Twas the week before Christmas

And if that bloody mouse could have helped out it would have been much appreciated. The kids had finished school the week before and there was a lot going on. Luckily, that did not include much in the way of Xmas shopping. Any of my Australian readers that are skeptical of the NBN, consider that I did a good 90% of my holiday shopping without once setting foot in the madness that is a pre-Xmas shopping mall, and I saved a lot of money doing it. Amazon is a God-send, and they gift wrap.

Frozen friends...

Friends of ours from Canberra had been posted to Noumea and stopped in for a visit during their round the world Xmas holiday. Thomas was very excited as their daughter, Amelie, had been among his best friends before he and all his friends scattered to the far corners of the globe. They arrived from the 30C sun and fun of the South Pacific at about 1am on the first night Ottawa saw decent winter weather (read 'snow'). I drove out to meet them with bags of warm clothes (and led them on multiple shopping expeditions to get more wintergear over the next couple days), before leading them back to the house in their rental car through the snowy night (top speed, 50kph). The kids were thrilled to see each other and play, especially in the snow, tho poor Felix (their youngest) was ill-accustomed to the restraints of winter clothing and snow. It was terrific to see oldfriends, but its amazing how quickly four small kids will fill a house. Even a rather large one.

The pre-Xmas Canadian charity (and crime) wave...

One especially nice change this holidy season has been our relative fiancial comfort. Next year we are back in Canberra and everything crashes back down to reality, but this year Jane and I each got one nice gift (don't even ask about the kids), and we are in a position to actually be charitable. Canada runs a lot of charity drives around Xmas seeking food and (unsuprisingly) warm clothes, especially coats and mittens. The kid's school set up a 'mitten tree' and received several decoarions from the depths of our closet. Later in the week, it was a very good feeling to give another charity an entire garbage bag filled with Lillian's winter clothes and outdoor gear from last year. Jane's natural caution and maternal instincts had built upon the good natured warnings of her Canadian work collegues such that we bought the children rather a lot of good winter gear.

We live in a nice neigborhood. Lovely houses, parks, rivers, rustic bridges. Nice. So it was a bit of a shock last year when Lillian's pram was stolen off the front porch in the dead of night. Turns out that was nothing. We may well return to find the car up on blocks and an empty house. Seriously, in the week before Xmas our neighbors had their bank ccount cleaned out by skimmers and three local houses had all their outdoor decorations stolen. Two of the thefts occured right around the corner from us in broad daylight and on a relatively busy street. One of the robbed families have been wildly friendly and welcoming to us, so it was a real joy to walk over the next day and give them all of our decorations. Sinc we were going to visit Australia for Xmas, I had decided not to put them up and they won't be of any use next year back in Australia due to the difference in electricity (110 vs 220). Tis (OK, was) the season.

Xmas in Australia - Getting There

I know when I think airports at Xmas I think of long lines for check in and security. Even worse, we were flying United Airlines (UA) and not by our choice. While DFAT kindly agrees to cover the cost of one return home during a posting, they also mean to do it as cheaply as possible. Hence, economy class and UA for us. Nonetheless, its all started well. We waited about 5mins before checking in, and even security took no longer than usual. Ottawa airport is brilliant in that US Customs and Immigration are located onsite. Its a lot less stressful for both the staff and the passengers than completing the ordeal with 5 other planes worth of travellors after 13 hours in the air. Not one of us was scanned or given a 'freedom pat' as the price of entry to the USA. And so we reached our departure gate unstressed and with plenty of time. We wait. I get a coffee and doughnut, and we wait.

And we wait a bit more. In fact, we waited until until 20mins after we were meant to have departed before UA even started to board the flight. 20Mins after that we finally departed. Annoyingly, we were landed at a small terminal which requires passengers to walk outside from the plane to the gate. Normally, no big deal, but in winter it kind of (really) sucks. This is where it all started to really go wrong. Jane slipped on some ice, ripping her pants and putting a pair of big, deep scrapes on her knee. As soon as we got inside I checked a board for our flight and discovered that it was already boarding. The problem is that our connection in Dulles (Washington DC) was tight before the Ottawa flight was delayed and Dulles airport is huge. Huge enough, in fact, to have its own trains sytem between terminals. Despite the injury, we would have to run to have any chance of making our connection. We each took hold of a child and ran to the train. Luckily waiting only seconds before one arrived. We did our best to catch a few breaths on the train before running again to reach the gate. We made it onboard about 10mins before they closed the doors. We spent those 10mins in the back bathroom cleaning up Jane's rather messy knee with some iodine and bandages provided by the aircrew. That was followed up by a couple of Advil and an ice pack. She had been very brave about the whole thing.

Later in the flight, Lillian asked for her fluffy sheep (Lilly-Baa) which had been carefully packed into her backpack to take on the plane. We couldn't find the bag. I looked under all four of our seats, the the overhead bins. I even looked under the seats of the people seated next to us. No luck. I know Jane had it when she got off the previous flight, but after that it all got a bit rushed and blurry. The only thng we could think of is that the bag had been put down and left back on the train (the only time we had stopped running). I had dreams of our revenge on Dulles, imaginging the chaos as the bomb squad was called in to detonate poor Lilly-Baa.

But no. Turns out the bag was - for some reason – beneath the seat two spaces to the side. We have no idea how or why, it was so far to the side, but were very happy that Lilly-Baa was neither lost nor detonated.

After all that, the San Fran connection was a dawdle. We landed, we walked to our gate. We waited about 30mins and then we boarded. The flight was long, but uneventful. It was an overnight flight, but nobody got nearly enough sleep. UA fed us and whenever the kids got too scratchy I hooked up the netbook and let them watch eps of Shaun the Sheep or Charlie and Lola until the danger had passed.

We landed in SYD around 8am and descended into chaos shortly after. Immigration was bad, but we are on diplomatic passports. Straight to the short line, yay us. Customs, however, was an absolute zoo. The lines to be processed were so long they doubled back on themselves. In fact, there were so many people that it was nearly impossible to move around the front of the room, let alone move a family of four pushing a pair of luggage carts. If luck had not intervened we probably would have been stuck in the log jam for at least another hour. Yay luck! A roaming Customs officer took pity on us. He asked us a few questions (and noticed the magic diplomatic passports) and stamped all our forms before directing us to an express exit. We were free.

Once through the doors we quickly reunited a pair of very excited shorties with a pair of very excited grandparents. Shortly after we were able to flee the airport, and shortly after that Jane had her happy toes in the sea.

BTW - A few days later Jane received an email from UA asking her to complete an online survey regarding our recent travel. This ought to be good.

The Gift of Music

Growing up, I have always been the non-musical Wagoner. Sure, I was able to program VCRs, hook up the cable TV and set up new computers and internet, but when it came time for a Wagoner family jam-session about the best I could do was to slap a pair of spoons together in semi-coordinated fashion, hopefully missing my head. Now that I have a family of my own this dicotomy seems unlikely to change. I have already blogged about my Xmas gift (using it right now as a matter of fact), which fits perectly with my techie past. Meanwhile, Jane and the kids have all fallen neatly onto the other side of the coin. The kids are now the proud owners of (and occasionally even share) a tiny, tiny grand piano. Seriously, its about 1.5 x 1.5 feet and they love banging away on it. They especailly love banging away on it when mommy is banging away on her big Xmas present, a 78 key Casio keyboard . Jane played when she was younger and voiced a desire to relearn. Merry Christmas!

Malcolm Turnbull on Wikileaks

Yes, its another non-family update.

The polarising effect Assange/Wikileaks has on people bothers me enormously. People calling for Assange's assassination, other people claiming he has acted in an 'entirely responsible' manner.  In the last 24 hours I have even seen multiple examples of people that would normally be livid at the mere suggestion of rape, lumping rape in with offenses like jay-walking. It's weird. So, I just want to share what is probably the most level-headed piece of writing regarding the whole Wikileaks fiasco I have yet encountered.

And whatever one may think about Turnbull, personally or his politics, you cannot deny his intelligence, or that he has strong history in this arena having won the Spycatcher case in the UK. So here you go...

http://www.malcolmturnbull.com.au/blogs/julian-assange-and-wikileaks/

Home with a pair of plague-monkeys

After a big weekend including Lillian's 3^rd birthday (soon to be blogged, I assure you) I find myself home with two kids that are too sick for school. Tom's class was missing 8 out of 20 kids on Friday. Nothing too serious, just runny noses and accompanying coughs, fever and lots of 'grumpy'. Of course the kids being both home and sick means I am greatly restricted in what I can do today. Ah well. A spoonful of honey each to ease the coughing and the Wiggles on the CD player ought to buy me enough time for some quick blogging.

Its seems that Canadians were having trouble following the directions for kids cold/flu meds, and so a couple years ago the government pulled all of them off the shelf. Now the only thing you can buy for 2 - 5yr olds is the equivalent of childrens Panadol (pain/fever relief only). Bugger that.

I went to the chemist and bought a package of childrens cold/flu meds for ages 6+ which treats all cold/flu symptoms and conveniently lists the name and dose of its constituent drugs per 5ml of solution. Armed with that knowledge I was able to go online and research the recommended safe dosage of each drug for kids in the 2-5yr age band. And so Thomas (the sicker of the two) has been getting the good stuff and is able to get some proper sleep. So far Lillian has managed to sleep well enough with ordinary children's Panadol. Hopefully they will both have recovered before Wednesday, when Jane disappears for a few days of work-travel and I will be solo-parenting.

EDIT - This evening I received an email from the school principal. She sent it out to all the parents advising that there had been 2 confirmed cases of strep throat in Senior Kindy, which has been the hardest hit of all the classes (8 kids out on Friday and 7 today). Parents were told point blank to keep their kids at home if they have had a fever in the previous 24 hours. So, looks like I'll still have the plague-monkeys at home again tomorrow, but I reckon they should be ready for school on Wedns.