Scenes from Warwick...

One week after we landed, we were still suffering from the jetlag and Jimmy's body clock was still a little all over the place. Jimmy woke up around 4 or 5 am and sometime after 6 am we realised that there was no going back to bed, so we decided to go outside. 

It was a beautiful crisp morning. A little hazy from woodfire smoke but frosty and fresh - the kind of morning that I love. The kind of morning I used to walk to school in, imagining living overseas in a colder climate where this sort of weather was longer lasting (England preferably) and yet hurrying to school where I could warm up my legs because my heavy school skirt was not good protection from the cold.

We were hoping to pat the horses, but they were too far away and too busy eating grass. It was a vision straight out of my childhood and it was extra special to have Jimmy there taking in the scene.

The only thing we were missing was a wallaby or two. We had magpies singing their morning songs, our breath making little puffs of mist, and a kookaburra too. The gum trees and dry grass were magic too. The sky was the same winter blue I remembered. Magpies still sing from the tops of power line poles.

And seeing our breath-puffs, or "blowing air" as Jimmy says, was just as entertaining that morning, while we were on our way to feed Pop's chickens, as it was when I was a child. It might not have been snow, but the frosty morning was a nice change from the Manhattan, KS, summer and +40 degrees C temperatures we had been experiencing.

The sight of my little boy running towards Pop's chickens, rugged up against the cold was just a bit too much and my heart melted: he's wearing all his Manhattan clothes but he's in Warwick. He is simultaneously at home and out of place.

He is definitely at home amongst the chickens. As his first turn pouring out the couscous, he had a little trouble, but he loved it. He pats the chickens, talks to them, and thanks them for their eggs. The chickens were not affected by the cold and happily ate up their early breakfast. They are lovely birds.

Our early morning walk ended in a familiar scene: Jimmy asking to be carried because his feet were cold. And they were - his canvas sneakers were wet from frost melting as it settled on them. My sweet boy... he needs new gumboots, and then he'll be set for all the frosty morning walks he can handle.

Except that his body clock has adjusted, he wakes around 6:30 am, and we no longer need to entertain him in the wee hours.