Return to Winter

I feel like I could write screeds and screeds about all the fabulous things Sweeney is coming up with these days. I'm not going to, though, because I recognise the madness that this implies, and in any case, there's other stuff in my world that wants reporting on.

Like the first blooms on the Dublin Bay by the front door. A few came out on Saturday, and what with the forecasted gales and the actual hail yesterday, I figured I'd grab one for inside before they got pelted to bits. This picture doesn't capture it terribly well, but you get the picture, right?? It's a great plant, puts out a swag of gorgeous flowers every year and responds terribly well to being hacked about at pruning time.

Or how flipping cold it suddenly is. Again. Although I actually forgot it was ever this cold, but it was only about a month ago, or maybe six weeks. Cripes. My chores today kept me in the CBD, so I'd devised a plan to get us moving in a carless kind of way, and that meant dressing Sweeney and myself like human Pass the Parcels and launching ourselves into the icy air outside.

It's nice making his bed toasty with a hottie, and rustling up hot milo to drink when we get home.

Or my old friend Hone, who I ran into the other day in Island Bay. I haven't seen him since November 1996, when we parted under a cloud. To be honest, I'd consigned him to History. He spent a chunk of the day with us yesterday, chatted with Sweeney about trucks and rockets and did his best not to swear in front of him, filled me in on bits and pieces of his past 13 years.

Or that I'm very excited at seeing that In the Loop is playing at the movies. I must see it. I loved The Thick of It, very clever, very sweary, hilarious etc, and this is from the same people, but with added extra Tony Soprano. It's like a dream come true, almost. Now, if Sam Rockwell was in there ...