Memories

The trouble with a large age gap between siblings is that you don't really have the experience of a shared childhood. You do all the same things, either altogether or because your parents repeat experiences/tried and tested means of keeping you quiet, but memories diverge.

Aunties Jenny, Rosie and Ruthy (all born within 18 months of one another and let's not talk about the thought of having twins in 8 weeks time, which would be what would happen if the pattern were repeated) often come up with memories of experiences where I was either absent/too far into teenagerdom "this is soooo boring"/ or in the case of the following, shared delusions, where they have talked about something so much that they now believe it to be true. Or so I thought.

Alice has a cold - she's gone back to back on these two rounds of the snots and so we have tissue stations everywhere. I have tried to make blowing her streaming little nose seem fun - as far as this is possible - by making a trumpeting noise when I wipe it, which she sometimes emulates and even succeeds in blowing the nose. We have also learned to point at our nose (and ears, head, cheeky cheeks, chin and tum) so that just adds to the delight (how the long winter afternoons fly). Anyway. She has recently shown great willingness to going to fetch a tissue for said endeavour. She will also go and fetch books, toys, flashcards, and generally anything that you need that is within reach. It's very handy. Yesterday, as she returned from bringing me my mobile phone, I had a little flashback. The Aunties are full of tales of how I used to get them to do all my fetching and carrying. I've always denied it, but perhaps it is true. Alice is so well trained that I must have learned how to get others to run about for me in the past. In fact, my skills as a layabout have greatly increased, as Alice can also be prevailed upon to put things away. She's just tidied up the living room. Skills have evolved, as I don't remember the Aunties ever being very skilled at that.

In other blast from the past news, the recent stormy weather has caused such beach erosion at Coogee as to have revealed the foundations of the old pleasure pier (picture of the original on website link below). These are usually covered by sand and sea and are rarely seen, even at low tide.

http://www.members.optusnet.com.au/mons1/pier.htm

Apparently the extent of the protrusion from the sand is a once in a lifetime event, so Alice rode down on her bike to have a look. Obviously this lovely photo of her sitting on the foundations will be one for the family album (if you ignore the dribble, snot and snivelling).



Later, having returning to her bike, she cheered up considerably.