Dear Gareth

It was so kind of you to address your first blog post in two years to me personally. I’ve been smiling all morning since I read it. And feeling a bit old. Feel free to take responsibility for the smiles and I’ll take full responsibility for the old thing.

Anyway, it was great to read about your travel plans, and I thought, well, if Gareth can get his act together to blog after two years I can update the world on the goings on here. I’ve been letting the blog go a bit. It needs weeding and watering. And content.

Ahem. We celebrated the kid’s birthday a bit early to make sure he got his moment in the sun before everyone started talking about Christmas.

He requested an Old Macdonald Had A Farm cake. My oldest friends spent their Saturday night making marzipan animals and a tractor. I slathered the green food colouring around.

Having realised that his knees were hitting the handlebars on the trike he was given last year we decided to get him a two wheeler bike. He unwrapped the helmet first and said “it’s a helmet for riding a two wheeler, you could go to the shop and borrow a bike for me to ride”. So it turns out we overspent, because he would have been ok with just borrowing a bike every now and then. He was speechless when he unwrapped the bike, and now i understand why my grandpa enjoyed Christmas so much. Being able to give your kids something they didn’t even dare dream about is so cool.

We’ve been getting ready for Christmas. The Bloke’s family will be here Christmas Day, we’re looking forward to it and trying to work out how many extra glasses and chairs we have to borrow. I found a bunch of new plates and bowls in the local oppies and they’ve all had a run in the new (to us) dishwasher. We inherited a dishwasher. Let’s not talk about how exciting that is because it’s one of those things that contributes to feeling old. The kid has enjoyed Christmasses past, but this one is the first he’s able to anticipate and get excited about before the actual day. He’s figuring out who Santa is, and that there’ll be presents and a party and “all my friends will be there”.* The Bloke and I, atheist and apathetic about Christmas for so many years, find ourselves enjoying the making of decorations, the purchasing of presents (and getting competitive about which of us has found the Best Present) and we even bought a tree.

Our excitement hasn’t made us completely loopy, when I say “bought a tree” I mean “went to Diggers and purchased a small olive tree”. Dammit I’m not spending money on a tree that doesn’t produce edibles. Our olive tree is still very small, the kid helped pot it up and made lots of appropriate oo-ing and ah-ing noises about the decorations. The tree itself isn’t sturdy enough yet to hold up all those decorations by itself so we’ve enlisted the help of the Macquarie Dictionary.

The kid has also learned to pose for photos. The elbow on the heater cracks me up. How does he even know to reference all those Gentleman leaning on fireplaces in grand houses?

* Which is to say “my grandparents, my cousins, any aunty who brings treats (all of them) and Uncle D who has a boat and is therefore the coolest of cool”

I tried

The kid came home from daycare with a colouring in of Santa last week, I asked him who it was, he said “I dunno, um, Santa”. Then he wanted to know more about Santa, so I explained.

“So I will see Santa at Christmas?”
“No, he’ll come when you’re asleep and be gone before you wake up”
“Ahuh”

And the look on his face said “So I totally don’t have to bother remembering his name”.

Productivity

A new top, with vintage button, which is very comfy.

I was just about to photograph myself in it when the kid decided cuddles were essential, so you get two for one here.

We’ve been gardening a bit, the grass and weeds are growing at a phenomenal rate and the good stuff is coming along too. The brassicas went nuts, this was taken just before we pulled them out last week.

There are spuds and broad beans (with weeds, so many freakin’ weeds). We’ve even had our first evening snack of broad beans al fresco.

The coriander has been going off. I now have more coriander than I’ve ever had before. Even if you add up all previous coriander harvests. Cool huh?

The kid painting binge continues, and I’ve been joining in too. Today I even shelled out for good quality ink and did some work in the garden.

Hi, remember me? I used to blog here…

Here are some photos of stuff I’ve been doing when I could have been blogging:

Practicing what I preach, that is, hanging art around the place

Having a romantic weekend getaway type thing with the Bloke

Looks good doesn’t it? Tropical almost. You may find it difficult to believe that almost every single plant was plastic. The Bloke is not much of a one for luxury holidays, but he really lands on his feet with the comedy weekend. Here I am returning one of the plastic plants to it’s window box after a windy night.

But wait, you say, are those wheels? Yes my friends, in strict contravention of Clifford Rule of Dating #18 (never eat on something that moves*), the Bloke took me to stay in a gypsy caravan. Feel free to throw in another chorus of Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist right about now. They’re authentic gypsy caravans, apparently authentic gypsy caravans have their fit-out done by a guy called Sven based in 1983. Sadly we were so relaxed by the pine walls and ceiling that we neglected to photograph them. The Bloke would like me to add that he whipped my arse in both Scrabble and Mini Golf over the weekend, and that we ate very well, with window seats at Oscar W’s on the Saturday night coinciding with the paddle steamer sail past and fireworks.

Totally rejuvenated by the holiday, I bought some stuff in Lancefield’s oppy. Jigsaw puzzles with missing pieces, Pictionary with nothing missing except the counters, and a bunch of Fowlers Vacola jars. The best bit is that I had neglected to bring any cash, so the frog had to shout. I’ve spent a lot of time hanging out with a new friend, partly because she’s excellent company, partly because our partners also like each other, and most importantly, because our sons love each other to bits and hardly ever do the toddlerish snatching and whining thing. Having kids who bugger off down the back of the yard to the sandpit for hours while you chat and bake and drink tea is the best.

Over the weekend I went to a workshop, which left me emotionally wrung out and full of creative energy. It was excellent, I’ve cleaned out the studio, I’ve solved some problems with a creative project, I’ve put things away, I’ve thrown some crap out, I met some lovely generous creative people who live near me, I’ve done some drawing and some writing, and most importantly, I’m feeling a bit more confident about my ability to combine my creative life with all the other stuff.

Then today the kid and I worked on these.

We’ll be working on some sort of garland type arrangement with these for our Christmas tree. I’ve had all the stuff for these flowers cut out and ready to assemble for a couple of years, and now they’re done. That final stitching all the pieces together bit really was shamefully fast. Wish I hadn’t put it off so long…

* My brother’s sister-in-law went on a romantic dinner and flight over Melbourne in a small plane several years ago, the plane crashed and so did the relationship.

Next week on Hey Hey

Historian meets keen gardener

How excellent is this collection of seed packet design?

Who knew?

Instead of being able to lean over the cubicle and discuss an issue, or easily arrange a meeting, they instead often have to pick up the slack or work around their absent colleague.

For some, the empty chair next to them makes it harder to work. ”I didn’t see anyone from [my] team until 10.30 or 11am and it’s not really motivating you,” one co-worker told British researchers.

…

The researchers could not readily explain why productivity would rise, but said most workers seemed able to accommodate their regularly absent colleagues – unless there needed to be a quick meeting.

Couldn’t explain it? Really? I suspect reducing the possibility for the unmotivated slacker in the adjoining cubicle to interrupt your work is the biggest factor in improved productivity. If you have to plan your time, your work and your meetings it makes you think things through before you start interrupting everyone else.

Festival of the NQR WIP

I’ve had a spate of making screwups, which may account for the recent burst of activity in the garden (hell, when the crafting gods have left the building, you may as well throw it all in a heap and get on with some planting) but today I thought I’d get back to a project I’ve had on hold for a few weeks. I hadn’t screwed it up, I had all the stuff, and the kid is at childcare, so there was nothing that could possibly go wrong.

Unless of course you are of the opinion that a quilt backing should cover the entire back of the quilt, in which case, what I have here is another screw up.

Excuse me while I add that to the sock that needs ripping (the Bloke wants them to be the same length) and the top that I need to purchase another ball of expensive wool for (so that it will cover my torso without breathing in all day). Fortunately the extra quilt backing fabric and the wool come from the same shop, so fixing these measuring blunders could be relatively quick. Just cross your fingers for me that they haven’t sold out.

It’s that time of year

The daffodils are up, but when you see them (ok, when I see them) you (ahem, I, this is getting tricky) just want to pick them quickly and watch them open up from the comfort of a spot near-ish the heater. So I’ve got daffodils on the mantle above the heater, and another daffodil on the window ledge in the kitchen to look at while washing dishes. I left a few outside, but I’m tempted to bring them in too. It’ll be a few more weeks before sitting outside long enough to notice the flowers sounds appealing. It’s that time when winter is pretty much finished, but spring isn’t quite here. Stop me if I get too metaphorical.

The blossoms came out while I was working every day in the city, so I ventured out into the garden on Friday during my first full day at home in three weeks, and was confronted with it. We can’t see the backyard from inside the house, so if we don’t go out looking, change sneaks up on us. It was a busy weekend, in between the ceremony that marked the end of my old life, the family lunch and the afternoon tea with our new friends, we managed to squeeze in some garden planning and seed shopping. You know we’ve got our priorities right: a coffee date was cancelled so we went to the nursery. There are now lots and lots of seeds in my little seed box. Reader, I alphabetised them.

I’ve broken up most of the pea straw that has been our garden edging for six months and used it to cover weeds, I’ve planted potatoes and mulched them too, we’ve prepared the tomato bed (every year we debate the best position and spend the longest time on preparing the tomato bed, this year we had the debate early and started preparations with a green manure of mustard) and I’ve pruned. Oh boy did I prune. My father-out-law will be proud. I got in the mood a few weeks ago while helping a friend prune her fruit trees, then came home and did some serious work on the leggy ornamentals in our back corner. I’m hoping they’ll reshoot lower down and be more shrubby and fence-hidey. It’s not entirely coincidental that this lets a lot more light into the back corner and improves it’s veggie producing prospects. I now have a rather large pile of logs and our mulcher is too feeble to deal with them. There are a few days of wind and rain predicted hereabouts, we’re wondering which of the brittle drought affected, borer-riddled trees will fall down.

The kid’s irises have been producing new leaves in the spot Nanna said wouldn’t be any good, the collection of rocks and god-knows-what out the front has been softened somewhat by several new native ground covers and grasses and today I found two worms in the patch near our gate. The worms are remarkable because the patch was mysteriously free of weeds when we moved in, and the bamboo next to it was (and still is) harbouring an oil slick. The kid helped me plant giant sunflowers there with some poppies and nasturtiums. The Bloke wants to plant out our front “lawn” with pumpkins. Pumpkin growing efforts at our last house did not result in any pumpkins, but they did act as an interesting ground cover (and concrete cover, they spread enthusiastically and headed towards the back lane) and kept the weeds down for a few months, so I’m thinking it’s a good idea. I don’t like mowing grass, and I like mowing weeds even less. I certainly have no intention of watering grass or weeds, so in summer the whole thing will turn into a dust bowl. I am prepared to lug watering cans of tank water about the place for a pumpkin. Even a pumpkin that might not fruit.

Tomorrow there’s another trip to the nursery for seed raising mix, calls to the compost and straw suppliers, some potting under the cover of the carporch, and playgroup. Mustn’t forget playgroup.

Breastfeeding support

I’m all about the political action these days (ok, not all, I’m also about the two hour commute, and I’m buggered) here is where you go to stick your oar in if you want the government to get past promoting breastfeeding and get on with the difficult work of actually supporting women to do it.

They’ve got some questions, you can email them your responses. Make it as long or short as you fancy, and feel free to tell them that you want them to start supporting all and sundry to upskill and become lactation consultants. I suggested they start making it financially rewarding for midwives, maternal and child health nurses and general practictioners to do the extra training. Then I suggested they do some breastfeeding education amongst health professionals more generally so that breastfeeding mothers aren’t undermined by clueless people.