2 Jessye visits and other life

Jessye's May mid-term break included a rare whole-family movie outing to see Spiderman 3 and lots of lazy time at home with the occasional burst of outdoor activity at the park with the dogs. We had our first fire for the season and Jessye went back to Howqua with the challenge of learning how to keep their house fire going all day and night with the weather now getting pretty chilly there. The girls are responsible for getting their wood in (they don't have to do the chopping) and looking after their woodburner between classes and at night so they don't freeze. The day of Jessye's return to Howqua was the World's Biggest Morning Tea and the girls were asked to bring something to share. Jessye's always been fond of lemon cake so she made one of those and Rosie and Sophie made some cupcakes too.

Sophie had her cello exam coming up at the end of May so on the 17th she and I did a practice run for her class at school. She played four of her pieces. Rosie was also performing a week later at the MLC Brass and Percussion Spectacular but unfortunately I forgot the camera that night. Rosie played in the Junior Secondary School Brass Ensemble which had 5 trumpets, 3 horns, 2 trombones and a euphonium. They played the theme from "Rocky". Considering it was a group of mostly beginners they played very well and it's great they have the girls performing almost immediately.

Sophie found her old eighth-size violin and serenaded Rosie and the dogs with Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. They must have been at a loose end because they then resorted to colour-coordinated dressing up with Sophie inventively turning a cushion into a hat reminiscent of Marge Simpson. Great that they still get a kick out of dressups at their ripe old age.

One of my favourite conductors, Mark Wigglesworth, did a concert with the MSO featuring Mahler's 4th Symphony and the first half was the Dvorak cello concerto played by a young Frenchman called Gautier Capucon. He was so wonderful that I wanted Sophie to hear him so on the Saturday night Peter brought Rosie and Sophie to the concert and they sat up close in the second row. At interval they came backstage and Gautier posed for a photo with Sophie and autographed her programme.

The next day Greer came over and the girls and I took Barney and Fred to Princes Park for some socialising. It was the best crop of dogs for a while. Later I attended a concert by the Stonnington Symphony which is the best community orchestra in Melbourne. The occasion was a special concert honouring John Hopkins in his 80th year. John was conducting a programme which included Elgar's Enigma variations and it was amazing to see him in action after so many years. He seems physically quite frail these days but when he was on that podium he lost about 30 years and looked masterful. It was great to be there.

Sophie's cello exam was the next day at 9:30 am so she got up a bit later than usual and had pancakes for breakfast for fortification. She played beautifully and thoroughly deserved the big cream bun she requested afterwards on the way to school. Her exam report arrived in the mail a week later and although Sophie was happy enough with her B+, in my professional opinion the examiner was very tough on her as far as the grade went, especially since she had some very nice comments to make about the various bits. Sophie's teacher didn't know of the examiner, a Russian lady, so suspected she was new and out to set very high standards. Anyway, when Sophie wasn't too disappointed I recovered somewhat.

Time flew by and it was Jessye's second homecoming this term on June 1st. She arrived at school at 12:45 and she and I went almost straight into parent/teacher interviews at 1:00. Jessye seems to be doing very well in almost all her subjects with French improving nicely so that now she's not sure which out of French and Chinese to keep going next year. The one noteable exception was maths which has always been a strong subject for Jessye. I gather she was not alone in her feeling about her maths teacher because many parents had already been in touch with the Howqua Director of Learning with concerns about this man's competency. Jessye's marks have slipped during the year and I'm keen to arrest the slide before there's lasting damage. A new maths teacher has been appointed at Howqua and I can only assume that he or she will be replacing the suspect one after due process. I suppose that's been the only downside of Howqua so far. If that had been happening at school here, we would have picked it up sooner and been able to help Jessye if she was having difficulty and also deal with the teacher inadequacy sooner. I'll follow it up with the Director of Learning by email. The big excitement of the weekend was that Ollie and Gabe Armstrong-Scott were in Melbourne with a Wellington diving team to compete in the Victorian Junior Elite championships. They weren't eligible for medals because they weren't Victorian but were here as a warmup for the bigger event in Adelaide next month. I hadn't seen Ollie and Gabe dive before so it was really good to see them in action and appreciate their amazing skill. At the end of the session everybody said goodbye looking forward to the September holidays when our two families will be sharing a week on the Sunshine Coast.

It was, as always, lovely to have Jessye in our midst and we did our usual mix of activities including the obligatory orthodontist appointment. At next month's appointment her braces will be removed and she will graduate to some sort of plate arrangement. This time, though, Jessye and I met Sandra for afternoon tea at a Glenferrie Rd cafe before MLC pickup one day. Sandra has been writing to Jessye at Howqua and sending her packages so it was nice to get them together this time. We said goodbye to Jessye on Wednesday morning until June 29th which is the last day of term. By the way, there was a small issue of misplaced camera at Howqua which is why there haven't been photos from there this time. Jessye's gone back with an inferior model this time in case the other one doesn't show up so we can hopefully get some pics from her next visit.

Last night Peter and I went to Chris and Iona Charalambous's joint 50th birthday party which was a very sociable, loud and smokey affair at a winebar near their place. They are very good friends and it was nice to be able to be there and not be working.

Rosie has her angiogram scheduled for June 21. Thats's the super duper diagnostic imaging tool she had done at the beginning of it all in Feb 2005. The MRI's have looked good and the angiogram is to confirm what they seem to show. They don't do them very often because they're more invasive (requiring a small tube to be inserted into the groin and sent up an artery shooting dye into her brain so they get nice clear pics of it. She has to have a general anaesthetic so we'll show up at the hospital at 7 am and hopefully not have to wait too long. This coming Wednesday afternoon we have an appointment with an Occupational Therapist who will assess her and hopefully be able to find a suitable time to work with Rosie regularly. She had some OT at Children's Hospital but they don't have enough people on the payroll to take on someone like Rosie on an ongoing basis. She's still doing Pilates once a week and Susan the physio comes once a month. In between, the mean mum makes her do some physio exercises as often as Rosie will tolerate it. On June 15 I will be having a tooth pulled out for a bit of variety. It's only a local anesthetic 45 minute procedure which will then have to heal for a couple of months before work begins on the replacement implant. Oh what fun!