Christmas

This week has been about Christmas, and not about walking. Also, I have wanted to rest to regain strength and prepare for several extended walks in the New Year. There have been (still are, mostly) eight mouths to feed, thousands of books to read and games to play. It is family time, and taking eight into the bush, and catering for the various dietary requirements from those of toddlers to vegetarians to hearty adult meat eaters poses a challenge in the bush. A rest is good for me. Besides, you can't have chocolate mouse or fresh profiteroles in the bush.
The above shot was taken during a family picnic to Hawley Beach. Gussy and I climbed several "rock peaks" for practice, and gave a high five on each, sometimes raising an imaginary flag. We managed to keep the sand out of the food. Rock pools were absorbing.

We did also manage another picnic tea up at Ben Lomond, managing to catch sunset at the tail end of a busy day.
It is my habit to post each week when I can, so the rest of this post is about a Christmas experience at the hot end of the world ....

Here is little miss Abigail Grace, showing a great interest in presents and an unfortunately unusual interest in books. She adores Christmas food. As she was a tiny baby last year, this was her first real Christmas with us. She is our chief source of entertainment, and the joker at every mealtime.

We have done a little singing of carols around the piano, but not much this year. Here is a photo of an attempt at Schumann's Impromptu in g flat. It has never sounded quite like this before - and hopefully will never do so again. It's kind of hard to play with two young helpers.

Christmas Day was very hot, so we played sprinkler games, then made a water slide out of plastic strips and a hose, and then went off to the Trevallyn Reserve for deeper water. Gussy seems to have had fun.
Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas time too. (Because of the heat and the young children, we went to church on Christmas Eve rather than during the hot day when the children had other needs.)