Sparrow Lorelei photo gallery

Visiting the Mornington Peninsula with Grandma, 10-11 April, 2010

Next morning, making plans. We'd considered going to the sand sculptures on the Frankston beachfront, but it was threatening stormy so we decided we didn't want to risk the longer walk down there and back. Sparrow is just fascinated by Elsa and by all kinds of things in her house.

Sparrow has also been doing a lot of this kind of movement - standing up while holding something. She carried this rattle around with her almost the entire morning while we were at Elsa's - great persistence for someone who is only crawling and has their hands already busy. She spent a bit of time at the side door looking out the window - the signs are there for her being an outdoor kid. She also tends not to stand with her feet evenly on the ground - there's often one up, and I don't know if that's just her getting used to her feet or if there's something causing it. So I'll keep an eye on that.

The Maze at Arthur's Seat. They have quite a few mazes in the complex. James and I had fun with this one - it's a logical maze as much as physical, you have to follow the planks in colour order so you end up going back and forth between the tyres quite a bit.

They have lots of different gardens and bush areas and artworks around the place. It was fun to explore. Though I did keep thinking how much constant attention to detail and regular work it must have taken to set up and keep maintained.

There was a small farm animals area. Sparrow seemed to enjoy the goat and the sheep. The goat was convinced it was going to get to eat Mum's jumper and it took some effort to get it disattached. Mum and I had trouble taking photos because we both wanted cute engaging-with-the-animal photos but kept getting photos of the other one of us taking photos instead.

The Maize Maze! This is why I particularly wanted to come to this maze centre out of the three on the Mornington Peninsula (there's also one at Boneo and one at Shoreham). At the Arthur's Seat maze complex they grow a maze in a cornfield every year, and it's open from approximately December to April. The maze changes each year and always has a theme. This year it was a carnival theme with a design that had the shapes of rollercoasters and ferris wheels and all kinds of things like that built into the route.

Having a rest on the lawns just above some of the display gardens. It was morning tea time, so James, Sparrow and I stopped for food and drink and nappy changes and similar while Mum explored the remaining mazes and gardens.

I don't know why she looks so worried about nappy free time. It wasn't *that* cold. I was hoping she'd crawl around and play on the grass a bit, but she didn't seem inclined to leave us.

Mum came and joined us still having our nice quiet sit and got something to eat for herself as well. Sparrow took this as an immediate opportunity to scavenge food off a new person. I left them sitting and playing while I had a quick look at some of the gardens Mum was recommending, and then we all did the last maze, a traditional tall hedge maze with a Japanese garden in the middle.

Just down the hill from Arthur's Seat is the town of Dromana, and the historic Heronswood gardens run by the Diggers Club. That was our afternoon adventure. The Diggers Club do heritage seeds and lots of interesting garden stuff, and their Heronswood garden is a wonderful series of beautiful beds and interesting plantings. We were fascinated by the metre-grid dense food beds, and the ornamental wheel planted with edibles as ornamentals was great too. The shining black chillies were amazing. We also found tromboncinos growing on vines up one fence. Mum had found one in the fruit and veg shop downstairs but nobody there knew what it was actually called or was even able to tell us what it was, just said it was the best kind of vegetable. We'd cut it open and worked out that it was vaguely related to zucchini. And now we know what it is.

Sparrow has learned how to pick herself cherry tomatoes - and that she likes doing so. She actually learnt this at Sam and Blagowa's house when we went over to take care of their cat while they were away - she found their tomato plant and happily started helping herself. I'd grown cherry tomatoes last year but she'd been a little too young to find them herself when they were in fruit. So when she saw the wonderful trellises at Diggers somehow one just ended up finding her way to her mouth. And it was enjoyed with great gusto.

We thought we'd grab ourselves a cup of tea and snack from the coffee cart, but the inclement weather meant we never saw it anywhere. We did stick our heads into the cafe as that's where the toilets were but it was very full being Sunday afternoon and drizzling. So we were perched under the shelter of the kids' shed wondering what to do next, and it started pouring with rain. We were nice and dry - but it made such wonderfully tempting puddles, Sparrow just had to make a beeline for them. She ended up getting one leg very muddy and soaked despite our best efforts. That's the kids' playgarden immediately behind, with interesting plants to explore and touch and a tunnel to crawl through. It would have been lovely if it hadn't been a bit wet :-)

This is the beachfront at Dromana, where we went to find the toilets and change Sparrow's clothes and find food.

With a short stop by the playground, mostly to stand on the bench and look at things while the grownups took turns using the public loos. Directly behind Mum is the cafe we went to before the hour-plus drive on home.

There was a little cafe across the road that turned out to be reasonable, if a little, um, difficult. "I'll have the X". "Sorry, we're out." "OK, what do you have that's vegetarian?" "It's all on the menu." "OK, I'll have the Y". "No, we're out. We've only got what's in the case here." "OK, which of those are vegetarian?" "None of them, though this one's got chicken". We did eventually manage to get something to order for all of us adults though. Sparrow shared a bit of our food and then went off exploring under the chairs. I thought this seemed like some lovely metaphor for the difference in world perception - imaginary grownups sitting on the cafe stools reading the paper and looking at their iPhones, absorbed in their own little worlds and their coffees, while the small child underneath them is in a completely different world in the same space, navigating through the wild forest of metal legs and looking out the window. So I tried to get a good photo I could use for a drawing of that.

Kybosh. Sparrow thought the camera was much more interesting than the window, and promptly came over to have a closer look. The case shows her reflection, you see. -sigh- Maybe it's not as different a world as it seems...