Category: family adventures

From the Blog

Faith

On Sea Changes and Souls at Sea

We recently made a sea-change. Sounds exciting doesn’t it, the stuff of reality TV and life adventures. Actually, it was more like a series of hiccupy jumps, gulping for air, rather than a seemless transition. Together with our three children under eight, we moved from the deep inner-city surrounds of Sydney and the bustling communal environment of Bible college, to Toowong, a Queensland suburb close to the bush, where it was rumoured a giant python regularly sunned himself on the street, and finally to the very outer-edges of Brisbane, where land bumps up against water, and every sunset demands a camera. And if you think that sentence was long to read, imagine travelling all that distance.

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anxiety

And he saw me

Late one Friday afternoon a couple of weeks ago, we went walking by the Brisbane river. Such a simple sentence, right? I have loved walking since I trailed alongside my dad as a kid on his morning suburban stretches, air infused with birdsong, drenched in fresh, untarnished light. But, in my younger years declaring ‘walking’ as my chosen sport seemed weak and non-declarative. In these later ‘mumming’  years, I’m an aspirational walker. Just leaving the house can require athletic commitment. Due to an interstate move, a new job for Dr M, a new school year, new virus’, new discoveries, not to mention the transplanting of old fragilities in new settings, and a pounding sun, well, I haven’t walked much at all so far in our time here.

Read More
Amazing Grace

Returning to Basics

Autumn has come late to Sydney. An almost-winter purity sidles quietly in amongst the bustle and grit of the inner-city suburbs. And even as the air crispens to cold nights, the days continue to be lit by a wealth of golden sunlight I’m sure we rarely appreciate as we should.  We read about leaves —my newly minted homeschooling daughter and I —and how the reds and yellows that come out to dance at this time in the Southern hemisphere are the tree’s real heart colour hidden the rest of the year.

Read More
Amazing Grace

My Fear and I, Up in the Sky

If weeks had theme songs, and those theme songs had catchy choruses, this week’s song might be called something like ‘Looking Up’, the chorus, ‘Are we going on the plane today?! Today, today, up up away.’

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family adventures

Going Deeper

December 31, 2016. It was an impossibly hot day. The sky a blaze of blue. New Years Eve sizzled off ashphalt and skin long before any fireworks sparked. We’d spent the morning —Dr M and I and the three kids—wandering Mudgee, the country town we were holidaying in, lunching in a lovely cafe that afforded a natural green canopy where pinpricks of light filtered magically through. It was all going very well. Until it wasn’t. One by one we started to deflate like tired party balloons, some noisily popping, exhaustion running off our faces along with perspiration. ‘Into the car,’ Dr M announced. ‘At least we’ll have the aircon.’

Read More
Amazing Grace

Lighter Days: On Letting Go

By all predictions, it shouldn’t have been what it was. My hyper-vigilant, perfectly trained, parent-perfectionist-worrier-warrior radar had already assessed it. This day was meant to be B-A-D! The facts of the case were as follows: an over-tired mum ,with a sore throat, and an aching back…

Read More
anxiety

As long as she carried that torch: An illuminating tale from a family holiday

It began simply enough, as significant events often do, with an exchange of gifts between young neighbour-friends on our shared front-lawn before we departed for an early holiday. It was starting to rain, and we adults were pondering the vicissitudes of the sky, when upstairs neighbour O, the eldest of the clan of kids, appeared with her signature blue gumboots. But instead of putting them on her own feet, she passed them to our daughter E. For jumping in muddy puddles, O elaborated, echoing wisdom imbibed from one of their mutual heroine’s, Miss Peppa Pig.

Read More
Faith

What I Found when I Lost my Phone

A few days ago this happened: I lost my iphone.  I’m pretty sure it’s hiding somewhere in the apartment, not lost in the greater world. It’s just that no matter how many beds I look under, I can’t seem to find it. My last recollection of its being with me was a foggy 5am, when I was awake with the sun, and, as is often the case, with an over-active Baby J.

Read More
family adventures

Siblings

Watching my kids relate to each other fascinates me. Especially our oldest two. This earliest of bonds, this self-contained social world. I know it won’t always stay like this, but I’ll miss their cosy, uninhibited companionship when E and W grow up.

Read More
Faith

On Sea Changes and Souls at Sea

We recently made a sea-change. Sounds exciting doesn’t it, the stuff of reality TV and life adventures. Actually, it was more like a series of hiccupy jumps, gulping for air, rather than a seemless transition. Together with our three children under eight, we moved from the deep inner-city surrounds of Sydney and the bustling communal environment of Bible college, to Toowong, a Queensland suburb close to the bush, where it was rumoured a giant python regularly sunned himself on the street, and finally to the very outer-edges of Brisbane, where land bumps up against water, and every sunset demands a camera. And if you think that sentence was long to read, imagine travelling all that distance.

Read More
anxiety

And he saw me

Late one Friday afternoon a couple of weeks ago, we went walking by the Brisbane river. Such a simple sentence, right? I have loved walking since I trailed alongside my dad as a kid on his morning suburban stretches, air infused with birdsong, drenched in fresh, untarnished light. But, in my younger years declaring ‘walking’ as my chosen sport seemed weak and non-declarative. In these later ‘mumming’  years, I’m an aspirational walker. Just leaving the house can require athletic commitment. Due to an interstate move, a new job for Dr M, a new school year, new virus’, new discoveries, not to mention the transplanting of old fragilities in new settings, and a pounding sun, well, I haven’t walked much at all so far in our time here.

Read More
Amazing Grace

Returning to Basics

Autumn has come late to Sydney. An almost-winter purity sidles quietly in amongst the bustle and grit of the inner-city suburbs. And even as the air crispens to cold nights, the days continue to be lit by a wealth of golden sunlight I’m sure we rarely appreciate as we should.  We read about leaves —my newly minted homeschooling daughter and I —and how the reds and yellows that come out to dance at this time in the Southern hemisphere are the tree’s real heart colour hidden the rest of the year.

Read More
Amazing Grace

My Fear and I, Up in the Sky

If weeks had theme songs, and those theme songs had catchy choruses, this week’s song might be called something like ‘Looking Up’, the chorus, ‘Are we going on the plane today?! Today, today, up up away.’

Read More
family adventures

Going Deeper

December 31, 2016. It was an impossibly hot day. The sky a blaze of blue. New Years Eve sizzled off ashphalt and skin long before any fireworks sparked. We’d spent the morning —Dr M and I and the three kids—wandering Mudgee, the country town we were holidaying in, lunching in a lovely cafe that afforded a natural green canopy where pinpricks of light filtered magically through. It was all going very well. Until it wasn’t. One by one we started to deflate like tired party balloons, some noisily popping, exhaustion running off our faces along with perspiration. ‘Into the car,’ Dr M announced. ‘At least we’ll have the aircon.’

Read More
Amazing Grace

Lighter Days: On Letting Go

By all predictions, it shouldn’t have been what it was. My hyper-vigilant, perfectly trained, parent-perfectionist-worrier-warrior radar had already assessed it. This day was meant to be B-A-D! The facts of the case were as follows: an over-tired mum ,with a sore throat, and an aching back…

Read More
anxiety

As long as she carried that torch: An illuminating tale from a family holiday

It began simply enough, as significant events often do, with an exchange of gifts between young neighbour-friends on our shared front-lawn before we departed for an early holiday. It was starting to rain, and we adults were pondering the vicissitudes of the sky, when upstairs neighbour O, the eldest of the clan of kids, appeared with her signature blue gumboots. But instead of putting them on her own feet, she passed them to our daughter E. For jumping in muddy puddles, O elaborated, echoing wisdom imbibed from one of their mutual heroine’s, Miss Peppa Pig.

Read More
Faith

What I Found when I Lost my Phone

A few days ago this happened: I lost my iphone.  I’m pretty sure it’s hiding somewhere in the apartment, not lost in the greater world. It’s just that no matter how many beds I look under, I can’t seem to find it. My last recollection of its being with me was a foggy 5am, when I was awake with the sun, and, as is often the case, with an over-active Baby J.

Read More
family adventures

Siblings

Watching my kids relate to each other fascinates me. Especially our oldest two. This earliest of bonds, this self-contained social world. I know it won’t always stay like this, but I’ll miss their cosy, uninhibited companionship when E and W grow up.

Read More