A Good Fairlie Time at The Sydney Writers' Festival

Luckily for me, Fairlie has done a superb job of summarising our weekend at The Sydney Writers' Festival. We had a great weekend of writerly activity, no cooking, no cleaning, no washing and met up with two of our favourite bloggers, Nutmeg and Blue Mountains Mary.

So all that's left for me to say is - check out what Fairlie said.

Actually, I do have something else to say.

Fairlie bought gifts! Star Wars stuff for Padawan Learner, a new beanie for Blossom, chocolates for Firegazer (goooone!) and looky what I got - a special Fairlie Designs knitting needle holder rolly-up thingy. Fantastic. Love love love it.

Thanks Fairlie, you didn't need to bring gifts, we just love having you to stay. But, hey, I'm not going to say no to the gifts either!

Oh and for those interested in apostrophe agony. Check out the photo above.

And yet next door they got it right. A disagreement between contractors perhaps?

NSW Teachers' Strike

Fifty percent of the teachers at our local school joined the NSW Teachers' Strike today. This meant that while Padawan Learner went to school, Blossom didn't. I took Blossom and a friend out for the day.

Their reward for tagging along with my errands was a trip to Balmoral Beach.

Where we found that the Shark Proof net, isn't. Luckily it's not swimming weather.

It was, however, eating weather and I treated the girls to lunch at The Bathers' Pavillion (Bistro side).

Where I was given the most enormous, impossibly piled-up, plate of Caesar Salad. Ate about one-third of it.

...and then I woke up to find it was all a dream

"Destination" announced my GPS with its usual nasal-electronic twang. Straight ahead Balmain Road looked to peter out; to my left was a lane overgrown with weeds; to my right was an opening heralded by a boom gate with flaking white paint that looked like it hadn't lowered in twenty years. A dark green wooden sign adorned by a single streamer announced that I should turn here if I wanted to find the NSW Writers' Centre.

As my car crunches over the worn out tarmac I feel in the pit of my stomach that I should've checked this place out before sending my daughter off here with a friend this morning. I was driving through the grounds of a long disused hospital with old sandstone buildings surrounded by fibro shacks, demountables and signs of abandonment everywhere. I assure myself that if anything was amiss I would've had a concerned phone call by now, from the friend who drove the girls.

It's now 2.45pm and I'm looking for the building, amongst the thirty or so I can see, that has held my daughter and two of her friends in a creative writing class for the day. I pull into a makeshift carpark next to an abandoned demountable and see this sign ahead. I am irrationally relieved to note that some care has been taken to print this sign with its deliberately placed apostrophe. I am also buoyed by the sight of recently installed, expensive-looking, outdoor lighting - the sort seen on tennis courts in Toorak or Killara - as if this is a sign that my daughter is in good hands.

As instructed by the sign I walk around to the front of the building, past the book-binding room and a small library, to find a charming building filled with signs of bookiness. Bookiness on a budget. The verandah was filled with plastic tables and metal chairs with flaking paint, possibly of the same vintage as the boom gate I came through earlier.

Inside twenty 9-13 year olds were taking turns to stand up and read from their day's work. Unfortunately, I had just missed Blossom's recital. I'm sure this was quite deliberate on her part. I can imagine her hand went up like a shot to volunteer to read first when she saw I wasn't in the room yet. The other readings, however, were delightful. The convenor, Frances Watts*, had obviously spent a lot of time working with descriptiveness as we heard about a dress that "was so heavy that it almost pulled me backwards" and a Magpie whose "underside of his wing shone like the golden ring he was carrying."

And while there were variations on the theme, not one young author "woke up to find it was all a dream".




*Frances Watts convened this session as part of the Sydney Writers' Festival.

Blue Monday*

It seems to me that homes should be designed to make the jobs that we hate to do easier.

Take the laundry as an example. I really dislike doing laundry. All those dirty clothes; remembering to check Padawan Learner's pockets for stones, tissues, scrap pieces of paper and bits of wood; trying to remove stains from white school shirts and don't even get me started on woollens that need hand-washing. And then the hanging, picking-in, folding and or ironing. Bleh.

Doing the laundry would be much easier if home designers assigned reasonable space for this loathsome task. Space to sort clothes, a decent trough to handwash, if one must, and the ability to put clothes into the washing machine without having to first stand on the kitty litter and reach over the dirty clothes hamper while resting one hand on the dryer to balance.

Check out our doozy of a laundry. I do not live in an inner-city apartment. I live in a four-bedroom home in the suburbs. The previous owners thought it appropriate to assign this small corner of the kitchen to the laundry. It's in a space smaller than our powder room. In a previous life I think it may have been the verandah 'outhouse'. This means that, due to space constraints, both clean and dirty laundry spreads itself all over our house rather than being kept out of sight.

I don't want a big laundry because I love doing the washing but because I hate it.

Home designers are putting in home theatres and parents retreats but placing the laundry in a cupboard in a far corner of the house. It's like hiding it under a rock and hoping it will go away. I understand that sentiment, I do, but I've tried that tack and it just won't disappear.

Wash-day-haters unite! I say we march on our local Architectural practices and reclaim our right to a decent laundry.

* Can anyone guess the historical reason that I've called this post Blue Monday?

A Day of Ballet

The day started with me sewing ribbons into these.

Mid-morning Blossom and I took this in to be adjusted, followed by two ballet classes.

Then after lunch we headed off to this iconic Australian landmark ...

... to watch this fabulous set of four short ballets presented by The Aussie Ballet celebrating world famous choreographer Jerome Robbins (think West Side Story). Catch it if you can (it's in Melbourne in June).

My new toy

Love love love my new toy. It's small. It's chocolate. It fits in my handbag. Oh so excellent.

Watch out for candid camera!

That Pesky Mother's Day Apostrophe

Oh, the questions that are out there in Blogland about the Mother's Day apostrophe. You know I just have to dip my oar in.

A version of Mother's Day is celebrated in many countries around the world on many different days of the year. A quick Google or Wikipedia search will tell you this. The most popular days are Mothering Sunday in the UK which is on the third Sunday of Lent and Mother's Day in many other countries on the second Sunday in May.

If your country celebrates Mother's Day on the second Sunday in May it is likely that you follow the US tradition inspired by the quest of Anna Jarvis, who wanted a 'holy' recognition of individual mothers and Julia Ward Howe, whose experiences of the American Civil War led her to call for the recognition of the role of mothers. Formal recognition of a Mother's Day as designated by Jarvis was was finally enshrined by the 1914 proclamation by then US President Woodrow Wilson.

The location of the apostrophe is part of the common debate which asks:

• Is it a day recognising your mother eg. Mother's Day


• Is it a day recognising all mothers eg. Mothers' Day, or


• Is it a day of/for mothers eg. Mothers Day

There are no winners here because all answers can be correct depending on your point of view. My view is: don't argue, choose whichever one you are comfortable with.

However, if you are a stickler for the fine print you will notice that the Proclamation issued by Woodrow Wilson in 1914 was for a Mother's Day. This use of the apostrophe was apparently stipulated by Anna Jarvis because:

it was to be a singular possessive, for each family to honour their mother, not a plural possessive commemorating all mothers in the world. source: here

Anna Jarvis, in fact, trademarked the terms "Mother's Day" and "second Sunday in May" in 1912.

So, if your country follows the US designation then it is correct when referring to the day in its official capacity to write Mother's Day (unless an alternative proclamation has been made in your country).

You just NEEDED to know that, didn't you...

Six Facts and a Fiction

I have been tagged by West Australian blogger Cellobella to reveal Six Facts and a Fiction about myself. It's supposed to be useful facts but I found that a bit hard. So here's the random facts version. It is up to you to decide which of the following points is in fact a fiction.

1. My middle name is the same as the first name of one of the Princesses of England. But it's spelt differently.
2. Two weeks ago I bought four current-season Quinces and successfully made Quince paste.
3. I am a keen SCUBA diver.
4. I studied French for eight years but can barely put together a sentence in that language.
5. I have one undergraduate degree, one masters and two further post-graduate diplomas making me a superbly qualified housefrau.
6. I've done a bungee-jump, and loved it.
7. I'm terrified of heights, and hate flying.
   
   

So, what's your guess? Which is the porky-pie?

Happy Grandma and Nana Day

Happy Mother's Day to Grandma (my Mum) and Nana (Firegazer's Mum).

Nana has been sent her gift chosen by her dutiful son from a Duty Free Shop somewhere in either Oz, New Zealand or the US. Meanwhile I got down and knitted these washcloths for my Mum.

All these patterns were sourced from Ravelry and were fun to knit. The red one is supposed to be nine hearts but I photographed it upside down.

Do you like my new cards? These will now accompany all my hand-made objects.

Not to be outdone, Blossom knitted her Grandma this drink coaster for her night-time glass of water.

Happy Mother's Day all.

Feeding the 400

It's done. I'm exhausted. I can't even think straight. I may simply mumble. Forgive me if I do.

Starting at 5.45am this morning I directed two shifts of volunteer fathers through the feeding of 400 mothers and children for our school's annual Mother's Day breakfast. Why me? Because the Canteen Manager who has run this since forever resigned in the last week of term 1 and told me she hadn't done any planning, she didn't keep any notes on the event, she couldn't remember her suppliers BUT if I paid her she would consider coming back to run the event. I am the fundraising and functions co-ordinator and had to decide there and then whether the event would go ahead this year or not.

This was on the last day of Term 1. I had two weeks of school holidays and less than two weeks back at school to pull this together. I emailed everyone I could think of to ask if someone would run this event but they'd all gone on holidays. I considered cancelling it but I got a bee in my bonnet and decided to 'show her'.

Well, show her we did. It was the biggest Mother's Day Breakfast ever. We served 400 people in 1.25 hours between 7.30am - 8.45am*. There were no long queues at the ticket desk, the buffet or the coffee station. We offered REAL coffee made by a crack team of our restaurateur/barista Dads. They served 300 coffees - with no queues! We had a raffle with cool items. And even though it wasn't a fundraiser we made a profit of about $900. In short, the Mums were happy and we rocked!

Na na na na na to the Canteen Manager that deserted us.

*croissant, organic vanilla yoghurt, fruit salad, fruit juice plus tea or a latte/long black.

Normal blogging will resume after the whipping has stopped

Normal blogging will resume after the rush and head-spin that is our school's annual Mother's Day Breakfast which is held at the school tomorrow morning.

With the sudden resignation of the Canteen Manager (and as I am the fundraising/functions co-ordinator) I was left holding the organisational baby that is this massive event. At current count we have 400 RSVPs and I am under instructions from the Principal not to turn anyone away. Eeeeeeeeek.

I'll catch up with the Blogosphere next week.

Walk Safely to School Day

Today was Walk Safely to School Day, at least in NSW. Walking to school is a hot topic in this house. In theory we are only a 10 minute slow walk to school and thus this should be achievable every day. However, that walk includes our own version of heartbreak hill so walking to school usually involves much complaining and is only contemplated when I have an iron will and patience for whining.

Today, however, there was no complaining. Was it the practise walks of the previous two days? Was it the free piece of fruit waiting for them at the other end? Was it because it was declared a mufti/casual clothes day so the uniforms were left at home? Who knows the mysteries of a child's mind...

Especially as there was a complicating factor to the walk. Blossom left for a weekend long Band Camp today so we had extra luggage to lug up that hill:

But then maybe Blossom was so pleased with her new, completed.just.in.time.for.band.camp beanie that she didn't even think about her feet (but that still doesn't explain PL's generally bouncy demeanor on the walk).

Blossom's Band Camp Beanie

Pattern: Ladies Beanie from the Patons Big Book of Small Projects

Yarn: Freedom Spirit 100% wool

Needles: 4mm (next time I'd use 3.5 or smaller)

Meterage: Used approx 180m/75g

Comments: Blossom loves it but this wool is not ideal as is too 'stretchy'