Tasmania. A holiday in sunrises.

The boy was in Hobart all weekend for aikido, and the kid and I got on a plane (and off on the tarmac) to meet him there and start the Great Family Holiday Road Trip. It was lovely. We saw some very pretty places. Milkshakes are $2. Cherries the size of small plums are $8 a kilo on the side of the road. The entire population of the state appears to total no more than about 300 people. A very enjoyable sojurn, except for one thing. The kid decided that a one-hour plane ride entitled him to transatlantic jetlag and woke up at 4.50am. Every. Morning. And so, here is the pictorial evidence of the first time spent away together as a threesome. In sunrises.

Hobart

Salamanca

Swansea

Binalong Bay

There are no photographs of Launceston's early mornings, because by then, my god, we were over it. We still walked the streets at the crack of dawn, but those ventures were not recorded for posterity.

We did get one from the boat coming in to Port Melbourne. Of course the one morning when we were required to be up and at 'em by 5.30, the kid was fast asleep.

Typical. Thank the lord now that we're back he's sleeping until 6ish. What have things come to when anything after 5am is a sleep in? When he is 15, I will remind him of these early mornings, with gusto.

This does not feel good.

I dropped the kid at my mum's this morning for my first trial run for Operation Back to Work. He's fine there. He loves the dog. Mum's got a corner of the living room set up as baby heaven, and she is stockpiling pop-up books like there's no tomorrow. She has a pram and a cot and plans afoot for playgroup and swimming lessons and walks in the park. He's going to be there two days a week this year and he's going to love it.

I am going to have to get better at driving away without sobbing.

Holiday starts now.

Boys in bed asleep. Battered copy of Pride & Prejudice pulled from b&b bookshelf. Biggest freaking bathtub in the southern hemisphere. Breathe out.

Later, Oliver.

Father Bob ran the show. I sat on a beanbag, on the floor, next to a man I didn't know. Our baby sons played together gently, and we both wept.


Two funerals, this kid has been to, and not a year old.

God bless hard rubbish.

The kid's Christmas present, rescued from the side of the road in Eltham a few weeks ago.

I think he likes it.

Walking without bebe...