kick the ball

I took the mooch and the pooch to the big park this afternoon. It has been raining a bit lately and more predicted for the next 3 days. I wish I could send some home. I wanted to take advantage of then nice weather and so did a lot of others, apparently. We had such a nice time kicking the ball around and looking at dogs and all the other people doing all kinds of things, things that we would never see people do at home in Melbourne. Here is a list of what we saw:

• a guy practising tap dancing on the boardwalk
• a couple practising juggling
• a couple practising some kind of routine with pretend swords
• a guy playing a very strange instrument
• a girl practicing her trumpet
• another girl practising her saxaphone (badly)
• more juggling and circus tricks

and things we would see at home, lots of love/couples, many dogs, drinking, eating, babies and mums, bird watchers, lots of homeless people getting warm...

For a private group of people, it is strange to see practicing things so publicly. My theory is that there is no room at home either physically or because the whole family is there so the park is the only place to be by yourself. It was great! We stopped and looked at a lot of these people doing things. It was like a free revolving concert. And of course we had to stop to pick up stones and dig in the dirt. My old buddy from Australia who I met in Japan a few years back came to see me today. It was so lovely to see her. After all this Aussie-ness this week I'm feeling a bit homesick.

The mooch has been a bit of a ratbag these past few weeks with lots of public screeching and crying, hard to take. I have even resorted to buying a couple of books on how to handle these situations. I used Baby Love a lot in the early days for its practical, no nonesense advice, so thought The Mighty Toddler will give me some heart in those tough times. But, just as I bought those books, he has come good. I think 5 teeth at once has something to do with it? The books will no doubt come out next week for some other reason.......I now say to him "Ma-Ma kiss kiss" and he leans his face towards me so I can give him a kiss. What a little moo.

How worried should I be that two guys were videoing/photographing (with a tripod) my front window today and slunk away when I came home and found them?