More FebuChristmas

I have just got home with the boys, on Wednesday after school. For the last few weeks a friend with kids at the school has been dropping in each Wednesday and hanging out, more or less until sundown. Which is fine and all, but ... not really. They may all arrive any second, so I will knuckle down and type.

I am definitely finding blogging harder since getting sucked into the Twitter/Facebook vortex. I might think or hear of of an odd semi-notable thing, but then make it a 140-character Tweet and forget about it, rather than ruminating on it and getting a whole blog post from it.

For instance, I haven't got around to mentioning here that Michael told me the correct name for a 2-pronged fork is a bident.

Also I have to say a bit more about FebuChristmas

Last Saturday we had a big lunch to wrap it up, before everyone returned to Melbourne, Canberra and Switzerland. They were all booked on the ferry for that evening, so we were expecting lunch would wrap up at about three.

Irma took on the job of making bolognaise and salad for fifteen, and it was delicious. Elf made her peppermint ice cream with choc buds. In my opinion the choc buds freeze too hard like little chocrocks - if we can just fix that the world will beat a path to our door.

Over the duration of the visit, the little Swiss cousins Bea (3) and Eric (nearly 2) mastered being friends with Winston. To begin with they were quite nervous of him, but by Saturday they were following him around. Irma, Chonk, Bea and Eric stayed down at Imp and Ed's to avoid Chonk's cat hair issues. (He likes to collect it and fashion it into little furry grey-brown bow ties, which is embarrassing for everyone*). Bill and Felicity stayed at the pub, and we only played actual bedtime host to Fred. My Mum and Dad were also in town but stayed outside the Fullagar Cordon mostly, to avoid obstructing essential services. Sorry, got a bit Christchurch there for a second.

After lunch on Saturday everyone was doing the usual Christmas read/snooze/desultory chitchat, except Irma who was parboiling enough carrots to get all the way home to Switzerland. Someone asked, in a tone of voice that suggested this was the first time it had come up, "What time does the boat sail tonight?" The boat that was still four hours drive away that is.

So turns out it was chuffing off ninety minutes earlier than anticipated. Everyone disappeared out the door with a puff of dust and practically-still-raw carrot. It was amazing.

Chonk and Irma are stalwart readers of the blog, which I really appreciate. It was great that they came all the way from their mountain republic to visit Tasmania for a week. I was able to pin them down and recite lists of made up things in person, which was really refreshing. And Elf enjoyed having all her siblings together for the first time in ages, and getting them to do what she told them in that big sister way that comes so naturally to big sisters.

*Actually just a boring allergy