Finding our way home

We're on our way home, but have stopped off in Singapore for a couple of days to catch up with some friends (as you do...).

We arrived yesterday evening after leaving Green Island on Monday and overnighting in Sydney before setting off on the first leg home. The weather as we left far north Queensland was of course beautiful; not too hot, a balmy 25 deg C, and the ferry trip back to mainland was across a sea as smooth as a millpond.

The Boys adopted an older couple as surrogate grandparents on the 50 minute trip; they had made the mistake of showing interest in chatting about fish, and that was it. It was interesting and slightly embarrassing to watch their demeanour change from benevolent bystanders to our family adventure, to that of two slightly hunted people who had forgotten - but are fast-being reminded - of how full-on time spent with young children can be.

The ferry was on the small side and almost completely empty, so Husband and I were busy keeping a weather eye on Boy #2 who was doing a fine impression of a meerkat, popping his head up in one row of seats to grin cheekily at us, before disappearing from view and resurfacing somewhere else a minute or so later. It was rather like he was participating in some bizarre kind of 'bat the rat' game...

Whilst we were trying to make sure that his younger brother stayed inside the cabin, Boy #1 was engaged by 'surrogate gran' in conversation as she attempted to inform him of various interesting facts about the fish featured on the promotional video being shown. However, the fact that he had spent the previous day on a pontoon on the outer reef, and was even tempted into the water on a couple of occassions, combined with his exhaustive study of that underwater classic 'Finding Nemo', means that he sees this as his area of speciality. After crocodiles, of course - but that goes without saying. As a result, he either corrected her (in his defence, I will say he was usually right), or downright ignored what she had said in an attempt to continue her education on the finer points of the plot of his favourite film. This consisted mainly of recapping Marlon the clown fish's epic trip to rescue his son from an aquarium in a dentist's surgery, and in a discussion of what the pelican that gives him and Dorey a lift is actually called...

I was always a bit wary of over-confident children, but am fast coming to realise that when it's your own the last thing you want to do is squash them down. Still, a conversation on not interrupting and listening to what other people say, came later. And no doubt will be repeated. And repeated. And repeated...

In any case, by the time we docked surrogate 'gran and grandad' couldn't get away fast enough, with Boy #1 calling goodbye and waving Splashy the cuddly shark in their general direction to illustrate one of the points he had made about a Great White's teeth...

And we still can't remember the pelican's name.