Sorry it has taken so long to update and thank you so much for all your personal messages that I haven't responded to yet! There seems to be a natural disaster somewhere every time I think about blogging, which makes our family day-to-day activities seem completely trivial. To whoever is rocking this planet, could you please get off??? We have all had quite enough, thank you.
February has been a bit harder for us than January. Thankfully we had been briefed on the relocation 'Culture Shock Model' and the phases of: Honeymoon, Distress, Reintegration, Autonomy and Independence. Actually I was still working through those phases from our posting to Wellington and Kent's deployment in 2007, and Kent's subsequent posting to Linton in 2009, but yes we are clearly passing through all those phases from the beginning again!
Our distress stage began as soon as Leah started school. We had all been looking forward to it so much of course; Leah loves school and it is our main contact with the local community. Sadly the different process was not to Leah's liking initially and it made us appreciate our lovely little school back in NZ! The key differences for Leah were the sheer number of students (800+), and that the classroom is not available as a base (it is locked morning/lunchtime/after school) so there is no respite from the volume of people or the heat, which was in the high 30Cs for the first week. Leah was very much a little 'inanga' in a big billabong!
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| We love the school uniform though! |
Anyway, after over two weeks of Leah hating school (and dragging her toes to get there), I decided to go and eat lunch with her even if it meant I had to eat lunch with her for the whole term! It took one lunch time, and a game of hide'n'seek with a few classmates and Leah has been absolutely fine ever since. She now LOVES school again, and now that she is settled we can see all the good things the school offers - specialist teachers, sports galore (including AFL today apparently), and a sound literacy and numeracy programme (Leah has homework every night including the weekend!). Leah is also doing a ballet/jazz class at the local dance centre, and irish dancing through the school.
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| Leah and Fraser in Fraser's outdoor area. |
Of course, we were also still settling Fraser in to the nearby preschool over this period so naturally Fraser also fed off Leah's anxiety. He is only just settling down now after being there since mid-January! His centre is absolutely lovely though, with fairly low staff/pupil ratios, and very similar to the structured preschool environment Leah and Fraser had in New Zealand, so our sympathies for Fraser don't run quite so deep! Fraser is currently obsessed with airplanes, so living on the flight path to the airport and along from the emergency helicopter base suits him nicely!
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| Not quite the airplane ride Fraser had in mind! |
Kent had his first trip away with a tour of military installations in Sydney, Melbourne, and Darwin. He enjoyed crawling around ships and watching an air show. Kent has not been well since we arrived - possibly a combination of a viral cough and hayfever (aka 'Manflu') - so he was quite ill when he was away but seems to have finally come right at last. He is enjoying his job instructing but missing the challenges and autonomy of command.
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| You can think of a caption! |
Beagle-wise it has also been an eventful period. Barney has developed an irrational fear of thunder (we get quite a few loud thunderstorms), and of being shut in his crate (which he has always slept the night inside in) so he has taken to sleeping outside on the patio. Naturally the two afflictions don't go very well together! At least he is not showing any signs of the arthritis he had been developing in NZ, and he thoroughly enjoys our daily walks in the new environment.
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| Our first Beagle Club walk at a specially-fenced dog park. |
Meanwhile Phoebe has been diagnosed with arthritis and a heart condition by the local vet! Nothing had been picked up on her pre-flight vet check in NZ but she has really struggled with the heat here, even on cool days, and now we know why. Although for an invalid, she still has a very healthy appetite! Naturally the vet has reinforced the need for Phoebe to lose weight, so with an initial reading of 12.2kg we are very proud to report that after four weeks on her expensive special food, pet milk, medication and exercise regime, Phoebe is still 12.2kg!! Hopefully the heart medication she starts next week will help her breathe a bit better, so we can walk her more than ten minutes a day.
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| The kids and Phoebe enjoying the shared water station |
The kids were thrilled mid-February with a surprise visitor for Alice's birthday! Joan enjoyed seeing where we are and helping tidy up our garden. Fraser was also thrilled to get a day off preschool to go to Cockington Green again.
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| Joan admiring a 'small' garden. |
Otherwise we have still been trying to make the most of our time here even though the work and school commitments now take first priority. We have managed to get to Weber's Circus, the Canberra Fair (like an A&P show), our local fair, and paddle-boating on the lake. The largely settled, warm weather is so nice that the children love spending most of their time in our dynamite backyard. They have both leaned right out with all the activity.
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| JAC: Just add children! |
I am helping in the school canteen at school, trying to keep off the 5kg I lost during the move, and keeping on top of the meals, lawns and vacuuming, while still sorting out the house!! We still need some furniture etc, but today I finally bought a dishwasher.
Well that is enough for you to digest for now. We are all back to being happy again and are now starting to plan our first trip, hopefully to Adelaide for Anzac Day.
Alice
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| Paddle boating on the lake. |
