I love a sunburnt country

Well, 2 days at the pool in a row and despite putting sunscreen on my 8 year old daughter she is now a lovely shade of crimson. Cora has the complexion of a delicate English rose, pale with a blush of pink in her cheeks, well not this week, she looks more like an Aussie bottle brush. Managed to find a long sleeve rash vest to protect her arms and I realistically think it has come down to find something that resembles a burqua in lycra to protect all of her. Do you think the suns rays are just harsher than in past years? As kids we lined up at the gate to be the first in the pool every morning of summer hols, except for church on Saturdays that is, and we were the last kids to be still splashing around when the lifeguard ordered us out so they could shut up shop. Who would have believed that for the price of an annual family swimming pass you could actually pay so little to have other people watch your kids all day. I don't recall every getting badly sun burnt at the pool though, despite not having sunscreen. Sometimes we may have swum in our t'shirts for the day but would lay stretched out on the hot concrete till we stopped shivering so we could dive back into the water for another hour or so before grabbing a bag of chips to nibble. Our Australian sun just seems to be so much harsher than it used to be, or our kids are fairer maybe? At our local pool we have visitors from far away countries that bask on the lawn till they are the colour of red baked bricks, I wonder in future years if their visits to Australia will result in a boom of melanomas in countries relatively free of them up until now?

wow, where does time go?

100 things have happened since I last found my blog, don't ask me how you lose a blog but I did. Seriously need to save it amongst my favorites. Finished and handed in my Psych assignment today, yay! Whoever thought it was a good idea to squeeze an extra unit into my degree over the holidays was seriously deluded about the reality of studying with 4 girls in the house, I am berating myself over this one, unfortunately all fingers point to self.
There was a 2 week blessed window of opportunity when the 3 little girls were meant to be spending a couple of weeks with their dad in Brisbane, only we all know what happened in Queensland over these school holidays and guess where my little munchkins were on the day they were telling everyone that Brisbane was about to have their worse flood in a hundred years? On a public train heading into inner city Brisbane to see the museum and why wouldn't you? Everyone knows what a museum looks like, but seeing one under water is pure history in the making. Thankfully they caught the train back home to higher ground and were fine for the rest of their trip, just house bound and a little frightened.
It was the first time any of them had been on an airplane and a very excited 4 year old did say to me on the phone after their safe arrival "guess what mum? We didn't fall off!" I was very relieved. I was more relieved when they were home again safe and sound, driving to Adelaide and back in one day on 4 hours sleep is not recommended, but there was that whole assignment thing I had going on that I was spending hours on, whose ideas was that again? hmmmm....