We drive up to an ulu cabin-looking place in the middle of field up field, for Christmas 2015. The Miss… misses a first view of the house. There are no fences around any of the properties we pass, this one included, even as we drive for hours along the way. Maybe just a couple low ones to keep the cows and horses from wandering.
We park the Miss on a random sofa and proceed to unpack the 10 thousand things that come with travelling with two little kids. I never engage a helper, and we have no cleaning service for the duration of the stay. Some people would consider this mild insanity for the holidays. I consider it not a holiday <shrugs>. (Let’s call it instead Christmas Season 🙂
I once watched this mum in Hong Kong finish parking a large family-sized vehicle, then hop out seemingly effortlessly in workout gear, with a car-safe baby basket on one arm and a younger pacifier-ed toddler clutching a bear and holding her other hand. Capes must simply not be in fashion with tank top and yoga pants.
Not like we are without help, the Miss soon wakes, and after the prerequisite loud fussing mourning the end of yet another deep narcoleptic sleep, she takes charge of a Christmas tree our landlords have very thoughtfully put up.
(We brought just a couple gifts especially for the kids – Rockstar won one of the most coveted prizes in his school PTA Fundraiser draw just before the holidays, and we kinda didn’t need to get him much else by way of gifts after that, haha. Just as well, because Kings initially brought back one of those motorised skateboard-looking things you stand and “float” about on, and then there was all that press about one of them made in China ones (ok fine loads of these things are going to be cheaply made in China) setting an apartment on fire, gutting the entire place, because of a faulty charger. Made headlines.)
Other than that, Nerf Fight Selfie.
In the distance is another cabin-house which the landlord has told us is the holiday home of a Hongkie couple. We attempt one walk around the property, during which the Miss points out, “poop!” I remember just once seeing an Asian lady with her little dog and figure Ah, must be the dog. Except, 50 feet and more poop later, a bunch of wild kangaroos hop by.
Except, they soon spot us, kids and all, and eventually all of them have turned as one, and are motionlessly staring at us.
That’s when we turn back and watch them hop on their merry way – from the deck.
I spot a tree house. Did Rockstar go up the tree house?
It’s actually probably more precarious than it looks to get up there, I was quite worried esp the Miss would disappear and try it when we weren’t looking so we took a first look together – there is thankfully one rung missing, which makes it quite difficult for even Rockstar to make it beyond the bottom rungs. Which is great, because there was also a note in the house about poisonous spiders having been found in that round tank nearby..
Poisonous spiders! Yikes! Ah, so the tree house is not in service then since a rung is missing on the ladder.