Friday - Train

On Friday Ellis, Rowan and I checked out the playgroup near our house again. This time I went the right way - I was still exhausted by the time I got there as it was so hot. I think it was only about 32 but it was very muggy. We were all dripping with sweat and poor Rowan in particular - he is suffering these days. He looks like a wet dishrag - hair constantly wet. Every morning when we get up - there is a sopping wet spot where Rowan sleeps - he got my sweat genes I guess. Even if we have the air conditioning on, he still seems to sweat. Anyway - I went too early to playgroup as I was done after an hour and so was Ellis - but this is a hardcore playgroup and they had hauled out all the toys (for about 6 kids - although more showed up later) and I felt I had to stay to help clean up. They are also very diligent about clean up - putting everything (and I mean everything) back in the proper box. So we stayed till the end to help clean up. I got to walk home with Heike (our German friend) so that was good.

Scarfed lunch and then headed out to our Cdn friends' house. Thought we would take the bus but after wandering aimlessly in the noon day sun (must be a mad dog as I'm not an Englishman) I couldn't find the bus stop and my iphone failed me so we asked the nearest bystander where the train station was and quickly changed plans. Hiked up to the train station and caught the train. Mercifully, the train was air conditioned and Ellis liked the adventure. I had phoned our friends with our new plans and they met us at the station. Walked to their house (cute Queenslander - I like them - very old timey) where the kids sort of played together.
As an aside - the train was kinda fun - even though we only
traveled about 4 km (in fact, one of the options on the Translink site was....

Option 2

walk 4695 m

it felt like we were on a grand adventure to the Aussie outback. The stations all had a very oldtime feel. Unfortunately, I didn't take any good pics. People were also helpful and one man helped me off the train with my new 1o ton stroller (actually, I think it is the kids - specifically Rowan that weigh 10 tons). Walking off the train grounds, we almost got run over by a train - thank goodness for automatic closing gates that stopped us.
So a mostly successful journey
shouldn't have done it though as it made the day too long - didn't get back till 5 - Ellis had crashed (see photo) just as were on the last leg home (woman in the ferry lineup said - oh how cute - he's fast asleep holding onto his.... bug?

Darn it!

Oh well, I made dinner in peace and woke Ellis up for dinner. We rented a car this weekend so as there was no way Ellis was going to go to bed just having woken up from a 1.5 hour nap, we went for a drive. Rowan got to sleep in peaceful air conditioning and Ellis got to be a backseat driver. We have a Tom Tom GSP with John Cleese as the narrator and every time he would say "turn right" Ellis would chime in "Right Right - daddy - that wasn't right"

I kept cringing and saying "yikes" as it felt like Cyp was going to take off the passenger side of the car - plus I think he thinks we're in the Indy - there are a lot of traffic circles here that he seems to think are his own personal challenge. That said - our car is still intact. I'm grateful for the GPS - it seems to finally work - Cyp has always been a first adopter of technology and we've spent many frustrating drives having to figure out which way to go after a GPS has sent us in the totally wrong direction.