This is just the way we like it - except it wasn't us doing the mowing ... which will not be deferred until tomorrow (please let the weather hold) or, failing that, when we contact young Christian. It's about to be school holidays so he would probably welcome the diversion and perhaps even a little extra pocket money (if that's what teenagers get these days).
We must have all worn ourselves out yesterday because after Crave and then a visit to Harvey Norman to see if we could get a phone charger for E's mobile, and a bit of a drive round to show off the Coast, we managed to make it back to Nerang for a cup of tea, a sandwich (it hadn't been a very big breakfast) and then all fell into our respective beds for an early afternoon nap. Not surprisingly, as I had been the first down, I was the first up, and as I was sitting out catching up with some writing (about Life at Latimers), E came out to join me and we started watching the sparrows. Then, as the others woke up, they came out and joined us, each time offering hot drinks, and even scones (which had thoughtfully been picked up from the bakery earlier ... no-one was offering to bake them)! L and E had also brought books with them (not sure when they thought they were going to get the opportunity to read them); L is reading the Lisbeth Salander novels (now so-called because I can never remember how to spell the author's name - and neither can the spellchecker!). She has decided she will read all three and pointed out that she had this much more to read - with "this much" being shown by a wide spreading of thumb and index finger to indicate the thickness of the remaining two books in the trilogy. She has also decided that she doesn't want to hear any "spoilers" - which is a shame because the conversation we were having about children and parenting could easily have been added to but not necessarily enriched with a peppering of snippets from Books 2 and 3.
Who knew that gas bottles could either be refilled or swapped? My education continues. Now if only the visitors could have remembered if it is hot water or cold water that you run down the outside of the gas bottle to show how much is left in it. Gas? Yes, that was gas. It wasn't cold enough for the gas heater (although it did look for a moment tonight like it was going to be) but it was just warm enough for a barbecue. And thank goodness the visitors were keen for one ... because working out the gas bottle was the smallest of our concerns. Buckets, paper towels, scrubbing brushes, barbecue cleaner (which we found just as the cleaning duties were ending), double latex gloves, water, steel scrubbing brush, cooking oil, tongs, clean foil - and the removal of one thank-goodness-it-was-empty wasp nest later, it was time to turn the "Beast Master" on - being careful of flame-outs - and all for the use of flame and heat for cleaning and sterilisation. It's just a shame that the sausages that went on to it seemed to have been made by the apprentice butcher and refused to some degree to retain either their filling or their sausage-shape. But they, and the chops, tasted pretty good - especially when teamed with a salad from S's garden.
After dinner we settled down to go through some holiday snaps from their recent choir trip to New Zealand. There was some amazing shots of one of the mountains - an extinct volcano as many of them there are - which had been sprinkled with a light dusting of snow ... but an even more stunning shot of something called a Wind Wand, in New Plymouth. It is an installation art work, 45 metres tall, by Len Lye and is a good few years old now. The "stunning" aspect is that I had seen another photograph of this only a couple of weeks ago (when stacking manchester or possibly it was linen into one of the meeting rooms) - and Joan was telling me that Rob was offering a prize to anyone who could tell what it was. I'm just trying to work out a way now to casually drop it into conversation :)
When we visited Harvey Norman we were pleased to find it was mid-sale and both E and I purchased very light-weight compact tripods. I would have loved to have used mine yesterday for bird shots, but when I unpacked it the base plate (which screws onto the camera and locks the camera onto the tripod) was missing. Hopefully, if I put it in a fairly prominent place, I will remember to to put it in the car when we take L and E to the airport so I can take it back and exchange it ... tomorrow.
