Immobile

I seem to have misplaced the cord that connects my mobile phone to my computer in the event that I want to download any of the photos I randomly snap as I go about my days.

I vaguely recall putting the cord somewhere that was safe in preparation for transporting my lap top to either work or home where I had plans to share the photos with you on this blog. Clearly my safe place was too effective; I've hidden it from myself.

If my brother and I lived in the same town, I'd be able to send them to his fancy computer via bluetooth. He would point out the flaws in my photography (in the nicest possible way), and maybe he would gussy them up a bit with Photoshop to help me appear a better photographer than I am.

It's all a bit annoying, not least because I guess I'll eventually run out of space on the memory card. The main reason, however, is that posting photos I've taken with my phone usually makes for a fairly low maintenance blog post, where I can chatter inanely about the things I've seen, where I've been etc.

And I think we all need a non-demanding blog post from me at the moment.

If I ever find the cord in question, I'll post the photos, but for now, I'll resort to taking you through them verbally. I won't be describing them so much, as they'll provide a kind of trigger for a musing or ten. Yes, there's that many photos and more.

Anyway. Moving right along.

The first group of photos are dominated by a couple of Hannah related events.

Her birthday was a couple of months ago. Everyone turned up to a place called Jiggling Jacks and watched a roomful of pink clad girls and a couple of boys run around madly, fueled by cordial and various other sugar and preservative laden treats.

I played air hockey with Hannah, but her younger cousin was the most enamoured of the game insisting on playing all the time, until the birthday girl got a bit upset by the lack of attention. All was forgiven when I presented her with a gift that combined her two great loves, ballet and stickers. The stickers were of the reusable variety, so she could create her own stories on a board that folded up like a book.

A few weeks later, Hannah and I had another day out. This time I took her to the Science Centre at the Queensland Museum.

There's a photo that looks like Hannah's head is on a platter with some fruit. She found this optical illusion very amusing. As did I. We each had to have several goes, just to laugh at one another and ourselves.


There was one of those electro-magnetic balls at the museum. (I think that's the right term). You put your hand on the glass ball and the lightning-like light is attracted to your hand. I saw someone putting their hands on the top which had the effect of completely drawing all the 'lightning' upwards. After I'd tried that, Hannah had to have a go too. So I lifted her up. I wonder how long it will be before I can't do that? She's growing so much. But she's still so adorably cute that I want to be able to lift her up for a long time to come.


I took a whole heap of photos of Hannah after we finished some lunch, where she got every bit of junk food she requested. What's the point of being an auntie if you can't encourage bad habits? I did make her wait to eat the Chupa Chup until we got to the movies, so I can be a bit of a grown-up.

Anyway, the photos I took. They were in the museum proper. She stuck her head through holes cut out of a number of props painted to resemble a family from the early 19th century as well as a variety of insects. She was, variously, an old-fashioned dressed girl, as well the girl's mother and father; then she became a fly and a praying mantis. When I was taking the photos of Hannah as an insect, two other children appeared to stick their heads through the holes to have their picture taken too. I don't know where their parents were, but I indulged them, taking their photos and showing them the results, which they seemed quite pleased with, jostling one another to pose for even more.


After we saw Ratatouille, Hannah wanted to go to a park to play on the swings. Last time I'd stayed over her place, we ran out of time to do this, so I wanted to indulge her. We wandered into South Bank and followed some people who I'd overheard talking about going to a playground.

After playing on the playground, Hannah decided she wanted to join some other kids making their way over rocks in a winding paddle-pool. I wasn't too sure about this. She wasn't exactly dressed for it. And if anything happened to her while she was in my care, I would just die. I would die anyway if anything happened to her, but you know what I mean.

It's strange what you draw upon in these moments. I recalled a class I took during undergraduate in feminism and ethics. The lecturer had spoken about raising children and the dilemma of wanting them to be safe, but weighing that up against the need for children to be able to take some risks in order to develop their identities. I wouldn't want to wrap her up in cotton wool, so I perched myself on a rock in the middle of the pool and let her go for it.

In the end I had to channel her mother in order to get her out of the pool. I tried being nice Auntie Kirsty, but that was just met with a response that she would 'never, never, never' get out of the pool. I said, 'I'm being serious. You know, in the way that your Mummy gets serious'. Well, clearly she knows the consequences of not responding to seriousness of the Mummy variety. She was out of there.

There are some nice photos of her making her way across the rocks. Every now and then she struck a ballerina pose for the camera.

I might have to do this exercise in a couple of posts, because this one is getting quite long now. Let me just finish with the final photos of Hannah.

We'd stayed over my oldest sister, V's place the night before our outing and we returned there to meet up with Hannah's mother, F. V has two Cavalier King Charles spaniels, one of whom jumped up on Hannah when she was younger. Ever since then Hannah has been wary of the dogs, sometimes completely panicked in their presence. But the night before, she seemed to have finally come to some kind of peace with them, patting them and telling them how cute they were. At the end of the big day out, she decided she wanted some photos taken with Max and Taffy. So those are the final shots of the day. The funniest pose is one where Hannah seems to have channelled a Home Boy persona. Her arms are crossed and she is glaring at the camera with all the 'tude she can muster. And it's quite a lot.