ferrousland.com - diary archives
Tuesday, November 25, 2003
visiting melbourne - 01:51 PM
even though i didn't get to see mon, greg, kelsey & brittany, i had a lovely time away, spending the whole week in melbourne (from monday night to sunday morning) staying with my dad & tosca, his wife.
we did almost nothing while we were there, which was exactly the way i wanted it. in fact, the only times we left the house was to go for a walk, a trip to the shops, to the laundromat to dry riley's washing & an afternoon trip to the lavender farm.
the lavender farm was lovely. it was about an hour away & was quite a pleasant drive, although to tell the truth, i didn't look out the window much. i spent most of my time looking at riley sitting peacefully in the baby seat which dad & tosca hired to put in their car. any excuse to look at him adoringly. 
dad & tosca bought me afternoon tea (second lunch really. ask any breastfeeding woman how much she eats), which included a chicken & salad roll, some really tasty lavender tea, some of tosca's scones with jam & cream & some of the nicest icecream i have ever tasted, lavender of course. lavender icecream sounds weird, i know, but it was absolutely delicious. i chose an early christmas gift from them from some of the beautiful things in the gift shop, a lovely silver metal oil burner & some lavender oil to go into it.
tosca & i took the short tour around the property with riley while dad stayed in the tea room to do some reading for his study. it was so picturesque & very peaceful. they have sheep & some alpacas as well as two farm dogs, both collies. we watched the short video about how they harvest all their lavender by hand & how they produce the products which they sell in the gift shop, as well as looking at the hundreds & hundreds of bunches of lavendar hanging up to dry.
both dad & tosca adored having riley there, especially tosca. they plan to have children of their own soon enough so tosca had some good practise with riley. mind you, she said she's wanted children since she was eight years old & she looked like an absolute natural to me. she has a lovely singing voice & sung him to sleep on her shoulder quite a number of times. riley seemed to like her a lot too.
the night before we left she cuddled him for ages, making sure to get her fill before we were gone.
riley changed a lot even while i was away for just one week. dad reckoned he'd become much more interactive even from the beginning of the week. i noticed that he smiled more than i've ever seen him smile before. he gave so many big open mouthed smiles. he rolled over for the second time, too. both times he's done this it's been when no one's been looking. i was checking email on dad's laptop in the study & dad was studying in the lounge room. he was looking at riley, looked down at his notes for a few seconds, looked back up & saw that riley was now on his back.
the last day we were there, i arranged for my best friend from school (when we used to live in melbourne years ago), sheryn, to come over for a visit. she lives only a short walk away. when she arrived just after 10:30am dad was out at the laundromat drying riley's washing for me, & after having not seen my dad for about fifteen years, she saw a picture of him & exclaimed, "what happened to all his hair?!"
.. he's quite bald now, you see, compared to that long ago.
her boyfriend, john, was working that day, so sherry gave him a call in the afternoon to see if he wanted to come over in the evening after dad & tosca invited them to stay for dinner. he came around & we ended up having an impromptu rugby party! john was keen to watch the grand final of the world cup after dinner, so he asked if he could turn the tv on. tosca was quite interested in learning more about the game so she asked lots of questions & really got into it. john was suprised & quite pleased to be able to share his joy of the game with someone.
sherry & i watched a bti of the game, but then lounged on the folded out futon (which was mine & riley's bed while we were there) & talked & played with riley. they both stayed quite late as everyone got along rather well. it was a lovely way to end my visit to melbourne.
the flights there & back were uneventful with riley being the easy-going baby which he always is. the flight home, however, was actually quite enjoyable. in a row of three seats, i sat with a lady my own age with a five month old little boy with a spare seat between us. we got along quite well & chatted for the whole two hour flight. as soon as we were in the air, i took out my bag of munchies which tosca had put together for me & offered her some. she gladly accepted. we discussed how before we were had our babies we would have wanted some but politely declined, but now that we were breastfeeding, any offer of food was gratefully & greedily accepted.
we had a right picnic going on in the spare seat, in fact, because when they came around selling snacks, she bought a gourmet wrap thing & offered me half! i accepted, of course.
she was on a similar trip to me, taking her new baby to meet friends & relatives, except that she's living in the uk, so her trip was six weeks long. i think she's originally a brisbane girl, but her husband is working in the uk under contract. she was really lovely. we even swapped email addresses.
i had a really nice trip away. everything about it was excellent. it was nice to have some extra hands to help look after riley, it was lovely to see dad & tosca enjoy him so much, & it was great to be fed lots .. lol!
here are some pictures of the trip.
sounded like a great trip. glad you got to stretch your legs some.
what a round about way to here! I read this, went to the photos, commented there, back to the front page, and then back to here to comment!
sounds like a lovely trip
Sounds like you had so much fun!. It`s always great catching up with loves one`s isn`t it?. Makes me wish I could see mine.... The lavender farm looks really cool! might have to go there someday. I love lavender. Hey, Is Tosca from the Phillapines?, I@m sorry I forgot!.
gmail
com
Glad to hear you had a good trip Coralie. The lady on the plane coming home sounds like she was good company for you... and shared your interest in babies and food!!!