carnevale, cosi and cycle missions..

* on monday jerry and i met my cousin and his girlfriend at the notting hill carneval, a huge carribean street festival which was so packed with people, we could barely move. i loved the extravagant floats in the parade, the feathery sequined costumes, the fact that everybody wore the skimpy gold short shorts, regardless of fat bums, stomach rolls and cellulite, and they shook it anyway! we followed the parade for a couple of hours until the music, horns and whistles got too much and then we headed for the sanctuary of westgate shopping mall... which we didnt know existed and has become our favourite place.

i had my first day of nannying yesterday, with cosi, a gorgeous little 2 year old girl who calls me nanna. the day involved running after her at the playground so she wouldn't get hit by swings, flying foxes, see-saws and other crazy little kids running in all directions, then making sandcastles, collecting leaves, blowing bubbles, drawing pictures and playing tea-parties...

playing kids games made me reminisce about the things i loved doing as a child. dressing up in our massive bags of fancy dress costumes stands out in my memory as number one. apparently i insisted on wearing 'dress-ups' to school nearly every day of my first year at primary school... it was an alternative hippy school in fitzroy so i probably blended in quite well...
hobby number two would be the trampoline. we thought of a thousand different uses for that thing: to climb up on the roof and jump down on (mum and dad had no qualms with that for some reason, even when i was 4 years old!), as a communal bed for sleeping-bag slumber-parties under the stars, to wack a sprinkler under in the summer and jump around on in our bathers, to drape blankets over as an awesome cubby house, as the centre of painful dodge-ball games, the list goes on..
third, i guess would be the bikes and the adventures on them. i still remember all my bikes from the very first one with the basket and the 70's harley handlebars with ribbons dangling off..

jerry and i rode our new grandma bikes around town today, running errands, cutting keys for our new housemates, going to the bank and searching for a pair of military boots that i had my heart set on... having a bike to get around makes everything seem like such a fun mission!

tomorrow i'll be on set all day for 'the lotus eaters' movie. they asked me to bring my most glamourous thing, and a bikini and to arrive at 10.30 am to debenham house. i checked the website and its amazing! i'm so excited!!!