The First Week

The first week here at Malden seems to have flown by. The kids and I got stuck into some pretty difficult (as in, near impossible!) writing tasks for English in the schoolroom, as well as some learning about Aboriginal painting...Maddy seemed to interpret the task a little differently by getting more paint on her skin than on the paper. Results were a messy schoolroom - still trying to find systems/places etc. that will work best for me, Kristy and the kids to work together. Having fun though!

I'll try to answer some questions we are getting from friends and family back home. The country here is fairly flat, scrubby - you can see in the photos below of Matt and I driving home from first day of work. I'll try and get Matt to take some more photos whilst out and about, I pretty much haven't explored much further than the drive from the donga to the house! The weather has been humid in the afternoons before rain most evenings. Here are the rain clouds rolling in, view from the donga...

Good news was that on Friday morning the creek was low enough to get Luxy across, and Carrie on the back with all our worldy possessions. We'd packed it all up a bit damp early in the morning at Injune so Matt was itching to get it set up to dry out. The fridges were fairly feral also - Saturday afternoon was the lovely job of scrubbing mould. Yum. 

Saturday night was the Alpha 'Bullrama' Rodeo - quite the social highlight. We all went into town together (Kristy and Alex's car is on the other side of the creek, they got it out before the creek came up). We met lots of locals, good to put faces to names I've heard all about! Loads of kids and a good family night. Again, Matt and I surprised at the size of Alpha, I think if you have low expectations you can be pleasantly surprised?! General rodeo activities of bull riding, some kids having a go on some poddy's, barrel races and the usual fare, much like rodeos back home, just bigger hats! Sorry my photos are so terrible, I only brought in Matt's little point and shoot or my iphone...

Back home to Malden last night and across the creek on the motorbikes in the dark. Matt finding it oh-so-strange to have not much to do on a weekend. As usual, he would probably prefer to work seven days a week. His pacing around the donga yesterday was driving me mental! This is definitely the first time ever we haven't had a million things to do on a weekend like house or garden projects at Brindabella or community events at Yea or travelling to see people - you all live too far away now! It's nice, but strange. We did manage to clean out the fridges in the camper like I said, go through the donga kitchen and sort out everything, put some wedding photos up to make the donga a home, write a list of things we need to get still. Oh and hang a hammock!

My sister Louise got us this hammock for Christmas and Matt proudly hung it on the front deck of the donga this afternoon. Pretty resort-esque, no?! Kristy, the kids and I are off to Longreach tomorrow until the end of the week for Home Tutor Workshop and the school swimming carnival (go Boree!) I'm looking forward to checking out the school, Longreach in general (I went there once as a kid about fifteen years ago) and put more faces to more names. Alex and Matt are fending for themselves. Should be interesting?!

For the meantime though, if you need me I'll be in the hammock with a Sunday evening beverage and a book...