The Rain. In Praise of the Early Morning.


On the bright side, how clean are our cars looking now?
We’ve hit that week of endless late winter rain in Sydney and while it’s been soothing listening to it from the warmth of my bed at night, the soggy days have been a challenge to negotiate.  Boggy front lawns mean cabin fever for toddlers who would otherwise dash straight out the front door the moment it gets opened and someone says ‘shoes’.  At work, the usually immaculate and uncluttered granite tiles and lino are have their surfaces marked at intervals with yellow caution beacons.  We clip along between them in black coats and scarves, holding our umbrellas.  If you imagine hard enough, we could be indoor skiing rather than rushing to offices to login to computers.
What I do love about all this rain is how perfect the world looks at that precise moment when the first fine break of the day begins.  The light just so, the sheen on everything from the rain… it’s like you’re driving through a movie set for the scene ‘dawn breaks on a busy motorway through industrial Sydney’ rather than ‘so glad I’ve made such good time to work this morning’.  I wish I had taken a photo of the scene from my dashboard this morning but you’ll just have to imagine it.  
Was your commute in this morning picture perfect or soggy?
All rain slicked footpaths lead to one thing – the morning coffee run!
How was your weekend?
I was out and about enjoying that part of them I call my own – the early mornings.

When the sun is just shining through the clouds that were to later bring us all this rain.

And you get a hint of golden sunrise through the trees across the road.  Just visible through those ominous rain clouds.

SSG Manor becomes a hive of industry in the early hours.  The usual boisterous busyness of toddler activity makes way for slightly less frenetic but equally important tasks.  Light bulbs get changed, bathroom cabinets get restocked and microwaves get cleaned.  Did you know that heating alternating dishes of vinegar or bicarb dissolved in water almost gets rid of the burnt smell in microwaves?

In the event of a toddler sleep in, it’s off to the gym after the housework gets done.  I’m slowly but surely making my way up the weight plates on the Smith machine and each small increase brings with it a sense of achievement.  I’ve made my peace with those pregnancy kilos that love me too much to leave me and I’m hoping that they’ve hung around to change into muscle rather than fat.

At least that’s what I tell myself as I linger quietly over the paper and an apres gym almond croissant and skinny cap.
Sunday morning saw Toddler SSG venture out for his first proper yum cha.  Technically, he’s been quite a few times but always seemed to miss out on any actual eating of yum cha due to a variety of reasons.  He wasn’t quite solid ready the first few times and had to make do with delicately gnawing at rusks before banging them on tea cups.  And then there was the time he managed to sleep right through an entire yum cha – right through  the din of chatter, trolleys and jangling carts of cutlery. 
But on Sunday, the planets aligned and Toddler SSG yum cha-ed with the best of them at Rhodes Phoenix (which was overflowing within an hour of their 10am opening time).  Suprisingly, the yum cha pigs in blankets wrapped in their warm, sweet spiral of bread weren’t really his thing.  It was all about the Beggar’s Noodles for him.  

And the jelly, of course.

With a full tummy, it was off to Ikea to test out the play kitchen before a post yum cha nap in the car on the way home.

Wet Sunday afternoons just say Allen Key DIY, don’t they?  Stretching out barefoot on the floor with a cup of tea on one side of you and an open carton of Ikea on the other.

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I managed to put together a Mala paper dispenser without losing any fingers or toes.  The dispenser costs $14.99 and the rolls of paper $7.99.  I’m thinking of lining panels of the walls with some paper as well as the walls in preparation for the toddler crayon adventures that are going to be starting this week.  I’m not sure how washable the paint on our walls is and if the crayons really do dry erase of them.


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