Grandma Chris

To our loyal readers, my apologies for being so tardy with the blog. My excuse is a succession of (very welcome) house guests and life in the fast lane. Anyway, going back a few weeks, we attended the illuminating of our friend Kon Dimopoulis's new sculpture for Federation Square. It is called Red Centre and it was christened with due pomp and ceremony with TV cameras doing a live news feed which Jessye tried valiantly to crash.

After the Minister for the Arts showed up and gave a speech, Kon followed suit and then posed with his wife, Adele (left) and the Minister (right).

There's a gap in pictorial history for a little while due to loss of the camera but not long after we got another one, Peter found the original one in the zipped-up inner pocket of my bag. Woops. Anyway, the most exciting event was the arrival of Grandma Chris. She tried to persuade Rosie to teach her how to do Sudokus - I'm not sure how it went.

Chris and I sat in on some of Sophie's open day at ballet, jazz and tap and the game she gave us, Spy Alley, went down a treat.

Normal Saturday stuff happened such as Sophie's cello lesson and tennis after which we took Chris to visit Will's new apartment before heading out with him for a meal. He made us killer Margueritas, introduced Chris to his girlfriend, Amy, and showed us the route of his US trip on the huge map Peter had got him.

We went to Will's old stamping ground, Bear Brass, in Southbank for dinner. He now works for the same company in various ways including website creation and helping set up another restaurant in Chapel St.

On Sunday afternoon we headed an hour or so out of Melbourne to Briar and Alan's farm in the country. You may remember Briar is an old mate from Auckland and we spent Easter 2005 on their farm. The occasion was Alan's 50th birthday. Since he didn't want a party, Briar persuaded him they should host a concert instead in their recently renovated (for that purpose) barn. A singer with instrumental trio including Briar performed a set of nine arias by Handel which lasted for about 50 minutes. I was very impressed with our three monkeys who behaved like seasoned concertgoers, which they're not particularly, in the front row. Briar (in green) and Alan posed with the other performers. After the cuppa with all sorts of goodies we watched the enormous bonfire before leaving for home.

I had to work most of Monday so Chris bravely ventured out on the town with J, R and S as her guides. Peter met them for lunch at Docklands where the colourful building he works in is located. It was a beautiful sunny day, ideal for an outdoor lunch by the water.

Found this rather cute picture of Sophie playing for her adoring public out of chronological order.

On Monday night I took Chris to an MSO concert where she met my old school mate, Sandra, and after which we went out with my recently discovered cousin, Russell and his wife, Barb who had also attended the concert.

On Chris's last night with us we went to our usual Lygon St haunt, Il Gambero, with Will and Eleanor too. Eleanor had meant to spend Sunday evening with us too but had injured her knee in a footy game that day and was immobile. She seemed to have recovered well by Tuesday night.

We took Chris to the airport on Wednesday and are now waiting for Grandad Grant's visit. (He was busy working this time so couldn't join Chris but we're saving lots of chores for when he shows up). Rosie's MRI of two weeks ago was better than the one before with respect to swelling and Wirginia suggests we try Rosie on half the dose of Dexamethasone she's on currently. If no headaches appear we might continue with the gradual weaning process after a couple of weeks on the new dose. We cut the dose on Wednesday evening and so far so good. The next MRI will be in a month. Yesterday we had a house call from a children's physio recommended by our GP and she's given Rosie some exercises to do that she thinks will help her recovery. She suggested also beefing up swimming, adding a private lesson to the class she currently does and getting a stationary bike for her to use at home. These are great for using both sides of the body in a symmetrical way as well as developing muscle strength. The exercises should help with strength as well as control too - Rosie had lost a little muscle bulk on the right side.