I mentioned a few days ago (or week, maybe?) that Guerita’s class recently put on the school assembly. I assume this happens all over the country, or at least in WA, but for anyone who doesn’t know what I mean, each class in the school has a turn (usually once a year I think) of putting on some kind of play, skit or presentation for the whole school at their regular assembly. It’s quite a a big thing for the kids (specially the pre-primaries, since it’s their first time) and lots of parents come to watch, take copious amounts of photos and video and generally beam with pride at the cleverness of their offspring.

Guerita’s class chose to put on a little play of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and Guerita’s part was…you guessed it…Goldilocks! I’m sure the fact that she already has golden locks made her a shoe-in for the role - she very excitedly told me “I don’t even have to wear a wig, Mum, because I already have goldilocks!”. I kept teasing my Mum that she was being a complete Stage (Grand)Mother by telling everyone her granddaughter had “the lead” in the play! The reality is that every child had lines to say and Guerita’s just happened to be the “this porridge is too hot etc” lines.

She is a “performer” though and was definitely in her element up on stage, microphone in hand. All the kids did such a great job, remembering all their lines and speaking clearly. After the short play they all sang the “Three Bears Rap” which was extremely cute, with lines like “Hey Paparee Bear, said the little wee bear, someone’s been sleepin’ in m’ bed. Yeah!”.

I don’t have a lot of photos since I was mostly on video duty, but I did take a few at the beginning and managed to do some of my homework for the photography course I’ve just started.

I’ve been meaning to post about this for a while, because it’s very exciting. 2 weeks ago, my Dad and I started a 5 week course with a professional photographer that’s aimed at people who want to learn how to use their DSLRs better and understand all the settings. I am loving it so far - there are only 3 people in the class (he only takes a maximum of 4) so it is virtually one on one teaching and is the perfect level for me. So far there’s been a bit of technical stuff but what I like is that the teacher boils it down into pretty manageable things to remember. The first lesson we talked a lot about ISO and shutter speed and how the two work together to let enough light into the camera. The homework we were given was to take a few photos at different ISOs and see how that affected the shutter speed, and of course the resulting photo.

The way I understand it, when you’re talking about getting nice sharp handheld photos you need to find the balance between fast shutter speed and ISO. The lower the ISO number, the less “noise” or grainy-ness you will get on your photo. But the higher the ISO the more light is let in, which allows the shutter speed to be faster, which in turn means there will be less camera shake/blur. Does that make any sense?

The photo above is an example of my homework for this ISO/shutter speed lesson. Our teacher told us that for handheld photos to try and keep the shutter speed to 1/30 second or faster. So with the camera in P (program) mode I set the ISO to 100 (the lowest number which will give the least amount of noise). Because the lighting conditions weren’t great (outdoor but undercover, so the light was low) 100 ISO gave me a really slow shutter speed and I had to dial it up to 1600 (the highest number on my camera) to get the shutter speed fast enough. So the result is a photo that is light enough, but is pretty grainy.

Can you see the noise? (That’s a strange sentence!) Depending on what you want to do with the photo and how big you want to print it (or crop and zoom in) the noise might not be an issue. In this photo of Guerita it doesn’t bother me too much, except that now that I am looking for it I see it really clearly!

It’s pretty interesting to do the exercise just to see how the results differ and I do like being given “rules” to follow, such as shutter speed 1/30 or higher. (Incidentally he also said for action/sports photography you want to get a shutter speed of 1/500 or higher.) Obviously it won’t always be as easy as following a “recipe” but it’s good to have some guidelines as a starting point.

Next lesson…exposure compensation and some neat tricks for “hedging your bets”…stay tuned!

OK, so she didn’t win her running race at yesterday’s school Sports Carnival (just quietly she came 7th out of 8) but she is still my Sports Champion!

Apologies for the very grainy photo - it’s a still taken from the video of the race.

It was our first Sports Carnival and, to be honest, I was surprised by how much fun it was and by how much everyone (including parents) got into it. There were lots of people (kids and adults) with hair spray-painted their faction colour and lots of loud music, cheering and even a few pom-poms.

The kids had a fabulous time - it’s so enjoyable for them at this age. They get such a buzz out of running in a race with all the bigger kids cheering them on but they’re still young enough not to be too caught up in the winning side. Guerita was so excited after her race and not at all worried about coming 7th. They all got an “I took part” ribbon and were very proud. Following the races they had some team games (sack races, tug of war and bean bag relays).

The whole time I was watching her compete and run and jump, I couldn’t help thinking about the way her little feet looked when she was born. Most of the time I forget that she ever had a problem, but every now and then it really hits home that it’s pretty incredible that she can be so active and do any physical thing she likes. She might not end up being a fantastic sportswoman (or maybe she will - who knows?) but I’m not worried about that. Seeing her run yesterday was just so satisfying after all the treatment she had as a baby.

And I just love that look of intense concentration, tongue out and focused on the task!

Ever since I moved into my house I’ve had that old Sesame Street song in my head - do you know the one?

Oh, who are the people in your neighbourhood?
In your neighbourhood?
In your neighbourhood?
Say, who are the people in your neighbourhood?
The people that you meet each day

This might refresh your memory…

I know, it’s a bit sad that I have Sesame Street songs in my head, but this one just popped in there because of all the people I have met in the last 2 weeks. It’s actually blown me away how friendly my new ‘hood is and how many neighbours I have met already. It’s not like anywhere I have lived before.

Maybe some of you experience this where you live. I suspect more so if you’re in a smaller/country town but if you’re living in the city, I think it’s a pretty rare thing these days. In the past I’ve only ever really been on "smiling terms" with my neighbours and never really got to know them, but here, I’ve met the neighbours on both sides and had lengthy conversations with them, met several other people further down the street and even been invited to the boy next door’s birthday party last weekend!

I have a few theories about why this area is so welcoming. Apart from the obvious ice-breaker of having young children, I suspect that the sense of community is what attracted a lot of people to the suburb. It’s also a fairly small suburb with several ovals, playgrounds, shops/cafe strip and local school within walking distance of most people, which means there’s always lots of people out on the street. I also think that the lack of garages with automatic doors connected to houses (which allow you to drive in, close the door behind you and disappear into the house) means there’s more opportunities to meet people around you. The design of the predominately old houses have led to lots of carport at the front of the house so everyone is always bumping into/waving hello/stopping for a chat with the people next door when you come and go.

So, whether my theories are correct or not, there’s no doubt that this is a lovely place to live and certainly an environment I really appreciate right now. Aside from loving the outdoor lifestyle and convenience of everything, it’s really nice to be surrounded by such friendly and supportive people. I’ve made friends with a few of the Mums from Guerita’s class and opened up about what’s been happening in my life lately (something I’ve been quite reticent about) and been so encouraged by their friendship and support. Socialising with anyone other than family and very close friends has been really difficult for me since I got back (in other words, I haven’t really caught up with anyone but the closest friends yet) so feeling comfortable enough to talk about everything with new friends was a pretty big step.

I wish I had some photos to give you a flavour of my new area - I’ll have to go on a scout around soon. I am conscious of giving away the actual location though, so I’ll have to make sure there’s nothing identifying in the shots. (I’m not worried about letting you guys, my friends, know where I live, you understand. It’s just I don’t want to go advertising my location to the lurkers I don’t know!!)

My house is permanently in disarray these days. Most of the time I just let my eyes glaze over when I see all the mess but sometimes I am forced to focus on the boxes I still haven’t unpacked (because there’s nowhere to put their contents) or the clothes that need washing or ironing or folding or some such thing (I haven’t uncovered my iron yet which is a perfect excuse for doing no ironing) and the mess drives me a little crazy! I have such exciting visions for my house but the reality we have to live with in the meantime is just a little bit (actually a lot) cluttered.

To add to the chaos, the last few days we have had electricians in re-wiring the house. I expected it would need to be done since the house is at least 50 years old (note to self: find out how old the house actually is) but I had hoped to leave it till the renovations were done. But since the wires were in pretty bad shape and I can’t get insurance without a letter from an electrician, it was moved to the top of the to-do list. Last night we had a sleepover back at Mum & Dad’s and will be back in with a fully powered and safe house tonight (I hope!).

Hopefully I’ll start to get some order around the place soon. I’ve a busy weekend planned, roping my very obliging family into a working bee, filling a second skip bin (dumpster for the OS readers) with junk and putting up wardrobes (bought from my second home these days, Ikea). Photos will follow soon…

I know I keep promising posts and haven’t delivered. I will find some routine in my life one day soon, I promise! Once I’ve downloaded the photos, I have tell you all about Guerita’s star turn in the school assembly.

Well, I certainly can’t believe I’ve kept my little corner of the net going for a whole year. I started my blog in an idle moment, on a bit of a whim, I guess. I really didn’t know about the vast blogging community out there and never thought I’d keep it going or that it would become such a regular part of my life.

I’ve said it before, but I never imagined the amount of support I would get from blog readers, or imagined that I would need that support so much. It goes without saying that I never ever imagined being where I am right now when I started this blog…

In any event, thanks to all of you for sticking with me, and hopefully I’ll be able to keep blogging the interesting and boring (and maybe even happy?) tidbits of my life for at least another year. And hopefully I’ll find time to blog soon about a few things like my wonderful new neighbourhood, the (real life) photography course I’ve just started and of course the kid’s usual activites and antics!

Happy Birthday Roaming Aussie Mum!