Ange and the Sween-stalk

One good thing about the new regime, with Sweeney in Christchurch and me in Wellington, is that every second Thursday feels like Christmas Eve used to feel when I was a kid. Except now I'm totally sure there'll be no drawer liners or a set of embroidered, scratchy hankies.

Sweeney!!

He's coming up with Mum and Dad for the weekend, arriving tomorrow. I've been getting more and more excited all day, hopefully won't drive my poor workmates mad tomorrow.

Sweeney!!

Let the Mild Rumpus Start ...

A whole new episode has erupted in my life. Just after my last post, Martin and I broke up for good and ever and ever and ever. The biggest shock has been the sense of relief that it's over and there's no working it out and no option of going back into it or anything. Trying to do the friends/amicable breakup thing, but the situation is still fresh and things get a bit bumpy from time to time.

The worst thing is that Sweeney is down with Mum and Dad in Christchurch still. In itself, no bad thing, because he's a box of happy wherever he is, and Mum and Dad insist that they love having him. I started a contract at the Ministry of Justice and need to find him full-time child care up here, or get a job down in Christchurch, and am missing him terribly. I've been going down to see him every second weekend. He's growing so fast.

Last weekend he pointed to a picture of a baby, and said "baby". I nearly died with happiness at being there.

The last six weeks have been spent getting the hang of my new job, clearing up the stuff Martin's left in the house, spending time with my friends, lying about feeling Sad About Stuff. And cooking delicious puddings and eating them on my lap for dinner. Have called a halt to that, but probably should've done it 5kg ago.

Things to enjoy at the moment:

• my new job, which forces me to be in an enclosed space with hilarious, interesting, nice people, while engaged in interesting and useful work;
• eating anchovies, herrings, all fish in fact, whenever I like around the house;
• getting the house back to a state that I like living in;
• not worrying or feeling anxious about Martin anymore;
• my new car;
• my new leaf blower - have been waiting for the ground to dry out to try the vacuum/shredder bit - should be all go a bit later today;
• getting up in the morning and being ready to walk out the door to work within half an hour;
• my lovely friends and their children who're getting a lot of attention from me on my childless days;
• my wonderful family - especially Sweeney and his teensy cousin; and
• the tuis in the garden.

The big challenge for me at the moment is to find someone to replace the roof. Martin's friend Mike visited this morning and had a look to diagnose the scary-looking seepage at the top of the stairs, and he reckons he knows some guys. Also need a new oven.

Currently working on a hooded jacket for Sweeney, must get back to that now so it's ready for him when he gets here on Friday. Oh, did I mention he and Mum and Dad are coming up next weekend?? I can't wait ...

Christchurch

Sweeney and I are in Christchurch, enjoying the hot, hot weather and the flat, flat terrain and the cooked breakfasts. Sweeney's also very much enjoying the neighbouring kids' skateboarding, footballing, tennis playing etc in the street. Whoo, and indeed, hoo.

We're in Christchurch because things in Wellington have gone doolally and I need some r'n'r. It's been a week now, time to engage with real life again, so I'm leaving Sweeney down here with the doting-est grandparents, and heading back on Tuesday to see a man about a job on Wednesday.

Then begin on the Everest job - packing up our house and finding someone to pay us to live in it for a while. And hopefully somewhere in the middle of that, find out where Martin is and tell him that we don't live there anymore. Yes, it's gone that doolally, and we're now into the third week of it. Have been immersing myself in knitting and reading an Edward de Bono book about teaching your child thinking skills since I've been down here. Oh, and devouring a lot of biscuits.

So there are no pictures or jokes on this post, sorry. A bit glum, but not as glum as I thought I'd feel about this. Not the end of the world ...

H is for ...

Harper Rothwell Graham

Anyone who's read Kimberley's blog will know that she had an actual human baby on February 5th, which just magically is my birthday also. He's adorable, of course, chirpy and even a bit feisty.
Pictures to follow when I work some stuff out about the camera and the laptop ...


Hair

When I was a kid, one of the hallowed objects in our house was Dad's copy of the Hair soundtrack. He and our Uncle Ron went to see the show on stage in Auckland when it played in 1971 or 1972. They raved about it for the rest of the weekend. I loved the songs, knew all the lyrics, still know all the lyrics, and love remembering what visions were in my 5-or-6-year-old head when each song played. I saw the movie version a year or so ago, and it bore no resemblance to what I'd imagined to myself back in the primers. I had no understanding of the social context, it never bothered me that for me, there was no story linking all the songs together.

Anyway, I found a cd of the soundtrack and listened to it again for the first time in years, and good grief, I still love it.

Hayfever

Summer, a time for days at the beach, camping holidays, sunhats and increased pollen in the air. Which means hayfever for me. Still remember the summer of 1987-88, which was significant because it was the first time I tracked down non-drowsy antihistamines - hurrah!!

G is for ...

Goals
I've just been reading Kimberley's blog, and she says that she doesn't make resolutions, she sets goals, and it got me thinking ...
At the moment of writing, my goals for 2008 are:

• pick up a new contract and force myself up and out of the house every day to fulfil it
• assume and maintain Treasured Auntie status for Tiny, and not blow it by getting knocked up and breaking off my one day a week that I have my nephew over ... you reading this, Kimberley??
• finish the Rabbit jersey for Bela, and at least two of the almost-finished things in my workbox
• spend more time in Christchurch, making sure Sweeney and his grandparents spend lots of time enjoying each other and letting me lie in late
• work out how Martin's set up the video and DVD player and stereo so that I can actually play something one day
• write a story and send it to be published
• get the Saab fixed and beautiful again
• knit some socks for Martin
• persevere with the therapy - it's sometimes boring, frustrating and there are times when I really really hate it, but I know it's made a huge difference. Oh, and the pills, the pills ...

I feel like I should have a goal about Sweeney, but I can't think of anything specific, except to keep him happy and keep him from killing himself with his antics.

Gardening

I like gardening. Someone once told me that they always knew that things were all right for them if they were doing some gardening. I find that the garden is a good place to work out some of the kinks, get the frustrations of the day out of myself. And Sweeney likes to rake leaves and push things around in his wheelbarrow and dig with me while I'm out there.

I'm coercing a little part of the garden into a secret space for him. He's into it - he knows where the entrance is, and he creeps under the beech trees and the wineberry, then he pops back out again. The plan is to set up his Spongebob inflateable bed in the clearing under the beeches and he can camp out when it's not too freaky for him. Currently we can see down into the space from the deck, but eventually it'll be grown over and private for him. Hopefully this won't turn into material for the sequel to The Wasp Factory or anything.

People up the road from Nana years ago gave me the idea. From the path, it looked like a grotto of nikau and beeches, but from within the trees itself, there was a passageway tall enough for us to walk through upright until we were about 10 or 11. Behind the house was a compound of aviaries

Grouchiness

Oooh, the Young Squire has entered a new phase - the tantrum. Nothing too horrific yet. He lost his composure when I insisted he'd played in Toyworld for long enough yesterday. Note to self - never, never take him there again, even when he's perky and full of food. The wailing and squirming continued for the 100m back to the car, then there was a full-body-bracing incident when I tried to strap him into his seat.

He's so easy-going most of the time that we're working on heading off tantrums before they appear. His routine is pretty by-the-clock now, so we plan our days around creche and his nap times, and for the most part, things are pretty smooth. Recognising his routine for melting down when we're out has helped - when he starts making 'the noise' and falling over a bit more than normal, it's time for home.

That said, this morning required three attempts to get his sandals onto him and he hurled a Crown Lynn bowl from his highchair and squealed with rapture when it landed on the deck in three pieces. It wasn't a special bowl or anything, but there was a nutritionally balanced and, I thought, interesting, breakfast inside it, which the cat greatly enjoyed. Grrr. Back to the plastic Spongebob plates and bowls for the meantime.

Guys

Sweeney in a cowboy hat, with his dad, possibly line dancing. Sweeney in his grandad's hat, complete with grandad's hands.

2008 ...

Okay, it's been a while. A long while. I look back over the last nearly three months and I can't remember what's been happening. So I'll kick off with the encyclopaedia again.

F is for ...

Fish fingers

When I was a wee girl, I remember Mum breaking out the fish fingers on Good Fridays. They seemed so exotic, so 'other'. I know, I know - they're the fish equivalent of a preboiled supermarket sausage - bits, flaps, odd tufts of floor shavings. But it was the '70s, for goodness sake, and we lived in the heart of cow country - you couldn't move for piles of steak in those days.

When I was pregnant, I worked my way through schools of the things. In the back of my mind sat an image of giving birth to something crumbed and gold. Yay for the 20-week anatomy scan, to put your mind at rest that you're carrying around some arms and legs and lungs in there.

Sweeney's shown that he can scarf a pile of them when he gets the chance. For eight months everything he ate was created from scratch from interesting, fresh meat, fish, vege etc. Then one night I baked two fish fingers and chopped them up in a bowl of store-bought toddler food, and he delivered the whole mess into his mouth in about three loads. I always think of that night when I eat fish fingers now - so many emotions:

• the thrill of getting away with fish fingers and glop out of a jar


• the horror at giving my poppet fish fingers and glop out of a jar


• the deep, deep offence at having fish fingers and glop out of a jar received with more enthusiasm than the mixed steamed vege melanges I'd been turning out
  

Food

Food in general is a brilliant, brilliant thing. Martin didn't feel like dinner tonight, so I made myself a plate of spaghetti with anchovies and garlic. It's what I like to eat when he's out, usually. He doesn't like anchovies, which is just mental, but who am I to force ambrosia on the unwilling ??

Sweeney's becoming increasingly picky about what gets into his body. Always welcome are:

• anything with sugar


• anything out of a jar


• anything that I'm trying to eat

Most of my fave foods are not classy - Mum's bread & butter pudding, Nana's chops, Martin's green chicken curry, Dad's cooked breakfasts, Kimberley's gratin dauphinoise, Denis' pavlova ... When I was in Cambodia, I just loved the coffee there. When I got back to New Zealand, I found the closest thing I could find was a tube of Nestle Coffee 'n' Milk. It set me on a frenzy for nostalgic food - in particular, things I could remember eating with my Nana when I was little. Like shrimp paste sandwiches, krispies and fingernail cake - Ernest Adams madeira cake with slivered almonds on top.

Yum.

Family

Aren't they crash hot?? Yes, they are. The feeling that comes from the shared memories of childhood tickle fights, bizarre relatives, glimpses of parental drunkenness and the like. The time Mum took us to see Superdad while Dad and went to see The Towering Inferno, or Rollerball, or some deeply cool movie in 1975.

And Mum and Dad always seem to enjoy hearing me rant about how they let Kimberley get away with all sorts of things I got pinged for before she was born. Hold onto your hats when we get to T for Table Manners ...

And then the family you make for yourself. Martin and Sweeney make the pure hell of getting up in the morning worth it

Friends

Also crash hot. You know who you are, and you're fine, fine people.

E is for ... Egg

Eggs are yummy.

I love them boiled a bit soft, mashed with some parsley and salt, and spread between two slices of splushy bread. Can be white or brown.

Or boiled a bit soft and in an eggcup, with toast cut into fairy's fingers to dip into the syrupy, golden yolk. Oooh, thanks Mum ...

I love them scrambled, with a bit of milk, sprinkled with parsley. A little girl called Nina showed me how to make them when I babysat for her 17 years ago. She'd been in bed for a while, after being so tired she'd refused dinner, and woke up ravenous. Her parents were committed health enthusiasts, and I knew she'd dob me in if I ordered pizza. She guided me through how she liked her eggs to be done, and we giggled so much, we woke her 1-year-old brother, Ralph.

Ended up with the three of us in the garden at 10 on Saturday night, creeping through the shrubbery in the dark to pick parsley for the eggs. Very Going On a Bear Hunt.

I wonder if Sweeney will drag some hapless babysitter out to the deck for basil for his spaghetti sauce or coriander for his laksa ... That's Mt Victoria, isn't it??

I like them fried, the way Dad has always made them for his weekend fry-fests. His eggs come out with all the white firm and cooked, and in some places downright crispy, and the yolk also firm and cooked, but still soft so you can dip your fork in, weighed down with bacon, tomato and maybe a mushroom. No artery in the region is safe, I tell you.

I like omelettes, the way Martin combines mushrooms, tomato and cheese with a few eggs and a glorious near-souffle comes out. We ate these every day for a month or more, a few months back. Mmmm.

I used to make a tortilla-type thing at Lone Star. It was when they'd just opened the first site in Christchurch. Fun every day. We were building and tweaking the menu every day, we were learning about Texan and Mexican food, but trying to be cool and interesting and avoid turning into a nachos and taco joint. The tortilla - as in chunks of spud in a pan, drizzled over with beaten egg, bunged into the oven until it's cooked through - was new to me. This is late '80s New Zealand, people, and all food south of the border came out of a Masterfoods packet. Guacamole was still controversial.

At the time, my tortilla, served with a monster salad, damn near flew out the door every night. I left Lone Star when I moved up to Wellington, and mostly forgot the things I'd made every night for a year. But a month or so ago, I chucked together a tortilla for myself and Sweeney, and the young squire downed it with the same gusto as he attacks yoghurt, stewed fruit or any of the things he loves. Chuffed.

E is for ... Embroidery

I've recently found two blogs showcasing incredible embroidery - Jo in NZ and small things. Check them out. These women are highly skilled technicians, and their work shows a second-to-none design sense. Envious. The pic here is a comfort doll stitched by Alison of small things.

Our Nana taught me to embroider when I was 9 years old. My first project was a horse's head, surrounded by daisies and leaves. Mum handed on Nana's unfinished work to me when she died - tablecloths, dresser sets, doilies - and I've had a go at finishing a few. It's really hard to take over someone else's work like that - it's like each person's writing has its own voice, knitting has an individual tension, how I make a piece of cheese on toast, it'll turn out differently from yours. And then there's the fact that she had about 3,000 years of talent and experience that I'll never have. There just isn't enough time before I die.

I like hauling them out and looking at the colours she was using, and the patterns she liked. She regarded cross stitch as a bit primitive, and all her work is in stem, satin, all the classic traditional embroidery stitches. I don't believe she worked tapestries at all.

Mum's got some lovely cloths that she made years ago. They're gorgeous. Even Dad developed an enthusiasm for embroidery and knocked up a table runner, albeit with a very untraditional colourway. He goes in for the variegated silks in a big, big way.

E is for ... Elephant

When I was in Cambodia, there were elephant rides on offer all over the show. In Phnom Penh, there was an elephant, Samboh, who went for a walk every evening through the CBD with his keeper / human companion. I can't remember his name.

Samboh was born in the Cambodian countryside in the late '70s, orphaned and ended up living with a family of subsistence farmers until a bunch of Khmer Rouge soldiers muscled the family off their land, to labour camp and/or execution. Samboh was used by the Khmer Rouge for muscle until the Pol Pot regime was finally removed, years later. At that point, he was 'liberated' into the wild, still in Cambodia. The youngest son of the family survived the camps and searched for Samboh. For years.

Can you believe they found each other? He was a child when they'd been separated, and now he's a middle-aged man. Samboh lives with the man's family in Phnom Penh, and until just before we saw him, tourists took rides on him for enormous amounts of money. He's getting on now, old Samboh, and he's retired from business life, and the only walking he has to do is an ambling constitutional in the twilight.

D is for ... Down south
Yes, it's a bit of a stretch, but just stay with me, okay?? Sweeney's been down in Christchurch since October 6th, holidaying with his Nana and Grandad. He hitched a ride with Kimberley when she went down for the weekend, and stayed on to terrorise their cats and threaten the hospital-like sanitation levels of their house.
One of the things I really enjoy and appreciate about Sweeney is how much my parents enjoy and appreciate him. That thing about grandparents being more indulgent to grandchildren after being tough parents?? Well, it's playing out in Pioneer Lane at this very minute. I love seeing how chatty they are when people approach them about Sweeney, they look proud in a way I haven't seen since ...
Martin and I have been enjoying the flexibility that jettisoning your baby gives you, but we can't wait to see the little pooter again. I even spent this afternoon checking out blogs with pictures of babies on, and we both spent a mental amount of time gazing at a wee boy called Lias - the most beautiful child I've seen since Sweeney arrived. He's about 8 months younger than Sweeney, but has such a strong face already. His hands and feet are long and from the blog, it sounds like he's a sizeable chap.
Lovely, isn't he?? I even sent his mums a note about how splendid he looks ...

D is for ... Dogs
I've never been fond of dogs. I found Lassie torture even when telly was new and exciting. When I was wee, three or four, Mum had a chiropractor or osteopath whose rooms were behind his house. Where his enormous and really really loud dog was tethered. Even from behind a fence, that dog made my blood stop flowing, made me freeze on the spot and scream.
We had a friend stay for five weeks back in January, along with his dog Sarge. When I first met Sarge, he was a bouncy staffy-thing, muscular and gorgeous and fun. Enormously reasonable and easy to handle. That was nearly nine years ago, and things had moved on for Sarge. He was arthritic, which meant he couldn't jump or run the way he used to, so had become enormous. He would plod down the steps beside the house, and flop onto the deck as near as he could to Sweeney. Sweeney was just about crawling at that stage, and loved using Sarge as his playgym, grabbing his jowls or ears or lips to haul himself up and over. Poor dog, he put up with a lot.

D is for ... Drudgery

Drudgery is my nemesis, no doubt. It does me in in all areas of my life - housekeeping, the boring bits at work etc. When you're a girl imagining a life with a Significant Other and gorgeous, gifted offspring and a fulfilling career and a house that reflects all that's good about you, you don't imagine any of the following:

• the dishes, and the washing, and the vacuuming, and changing the bed more than twice a year,


• cleaning down the high chair and the area within a 5km radius three times a day,


• keeping your child alive with food, and maybe even keeping it interesting for you and feeling a little bit proud of it,


• a new job or project is interesting for a week or so, then it's just same old same old until your contract finishes or you die


• wanting to paint a room or do some other low-level DIY requires a morning spent at Resene or Mitre 10, then sanding and puttying and stirring and by the time you get to actual painting, you can't imagine why you chose that colour and in any case, it's time to put the baby in the high chair again and prepare yourself for half an hour of swabbing the floor. Again.

But as I mentioned, Sweeney's vacationing at the moment, so we've been eating bad food and ignoring the chores. The Coco Pops were a highlight earlier this week. The first week he was away, I spent every waking minute grateful that there were no nappies to change or bottles to make or teeth cleaning to negotiate.

Now I'm eaten up with jealousy, that my parents are getting his cuddles and his chats and dances and songs and playing with him in the bath and reading him stories and taking him to the mall to people-watch. I'll revisit this under H for Happy Medium.

D is for Depression

When I say that boring routine chores and such do me in, I mean they make lying down under the duvet for days on end, with or without some gentle sobbing, the only thing I can do. There are days when getting clean dishes into cupboards makes me proud of myself, and we've got a dishwasher, for gods sake. For the most part, Martin's been a pistol, and the counselling has given us both ways to deal with it better. Kimberley and my parents, and even some of Martin's family have been helpful when they can. Sweeney doesn't give the slightest toss. I have a plan for him to never know, that by the time he's grown enough to know that normal people get up every day, I'll be patched up and back on the road. Like a tyre.

D is for ... D'accord!
There are a number of things that have become shorthand for Kimberley and me. One of them is saying "d'accord!" to indicate agreement to the latest scheme on the books. It could've been "okey dokey" or "smellulater", but no, we're too classy. Obviously.

D is for ... Dumbass, Dork, Diddle, Dick etc

I was just sitting here, typing away, when I noticed the room had become freezing. So I mentioned this to Martin, asking why it was that it was so cold, when it's been quite nice heat-wise. Silence for a beat, then he said "the temperature".

C is for ...

C is for ... Cat


Seems like I've always had a cat, since my first flatmate and best friend Lee Whiterod and I went to the SPCA in Hornby and picked out two kittens to be ours in 1984. We brought them back home in boxes on the bus. Mine was Hazel, a slinky black boy, and hers was Smith, a smoochy tortoiseshell female. Since then, there's been:

• Esther - jumpy from the outset, ran away when we moved to Papanui Rd
• Seymour - avid cricketer as a kitten, tap dancer as a senior; developed kidney failure at 12 and was euthanased
• Chester - appeared at my parent's house one day and made it clear they needed to include him in their plans. They were smitten, but their three other cats hated his guts, so we took him back to Moir St with us. Pleasure seeker to the last, he died lying on his back in the sun at our neighbour's house
• Frank - ran away from Moir St when I was in Cambodia. Sweet little guy, a bit dumb - got stuck up trees a lot
• Nina - Frank's sister, chunky tortoiseshell bombshell. Would follow me when I left for work each morning. Was donated to Kate and JB, our over-the-road neighbours in Moir St, when we went to Auckland
• Mao - handsome, kittenish, increasingly unstable offspring of Burmese female and neighbourhood ginger tom. also living with Kate and JB now
• Catriona McLeod - stray, winsome creature who made our stay at Transplant House much more homely.
• Pippi - came with the house when we bought Hebron Road. When we sold it, she came back to Moir Street with us. Sweeney's furry friend - he tries really hard to be gentle with her, and she's entirely patient with him when he inadvertently gives her the bash. There are times when we wonder which of them is the more feral.

C is for ... Craft
I couldn't go past that one, could I?? I simply love Craft. I could argue for hours about the relationship between Art and Craft, but I don't actually care if people respect it or not. I respect it, I respect what I do, what other people do, what craftspeople have done in the past. I personally get no joy out of those family groupings of pebbles with eyes stuck on them, or gingham covers for jam jars, or most of the stuff that's done with greenstone out there, but someone does - or else these things wouldn't keep cropping up anywhere they let you set up a stall.
Kimberley introduced me to Craft 2.0, and the women associated with it. Reading their blogs and seeing their work excites me, and gives me ideas for my own work around the house. Kimberley's eye for colour blows me away - when she puts stripes together, they're magic. Melissa's Tiny Happy work is especially invigorating, and the other day I checked out Rhiannon's hoodies - these women are working at making a living from their craft, and they don't know it, but they're helping me get up the nerve to try getting my stuff out there.
I learnt to knit from my mother, and to embroider from my Nana - both tremendous technicians. I'm very snobby towards the machine-knitted aran-type cardies in shops today, because of the work Mum produced. She also is skilled at constructing curtains, cot sheets, cushions, and I remember she devised an amazing quilt for Nana when she came to stay with us once.
What is my stuff? Well, watch this space ...

C is for ... Copper
I have a copper relief rubbing-thingy that my Grandpop made when I was young. It's on the wall at toddler's eye level, just outside Sweeney's room. I'm not that fond of the form, but I like it more as I live with it - the design is a traditional Maori taniwha-shape, based on limestone cave drawings, and the detail displays pretty good craftsmanship. I didn't know him much until I was about 19, and I grew very fond of him. He died when I was 28. Dad and his brothers occasionally tell stories about him, but he's really a cloudy figure. History may prove it to be a piece of old tat, but for now, I see it as a way to trace the line from Sweeney back to his great-grandfather and beyond.

C is for ... Counselling, Children, Cardigans, Cooking, Capote, Creche, Cambodia ...
I could go on and on and on. Obviously.

B is for ... Bank
When I need work, I call around IT recruitment agents and send out my CV and go to interviews and talk a lot about myself and wait for someone to find my patter so adorable they simply HAVE to have me on their team. I'd just started doing that again, when I got a call from an agent who got me a contract I couldn't take a few months ago, asking if I maybe was available to take that contract now.
Was I!! All those relaxed mornings, afternoon naps, housewifey trips to pick up Sweeney from creche, hours spent reading blogs, watching movies, knitting ... well, they've been weighing heavy on me. Much rather work for a bank.
Yes, started at one of the several corporate offices of the National Bank today. Everyone seems nice, there's Calci-trim milk in the fridge, the toilets had toilet paper in them all day, I was assigned a phone the day I started, I have two screens to work on, so I don't go mad when I have 3 million documents open at the same time.
Oh, and the project seems interesting and not as bloodthirstily profit-centric as I've encountered in the past.
It made me realise that banks have been a big part of my working life - in fact, my whole working life since Sweeney was born - and I've loathed my part in their success so much that I've really cut myself off from the 8 or so hours a day that I spend doing their bidding. I don't think that's been too helpful for our bumpy family life, so have decided to enjoy myself more on this contract, and take that enjoyment home at night.
In that spirit, I'm a starter for any World Cup sweepstake.


B is for ... Baking
Last night I made muffins. Banana muffins. Straight out of the Edmonds, can't fail muffins. Kimberley needed some baking for Ronald McDonald House, and I've done little enough for her since she entered into the hell-state that is morning sickness, so I offered to help.
Got up this morning to find half of them had been subjected to harsh clinical testing due to Martin's need for sugar overnight. Gave a hearty "What the??" to the world and rustled up more in double-quick time.
Got them all onto plates, complete with napkins and a dusting of icing sugar, then negotiated hard with Martin for a ride to Kimberley's to drop them off on the way to my first day of the new job. All goes well until inner-city rush-hour traffic results in a hard brake action and the plates go for a slide, nearly off my lap. I instinctively put out my hand to stop them, damn near flattened the lot on the spot.
The air was blue. I know you're not supposed to do that with children in the vicinity, especially your own, but anyone who knows me is aware that craft of any kind is a sacred thing and you endanger it at your own peril.

Sorry, Sweeney. And sorry, Martin. I know you didn't mean to eat my work, then nearly kill the rest of it.

B is for ... Ballistic, Banshee, Battleaxe
Territory I'm trying to avoid at the moment. It's a long term project.

B is for ... Books
Good grief, we need shelving in our house. So many books. I grew up in a house with the most books of anyone I knew. I loved reading with my mum when I was wee, I loved having stories read to me by my dad and other men with deep voices. I studied literature.
I love going into Sweeney's room and seeing him absorbed in one of his board books. Sometimes he even has it up the right way. I took him into Unity Books yesterday and we looked at books until he was about to melt down over a lovely picture book with captions in te reo.

Oh, and let's not forget B is for Baby

Another long-term project. Sooo nice ...