A cuddle with Damien

Sticky toes

Helen and I went for a wander on Tuesday and discovered Roma Street Parkland, which is a lovely garden in central Brisbane. We met many lizards, which we have since identified as Eastern Water Dragons – they look like this:



It was like walking through Jurassic Park, seriously.

Back at Dilia's place, the lizards are of a smaller variety. They run about on the outside of the house and occasionally the inside (Teflon is the only known surface to which a gecko cannot stick) and they make a noise you wouldn't expect a gecko to make. Well I didn't. It sounds like across between a chirp and a knock on the door.

One small amphibian

Brisbane, day one. Dilia's house.



After a period of indecision as to whether this was a cute little frog or an ugly toad, the final verdict is juvenile cane toad. Not cutie cutie.

The antidote to ugly cane toads is young Ava, who, without wishing to get too mushy, is adorable.



I tried my luck at taking a crochet hook in my cabin luggage, but alas it was deemed a potential weapon of mass destruction. As Dilia pointed out, anyone who could kill using a size 3.5 bamboo crochet hook is likely to be quite capable of doing so without a bamboo crochet hook, but this line of reasoning would seem to be a little too rational when it comes to airline security.

Consequently, instead of a productive three and a half hours of baby cardigan crochet, I was forced to watch The X-Files: I Wanted To Believe – "The truth is out there. And so is the plot" was the accurate summing up in the in-flight magazine.