Hope Springs Eternal.

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Life is full of ups and downs when on tour. One day we love the place, the culture, the architecture, the travel. The next we're fed up, checking our flight itinerary for our Sydney rendez-vous in March and discussing whether we go Japanese or Thai  for our first dinner back in Oz. Or yum-cha even. Today was one of those good days. A lazy 'jammies til midday' kind of morning, a quick swim for the boys at the local pool after lunch and a trip to the city centre in the late afternoon to enjoy the last sunny moments of an unusually warm and almost 'spring-like' winter's day. A world away from the ravaging floods back home. Our niece Chloe lives in Brissy but thankfully she's fine. We just wish the same could be said for the massive number of people and homes affected by these harrowing events. And then there are the floods in Pakistan, Sri Lanka and landslides in Brazil; where collectively more people have been affected than the entire Aussie population. So much devastation. The cause of so much suffering. Here's hoping Mother Nature can offer these people some much needed reprieve and put an end to all this devastation. It is often said that Munich is like a bubble. Right now this similie (?) feels spot-on and the reason we have BBC news playing on an endless loop.

Bizarrely, the weather has hotted up here in Munich. Today was a balmy 9 degrees, so it seems that we scraped in last week's ski trip just in time. Today was spent sans beanies, scarves, gloves, snowboots. Jackets were left open and spirits were lifted. It's funny how the internal thermostat is self adjusting. Before moving here, we made a long-weekend trip down the Great Ocean Road. It was 15C there most days yet it felt absolutely freezing. Nowadays, anything above 5C seems rather civilised between December and March. To celebrate the freaky warm weather we headed into town, snapped some pics of the fading light and checked out the kids on ice. Oli's introduction to the world of ice-skating. And boy, did he have questions.

In his relentless pursuit of Radiohead covers, Dave stumbled across these guys about a year ago. Appearances can be deceiving so you may want to close your eyes while you listen to their sweet tunes. And I totally agree. Mars ain't the kinda place to raise your kids. 

xxx

PS. Oli informed us today that he would quite like to take up smoking when he grows up. Why? "Because it looks so cool". It's disgusting, smelly and it can kill you. "But I see people smoking and they're not dead". Hmmm, how do you like them apples?! "Why would people smoke if it killed them? Huh?" I tried to explain about cigarettes being addictive, making it hard for people to quit blah blah blah. Nodding his head in agreement he replied: "Yep. I know what you mean. Sometimes I feel like that". Um, whatever you say kiddo. That gun-toting, chain-smoking Lucky Luke has a lot of explaining to do...

PPS. Mum is taking a break from  Munich and is spending the next 4 days in the UK. Let's hope she remembers the Pimms.