It's Time For Bed

Tills "reading" It's time for bed, by Mem Fox.

She has a cold at the moment. We have a plane to catch in two days, poor little love - I hope she pulls through. She read a couple of pages and then towards the end she says, Mama I want to see the video. Haha. She couldn't wait. She only agreed to do it so she could see the video. Her voice is not the same due to the cold.

So, the cold. H1N1, I wonder how crazy it all is with the airlines and if Tilly has a mild fever what might happen???

It's time for bed little mouse little mouse, darkness is falling all over the house.

It's time for bed little goose little goose, the stars are out and on the loose.

It's time for bed little cat little cat, so snuggle in tight, that's right like that (improvised snuggling with chair).

It's time for bed little calf little calf, what happened today that made you laugh?

New Nikon ~ trying it out.....

Food for thought:

Favourite desserts - Adlay Oatmeal Deluxe!! A sweet soup of oats, job's tears, peanuts and other stuff. Sounds awful and maybe a few years ago I would have thought it too. But this stuff is yum yum. Also, red beans and lotus seeds. Red beans, and other such legumes, oats, whatever.... are eaten sweet here generally in the summer time. Red beans go well in the winter but are served hot. Yummy yummy sweetie goodness and pretty darn healthy. Tilly sweating profusely and cleaning up a big bowl of rice and prawns. She LOVES prawns but I don't give them to her too often. .......aforementioned prawns... they really were delicious and I was pretty proud of my efforts. Have been following some food blogs lately and getting some great stuff off it. Before the prawns had cooked up a vegan rice and black bean dish for vegan Paula and Sarah Bear which was given the thumbs up, at least by Paula.

Recent days...

Community

I dumped the rubbish this evening. At 6:20 a couple of rubbish trucks come in a street nearby ours. At 6:15 we all come scurrying out like ants out of tunnels and position ourselves in the general vacinity waiting for the truck. You dump your food scraps in big buckets and you dump your general rubbish in the back of the rubbish truck. It's stinks and isn't the nicest of chores, in fact I don't like doing it at all and Steve is usually commissioned to do the task. But the more I think about dumping rubbish (and how to make less of it) the more I think about the sense of community here and the things that connect people together. Noni and I were standing there, watching the people gather, chatting to each other, catching up. In fact, people come out earlier to do just that. This evening the truck came rumbling up, backing up the street and a taxi driver was told to scoot into a lane off the side to make room for the truck. And the truck driver jumped out and yelled, 'hang on you lot! i'm not done backing up, that taxi driver is whinging about not being able to get out of the lane. ok, move back you lot, make room for me!!' All in good nature. And then when he'd finished backing up he jumped out and has a chat to the people gathered round and tells us more about the taxi driver whinging and wasn't it so annoying?? But noone was actually annoyed. The other night I popped out to the shops to get something like tissues, I can't remember. It was already ten in the evening and I bumped into an old guy who is Steve's customer. He came to us once as we were standing outside the storage and asked me to look at his medical report which said he was 89, had normal insides but perhaps his liver was a bit dicky. I told him as much and said why hadn't he asked his Doctor? He said the Doctor was no good and not worth talking to about it! Anyway, I saw him at the supermarket this night standing outside chatting with two equally old girls. We stopped and had a chat, 'How are you doing? Did you get your liver sorted?' 'Yeah, liver is fine and where are you living right now?' 'Well I haven't a clue of the exact address but it is there abouts (pointing and waving in the general direction)'. Then I see an old dog laying near one of the old girls (Tills and I affectionately call her Grandma Doggy). So I said, 'We live opposite that old dog and her owner!' 'Yeah, I know the place, I'll drop by and see you sometime' 'Great, well goodnight!'. Of course he won't drop by and see us sometime and that was officially only our second ever conversation! Just trying to say that it was after ten at night and there are still old grannies and pops (and their dogs) out on the streets having a yarn. There are heaps of examples, like the breakfast store we frequent and all the regulars that gather there every morning, chatting and catching up before work, or other commitments. Maybe I'll take some pics and put them on this blog. All that over dumping the rubbish this evening!!

in case you were wondering....

.....ride the bike in this direction.

New Wheels

Our new wheels. Tilly loves cruising and I'm really happy to be back on a bike. Before I got pregnant I rode a lot on our mountain bike. It was too high class for a baby seat! so had to get another bike. That was the first day we got the bike. The next day we went and got Tills a super duper helmet. Now we're set.

spider!

Oddities

There are some things here that I'd really love to take a photo of and post. Someone in the lane near us died. Outside the house of the deceased are what appear to be two freakishly large wedding cakes, each about two metres tall. In fact they are what can only be described as 'monuments' set for the deceased made entirely of soft drinks in cans and paper flowers. Each 'wedding cake' has six tiers with each tier seperated by fluorescent green and yellow paper flowers. Each tier is made up of a particular drink. They must use rounds of foam as the tier and to stick the drink cans on. The bottom tier is three drinks high of for example, cans of green tea. The next tier is made entirely of cans of milk tea. The next, cans of asparagus juice, and so on and so forth (the variety of drinks in Taiwan is astounding, I just used those three as an example). At the top of the highest tier a great big bright yellow or green paper flower is placed. It's quite the most bizarre thing you have ever seen and I'm not sure if you can even picture it. Can you imagine it? These huge things on the street by the front door, made entirely of cans of drink. We drove by it today and I lamented the fact I didn't have my camera on me. I was then told that these things were put out in respect for someone deceased and wouldn't I be the oddity stood there taking a picture of it? So, there I was put in my place. Hence, no picture. You'll just have to use your imagination.

Sarah May

Sarah is quite the sweetie. She's been able to come stay with us a few days a week and play with Tilly, as I'm not working this summer and her mama is.

She is pretty awesome. That photo is of her cleaning the forgotten cracks in our house. She's really taking 'earning your keep' to the next level! She takes a wet tissue and wizzes around cleaning things. When she was there in behind the door she jumped up and said, oh dirty and screwed her face up at me. We won't go into how dirty it actually was, shame shame. Though you can't see her face, I'm sure you can see that she is actually cleaning that TV that Tilly dirtied with her smudgy hands.

When she takes off her shoes she places them nicely in the corner by the front door. If something drops, she picks it up and puts it back where she found it. Wowsers, Tills could learn a thing or two.

Anyway, they get along well and are having a great time together.

What's the go with that?

Tilly seems to have started translating? This evening at the dinner table she asked, where's daddy? And I said, He's gone to the storage (how come Daddy has a knack of disappearing right before dinner is served - bring's back memories of my own darling daddy). Anyway, so I tell her he's just stepped out and will be right back and then I said to her in Chinese, you eat first - ni xian chi - which is literally - you first eat. And she says to me, mmmm you eat first - back in English. And this kid has only just passed her second birthday. And sometimes she'll say something in English and then say it again in Chinese. After researching bi-lingual kids we reckoned each of us speaking in our native tongue was the best approach. Though we aren't completley rigid with it, obviously with the above example. But I really find some of the things that come out of her mouth quite bizarre, she's a natural mimic. But now she's started translating I think it's a bit more than that? Today she held onto the pram while we walked to the supermarket. Inside the grounds of the supermarket I told her she could walk without holding, no cars bikes etc. She started following a painted yellow line on the ground and just kept going. I yelled out and nothing. She started picking up pace all the way around to the otherside and nearly out onto the road. I've already given up being curious as to how far she will go without me, she'll just go. I was already running after her and then yelled STOP in my most anxious voice and she laughed and turned around - you know which is just plain naughty. Anyway, back in the pram for her which she found very annoying. But tonight in bed I talked with her about it and told her why that was such a dangerous thing and how she was not to do it again and that she'd lose her freedom of walking if she did it again. And I said, do you understand? And she said, mmm yes mama, do not run..... I love conversing with her. In the mornings she says the sweetest things. "Hello darling, I'm getting up, I'm hugging mummy." She's nuts.

Breakfast at the Sheraton

Saying Goodbye...

We said our last goodbyes, for now, to our dear friends the Hammonds on Thursday morning before their flight. We'll miss them.

Chad the Minister and Steven the Mover. Chad joked he'd have that placed on his business card.