Diary of an Easter Show

Sydney Royal Easter Show, Sun 30 March 2008

8.30am: Firegazer's birthday present - a GPS - is programmed for Olympic Park P1 (we are hopeful).

9am: In GPS we trust. Despite not telling us to exit at Homebush Bay Drive we bravely continue along the M4 wondering whether the GPS really knows how to get us to the show. It surprises us with an even better way of getting there. Yay! There are parking spots left.

9.30am: Straight to the Showbag Hall. Quick pick a showbag and let's get out of here. Padawan Learner walks out shooting everyone with his Pirates of the Caribbean pistol.

9.45am: "Mum I have to see the cats. Let's go to the cats. Oooh, Mum look at all the cute Kitties. Oh, can we have one of those". Notice the Bengals looking disdainfully at the crowds. The Australian Mists are sleeping on each other. The Burmese is asleep in his kitty litter.

10am: Kids let's go to the Woodchop! Oooh cool! says Padawan Learner Oooh boring! says KelpieBlossom. After 20 minutes we can't get KB away. Do you think they're going to chop their feet off? What happens if they chop their feet off?

10.30am: Now kids we have to see the District Displays. That's why Mummy comes to the show - for the District Displays and the CWA exhibits. Mum this is boooorring. We steer clear of the man showing the "amazing steam mop" in the "Lifestyle and Home" hall.

10.45am: CWA Exhibits. We find the knitting & crocheting. Why do these ladies have to knit in shiny purple nylon? Urgh. Best item is a baby's dress knitted in the tiniest stitches. She must've used 1mm needles. Do they make them that small? The cakes are lovely. There is a cake made in the shape of a recycling bin.

11am: The art exhibits. KB has a meltdown because she wants to see the dogs NOW. Drag unhappy children around at least 450 paintings.

11.20am: Finally, the dogs. Where are the golden retrievers? Where are the Cavaliers? Look a dog called Hagrid! And another one! Firegazer looks around and says "y'know I would've thought I was more of a dog person but I look around at these dog people and think actually I'm more of a cat person". Walking through the dog pavilion is like watching "Best in Show" (haven't seen it? get it out on DVD). Outside there is a real life "Best in Show" going on. Hilarious. Not the dogs. The people with the dogs.

11.50: Fairy Floss stop

11.55: Buckets of Fat (lunch) stop

12.00: Get a seat in the Main Arena. Watch the Extreme Korruption show. V8 Toyota Hilux precision driving team sprays fine red dust all over the audience. Danger Man and Danger Woman do death defying feats on the High Wire. Oooh. aaaah. Then the extreme Moto Cross bikes do jumps. Excellent.

12.45pm: Time to go home. Walk to the entrance. Can't believe we've managed to avoid the rides and the sideshows. Don't mention it. Dad...do you have my pistol? No. Dad walks back to the Main Arena and wrestles Padawan Learner's pistol off its new owner. Now we can go home.

1.45pm: Home. $75 on tickets. $15 on parking. $35 on showbags (2 of them). $20 on lunch. And a fine coating of red dust on all of us.

Happy Birthday Firegazer!

I'm not allowed to tell you that Firegazer is 41 today. So, please don't tell anyone. Ok?

(I was going to tell lots of Firegazer tales but he keeps looking over my shoulder...)

Too Too Beautiful

I just have to show you KelpieBlossom's tutu for this year's Ballet Eisteddfods. Isn't it beautiful? We are fortunate to be able to hire tutus each year from the older students because this particular style can cost upwards of $500 to have made.

The previous owner of this tutu must've been the tiniest slip of a thing as a nine-year-old because KB is somewhat of a stick insect and yet I still need to let out the bodice at the back to get a proper fit.

Past Tense: Knitted, Knit or Knat?

A sneak preview of my next project:
a baby's jumper (sweater, pullover, jersey) for my next-door-neighbour
in Sublime Cashmere Merino Silk DK. Pattern from Sublime.

Yesterday three women chatted as they watched their daughters at Soccer training. One a fabulous knitter ("Mum, she's the fastest knitter I've ever seen"), one an English-as-a-foreign-language teacher at a French school and myself (general dogsbody, taxi driver, linguistics grad).

The question of the afternoon was "What is the past tense of 'to knit'". There was some muttering about irregular verbs and the like but we agreed that, somehow, "knitted" as in "I knitted a pair of socks" sounded all wrong. But was "I knit a pair of socks" any better? Perhaps it should be "I knat a pair of socks"?

Back home I consulted my trusty Macquarie Dictionary.

To Knit is, indeed, an irregular verb. The simple past tense of Knit is traditionally Knit. But that sounds horrid and could be confusing. Luckily the Macquarie provides options:

knit verb (past tense: knitted or knit)

So, in another fabulous example of people power, the once irregular verb knit has been brought back to the fold and given a regular past tense by popular demand.

Just don't say knat.

The socks are finished!

Yarn: Debbie Bliss Cashmerino in Baby Blue
Pattern: Patons Rib Socks from Book 1239 Patonyle Accessories for the whole Family

Well, they are finally finished. It's amazing how you think you've got ages to go - then, suddenly, you've reached the toe. I'm not happy with the toe grafting. Actually it's seriously bad but I think the only solution is for one of you expert toe grafters to sit over my shoulder next time I attempt a sock.

When S from TeamSAK comes home from 'up north' I'll pack these up and send them down to Melbourne. I hope they'll be comfy for padding around the house in during the depths of Winter there.

Look, an Easter post with no Eggs or Bunnies

Never have so many recipes come from the one book for the one lunch.

Today we hosted an Easter Day lunch for ArmyWife and her family visiting from Canberra and our local friends from The Point. I made five salads and one dessert from One Fine Day - an amazing cookbook put together by my old High School. The dessert was a variation on a 1970s classic - the ice cream sandwich. This variation was home-made Malteser ice cream sandwiched between malt'o'milk biscuits. Yum! I also put out a tray of "Toorak Driveway" the sensational adult Rocky Road recipe with white chocolate, pistachios and Turkish Delight sent to me by Fairlie.

After lunch the kids hunted for Easter Eggs and then played down at Shell Cove where sandcastles, mud-crawling and mud-slinging was the order of the day. From the last pic you can see what happens when three 'tweens' are let loose in KelpieBlossom's bedroom for a couple of hours.

The guests arrived at 12noon and left at 10pm, so I guess they had fun.

Happy Easter!

A Revolution in Knitting

Mum emailed me recently to say that, during the Reign of Terror in France, Tricoteuses (female knitters) where paid to sit at the Guillotine and pass judgement on the condemned. Most commonly the judgement was "Off with his/her head" - after all the Tricoteuses were often from the class of citizen most likely to be adversely impacted by the aristocracy of the time. Dickens' character, and primary villain, from The Tale of Two Cities - Madame Defarge - was a Tricoteuse.

So this gets me thinking. If I promise not to be in any way villainous or call out "off with his head" to passing strangers do you think I could get paid to knit in public? It would be very relaxing for everyone to watch. Call it a mental health strategy; a public service.

PS the second sock is coming along well. I've turned the heel and am making my way, slowly, to the toe.

Apostrophes, people, do not indicate a plural...mostly

Okay, I can't bear it anymore. Fairlie's recent post has spurred me to say something. It's very simple, there are few exceptions. Here is M's official "I Studied Linguistics for Years so There" apostrophe tutorial:

Apostrophes are short cuts which show:

1. Belonging, and
2. Missing Bits

and that's about it. Actually, apostrophes are really just about missing bits. But humour me here.

Example of belonging: KelpieBlossom's new top is blue.

The apostrophe shortens the sentence "The top belonging to KelpieBlossom is blue" by replacing The and belonging to.

Example of missing bits: PadawanLearner didn't eat his vegetables tonight.

The apostrophe shortens the word "did not" to "didn't and indicates the "o" is missing.

Now here is the important bit:

Apostrophes do not indicate plurals. So, you don't need apostrophes such as pizza's, DVD's, orange's, apple's and eye's when pizzas, DVDs, oranges, apples and eyes are perfectly fine.

But I get it. You think these words look funny without an apostrophe so you put one in. Trust me, you are over-accessorising your words. Let context do its job for you.

Exceptions and disputes

1. Letters of the Alphabet used as words

Now, there are some disputes over apostrophes, even in grammar-nerd circles. For example, is there a case for the clarifying apostrophe? Should this sentence have apostrophes:

"Mind your P's and Q's"

The nerds are divided. Some say yes a clarifying apostrophe is needed because context can't always help eg. "He has trouble writing his as" vs "He has trouble writing his a's". Some say no provided you always use a capital letter "He has trouble writing his As"

2. Tricky ones, usually to do with questions of belonging

Is it Writer's Festival or Writers' Festival?

Is it Mother's Day or Mothers' Day?

No clear answer here. It's all too hard so I just omit the apostrophe altogether and let context do its (not it's) job. Some grammar-nerds will argue all day about this but I'm too tired.

3. Short nouns eg. do as in "event".

eg. "She always puts on great do's". These really fall into the category of clarifying apostrophes but there are so few of these that they almost don't count.

4. Belonging in words ending in 'S'

Is it "The princess's tiara fell off " or "The princess' tiara fell off" ?

Traditionally, there's no extra 'S'; but if the sentence is confusing without one then put one in. I've noticed a lot of modern authors are putting in 'S' after the apostrophe lately.

Do you disagree? Sorry not listening "lalalalalalalalalala" (fingers in ears)

PS. be rest-assured that you are still my friend even if you over-accessorise your words :-)

source: my head.

disclaimer: wrong bits and poor grammar in this post are not my fault, it's Thursday and I've been to the Easter Parade, supervised School Band practise and hosted four marauding kids at my house all afternoon.

WWKIPD (World Wide Knit in Public Day)

Since my confession that I knitted in public the other day I have found out that there is actually a World Wide Knit in Public Day. True. Check it out here. It's on the 14th June.

I just don't think I'm ready for that.

But I might (might) take my knitting to swimming lessons this afternoon. After all, I have S from TeamSAK's sock to finish.

I'll let you know how it goes.

******************

UPDATE: I knitted for an hour at a public swimming pool with at least 11 lessons going at once plus loads of mums and toddlers in the splash pool.

And no-one noticed.

Well, no-one said anything. And I was knitting a sock, and that actually looks weird.

Hmmm... I wonder if I should run the gauntlet and knit at school pick-up? Will report back.

It's a Hot Cross Bun

...but not the edible kind.

Each Easter the K-2s at our local school have, since forever, put on an Easter hat parade. It's a loud colourful affair where 300 5-8 year olds parade their finest to cheesy music in front of their parents.

This year the format has changed -to an Easter fashions parade. Fashions. Children 'are encouraged' to dress up as rabbits, chickens, Easter eggs etc and remain in their costume all day. Great. I have a ready supply of Easter hats which have been recycled year on year but no, this year it's different.

And what does Padawan Learner want to dress as? You guessed it from the picture above, a hot cross bun. Different, he is.

I used Simplicity Pattern 3593 (Halloween Pumpkin) and modified it to be less round (didn't put elastic in the top and bottom), stiffer (lined it with quilting wadding) and less pumpkin-y.

Do you think it looks a bit like a hot cross bun? Firegazer thinks he looks like a Musketeer. Or a Knight Templar.

The costume stands up on its own so PL can pull his arms, head and legs in like a turtle retreating into its shell and just sit there, like a real hot cross bun.

Sock 1

So, sock no. 1 is complete. Boy, that took a lot longer than I thought and my toe grafting was a little iffy. Actually, the grafting was a lot iffy but I couldn't work out how to unpick it.

These socks are intended for S from TeamSAK. S, I thought I'd let you know that these are for you because it may be a while before you see the full pair. And one sock may look a little more accomplished than the other. But hey, you get my very first attempt.

By the way, they are very comfy.

How did this happen?

You know how we always joke about being a taxi-driver to our kids? Yeah, me too. But until this year I was a serial taxi-driver - I sometimes took the kids to more than one activity in a day but just one activity at a time.

This year I've become a parallel taxi driver. And how. Here is yesterday afternoon's soccer practise debacle.

(For the more visually inclined please refer to professionally drawn diagram above. Blue box is my house, green circles are the soccer grounds.)


1615: pile kids into car (in soccer uniform)
1630: drop Child A off at Soccer Club A and Field A (15 minute drive)
1700: drop Child B off at Soccer Club B and Field B (20 minute drive)
1730: pick up Child A from Field A (20 minute drive)
1800: return to collect Child B from Field B (20 minute drive). Child not ready until 1845. Supposed to be ready at 1830 hours.
1900: drop by local Thai takeaway because am exhausted by driving, glad that I had a full tank of petrol as there was a queue of at least 15 cars at local petrol station (now I know why...)

How I managed this extremely poor timetabling I don't know but I'm horrified that we are only two weeks into the season.

Adventures of the Lindt Bunny & My 200th Post

S from TeamSAK has inspired me with her Lindt Bunny photo. I too would like to win a trip to Switzerland so Padawan Learner and I went outside this afternoon armed with a Lindt Bunny, a camera and a daft sense of humour.

Here are the results:

Trampoline Bunny (for hopping practise, you understand)

Endangered Bunny

Uber-cool Bunny

Gimme your best shot. Goalie Bunny.

Thanks S, for the inspiration. I'll race you to Switzerland!

PS This is my 200th post

Baseball Gala Day

Today was the last day of Baseball for the season. The kids played their last games, had team photos and got their trophies.

Kids now get a trophy for every sport they play, every year. Just for turning up. Does anyone else find this over the top? I'm all for a certificate and a pat on the back. Or even just a pat on the back.

Anyway, enough bah humbug, the kids love their trophies and they had a great day.

Now the soccer season starts...

School Picnic

Last night our school held (as far as I know) its first-ever free P&C funded event - a school picnic as a welcome back party and thank you to all those parents who helped us raise over $120K last year. Entertainment was provided by well known local wedding/function band Slide McBride. The lead singer, Slide, said "I'm the real life Wedding Singer". A great character.

Despite threatening rain it was a fabulous evening attended by 300-400 people (I'm hopeless at guesstimating numbers) and the band played well to their younger crowd by playing songs from Shrek, Spiderman and other movies as well as a great range of songs from the 80s through to current day.

The rain held off until the last 15 minutes and then it bucketed down. The band was under cover so the picnickers simply picked up their gear and stood near the band providing a fantastic atmosphere for the last few sets.

And despite the school gate being rocked off its hinges (!) and the new curtains in the hall being played with "tarzan style" the school escaped this event unscathed.

My only gripe (and learning for next year) is that there was a dearth of helpers at the end to clean up and lock up. "But it's raining" said the parents. Yes, well some of us still have to do it, regardless of the rain.

Despite this (and I'll get a little tougher and a little more specific about cleaning) we'd definitely do it again next year if the P&C will come up with the moolah.

*ArmyWife, you were sorely missed. I know you would've been there to the end cleaning and scraping with the best of them, despite the rain.

No More Jumping

Fellow expat West Australian Lesley recently commented that the Cottesloe beach icon I know as The Bell, she knows as The Pylon. Whichever name you use the current sad state is the same - we can't jump off said Bell/Pylon anymore. When I say "we" I mean "Firegazer" who was told off for jumping off said icon in January much to his horror, and our mirth.

In the spirit of traditional father.in.law/son.in.law ribbing Dad posted over this article from the local paper and it is now prominently pinned to our noticeboard for Firegazer's benefit.

This morning while brushing my teeth

KelpieBlossom: Mum...what did you want to be when you were in Primary School?

Me: A spy.

KB: a good one or a bad one?

Me: Hadn't really thought that through, just a spy.

KB: What did you want to be when you were in high school?

Me: An Egyptologist.

KB: [blank look on face, mummy explains]

KB then starts giggling. Giggle. Giggle. Giggle.

Me: What's so funny?

KB: Well, look what you ended up as. [more giggles]

Me: What do you mean?

KB: [more giggles] A person that does work at the school, looks after us kids and cooks us dinner.

Me: Have I told you about my plans to sell you and use the proceeds to fund a real career?

Socks, Tea and a sunny Sunday afternoon

Marble pondering the strange changes that have seen her mistress start knitting in public.

This morning started off with a heavy rain shower which meant that Baseball was cancelled. KelpieBlossom was upset because it was Firegazer's turn to be "match coach" this week. Today would've been the last official match of the season as next week is Gala Day with the trophy ceremony.

We replaced Baseball with a trip to the local pool. A little cold for me so I accessed my "inner Nana" and knitted while Firegazer and the kids swam. I am getting seriously embarrassing.

After lunch the sun came out and I managed to sneak a little sock-knitting time in the garden. I am SUCH a Nana. I even got brought a cup of tea.

BTW, the socks are getting there. I had to do some MAJOR unravelling last night due to a little altercation between the instructions and I.

The instructions won.

Socks

A good friend of mine has just started a course of IV Chemotherapy. Her other friends and family are nearby and can be useful by cooking meals and helping with the detritus of daily life. I'm in another State feeling a bit useless so I thought I'd knit her a pair of house socks. The yarn is Debbie Bliss Cashmerino. Not hard-wearing enough for shoes but lovely for padding around the house.

They're the first pair I've ever knitted so I hope she'll understand if they don't look exactly like the picture.

Oh, and all you expert sock-knitters out there - stand-by for panicked calls for assistance.