Miss Tiggywinkle

This Thursday TP Performing Arts Centre hosts the matinee performance of Tom Price Primary School's production of 'Wind in the Willows', on Saturday L, A & E will attend the evening performance. It's very exciting! Here is Freya in her Hedgehog get-up (minus the face painting she'll wear for both performances). I am pretty proud of my efforts (credit also to Leanne, mother of the other hedgehog!). What do you reckon?

Apparently this is how hedgehogs stand.

 

Hedgehogs are quite cuddly

Dancin' at the disco

Since we have been here there has been gentrification afoot, TP is having an extreme makeover. Here's where we're at:

Urban revitalisation TP stylee.

I had dinner with the CEO of the Shire of Ashburton a few weeks ago (I know, we'll be accepting invites from Elton and David if we continue this rate of social escalation) who said that the works would be finished by the end of July. I am doubtful the deadline will be met (and I'd had enough wine to tell that to the CEO), I guess we'll see. Anyhoo, plans and a fancy-pants walk-through of the prospective upgrade are available at www.ashburton.wa.gov.au/building-and-town-planning/projects/. Freya asked me the other day whether I'd be pleased to see new coffee shops in Tom Price, I answered that I would be happy to have a decent latte. "So you want the country to turn into the city?"
... say what?!!
Ade was on a mission to Perth this last week, and so the girls have been making the trip to school from the hospital again, here they are setting off:

I snuck out early on Tuesday to watch the end of Esther's school gymnastics class; her gym teacher asked her to demonstrate a 'motorbike' landing to the rest of the class, she's so awesome!

Bad news: Henny, Penny or Jenny got picked off my Spike the (usually) gentle dog from next door. The girls were sad until I pointed out that this meant we had room for a chook that actually laid eggs.

...and then there were three.

Tonight the kids of Tom Price Primary school got down and boogied at their disco, as did some of their mothers (I can just about get away with grooving in public, in a year's time Freya will never speak to me again when I dance to the Biebs in front of all her friends).

Wait a minute, where's me jumper?

Work-wise I've had a quiet rather dull couple of weeks, brightened by a giggling Korean locum, a lovely pair of English backpacker-nurses who'll be cat-sitting for us when we go to Exmouth (2 weeks!!!) and a patient who sewed up his own chin with dental floss after a fall from a skateboard.

Still hot!

In the interest of hospital staff morale (and as another excuse to drink wine), several of us met at Kings Lake last Sunday to drink wine enjoy the winter sunshine. It was a glorious day that warranted a pair of shorts and yet, if there is something I have learned during my short time in TP it's that Pilbara people are highly allergic to temperatures below 25 degrees. Anything less than "blisteringly hot" induces what I can only assume is a disgusting rash on the arms and legs of the Pilbara population which they feel obliged to cover with long sleeves and trousers.
Since my arrival in TP I have been routinely ridiculed for booking a camping holiday to Exmouth in winter; as a veteran of years of Welsh Whitsun camping holidays I quietly sneer at these sissies. Currently the the daytime temps in Exmouth are between 23 and 27 degrees...noice. Exmouth is a mere 3 weeks away and we are all beside ourselves with excitement! It will be awesome to be under canvas again, thrilling to explore the Ningaloo Reef, brilliant to be beside the sea, and bestest to hang out with Adam and Janine (...can't wait guys!!!). The mornings and evenings will be cool but nothing that some decent coffee and a few glasses of wine won't fix and the days will find us all in our bathers.
I digress...on Sunday us Jonkers bared our limbs and it was wonderful!

An Anglo/Aussie/Irish cricket game

Ina, Roger, T & T

Freya and L (future babysitters), T & T

Esther and T

Grub 'n' bub

Another largely uneventful week for the Jonkers (I kinda like it like that).
We have been eating:

Jamie's chilli cheese cornbread

Lou's patchwork of sausage, lentil and spinach (from the garden)

Jamie's bread pudding with chocolate beer sauce (dammit Jamie I'm off to Exmouth in a month and will need to grease myself up in order to get into my bathers if you continue to tempt me with all these carbolicious treats!)

Jamie's green chilli

We are attending:

Where daughter #1 will make her stage debut as Hedgehog #2

I wanted to be door bitch but more active members of the P&C get that gratification, instead I'll be selling soft drinks

Last night F, E and myself hosted a girls night in. Kerryn and Rosemary were last minute drop outs because they had to wait at the hospital for the RFDS doc to arrive and intubate a motorcyclist with nasty injuries (NB: motorbike vs camper van will always end badly for the motorcyclist, indeed motorbike vs pretty much anything is never good news for the rider, as Ade will testify).
Anyhoo, Mary Mary and Sarah (Neighbour/Colleague/Friend) were still available to celebrate the recent arrival of my Le Creuset french oven!!!

Isn't she beautiful? The Oyster Bay est tres beau aussi!

So I'm a bit besotted with my Le Creuset which I picked in 'flame' cos my mum's is the same colour and orange is nice and cheery in the kitchen! I made a chicken, tarragon, mushroom casserole (with a fair amount of Oyster Bay), it was delish. Freya made chocolate mousse from the Junior Masterchef Cook Book for dessert, it too was delish. And then baby A joined us, she is also delish!

2 cuties

Freya with Sarah, the NCF

Baby A, F and Mary Mary (also enjoying the Oyster Bay!) 

  

Happy Birthday Laura!! xxxx

So That's Where I came From

Today Esther has been quizzing Ade on how one "gets" a baby. We have a great book called "So That's Where I Came From". It's a beautifully illustrated, straightforward, age-appropriate, Australian book that covers puberty and the facts of life, IVF, same-sex parents, adoption, fostering, sperm and egg donation, multiple births, different 'sorts' of families, vaginal and Cesarean births...
I have read the book to both our girls; Freya soaks it up, Esther is (currently) more interested in the hairstyles of the anatomically-correct, cartoon ladies. The book is awesome and very frank (my only issue is that it is still predominantly 'white'), however, I must confess to an embarrassed giggle the first time I read it to my girls.
Anyhoo, at the dinner table this evening Esther announces, "You get a baby when you marry someone you love" (nice try Ade). Freya snorts through her baked sweet potato and corrects her younger sister: "You get a baby when the man's penis goes hard and goes into the lady's vagina".
Lou & Ade: (sound of choking on meat and salad).
Time to get the book out again to remind the whole Jonker family how families happen. Yet perfect reminder to self how precious our little unit is :)

While I was sleeping

It's night-shift time again. I escaped the last lot because my folks were here and Jacinta (who rosters) is all kinds of considerate. Anyhoo, no excuses this time...
I don't mind night shift; I rarely have any trouble sleeping during the day, although I do use earplugs and have recently contemplated an eye mask since the gap in our bedroom blinds seems to be growing.
I feel an odd satisfaction in being awake while everybody else is in the land of nod and enjoy the decadence of getting into bed as the rest of my world rise out of theirs. The TP weather has (again) been unseasonably wet and cold so a day-time sleep has felt extra-luxurious.
These last nights were all the more agreeable since we saw barely a soul. The absence of patients is all the more incredible when you consider that, over long weekend, TP hosted BMX, Motocross, Speedway and Go-Karts. A broken collar-bone was the worst injury and they were kind enough to present during daylight hours.
Indeed, my night-shift experience could only be more pleasing if Ade had laundered the sheets each morning between him getting out of them and me getting under them; I will suggest this for my next set of nights (it all starts again on Thursday)...
So while I was sleeping:

Esther lost her first tooth!!!

It rained:

But that's OK because:

Splashing in puddles is lots of fun

The veggies grow like crazy!

Mermaids come out to play xx

Bag lady

We did enjoy the circus. I wasn't supposed to take photos inside the big top (I was surprised how fastidiously the good peeps of TP obeyed this rule, I got several frowns when I whipped out my camera to snap my daughter), but couldn't resist illustrating Esther's handbag collection. Dearest E took three bags to the show. One contained her stone collection, another her zu-zu pets and the third a couple of bottles of hand sanitising gel. She was prepared for eventualities I didn't dare begin to imagine.

Esther avec bags and her 'wedding' dress (the one she wore for Becky and Allan's wedding and still rolls out for very special occasions!)

I cycled into work yesterday morning. I would occasionally cycle from Ferndale to Charlies when we were in Perth, that was about 18km and would take me about an hour. In Tompers I live about 3km from the hospital and the ride took me 15 minutes. I'm a bit out of practise and I stopped to take this picture:

Nameless as the sun rises :)

Yesterday lovely neighbour/colleague arrived back from Perth with her latest bundle of joy. A girl!! Now her children range from Z to A. Today she came to visit us at the hospital:

Baby A with Jacinta (lovely n/c didn't get a look in with her own babe once the nurses of TP got their mitts on her!)