Milestones

We have reached a few important milestones lately: my first day away from Gwen and my first night out. Adam has been taking care of Gwen for a few hours at a time but last Friday was his first time with her by himself for a whole day. I suited up and headed off to London for the day for a meeting which felt very weird but still familiar. I discovered that after being with Gwen 24-7 basically for the last 4 months I do tend to think about her a lot when I am away from her too. Luckily a friend from work was there who is a mum of a toddler, so we could chat babies over lunch in between the work. By all accounts Adam and Gwen had a great day. They were waiting for me on the front fence when I came home. Gwen was more interested in the goings on in the street than in me. I’m not sure that she really missed me at all.

Last night I went out at night! Gwen was already in bed so she didn’t notice that I was gone. Nilu and I went to see Darren Hanlon Presents The Man From Snowy River – a short set of his own songs, followed by a short set of Australian covers followed by the movie. It was at a small old cinema, where tickets are sold from a little booth out the front of the building, and the same person who sold you the tickets then comes inside to run the candy bar. The audience was small and mostly Australian. Darren described the film as Australia’s first epic movie showcasing the country, introduced a few of the actors - Jason Donovan's dad, Kirk Douglas (twice), and Sigrid Thornton (Darren learnt to play piano to play her song) - and said that it had the best use of the word bastard in a film. The film was hilarious. That might not be how it was originally intended but it is full of (what are now anyway) clichéd lines and scenes including the son standing up, arms in air screaming “No!” over his dead father’s body and full of 80’s special effects and montages. I haven’t seen a colonial Australia film in ages so I loved seeing all the costumes and remembering all the times for school we had to dress up in colonial gear. It may have helped that I had a few glasses of red wine to celebrate my freedom, but everyone else seemed to be laughing too.

Next week's milestone: Date night and leaving Gwen with a babysitter (albeit a friend, not a stranger).