Traditon with my girls…

The September school holidays began a week ago – and we have a tradition here at Granite Glen during these particular holidays. We don’t go away – people come to us. Among the special friends who make the mega-trek from the Big Smoke to visit our humble cattle enterprise, are three girls I once worked with.

You know how sometimes you work with people and you just ‘click’ and they seamlessly become part of your personal life as well as your working life?  Well these three girls qualify for me. We all met in the same workplace (about 15 years ago) and have stayed in touch while our working lives diverged onto different career paths (and our personal lives on wildly differing courses).

Bearing in mind that, with three ex- or current news photographers and one ex-journo in our midst, their annual bush visits to me are VERY well documented.  I think my camera (and note I don’t say “I” here as the camera got hijacked by all photographers at some stage) took almost 900 images during their four-day visit. Yup.

I thought I should share a couple of glimpses into our week, with brief explanations to showcase the wonderfulness of sharing one’s life (and family) with great mates.

Firstly, my husband proved (yet again) that he is the Pied Piper as we checked out the river.

Honestly, you have never seen a person TRY less with kids, and still have them trailing around after him.  The less he tries the more they love him.  Although the little munchkin in the purple top played coy with him most of the visit, which just about broke his steely demeanor, as he adores little ones.

Lachie (our young jackaroo) has a little yabbying experiment going on, and the new audience waited breathlessly to see what treasure he brought back from his dingy-ride to his secret fishing spot.

Am pretty sure he felt like Justin Beiber as he came into land.  Totally mobbed.

We also checked out our Dam Wall, where we spied well-camoflagued turtles…

Watched young ‘uns learn to RipStik (and shed the occasional tear when it all seemed too hard)…

Leap and swing and yell and laugh…

We endlessly admired gap-tooth grins…

Beyond cute.

I learned that a rescued mussel-shell is a thing of priceless value, and that one CAN super-glue it back to its semi-open position after it is accidentally snapped in two.

But not for long.

Axel learned that a patio filled with RipStikers on their ‘L’ plates is not a safe place to be, and decided to imitate a flower.

He partially succeeded.

We took a paddock drive and chanced upon an emu with his chicks…

A couple of the stripey young birds weren’t quite as quick as the rest, and the poor Dad Emu didn’t know which way to run.  It was pretty funny.  (But we all worried about the two left-behind chicks too – emus are NOT the brightest of creatures and the Father may not have had the whole ‘search and rescue’ technique down pat. NB I nearly went the obvious route there and included the term ‘Emu Parade’ – lucky I am so restrained and not corny at all*!)

Kids climbed rocks.

And gave their mother heart attacks with their fearlessness…

Some clearly took after their mothers in their natural camera techniques – this little dude is a future famous photographer – mark my words!

This is his Mama – her middle name might not be Joy, but it should be.  She will kill me for including this photo but it truly captures her Joy de Vive. And let me tell you, it’s infectious.  She is also a Kick-Ass Photographer.  I am linking to her site next post.  She’s a magician.

This is Kaz.  She is beyond beautiful.  She is sweet and gentle and clever. She has not photographed anything for a long time but we managed to re-infect her with the ‘shooting’ bug. We are evil like that.  But the girl is so talented, it’s a crime for her NOT to take photos.

This is Bell. Bell is miniature and makes me feel like an elephant.  Despite being the only brunette amongst the visitors she has more blonde moments than anyone I know. She also leaves classic messages on my answering machine, which I refuse to wipe because they make me smile.  I have nearly talked her into blogging too. Stay tuned.

We also ate.  And ate, and ate and ATE.  Feeding seven children and six adults regularly is quite an undertaking.  I don’t think I want to grow up to be a caterer.  But I do love laying it on in short bursts.  One meal we ALWAYS have during this annual visit is rib-eye on the bone.

It’s humongous.  But don’t get between Kaz and her rib-eye – she may be little in physique but by GOD she loves her rib-eye.  Actually all the girls did a creditable job on their mega-meat-meal.  I did the worst. I blame the cold I am currently nursing. And the 17  brie-and-quince paste-crackers I inhaled in the hour before dinner.

There are more images. About 900 more.  But I leave this post with this one, which may well make it to the gallery wall in our living room.

I hope this tradition – of merging our offspring in our bush home during the school holidays – is one habit we never kick*.

Thanks Ladies.

Til next year.

♥

BB

(*You have permission to groan now… that last one was too good/bad a line to leave alone)