The Long Haul

As we settled into our plane seats in Frankfurt last Monday afternoon, about to take off on the first leg of our 22 hour journey, the kid said 'I'm not going to watch any television on this trip.' I felt my stomach drop. 'What?' I said. 'Why not?' Mads shrugged. 'Don't want to.' 'What about the ipod?' I said. 'There's lots of stuff on there for you to watch or play.'
She shook her head. 'Nope.'

I then found myself entering into one of the surreal reverso topsy-turvy conversations I often seem to have with my daughter. I began pleading with her to at least try watching some television, just a little bit maybe. Perhaps she'd enjoy it. There wasn't much else to do on a long haul flight after all. I even explained to her, in quite a bit of technical detail, how the whole 'eyes going square' thing simply doesn't happen on a plane. I may have even said; 'If you don't watch television you can't....' But what could I threaten exactly? On a plane? None of it made no difference anyway. She was firm. No TV.

'You realise,' I said to Matt, 'that we are the only parents in the history of parents who have tried to force their child to watch tv.' It reminded me of the time that I'd heard myself saying to her; 'OK that's enough broccoli for today.' She'd eaten almost an entire head of it. Raw.

'So what are you going to do to pass the time?' I asked. 'Because mummy's going to be watching a lot of television.'
'And so is daddy,' said Matt. Mads pulled out the flight safety card.
'I'm going to look at this,' she said. Then she smiled. 'I really hope we get to use those inflatable slides this time.'

She stuck to her word about the no tv. The only time she watched anything was when they played the obligatory 'Welcome' videos as we approached KL and then Melbourne. I'm not exactly sure how the rest of the time was spent. We drew. We read. We made a book to give to Sally Rippin called 'The Magical Fat Man and his Hat.' We made a rattle for the niecephew out of a juice bottle, some paper and a hair elastic. We played a game with the two toys I'd shoved in her bag at the last minute - a manky My Little Pony (handed on to us pre-manked by another child) and a plastic brontosaurus called Hungry. Do you know how hard it is to make up a game involving a glittery pony and a brontosaurus? I was really wishing I'd grabbed at least one carnivore. I used my old favourite plotline and had one be mean to the other one and then the two of them made up and put on a concert.

Just as we were doing the big finale number the steward came over with a small orange bag. 'For the baby,' she said, smiling at me sympathetically. Mads and I looked around in alarm. Had a baby somehow managed to sneak into the seat beside us? But no, the steward meant Mads. And the present was a rattle with a blue elephant's head. When she left Mads whispered; 'She must know about auntie Hil's baby.' 'Yes,' I agreed, so, so thankful that Mads hadn't hit the roof about being referred to as a baby. She's kind of touchy about such things.

There are positives though, of course. Luckily the kid slept for the KL to Melbourne leg. Luckily we didn't get to use the inflatable slides. Luckily we're here - here where the birds look like jewels and sound like they're screaming obscenities, and where old ladies smile at your kid rather than looking at her like she's some kind of pustulant growth. Luckily I made it here before the niecephew arrived. And luckily it's several weeks before I have to get back on a plane and go through it all again. Hooray-ness.

Preparations

The volcanic ash seems to have cleared from the air so it looks like we'll be boarding a plane on Monday. I can't say I'm looking forward to the flight - I always smile bitterly when they say 'Now, sit back and enjoy your trip.' Yeah, what fun. I'm also becoming a much more nervy traveller in my old age. It doesn't help that I spend way too much time with air traffic controllers who blithely say things like 'we're due for a major air disaster you know. Hasn't been one for a while.' Thanks for that.

Still.
It will be worth it once I get there. There will be babies to admire and people to catch up with and shops to visit. I remember last time it took me a few days to adjust to understanding everything that was going on. It was way too much information all of a sudden. I wonder if it'll be the same this time?

OK, better go and pack.

Spring Fever

It was Wald Woche at Mads' kindergarten last week, which meant they spent every morning in the nearby woods. Mads, despite a firmly-held love of sticks and a new-found passion for the Faraway Tree books was not keen on Wood Week and protested loudly each morning as we headed off. So on Friday she said she didn't feel well ("my eyebrows hurt...") I assumed it was a wood-avoidance technique and used the very same lines used on me all those years ago by my own mother: 'Well, get up and see how you feel after breakfast" - the follow-up to this being "Well, you're up now so you may as well go." A magic, unbeatable technique. I didn't have a single day off school until I was 14.

When Thieu picked Mads up after lunch she silently wrapped her arms around his neck and put her head on his shoulder. Oops. The eyebrow ache had developed into a headache, her cheeks were pink and hot. She had a feverish sleep last night, calling out strange, random things like 'But I must get to the boat!' and around 1 am she held out some invisible item of clothing and asking me to assist her putting it on. Consequently I have spent most of the last 24 hours either reading or patting (and of course, adjusting the invisible clothing).

While she was dozing yesterday afternoon I sat on her floor and made the little characters in the photo above, being deeply inspired by this blog post. My idea was originally that Mads and I would do them together, but she's not up for it right now.

Outside it's glorious. In here the shutters are closed and the kid is asleep.

Bookish

Is there a nicer person in the world than Sally Rippin? Seriously, I think you'd be hard pressed to find one. When I heard about the new series she was writing for Hardie Grant called Billie B Brown I knew I needed it. I had planned to buy it during our Oz visit next month but Sally beat me to it. A set of Billie B arrived in the mail today. Such happiness! Thanks Sally. I already love them and I know Mads will too.

There are a few other books I need to pick up when in Oz. My sister Hilary's new series, Space Scout, for one. And also Ebony McKenna's book Ondine. My own bookish news is that the first of my Tweenie Genie books has been picked up by a German publisher and will be released, fully-translated and re-illustrated (in a more German style) in Spring 2011. Most exciting and good.

Something Missing

The air traffic in Frankfurt is so constant that you don't notice it most of the time - except maybe on very clear, blue days if you glance up and see the sky completely criss-crossed with contrails. From our dining room window we can see a constant stream of planes - as one leaves the right-hand side another appears at the left. So it was strange looking out the window on Friday morning and not seeing a single plane anywhere. I had a brief moment of claustrophobia, and then I just enjoyed looking at the smooth, perfect sky.

The weekend was fine and we spent most of it outside, in our upstairs neighbour's Schrieber Garten on Saturday and walking to a beer garden in the forest on Sunday. What we kept noticing was the silence - no rumble of planes except for the occasional whirr of a light aircraft.

At the end of our forest day today as we neared the tram there was a familiar noise above - 747 approaching Frankfurt. It looked strangely unfamiliar and wrong.

We enjoyed the quiet and the perfect blue skies for three days - but at the same time I am hoping we will have no troubles getting to Australia in early May.

Hysterical Towns

Yesterday we arrived back from a ten day Easter trip around what is known at the 'Romantic Road.' This includes a number of historic towns such as Dinkelbuhl, Rothenburg and Augsburg. We also went to Fussen so we could visit Castle Neuschwanstein as Mads has been bitterly disappointed by the broken-down, crumbly castles we've dragged her to so far. No kid could argue with the castley-ness of Neuschwanstein. You can see it behind our heads in the photo above. I'm not quite sure why Mads and I are pulling those faces. I think perhaps Mads is yawning. And maybe mine was meant to mean 'You really think I'm going to get this kid to walk up there?' Or maybe it's a hangover from when I travelled around Europe with Shell. She often used to convince me to copy the expressions of statues or monuments we saw, then she'd take a photo. So maybe I just don't feel right unless I'm doing something dumb in a picture.

As we headed home yesterday Thieu said 'I don't ever want to see another historical town again.' And I had to agree with him. Once you've walked around one for a while and gone 'isn't it quaint?' and 'aren't the doors low?' a few hundred times you start getting bored. So then you have a bad coffee served to you by a grumpy-looking woman in a dirndl. And you stare at wrought-iron pot-plant holders shaped like cats or dogs with springs for necks in the shops and wonder, both silently and aloud about who would ever buy such a thing. Especially in a historical town. Then you wander past a torture museums and insist that your family pose for a photograph, even though there's no way you're going in. Because why should you be the only one photographically humiliated for posterity? I told them to pull 'baddie' faces for the shot below. Mads, as you can see, took this direction very seriously. It looks like her face is imploding from the badness, don't you think?

I had a shocking schnupfen for most of the time too, so although it was nice to have a holiday, it was very very nice to return home. It was especially nice to see these appearing everywhere:

Thank God.

& now what?

One of my current favourite German words is die Puppenecke - the dolls' corner - with 'Puppen' being dolls and 'Ecke' being corner. Mads and I had fun the other day coming up with other types of 'ecke's, like, the corner where all the snails hung out would be die schneckenecke. OK...so that was the only one we came up with. But I still like it.

My favourite Ecke in the flat recently has been the cane chair by the window where I've been working on the blanket for my unborn niecephew. It's a light, sunny spot to work, close to the teeve and the cd player. I've spent some very pleasant - between-drafts time in this corner, working away, listening to music or watching DVDs (Madmen, The Sopranos, Breaking Bad).

Then on Saturday I finished the blanket and I feel a little lost. I can't really justify watching tv without a project to work on. It doesn't seem right. Besides, there is a new book to start work on and there will be revisions to the teen novel too very soon. Looks like the days of the sunny corner might be over for now at least.

p.s. cushions by Auntie Cookie.