Whats been happening?

Well it has been a long time since we've visited the land of blog, so as usual there is loads to catch up on! The biggest news is that we've been on our first real holiday (albeit working). This was a trip to Hobart for 8 days. We were down there so I could attend a meeting, but it was also a great chance to spend sometime with Elliott's Aunty Alison and Uncle James! Like usual they were wonderful hosts and took some tine off work to hang out with us all. We also managed to do a couple of little morning/afternoon trips interlaced by Elliott's sleeping pattern, which was a great, although really we just enjoyed spending time with Alison and James on their turf (they usually do most of the visiting up this way).

We were sooooo lucky with the weather and had plenty of outdoor time. One of the nicest things was all the time we got to spend in the park, crawling on the grass (Elliott mainly), and playing at the play ground (again, mostly Elliott). The photos below tell the story better than I could.







Four days into the trip Aunty Nicole arrived for a visit as well, which was really nice. It is the first time that we've both been visiting Alison at the same time, harking back to a time when we all live under one roof. Hopefully it is a sign of things to come and we'll be able to do more group visits to Tasmania (in addition to the one coming up in a couple of weeks... Alison and James' wedding).


The first trip we went on was a visit to the oldest bridge in Australia (still in full use) at Richmond, about 1/2 hour from Hobart. We stopped at a cafe for devonshire tea and some lunch for Elliott, who was much more interested in playing with Aunty Alison through the chair (below). Richmond was a sleepy old town with plenty of Art and craft shops and places to explore, a good way to kick off our Tasmanian touristing.

We also spent an afternoon in the Hobart botanical gardens. Again, the weather was so kind to us and there was plenty to see, including:

1) a traditional Japanese garden

2) Pete's patch- the garden maintained by Peter Cundle and seen on Gardening Australia (ABC). This was a bit of a spiritual experience for Kel, she's a big admirer of Pete's work.

3) the antarctic display... maintained at 8degC (brrrrrrrrr)

4) a nice cuppa (and sleep for Elliott) at the cafe overlooking the grounds

The other little outing we did was to go berry picking at Sorrel. This was a loads of fun (one for the  bucket 2 for me). The strawberries were outstanding, and the cherries weren't half bad either. Sadly we missed the raspberries, but that just and excuse to go back next time. Elliott's back pack seat really came into it's own (and it gave daddy an extra workout when bending down to the strawberries. There something special about eating the fruit as you pick it... very relaxing.

In the end our time in Hobart went all too quickly! It was so nice for Elliott (and us too) to spend some real quality time with his Aunty Alison and Uncle James, and to meet the soon to be extended family in Bob, Ali ,and Lotte Walker. The good news is that we knew we'd be heading back for the wedding of Aunty Alison to Uncle James real soon, but more about that next time. They are just such great hosts and lead a pretty fabulous life down there. I'm sure that we'll be back many times in the future.