from the garden - jasmine, rosemary and mint. Jars were collected, combinations tried before favourites were chosen! All good fun!

Goodbye

Not only did we farewell Grandad this week, but also our neighbours.

We were so lucky to have Karen and Nathan as our neighbours since we moved into our house, 10 years ago! Both of our families have grown during that time with Katy and Sofia becoming best buddies. We will miss them heaps and hope they enjoy their tree change on to a small property in Gundaroo.

A group of neighbours gathered on their front lawn for drinks and nibbles to farewell Karen and Nathan and welcome Jana and Dave, the new owners!

Complete

The palate bench seat took much longer than expected due to the epoxy gap filling process that required long drying times in between applications. Once that was complete it was back to sanding, sanding and more sanding. It was all worth the effort as the final product looks fantastic!

Twilight Tour

On Tuesday night we attended a night walk at Mulligans Flat Woodland Sanctuary with Cath, Aoife and Carolyn. Since the early 1800's woodlands have been cleared and altered for wheat and sheep farming. This change in habitat and the introduction of foxes, cats and rabbits has resulted in many species of bird and small mammals becoming locally extinct.


Located on the northern boundary of ACT/NSW border, Mulligans Flat Woodland Sanctuary encloses an area of 485 hectares with an 11.5km feral proof fence which was officially closed in 2009. Work then began on eradicating the feral animals. In providing a safe haven in a healthy box-gum woodland environment, the reintroduction of native animals began.

In 2012 Eastern Bettongs were released into the Sanctuary and this marked the first time in a century that this species was living in the wild on mainland Australia.





The Eastern Quoll was reintroduced in 2016 after a 50 year absence from the local area and a few of the females who didn't manage to escape bred within the first few months.





A total of 11 Bush Stone Curlews were released in 2011 and after the initial disappointment of losing a few, the first Bush Stone Curlew was born that same year! Individual Bush Stone Curlews had not been sighted in the Canberra region since the 1970's.



Various groups of Honours and PhD students from ANU have been tracking and studying the Brown Treecreeper, a flock of 43 were released in 2009 as well as a group of New Holland Mice that were reintroduced in 2012/2013.

Yet to be released pending the assessment of reintroduction of other species include the Southern Brown Bandicoot and the Rosenburg's Monitor.

Anyway back to the twilight tour... we began as the sun was setting. Our guide, an ecologist and a volunteer handed out torches excellent for spot lighting the nocturnal animals we were all hoping to see!

The group was large with quite a few kids and it soon became obvious despite the pleading from the guide for the kids to be quieter,  that many of the animals would be making tracks as they heard us approach. Nevertheless the guide had a wealth of knowledge and was able to provide an interesting insight to the Sanctuary set up, aims as well as the fauna and flora inside. Ella was glued to her side, volunteering answers to any question asked and soaking up all the information on offer. Katy was making sure she was not too far away from the safety of an adult's hand!

The walk looped around taking nearly 2 hours, so another late night for us! Although it was disappointing not to see a quoll (or two) we were happy to see a few bettongs bouncing through the scrub. It would be lovely to do this walk again with a smaller and quieter group.

Surprise Visit

Grandad gave us less than 24 hours notice of his arrival into Canberra. Unfortunately although he was on the east coast, he wasn't able to join us in Sydney for the BBL and instead spent time looking after Pippa.

It seems that you can teach an old dog new tricks, with Ella coercing Grandad as assistant chief to cook gyoza for dinner!

The week turned out to be a busy one and we were thankful Grandad was there.

Cock a doodle do

Turns out that we have 2 roosters!

Basil (nee Rosemary) was the first to find his voice at 6am in the morning with some interesting renditions!

Meanwhile Juniper (nee Jasmine) hadn't quite worked it out but had all the other features of a rooster - large comb and wattles!

In a stroke of luck, neither rooster made it to the reptile zoo to be the pythons dinner. Juniper went with our neighbours to their new property in Gundaroo, while Basil joined another fellow rooster (from over the back fence) and also relocated to a farm in Murrumbateman.

Meanwhile the remaining chickens are all growing lovely. Mystery looks like she is keeping her neck feathers, Willow is catching up in size to Clover and Maple is a pretty little thing. Hopefully we will finally be getting eggs soon after nearly a year of drought!

Jumping

A bit of holiday energy released with a jumping session at Flip Out. Both girls took friends and had a great time making up dance routines, doing front somersaults into the foam pit and generally jumping all over the place.

Sydney Smash

What are your memories of summer? For me it was swimming in our backyard pool, hot mornings at little aths, annual christmas holiday to Albany, cricket on the TV and playing cricket with the boys next-door! For our girls, well their childhood memories are currently being made with the almost nightly viewing of the Big Bash League, a 20 overs cricket match, which is making an impact!

And so with Ella enjoying playing cricket, we decided to investigate tickets to see a BBL match. The only game to be held in Canberra was sold out, so we looked further afield to Sydney. Nothing was looking promising in our initial search with either matches sold out or on days we weren't able to attend. We left it there.

A few days later Andy decided to look again with the idea of going to Melbourne. We checked out flights and tickets, trying to convince ourselves it would be worth it when he checked the Sydney game again and there were tickets available! We quickly snapped up enough for the whole family.

With tickets firmly in our hands, we assessed the logistics of accommodation and how to get to and from the game at the SCG. As the game was likely to finish around 10.30pm, we settled on a hotel that Andy had used for work located in Randwick.

It was a leisurely drive via a lunch stop at Berrima. Really enjoyed the beef and mushroom pie - I think I might have said it was the best pie that I've ever tasted! Back on the Hume, the traffic became more congested as we approached Sydney until we were at crawling pace near the SCG!! A few navigational errors added a few minutes too. By the time we arrived at our hotel we were all a little hot and bothered!

On approach to the hotel, both girls were excited about what it was going to be like. They are hilarious with their view on the world. The hotel was nothing flash...one may describe it as quaint. Upon unlocking the door, they both squeal with happiness exclaiming this is the best ever... they see the old furniture as impressive, the shampoo and soaps as exciting, the bunk beds as awesome and Ella's discovery of the hairdryer well that just the topping on the cake for some reason!!

We cooled off with a shower before wandering up to the local shops to buy snacks for dinner. From there we boarded a local bus. Some 15 mins later we jumped off,  crossed the street, walked a short distance to our gate at the SCG. Passing the bag check we found our seats upstairs on the third tier with a wonderful view of the pitch. A very smooth operation.

And so we settled nicely into our afternoon / evening of cricket! The WBBL match had already started with the Sydney Sixes winning the toss and electing to bat first. Ella, a keen Sydney Thunder fan, thanks to a Thunder signed playing top from her coach last year, was obviously cheering for the green team so we all followed suit!

The Sydney Sixes were all out for 113 with Elyse Perry top batter scoring 25. Sam Bates from the Sydney Thunder bowled well. The Thunder made a shaky and slow start with a few ducks until Stalenberg came in, making 48 runs from 41 balls, turning the match around and sealing the player of the match. Thunder overcame the Sixes in the 19th over with a score of 6-114.



It was a lengthy wait before the start of the BBL but we spotted the Thunder girls signing autographs around the ground. Ella beelined downstairs and managed to squeeze between the crowd and scored a few more autographs for her shirt! She was pleased as punch! For Katy, the match was a steep learning curve. Having never played cricket and not really taken much notice of the sport, she was full of questions. Her cracker one was when a four was hit and she turned and asked 'How many runs to they get for a four?'

The sun was setting as the captains of the Sydney Sixes and Sydney Thunder emerged onto the pitch. Sixes won the toss, opting to bowl first. Thunder began well with Vince hitting 4 sixes in the first 4 overs. LBW of Khawaja started a slide of wickets before Green stabilised the game, producing a man of the match effort scoring 49 off 27 balls. By the end of the innings, Thunder were 6-156.

In the interval break, we located Cathy, Maki, Luca and Owen who were watching from seats below us. As the family next to them departed their seats, we joined them for the first few overs before retreating to our original seats for a better view. The Sixes had a great start with the first wicket not falling until the 9th over (1-69). It wasn't looking very good for the Thunder. Despite the run rate for the Sixes slowed a little and a wicket falling in the 16th over, it seemed that the Sixes had the game in the bag needing 30 runs from the last 23 balls.

However Thunder hadn't given up and the balls ticked away but the runs didn't. The excitement levels were rising with the Sixers needing 9 runs in the last over! Again it looked easy but the game came down to the last ball!! The crowd was buzzing with everyone on the edge of their seat for this nail biting finish! Henriques from the Sixers faced, slogging it to deep mid wicket for the 2 required runs. The Sixers had won their first game of the season! It also meant that the Thunder had just paved a hard road to the top 4 for themselves.

We were slightly disappointed that Thunder didn't win but what a game to be at! The noise and atmosphere was amazing and very loud at times! It was such an awesome experience for the girls. We joined the mass exodus of people from the SCG, heading for the bus stop and were pleasantly surprise to board straight on to a bus without queueing and were back at the hotel much faster than expected with everyone looking forward to some sleep!

The next morning, after waiting for Ella to finish drying her hair with the hairdryer(!), we headed out for breakfast before a quick dip in the rough ocean at Maroubra. We were back in Canberra by early afternoon and excited to be spending the next week with Grandad who had been minding Pippa!

High Country Running

Many of our friends head up to Thredbo in the second week of January for Runners Week. We haven't managed to join them yet and often feel jealous when they share their adventures! So when they began talking of running the Aussie10, a course which ascends the 10 highest peaks in Kosciuszko National Park, Andy's ears perked up!

With the weather behaving, the banter turned to reality! Andy decided it was worth the 3 hour drive (each way) for a long run in the high country. Luckily for him the attempt for the Aussie10 had been scrapped and a new route proposed.

Running a total of 27km, their route headed from the top of the chairlift, across the ramsheads to a very cool and bright Cootapatamba Hut. It is a survival shelter designed to catch people leaving the Kosciuszko Summit in poor weather. The hut has two entrances with Rob trying out the snow entrance, the roof top tunnel before Marty discovered the summer entrance, a small door on the other side!

Keeping to the west of Koszciuszko, the boys continued through the alpine meadows (with a healthy dose of thick, scrubby heath) on to Abbotts Peak, Mt Townsend (#2 in Australia) and Alice Rawson Peak. This was beautiful country that is generally pretty inaccessible, with great views down to Geehi.




With the major peaks done, the team headed across towards the main range track, popping up Koszciusko on the way past. Runners aren't allowed on the main route to Thredbo, so the route went down the snowy and then followed a line of snow poles across to the top of the Thredbo chairlift. In total is was close to 4 hours, more than 3 hours off-track and 5 of Australia's 10 highest peaks. A good day out....