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Music and other outings

We got back into the swing of our regular activities this week.

Varsha has been doing some fabulous drawings. This one is inspired by a scene in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader where the knights have been enchanted and fallen into a deep sleep and their hair and their fingernails have grown very long.

Laxmi has been reading and writing Harry Potter fan fiction: stories inspired by the original book but often going in quite different directions. Laxmi has also been using Instagram to get other people’s ideas about what should happen.

We have played the monster game and watched a few episodes of a fabulous documentary called Australia in Colour where Australian history is told through old film that has been coloured.

We went to music at the music house in Mareeba. The same teachers that came to our hall teach there with a couple of others. Varsha and Laxmi are both playing piano and Laxmi is singing.

We went to Atherton and met up with Tekira. Laxmi and I went shopping with her birthday money while the others went op shopping. Laxmi said it was the best day ever. She bought Super Mario Maker and a Pokémon case for her 3DS and a rolling suitcase with the Hogwarts crest on it. We had a picnic on the picnic table in the middle of the main street.

Dakoda came over to play with Laxmi and they painted and cooked and played outside. Laxmi has 11 pages left of the 766 pages in the 5th Harry Potter book.

Varsha went out walking with Luca and Jazz and met up with Thiango and had them all back at our house one evening. Varsha is making an animation using Flipaclips and working on her ideas for a product for Young Creatives. She went swing dancing this week too.

She’s also been embroidering on T-shirts for Luca to give to Finn.

We made a video for Grandma Lois and Grandpa George’s 60th wedding anniversary. Varsha got all the gear set up and did the sound check before we recorded it. It was a pretty crazy video!

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Snakes and dragonfruit


Laxmi and I have been doing yoga together in the mornings.

There are lots of dragonfruit ripening in the garden.

Varsha was taken by the name of these Philippino snacks we found in the Asian grocery.

We went down to Cairns to see Linda Jackson’s show and hear her artist’s talk and do the workshop designing ponchos.


A tree snake came into the house. We heard it because it had a rhinoceros beetle screeching in its mouth. We helped it find its way out of the house.

We went to Cairns for swing dancing. Laxmi came for the first time. She loved it. We did some errands and stopped at a coffee shop beforehand. Laxmi did a drawing on a serviette. We talked to John in Brisbane on the phone.

It was really hot and we decided to spend some time in the air conditioned library after the appointment at the bank. Laxmi really liked her tiger friend. We borrowed some good books.

Laxmi has decided she’s going to have a magical creatures birthday party.

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John’s birthday

Varsha found a nice spot to read Catcher in the Rye.

Laxmi thinks she might be related to the girls in the mural outside the supermarket.

We had lunch at Dino’s on John’s birthday.

Varsha and Laxmi made cards got John’s birthday and Varsha made him a birthday dog.

We looked up the most common birthdays and found some cool graphics.

This week was the 5th week of learning a routine at swing dancing. Everyone had got really good.

The dam has been great to swim in since it got hot.

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The rain eased up a bit this week. Varsha went to see Finn off at the airport and we all went swing dancing.

We went to the dentist and the orthodontist in Mareeba on Wednesday.

On Thursday we went to Malanda to the games day with the Tablelands Homeschoolers. There were theatre games and board games. Laxmi played chess and Varsha played a version of dungeons and dragons. We went op shopping and looked at some of the big mosaics in Malanda.

Dakoda came over for a play on Friday. Cosi came for a while too. They played in the rain, did some sewing and drawing and made videos of each other cooking.

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It’s still really rainy. Playing lots of games and watching things. Varsha was inspired to refine her wardrobe after we watched The rest of Marie Kondos Tidying up shows.

It cleared up a bit and went into Mareeba for shopping and op shopping and the library.

Yesterday was the first activity with the Homeschoolers for Term 1. We went ten pin bowling in Atherton and to the park for a play afterwards.

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It’s still really rainy. The water is over the bridge in town. Varsha had Luca and Finn and Thiango over for a Monopoly game it lasted 5 hours!

Laxmi and I went out in the garden and planted turmeric and ginger when the rain eased up a bit.

Laxmi has been playing Prodigy, the maths game and is getting excited about learning how to use a 3D drawing app called sketch up.

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Rainy days: watching Iron Man, Merlin, Marie Kondo, reading The Wizard of Earthsea and Harry Potter, playing Tangled and Sleeping Queens, Twister, Monopoly and chess. Dinner and board games and charades at Zeph’s last night. Lovely!

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Cosi and Laxmi have had some big days role playing with the plushies.

Varsha has been drawing and doing watercolours and watching Merlin.

Melissa came over and cut Laxmi’s hair.

Varsha and I made mulberry muffins last night. We watched Marie Kondo in Tidying Up on Netflix too.

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Last night Varsha and Laxmi practiced their signatures.

We got up early and went to a friend’s farm and picked 10 kilograms of mulberries!

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We had a lovely Dal Bati feast for my birthday. Bati are cooked over a cow dung fire in Rajasthan. Cat and Will and Cosi and Thiango and Zeph and Luca and Finn all came.