Happy Birthday!!

Dear Mrs Moog and Running Mama,

may your day be filled with cake and much happiness.

With much love from all of us up here on the hill at Trash Towers.

Bah humbug!

Having waited since about 9 am for the rain to stop I decided to just get brave, stick a raincoat on and take the dogs out for walk .

I should have known there was an issue when I spotted her across the road. She clocked my three sitting waiting at the kerbside waiting to be told to cross and the tension travelling to her dog via the lead was palpable from where I stood. She headed toward town and I called my mob on and we went out into the weather.

Just recently my assistant has become enamoured of chasing a ball. Really fast. Especially if it is thrown from a flinger. Problem is she likes to kill balls during the quiet periods so our house is littered with denuded and split tennis balls. Today all I could find to fling was a completely bald and quite dead looking projectile.

Being smooth it bounced like no one's business. Right into the flowerbed in the rose garden. With the old man dog's lead in hand and my assistant bouncing like a lunatic behind me I was able to lean over the railings and pick it up using said flinger. I flung it again. Bounce! Into the shrubs this time. No way I could reach it I would have to go in.

No dogs allowed in the council rose gardens so I tied the OMD up to the rails, the black dog sniffed and snuffled along the grass verge and my assistant ran from one end of the fence to the other waiting for me to fling it again (oh the faith of the obsessed). In my periphery I noticed a cream coloured, small dog. Lots of fluff, big bulgey eyes and a sticky-out panty tongue. With its lead going all the way up to the weird woman I saw earlier.

I get the ball and head back out to my mob.
She said "I came in here to get away from you!"
"Thanks very much!" I said continuing to walk on all the while thinking 'Crazy old witch!'.
"I'll give you time to get ahead."
"I'm not going anywhere."
"Your dogs ..."
"My dogs are perfectly well-behaved."

Silly old witch.

Storm Boy

And they just keep coming!

As always the radio was on during breakfast but Radio 2 rather than 4. Music and chat is more user-friendly while the smalls eat cereal than John Humphries haranguing politicians and those daft girlies giggling with the sports presenter on The Today Programme.

News headlines at 8'o'clock included a piece about the horrific murder in a Tube Station last week . Because I am the 'take every learning opportunity possible' kind of mother I told both of them they were to stay away from gangs (obviously because they are so prevalent up here on the hill) . I said that they should be ready to say 'No' if they disagreed with things.

'Say no to joining gangs.'
'Say no to drugs.'
'Say no to excessive amounts of alcohol.'
'When you are older say no to unsafe sex. Say yes to sex because it is enjoyable but say NO to being unsafe.'

Princess C-W chimed in with '...and cigarettes. Say no to cigarettes as well.'

And then BAM! around a mouthful of cereal destructoBoy said 'What about pelicans? Do we have to say no to pelicans?'












'Storm Boy' is a 1976 Australian film about a child and the pelicans he befriends along the South Australian coast

Question from the week before Easter Sunday.

Sitting at the table tonight eating dinner, radio tuned into 'Pick of the Week', BBC Radio 4. Phillip Pullman's new novel 'The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ' was being discussed, one part of the recording highlighting a festival attendee's complaint to and the response from Pullman.

We sat listening. It was fascinating, interesting and obviously thought-provoking as a few minutes after the programe moved on destructoBoy turned and said to me

"If it turns out there was no Jesus or God would Christians be disappointed?"

A February finish.

My assistant claimed this one.

Seems she is prepared to overlook the eagle-beaky, non-ovine shaped nose of the wee sheep.

Am not sure I am prepared to overlook her stretching out on Maria's backseat after she rolled in the stinkiest badger poo ever. Or the fact that the only cleaning product within arm's reach as I bathed her was my Neal's Yard citrus handwash.

Revenge came later in the afternoon with a pair of scissors, some wispy hair around her ears and 15 minutes of thoroughly enjoyable (for me) coat cutting.

Can anyone explain it?

Was packing shopping yesterday in Y.O.T. and singing a Christmas carol (No, no. No explanation required yet I'm ok with this bit.) Wasn't singing it very loud but loud enough it made the old man on the checkout look up at me (this in itself is a miracle because checkout staff who look at you??).

"Have you noticed there are no good Easter songs?" I asked him while finding room for the tubey lunchbox yoghurts in my shopping bag.

"I suppose that is because it is a religious occasion." he says before telling me how much I have just spent.

Turning to leave but with an incredulous look on my face I say "What is Christmas?"

Anyone? Anyone??

Picture of famous cat sleeping.

He is dreaming of ways to exact revenge on rudey spammers.

Blurry lace!

I opened 'The Cupboard' this weekend and it was brutal.

Once the tears and fainting fits passed I gently began to excavate with the kitchen broom.

There was A LOT of scrappy bits of paper, far more fabric than I remembered buying, pins, elastic, buttons, needles and machine bobbins. Woohoo! Bobbins!! This means I now have more than one. Yay!

There were drawings, books and pens. I found partners to many sad and lonely knitting needles sitting in the library bag. Can anyone remind me when I bought the pattern to the Amy Butler Weekender bag? I read the pattern yesterday over lunch. I am quite a little bit scared of it now. I think it may just be one of those patterns that just sits on the shelf and makes me look competent and capable.

While browsing the stalls with Maria at Ally Pally last year I bought some really fine yarn. In fact I think it is just sewing thread with an angora overcoat. The plan was to make a wide lace scarf. Simple lace you understand. It would be flimsy and fabulous yet warm and wonderful.

(This is not the pattern. But it IS lace. I can't do this one either.)

The pattern asks only simple things - K, K2tog, dbl y/o, P1.

I can do all of those.

I really really can.

But apparently NOT in the same row.

I have now ripped back the blurry lace pattern three times. I think I want to cry.

Do you think this is God's way of telling me I really shouldn't bother with housework???

Standing ironing trousers to ensure non-naked school attendance this morning when passing comment was made by CK about what people look like when they are angry (I don't know why this was the topic on his mind, it is a place I have never been able to fathom).

Airily I said to Princess C-W

'You wouldn't know what I look like when I am angry.'

Smart-arse kid she is said

'Yeah I do. You go all green and grrrrrrrrr.' then bulldogged her arms and contorted her face.

Am not convinced both of us are going to make it through her teenage years .

World Book Day, Thursday March 4, 2010. EDIT

Our theme for World Book Day this year was Space.

At 1600 hours the afternoon before my two figured out what they were going as.

The Silver Surfer.

And Marvin the Paranoid Android.

I finished sewing costumes at 0845 Thursday morning.


I really shouldn't be surprised by their odd choices, should I?

***EDITED***

Just wanted the world to know I faced up to the demon of stretchy fabric

and

I made those white leggings!!!!!!!

Gifts Part the Third

This really is getting ridiculous isn't? We are now over month since my birthday and I still haven't actually managed to show you all the fabulousness. Just one more post after this I promise.

My favouritest cousin stitched this sampler and knew exactly which was the right home for it.

It reads

" To know what you prefer,
instead of humbly saying 'Amen'
to what the world says you ought,
is to have kept your soul alive. "

As well as pretty fabric Jennyflower enclosed this embellished paper artwork. Shown here the colours have a more yellow cast than in reality. Along with Lauren's piece (from previous post) it is gracing my bookshelves so I may enjoy it daily.

And while the picture below does not give the most accurate or professionally displayed image of one of the most amazing things I have received in my life ever, I wanted to show it living its life.

Mrs. Locket, Thimbleanna, Mrs Stashbasket, Wonderwoman, Little Cotton Rabbits and most especially Mrs Moog please accept this huge enormous bouquet of thanks. I am in awe at the skill and talent that created my blanket

Theoretically I am going home .... at least once.

If not up to five times. You see that is how many times this morning I have typed the required details of my flight times and airline, my address, my names and my bank details into the blurry STA website and each time it says

'processing your request'

we hit a wall and I am met with

'Error, you have timed out of this window, we cannot proceed.'

So on the off chance I do get 6 e-tickets into my inbox next time I log into my email who fancies changing their name by deedpoll and coming with me?

Silly bugger.

After checking my emails this morning I have spent hours trying to contact my mother. Blurry satellites, handset cradles with a mind of their own and slippery hands have prevented me doing more than leaving messages.

Giovanna rang mid-morning (late night her time) and we talked. At the corner of my sight I saw CK say something to both children and then they walked off. d/Boy want back to his new Dr. Who magazine, Pr C-W stood looking out the front window for several minutes. He didn't get up and go comfort her. With a 'what the hell were you thinking???' glare at him I motioned her over to sit on my lap.

And this is how my children found out Grandad had died.

His rationale apparently was he didn't want them gleaning half facts from my phonecall. And he thought they knew. And there was a full moon. And his suit didn't come back from the cleaners. There was an earthquake! It wasn't his fault!!!!!!!!!

So until I get home in late April there remains little I can do but feel incredibly ineffectual.

Gifts Part the Second

The managment would like to state her and now that the delay in showing any fabulous item gifted to them om the last two months in NO way reflects upon the validity and specialness of said gift. Each gift is cherished knowing that a loved one has taken time to chose something especially for me.

Missus Stashbasket sent me a parcel filled with delicious delights. As well as having staged a raid on a beautiful fabric shop somewhere (said fabric now rests with Katy) there was also a notebook staring my assistant and this skein of Posh yarn - oo lala! I am going to brave up and try a lace pattern with this. I think.

Having seen the 'Just Jugs' shelf in real life Mrs Moog knew just how perfect this lil' Cath Kidston number would be.

Two school mamas set the challenge with this book - there are real seams and meeting corners. I have to steel myself just to imagine actually making any of these clever projects.

And just look what arrived all the way from New Jersey! An artwork created especially for me by the incredibly talented Lauren B over at 'All the Good Blog Names Were Taken' . The things this woman can do with paper are a.m.a.z.i.n.g. Not to mention the Jolly Ranchers hiding among all the lace inside the box!

Am loving this whole birthday thing!

Slightly relieved.

Am breathing just a little bit easier about the whole Sylv/husband situation at the moment. The dastardly duo of my evil s-i-l and her oppo have been offset by the arrival (for a day or so) of my lovely killer-attack brother.

He will be there just long enough to be the steady hand on the rudder I think Sylv needs at the moment. Steer her toward more peaceful waters (Hmmm ... perhaps he chose the wrong arm of the services?) then not long after Giovanna will be back for good. Me? I'll go home 'later'.








*Thanks for all your input in the comments of the previous post. To be honest they don't have an enormously deep relationship with Grandad, he lives 12,000 miles away and they can only remember meeting him three times so I don't anticipate mahoosive devastation but my musings were about afterlife theories. They get a lot of the CofE 'God' at school and all topics are up for discussion at home so am fairly happy with how it will all pan out.*