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Published: November 28th 2007
Lauren turned 10 yesterday and celebrated with dinner at home and some presents. Her favourite is a marionette. Today we took her to The Rainforest Cafe for lunch and to the open air ice skating rink at Somerset House (the ice skating season just started yesterday. The weather is good for it...this morning it was minus 2 and the highest temperature of the day was 3. Both great but photos are best for description. She was very happy with the day and both girls are now playing happily sorting her new stamp album and playing with a marionette.
Congratulations to Australia for our new government. Thank goodness! We can now return home. I voted on Tuesday and it was so nice to see friendly Australian people again at the embassy. So funny the way Australians always inflect at the end of their sentences and seek your constant responses by nodding and smiling and lifting their eye-brows as though everything is a question. I recognise it as the way Australians interact, all parties of a conversation are required to join in, respond and make continual appropriate sounds, nods and comments. This is not the case here and in fact I was
surprised to hear from an English woman that the Australian habit of rising at the end of sentences is actually viewed by the English as aggressive and confrontational! I must say that the Australians I hear and see around London are extremely confident people. They always appear to me to have an extra burst of life and energy, a spring in their step that is both assured and lazy at the same time. A casual carelessness about how they dress, walk and talk. It is very refreshing after a year in a very restrained environment.
Occasionally I'll come across Australians trying to fit in here and be English and it appears to me to be comical and a bit sad but I guess everyone can choose who they want to be....
Speaking of Australians sounding English I think we got Christine out of her High School just in time! She was definitely starting to have a slight Londoner tilt to her phrases. She had a great Goodbye party here with her friends and it was so lovely to see them all laugh and have such a good time. She has been happy this year but I know she is
really looking forward to coming home to her real home and garden and old friends.
Lauren is finishing up at her school next week and they are having a party for her on the Friday. The teacher insisted and keeps telling Lauren how much she will miss her. Lauren has been very happy at this school and in many ways I think England suits her. However she is also excited and happy to be returning.
We are currently having to deal with bureaucracy again like when we first arrived which is frustrating but must be done. I now have much more sympathy for people who must rent their home. Having agents come through all the time with potential future tenants is no fun at all. Also the power they have over your deposit and so forth. Still, all part of the experience.
The temperature has well dropped and most of the leaves have gone but Christmas is coming and there is excitement in the air!
Video is of St Clements from our last day in Rome. It is a 12th century Byzantine church with a 4th century early Christian church underneath. (you can clearly imagine the
Lauren the birthday girl at Rainforest Cafe
I told the waiter it was Lauren's birthday and they put her up on a chair and asked everyone in the restaurant to sing a round of Happy Birthday. For anyone else this would have been traumatic..Lauren took it in her stride and was happy.early Christians hiding and holding secret meetings down in these dark, dusty, cramped rooms. The video is from this part of the excavations. Beneath this is a first century AD temple to Mithras. (very claustrophobic but highly atmospheric)
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happy bday lauren
looks fun. the cafe and ice skating. re aust in england - you must remember that australians choosing to live OS will generally be more motivated/adventurous than the standard model at home so you can't fairly compare their attitude with the average stay in england pom. same here - there arent many 'average' poms but there are certainly at lot af average australians.