A little Lewis...

And as it's been a while, here's another short passage from Mr Lewis (on the tendency of certain school texts and curricula to dismiss, ridicule and discredit all emotions, feelings, and values):

"The operation of The Green Book and it's kind is to produce what may be called Men without Chests. It is an outrage that they should be commonly spoken of as Intellectuals. This gives them the chance to say that he who attacks them attacks Intelligence. It is not so. They are not distinguished from other men by any unusual skill in finding truth nor any virginal ardour to pursue her. ... It is not excess of thought but defect of fertile and generous emotion that marks them out. Their heads are no bigger than the ordinary: it is the atrophy of the chest beneath that makes them seem so. [Emphasis mine: that's one of my all time favourite phrases, and I'll try to work that into a conversation at work sometime!]

And all the time - such is the tragi-comedy of our situation - we continue to clamour for those very qualities we are rendering impossible. You can hardly open a periodical without coming across the statement that what our civilisation needs is more 'drive;, or dynamism, or self-sacrifice, or 'creativity'. In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful." (C.S. Lewis, The Abolition Of Man, 1943)

The Feaster Bunny

Well it's been a busy, but lovely, Easter long weekend...and we somehow haven't had to cook a single meal.

It started - as weekends usually do - on Friday, and we were invited out by my Dad to a local restaurant for an impromptu dinner. Got to spend some time with many of my nieces (Susanna, Erin, Grace, Beth & Eliza), my nephews (Connor, Darcy, Samuel & Jesse), two of my sisters (Rachel & Keren), one of my brothers-in-law (Jeff), Dad & Maureen and of course, Mel & Jessica (thanks Dad!).

On Saturday, after work, we went into Donovan's in St Kilda, and had lunch with our 'old' friends from Sydney, Matt & Melissa. Had a great time catching up on their news and introducing Jessica, and it's truly a beautiful place to spend an afternoon. It's pretty pricey, and the portions are quite small (well, by my all-you-can-eat-and-then-some standards), but the food was delicious, the service was excellent and the location and atmosphere were fantastic. It was a freezing day outside, and the restaurant is right on the beach, so were enjoying looking at the choppy waves from the comfort of our warm, luxuriously-rustic surroundings (here's a couple of pics). And to top off a lovely meal we all had Bomb Alaska which - although sans flambe (doh! - I was looking forward to that) - was still great. And as the whole meal was a gift from Matt's former boss, it was doubly delicious! (thanks Matt, and thanks Matt's former boss!)




Then on Sunday, we were treated to an amazing Easter Sunday gathering at Mum's. Having arrived shortly after 1pm, we didn't leave until after 9pm, and food was never far from me for the whole time. I dragged myself away from the table long enough to share an Easter Egg hunt with the kids (I think the record find was 14 - 14 more than I found). We also played some great games including one where two teams are given a word at random, and they have to sing a song containing that word, at which point the other team has to counter with a different song containing that word, countered by the first team, and so on until the timer runs out. Easy with "love", a bit more difficult with "broccoli"! Our team didn't exactly win, but we were almost helped across the line by the extra credit awarded for our team's special dancing (thanks Connor!). Got to catch up with Mum & Becky & Jamie & Rachel & Jeff & Keren & Stephen & Susanna & Erin & Grace & Beth & Connor & Darcy & Samuel & Eliza & Jesse & Tanya & Jasmine, and it was a real treat. AND we were festooned with so many delicious foods (yes, Biscotten Torte was there... but with everything else that was on offer I was only able to manage 4 or 5 servings!). A really great day (thanks Mum and Bec!).


And then Monday morning we headed off to Yum-Cha with our other friends Eddie & Shirley, who were also down from Sydney for the weekend. I think I'd only had Yum-Cha two or three times in my life, so the meal was great fun and very tasty (we went to The Golden Dragon). We were going to be joined by Eddie & Shirley's son, Darren, but he's 16 and apparently deeeeply in love with a Melbourne sweetheart, so the idea of having lunch with us didn't really rate on his list of priorities. It was Eddie & Shirley's first opportunity to meet Jessica too, and they seemed suitably impressed. I'm sure Jessica will really enjoy her time with "Uncle Eddie" & "Aunty Shirley" as she grows up, though she might need to close her ears for some of Uncle Eddie's more colourful anecdotes!

So it was a terrific weekend of food, fun, food, friends, food, family...and food. In my defense I did manage to avoid eating a single Easter egg (no, that's not code for having eaten more than one, either), but that has less to do with self-discipline, and more to do with forgetting to bring home the eggs we were given at Mum's! I don't hold out much hope for the four Cadbury Sitting Rabbits that are currently sheltering in our cupboard, waiting to be taken around to Mel's sister Jenny's house for her kids: if those bunnies are not taken out of the house in the next 24-48 hours, or locked away somewhere, I can't be held responsible for their continued safety...

We apologise for the break in transmission...

Let's see: last post March 17th, this post April 14th. Not my best performance, I'll admit..

If you're thinking that the paucity of my posting is directly related to the TV having been switched on again last month, you'd be wrong (well, you wouldn't be entirely wrong, as it must have played some part, but I'd like to think it's a little more complex than that!). In my defence, it's got a lot to do with the convergence of many worthwhile things competing for my time. It's somewhat ironic that, the more things you have going on in your life, the less time you have to write about those things (though they'd probably make the most interesting posts) while conversely, the less you have going on in your life, the more time you have for posting, but then you're likely to have a less-interesting blog as a result. It's probably true that the most interesting blogs will never be written, as the people living those lives can't make time to sit down and write what they're living. Not sure what that says about me (boring enough to have a blog in the first place, but with enough going on to keep me from updating it very regularly).

One of the things that's been competing for my time is the DVD proposal: it's about 80% complete, and I'm hoping to have it to my bosses within a week. It's a 20 minute video presentation, on DVD, hoping to convince them to let me make a full-scale DVD for them. If the time spent making this initial DVD is anything to go by, it might be a blessing if they say 'no' to the real thing: it's eaten up an awful lot of nights and weekends so far.

Over the last few weeks we also had my Uncle over from London: Uncle Roy is a real character, and it's great to see him when he makes it out here every 12-18 months or so. He was here for 4 weeks, but it felt like only a few days, and we really regret that we didn't get to spend much quality time with him (other than the 20 frustrating hours spent trying to fix/rebuild his laptop). While we weren't able to get the laptop 100% fixed before he had to go back, we were able to introduce him to Jessica for the first time, which I think was more-than-adequate compensation. I'll pop a photo of Uncle Roy, Mel & Jessica here aswell - though he and Mel will no doubt want it taken down immediately. He's not always that shiny red colour, by the way: he and our friend Frank seem to have a tradition now of heading out in a small boat and getting burned to a crisp in the days leading up to Roy's flight back home (I guess if you live in London and work 12 hour days indoors, sunburn is a unique souvenir).

Having seen Uncle Roy off on the 2nd of April, we welcomed my Dad and his wife Maureen from Northern Ireland on the very same day (they must want some sunburn, too). They're spending a couple of weeks in Victoria, then spending 4 weeks driving north through New South Wales and Queensland, through to the top of the Northern Territory. They're visiting with my brother and his family who are stationed in a remote part of Australia, where John is a pilot with Missionary Aviation Fellowship. You can check out what MAF does here. Dad's actually driving a 4WD vehicle up there to hand over to John and the family, as they currently have no transportation (Dad and my other brother, Stephen, purchased that vehicle this week, and from what I saw of it tonight I think the family will be very impressed). The Australian Outback will be a huge change for the two of them, as they're accustomed to life in Downpatrick, N.I., where they operate three 200-year-old stone cottages. If you're ever planning to be in that neck of the woods.... We're hoping to put together a little box of treats for John, Angela, and particularly their 5 great little kids Jordan, Mitchell, Cooper, Emily & Joshua (all of whom we haven't seen for over a year, and won't see for at least another year), before Dad & Maureen leave on their trek on Monday. Here's a snapshot of Dad with Jessica, whom he also hadn't met before this visit...(you can see the family resemblance, despite Jessica having a little more hair)

Tomorrow I have to go into work early, so that I can leave early and get to a late lunch with friends of ours who are down from Sydney. They've invited us to a fancy place on the St Kilda foreshore called Donovan's, and we're very much looking forward to it. Not because of the place itself - we'd be happy catching up with them over a doughnut and a cup of coffee - but just because they're great friends. They're actually a Matt and Mel also! They've already warned us that they're really only here to meet Jessica, so I don't think it'll matter if Mel & I are there or not. Matt & I used to work together in Sydney, and have stayed good friends ever since - I was even a groomsmen at their wedding. He now works as a DVD Account Manager for Fox Studios, which sounds like an exciting & glamourous job at first, but evidently is a hugely stressful and demanding one. And I guess all of the free DVD's (they do Simpsons, Star Wars, Arrested Development) don't mean much if you're never home, or awake, to watch them!

And on Sunday we'll be getting together at my Mum's new place for Easter lunch. It'll be a big congregation of the family - which doesn't happen nearly as often as it should - and my sister Bec will even be down from Sydney. She hasn't met Jessica yet, either, so I can see that we'll walk in the door, hand Jessica over, then have to ask for her back when we go to leave many hours later. It's Mum's first big get-together at the house (that I know of!) since moving back from Sydney, and she's always been a fantastic host. She's even promised to make her much-loved Biscotten Torte for dessert (I'll have to keep that in mind when deciding how many Easter Eggs I'll eat). Really looking forward to Sunday, and will no doubt take hours of video and several hundred photos, to the annoyance of virtually everyone.

Speaking of photos (yes, we were), it's time to add some more photo's of Jessica. I missed posting on her 3 month milestone (April 2nd) so I'll now post 3 recent photos - 1 for each month. These were all taken last Sunday, the 9th, and I really like the way they came out...they almost do her justice!

Well, I'm supposed to be heading off to work in less than 4 hours, so I really should get to bed. Happy Easter!