We are heading off tomorrow for Sunday's 100km ride - Brisbane to the Gold Coast, "Southbank to Southport". Cross your fingers for us that the weather holds - mind you, it'd be typical for it to rain. It seems to do so every time I venture into Queensland. Some goblin somewhere obviously just likes to hear me do a rant along the lines of 'So much for "Beautiful One Day, Perfect the Next" (Ok, so that link is from the Sunshine Coast, a bit further north of where we are headed.. but it has to be one of the most overused slogans there ever was!)

As it is, the forecast is for 'a shower or two'. Wonderful!

The kids will miss the first day back at school on Monday - and then it's back into the madness. I've not overdone it this week at all (feeling quite guilty that I haven't done much in the way of exercise. I am blaming the big overdose from the first weekend, and the anticipation of this Sunday's effort. (Not to mention the intended 210km the following weekend!)

The kids have had the 'dagging around' holiday they were all so wistful about when we dragged them off cross country skiing in July.. a fairly reasonable mix of slothing about home, and hanging with friends.

Caitlin got all artistic:

Tonight Alison found her mp3 player. She mentioned last week that she 'didn't know where it was' ... and, callous mother that I am, I did the 'lalalalalalalala' thing, because I really, really didn't want to know that she had been careless/taken it to school and lost it/left it somewhere to be stolen.... The kid has a bit of a track record with 'careless' - and 'vagueness'. I also didn't want her father to hear, because then things get very NOISY, to no avail, because when she gets upset, she is even less likely to remember what the hell she might have done with it. With her, I prefer to go with the 'it'll turn up' M.O. to save myself unnecessary stress.

So .... tonight when they were packing for the car trip, things got a bit tense because, obviously, she was going to wish she had her mp3 player. A suggestion was made to look in the pouch behind the passenger seat in the car.

Bingo.

When was it left there? Oh, only back when we did the 100 mile ride. Like, August.

???!!!


And these holidays will be remembered forever after as the time Zoe finally decided she does like riding her own bike after all. Getting her to ride around by herself (like most normal kids her age) has been a bit like pulling teeth. - and we've not made much progress in that department in
two years! I pushed things along a bit yesterday by organising for a friend of hers to bring her bike when she came to play yesterday. It took till after lunch for Zoe to agree to give it a go... but somewhere, sometime during the afternoon, something changed. Today she asked "Can I ride my bike?" I tried not to sound too excited when I said "YES!". And she spent most of the day on it.

It had to happen one day.

Well, guess I'd better go pack a few things, and get to bed.

Labels: daily