Rain

It rained today. Not enough to get the ground wet, and from this first photo you couldn't even tell.

But these close ups of the car show that it rained just enough to make a mess of the car!

Family Service

Alyssa's class was involved in a family service today, along with the kids from the school's Early Learning Center. The younger kids were more interested in just about anything else than singing, but Alyssa's class made up for it nicely.

Hot, Dry and Dusty

We've now been back in Adelaide 5 weeks. To a large extent we've plugged back into life here at school, church, Liz's work and the house (I return to work tomorrow so that will be a major change). We've got a house full of furniture and our stuff both from before and from the USA and places we visited while away. But there are a few noticeable changes.

Adelaide is brown. Like Arizona is brown. Due to the increased heat in summer and water restrictions, there are very few lawns left that are green. I'm doing my best to bring part of our front lawn back to life, but it will be a slow process. To date, Adelaide has had 1mm (that's 1/25th of an inch) of rain for the calendar year (normally it's over an inch by now). What this all means is that it is an incredibly dusty place. We recently opened the windows in the house one night during the hot spell to cool everything down and are still cleaning the dust and dirt off everything! I bought a car last week and it has taken less than a week for it to be covered in dust and dirt even though we store it undercover. And of course there are restrictions in how it can be washed!

The kids are all back into music lessons and Sam is playing B Grade cricket with his school (a separate post will appear). We're back at church as well, but we're yet to commit to anything as of yet.

Adelaide itself has changed very little in the two years we were away. The trams now block the rest of King William Street and part of North Terrace.

After regularly travelling large distances, we are yet to leave the Adelaide environs since arriving back. We may venture as far as Kangaroo Island for a holiday later this year, but our plan is for a very quiet year. We'll see how that pans out.

First Cricket Game

Today is Sam's first real cricket game for his school. Whites and all. Here you can see some of the protective gear he has to wear. Not bad for a truly non-contact sport, all to protect from a little red ball.

Here's his batting stance.

And suddenly it's time. He walks out to the crease. It's a lonely walk. Notice how green it is here. Public grounds such as the local oval are the only places with green grass any more here. We've had oly 1.6mm of rain so far this year! The oval is situated on top of a hill, and surrounded by beautiful Australian bush.

His first run off the bat, as he deflects the ball past the wicket keeper.

A few overs later, the ball bounced high and he hit it into the air.

The fielder waited.

And waited.

And held it. So Sam was out for 2. Not a bad effort first up.

Time for his team to field. And here he is bowling.

Sam was the only bowler to claim a wicket (the rest were run outs etc).

Although his team lost on the day Sam had a great day and can't wait until next Saturday morning for the next game.

One Day Cricket

It hasn't been a good summer for Australian cricket. Losing the Test series and one day series to South Africa, the Chappell-Hadlee series against New Zealand offered a chance for redemption. But Australia was 2-1 down in the best of 5 series coming into Game 4 at Adelaide Oval today.

I took a day (well afternoon/evening) off from unpacking to spend the day at the cricket. Given it was a Tuesday, the crowd was small, but the weather was fine and the view great from the southern hill.

The flags were all at half mast in memory of those who died over the weekend in the tragic Victorian bushfires. All proceeds from today's game went to the Bushfire Appeal.


Here's the Australian team observing a moment's silence before the start of the game.

New Zealand won the toss and batted first. Here's Nathan Bracken (Australia's current best one-day bowler) going through the motion.

These balls reach almost 100 mph!

This is the famous Adelaide Oval scoreboard, which has resisted modernisation over the years. Everything you need to know about the state of the game is on the board somewhere. What's unusual about this photo is some yobbo who's climbed on top of the bar in front of the scoreboard to rescue an inflatable toy they'd been throwing around. He got up there quickly, but took more than 10 minutes to get back down.

New Zealand recovered to score an impressive target of 244 runs.

Here's the show that was put on as the sun set. The flight path to Adelaide airport passes just to the north of the Oval and you get a great view coming in.

Australia came into bat and started well, but lost some quick wickets, including a ridiculous run out of the in form Brad Haddin by David Hussey. Fortunately he focussed and got on with the game and lead Australia towards victory.

The electronic scoreboard next to the 'old' scoreboard is used to graphically display when something goes on.

There's also a third umpire who uses video to determine the result of a near decision with the help of the 20 million cameras situated around the ground. We waited anxiously for this decision near the end of the innings.

YES!

And Australia comfortably won, with a 6 winning the game with 10 balls to spare. No problem.

It's Here

Our sea freight has finally arrived. Lots of boxes, just when we had fit everything into the house, another 124 items show up! We'll be living with boxes again for another few weeks!