I don’t want to put anyone off visiting, but we’ve had the heater on pretty much all day for the last few days, there’s been talk of buying an electric blanket, and we’ve been wearing thermals. I heart the ultrafine merino and the New Zealanders who sail in them.* It’s been raining on and off for several days, which is pretty fantastic given that two months ago I felt like it was never going to rain again. It might take me a very long time to get sick of winter.

We’ve bought up big on peastraw to edge the garden and provide it with a little insulation. The lad also finds it is a handy wall to walk on and practice balancing. This may get more exciting as the rain soaks in and the peastraw breaks down.

gardening

That hint of blue sticking out from under his read skivvy is his thermal. One of his thermals. I’m so glad I stocked up on them in the Christmas sales. What with all the rain there’s been lots of indoor activity. Except for the Saturday morning garage sale we went to where we found the beads. A huge bag of beads. A bag of wooden beads on bits of nylon thread that used to be a beaded car seat cover (I’m tipping) for $2.

beads

He has played with them for hours already, and fortunately, no one has yet broken an ankle falling on them. (They’re closely related to Bluemilk’s “goddamn craft”). Lest you get the impression it’s all terribly wholesome around here with the thrifty wooden playthings and fairtrade basketry, I should point out that the little black thing, with just a fleck of white in the centre, just a little north of the yellow blocks, is a Racing Nun. We have two of them, they’re on wheels, they race. All those years of Catholic education come down to Racing Nuns. And those strings of beads? Well each of them is the same length as one member of the family (yes I know, aren’t we delightful and brilliant parents?) and the kid has taken to stringing them around our necks and telling us we’re King of the Office (brilliant parents introducing the toddler to interoffice competitiveness).

In other news, I decided to do some embroidery for the first time since the Great Cross Stitch Christmas Decoration of 1994-1995. Being your standard or garden variety toddler the lad decided he wanted in on the action, so I found him some scrap fabric and got him kitted out with a needle (we’re livin’ on the edge people) and some embroidery thread I got free at an op shop, which is what happens when you go opping at 5 minutes to 4pm and the volunteers all want to go home. After a few unsuccessful goes at saying “embroidery” he decided to call it “drawing with needles” instead. Which is perfect. My drawing with needles is coming along slowly, and I’m enjoying the colouring-in. His drawing with needles is also coming along and involves quite a lot of puckered fabric and calls for “more blue!” and “more gold!” which, frankly, is ace.

* It’s late, I’m tired, and I couldnt’ think of any grammatical way of saying what I needed to say, so I went with a completely innapropriate cliche, whaddaya gunna do?