Cricket Coma

I'm not sure we will ever be able to move back to the US. I fear we are too far gone now. Yesterday, Elliott had his first Cricket Match. We, of course, have followed a bit of cricket now and again - living in England for so long and now here - you can't really help it. But to actually attend! And to stay from start to finish!

The cricket match was held in some park about an hour's drive from our house. Brisbane is larger than it seems sometimes. I get in my little routine and drive around within a 10 mile radius of my house and I forget there is a whole nother world out there. Kids have to be there for 12 noon for 1:00 start. Thank goodness it has been rainy and overcast, otherwise we all would have had heat stroke.

By, 2:20 in the afternoon, I had drifted into a cricket induced coma. Brutal! Someone said something about it being like baseball on valium. Soooo slow! I'm sure some fast bowling watching Australia play could be exciting, but Boys Under-13s cricket....well, I'll let you imagine. We endured 4 hours of this torture before the game was finshed. Two glasses of wine were needed to recover after the game. However, I'm thinking if I had two before the game, it could be more beneficial.

Lastly, a brief note about an exciting cultural evening of sorts. Last week, both Tim and Elliott went off and left me on my own. Tim went to Adelaide and Elliott went to camp with school for a few days. I made arrangements to go out with a friend one night and she arranged tickets to see our favorite author Bill Bryson give a reading from his new book "The Thunderbolt Kid." I will give him a plug for "In a Sunburned Country" one more time if you want to hear of his travels to Australia. His new book is about growing up in Iowa and sounds nostalgic for days gone by. I have been concentrating on Australian books lately though, so won't put that one at the top of my list. One I would recommend is "A Town like Alice" by Nevil Shute which is about World War Two and development of the outback after the war. I read another "important" book called "Benang" by Kim Scott about the White Australia Policy and the breeding out of Aboriginal race. That was so dreadful and depressing and made all the worse since it was based on real events. Don't read that unless you have alot of mental fortitude.

Still naive after 18 years of marriage...

Tim has been enjoying his bike riding so much over the past year that he wanted to share this wonderful activity with Elliott and me. Well, we have done this once or twice in the past and quickly realized we were out of our depths with Tim and his bike riding. Somehow, during our month away, we had forgotten just how hard mountain bike riding can be here and we let ourselves get talked into a little outing.

We set off to some "fire roads" in Brisbane Forest. These are widish unpaved roads that have been made for emergency vehicles and also serve as a fire break during controlled burns or forest fires. Tim said there might be a few places we'd have to push our bikes, but it wouldn't be too bad. As we were driving out, he mentioned this was the way to Mountain Nebo. Perhaps it would be just a slight uphill incline the whole way... Elliott and I grumbled just a bit going up these steep hills, followed by precipitous decents. As we approached one particularly daunting hill, Tim said "This one reminds me of the Tour de France at the L'Alpe D'Huez!" Sadly, at that point, we had to park our bikes at the side of the road and walk the last little bit to see the view. I have got to remember - no riding unless it is a paved little pathway on the beachfront or the riverfront!

Still the front page news here is water. Northern Queensland is flooded at the moment, but Brisbane is still so dry. The State Premier Peter Beattie has done a fabulous political flip flop and is now saying we will have to have recycled water. This had been put to the voters and the voters said no, but the reality is there is no water. Elliott said it seemed just like a parent - giving kids a choice, but making them do something else after all. Why bother asking in the first place? Interesting wildlife sightings have been happening due to the lack of water - new creatures are coming out in Brisbane. First, scorpians have been sighted and now funnel web spiders have moved further into the suburbs. I am hoping they don't find a way to our house, as I have enough on my plate with redback spiders, cockroaches and ants.