Our first evening back in Brisbane we had an early Christmas celebration when Rosie and Steve gave us tickets for the theatre for the following evening and Bea gave us a loofah in it’s natural state, straight from the vine. Very exciting on both counts! In exchange we allowed Bea to have an early Christmas present of the very tasteful ‘ Baby’s First Christmas’ elf hat which we had found on our travels.

The following day we went and scoured the local ’Op’ shops (charity shops to the English) to find some clothes for Tony to go out in (he has spent the entire time since we left home in baggy shorts and gradually fading shirts) . $29 (£15) later he had a pair of trousers and two shirts! We had a fabulous evening with Rosie and Steve at ‘Miracle in Brisbane’, a music/dance production by a modern Italian composer with a largely Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cast. The story reflects a Vittorio de Sica movie and is based around a child of mixed indigenous/settler parentage who was taken away by the church but kept tight hold of her true origins. The music and singing was beautiful. The first part of the piece drew deeply on indigenous rituals using very haunting accompanied voices and was particularly memorable. Throughout the piece, the combination of modern orchestral playing, some ‘folk’ sounds of accordion and brass band and ramshackle percussion from jerry cans and such like was really innovative.

While we were out, Bea was having a girls’ night in with Rosie’s friend Margo and her sister Gina. When we got back to their apartment she was crashed out on Margo’s bed looking very cute (she does it so well!)

Having been away for a month, it was really noticeable how much Bea had developed and in the following two weeks we have seen her developing and perfecting new skills every day . She is now sitting up on her own and loves using the highchair . She has two teeth. She is definitely reaching out for specific things and has a very strong grip when she gets hold of things she wants!

She also started on solids whilst we’ve been away. It is apparently no longer a requirement for babies to have everything pureed, so she is having vegetables cooked as chunky sticks so they are soft enough to eat but she has something to grasp. The idea is that at this stage it is more important that she explores the textures and flavours of different foods and what she gets nutritionally is a bonus. There is still a lot of breastfeeding at present and as she gradually eats more of the solids, she’ll have less milk. As well of the adventure of exploring the textures and tastes, this also takes the pressure off both Bea and her parents, as there is not the same anxiety about whether the baby is taking in enough to get the required nutrition from the solids. She is introduced to a new vegetable every three days . So far she has explored carrot, broccoli (which seems to be a favourite at the moment), sweet potato, celery, potato and courgette (which looks very snot like when smeared on her face and up her nose!). Steve did, in an evil moment, suggest beetroot as the next food, which could have been very colourful and exciting! I was quite disappointed when Rosie over-rode the suggestion and opted for the zucchini!

We’ve had some fairly busy days and other fairly lazy days since we got back here. The jacaranda trees are in bloom everywhere and are so beautiful. The flowers are so dense and such a fabulous purple that when we went up to the Mount Coot-tha lookout point, we could see purple patches all over the city. In New Farm Park there were wedding parties everywhere having photo’s taken amongst the jacaranda blooms. One particular party had bridesmaids in bright red with matching wedding car bearing red ribbons and red Barbie doll attached to front bumper dressed in matching attire to bridesmaids. Who said the Ozzies don’t know how to do things in style?

We had a good time at The Powerhouse, an old Power Station, now an arts venue with lots of live music, art exhibitions, films and so on, many of which are free. We planned to see a series of short films, part of a festival, but when we got there the sign on the door said it was not suitable for children. We debated whether or not to just smuggle Bea in, but decided against it . Later we read that children between the ages of 2 and 14 must be accompanied by an adult. Presumably, then, we could have left Bea there on her own and gone off to play! We picked up a few free ‘What’s On’ type magazines and went for coffee. You can see Bea and her Gramps perusing the papers together, deciding where they’ll go on their next trip out. Bea really Liked ‘Brisbane Jazz News’ - something to get her teeth into…

We had a fabulous night out at a gig that Steve got us complementary tickets for. Some of his friends were playing with their band The View From Madeleine’s Couch, Brazilian influenced music, which we really enjoyed. They were supporting a Colombian band called Aterciopelados (The Velvety Ones), which was also good fun. They were one of the first rock bands in Colombia, fusing a variety of Colombian and Latin American music, and whilst we recognised nothing of what they played and sang, the whole of the Brisbane Colombian community seemed to be at the gig and were singing along , waving and clapping with great vigour . The lead figure was a tall woman with long dark hair wearing a long black dress. She had a large red velvet heart appliquéd on her chest , with a big crystal tear drop hanging over it, and a huge womb complete with foetus appliquéd over her belly. She bounced around the stage madly, playing electric guitar and singing, only pausing occasionally to encourage us to nurture children and take better care of our planet and fellow humans.

We took another cultural excursion to an exhibition of Aboriginal fibre art, bark paintings and contemporary art at the Gallery of Modern Art. We all particularly liked the Morning Star Poles, painted and with feathers attached, used in Aboriginal ceremonies every evening at dusk, symbolising a link between Earth, Venus and the ancestors.

Our particular journey to this exhibition took us over the newly opened Kurilpa Bridge, a pedestrian bridge on the site of the old aboriginal river crossing. It has lots of references to ships’ masts in the structure and at one end winds down underneath itself, giving a lovely view back up, although this does mean that if you’re not just ambling about as we are, your journey is slightly longer to get back down to ground level!

After a free lunchtime concert by a Gamelan ensemble (traditional Indonesian music played on a variety of metal instruments which are hit with wooden hammers), Bea and Jen took up the offer to try out the instruments . The concert was lovely and with the eyes shut you could almost be transported to some mountain monastry! I'm not sure you could say the same for our attempt, but Bea really wanted to try. She was not easily moved on!

Before leaving Brisbane we had a couple of Big Things still to see in the area. We therefore had a day out down the coast to Surfers’ Paradise to spot the Big Hard Rock Guitar: fairly big. This also gave us an opportunity to see the famous Surfers’ Paradise. This is a rather sprawling, rather tacky town, kind of like Blackpool but with less character…. yes it’s true. The town has built up around the site of the original Surfer’s Paradise Hotel, built in the 1930’s but now demolished. There are a lot of tat shops, cheap clothes, bars etc, but not a lot in its favour if you don‘t want to surf or get pissed. We did contemplate going in the sea but it was very windy and the sand was sharp when it hit you, so we decided against it. Instead we had a very nice lunch at Govinda’s and Bea had her favourite - a chunk of broccoli from her Gramps’ salad (it tastes even better if it’s not your own) .

Our trip to Surfers’ over, we headed back northwards and arrived at the Redback Garden Centre to find the guy at the gates just letting the last two vehicles out. I jumped out of the car and asked if I could possibly just run in to take a photo of the Big Redback Spider on the dunny before he closed the gate and he very genially held on to his very real, very big guard dog and waved us in to pose for our photo’s!. This turned out to be one of my very favourite Big Things, so I’m very grateful to the very nice man! Redbacks are poisonous spiders that spin a funnel like web. Apparently their bad reputatioon for giving fatal bites is only likely to be born out if you put your hand into the funnel, so it is possible, but unlikely to happen. 

This was to be my last Big Thing for this Oz visit (maybe more next time?) and as such, Rosa presented me with a very special present: a badge that she had scrounged from an Ikea member of staff that said ‘being part of something BIG’ . Thanks Rosie! Don’t know who is maddest - me for travelling around Australia looking for big things or the rest of you for egging me on to do it!

We've met various friends of Rosie and Steve in various places. We had met Jemma and Kurt's before our road trip. This time we went to their garage sale. They were clearing out in preparation for their impending move to Sydney. Rosie was hoping for a few bargains to console her over the fact that her friends were moving away. We arrived as Kurt was collecting the post from the post box, looking as though he had just woken up (actually, I think it is his usual look) and it looked decidedly as though there was no garage sale going on. Hmmm….maybe it was yesterday? Kurt greeted us by eyeing me and Tony, saying ‘Are you two still here…..?’ It turned out that their move had fallen through and they were no longer going. So, no garage sale but we had a lovely morning having coffee, Kurt’s homemade juices, cakes etc and it was excellent news for Rosie that they weren’t leaving . We wish them and the fabulous Ruby all the best for the future as, after various problems encountered in their planned move, they’ve decided that they don’t want to leave behind their home, friends and family in Deagon and have decided to stay put for the time being.

Carla, Thomas and Kristof (one of Bea’s birth-centre buddies) came round to say their farewells last week. They are from the Czech Republic and have been living in Brisbane for 3 years but Thomas has been made redundant and they have decided to go back home for the time being. We had a very interesting afternoon talking about how life has changed for them and their parents during the course of their lifetime (and they are considerably younger than us!) due to the fall of communism. In some ways we are all so similar and in other ways our lives are so different.

They kindly gave their garden furniture to Rosie and Steve and you can see us putting it to good use in our photo’s! They also passed on various plants including a pineapple with a small fruit already growing . I’ve tended it well, watered it and sung to it but unfortunately it wasn’t big enough to harvest before we left! I hope someone will remember to water it and eat it!

On Friday we spent the morning packing our bags and the DHL man came to collect our dive stuff which is being shipped back to England. To celebrate getting everything back into our bags, we all went out to Mai Li’s, our favourite Deagon coffee shop, for the obligatory coffee and cakes. Here we bumped into Michelle, another of Rosie and Steve’s crazy friends and she regaled us with her life story in only the way a friend of Rosie’s could (‘I don‘t know whether you know but I‘ve got a slight brain injury….’ type of thing). She even out-talked Rosa which, those of you who know her will know, is no mean feat! In the midst of this, a man and his young daughter arrived on a bicycle with child trailer, both sporting their cycle helmets with Oz style magpie deterrents. Apparently in the breeding season the magpies get quite aggressive and frequently attack people who walk or cycle on their patch . Therefore cyclists are frequently seen with numerous cable ties attached to their helmets with the long ends sticky up in the air to stop magpies landing on them: a very attractive look and only one that the Ozzies could carry off…. Anyway, they arrived, took off their helmets and the little girl (probably about 6 years old) made a beeline for the delectable Bea, asking if she could touch the baby. She and Bea were just so entertained by each other. The little girl was hugging her and Bea just laughed and giggled, making the little girl and everyone else in the café laugh and giggle too. She is such good therapy!

On the way home with stopped in the park to watch the birds and turtles in the pond. The Brisbane Short-Necked Turtles didn’t look particularly short-necked but did have funny faces and by the way they flocked to the bridge as we walked over, they revealed that the residents obviously disobey the ‘Do not feed’ notice! We were not very good at duck identification though, so we don’t know whether they were also ignoring the ‘Do not dump your domestic ducks’ part of the sign.

We have had a fabulous time with Rosie, Steve and Bea. It has been so special to be able to be part of Trixie growing up and learning new skills. Gramps had fun at bath time one evening when Bea showed him how well she can drink bathwater. Bathwater tastes so much better than tap! Prior to mastering the cup with baby lid thing, she was drinking straight from cups, with a little help from her friends and a lot of dribbling . We will really miss her and her fabulous smiles and giggles!

Saturday morning we had a very early start and Rosie rose with the crows to take us to the airport. It looked for a while as though we may not be leaving after all. The woman at check-in said the Brisbane-Sydney flight was ok but she could not find our Sydney-Buenos Aires booking on the computer, despite the fact that we had given her the print-out that we had received confirming all the bookings. Eventually, a phone-call or two later, she had it sorted. However, she then cross-questioned us over the fact that we did not have an onward flight out of Argentina and that our final flight back to UK is several months hence. She said that we therefore should have a visa for Argentina as the usual 3 month one allocated on arrival would not suffice. We stood our ground, explaining that we were only going to be in Buenos Aires for a month and were then going by sea to Uruguay and onwards through South America, all overland. She said it may be a problem when we arrived in BA but eventually agreed to let us continue on our way (phew!). As it turned out, the immigration officials in BA never even queried it, but I guess that these days the airlines are responsible for returning anyone who they bring in and is refused entry to a country.

The interesting thing about this flight is that we left Sydney at 11.30am Saturday morning, spent 13 ½ hours flying into the sunrise and crossed the international dateline, thus going back in time to arrive at 10.00am Saturday morning, half an hour before we departed Sydney! We’re not only world travellers, we’re time travellers!