Solitude

Ode on Solitude

~ Alexander Pope

 

Happy the man, whose wish and care

A few paternal acres bound,

Content to breathe his native air,

 In his own ground.

Whose heards with milk, whose fields with bread,

Whose flocks supply him with attire,

Whose trees in summer yield him shade,

 In winter fire.

Blest! who can unconcern'dly find

Hours, days, and years slide soft away,

In health of body, peace of mind,

Quiet by day,

Sound sleep by night; study and ease

Together mix'd; sweet recreation,

And innocence, which most does please,

With meditation.

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;

Thus unlamented let me dye;

Steal from the world, and not a stone

 Tell where I lye.

***

The children have gone off on holiday with their grandparents.  It's strangely quiet without them and there's less structured activity to pad out the days.  It's the catering that I notice the most.  Dinner and washing-up for two.  Cut lunches for two or not at all. Bliss.  No mess on the floor.  No crazy bedtime routine.  No... little faces, little conversations, little books and learning.  No little hugs.  I can't imagine what it will be like when they have grown and gone away.  It's nice for a week but not for an endless period, as it will surely be one day.    Empty children's bedrooms are the saddest places, I think.

Fan mail

“Seventeen, eh!" said Hagrid as he accepted a bucket-sized glass of wine from Fred.
"Six years to the day we met, Harry, d’yeh remember it?"
"Vaguely," said Harry, grinning up at him. "Didn’t you smash down the front door, give Dudley a pig’s tail, and tell me I was a wizard?"
"I forge’ the details," Hagrid chortled.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

“A breeze ruffled the neat hedges of Privet Drive, which lay silent and tidy under the inky sky, the very last place you would expect astonishing things to happen. Harry Potter rolled over inside his blankets without waking up. One small hand closed on the letter beside him and he slept on, not knowing he was special, not knowing he was famous, not knowing he would be woken in a few hours' time by Mrs. Dursley's scream as she opened the front door to put out the milk bottles, nor that he would spend the next few weeks being prodded and pinched by his cousin Dudley...He couldn't know that at this very moment, people meeting in secret all over the country were holding up their glasses and saying in hushed voices: "To Harry Potter - the boy who lived!”

 ― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

Batement Tendu

Childhood

~ George William Russell

HOW I could see through and through you!

So unconscious, tender, kind,

More than ever was known to you

Of the pure ways of your mind.

We who long to rest from strife

Labour sternly as a duty;

But a magic in your life

Charms, unknowing of its beauty.

We are pools whose depths are told;

You are like a mystic fountain,

Issuing ever pure and cold

From the hollows of the mountain.

We are men by anguish taught

To distinguish false from true;

Higher wisdom we have not;

But a joy within guides you.

***

Beautiful end of term open session at ballet this afternoon.  A room full of little girls in lavender, alternately graceful and squirming.    At seven years of age, they are starting 'intensive training' with classic routines at the barre and on the floor.  It's hardly the Kirov, but so sweet to see my girl point her toes perfectly and step out on long, lean but muscular legs.  She can tie a mean bun all by herself in the back of the car too.

Bravo.  Encore!

Lost camera, lost time

In Childhood

~ Kimiko Hahn

things don't die or remain damaged
but return: stumps grow back hands,
a head reconnects to a neck,
a whole corpse rises blushing and newly elastic.
Later this vision is not True:
the grandmother remains dead
not hibernating in a wolf's belly.
Or the blue parakeet does not return
from the little grave in the fern garden
though one may wake in the morning
thinking mother's call is the bird.
Or maybe the bird is with grandmother
inside light. Or grandmother was the bird
and is now the dog
gnawing on the chair leg.
Where do the gone things go
when the child is old enough
to walk herself to school,
her playmates already
pumping so high the swing hiccups?

***

I seem to have lost my camera and have lost my sense of equilibrium with it.  I've had to use an iphone and Charly's little junior Kodak number to capture the moments, and there have been plenty of memorable and beautiful ones over the past few weeks.  The autumn tones in Canberra's old streets, merriment in the backyard over the Easter break and abundant other daily vignettes reminding me that childhood is fleeting. Clothes have become outgrown and conversations more mature.  Decisons about high school loom.  I want to capture every second before it disappears.  Oh, where is Peter Pan?

Oh, where is my Canon Ixus?

Having it all plus the laundry

Life is mostly froth and bubble,

Two things stand like stone,

Kindness in another's trouble,

Courage in your own.

***

Here I am, emerging from that strange other world which revolves mechanically around cut lunches, soaking socks, supervised music lessons (I use that term loosely, as I listen and shout encouragement from another room while stirring white sauce), Year Two Home Readers, water balloon games, unwrapped birthday presents, wiped food spills and overdue library books.  That is just my spare time. The bulk of the day is spent in the Big Open Plan Office reading and writing stuff of serious bureaucratic importance.  In addition to which, my work is entirely conducted in front of a computer screen.  In the remaining shreds of time at the day's end, therefore, I have hardly the energy to sit in front of computer even for leisure.  So this space if often neglected.

Lots of other women in this city juggle making or administering public policy with changing the sheets and pressing school uniforms. Most of my friends and colleagues are on the same mouse wheel. Sometimes I wonder if the hard-fought-for gains of the feminist movement weren't a little skewed.  It takes an exceptional person and lots of outsourcing of domestic tasks to keep a family afloat with two parents working outside the home.  Plus good parking or a fast commuter system.  I don't think you can really 'have it all'.  But the childcare industry, and a fear of not being able to exercise choice over essential items like health and education, creates an environment where we think we can, and possibly should 'have it all'. 

I read a ministerial press release today about measures to increase the standards of childcare in Australia.  It was citing the introduction of improved carer-to-child ratios and enhanced minimum training for childcare workers as huge advancements.  Indeed they may be.  But a small quiet voice in my head still thought that the care of children is best undertaken by a parent at home for the bulk of the time and that we have created an artificial industry out of Children's Services.   This is an issue I wrestle with daily. 

What do I tell my daughters and son as they work out their own careers? Am I doing the right thing? Is this a good example? Will I look back with regret at my efforts to 'have it all'?



Verse: Adam Lindsay Gordon, Ye Wearie Wayfarer

Images: Single quilt covers.  Laundry.

Now and Then

As from the house your mother sees

You playing round the garden trees,

So you may see, if you will look

Through the windows of this book,

Another child, far, far away,

And in another garden, play.

But do not think you can at all,

By knocking on the window, call

That child to hear you. He intent

Is all on his play-business bent.

He does not hear, he will not look,

Nor yet be lured out of this book.

For, long ago, the truth to say,

He has grown up and gone away,

And it is but a child of air

That lingers in the garden there.

Robert Louis Stevenson

***

So true, my  precious little ones.  The days are long but the years are short.  We watched some of the SBS program, Who Do You Think You Are, tonight.  It's become a bit of a favourite in our house when we manage to catch it. My, what facinating stories they unearth and how it affects people to learn about the struggles of their forebears. Tears well up as the subjects are reconciled with the past and the jigsaw puzzle pieces of their heritage connect.  Some tough lives has been lived. Don't I know this more than most coming from tough Anglo-German-Swedish migrant stock. It taken many generations for my lineage to be able experience the opportunities my children currently enjoy. It's really a gift to know this.  I reflect on it often.

Denzil, Apprentice Wizard

Another rollicking book series which has captivated my nine year old son is The Adventures of Denzil, Apprentice Wizard written by New Zealand children's fantasy writer, Sherryl Jordan. We have been progressively working our way through this charming and funny set of books about the exploits of Denzil, the boy wizard, and his master, the great wizard Valvasor.

Unwittingly transported to modern times, Denzil finds himself entangled with the MacAllister family, a lovable lot despite their flaws, and entranced by modern conveniences.  This is a familiar but captivating premise on which to base a children's fantasy novel and one which encourages young readers to think about history, time and place. How would it feel to go back or forward over seven centuries and witness life first-hand?

The first Denzil story, The Wednesday Wizard, was published in 1991 (way before Harry Potter was created), and the final novel, The Silver Dragon, in 2007.   We have the entire boxed set which includes Denzil’s Dilemma and The Great Bear Burglary.   It's been loads of fun to read aloud and the stories have had plenty of magical twists and turns to sustain our interest.   This little series has become one of our firm favourites.

Recommended for 8-10 age bracket.  Both boys and girls will enjoy the series.  Girls will identify with the headstrong protagonist, young Sam(antha) MacAllister, and boys, of course, will become Denzil in their mind's eye.  Mrs MacAllister and I also shared some common traits (a mother's exasperation with circumstances beyond her control mainly, and wry humour), so I found myself travelling in her shoes.

Starry-eyed

The Evening Star

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Lo! in the painted oriel of the West,

Whose panes the sunken sun incarnadines,

Like a fair lady at her casement, shines

The evening star, the star of love and rest!

And then anon she doth herself divest

Of all her radiant garments, and reclines

Behind the sombre screen of yonder pines,

With slumber and soft dreams of love oppressed.

O my beloved, my sweet Hesperus!

My morning and my evening star of love!

My best and gentlest lady! even thus,

As that fair planet in the sky above,

Dost thou retire unto thy rest at night,

And from thy darkened window fades the light.

***

The first week of school, day two and it's merry mayhem around here with a special soccer training program twice weekly, a mid-week ballet lesson and a host of other extra-curricular activities to schedule.  How on earth can I focus on the paid job when there is so much fun to be had after 3.00 pm every day?   How can I concertina up those office hours to spend more time with the children?  I'm trying.

The children go to bed plum-tuckered-out under the evening star and thr full moon last night.  Not I, of course, because I'm still up covering books (last minute creative attempt), thinking about packed lunches (but deciding against preparing the night ahead as it most items won't stay fresh) and devising complex transport arrangements (with all the precision of a LinFox freight truck). 

February's here.

Pinch and a punch for the first of the month.  Deadlock.  No returns.  Of any kind.

A brutal awakening by two children (one in particular) keen to get in first with this monthly ritual.  Ah February.  All 29 days of you. 

Class lists come out on Friday, sticky-taped to the front glass of the school office.  We have to be down there checking at the earliest opportunity.  Charly is hyper-jittery about which of her friends will or won't be in her class and which teacher she scores.  The list looms larger in her imagination than in previous years and takes on far greater significance as she marks her final year of primary school.  It has to be a fabulous, memorable year.  Like the arrival of February, this milestone has crept up quietly.

Thirty days hath September,
April, June, and November;
February has twenty-eight alone,
All the rest have thirty-one,
Excepting leap-year, that's the time
When February's days are twenty-nine.

***

The Ant Explorer

~ C J Dennis

Once a little sugar ant made up his mind to roam-

To fare away far away, far away from home.

He had eaten all his breakfast, and he had his ma's consent

To see what he should chance to see and here's the way he went

Up and down a fern frond, round and round a stone,

Down a gloomy gully where he loathed to be alone,

Up a mighty mountain range, seven inches high,

Through the fearful forest grass that nearly hid the sky,

Out along a bracken bridge, bending in the moss,

Till he reached a dreadful desert that was feet and feet across.

'Twas a dry, deserted desert, and a trackless land to tread,

He wished that he was home again and tucked-up tight in bed.

His little legs were wobbly, his strength was nearly spent,

And so he turned around again and here's the way he went-

Back away from desert lands feet and feet across,

Back along the bracken bridge bending in the moss,

Through the fearful forest grass shutting out the sky,

Up a mighty mountain range seven inches high,

Down a gloomy gully, where he loathed to be alone,

Up and down a fern frond and round and round a stone.

A dreary ant, a weary ant, resolved no more to roam,

He staggered up the garden path and popped back home.

 ***

Slow start to Sunday.  I feel rather like the ant facing insurmountable obstacles.  I'm already prepping for the week ahead - well, thinking about it and making lists.  It was a late night for Charly who had a friend stay overnight.  The program featured games of Earthopoly, charades and back episodes of Glee.  The menu included home-made rocky road (evilly addictive), spag. bol. and strawberries and ice cream. I've been trying to deflect the youngest from playing Moshi Monsters on the computer.  Ro-Ro is the only sprightly, and productive, being alive this morning.  He's emptied and loaded the dishwasher, tinkered with his Meccano set and is now reading a book on Mythology. 

Digitising Children's Art

Art

~Herman Melville 

In placid hours well-pleased we dream

Of many a brave unbodied scheme.

But form to lend, pulsed life create,

What unlike things must meet and mate:

A flame to melt--a wind to freeze;

Sad patience--joyous energies;

Humility--yet pride and scorn;

Instinct and study; love and hate;

Audacity--reverence. These must mate,
And fuse with Jacob's mystic heart,
To wrestle with the angel--Art.

I'm cleaning out the children's art portfolios from school.  Rather than keep everything, I've been taking photos so we can take remember them without having to store them in boxes. 

This way they are more accessible than they would be buried in a plastic tub in the storeroom curling and yellowing under the house.   They actually come up quite well as digitised images, I think.  I plan to scan some smaller pieces of art, home-made cards and stories written on A4 size papers so we also have them retained and well-preserved. It's possible to use these digitised images online and in print for cards and messages.  A lovely way to repurpose children's handiwork.

Some of their pieces are so exquisite, with their bold use of colour and form, that they rival professional works.  This applies to all children's art not just my own brood's!  But it is my duty of course to cherish pieces of my children's artwork - so I can be forgiven for a bit of boasting. 

Hats off to primary school teachers.  We've had fun sorting through the mountain of paper representing a year's worth of classroom labour.

School's Out!

Dashing through the bush in a rusty Holden ute,
Kicking up the dust, esky in the boot,
Kelpie by my side, singing Christmas songs,
It's summer time and I am in my singlet, shorts and thongs.

Oh! Jingle bells, jingle bells jingle all the way,
Christmas in Australia on a scorching summer's day,
Oh! Jingle bells, jingle bells, Christmas time is beaut,
Oh what fun it is to ride in a dusty Holden ute.

Engine's getting hot, we dodge the kangaroos,

The swaggie climbs aboard, he is welcome too.
All the family is there, sitting by the pool,
Christmas day in the Aussie way, by the Bar-b-cue. Oh!

School's out.  Summer holidays have begun.  We celebrated with an early evening scooter ride up and down a dodgy path by Lake Burley Griffin.  Tried skipping stones across the water's edge while dodging legions of black swans.  The pressure is on this morning to go to the pool or Big Splash.  I'm busy sorting school supplies, surveying the volumes of art works which have come home and contemplating the menu for Christmas Day.  Too late for cards, so I may have to compose an apologetic email to relatives and friends.  Still got up early this morning primed to make school lunches.  Seems quite bizarre not to have to set up the factory line of sliced bread and carrot sticks. 

Half-decorated by the children.

 

The Piano Man

PIANO TUNER, UNTUNE ME THAT TUNE

 ~ Ogden Nash

I regret that before people can be reformed they have to be sinners,
And that before you have pianists in the family you have to have
beginners.
When it comes to beginners' music
I am not enthusiastic.
When listening to something called "An Evening in My Doll House," or "Buzz,
Buzz, Said the Bee to the Clover,"
Why I'd like just once to hear it played all the way through, instead of that
hard part near the end over and over.
Have you noticed about little fingers?
When they hit a sour note, they lingers.
And another thing about little fingers, they are always strawberry-jammed or cranberry-jellied-y,
And "Chopsticks" is their favorite melody,
And if there is one man who I hope his dentist was a sadist and all his teeth
were brittle ones,
It is he who invented "Chopsticks" for the little ones.
My good wishes are less than frugal
For him who started the little ones going boggie-woogal,
But for him who started the little ones picking out "Chopsticks" on the ivories,
Well I wish him a thousand harems of a thousand wives apiece, and a
thousand little ones by each wife, and each little one playing "Chopsticks" twenty-four hours a day in all the nurseries of all his harems, or wiveries.

***

This was Little Wanna's end of year piano concert held in her classroom.  She played "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen" (which I always call "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Been") and Jingle Bells.  Months of lessons and practice, and all over in the twinkling of an eye.  So entranced was I by Ro-Ro's rendition of "Cockles and Mussels" that I completely forgot to take a photo.  It was a proud mamma moment.  Good effort kiddos and hearty thanks to the Piano Man for this adept tutoring under sometimes trying circumstances.  We ARE getting better at practice ... truly.

I love that our school offer music lessons during After School Care and enlists young musicians from the ANU School of Music to be the teachers.  It's a convenient and affordable option for working parents and a nice little earner and good experience for the teachers.  We've had doctorate students of the flute and ambitious young people whose aim is to make a living as professional musicians.  It will be as thrilling to watch their career trajectories as our own children's progress with their instruments. 

Goggle-eyed, boggle-eyed

There was a Young Lady whose eyes,
Were unique as to colour and size;
When she opened them wide,
People all turned aside,
And started away in surprise.

~ Edward Lear

***

Poor old Little Wanna.  She wants a Christmas tree badly and right now.  She'll have to wait until the weekend when I hope we can make it to Santa's Christmas Tree Farm out yonder near Sutton or Gundaroo to pick our own live beauty.  Meantime, I bought a white, artificial tree with flashing lights for a table top.  I love a seasonal light show indoors. Turning it on in the morning and when we get home in the evenings.  But nothing beats the real Tree.   The rest of Christmas, notably the shopping and the catering, is nothing short of torture for me.   With overbearing work commitments for the SSO, it looks like it will be a quiet summer this year with no road trip.  Everyone is looking forward to staying put.  We need a rest, but I suspect some shorter trips to the beach and Sydney (for the Harry Potter exhibition or bust!) will be in order.  We have nothing planned or booked of course and the holidays are just around the corner!  Maximum disorganisation.

 Felt ornament on Etsy (Yellow Bug Boutique)

Creative Collections

Pied Things

~ Gerald Manly Hopkins

Glory be, glory be, glory be to God for dappled things
Glory be, glory be, glory be to God for dappled things —
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Glory be, glory be, glory be to God for dappled things

Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced — fold, fallow, and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.
And all things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.

*** Little Miss M. is practicing styling on her dresser complete with rocks or rather a pile of builders' rubble amidst the girly trinkets.  She's quite a bower bird and makes shrines out of her found objects. But I don't know how she managed to smuggle this lot of rocks in.  I'll regularly find wrappers, pebbles, sticks, flowers and Shrinky Dinks* in her pockets and at the bottom of her school bag.. and then have to discreetly dispose of items.  Unless she catches me, then all hell breaks loose.

Right now she's making Beados** so that will be more creative material to add the installation art.

* Trade name of a children's craft kit which appears to involve drawing etched designs on lethally sharp pieces of a material designed by NASA.   Usually the by-product of After-School Hours Care or Holiday Programs.

** Tradename of a children's craft kit which involves the decorative placement of tiny coloured balls which adhere to each other when wet.  Falls apart easily and stray balls can be found for months later in strange places. 

Both need to be recalled in the interests of parental sanity... along with the dreaded Hama Beads.

Painted Nymphs

Haste Thee, Nymph
~ John Milton

Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee

Jest, and youthful Jollity,

Quips and cranks and wanton wiles,

Nods and becks and wreathed smiles

Such as hang on Hebe’s cheek,

And love to live in dimple sleek;

Sport that wrinkled Care derides,

And Laughter holding both his sides.

Come, and trip it, as you go,

On the light fantastic toe;

And in thy right hand lead with thee

The mountain-nymph, sweet Liberty;

And, if I give thee honour due,

Mirth, admit me of thy crew,

To live with her, and live with thee,

In unreproved pleasures free ...

***

We are gearing up for the end of year ballet performance with lots of rehearsals on the next few weekends. Unlike Charly's short-lived ballet career (and my own), this time we have stuck it out for a full year.  The show this time is a bigger affair too with paid seating in a proper theatre and costumes with make-up.  I'm not so sure about the need for foundation and mascara for girls under ten -- even for performances and under stage lighting.  I queried the necessity of this (not to mention the accompanying $30 price tag) with the Ballet Administration and the clerk looked at me like I was deranged.  Perhaps I am.  But honestly, we propel children towards adulthood so early, and we are a long way from signing on to a professional dance career at this stage.  Why not keep it fun and light-hearted?  We will no doubt bow to peer pressure and end up pirouetting in with a little face fully painted. 

Ro-Ro is also having group dance classes at school.  A source of much wincing and cringing when it comes to the partner dances.  The thought of make-up would be too much for him to bear.   Charly would also look like a doll in a horror movie wearing make-up.   It doesn't match her tomboy personality and wardrobe of shorts and leggings (worn together). 

So glad it's the weekend. I can even see beyond swimming lessons tonight and the bucket loads of laundry -- a gallery visit and a bike ride perhaps?  Walk 'round the lake? A few episodes of Glee Season 2?  Very excited about President Obama and Princess Mary of Denmark coming to town this month.   Mary is off to the National Arboretum I see.  Must put that on the agenda too. 

Oops.  Must dash.  As Charly would say, "Out".

  

Bikes in History

Mulga Bill's Bicycle

~AB (Banjo) Patterson

'Twas Mulga Bill, from Eaglehawk, that caught the cycling craze;
He turned away the good old horse that served him many days;
He dressed himself in cycling clothes, resplendent to be seen;
He hurried off to town and bought a shining new machine;
And as he wheeled it through the door, with air of lordly pride,
The grinning shop assistant said, "Excuse me, can you ride?"


"See here, young man," said Mulga Bill, "from Walgett to the sea,
From Conroy's Gap to Castlereagh, there's none can ride like me.
I'm good all round at everything as everybody knows,
Although I'm not the one to talk - I hate a man that blows.
But riding is my special gift, my chiefest, sole delight;
Just ask a wild duck can it swim, a wildcat can it fight.
There's nothing clothed in hair or hide, or built of flesh or steel,
There's nothing walks or jumps, or runs, on axle, hoof, or wheel,
But what I'll sit, while hide will hold and girths and straps are tight:
I'll ride this here two-wheeled concern right straight away at sight."

***

A while ago we had a weekend excusion to the Australian War Memorial which has a marvellous children's section complete with replicas of whirring helicopters, smelly submarines and life on the home front.  It is a very worthwhile place to visit but I do need to remind my son of the horrors of war rather than the Boy's Own excitement of all the battle dioramas and display cases full of dashing military garb and real artillery. 

Here we are peddling away on a stationary bike in one of the social history displays - a rather spindly affair which reminded me of my own trusty, childhood steed; back in the days when bikes had front and rear mud guards, skirt guards and a levered contraption above the back wheel on which to strap your school bag, in addition to a snazzy wire basket on the handle bars and a bell.  There were no gears or hand-brakes and we seemed to get around quite fine without them. 

We hardly ever go cycling these days.  The children don't ride to school and as we are at the top of a hill with busy roads nearby, we don't allow them to ride unaccompanied.  It is usually a big production to strap the bikes onto the car and drive to one of Canberra's spectacular bike paths for a short ride.  A quite unfortunate predicament.

October School Holidays: Howzat!

Twice a Week the Winter Thorough

~ A. E. Housman

Twice a week the winter thorough

Here stood I to keep the goal:

Football then was fighting sorrow

For the young man's soul.

Now in Maytime to the wicket

Out I march with bat and pad:

See the son of grief at cricket

Trying to be glad.

Try I will; no harm in trying:

Wonder 'tis how little mirth

Keeps the bones of man from lying

On the bed of earth.

***

School holidays are almost over and we've had a relaxing time at home for most of it.  Ro-Ro participated in the Kookaburra Cup cricket series at Manuka Oval and a separate, junior cricket clinic.  He's come home with two decent cricket hats signed by Ricking Ponting, two souvenir shirts made of a synthetic, breeze-through material, $10 off voucher from the Sportmans Warehouse and a couple of ornamental cricket ball key rings as part of the kit.  I hope he also picked up some decent cricket skills. 

The rest of us have enjoyed a semi-open house arrangement with the neighbouring children which has involved lots of competitive DS and Wizard 101 tournaments, zipping over the lower part of the fence at the back of the yard to bounce on our respective trampolines and probably eating twice as many snacks as strictly necessary as they blithely saunter into each other's kitchens and raid the pantry.

I've been cooking up a storm myself in order to use up left overs.  Rather like the daytime TV show which involves a chef and a member of the studio audience having to devise a menu around a handful of ingredients, this has resulted in some unexpected creations such as almond friands from "out of the fire and into the frying pan" - a collection of recipes from the Duffy Primary School community and friends - October 2003, Nigella Lawson's Mughlai Chicken and Susan Duncan's "House at Salvation Creek" Lemon Cake.   The results have been varied.  I blame the oven.  It has been fun trying though, without the pressure which normally accompanies the after school and work, weekday rush.  I could so get used to this more moderate tempo, in which I can hear and listen to bird calls and notice the flowering azaleas and lavender in the garden, rather than leave it all behind each morning unnoticed and unappreciated in a workday blur.  Would I miss work?

Day home from school

Tummy bug and fever has kept littlest one at home today. 

This has been a season of viruses. 

 More days off than I've ever had before.

So after I sent excuses in to work, school and after-school, we planted sunflower seeds, watered the zucchini seeds planted yesterday, made chocolate cake, cleaned windows, dusted places that haven't been dusted for a while, cleaned and buffed leather lounge, reframed a piece of child's art, danced to Glee numbers and Total Girl Hits of Summer 2011 (which transports me back to our Summer Road Trip of 2011 along the Great Ocean Road and highway to Adelaide), wiped bird poop off deck, skipped and admired skipping, ate tinned soup and pasta for lunch, put on a load of washing, applied carpet shampoo to high-traffic areas and vacuumed off, idled on the computer reading blogs and playing Wizard 101, read a bit of the paper...

 and there's still some time to go until pick-up.

I'd love to be a sahm.

This has been a lovely day.

Image: Queensland School Readers of my era

Childhood

A LONG AGO STORY.

"You may laugh, my little people, But be sure my story's true; For I vow by you church steeple, I was once a child like you." The Land of Long Ago.