Edinburgh - visiting one of my favourite towers

I know you just come here for tourist advice. Well, I had a little bit of time in Edinburgh recently, and made the most of it.

On the chilly morning, before driving further up north, I walked until I saw an interesting tower. Well, once I'd seen it, I had to go there. It turned out to be the Nelson Monument in Calton Hill.

And you can climb it! It's a fairly strenuous spiral staircase, and a fantastic view.

Here's my photo. It's been severely dressed up with Snapseed, the app I use to fix photos that are too dark or whatever. I climbed to where that man is.

See the big ball on top of the tower? It's partly obscured. The ball has a real job. At 1pm every day, it gets hoisted up, and drops. That's a visible signal to ships at sea, important for navigation. At least, it was important, back before we had GPS navigation. But they have restored it, so the ball drops again! I was there way before 1pm, so I didn't get to see that.

From up there I could see Holyrood Castle, Arthur's Seat, and Scottish Parliament. And I got to spot lots of birds (birdwatching is a cool holiday hobby, it gets you looking around properly).

Shelly Beach and the Best Creature Competition

We just had a trip to Ballina to visit Mum and Peter, and to the Gold Coast.

On the last day in Ballina, we had a bit of free time, and Mum took us to her favourite beach, Shelly Beach. We crunched in the sand, paddled in the waves, and clambered over rocks.

I announced the "Best Creature" competition - find a good creature in the rocks to enter. You know, crabs, starfish, lobsters...

The entries came thick and fast.

There were these anemones.

Jonathan found a tiny live crab.

Mum found a huge not-live crab, who agreed to pose very nicely.

Then mum entered again with a cool jellyfish.

And I took the time to enjoy watching the birds. The terns were doing that thing where they flutter into the wind, then dive for a fish, and come back up again.

I pointed this out to Jeff, and I assumed he'd join me in enjoying the pretty sight. Instead, he called Jonathan and Thomas over. "Watch this, guys". He made a gun out of his hand, trained it on a tern, and watched for the moment when it folds its wings back. Then he shouted "BANG!" as the bird plunged.

And the three of them spent the next fifteen minutes "shooting" birds. Sigh.

Happy new year from Perth

We took Tegan to see the New Years Day fireworks at Shelly Beach. Wow! A little kid was commentating for us all - "Wow, alien spaceship!"

Gingerbread house, apartment style

We like to make a gingerbread house every Christmas. Well, there's a double batch of tasty gingerbread dough chilling in Nana's fridge, but it's hard to know when we'll get there to make it into a house. But the easy kits were on sale in the supermarket. So, here we are building a village.

Then we decide to abandon the nasty tasting lollies provided, and replace them with gummy bears!

Ta dah!

The building in the top left has a helipad in top. Of course.

Lots more Laings

I finally got my hands on this great photo Pop took.

We have - Stuart, Connor. Pauline, Jessamy, Tegan, Xanthe, Catriona, Russell, Jonathan, Jeff, Thomas, James and Mitchell. All on the balcony of Nana and Pop's new apartment.

In which we seek the Christmas Pelican

There are a lot Christmas traditions around. Some of them, you may not have heard of. The kids found this out today. Did you know that it's a tradition, after Christmas breakfast, to take a nice walk, until you see a pelican? Well, it is. That Christmas we spent in Denver was very tiring, but here in Perth by the river, it's easy!

Here's Jonathan, Jeff, Thomas and Catriona looking for the Christmas pelican.

And there he is! I knew he was real.

Merry Christmas from Perth!

It's Christmas morning, and for the first time, we're in a holiday apartment in Perth. So, we've set up a fabulous christmas breakfast - grilled peaches, bacon, fruit toast, and freshly baked rolls with lemon curd and marmalade.

Later, we're going to Nana and Pop's place for a BBQ lunch, and pretty much the rest of the day.

Russell enjoys the attention

Russell hangs out with Tegan, Jessamy and Xanthe.

Mitchell is stupidly tall now

Nice kid too, obviously, but just really tall.

Grown ups club

Here's Tegan, Nana, Xanthe and Jeff discussing the future, the value of education, and who ate the rocky road.

Boys' club

The younger nephews chill out on Nana and Pop's space age sofa. We have Mitchell, James, Thomas and Jonathan.

Connor - scruffy teen or artful hipster?

Connor has finished school and is waiting on results. He's planning to do a business course.

The topic of discussion, though, was, is his hair just like that when he wakes up, or does he artfully tease it? Good grief, another little relative is now clearly an adult.

All the cousins in one nice picture!

Let's try, shall we? Let's get all the cousins into one nice picture. Shall we have them standing in a row and smiling? Nah, that's too dull, let's go for something more spontaneous.

Here we have, from left to right: Thomas (seated), Connor (cool guy), Xanthe (on-trend denim shorts), Jonathan (footrest), James (I'm fine with Xanthe hugging me), Jessamy (who can I hug next), Mitchell (let go, Jessamy), and Catriona (I can't believe I'm related to you).

And then I realised TEGAN should have been in the picture! Ah well.

Tegan's modelling debut

We're in Perth, and that means COUSINS. Well, visiting relatives generally. Last night was the one night we could get all of the locals together.

So here's Tegan, our favourite Canadian niece, on the balcony at Nana and Pop's new unit. Tegan loves the hot weather. Well, she thinks she does. This was her first 39 degree day. Ever. She just moved to Perth this year, doing the post-university thing while she thinks about a Masters degree. Or just ditch it all and go into modelling?

How we do Melbourne Cup Day

Melbourne Cup is a public holiday here in Melbourne. It's on a Tuesday in Spring, so it is just a lovely break. We like to celebrate the special day in our family. Here's how we do it:

Print out a form guide, and choose a horse each, based on the coolness of the name, the colours the jockey will be wearing, and other important factors.

A lot of people do that, but we go one more step. As part. Of the decision making process, we draw our interpretations of the horse names.

This year, Thomas gave us "Who shot the barman?":

Catriona offers Royal Diamond, Seismos, Protectorate, and Opinion (a lawyer):

Jonathan liked Siesmos, the earth-shaking horse:

And I liked "Au Revoir"

Outstanding view

From the ladies loo! Well, just outside it. Old and new Melbourne.

A day off in Melbourne

I'm starting my day off with a stroll around Melbourne. It's been a while since I visited the city. The one problem with Melbourne is, it's just so hard to get a coffee. I can't have seen more than two to three thousand vendors since I got here, several hours ago. This is from Earl at Emporium Melbourne. That's a friand. Friands are nice.

Lots to see at the winery walkabout

... Not least, this cool little hopping mouse. There was a band playing, a crowd of people, most of them in cool dress ups, and much good wine to taste and buy, but at Buller's winery, we entertained ourselves watching this little guy. Very tame, definitely a hopping mouse, not a regular mouse.

More chocolate and whisky

The Corowa shire sold the unused flour mill (for $1) to the people who run the Junee liquorice factory further north, knowing that they'd work to turn it into something nice. So far, a very nice cafe, chocolate sales, and whisky tasting. Every time we visit, they've improved this great site.

So, go and visit the chocolate and whisky in Corowa!

And also goats

Our motel has goats. I will ask for goats every time in future.