Thinking Allowed: Murramarang, or, Happy Birthday Lizzie!

Queen Elizabeth is 92 today. Or so we thought, since today is the "Queen's Official Birthday." Even though her birthday was back in April, we celebrated Aurora's birthday a few weeks late and were happy to extend the same courtesy to our monarch. Tamar baked Queen Elizabeth's favourite cake, a chocolate cookie cake, going so far as to buy McWhittie's biscuits (which have the royal warrant as queen's biscuit maker). It was massively rich and delicious; Tova couldn't finish her piece. Sophia wanted to see a picture of the Queen. I showed her a recent one (QEII is looking kind of pale and drawn these days.) "Ohhhh," breathed Sophia. "I love the Queen!"

I too love the Queen, in large part because I got today off thanks to her. We spent an idyllic long weekend in Murramarang National Park on the Pacific Coast (I could live here for decades (don't worry, we're not going to) and the Pacific Coast would never stop seeming impossibly exotic.) A little holiday park cabin met our needs wonderfully. A rattly heater, bunk beds for the girls, a freakishly unafraid kangaroo named Mischief who tried to sneak inside and otherwise messed around with our shoes. Aurora's very good friend (she apparently has no best friends) Sarah and her family were right nearby so we spent much of the weekend with them, to squeals of girlish delight (not mine).

Yesterday we climbed Pigeon House Mountain (does it actually resemble a Pigeon House? Captain Cook thought so, but who knows, given we no longer have those. Maybe we should modernise and call it Mount Supermicro 5039A-IL Server). A steep fun climb with ladders and stiff winds at the top. Tova's new modus operandi is to have a tantrum within 100 seconds of the parking lot, embarrassing everyone and ensuring that she gets one parent all to herself. As soon as I peeled off from the crowd (Sarah and family having come along) Tova joyously blazed up the trail, outpacing everyone except the occasional trail runner. She spoke at extreme length about how to stop her nightmares, deciding in the end that (a) she needs a whistle which she can blow in the middle of the night to wake us all up if she has a bad dream, (b) she needs a flashlight to reassure herself that there is no danger [this is my hedging strategy against (a)], (c) when she feels bad dreams coming on, she will imagine herself snorkeling in the water with small fish thinking about what she wants for her birthday [complicated I know, but then she is a rather complicated person], and (d) I now have a magic rock, small and black, which I rub behind her left ear to magically prevent nightmares [this was actually my idea, but it's 2 / 2 so don't knock it].

Anyway, the view from the top was gorgeous, undulating carpets of eucalypti spreading to the coast a few kilometres away. The girls all got mentos (unanimously the best part of the hike, despite everyone getting orange except Aurora, who got raspberry, then immediately proactively angrily swapped with Sophia and is still grumpy about it 30 hours later. Also complicated.)

Today we went to North Head, a wonderfully rocky bit of coast, while Aurora played with Sarah and her sister. I got sprayed by a rogue wave, took cute pictures of the girls, and Tamar discovered the largest hermit crab in the world (which turned out to just be a big clam)

I'd better stop, instead of describing how clever the weather was: it somehow rained almost non-stop, yet cleared up exactly when we needed it to. Chalk up another win for going away for the weekend!