We all went to the zoo today: Jeanette and Christopher, Tristan and Blaine, Tom and Thea, Rob and I. Although as usual our lovely kiddliwinks took a lot of our attention, the lion came a close second.

We wondered if he was day-dreaming about Africa…

Starting the hunt for our 3-months’ temporary accommodation while our house is mended from the storm damage back in March.

And I realise from a distance the many ways in which our home is a hub…

Back in Plymouth, staying with my Aunt Judy for 2 nights. It’s funny how the haunting calls of the many gulls that glide and swoop through the air is the sound I associate with these gifts of time with Judy. She has become the “big sister” that I never had, but this time it’s quite humbling how much I am like her in our ways and our outlook on life. This visit, during our chats, I discover that we are both very like her mother and her grandmother!

She is amazing how she takes to technology, and this visit I have finished off the setup of her laptop with the new broadband account. Her care alarm is now plugged back in too!

It was too wet to go sailing on Dusky Dolphin today, so Rob and I went for a walk on a bit of the Bibbulmun Track, after a delightful morning tea @ TBTAs with Jeanette and Christopher.

We spied this spider trundling across the track, then it went back the way it had come and trundled on through the many eucalypt leaves by the track.

Amazing!

This morning I did the Grandma thing and joined Tristan, Blaine (with her mending arm in a sling after last week’s surgery to remove a very long-standing ganglion) and Thea to watch Tom and his school class do the performance for the weekly chapel service. He was a fish, as was the young lady next to him.

I was very proud!

Today Rob and I drove back home after spending 2 nights in an apartment in Smith’s Beach (near Yallingup). With what’s been going on lately, it was a grand idea of Rob’s. Of course his camera came and he caught this amazing photo of the sea at Wyadup. I photographed him getting his feet wet while he took it:-)

But we also shared space with dolphins (cruising the bay below our balcony), ospreys, gulls, terns, black cockatoos with their poignant, heart-lifting calls (not only did we hear and see a big flock of white-tailed ones in the gardens of Caves House, but we also heard and saw an endangered red-tailed one near Bunbury). And we spent lots of time on the coast, enjoying the swells breaking on the shore.

It was good – so much magic and we both felt much better by the time we left to drive home. A pod of dolphins even appeared in the bay as we stood and said farewell to the place from the balcony:-)

This morning we enjoyed a lovely quiet time on the balcony of our apartment at Smith’s Beach. We had friends to share it with: a magpie who was very cute and sang for us, until Rob left his piece of toast unguarded and the magpie had no hesitation in swooping on it!

Then we noticed movement in the waves below that wasn’t from the surfies – it was a pod of dolphins feeding!

All this really helped our healing from the flu and strife of the past weeks:-)

Last night Tristan’s family arrived, all dressed up for their dinner out for Blaine’s birthday. Then the kiddliwinks stayed with us and Tristan and Blaine went out for the rest of the evening and a night at home, kid-less. I took them back across town this morning in time for Tom to go to school. They wore their pyjamas and dressing gowns back home as we only had their good outfits from the previous evening and it was far too cold to wear them!

They are lovely children and a credit to their devoted parents.