Shimmer

Colinette Shimmer 5 in "Sea Breeze" arrived in the mail yesterday from Sunspun in Canterbury, Victoria

With yarn this beautiful I have no shortage of volunteers to help me wind the wool, hoping that there will be something in it for them. But, alas, this is intended to be made into a 40th birthday gift.

Exam Day

Ballet exams today.

I spent the day doing "ballet hair" for lots of nervous girls.

Walking to the exam.

All smiles when they came out. The examiner was lovely. No-one forgot their steps. KelpieBlossom is already fretting waiting for the results to come.

Scarf

Do not adjust your monitors, this is not a knitblog. My theory is, however, that if you read enough craft blogs you will eventually be compelled to knit a scarf.

On Friday I took delivery of 3 hanks of the Welsh hand-dyed yarn Colinette Point 5 in "Monet". On Friday night the kids and I wound the wool into balls. On Saturday I bought 15mm needles, cast on 11 stitches and used up 2 hanks making this scarf:

Quite proud of myself really. It's not perfect, but hey, nor am I, so we match. The colours are even more stunning in real life and it is a really warm, chunky scarf perfect for the cold winters we don't get here in Sydney.

I knitted this scarf for 9 yo KelpieBlossom. Next time I would make it slightly narrower -perhaps 8-9 stitches.

MyMum will be pleased to see that all this knitting has inspired both KelpieBlossom and Padawan Learner to give knitting a try. Here is KelpieBlossom using the needles given to her by MyMum last year. Padawan Learner is proving more complex to teach because he is left-handed, and I'm not, so it is more difficult to demonstrate the stitches. Any tips out there?

Seriously, am I having a mid-life crisis?

First it was the baking, and now three beautiful hanks of Colinette Point 5 (in Monet)

It's hard to know whether my family and friends will laugh themselves silly or call me and ask in a concerned voice "So, how ARE things?" As it is only five weeks until a BIG birthday they may just shrug it off like they did when I knitted a cardigan for KelpieBlossom just before she was born. Except that this time instead of thinking "Aaah, nesting" they will think "Aaah, aging".

But, my friends, I have been INSPIRED. Ever since I spied the beautiful scarf knitted by Jane on Yarnstorm in Colinette Point Five (Sea Breeze) I have been trying to find the same yarn here in Australia.

Hardly anyone seems to stock this beautiful hand-dyed Welsh product. I finally found some at Sunspun in Melbourne. I rang the lovely lady there yesterday and she popped some in the post. My package arrived TODAY at 11am.

Now all I need is some 12mm or 15mm needles for a loose knit and I'm off and running. Except that here on the North Shore those that are Too Posh to Push are also Too Knackered to Knit and there is a dearth of knitting suppliers close by. My choices seemed to be either Spotlight in Dee Why or Rubi & Lana in Gordon.

And here is the main difference between my shopping experiences in Melbourne and Sydney. My wool arrived overnight without me even leaving the house. Yet this afternoon I drove in peak Friday "off-to-my-hunter-valley-retreat" traffic for 45 minutes to Gordon to arrive at Rubi&Lana by 4.40pm to FIND IT CLOSED. I think I'll give up and order the needles from somewhere in Melbourne, they should be here before breakfast tomorrow.

So, what am I going to knit?

A scarf.

Don't want to get too ahead of myself. Hopefully it will be ready by next Winter.


Update Sat 20th: Finally got my needles at Spotlight. Don't hold your breath; could be a while before I post a result...

Happy Birthday MyDad

I wanted to mock up one of those "Inspiration" posters on Flickr. But I thought it wouldn't go down well. If I had it would've said:

OLD IS A JOURNEY

Congratulations on Reaching your Destination

On second thoughts maybe I will mock one up.

Happy Birthday Dad!

This is what else has happened on this day:

1888 - Thomas Edison files a patent for the Optical Phonograph (the first movie).
1931 - Al Capone convicted of income tax evasion.
1937 - Huey, Dewey and Louie, Donald Duck's three almost identical nephews, first appear in a newspaper comic strip.

These other people were born:

1918- Rita Hayworth
1938 - Evel Knievel
1972 - Eminem

and

it is the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty

Holiday Reading, and a bit each side

Firstly, I must 'fess up that these books were not all, strictly, read during the school holiday period but they did all overlap. Unusually, all books are going to get a good wrap, but for different reasons.

Carpentaria by Alexis Wright

A Gulf-country story of the intersection between Aboriginal and European Australia. Written, but not narrated, in the 'voice' of a male aboriginal elder. First 250 pages were excruciating to read. The Last 270 were amazing. I then returned and re-read most of the first 250 pages and declare this to be one of the most incredible books I've read for a long time. Its major fault is that it is not an accessible read for many due to its structure which verges on a magic realism-type style and YET it had to be written in this style to command the effect it does. Predict this to become a standard University-level English text (only because it is too long for an HSC text, I think).

9/10

March by Geraldine Brooks

A well thought through spin-off to the Little Women story. Tells the story of Captain March the father of Jo, Beth & Co and what he did during the Civil War. Geraldine's husband is a Civil War expert which is evident in its well-researched "feel".

7.5/10

Theft by Peter Carey

Brilliant account of the tension between creativity and commercialism played out in the art world. Narrated in turn by the artist and the artist's idiot-savant brother, who is able to provide the view of the silent observer.

8/10

Antony & Cleopatra by Colleen McCullough

The eighth, and possibly last, in the Masters of Rome series about the last years of the Roman Republic. Colleen is one of the world's great experts on the Roman Republic and her theories are always worth reading. The fact that she presents her theories in a fictionalised narrative makes them all the more palatable. With Colleen you know the story but still mourn the fate of your favourite characters.

8/10 for her extraordinarily in depth approach.

Sunnyside by Joanna Murray-Smith

A playwright by profession, this book reads like it should be showing at the The Ensemble Theatre. Tells the tale of families living in a fictionalised upper-middle class suburb of Melbourne (a barely disguised Mt Eliza). An excruciatingly accurate mirror to our lives that is written in a way that it can't be pigeon-holed with the likes of The Nanny Diaries, Gucci Mamas or any other Chick Lit. Read it if you dare.

7.5/10

How you can tell if I REALLY like a book. I mark my favourite passages.

Yep, way scary.

Do Your Kids Ride Up Front?

With summer sports starting up this week families are madly arranging shared transport to and from training and games. Parking is at a premium in our area and my car has the capacity to seat 7 so I often find myself as Parent Most Likely to Be Primary Taxi Driver.

TECHNICALLY I could take six kids but I seem to be the only parent left who will not let their children sit in the front passenger seat. I think that five excited kids in a car smooshing pieces of apple and SAOs into the carpet is more than enough anyway.

By the way, we are talking age group 6-9 here.

It is not illegal anywhere in Aust. to have a child in the front seat if they are "properly restrained". However, the most commonly reported recommended minimum age for sitting in the front of a car with airbags seems to be 12, although some say 10. Some US-based reports say 14. And that it is not a size but an age-related issue (muscle/bone development/tone etc).

Anyway, what do you think? Am I truly the only parent left whose primary school-aged children are strapped into the back seat? Am I over-cautious? I know I rode in the front seat all the time as a child, but we didn't have airbags then.

*image from here

This Domesticity is Getting Ridiculous. Get Me Another Glass of Wine.

Well, what can I say? A girl gets a new Mixmaster and she's just got to put it through its paces. And what do I think? Well:

• It's very shiny


• Despite the Sunbeam lady assuring me my old bowls would fit, they don't.


• They don't fit because, unlike old Mixmaster, this one has a motorised base and the bowls "click into" it.


• So unlike old Mixmaster I can't hold the bowl in one place to get all the tricky stuck down bits or REVERSE the bowl like I used to


• HOWEVER, I am now used to this new situation and pronounce New Mixmaster a friend.
  

Oh, and on Saturday I made this. It's a Blueberry Cheesecake Tart I got from Fairlie's Blog. It went down very well. It looks a little well-fired around the edges in the photo but it wasn't in real life, I don't think. Oh well, who cares, it was delicious.

Now I promise to get back to my normal levels of non-domesticity.

* Top photo shows: remains of a Pound Cake, Banana Cake, Choc Chip Cookies, Massive Jam Drops

RIP

3am, Saturday 13 October 2007

R.I.P. Pierre Bear

A bit of perspective

I think we can do without Foxtel for a few days, and really a leaking washing machine will cause us no harm.

On Wednesday our friend Pierre (Firegazer's bike-mad Belgian cycling buddy) was admitted to hospital with symptoms something like heart failure. He is under heavy sedation. He is a long way from home. His wife's family have flown up from Melbourne, his family are on their way from Belgium.

Just now we hear that he has swelling on the brain, irreversible brain damage, and is unlikely to wake up or recover.

He's 33.

Because shoes can't fall off during an exam

KelpieBlossom is not happy because I bought her a new pair of ballet shoes.

She loves the pair in the top of the picture because "they help me to point my feet better". Problem is they are a size too small, and the colour is all scuffed off beyond the point that any calamine lotion or shoe paint can rectify - and she has her ballet exam in two weeks.

So we had new ones fitted, not with growing room, but to "exam" specs. I then had to sew the elastics in.

This is not a 5 minute job. We know from experience the importance of well sewn in elastics/ribbons. Five minutes before walking out on stage before a ballet eisteddfod in July a ribbon popped off her shoe...

Bloomin' October

The September flowers are nearly finished, but -wait- here is the October showing.

Gotta love the lady who established and nutured this garden in the 40 years before we got it!

Appliance Change-Over Year 2

... and now the washing machine is leaking rust-coloured water.

Great.

Oh, and our Foxtel box is playing up. Foxtel can't figure out what is wrong over the phone so they are sending out a technician sometime between 7am-12noon NEXT TUESDAY.

I'm completely fine about the TV being out of action. I am not completely fine about sitting around for 5 hours on a Tuesday waiting for the technician to fix something I don't even like.

Appliance Change-over Year

2007 must be small kitchen appliance change-over year. In July my kettle (age: 7 years) died, in August my Sunbeam Mixmaster (Age: 5 years) died and this week my toaster (age: 3 years) died. I'm just hoping the things-happening-in-threes thing applies and no more appliances die. Oh, I forgot - my 12 yo food processor had a little accident (I accidentally thought it would be okay to put the bowl in the microwave, oops).

Of course none of these things are designed to be fixed. I now know to look to see if an appliance has screws in it. If it is just banged together it ain't designed to be fixed. I hate throwing out appliances. As far as I know my Mum's Mixmaster is still going strong after 40 years and I can confirm that her sewing machine is because I still use it. I hate that we don't design things to be fixable (at a cost less than a new one).

Today I bought a new toaster and Mixmaster and made sure they were ones that could be fixed. I hope. I probably should've looked on eBay for items that were 40+ years old just to be sure.

*image of 1967/68 Sunbeam Mixmaster from here

Cat Wrangling: because Tara Says So

KelpieBlossom (9) is a big fan of Tara Dennis and Better Homes and Gardens. Come 7.30pm Friday she is glued to the Plasma hoping to glean whatever domestic pearls of wisdom Tara has for her that night. This is why we only have OMO washing powder, why this week we had to cut up plastic bottles to make scoops (actually quite handy, see pics below) AND why we had to BATH OUR CATS today.

While our older cat, Biggie, was introduced to the pleasures of bathing at a young age; our 18 month old Marble had thus far avoided the dreaded bath. Apparently this week on BH&G Tara instructed KelpieBlossom to bath her cats, and to do so at least once a month.

Excellent.

Luckily, Firegazer is an experienced and capable cat wrangler and managed the job without loss of eye or limb.

Baby Romper Suit: Access Denied. Reason: Dating theme.

A few weeks ago I upgraded my online security which included a program that limited access to "unseemly" websites, in theory making the Internet safer surfing for the kids.

Bl**dy boring more like it. This program uses two Internet safety programs to decide whether a site's contents are kosher and resulted in me being unable to access half of the blogs I like to read.

I'm sorry Stomper Girl and Melinda but you are too "Adult" for this parental control program (what have you been up to!). And, hilariously, I was denied access to a page on http://www.gimos.com.au/ which illustrated a baby romper-suit with the word "girlfriends" on it because it had a "dating" theme! I'm convinced this program is controlled by the Conservative Religious Right.

Warning: Offensive Outfit Above. Contains Dating References.

I have managed to dig deep into the "advanced settings" and have now got a password which I can input to "over-ride" these denied accesses. That'll show'em.

Fractured Holidays

Aaah holidays. I don't know why I should feel different when the kids are on holidays. I mean during term time the kids are at school for five hours a day. Isn't that a holiday? But no; term time means hurried breakfasts, the dreaded packed lunch, homework and horror of all horrors - after-school activities. And that's without the Last Minute Project, the School-Play Costume and We Need a Parent Volunteer for [add activity here]. No holidays are bliss.

What is it with all the Play Dates? I have mentioned before that I deliberately planned a quiet, in Sydney, holiday. No major events planned, no over-scheduling, just wake up and lie around in jammies until lunchtime. Ha! I didn't plan on the kids being invited on play date after play date. It's not that I mind them disappearing for several hours, and the kids love them, it's just that I feel that I should reciprocate - and I JUST DON'T WANT TO (for the Jammies Until Lunchtime reason). So I will be Bad Reciprocator this holidays.

Still, apart from the play dates it has been quite relaxing. The kids have been trying out a new swim school by doing their SwimVac program and I'm REALLY IMPRESSED. This school (Carlile Swimming) actually focuses on stroke correction; the last two schools I've tried just pump out the laps.

I get to read books, yay! I finished Carpentaria just before the holidays started and have since finished March by Geraldine Brooks (which had being laying unfinished for some months) and Theft by Peter Carey. All good reads so far.

Now I am onto Antony and Cleopatra by Colleen McCullough. This is the eighth book in the Masters of Rome series and is definitely up to Colleen's usual standards (Although she has annoyed me with her apostrophe use eg. Octavianus's - I prefer Octavianus'). Colleen is one of the world's great experts on the Roman Republic and her point of view on this stuff is really worth reading.

Here's the bit about the fracture. Yesterday the kids went to a Baseball clinic - Baseball being their chosen summer sport this year (Hilariously, Firegazer is their Match Coach! I think he may have once watched a game of baseball). During catching practice (without a mitt), where balls were fired rapidly from a machine, KelpieBlossom sustained a green stick fracture to her Pinky and now has it strapped up. Great look for her upcoming ballet exam...

What is a holiday without some sort of fracture anyway?