Cottage Life

Judging from a sale posting down the street, our neighborhood was built out sometime in the 1950’s. Quite unintentionally, we’ve landed in the same era housing-wise that we left on Vistamont Drive. In this little corner of Brighton, many of the homes look a bit as if they could have been transplanted from England. I suppose this shouldn’t be a surprise, given that Australia is part of the Commonwealth and has a long history of association with Britain. In newer neighborhoods, the houses have a much more contemporary design.

Regardless of architecture, though, there is this mix of tropical with a touch of old country styling. Plumeria are in bloom and citrus trees can be seen in backyard gardens. There’s a lemon tree that hangs over our back alley a few houses down from ours, loaded with fat, yellow fruit, and I’ve seen pomegranate shrubs. Rosemary and lavender have been planted in spots between the road and sidewalk, growing well in what looks like the worst possible gardening space.

Happy Dog Wash

It took me a week of walking by the local BP station before I finally clued in that this wasn't just an annex of the car wash. I have yet to see any happy dogs getting washed, but it is such a clever idea.

School Days - Part I

As hard as it is to wrap our northern-hemispheric heads around it, summer is winding down here in Australia. Like many places in the world, the end of summer means that the kiddos head back to school.

And so, Alison joined the junior primary ranks at Brighton Primary School last Monday. This required getting outfitted with the appropriate uniform pieces. We knew ahead of time that she would be attending Brighton, and I topped off on a few pieces of generic attire (black shorts, mainly) that would suit for the Brighton color scheme (black, grey, gold).

However, Chris prevented me from getting too ambitious on this point prior to our departure. He has a particularly vivid memory from his 5^th grade year living in England, where he, too, had to don the official primary school duds. It seems that there was a Polish lad by the name of Igor, whose uniform pieces were never quite the correct shade. And so, he advised that we absolutely not purchase any polo tops ahead of time because of the likelihood of a mismatch between Lands End’s version of gold and Brighton Primary’s.

We made a visit to the uniform shop at the school ahead of time, where you can conveniently pick up new pieces or browse the gently-worn racks for bargains. We ended up with a combination of both, in part because a single polo shirt with the BPS logo on it will set you back a good $32 and the summer dress, which most of the girls seem to wear quite a bit, another $55.

We rounded our selections out with an official BPS backpack, large enough to hold enough books to tip Alison over backwards, and a black sunhat. The latter is a critical piece of the uniform; without it, children are banished to benches in the shade during outdoor playtime. We were advised to find some way to mark it as Alison’s other than the usual sharpie-on-the-label technique. Cheeky Aussie kids who’ve left their own hats at home have been known to snip the labels out so as to be able to hit the playground.

When the morning arrived for first day of school, Alison was up and dressed early. She chose to wear her new dress, and went with a special hairstyle for the day. I noticed in looking at photos later that I got a bit carried away with the sunstick on her face, considering the broad-brimmed hat she’s required to wear outside the school. And that might explain why, when I dropped her off and looked back through the classroom window, her seatmate was pointing at her eyebrows as if to say “what in the world did your mum put on your face this morning?” But all in all, her first week seemed to go well for her, and her parents are gradually learning how things work in the South Australian public school system.

First Day at Brighton Primary - January 30th