Morning Tea for Cockatoo Too

Today has been an excellent one. One of those memorable ones, with achievement, and fun, and togetherness, and just all-around pleasure in life. First up, I went for that 10k run I wussed out on yesterday. If you really want details, you can go here, but the highlights are that I didn't have to walk at all, I shaved off almost 10 minutes from my previous 10km road time, I took some nasty hills really well, and I got yelled at by a young bloke in a car I think thought I was a woman in a sports bra (on account of the band of my heart-rate monitor). xP

After that we went to Leura to meet some friends and their kids, at Leuralla, the toy and train museum. Set in an utterly gorgeous Edwardian house, with fabulous gardens and grounds, is the most amazing amassment (a better word, I think, than collection, in this particular case) of old toys. Some I had, many I wanted, all were fascinating. There were many very old editions of Alice in Wonderland; there were great Star Wars, Buck Rogers, and Dr Who toys; there were Rupert bears and Barbie dolls, Tintins and Noddies, and so much more. Including, intriguingly, a couple of displays of Nazi toys. SS troops, brown-shirts, the Braunes Haus, a classic Hitler rally ... Amazing. The other display had more of the troops, in battle with Allied troops - including what appeared to be a lovely little exploding land-mine. Wonderful children's toy. Interesting in a different way was the disclaimer accompanying each of these displays: rather than just saying effectively "we're displaying this because it is of interest, not because we're Nazis", they went with "examples of the pernicious indoctrination of German children" and such. No similar disclaimer accompanied the Action Man displays. xP

Outside, there was more train stuff, including a great big working model railway going through a really well-made model mountain and landscape. $2 set it going, and the kids loooooved it. Yes, me being one of said kids. ;-) Running around in the rain checking it out from all sides, whooping and hollering.

Then back into Leura for lunch at Zest (formerly Fresh; happily the food still was - in fact it was greeeeeeeaat!). Following that was the obligatory trip to Josophan's, and then home.

Before we went to Leuralla we had morning tea at Cafe Madeleine, as our friends were a little late - being that they were coming from around Hurstville way. This guy was hanging around outside, so I snapped him. Like a fool I had left my camera at home, so it was an iPhone shot. Still, I'm pleased with it. Larger.