Busy Days

Busy days.

I always find that September is a bit of a whirlwind; everything starts up again after a summer break. I grew up in a house of teachers; I remember my brother and I learned very early not to ask for one extra thing until October. It's bad enough how September occupies my normal existence, and I don't even go to school.

We went to the fair a few weeks ago, sorted out a bazillion forms for school, my book club met for the first time since June and we've been renovating the colour room at work.

My cousin from Australia just left this morning; he and his wife and three kids were here for a few days, before heading off to Niagara Falls. My cousin grew up in Ireland, but met and married a very nice Australian woman, and since he wanted to live with her, moved to Brisbane.
I very recently got my husband and two teenage children to Europe for two weeks and then home; I cannot imagine the incredible effort involved in herding three children (10, 8 and 6) half way across the globe for three weeks, and then face a 26 hour trip home. And they seemed to do it without batting an eyelash.

I have to say, Aussies are the travellingest people I have ever met....maybe it's the result of living on an isolated continent with NOTHING but ferocious sharks and lethal jelly fish within a couple of thousand miles that makes them so impressively blase about flying for days to get where they want to go. Every Australian I have ever met appears to be an enthusiastic explorer, full of boundless energy and almost manic interest in their surroundings. Of course, the only Australians I've ever met are also the ones who have made it to North America.....I suppose the whiny pantywaists stay firmly put.

My cousins children were absolutley delightful; bright and interested and polite and funny. I was smitten.
We took everyone apple picking yesterday, because they don't have much in the way of apple orchards in north-eastern Australia. Or eastern Ireland, for that matter. We got some apples and saw the pumpking patch and saw a few baby pigs.....everything's exotic if you're from somewhere else. (Personally, one of my favorite things to do in other countries is go into the grocery stores.....it's all wildly interesting when it's new to you.)

My mother fed them heaps of pancakes with maple syrup (another novelty) and I took the 8 year old boy to see an ice rink. (There was nobody there; I told him he could stand on the ice and slide around a bit, just to see what it was like. I'd take the heat if we got in trouble.)
The 6 year old wanted to see a bear. They are a bit thin in the ground here, we don't get many grizzlies in our subdivision. But he did manage to see a squirrel, and he was pretty excited about that.
The 10 year old girl really wanted to see our house, I suppose because of Thing 1 and Thing 2. We brought her over last night, and she was deliciously horrified at the state of their rooms. (Both of my children have bedrooms that look like they have been the scene of a particularly enthusiastic ransacking by gay thieves who only wanted to try everything on.) She also liked our cat, and the fact that we keep soda pop in the house at all times.

We had dinner with everyone last night, and later on, the Mister had another kidney stone attack. (He had one last month when we were in England, staying with another cousin of mine.) He has concluded that eating dinner with my cousins wreaks havoc with his kidneys, and from now he will only chance breakfast and lunch with any of them.

As October approaches, I think things will settle down a bit and a routine will find itself. At least we have plenty of apples.