La creche vue par Clea (et Lego)

A trouver: la creche, l'ane, les rois mages, le sapin de Noel et bien plus encore.

Que faire au mouillage?

Nous venons de retrouver notre ponton apres avoir passe dimanche et lundi a Moreton Island. Il fallait a nouveau s'occuper des coques de Merlin ou est-ce une excuse pour sortir dans la baie? Toujours est-il nous etions bien tranquilles et heureux presque seuls au mouillage.

Au mouillage, on aime se balancer, un peu, beaucoup, passionnement et parfois a la folie aussi. Avec les drisses, en hauteur, en sautant ensuite dans l'eau ou en douceur sur une chaise du Bresil:

Au mouillage, on profite de l'eau bleue et a 25 degres.

Au mouillage, on va se degourdir les jambes sur les dunes.

Au mouillage, on s'amuse a ramer derriere les tortues.

Au mouillage, on prend notre temps, et cela commence des le petit dejeuner.

Au mouillage, on lit et on s'instruit.

Au mouillage, on regarde le ciel changer.

Au mouillage on sourit.

De tels mouillages et de tels instants, nous on adore!

Hopping around

On Saturday, after 2 hours of abseiling Victor jumped on a mountain bike. With Felix they had a training session organised by the Brisbane city council at The Gap. Because the kids mustn’t be better than us, Greg and I also went for a ride in the forest. Riding every day to work Greg is still the best of all. However, I should train more because Victor is in harmony with his bike, climbing every steep hill easily and is fearless while going down. There are few great mountain bike spots not too far from the city and The Gap is one of them only 30min from the marina. The eucalyptus forest smells delicious and the shade is always welcoming.

During this time, Clea was “hip ho-ping” hard (3h), rehearsing for her end of the year show coming on soon.

I stopped at 4EB radio for one of my 10 minutes talks. It was on the Marquises  Islands.

To listen (and practice your French): http://www.4eb.org.au/ondemand (Choose French then select - juste before 9 min till 21min + few minutes after the song).

Our recent week-ends were all rainy. This time, we had a clear and beautiful sky. We then took our bikes for a short sunset ride to the Big Wheel. There are still few things we haven’t done in Brisbane and going on the Big Wheel in South Bank was one of them. I tried to ignore my vertigo and show the kids it was a lot of fun to be up high in the sky recognising the buildings we know. Unfortunately, after 15sec I had to stop taking photos and was holding my seat tightly (just in case!) and was concentrating while checking the horizon.

After each round, I was relaxing more and more but was quite happy to walk out. Greg and the kids had a ball.

Sunday morning we participated to a beach clean up action which was happening 5 minutes from the marina.

The kids were keen to show their civic attitude, which however faded after 30minutes of rubbish picking. Clea thought it was too smelly and not fun, Victor preferred exploring the mangroves, picking up only the big items (plastic bags or plastic bottles). Nevertheless, we collected a good amount of debris, mainly plastic stuff. We even won 2 ticket for Jack Johnson’s concert on Saturday. It is always worth doing some good!

And then it was the scouts end of year BBQ with a badge ceremony.

What a full week-end! I would be very happy to have a new week-end just to recuperate from this one! However, the last week of term, which is also the last week of the school year, begins with a respectively full agenda. We’ll deserve our coming up holidays!

Nouvelles du bord de debut decembre

Alors que la fin de l’annee calendaire touche a sa fin, il en est de meme ici de l’annee scolaire. Les journees passent a bien vive allure et sont evidement sont bien remplies. C’est l’epoque des fetes variies et diveres: fete d’ecole, fete de scouts, fete de hiphop, fete d’escalade, fete de musique etc.

Voici un aprecu des evenements qui ont marques cette semaine passee.

Spectacle de Clea au Power House (http://brisbanepowerhouse.org/)

Clea a participle a un projet artistique organise par un groupe de jeune artistes/comediens du “Imaginary Theatre”. Pendant 9 semaines, les enfants ont travaille sur le quartier de New Farm (le quartier de l’ecole de Clea), sur des notions bien abstraites au depart mais qui ont pris une bien jolie forme au cours des semaines. Ainsi ils ont reflechi sur ce qu’etait une communaute, ce qu’etait que “reflechir”, etre “creatif” etc. Le resultat etait un melange de theatre, de constructions en carton et de videos. Un lien devrait bientot etre disponible avec la video du spectacle final, presente a une centaine de personnes dans l’une des salles de spectacle tres “in” de la ville. En attendant voice le lien du blog de ce projet : http://imaginarytheatre.wix.com/thethinkingartists

Felix a eu a sa premiere audition de clarinette. Je ne sais pas qui etait le plus nerveux des deux, lui ou moi, mais il a tres bien vecu le stress supplementaire que j’ai apporte en me trompant d’endroit pour l’audition un jour d’accident sur le pont principal de Brisbane. Nous sommes toutefois arrives a temps. Il a pu s’entrainer 10 min avant de montrer ce qu’il avait appris en 10 mois de clarinette simplement jouee dans le cadre scolaire. Le jury a ete impressionne plus par les progres que par la prestation finale et souhaite donner a Felix offrir une place a Felix dans l’orchestre phylarmonique du conservatoire. Il va devoir travailler dur pour se metre a niveau avec les autres, mais son sourire a la fin de l’audition montre bien sa motivation.

Victor avait lui un examen de danse (cours obligatoire). Comme sa partenaire ne semblait pas motivee et etait toujours absente les jours ou ils devaient montrer leur choregraphie, Victor l’a presente seul en interpretant la premiere partie a la guitare et en dansant un solo la seconde partie. Il a egalement du faire cela en etant filme car son prof malade le noterait qu’a partir de la video.

Moi, la maman peu fiere, je dis chapeau a mes enfants. J’imagine qu’ils me preparent encore bien des surprises pleines d’emotions…

Saint Nicolas: La chaleur d’hier (35 degres) n’a fait que fondre le beurre plus vite et gonfler a merveille nos “manala”. Il y a des traditions que l’on ne manque pas, meme sous les tropiques. Et comme il se doit, les chaussures des enfants etaient remplies de delices chocolates ce matin.

Triste nouvelle: Il y a des heros que l’on croit immortels. C’est avec beaucoup de tristesse que nous avons appris ce matin le deces de Mandela. Nous avons re-ecoute son discours d’investiture, ainsi que quelques chants patriotiques sud-africains. Clea s’est effondree a l’ecole et a explique a ses copines qui etait Mandela et pourquoi il etait important. On pense a l’Afrique du Sud, a son histoire, a son people, a nos proches.

First big speech

One thing Felix learnt in Australia is confidence. He proudly stood on the stage today to convince his friends to vote for him to be the captain of his school house. Is it the beginning of a political career? The election results will be out next week - stay tune.

Here is his speech:

Good afternoon teachers and student !

My name is Felix Hall and I’m here so you can vote for me. Why? Well because I would like to be a house captain for Binkinba.

You might have already seen me leading a small group on Mondays and Fridays. Yes, it was me with a friend who started the Dodge Ball Club. Leading those groups gave me experience on how to lead a group of people. If you vote for me, I will use that knowledge to lead you all to happiness. I will also use once again my past experiences to lead Binkinba into victory, giving the other houses a challenge.

I will help you when you need it. How? By lifting your spirit, by making you believe you can do it, making you think positive thoughts only and by giving you support.

I have also represented our wonderful school, in events inside and outside of school. The school selected me, Felix Hall, to participate in districts and gala days. But that’s not all I’ve also represented New Farm State School at a few school fencing competitions.

Else than my experience with Dodge Ball Club, I’ve also got experience by being a Scout leader. I’ve even tried improving the behaviour of younger kids a couple of times. Thanks to that I learned to answer to all of your confusing questions. I’ll then place them on top of my list of things to do.

So please remember to vote for me, Félix Hall.

Just so you can clearly remember to vote for me, here are a haiku and a small limerick poem which you could use to remember me.

Please do remember

To happily vote for me

Yes me Félix Hall

And here is my limerick:

So vote for me

So you could see

What I can do

With you

So you could see

What a good leader

I can be

When I give a small reminder

I might blabbing on

But still come on

Vote for me

So we could all shout wee-hee

                                                            Thank you for listening!

Update on Friday, December 6, 2013 at 3:55PM by Admin

Felix wasn't elected as a house captain. He then wrote a new speech to be media captain and was elected this time.