We had a week’s winter holiday, making the most of what the city and country have to offer. In the city, the girls had fun at a play centre called ‘Clip N Climb’ in which they were hoisted up a giant slide and in a harness jumped the 20m high Leap of Faith. We saw the exhibition of modern art from the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the girls and their second cousins staying interested throughout due to my cousin Jessie’s energy and enthusiasm asking them what their favourite painting was in each of the rooms. The next day we saw the Museum of the Moving Image’s Alice in Wonderland exhibition, which was as magical as the book and movies inspired by it, starting with its entry via a tiny door into a hall in which others could see you but you couldn’t see them. The tea party was a highlight, around a large white table with white crockery that had different images projected on to it, complementing the scenes projected on the walls around it.
We had fun staying at Ann’s house for the week too. In Rhea’s words, one experience was:
‘Mummy hopped in to the [square-sized] bath, then me then Lara and when we were all in the bath and the water was nearly overflowing, Mummy called Daddy and asked do you want to hop in? There’s plenty of room.’
It was good hanging out with Jessie, Jolan and Tara. The next day the girls and I went to visit them and Jessie’s husband at their house and farm, where the girls had a turn feeding baby lambs that need two litres of milk hand fed to them twice a day. Later, walking around the farm, as Jessie showed us how they have been fencing and rejuvenating it, we were followed by full grown cows. All four girls aged between four and eight also had a great time singly and together swinging on the swing made from rope and a plank tied on to the branches of a huge old pine tree.
Jessie showed me her veggie garden, currently producing cauliflowers, cabbages, rocket, lettuce, broccoli and herbs, and her fruit trees, currently producing a proliferation of mandarines. With their chickens and having had a cow ‘butchered’ as they euphemistically say, they are basically self-sufficient. I found it as inspiring as the girls found it new and fun.
Inside the house that Jessie built from straw bales and mud more than ten years ago now, Rhea and Lara delighted in the pianola, though it was difficult for them to play with their small legs, and loved running upstairs and exploring Jolan and Tara’s toys in the play area that overlooked some green fields dotted with grazing cows.
Back in Melbourne we had dinners and lunches with friends and family, including Jessie’s older two, now young adults, and I met and explored stories of our family history with dad’s cousin. We also took the girls to a large cake shop where we chose five small cakes to share between the four of us, and a large cake of chocolate and raspberry mousse to take home with us and share with the guests. We stopped off at the city library opposite the cake shop and read children’s books in the small children’s area – unfortunately, not being locals we weren’t able to borrow them.
On the last day we visited the garden of a historic house, poking around the huge greenhouse-like structure full of ferns; the edge of its small lake; and the large lawns and winding paths full of European flowers. The girls took their shoes and socks off, even though it’s winter. I was happy for them to feel the hardy grass beneath their feet.
Maggie recently went to a talk by the psychologist and childhood development expert Steve Biddulph. She bought me the book he wrote, ‘Raising Girls.’ One of the standout messages that resonated to me from the book was that rushing is the enemy of love.
This little holiday reinforced that to me. We made the most of every day, but we tried not to rush.
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