Somewhere round the 16th or 17th December 2011

Friday Morning over Zagreb

Well, of course, strictly speaking it's the 17th as I type this but the whole passage-of-time thing is a bit confusing when you're travelling west round half the globe. As the Littles put it: Mummy why is the night so LONG? I tried to explain but it sounds even more confusing once its out of one's mouth. A pretty long trip, for certain. All in all it took about 38 hours door-to-door, I reckon.

We left home at about 10 in the morning on the 14th. Train to Sydney. Here's Lara on the train having a story about Beanie Kids told to her. Funnily ehough, they were on a trip to China and then to Europe. Got into terrible scrapes along the way, and ate a hell of a lot of marmalade sandwiches.  

 Now I think this one might be Sydney airport, but frankly it's all a blur. Having left home at 10, our flight left just before 5pm, and then a 7 hour flight to Singapore. Lara being a model of good behaviour for the vast majority of the time, obeying instructions and even managing to pull along what was (for her) a sizeable suitcase. Which was just as well because I would have been in a pickle otherwise. The only hiccough came just after I found out that a tube of cream I had packed for the trip wasn't quite small enough, and had it confiscated. (130ml capacity instead of 100ml). Oh well, silly me, shame about the cream. The Woops factor came when she took it into her head that the security guy was a terrible man who had stolen Mummy's cream and ought to be LOCKED IN PRISON... took quite a while to get her unrooted from the area and moved on. Apart from that single incident, she was pretty much the Model of Perfect Behaviour and Patience throughout.

Here she is eating Turkish ice-cream in Istambul airport for breakfast at 8 in the morning. Yes, we like to be healthy, as you can see - and we like to use trollies as seats. Well, it was handy for me as I could keep an eye on and manouver everything all at once - baggage and child.  This section had been the longest, with 12 hours on the flight from Singapore and then five or six waiting in Istanbul for the final connection. We were reasonably zonked, to tell the truth. I had also by this time discovered that (provided one is small and skinny enough) one can quite happily put one's child on the two aeroplane seats and tuck her up to sleep, and snuggle down on the floor space parallel. Sounds drastic but it worked, and was a solution that included No More Neck Cramps. However, by about this point even Lara was looking forward to a good hot bath. (Hmm.. why would I phrase that 'even' Lara?) 

The last flight was almost literally a piece of cake by comparison. Actually the cake was served to us on the preceeding flight - the last flight was a sandwich but it just doesn't sound the same, does it. Oh, excitement... On this trip, Lara has added THREE new items to her comestibles repertoir: scrambled eggs, mozarella, and chocolate mousse. I introduced the former two with the encouragement that 'they're a bit like tofu, you'll like it'  - and with that, she did. Hurrah! Textures are being conquered, slowly but surely. One day we might move off plain roast meat and chunks of veg.

In any case, lovely to be picked up and taken to a REAL house. Worked out I hadn't been there for over 8 years, and the place has in fact grown almost out of recognition. There's a whole new upstairs area whose orientation to the rest of the house I still can't work out (but don't tell anyone or they'll just say Oh you're such a Girl). Mind you I don't feel all that bad about it because apparently even the visiting electrician complained that he needs a map for this house. The crevices are positively Narnian.

Lara has been entranced by the animals. Here she is with the budgies. 

By far her favourite, though, are the cats. Four of them - all of whom she named withing about 6 minutes of arrival. (They didn't have names in particular). Here she is with them in 'cat corner'. She talks to them with a seriousness normally reserved for the lecture theatre, and they purr ardently in return.

I spent the moring in the dentist's chair - and if I can scan my resultant x-ray later I'm very tempted to pop it up here and 'share' because it's just SO impressive. Poke poke poke, can't get to the root, can't get there, can't get there - GOT IT. Two and a half hours of mouth wide open with no respite left me walking out of the surgery with a huge crease down my face, but well worth it. Having woken up at 2:30 a.m. with the predidctable jet lag, it was almost relaxing sitting there with nothing but dental chatter in the background and a half-numb eyeball from extreme anasthetics.

Later on, we went for a bit of a walk towards the woods. Lara was hugely keen, and I have a sneaking suspicion it's mainly because she thinks she was a good chance of seeing BEARS and SQUIRRELS and possibly WOLD PIGS and other unnamed but hope-for animals crashing out of the undergrowth at her. We didn't see any of those, but there were some turkies, and some chickens, and a very insistent cat who followed us for a good long way.

Well, nothing in particular, this hut, but I thought it was picturesque.

This morning, it was.... snowing!

A bit slushy, and it'll melt but still, it's a start. She's already been outside in it, building snowmen in on the table-top.

Here she is, eating breakfast at 4 a.m. - much better than yesterday, as that was at 2:30. Mind you, we still woke up at the same time, just managed to stay in bed for a little longer.

... Very boring post, my apologies. Keep being interrupted but wanted to let people-wot-might-be-wanting-to-know that we're all OK and slap up a few pics.

She's more and more like Paddington Bear by the day. Just a few minutes ago I went on a search for her round the house, and found her in the upstairs bathroom with sleeves rolled up, the sink full, and every possible receptacle around the place filled with water. 'I'm having trouble getting the plug out,' she explained, as I pushed down the stopper. So she'd been busy bailing out the sink into the tooth-brush holder, the top of the shaving foam, and even the decorative shell.

That's enough of that.