Sock Monkey IV - Vanuatu Vacation

While sock monkey was playing giant chess and just chilling out, I was working too bloody hard, but at least sock monkey was having a good time.

Jason le petit Australien

Jason became an Australian citizen on Thursday - he is finally allowed to wear shorts and thongs, and use the word 'strewth'. Here he is taking the oath (under God!! He thinks he got put in the wrong group). Can you spot him?:

Here he is getting his certificate from the mayor of Yarra.

Here is the mayor of Yarra pointing at my mother so that Jason will wait and pose for her. My mother took about half an hour to get her camera out, so she only held the ceremony up briefly.

Here is Jason finally getting his photo taken by my mother. You can see that the mayor has already lost interest.

Here is Jason getting some sort of medallion from Dick Wynne, Housing Minister and Member for Richmond. Mr Wynne is shaking Jason's imaginary hand. He did shake the real one later.

And here is Jason getting a real, genuine, made in China koala from the Carlton Rotary.

I waved my flag so enthusiastically when Jason came up that it broke! But here we are with some new ones.

Tarte a l'erable

One more to cross off the list...

Not Our Cat

But acting like it is. It still doesn't have a name, although it is to us le petit Champlain #2, after the appealingly chunky ginger cat who used to live next door to us in Montreal, who had a similar habit to this one of kneading the ground (or the sofa, or your leg) with its paws when content. Les deux chats aiment faire le pain.

It has made itself pretty comfortable.

Kennett River - still great!

Another fine visit to Kennett River. Still gorgeous, still relaxing, still more food than any group of a dozen people could possible cram into their distended bellies.

Monday morning saw a fine batch of cinnamon brain (tick it off my new year's resolution list!)

Grace poses for the tourist brochure.

Ross gets wet!

Andy and Dan get slinky!

Dan is obviously a good man because I am pretty sure he did this just to make Grace and Felicity happy.

Look how happy Grace is!

The new adventures of sock monkey

Sock monkey likes bananas, and thumbs his nose at typecasting.

Sock monkey has a sad addiction to So You Think You Can Dance and Judge Judy.

Sock monkey is an underrated bongo player.

Sock monkey doesn't let friends drive drunk.

But when he gets them home, he takes advantage of them until he has won all the bananas they have in the fridge, as well as at least 75% of any investments or property.

Sock monkey has a posse, now spreading the word through the medium of 'cute new nephews around the world'.


What will sock monkey do next???

Cats, jam, Bendy, MCG

This is our new cat. I mean, "our" new cat. Or "our" "new" cat. Because it's not ours and it's not new (although it is a cat). It pretty much spends its evenings lazing around on our sofa and drinking all our milk. Where it goes the rest of the time we don't know, although we are pretty sure it is pimping itself around the neighbourhood, exchanging catly affection for belly rubs and kibble. This isn't a very good photo of it, it is much prettier than this, but it also doesn't sit still for very long.

We're pretty sure it's a she, but this doesn't stop us referring to it as 'him'. That's about as far as we've got with giving it a name.

I made six jars of raspberry jam a few weeks ago. We are going through it at a rate of a jar a week, so I'm guessing we might run out before I get a chance to make any more.

Here are Jason, Bendy and sock monkeys.

And here is a particularly nice view from our window, around Round 2 I think.