I’m so not going to make it….

But I’m going to try.

Stumbled across NaNoWriMo last night and decided that it’s just what I need. It’s not that I want to write a novel, plus I am already two weeks late (with only two and a half weeks to go), but the concept is so, well, right. It’s just what I need - a deadline. I may not make it, and I may churn rubbish, but you never know, something greater could come of it.

Plus I found that there are Singaporeans doing this too. It’s crazy. This thing’s international and it’s like the best idea I’ve seen for budding new writers to actually help themselves.

The clock starts now.

Holiday

Yep, so we’re back from our two-week vacation Down Under. The laptop did come with us, but somehow, I found myself with less time to use it than I normally do. I think the daily charge to use the internet had something to do with that. What can I say – cheapness is ingrained in my bones. I can’t bear the thought of paying away cents for every minute I sit there tip-tapping away.

It was a good family sort of trip, meaning it was easy on the kids (except the flight) and the adults, mostly. We had one grandparent along with us, so between us three, there were always enough hands to deal with the kids. I did make a bad call on the flights though – it’s a 9-hour flight from here and I somehow thought a night flight would save us some pain as the kids sleep through the flight. How wrong I was. Sara couldn’t find a comfortable position the whole flight and was positively cranky. Nate was, well, Nate. Just crankier than usual, which is difficult to imagine since he can be quite cranky sometimes. What was worse was that we arrived early in the morning and were denied an early check in. So….. we were all exhausted, sleeping in the lobby of our serviced apartment. After that painful lesson, we changed our return flight which was also meant to be a night flight, and flew in the day instead. It was a case of stars being aligned to give us a good flight. Better plane, more space, four seats in a row available. Also, we adults were better prepared to deal with cranky children, who incidentally, were NOT cranky, so everyone got some rest on the flight back.

Anyway, back to the holiday proper. Sydney is very child-friendly. All restaurants have kids’ menus (albeit not particularly healthy offerings, but hey, it’s Sara’s holiday too). Lots of ramps everywhere, so our two strollers were a breeze to move around. The touristy bits of the city are all concentrated in two or three areas, so we had little travelling to do other than walking and taking the ferry. And best of all, we were right next to the tourist area, allowing us easy access to attractions and food. A necessity, I might add, when you have small ones. That we take but minutes to get home after a meal or a long day out is so critical. None of that hailing taxis, dealing with traffic jams, crowded trains, etc. You get the picture. It was, in essence, an easy trip for both us and the children.

That said, Danny and I do miss the freedom we had during our holidays of old. We’re not the sort to do hugely exciting things, but we do love road trips. Having little children make it so difficult to move around and explore. Trips to see nature are invariably wasted effort, and anything that requires a bus ride of more than half an hour could incur the wrath of some tiny person waiting to yell the whole bus down. Trains are a pain (just you try moving luggage and a stroller or two and all that extra stuff up and down staircases, on and off platforms) and internal flights just plain harrowing. I think if we didn’t have Nate, we would be relatively closer to achieving our old-style holidays, but that’s not the way it works, is it? No siree. Instead we went to get another baby (no offense to Nate, of course) and knowing ourselves, there’s a good chance we’d be pregnant again or toting another new baby by the time we get round to another big holiday. Of course, to top it all off, despite Sara being old enough to actually enjoy bits of the holiday, she did ask, MANY TIMES, if she could go home. As in, Hong Kong home, and not the serviced apartment we called home for the two weeks. Made me wonder if I would’ve agreed to this holiday if I had known she would ask me that question every so often.

So that’s it. All holidays done for another year.

Sara on a trampoline

Nate enjoying the cool breeze in front of the Opera House

Hat children. They do have such cute hats in Austraila.

And where have you been?

In Sydney.

More later.