Sparrow Lorelei and Robin Artemis photo gallery

To Narrandera and back, 24-26 July, 2011
Sunday

Sunday morning after another difficult night. Friday night had been hard - Sparrow had spent a long time screaming in the middle of the night. It might have started from a heat-induced nightmare - we'd left the unfamiliar heater running too high and the room was far too warm - but it didn't stop. James finally decided she might actually be scared of the dark. It was a lot darker there than it ever is at home, and she doesn't get exposed to dark and quiet very often. So he jury-rigged a nightlight by putting a bedside lamp in the far corner of the room under a chair with some jumpers hanging over it. It was quite hard to find a way to get just a little light and not a very bright light. We did eventually get some sleep that night, and the nightlight probably helped - it certainly helped us see what was going on when further problems arose. Saturday night we were expecting to be better, we had the nightlight from the start and the heater set correctly. But it wasn't much better. Sparrow was very restless, and for the second half of the night so was Robin. He was a little cold, and so was I so I slept as badly as he did. I thought we must have overcompensated with reducing the heater settings, plus there was this very persistent cold draft alternating with the heater's occasional warm puffs. We'd blocked the crack under the front door and that had helped but it still got quite cold early in the morning. When Sparrow decided it was breakfast time and she and I and Robin all got up, I went to the sliding door to look at the view and discovered we hadn't closed it the night before, it was open a full foot or more. Which explains the draft and why the heater never made the room as fully warm as I was expecting. I closed the door and the room immediately got warmer and more comfortable. James took a little extra rest but it's limited how much extra sleep you can have in a one-room cabin with an energetic toddler.

Early morning view. Very pretty, especially given there's no fog today. I do wish the spa had faced this, though we had enough fun all having a spa bath as it was. Sparrow loved the bubbles.

The four of us, packing into the car. You can see Sparrow and Robin through the window and James and me in the reflection off the glass. James and I have agreed to switch drivers every hundred km or so, given the poor sleep we've had for two nights running. The trip home will probably take longer than the trip up, because that means more stops and each stop takes a fair bit of time.

Watch out for those high-beams! Sparrow is turning on the charm as high as she can. James started driving which meant I was in charge of entertainment for the first hour. So I pulled out the bag of peanuts-in-the-shell that I'd quietly bought the day before, and introduced Sparrow to them. It's tiny bits of tasty food, inside a puzzle-wrapper. Sparrow was totally thrilled, and kept asking "More peanuts?". So I'd give her another, and wait, and when she was ready she'd ask again and she and I would talk a moment and she'd turn up the cute as high as she could, then she'd get another peanut. I think we managed to cover most of the hundred kilometres to Jerilderie on a little container of twenty peanuts. The floor of James' car is a bit of a mess now though.

Jerilderie. Second breakfast or lunch, not sure which. I was ravenous and ordered huge amounts of food, most of which I ate as fast as I could. Sparrow was much the same, minus the ability to order. We went to the second of the two takeaway places this time, and it turns out that this one was the Tractor Cafe so that was very appropriate. Their food was noticeably better than the other cafe, though partly because it was more roadhouse-like. They also had a little table for kids with pencils and colouring books, which kept Sparrow entertained for a few minutes waiting for the food. Not colouring, but taking the pencils out of the container and putting them back in again.

Nagambie bakery. Immediately after leaving Jerilderie Sparrow fell asleep, so we drove until she woke up (with just a quick pullover to run around the car and change drivers at Numurkah, 103 km on from Jerilderie). This was our official lunch stop, but Sparrow and I weren't terribly hungry. We gave Sparrow the sausage roll first, and she usually likes those but she wasn't too enthused (except about being allowed to have a fork). Then I produced the chocolate crackle, which she'd shown some interest in when she was looking at the bakery cases. That was quite a winner. We were going to cut it into pieces and give her just a small bit but we couldn't cut it (which is why it's still stuck on the fork, we couldn't get the fork back out either). So after she'd had several bites I distracted her and James pulled a quick sleight-of-hand and hid the rest except for one small piece we'd managed to get off. We didn't want her having *that* much sugar with still almost 200 km to go. In the meantime, Robin was enjoying his own lunch.

Nagambie by the lake. After the bakery stop we walked across the road in the hopes of finding a playground on the lake foreshore. There wasn't one there, but we did manage to do a little running around anyway. It was such a beautiful day, I managed to get quite a few very cute photos of the kids and us. I like the one showing Sparrow mid-stride chasing the seagulls, and the one showing the two kids lying together both wearing jumpers that Maggie knitted (Robin even has matching pants).

Bubbles in the playground. We knew we really needed to find a playground before we left Nagambie, and with a bit of driving we found this one. I think it's maybe two or three minutes walk on the lakeside boardwalk from where we were sitting on the foreshore, but we couldn't see it from where we were. Sparrow had a great time, played with some other kids and then James pulled out the bubble mix. That was just awesome. After that she was reasonably content to sit in the car for the remaining two hours or so home. Robin less so, but he did sleep for a lot of it. He had really had enough of driving though, was very annoyed about having to get back in the car.