Florence + The Machine

Florence + The Machine



Loving the album Lungs.

It is all very messy...

but the changes continue.

I just wish it would stop raining for just a little while.

We now have a concrete idea as to how the gables will eventually look. I'm so glad we asked for them.

The cladding of the whole house with new weatherboards has almost been completed. There are just a few downstairs windows and doors that need replacing first.

A New Home

The girls have a new home too.

After making their last coop, I decided I didn't have the energy or time to make another, so ebay came to the rescue.

House Update

Here are some photos from various angles around the house.

The Colorbond is supposed to arrive for the roof today, so by this evening I imagine there will be big changes.

We have chosen Woodland Grey for the roof.

Television

My TV viewing habits have changed over the years, and now with the ability to download shows, or watch them online, I find that I rarely watch anything week by week. I tend to forget they are on, or have forgotten what happened the previous week if I wait the conventional way. Too much happens in the real world during a week to get an enjoyable story flow.

Unless it is Australian Story, or At the Movies, or Foreign Correspondent etc.

These days I watch a show a season at a time, or if I have 3 or 4 episodes lined up - no ads and a continuity to the storyline.
This week, after all were tucked in their beds, I tried out 'Outnumbered'. Several friends had raved about it.
I enjoyed the first couple of episodes, and then by the third I began laughing... and I could not stop.
At one point a daughter's head popped out and asked why I was crying.
I wasn't crying. I was trying to laugh silently (because everyone else was in bed) and the tears were streaming down my face.

If you get the opportunity to see it, do.
And I recommend you try at least 3 in a row.

Bike Riding

I had forgotten how beautiful the park near our house is.

Cockatoo Island - 17th Biennale of Sydney
We caught a ferry to Cockatoo Island, in Sydney's Harbour, to look around and see the various art installations there as part of Sydney's Biennale.


There were some interesting pieces of art... and some had unusual/verbose/strange descriptions about them.

I can't remember whose this was, or what it was called, but it was so much fun!

***

Shen Shaomin - Summit

"Shen has created a hypothetical meeting of the most significant communist leaders. Their life size corpses, arranged in a pentagon, rest in crystal coffins that reflect their nationalities. Castro, the still-alive exception, lies silently on his deathbed."

Oliver got a shock when he saw Castro was still breathing - his chest moves up and down, and there is the faint sound of breathing.

***

Kader Attia - Kasbah

"Visitors are invited to walk across them, but the difficulty of taking each cautious step over this uneven, variegated surface provokes a consideration of the successes and failures of the globalised economy and of the human ability to wrest a livable existence from nothing. Thus, walking tentatively over the work, one not only becomes part of it but also implicitly part of the economic and power matrix that creates these shanty towns."

We all enjoying walking over the roofs, but Andrew and Brent's enjoyment came from reading, puzzling, and dare I say, laughing over its description.

*** Robert MacPherson - Chitters: A Wheelbarrow for Richard, 156 Paintings, 156 Signs

"...consecrates the roadside vernacular of shop signs, placards and slang expressions ...blazons landscapes and gardening terminologies..."

The black and white was very striking.

***

Cai Guo-Qiang

"The installation of nine cars appears arrested in an animated sequence of explosion."

This was spectacular!

***

Brook Andrew - Jumping Castle War Memorial

"...its plastic enclosed turrets contain skull that represent those ofer forgotten peoples who were the victims of genocide worldwide. The diamond black and white pattern referenced the Wiradjuri culture and represents the experience of cultural amnesia and hypnosis."

The kids was sooo disappointed they were not allowed to jump!

***

All in all, a fantastic day out.

Old Slides
My mum bought herself a device to scan all of our old slides.
She gave me a copy of some today.
I am so pleased to have them.

At the beach in Dar es Salaam with Dad and Mum.

Philly and I in our sandpit in Kigoma, with Midnight keeping us company.

The Tudors I have just spent the first week of the holidays watching all 4 seasons of 'The Tudors'.

That is many hours of viewing time.

That is many hours of fantastic costumes, horrible tortures, lusty bedroom scenes, lies and treachery, executions and history.

Yes, everyone was too good looking, and their teeth were too perfect, and no-one looked like they smelt too bad, and licence was taken with the storyline at times,

but I loved it.

My favourite actor in the series had to be Henry Cavill, who played Charles Brandon, the 1st Duke of Suffolk.

Season One of The Tudors chronicles the period of Henry VIII's reign in which his effectiveness as King is tested by international conflicts as well as political intrigue in his own court, while the pressure of fathering a male heir compels him to reject his wife Katherine of Aragon in favor of Anne Boleyn. He also has a string of affairs, and fathers an illegitimate son, who later dies.

Season Two finds Henry as the head of the Church of England, the result of his break with the Catholic Church over its refusal to grant him a divorce from Katherine. During his battle with Rome, he secretly marries a pregnant Anne. Anne's own failure to produce a son dooms her as Henry's attention shifts toward Jane Seymour.

Season Three focuses on Henry's marriages to Jane Seymour and Anne of Cleves, the birth of his son Edward VI, his ruthless suppression of the Pilgrimage of Grace, the downfall of Thomas Cromwell, and the beginnings of Henry's relationship with the "dangerous" Katherine Howard.

Season Four focuses on Henry's ill-fated marriage to Katherine Howard, his uncommonly successful final marriage with Katherine Parr, an attempted invasion of France and the question of the kingdom's leadership after Henry's death.

Funny

I saw this on another blog.

"This day has ended up being quite disappointing!"

A direct quote from middle child... but back to that later...

Today I took the tribe into the city for a look around The Rocks area, hoping to educate and inspire them, experiencing first hand what life was like for Australia's first white settlers/convicts.

The look on their faces on the train may indicate what was going to be in store for me.

The kids had learnt earlier in the morning, from one of our builders, that there was a pancake restaurant at The Rocks.

They became obsessed.

There was no way we were going to achieve anything else until we visited said venue.

But all began to feel quite ill.

As my Dad always used to say, "Your eyes are bigger than your stomach!"

We then began to walk off the calories, visiting a candle shop,

looking at monuments (and the such),

completing a quiz in a museum,

and visiting a puppet shop.

Andrew met us in town (a nice surprise), and we walked to Darling Harbour.

It was our refusal to pay for the numerous expensive rides that were available that bought the whinging from middle child (previously about walking too far, stopping too often etc.) to fever pitch.

Then the statement was made, on the way home:

"This day has ended up being quite disappointing!"

I can't win.