Ganeida's Knot.

Counting...

2008-11-15T01:11:00.000-08:00

Count your blessings, name them one by one, & you'll be surprised at what the Lord has done.
I woke up headachy ~ the headache that comes with nausea, flashing lights, & as though the whole world is screaming at you. I survived the morning but by lunchtime I was pill hunting & looking for my bed. The trouble with migraines is that they leave you feeling as wrung out as an old dishcloth & wishing the world would end even after the worst is over. It is a good time to count my blessings
Apples. I like apples & my favourites are in season now: Granny Smiths, tart, crisp & juicy; Pink Ladies crunchy & sweet. My Liddy slices up apple & rolls it in puff pastry & a touch of brown sugar & bakes it in the oven. Yum.

Cats. No~one loves me like Issi; there's nothing so comforting when the world comes crashing down as cuddling someone who loves you completely unconditionally. Ok, that's not true. Iss loves me because I put the food in his bowl but no~one else gets up a purr like Iss.

Dearest ~ who is working very hard to make our deck something really special. We have had some Blue Gum slabs sitting in our yard for years. Sanded back & estapoled they are a deep blood red. Gorgeous. We are making some deck furniture out of it. The leftovers will make kitchen benches.

The regatta coming down the passage. Such a serene & pretty sight after all the rain we've had.

After the humidity there is a cool breeze wafting off the water in the cool of the evening. I know I am blessed.

Gremlins in the works

2008-11-13T12:23:00.000-08:00

If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.

The weatherman said it was going to rain. In a general sort of way I don't give much credence to the weatherman. He is wrong more often than he is right but in this particular instance it seemed that he was on track so Dearest & Ditz & I passed all our deck railings through the window & stacked them on the living room floor because the timber hasn't been treated yet & we didn't want it getting wet. Wet timber has to dry out again before it can be used.

The rain came as predicted. We patted ourselves on the back for being so long sighted. Alack, alas. Dearest went back to work as soon as the rain had passed.

It is very simple. We went to bed with blue skies & no hint of more rain to come. In the middle of the night the heavens thundered & roared, the roof shivered & shook & now all the timber leaning against the outside wall ready to be screwed to their appropriate uprights is soaked & unusable ~ just in time for the days I have free before the end of the month madness, when we have the boys around to give a hand before they head interstate for a cousin's wedding. It always happens; there are gremlins at work.

It has rained & rained & rained, good, heavy, soaking rain which we really need, which the garden really needs & which I would have appreciated so much more if it hadn't rained on my parade so to speak. Just when I was thinking how hard done by I was I wandered onto the deck to have a bit of a mope about all the work that wasn't going to get done this weekend & found that the rain had produced its own mirical. Many years ago I had planted a cluster of small plants in the solid clay under my kitchen window. They were not happy little plants. They did not often get watered & the soil set like cement. They struggled. Many times they came close to giving up the ghost & had to be revived. Eventually they grew rather scraggy & unkept looking but I was grateful they were making the effort.

The bronze tip is a native malaluka & the bottlebrush is a native too & I did rather expect to keep them. The shell ginger is pretty hardy but the Moria & the lemon & white yesterday, today & tomorrow I fully expected to lose. I am notorious for putting the wrong plants in the wrong positions & then telling them to stop whinging & get on with it. Well, they have. The shell ginger is heavy with sprays of blossom, the Yesterday is a mass of gorgeous lemon & limey white & the Moria is about to burst into bloom yet again. When the railings finally go up that end of the deck will have a lovely finish to it. As you can see everything has grown to deck height already.

When we first moved to the island it was quite difficult to make friends. The island was very insular & full of old timers who resented the intrusion of the incomers. [As an old timer now I fully understand this position! :)] Just down the road from us lived a young couple who were woken each morning by me roaring down the road to get Dearest on the first boat of the day for work. [No, he's not a morning person]. I would toddle home at a far more sedate pace & was surprised to find myself flagged down by people I barely knew. Apparrently they had fielded my twins who had woken as the car pulled out & performing one of their twin escape routines had hurtled down the road after their disappearing parents. I was immensly grateful & we became friends. [They fielded our boys regularly.]

A few years back my friend got a rare form of cancer with the inevitable result. Each year since her mother has had an art exhibition in her memory. This year Ditz was asked to contribute. No she's not, not because she didn't do several very nice paintings but because they had to be framed so they could be hung. I had intentions of getting some cheap frames from somewhere like Crazy Clarkes & canvases to fit but naturally my daughter could not wait on such a sensible approach. She found herself the longest piece of carboard available & painted this very vivid sunset. Do you think I could find a frame that would fit it? Of course not! I am going to be prepared for next year. We are bringing her paintings with us next time we visit you mum...if you don't mind framing them for us.

My mother is an extraordinary woman. She can turn her hand to just about anything & is quite a good artist in her own right. I like oils, which are forgiving, Ditz likes acrylics which are quick. My mother likes watercolours. Yes, she's somehing of a perfectionist. Dino has the painting everyone likes of mum's. It hangs in his room here at home. This is the way I like my trawlers ~ very pretty, very safe & my son not on one!

2008-11-12T14:55:00.000-08:00

Dear bloggy friends,

I understand about paragraphing; truely, I do. I understand that if I break my writing up into smaller segments it is easier to read. When I write my draft I dutifully insert paragraph breaks but when I post the internet eats all my hard work.

I go in to edit & redo everything I did right the first time & nothing happens. Does anyone have some words of wisdom for me? What am I doing wrong?

To those of you who have perservered, you are brave men & women, Gunga din, braver than I. I'm about to do a Ditz & have a serious meltdown. My sense of the appropriatness of things is offended. I want my paragraphs.

sincerly, the Tangled Knot, Ganeida.

That time of the year.

2008-11-12T13:23:00.000-08:00

Black holes are where God divided by zero.

My life is a black hole; everything is being sucked into original chaos. I think I've said it before but I truly hate this time of the year. Bah, humbug!

Yes well, Ditz's ensemble, guest artists for the Christmas in Concert special [ to be televised on the ABC] is going down to the wire & I am going with it. I do not have enough time, or enough hands, to do all that needs doing over the next little while.

Yesterday I took Dearest to his doctor's appointment on the mainland leaving Ditz, who had a very ditzy moment, to get herself to the boat & then to her flute lesson. She misread her phone clock & left 2 hours too early!!!! Only my child. *sigh* She has come home with important information about accompanists & rehearsals that I still don't have. Hello, Ditz. Time is running out. Neither of us are happy. Ditz doesn't want to do her exam; I don't want to drive to the other side of town at 5am on a Friday morning so she can sit her exam! We do not do well at this level but if Ditz can get this first exam under her belt & do ok then the next one will be so much easier.

Ditz so doesn't want to do this she was talking about giving up all her extras ~ flute, violin, piano, singing. I said, 'Goodie, we'll sell everything & I'll be rich', but no. She wants to keep all her instruments & potter. Nothing was ever achieved through pottering but no, she isn't nervous AT ALL. She just doesn't want to do exams. I'll believe you Ditz; thousands wouldn't but...yeah right.

So I get home & am 1/2 way through a much needed cup of coffee when Ditz rings to say she is at the jetty again, will I come & get her? Detour with Ditz to check the animals Liddy is sitting at the moment but Liddy had a 6 am start so Ditz & I have been doing her job & as Liddy can't drive unsupervised yet...that's right. Mummy gets to help out. *sigh* Actually I don't really mind. The dog has a licking problem & I'm not mad keen on doggy slobber dribbling between my toes but the cat is gorgeous; totally psychotic but gorgeous. Iss is barely speaking to any of us because we keep coming home smelling of foreign animals.

Home. I sent Ditz into the kitchen to eat & learnt she had not organised her choir stuff prior to leaving this morning as I had asked because she misread her clock... Aaaargh! With 20 minutes before our boat she couldn't find anything & I am telling you, with a big important concert happening you do NOT arrive unprepared at ensemble rehearsals. Even Ditz is not prepared to court death quite so openly.
Just as well everything was found. The ensemble was read the riot act. OK, they're kids & they behave like kids but Alison is very clear. You say you want to work in this industry? No~one is going to hand you celebrity on a silver platter. You are going to have to work & work jolly hard & you are going to have to work like professionals & no~one cares that you're only 10, or 12 or 16... people are paying their hard earned cash for this so you need to deliver & ho~hum is just not good enough ~which is exactly why her ensemble is being offered guest status at concerts like Christmas in Concert. At one point, catching my eye, Alison mouthed, 'Please, don't make me laugh.' She convinced the kids though. The kids walked out of rehearsal two hours latter looking like shell~shocked trauma victims.

Do I think this overly harsh? No. Those kids will be walking singing Adeste onto the QPAC stage to form a single line at the front of the stage with the massed choir behind them & every child will be individually miked!!! They need to know what they are doing. Rather Ditz than me.

It was midnight before I crawled into bed. I can not do midnight any more & function well the next day. Ditz has never been able to do it. Her attention span [never very good] is depleting at a rapid rate of knots. Any school work requiring applied effort & concentration is causing meltdowns. She wants to ditch science. She can not ditch science, not yet anyway. With music causing so much pressure for the next few weeks I am trying to keep the pressure off in other areas. Ditz under pressure is not a pretty sight! However I mentioned it is that time of the year again. Everyone wants something. Our umbrella school wants proof we do actually [occasionally] do some actual schoolwork. Now history & English is no problem. Ditz can always read on the boats & during the long dragging waits of rehearsals & performances. Keeping up with her dictation & grammar is perfectly possible. We are strong in these areas. Science is slightly more problematic requiring more academic application than Ditz normally wants to exert. No~one wants to do math. I have got it on hold & if Ditz can't get a grip on it before term finishes we will be doing it over the summer; just her math. I think we need to anyway. I swear that child puts all her math in her short term memory bank & it too disappears into the black hole.

Did I mention I hate this time of the year?

Words of affirmation

2008-11-11T12:41:00.000-08:00

It was his nature to blossom into song, as it is a tree's to leaf itself in April. ~Alexander Smith

I was reminded last night of how much words of affirmation matter to our children, especially from those people whom they look up to or whose opinion matters to them ~ no, not good old mum & dad. Ditz assures me I have to love her because I'm her mum. Other people don't & she is aware other people often find her... wearing.

So in the midst of tea preparations with the cat trying to crawl up my legs because it can smell the chicken, both girls trying to check their e~mails at the same time from the same computer & Dearest enquiring anxiously if there was any hope of a meal sometime this evening the phone rang for the 2nd time. Believe me I cursed it.

Our production manager for Vocal Manouevres wanting to know if Ditz was available today for another Abba Mania performance. I hadn't e~mailed a response as we aren't available. Ditz has a flute lesson today. Ditz not happy. She would much rather perform than study for her exam. Considering how much money I am forking out & how much I do not want this child tired just now it was never going to happen so I had said nothing to Ditz. So much for trying to spare her feelings.

Anyway, seeing as I had our PM on the phone [believe me this is such a rare occurance it's like striking gold!] I checked she had our e~mail about the QPAC performances. Performances are fine; dress rehearsals are not. Rehearsals finish at 9.30pm. The last boat goes at 10pm. Logistically this does not work with an hours travelling time to be accounted for as well. Rehearsals are compulsory so I had a dilema but exam & boats are my top priority just now.

Will get back to me as they want Ditz there.

I do have a point & I am getting there. Bear with me. Ditz, naturally enough became all ears as soon as she heard our PM's name mentioned & became glued to my side wanting to know what was going on. Then our PM proceeds to inform me how happy they are with Ditz & how well her voice is coming on & it is so nice she's got over looking like squeezed toothpaste on stage. Ditz can only hear me going how happy we are the child's got a legitimate outlet for her theatrics that doesn't drive the rest of us crazy & how much she is enjoying herself & how pleased we are they have accomodated us despite the pecularities of living on an island. Ditz was nearly beside herself by the time I hung up. After all, the PM's opinion matters. I believe in passing on acolades. Ditz positively glowed, not the bright glitzy over the top drive everyone nutty noisey glow she is so very good at but the quiet, 'Ah, I'm doing good then' glow. Thank you PM [you know who you are!] Ditz is doing good.

Death by Firing Squad

2008-11-10T21:07:00.000-08:00

There are more dead people than living. And their numbers are increasing. EUGENE IONESCO, Rhinoceros

Australia has no death penalty, has not had a death penalty since 1985, when death for treason was abolished in N.S.W.. The last man to face Australia's death penalty was Ronald Ryan, who was sentenced to death for killing a prison guard. He was hung in Pentridge jail in 1967.

Perhaps it's our convict past; perhaps it's the dying vestiges of lower class rebellion but it is unlikely to be the result of the high moral ground that got the death penalty abolished here.

So why this obssesion with the death penalty. Well, America had the *fly~by* & we got Bali. On October 12th 2002 Islamic extremists blew up a Bali night club killing 88 Australians amongst others. Aussies took it pretty hard. I can understand that. We tend to be an easy going lot. We don't make enemies. Hatred is foreign to us, discrimination unheard of. That any one could hate us enough to blow us up shocked a lot of people. Being a little more cynical & having listened to enough ranting from the more extremist Islamic groups I was not surprised. Sad, just not surprised.

What has surprised & saddened me is the outpouring of hatred, vengence, & happiness at the exectution, by firing squad, of the Bali bombers. I do not see how that helps anyone. Worse, these men now have no opporunity to hear the gospel & repent. The youngest appears to have died badly. OK, I know I have an overactive imagination, & I can imagine all too well being in that man's shoes, but to call for vengence, to rejoice at the death of someone who hated us enough to kill us, to acquienence to the death penalty, well, that makes us as bad as them. We are called upon to forgive our enemies, to bless those who curse us, to do good to those who do us evil ...Oh I forgot. We are only a nominally Christian nation so I guess that doesn't apply.

I do not now recall where I originally heard the quote but asked what he would do with Hitler a litle boy replied, 'I would make him a very,very good man.' Now that is definitely sweet vengence but it makes far more sense to me. Can you imagine being very wicked, then being made very good & knowing exactly how bad you have been? As Christians isn't that exactly our fate? Although we all deserve the death penalty for our sin we have a suspended sentence that many will hear the Good News, repent & enter into the joy of the Lord. I guess I'm in the minority though. Oh well. I'm used to that.

A belief in hell and the knowledge that every ambition is doomed to frustration at the hands of a skeleton have never prevented the majority of human beings from behaving as though death were no more than an unfounded rumour. - Aldous Huxley

The Wildlife Round Here.

2008-11-09T23:14:00.000-08:00

"Will you walk into my parlor?" said the Spider to the Fly; "'Tis the prettiest little parlor that ever you did spy” Mary Howitt

Wild shrieks from the kitchen began the day. Ditz had found Arachnid Harry & was not impressed by his size. Even for us this Huntsman was an impressive size. They eat the big black bush roaches that fly in at night so I'm actually rather fond of them. That's an impressive pair of pincers! I am not popular for pointing out that it was not a snake. Ditz really, really does not like snakes.

We live in the bush. We get wildlife. I can cope with most things. There are exceptions. I do not like parasites: ticks, fleas, leeches are high on my personal list of the screaming heebie~jeebies. Snakes? It's a brave snake that hangs around this house. Spiders? I grew up in funnel web country. My brothers caught blue~ringed octopus for the CSIRO anti~venom program. The monitor lizards around here get to over 8' & move faster than a speeding bullet.

Mind you I did a bit of a flip the year we came home from an extended holiday & found multiple snake skins draped up our inside walls! No it did not help knowing that they were carpet snakes & perfectly harmless. There were lots of them! The kids did the whole musical beds thing when the snakes moved in to their rooms & I know there's still one living in our roof. Every so often he bumps the t.v antenna in passing & we lose reception. Anyone going up to rectify the problem takes care that he's not around before climbing into the ceiling.

I count myself lucky. Our neighbours had a cat with a penchant for catching tiger snakes & bringing them inside. A live tiger snake in the house you do not want. They are both aggressive & poisonous! No, my neighbours don't like snakes.

So how come I have spiders the size of a bread & butter plate? Well, I learnt that if I didn't remove the spiderwebs at my outside windows I would get scores & scores of small birds coming to feed at the windows where I could sit & watch them without frightening them away. That's my story & I'm sticking to it lol. Undisturbed webs, big spiders, & yes, lots & lots of birds.

Music makes the Ditz go round.

2008-11-07T10:48:00.000-08:00

"The flute is the show-off of the wind section.
--Garrison Keillor, in The Young Lutheran's Guide to the Orchestra
Three weeks & counting! That's how much time Ditz has before her flute exam. She is not a happy bunny. She does not want to do exams. Her pieces are sounding pretty good but oh my! Sequential learning does that child in every time & she still hasn't got all her scales down pat. I may just have that nervouse breakdown I've earned. It would be a shame if she flunked out on something so silly as she has worked very hard & her playing is sounding very good but that's Ditz for you. Total performer. She always lifts a level for a performance but ask her to slog away in the trenches & you may as well ask for the moon & the stars."All flute players have a latent predilection for danger, otherwise they wouldn't play that wayward instrument." -Merrily Harpur Anyway, prayers that the child will nail those scales before her big day if you have a moment or two spare.

"[Meter is] how many beats may be heard before one is stressed."

I am very stressed. The Qpac details have been confirmed & I know already we can't make most of the rehearsals because they will still be rehearsing when the last boat leaves for home! My priority just now [despite Ditz] is her flute exams, which means I want her in routine & calm, not over~tired, over~excited & spinning like a whirly~gig. I believe one of the performances will be taped & broadcast on ABC at some point. Being a glory hunter Ditz is much more charmed by this than by a dull exam wherein she will play 3 pieces she never particularly liked of music that began to bore her months ago. And my mother thought she wanted a musical child!!!

Just when I began seriously considering infanticide Ditz turns round & says, 'I need a better schedule for my school work', & proceeds to lay out a tighter schedule than I've ever worked to & yesterday she put it into place without me nagging or ranting or having a mental breakdown. She worked too! Now if we can just get a grip on this math....Liddy!" I neeeeed you!

Catch up.

2008-11-04T14:32:00.000-08:00

You can complain because roses have thorns, or you can rejoice because thorns have roses. Ziggy

I have roses...in abundance. They are doing particularly well this year; despite the drought, despite the water restrictions, despite neglect & failure to fertilize, they are doing well, which is astonishing because I'm not overly fond of roses. For scent I prefer Gardenias, or Mock Orange, Yesterday Today Tomorrow, or Lilac & I have them all [except Lilac which won't grow up here] scattered throughout the garden. The Moria [probably misspelled] out the front blooms throughout the year & its heady perfume pervades the whole garden & a good deal of the house. Liddy is very fond of it.

Our weather has turned inclement on us. It isn't exactly raining but then its not exactly not raining either. The result is just miserable & has halted work on the deck. I have been having big fires in the fire pit. It is cold enough I am grateful for the warmth outside & it is necessary to clean up the yard. Having so many big gum trees round means not only loads of leaf litter, which I can toss on the garden as mulch, but hordes of sticks & twigs & fallen branches, all of which can be tossed on the fire. Pity we didn't have marshmallows last night. By the time I was done we had perfect coals for marshmallows.

Ditz & I are struggling to get school back on course this week. We are both overly tired & when the weather is good the temptation is to be outside doing things. All too soon it is going to be far too hot to do much of anything.

I am starting to pull the last of our winter crop now. Dino's cabbages are ready & are very nice indeed. The silverbeet keeps steadily producing new leaves, there are beans almost ready & I haven't lost anything of what we planted last week which bodes well for the future. Every few days I tip the pumpkin to discourage leaf growth & bring on the flower. Besides I don't want it running everywhere. I have rockmelons & watermelons for that ~ if I can keep them through the heat.

It is NaNo time this month too ~ not that I'm terribly motivated. I am too busy to give it the attention it needs & we have had several upsets. I can not focus if my life is in a wrangle. It is energy sapping & a waste of time & effort. I don't like conflict, hate confrontation & generally head for the nearest sand dune so I can bury my head & wait for the storm to pass by. As it seems to be spiritual in nature we have upped the anti on prayer protection & having cautiously removed my head from the sand think it is now safe to go about my normal business. I was not made to stand in the breaches & wield a broadsword. Not from a lack of courage but from pure selfishness. I just want to go peacefully about my business & if the rest of the world goes to hell while I'm about it, well, that's just too bad. Yes, I know. Terrible sentiments but I have enough trouble dealing with my own life to get overly het about anyone else's. Talking of which, I have a fire going that I need to check on. Ooops.

Watched by angels.

2008-11-02T12:56:00.000-08:00

For it is written, He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee:Luke4:10

Life here is all too often lived at a frantic pace. There are only so many hours in a day & they are all accounted for so many decisions are made instinctively....& then something happens to remind me that in the midst of the turmoil & chaos God has indeed set his angels to watch over us.

Ditz has been doing her music thing all week which has meant me going over on an 8.30 pm boat to pick her up. Parking is at a premium. We usually have a nearly 10 minute walk across a park , past another car park, & along a narrow secluded track to the jetty. I get jittery at the best of times. There are often kids hanging out in the park during school hours, people drinking before the sun goes down & other things that just make me go, 'ick!' That being the case I asked Liddy to travel with me. Safety in numbers, don't you know, & she wanted the hours for her driving. It is exhausting doing this last thing at night & once or twice Liddy said she wasn't coming then at the last moment changed her mind.

OK, having company is better than being on my own & Liddy is usually very good company but I found out on Sunday why God had so arranged it that none of us were travelling on our own. A friend told me a member of her social group, a woman in her 70's, coming home with her husband after dark one night, was attacked in the car park we walk past. Yikes! She had sent her hubby on ahead because an accident meant she was a little slow & if the boat knows you're coming they will usually wait. Luckily for her a car pulled in just as the man grabbed her & he ran off but I have been extra careful to keep us all together & not let the girls run ahead to the loos on their own.

Liddy says the jetties on both sides have been getting bad for some time again; she hears all the gos working in the shop & knows all the ambo drivers [boat ambulance] so we get the occasional lift home in the ambo boat instead of waiting on deserted jetties. About time for the cops to do one of their regular clean up acts, I think. I don't know why jetties collect all the riff~raff. They are generally cold & windy & downright unpleasant even in summer & my boys were practically men before I would allow them to go fishing off ours after dark as it was notorious for drunken idiots hooning round the car park & generally causing trouble.

And talking of my boys: all the screws are now in my deck, the long ends sawn off & the hand rails ready to go thanks to their hard work! Saturday we all ate dinner on the deck sitting round on upturned tins & balancing our plates on our knees while a fire roared in the fire pit & the cat shot up & down trees like a mad thing unable to believe his luck. Everyone really enjoyed it & it is going to make such a difference to our lifestyle.

Sleepy Heads Galore.

2008-10-31T13:13:00.000-07:00

I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep. - Robert Frost

Poor Ditz! She was packing her bag in her sleep this morning. She has dark circles under her eyes & was rather lacking in enthusiasm at the early start. Two performances today, one tomorrow & we are done temporarily. Luckily she has better stamina than Liddy & we are not getting a case of the*snarlies* from the Ditzy one. [Pity I can't say the same for her sister who is coming with me to pick Ditz up & up her driving hours at the same time ~ & not in the best frame of mind as a consequence!] Ditz is very tired though & the hardest part of the whole thing is actually making sure she eats well because that is the energy she sings on. Wednesday they were at the mall between performances dining on Krispy Kreams. Not my idea of an adequate diet! Unfortunately we are still travelling when everyone else has reached home, or travelling before they have to leave, so meals get a bit helter~skelter.

I did feel for her this morning as I put her on her early boat. Having been delighted to have the freedom of travelling alone on Wednesday she is over it & being tired would much rather I had gone with her. I would have if there had been extra room on the bus but alack & alas that is not the case so she is on her own.

Having ditched Ditz yesterday evening Liddy & I filled in the time by rushing into Capalaba & viewing BBQs & birdbaths. The BBQs were for Dearest & very boring. The birdbaths were for me & far more interesting. I studiously avoided the plants but I am looking now for when the deck is actually finished. I want the birdbath to sit under the tree that is growing up through our deck as we have so many birds, all of whom use the makeshift birdbath in the front garden. Unfortunately I had something in mind before I started looking & haven't been able to find anything remotely like what I want. Don't you just hate that?! I have, however, found a blue ceramic one that will do in a pinch. The only drawback is that ceramic is quite slippery so I will be up for some pebbles to put on the bottom of the dish as well. I learnt from a friend who was breeding ducks that even water birds can very quickly drown so the water must be kept shallow & accessible in such a way the birds can easily get in & out.

Then we went to see Duchess because it was the only movie we thought might be half decent. Decent is not the word I'd use to describe it. More...interesting! Still, as I said to Liddy before we even went in, 'If all else fails at least the costuming & scenery will be worthwhile.' Good thing we did not have Ditz with us & Liddy didn't enjoy it either. Not really my sort of movie either though it does highlight rather nicely why intelligent women need acceptable outlets for their intelligence &, from my point of view at least, how poor male leadership has landed us in the mess we call modern society. One does not lead by brute force & having a separate set of standards for men & women. The biggest danger I see in some quarters of the homeschooling movement is an insistence on confining women to hearth & home. Now in a general way I would agree but if history teaches us anything it teaches that there are always exceptions & we ignore the exceptions at our peril.

The humidity is building so I am off to water my garden before the heat wilts it completely.

More history.

2008-10-30T16:04:00.000-07:00

History, n. an account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools.
AMBROSE BIERCE, The Devil's Dictionary

As you may know Sonlight uses Story of the World as a history spine. Ditz finished reading this last term but it has taken us a little longer to do the scrapbooking. We have finally made it to the end with the fall of the Roman Empire, Boudicca & Attila the Hun all crammed onto our very last page. The scrapbooking has worked really well for Ditz & we can refer to it like a time line as well.We are digressing this term with WWII. So much for logical sequencing!

I would never say I was an unschooler. I panic way to much for that sort of thinking but while I am directing Ditz into some areas I think will benefit her she has also been doing her own on~line research & reading through letters she found. There is obviously something of the snoop in my child. There is just something delightfully illicit about reading someone else's mail! Or their diary. She is doing pretty well with Anne Frank's diary & was delighted to find it does not have a happy ending. I must point out to her that this is not fiction.

While history may not be Ditz's favourite topic at least we don't struggle in this area. At present she doesn't quite see what any of this has to do with her music but I keep trying to show her the links until [hopefully] one day she will make her own connections. I have my own research to do because I've just remembered the jewish band that formed in one of the death camps & that's something that may interest Ditz. The things I know that I've forgotten I know until something jogs my memory!

Happy Birthday to Me!

2008-10-29T13:41:00.000-07:00

Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you've got to start young. - Fred Astaire

I was 50 yesterday. As my charming children keep telling me, now I'm 1/2 a century old I'm already 1/2 dead! Wishful thinking? The older the fiddler, the sweeter the tune. English Proverb

Actually I had a really lovely day. The boys remembered & rang. My mother remembered & rang! [Last year she forgot my card & we had great fun betting on how long it would take her to remember!]. The girls went to great pains to make it lovely for me though Ditz began her AbbaMania run yesterday & that was a tad fraught making. To save money, give Ditz a little more responsibility & save me spending my whole day travelling Dearest thought Ditz could travel by boat & bus alone to the pick up point for her ensemble.

O.K., she's 13, it was bright daylight in a safe area & Ditz doesn't get too many opportunities like this. She's a very competent Miss so I wasn't too worried. Ditz certainly told me not to worry in no uncertain terms. Then I got the phone call! Ditz was frantic. Her bus had a flat & she was terrified she was going to miss her departure time. It always happens. I reassured her that if she was already moving again she had plenty of time, as indeed she did.

Two performances, matinee & evening. Ditz sang two *solos*, if you can call it that when someone else shoves the mike in your face, & was spinning like a whirly~gig when Liddy & I picked her up that evening. How that child loves to perform! At least she's reasonably sensible. I know her loving family who know her so well would dispute that but she was not the child who over ate till she vomited & then fainted from lack of food. There's one in every crowd! And thanks to the faintee Ditz got the extra solo.

We have flute today & Ditz wasn't in bed till midnight so she's not doing today's performance but will then go Friday, 2 Saturday & Sunday evening. Don't know about Ditz but I am exhausted just thinking about it. That is late trips to the mainland to collect my child & bring her home. I did think about asking my boys to collect her & put her on a boat but I'm afraid they're not that reliable & unless you live on an island & have had to deal with a stranded child you have no idea just how ill with worry that can make you. We have been there more times than I care to remember & I just prefer to go with said child if at all possible.

The Lord is good too. Friends came round yesterday & from that visit two lovely things happened. He works with computers so yes, mine is now back up & running. I am so happy. My girls are so happy. Dearest is happy.

Our friends are * boaties*, the term for those itinerants who occasionally make their home on a boat & travel around the world on said boat. They are planning on pulling their kids out of school again & going cruising for 6 months next year. I had a brain explosion, dug out my used curriculum that is just cluttering up my place & handed it over along with a pile of Sonlight readers. Their youngest is a Ditz clone only far more academically inclined. Even better my friend liked the LLATL Ditz & I couldn't stand & both her girls can probably use it if it is modified a bit for the youngest. I gave her all my homeschool links too as even if they take work from the school it probably won't be enough & Distance Ed has so much busy work they don't really want to go that route again. So nice to be helpful.

2008-10-28T22:17:00.000-07:00

Ok, here we go. These are some of my gardening highlights & I truely hope that if you click on the image it will enlarge for you. This is my Christmas Bush. It is planted on our slope & reaches as high as our deck. It is in flower now but by Christmas the creamy blossoms will be all done & only the husks will remain in a firey halo . The tree is actually more stunning after the flower has fallen.

This is one of my leptospurnums. Leptospurnum is a member of the myrtle family. With it's small reddish foliage & deep pink flowers it is absolutely stunning.

This is a malaluka. The golden foliage makes it lovely at any time of the year. It will grow lovely & busy. I have a grevillia hybrid in front with a mixed red/gold flower which should look lovely.

Meanwhile Iss thinks we built the deck just for him, the whole 15 X 4 yards of it! You can't tell me that cat's stupid. As soon as we'd finished screwing down he moved to the furthermost point on the longest plank hanging over the slope & went to sleep there! He's spending all his time moving from sun to shade along it, cooking & cooling alternatively.

The deck's actually in 2 parts. We have an upper deck that sits just under the tree canopy, & a lower deck that is just above ground level. Very hard to see from the pics but it creates two very different areas. And yes, we have a tree growing up through the deck. We're going to leave it there & just trim the lower branches. It should screen & shelter the upper deck very nicely given a bit more time. Still have handrails & steps to go but we've broken the back of it now.

movies & DVDs

2008-10-25T13:11:00.000-07:00

Nim's Island is something I've wanted to get Ditz for a while. [pause for predictable eye~rolling]. I've read plenty of reviews trashing the plot, the logic [or lack thereof], the lack of tension/adventure/suspense & the acting. I find it interesting that something like Shrek [& hey, I enjoyed Shrek but I don't think it's a children's movie] get's rave reviews despite questionable language, more questionable humour & more pop culture than I want to think about. Nim's Island is different.

Nim's Island is unabashedly a children's movie, a little quirky, gentle fantasy that poses no great dramas or conflicts & yes, is pretty predictable plotwise. So what? Not everything in real life is a major drama either. And joy of joys, Nim is a homeschooler! Lovely to see a movie where homeschool is accepted in a normal matter of fact way without all the nonsense Hollywood so often makes of it.

To my surprise both my girls enjoyed it. We adored Jodie Foster. And we found the irony hilarious. I don't know how much of it was intentional but we laughed ourselves silly anyway.

Liddy also got me the 3rd season of Jonathan Creek for my birthday, which hasn't arrived yet. I got my pressie early so we all had something to watch. We have been eeking these out, one a day, to make them last & these are questionable. Ditz just thinks they are downright strange. Liddy thinks they are strange...& funny...& they have grown on her till she is as addicted to them as I am despite the fact they give her occasional nightmares. I am now wiser than I was. I never knew before that you could freeze mercury. There is a lot of science in these shows & a healthy dose of sceptical cynicism laced with the *how too's* of magic tricks, mystery, suspense ~ oh, & the sort of character conflict that has me rolling in the aisles! Besides I want that windmill. Seriously. I mean, how cool is that, living in a windmill? The Brits do this sort of thing better than anyone else & I believe there is a new season due at Christmas. Yay!

Conversation Stumpers & gardening.

2008-10-24T13:29:00.000-07:00

God made rainy days so gardeners could get the housework done. ~Author Unknown

People are odd. I mean seriously, seriously odd. What on earth goes on in their heads? Try these two conversation stumpers that we got this week.

Conversation stumper number one, on seeing Ditz come out of the library with an armful of books, several of which were 4'' thick: 'So this is what you do instead of school.'' ????? Do these people not read? OK, not going there.

Or this one; conversation stumper no.2:"But you didn't homeschool Liddy; she's so...*normal*." Pardon? As opposed to what, or whom? Ditz? Are you saying my Ditz isn't normal? OK, not going there either.

Now that I have that off my mind...The girls & I went shopping on the mainland on Friday. Ditz was glowing. Her birth certificate arrived which meant I could open her bank account & she could deposit her cheque. We got a lovely teller who thought us all terribly funny but dealt with Ditz, making her feel terribly grown up. It was a scream. Ditz didn't have a clue & we all knew it but the man pretended she did. What Ditz understands is that she now has somewhere for other people to put their money for her. Yeah, right Ditz.

We then went on to Bunnings, which is our big hardware outlet but has a nursery attached. I just shouldn't go into these places. I could easily spend thousands without batting an eyelash & thousands I did not have. Plus I had two girls in tow, both of whom will happily show me even more plants I should like to buy & just shouldn't. I managed to resist the Gardenias because I have 2 in already. I mean, more is better but I have 2 & there is no need to be greedy. I wasn't so lucky with the watermelon. Ditz carted the punnet all round the store until it simply ended up in the cart along with everything else. Where I am to grow watermelon I do not know. Liddy bought strawberries but at least they do not require so much room.

As for me, I bought leptospurnam, Banksias & grevillias. If you're not an Aussie you won't have a clue but they are all natives, shrubby & bird attracting. I got things with either variegated foliage or foliage that is not predominately green for a bit of variety. Back home we went to our local for potting mix to dump in the big clay holes we had to dig to put the plants into. Yes, our soil is shocking, hence the potting mix to allow everything to establish before battling the clay & ironstone. Being natives they should do alright despite my uncertain ministrations.

I drooled over the really BIG ceramic pots. I want a couple of those! Gorgeous blues & greens, which are my colours. I looked for & didn't find a birdbath. I looked at the tables & chairs I want but didn't find rockers. I then told Liddy I want the big nursery at Wello next time we have money. I have missed my garden. Now Dearest is moving all the building materials out of it I can start finishing the job I began. Dearest has the certificate in horticulture; I do the gardening! We have awful soil & the yard facing west was razed to the ground. It has taken me 20 years to get a canopy but now I have one I can put in my understory plants with some hope that they'll survive! Liddy, like my older 3, is a gardener. Ditz stands around getting in everyone's way.

My girls tell me that I can still upload pictures soooo...there will be pictures but for now I am going to go & move soil & plant more plants & water it all in and then I am going to wander round smiling like an idiot, sniffing appreciatively & enjoying what my labour has wrought.

Teaching History.

2008-10-22T12:09:00.000-07:00

Understand that all battles are waged on an unconscious level before they are begun on the conscious one. Teresa Stover

Ditz requested to do a study on WWII. That is this term's history assignment; a big topic. When asked she was rather vague about what she wanted to know, which is a basic & fatal mistake in this house because if you don't know mummy will make some executive decisions!

One of those executive decisions was reading material to go with the movies that Ditz had in mind. Now there are some brilliant movies around, everything from the Great Escape to Sophie's Choice but one of the quirks of my nature is that I am very rarely interested in facts, in absolutes, or in politics. What I am interested in is people & why they do what they do so the most important book I have on Ditz's reading list is not the Diary of Anne Frank [though she is reading that at present] but Morton Rhu's The Wave.

I did this with Liddy a few years ago & it is one of the scariest reads I've ever undertaken. Thanks, America, for yet another unforgettable moment! This book is based on an American history teacher's experiment in Fascism in his classroom as he attempted to show his class how it was possible to control an entire population. It is possibly the most important lesson anyone can ever learn. I think I should recommend Sonlight include it in their reading lists.

Anyhow, I ordered it from the library yesterday & it will be here next week. Ditz is rolling her eyes already but I just keep telling her the old adage; Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”George Santayana. She thinks she doesn't care but unfortunately that would not be true in reality. What's more she is tackling Anne's diary with a minimum of fuss & I think she will enjoy the Wave even more. There is a reason I encouraged my children to be very individual & the Wave demonstrates why beautifully ~ & highlights the consequences when a population stops thinking for itself. Like I said, a very scary read.

The Holocaust looks like being our primary focus so among our movie & book choices are Schindler's List, The Day Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, & the Sound of Music. I'd like Ditz to try the Von Trapp story but from memory it was a really big book & I'm not sure it would hold her attention. It's always hard to tell with Ditz. Nothing like the Julie Andrew's version! Perhaps I should just give her Winston Churchill's history of Britain. If nothing else Ditz has the ego to match: History will be kind to me for I intend to write it. Churchill. Cracks me up.

Anyway I got Ditz to brainstorm some questions she would like answers to & will will go with those to start with & if we are very lucky we will never get to which battles were fought on which bit of soil because by then it was far too late & the battle for men's souls was already lost.

A little of this, a little of that.

2008-10-20T00:49:00.001-07:00

Since each of us is blessed with only one life, why not live it with a cat?- Robert Stearns

We are back to *things as usual*, or as usual as they ever are around here. My computer is down, probably for good I think, so I am confined to Dearest's laptop & no piccies for the time being. Sorry folks but I'm just not real good with these inanimate things.

Dearest greeted me, the morning after we got home with,' Do you know what your cat did?' As a beginning it does not bode well. I decided discretion was the better part of valour & remained discretely silent. I was thinking birds but it is so unlike Issi to hunt our bird life sits round mocking him. No, not birds.

Now at bedtime Issi goes to bed with one of us girls. This is to prevent him having a psychotic meltdown in the middle of the night. So I carted him upstairs with me as usual where he parked himself on my chest gazing moonily into my closed eyes until he sensed I was drifting in to sleep then lept of me to go & sleep on top of the chest of draws...where he stayed until Dearest came up to bed. I'm not sure if Dearest gets blamed in that cat's mind for our occasional departures but Dearest's arrival was the signal for Issi to leap onto the bed rush up to me, park himself on top of me & glare at Dearest. I slept through the whole thing. I always do.

Meanwhile Ditz has settled pretty well & we seem to be getting a fair bit done. We are finishing off the last few things for her history scrapbooking, I have organized some tutoring for this multiplying fractions that makes no sense to either of us, Ditz is practising her instruments without me having to go ape in order to get anything done, we have brainstormed questions she would like answers to about WWII, & I am starting to think I may just be getting my grip back on her work. We have been working; it's just life gets so out of control I feel scrambled all the time. I mean, in the middle of school there was a bellow from the kitchen where Dearest was in the process of making pies & having asked my opinion on why his pastry was...strange...& adjusted it accordingly, suddenly found he had far more pastry than he had anticipated & was in no condition to roll it all out....but we now have 30 pie shells in our freezer.

And the best thing of all? We have screwed down the first board of the verandah!!!! This has been a mammoth task for us. Dearest has a broken back. He's lucky to be able to walk let alone work so everything gets done at a snail's pace, a little at a time as his pain allows. We hope one of the boys will give us a hand this weekend to get it all done. It is a very big deck....we will practically live on it during the summer as it will be the coolest place around & get every little breeze so having it for Christmas will be wonderful. I am hoping we will have it for my birthday at the end of the month but we will see as our summer storms have arrived with a vengeance. Hot, humid days are being punctuated with violent thunderstorms, torrential rain & cyclonic winds. Still, anticipating the end result, I am going to look at some outside furniture on Friday. I'd like a cluster of small tables & chairs rather than one great big one & a rocker...or two. I mentioned a rocker to Dearest & his eyes lit up so I guess I need two. I love rockers.

Liddy's Wild Weekend.

2008-10-19T12:50:00.000-07:00

You have to laugh. It not only rained to begin Liddy's weekend; it thundered & stormed. It wailed & hailed. We drove north in darkness & showery wind shattered by huge sheet lightening with Liddy behind the wheel. Not the pleasantest trip I've ever taken ~ nor the one where I felt safest. I tell Liddy she makes her guardian angels work over time but we arrived safely ~ to everyone's relief!
What really struck me this visit was how well mum's garden is doing. It looks like a garden now, not like a bunch of plants trying to fill a hole! Her ''Little Joey'' pillar rose is spectacular. Not that the girls were interested in what mum's garden was doing. Liddy had us all in the car after breakfast & heading off to Kawana to shop. Least said about that the better. Ditz infuriated Liddy by taking pics on her cell phone of Liddy trying out all the really horrible things the sales lady hung over her door. What she eventually chose was very nice but it took some getting there & Ditz was majorly bored. The beach was out as it was both rainy & windy so it was off to the leisure centre to watch a completely forgettable movie then out to Noosa to have a meal out at *Rosie's*. Larry & Rosie are English, used to be my folks neighbours & run a very good little roadside restaurant. Unfortunately Larry's menu leans heavily to seafood [eeeeew!] but he does suburb stuffed mushrooms or onion tart. Mum & I opted for the mushrooms. I wanted to have them as a main & I should have as they were ginormous & I gave Liddy one of mine. Mum gave her most of her second one too so Liddy, who had not ordered an entree, actually was the only person to eat a full one. Mum & I had chicken in a mustard sauce [very yummy], Ditz who finds the menu difficult, stuck to rack of lamb & Liddy had steak. The girls & I topped the meal with desert & I don't think we recovered for the rest of the weekend. Mind you, we needed all the energy we could get to keep up with Liddy. No sitting round reading quietly for Liddy!
Friday was still rainy but showing promise of better things Mum finally got to show off her new *water feature* before we headed out to Montville. Monteville is up in the hinterland & the arts & crafts centre of the Sunshine Coast. It is chocka of small curiosity shops, terribly expensive but a delightful way to window shop. Ditz loves the cuckoo clock shop, mum enjoys the woodwork & I just love all the creative bibs & bobs. Liddy is less enthused. She can neither eat it nor wear it but by 12ish everyone was starving again so we drove out to the Mary Cairncross Scenic Reserve.

The kiosk sells a terrific BLT on Turkish & unbelievable homemade cakes. The view is spectacular looking out to the coast & the Glasshouse mountains & even though it was overcast the view was still superb. I lost the top of my sandwich to an opportunist scrub turkey without regret. It was a very substantial lunch.

We then walked the 2km rainforest track. It is one of the easiest walks we've ever done, so flat you could probably do it in a wheelchair. The girls weren't all that fussed. After the adventure of something like the Wari track at Springbrook this was very tame but we saw plenty of interesting things: pademelons [small walleby type things], a male Regent Bowerbird, a riflebird, hordes of nests, including a ringtailed possums nest & what we couldn't see we heard: catbirds [truly they go 'meow!'], rifle birds & whipbirds. One of the more interesting sites was two absolutely giant eucalyptus in the middle of this rainforest. When they go there will be no more. Eucalyptus do not grow in rainforest! They must originally have been on the border between eucalyptus forest & rainforest.
It was late when we got home & the girls were tired but they managed to drag themselves along to the centre's pool for a swim & as they walked home Liddy said regretfully,'I suppose it's too late for a walk on the beach.' Yes indeed!

True to form Saturday dawned bright & sunshiney. We got in our walk on the beach from Mudjimba north & the girls got a short swim. The surf was awful. Short dumpers & there were lifeguards everywhere although the designated areas between the flags were less than 50m & there were signs up saying SWIM WITH CAUTION. The drag was to the north & although Ditz initially tried to keep up with Liddy she was dumped seriously enough to come inside the breakers herself. I couldn't stand to watch as Liddy always gets too far out & the surf was NOT going to improve no matter how far she went so I called them in early & a good thing I think as we had to walk back & after Lunch Liddy was driving home. I didn't want her too tired before we'd started.
The cat was sooooo relieved to see us all walk back in the door again! Dearest swears he's been moping, wouldn't eat & sat outside waiting for us. I do know that despite the heat that cat's been in my lap every night just for cuddles! Liddy, who was home briefly after work says the cat was estatic to have one of us left behind & couldn't believe it when she too walked out the door with a bag! He does not like bags! However Dearest gave him plenty of attention & he seems to be getting the idea that though we may sometimes go we always come home again.

Au revoir.

2008-10-14T12:39:00.000-07:00

"Joy is not in things; it is in us." --Benjamin Franklin

We are off north after choir rehearsal tonight. Liddy has snagged herself a long weekend so we decided to spend that with my mother as we haven't seen her in a while. She is pretty excited even though such flying visits mean we leave her with a lot of extra washing & she has to stock the pantry up. My girls sure can eat!

Because it is Liddy's weekend there is rain coming in. lol. She is getting pretty crotchety about the weather.

And the cat has gone into meltdown! He is unhappy with the heat & any time I touch him I end up wearing his fur coat so I have been grooming him over & over in an effort to help him out with his moulting. I use, of all things for this, a nit comb. It is absolutely perfect & picks up any debris in the fur as well. Like most of the cats I've owned Issi adores being groomed & will stick his nose in the air so I can run the comb round his cheeks & down his throat, all the while emitting a deep, happy, rumbling purr.

Now the weather is so pleasant outside during the day Iss is spending more time outside, as I am. Iss always knows where I am & is usually not too far away. He is less happy if I disappear on him & my exit indoors is invariably greeted with an anguished yowl! It's reached a sad state when the cat is running my life but I always seem to go back to get him. I can't stand a weeping cat! He is going to be really cross about all his *alphas* [as Dearest says] abandoning him.

Another long drive for Liddy. Her hours should be coming along nicely. Hoping all my bloggy friends have a lovely weekend & I will catch up with you all when we get home again, sometime Saturday.

And one carrot cake...

2008-10-13T15:09:00.000-07:00

There are few chores I hate more than the bulk meat shop. I mean I truly hate it. Given my drathers I'd be vegetarian. The only butchers I've ever been in that didn't stink to high heaven were in Germany & that's a little far to go on a regular basis. So Dearest, who combines the meat shop with a visit to his specialist, is mostly responsible. The sight of all that dead flesh, the smell of blood, & the cheerful way the lads toss carcasses about pretty much does me in. I can't wait to get out of the place.

Then there is all the packing once we get home again. I left Ditz with the washing up & kitchen clean~up [she did a super job!] & then roped her in for the packing as well. She did sausages. Dearest did the chicken because chicken is plain revolting ~ all slimy & squishy. Ugh!

So I was thrilled to get a birthday parcel in the mail ~ early too! My birthday is still weeks away but Siano, my dearest it is lovely! The girls think it looks fab on me & silk! Oh, my! I feel quite decadent with the touch of silk against my skin! Liddy was quite put out & wants to know where her present is. ;P

Liddy had a pretty good day & work was at pains to make it special for her even though she was working. Ditz was beside herself as she had saved & saved [always hard for Ditz] to buy Liddy a truly alarming alarm clock. She is now broke again!Ditz also took over the cake for decorating purposes....
And Liddy ate it!

So here is our carrot cake recipe:

2 cups sugar

4 eggs lightly beaten

2 cups of sifted self rising flour

2 cups coarsely grated carrot

2 teaspoons of cinnamon

1 1/2 cups oil

1 cup chopped walnuts

Add sugar to eggs gradually, stirring well. Combine flour & cinnamon. Reserve small amount of flour. Add flour & oil to egg mixture, beginning & ending with flour. Dredge walnuts with reserved flour. Fold in walnuts & carrots. Pour batter into greased, waxed~paper lined layer cake pans. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 ~ 40 minutes. Turn on to racks to cook thoroughly.

Filling:

2 8oz packages cream cheese

2 teaspoons vanilla

1/2 cup butter

13/4 cups icing sugar [powdered sugar?]

1 cup chopped walnuts.

Mix cheese, vanilla, butter & sugar. Add walnuts. Mix well. Spread between layers & on top of cake. Gives about 20 servings!

Standing on the brink.

2008-10-11T16:56:00.000-07:00

ETERNITY.

Arthur Stace is a Sydney legend. No~one remembers his name but everyone remembers what he wrote. He is the illiterate man who defaced the Sydney footpaths, subway walls, building fences...anything at all where he could scribble his one word gospel message: ETERNITY. Sydneysiders would pass by his message on their way to work or shopping, just that one word chalked wherever God directed him. I remember seeing his message every time I went into town.

I have been thinking of Arthur Stace recently. I guess he reached more people than most preachers. He is coming to mind because we are told to be vigilant, to be wily as serpents & to read the times. I have no doubt we are in the end times. We have been in the end times since Christ hung on the cross. Just how far we are along before Christ returns I have no idea but I see the birth pangs coming closer together, the signs of wars & rumours of wars, of a selfish & disobedient generation, of natural disasters accumulating & my heart is rejoicing.

Come, Lord Jesus, Come!

And there are some things that have been on my heart, troubling me every time I am quiet before the Lord. Judgement begins with the house of God. We are supposed to be living holy lives, firstly to glorify our heavenly father; secondly to bear witness to a wicked & perverse generation. Inasmuch as we have failed in this we shall be judged. It begins with us because we have the new life in us. We are capable of more & better. The world is doing exactly as it's nature dictates. We are not & that is to our shame.

Secondly, far too much of the church has forgotten that Christ said he would bring a sword. If the church is as it should be there will be strife with the world, troubles & persecution. We have had it so easy for so long in the west that we have forgotten this truth. China knows it. Korea knows it.

Thirdly I am no masochist but I rejoice because history teaches me that the persecuted church is a strong church. There is a winnowing & cleansing that takes place. What remains has been tested by fire & will endure to the end. What's more I do not need to be afraid. The other lesson history teaches is that grace is given when grace is needed.

So what is a Christian to do? What Christians through every age have always done: Repent & Call on the name of the Lord for He is our strength & our refuge, our eternal hope, our alpha & our omega, all the love we can ever hold & our final resting place. In the midst of the storm there is no safer place to be than by our Lord's side.

Riding the birthday train

2008-10-10T13:19:00.000-07:00

What do you buy the girl who has everything? In our case: speakers. If the child has her own perhaps there is some chance mine will stay attached to my computer? Bed linen; plain & teal because Liddy has a king single & getting bed linen to fit is not always easy & she has had the same colour scheme for 2 years now. Time for a change. A pretty watch as that girl goes through watches at a frantic pace. Perhaps this one will last longer? And hair bands because according to the Ditzy one the reason she has no hair bands is because her sister has nicked them all (conveniently forgetting that she borrows far more than the odd hair band or two!)

Ditz wrapped the big presents in glitzy paper & at some point today I need to find my carrot cake recipe so there is some chance of making the cake tomorrow. I make such a good carrot cake the girls will never order it when we're out even though they adore it as it is just never as good as mum's! I like eating it but making it is something I prefer not to do. It is expensive & not at all healthy. Lid, poor girl, has to work on her special day & it is a late finish so she won't even get to eat her special dinner till late ~ when she will be too tired to enjoy it properly.

While I was paddling round the shops looking I bought myself the prettiest mug ~ with a lid! I love these because I am always being called away from a freshly made cuppa to run kids somewhere & of course it is stone cold by the time I get back to it. A lid may just make the difference. The only ones I had seen have a little teapot sitting on one of those *doormouse* cups. You could practically swim in the thing & while I think they're terribly pretty there didn't seem to be much point when I don't drink tea. In Celtic mythology butterflies symbolise the soul ~ which is rather sadly ironic, dontcha think. My soul belongs to caffeine! No, not really but I do like a hit of caffeine first thing in the morning.

Liddy & I, having planted the garden & watered it in well, then watched the sky lower & the clouds darken till the deluge was upon us. Things always grow so much better when God does the watering & I am already picking beans off the plants I put in last month. The poor little plants are barely a hand span tall but producing beans larger than they are already. Dino, who came for cricket training Thursday & stayed the night, was delighted & was talking about putting a pen in so we could run chooks again. I am not holding my breath on that one.

That time of the year.

2008-10-09T03:27:00.000-07:00

The weather doesn't seem able to make up it's mind but either way it is that time of the year; the garden needs some serious attention. I have been busily reefing out what's left of the winter crops & replanting for the summer. I stuck to the things I know we grow well: beans, silverbeet, tomatoes. My one indulgence was rockmelons. On the other hand Liddy thought me way too practical & indulged in cucumbers & a red passionfruit. I am eyeing the nectarine askance. Zillions of small fruit have already appeared. I have mulched everything till it disappears beneath a mound of cattle cane but it is the only way to keep the soil moist & cool till the worst of the summer fries everything.

I am emptying leaves out of gutters preparatory to the fire season & raking up piles of leaves to be thrown on the gardens as mulch. Every morning I dash out to battle the sandies as I water the garden & fill the bird bath. Between sandfly bites & a bad case of hives, brought on I suspect by having to change washing powders to accommodate the new machine, I am like to tear my skin off!

Oh, & somewhere in there I have been trying to get a grip on the school stuff. Ditz is being reasonably co~operative. I have taken pictures of last term's work & managed to e~mail it all through to where it has to go. I have rearranged all Ditz's work for the week into a single folder so I know at a glance whether we are ahead or behind. We have hit the term running with a new Sonlight core & some good ideas for Ditz's project on WWII. So far so good.

Ditz & I are supposed to be entering some art in a memorial exhibition in November. Ditz has a thing for doing dotty Aboriginal artwork. How she can I do not know! It makes me cross~eyed. Not quite finished but you get the idea.

She seems to have gone red but it seems to be effective. She threw this one together in about 10 minutes. Oh, to be that good!

I am leaving her behind tomorrow as I need to go birthday shopping for Liddy. As she is earning enough to buy anything she really wants she has become impossible to buy for & I was at a loss for ideas but Ditz is good that way & supplied me with plenty of ideas as we wended our way up & down the hill to flute today. It is always a long wait for the boat home & today was hot & windy so instead of sitting in a biting wind on the jetty we detoured into the island restaurant for iced coffee & iced chocolate because no way was I giving Ditz caffeine! It was a small treat on a day that tends to be woefully long.

With better weather we have again been plodding along with the verandah & finally, finally are down to the last few jobs before screwing down the boards & sitting back in the breeze through the summer heat enjoying the results of our labours! Dearest can only work for very short periods of time so what is essentially a very simple job has dragged on for months & months to everybody's frustration but we are nearly there! We had 3 acidents with the bearers being pulled down so that the job had to be redone; a job that was causing Dearest huge amounts of pain. He was not a happy man & will be very glad when we finally get this project finished. Issi thinks it's all being done just for him & is already lording it over the planks.

I am eyeing off the area around the fire pit which I haven't been able to reach for 12 months or more itching to get in, clear the weeds, rake the leaves & tidy things up before the Christmas heat is upon us as sure of eggs there will be a swarm of kids through the place for the break, all heading down the hill to the water & returning laden with stinky stuff that can be cooked outside on the fire.

Busy, busy & it will only get worse as the end of the year approaches.

2008-10-03T13:48:00.000-07:00

“The hardest part of skating is the ice” Anon.
Remember: when they make the ice, they make it slippery side up." - Dewy Browning

It has been years since I've been on the ice & one of the things I really hate about getting older is how much harder I fall. Still, since ice skating was how Liddy wanted to spend her Friday, I showed willing.

Now those of you in colder climes can't appreciate what a chore this is out here. Firstly rinks are few & far between. Several hours with the phone book produced one rink in the whole of Brisbane ~ which meant an hour in the car, longer because Liddy took the *scenic detour*. Being school holidays the rink was packed. And we don't own our own skates so we have to hire them which means, if you are reasonably lucky the skates you hire will still have a bit of an edge on them otherwise....I hate blunt skates. They make life so much harder.

Now the last time I skated boots were still made from leather so I was horrified to find they are now made of stiff hard plastic. I should have been warned of then & there. I have peculiarly shaped feet with knobby bones sticking out. I have so much trouble with regular shoes I actually don't even own a pair at present. Sad, sad, sad. However Lid had forked over her hard earned cash & I knew she knew I knew [sort of] how to skate & wanted me on the ice with her. So I gave the guy behind the counter my shoe size as I last remembered it to find no way, no how could I wear those skates on the ice. I felt like I was crippled so back I went for a larger pair.

The next size at least allowed my toes to spread but I could feel my instep bone rubbing before I was even on the ice. It bothered me so much I wibbled & wobbled around the edge afraid to let go of the rail because I am far too old to wallow about down on the ice. If I went down I knew there was no way I was getting back up. Liddy was confidently sailing round & round. Ditz, poker upright, was managing. I was the only silly sausage unable to find my balance & some semblance of confidence.

I don't often hate the age I am ~ a season for everything~ but I did on Friday. Once it would only have taken me 10 minutes to find my balance & do what Liddy was doing with such ease & I could have taken a fall with a laugh & been back on my feet in no time; but I am no longer 19, or even Ditz's hardy 13 & by the time I was getting my balance & skating with some semblance of dignity Liddy had decided her skates were the wrong size. Instead of going to the counter to exchange them she asked to change with me. Why not? We hobbled into the stands to exchange boots to find I had a huge broken blister. No wonder my foot hurt! I tried Liddy's boots but they were far too big; she is several sizes larger than I am so after due consideration I took the horrible things off & got out my book. There is a reason I always carry reading material with me.

Shortly thereafter Liddy rejoined me declaring she was 'over it.' Ditz however was still happily going round & round looking like nothing earthly. She is not one of my sporty ones. Liddy, sailing round with her hands tucked behind her back, looked perfectly at home on the ice. Ditz looked like she had something rammed up her behind, she was so stiff. She runs like that too, bolt upright, with the perfect posture that is so desired in music class. It looks most peculiar. However it eventually dawned on her that she was on the ice on her own & that her nearest & dearest were laughing at her from the stands. We told her she could stay as long as she liked but after several more rounds she'd had enough too so we gave the rink back their horrible boots & headed back towards home by the short route.

Liddy had some shopping to do before we headed into the movies to see Journey to the Centre of the Earth. This was a *Ditz pick*. Liddy & I chose the last twice & they were fizzers. This movie required 3D specs & is probably responsible for the migraine I came home with....apart from the fact I have major problems with heights, even heights of the Hollywood variety. While nearly landing in Liddy's lap with a prehistoric piranha coming straight at me I then proceed to laugh in all the wrong places. Ditz enjoyed it & it was about time she got to see a movie more at her level instead of the high brow stuff Lid's been subjecting us too. I got a DVD more along my lines before we came home: K-19 with both Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson! Now I just have to find some time to actually watch it.

The Decadent Monster.

2008-10-01T21:23:00.000-07:00

She never did any housework. She would garden all the morning & read in the afternoon. S.Cane

Place is important to me. There are places I walk in my dreams yet. Trafalgar Vale is one of those places. I can walk it room by room ~seeing, feeling, smelling, the house solid around me as it was when I was a child.

Odd I should remember it so well. It was not my house & it was old; a hundred years old even then. It smelt of the dust that drifted down from the ceiling in dank clouds, of overblown roses, red soil & Mama's eternal turps & thinners. The shower stood on a cement slab under the water tank & draped over its rafters lived the carpet snake that fed on the fat green tree frogs. It was geriatric having the usual problems with its plumbing & embarrassing leaks. Like its owner it was quirky. Perhaps that's why I loved it so much. The main bedroom wall sported a willow tree bearing peach blossoms. The bath got buried in the front garden. The back door was painted in black & pink & purple stripes & at one time the fridge was also painted. A garish commode sat behind a curtain on the back verandah & the rail was home to a medley of ancient chamber pots. The loo was a *thunderbox* way down at the back fence amidst black clouds of mozzies & midgies.

Trafalgar Vale, far too snooty a name for a portly old lady tied at the waist with string, was my Aunt's house. I loved it as my aunt did for its faults, being as disinclined as she was to practical considerations over ambiance & that elusive sense of being at home. Besides there was the garden.

My Aunt was a gardener before she was anything else, a love she shared with my own mother & which created a friendship between two very dissimilar women because my Aunt was no housekeeper & her methods invariably made my mother cringe. Her garden was a tangled riot of exuberant plants, gracious old trees, secretive nooks & hidden corners. I remember the front verandah for its swathes of wisteria & golden alamander. It was a house & garden that had roots, good sturdy roots running from generation to generation, where the old stories got told & retold giving me a sense of belonging that I did not find in my modern, practical, organized home were I could not find reflections of myself.

A sense of belonging is important to a child. A sense of springing from a real past, of being a cog in something larger than oneself, of moving into the future, spring from that sense of belonging & so I was careful to tell the stories as I remember them, for the people to whom the stories happened have gone now. Some of them I only know through their stories. Others I remember but as I tread the wide boards of Trafalgar Vale in my dreams they crowd about me, all the dead. As a king once said, 'I will go to them, they cannot return to me.' But I do not think they care to be forgotten.

2008-10-01T04:38:00.000-07:00

"Never ride faster than your guardian angel can fly."Anon.

My dad used to own one of these ~ an old Indian. I believe he came to grief on it a time or two. Given the trouble he had with cars I'm surprised he lived to tell the tale but he did. He grew up ~ well, he got older~ & exchanged his bike for a family car & the wife & kids to go with it. The bike got stored in his sister's shed.

Now Dad's sister, my Auntie Shirley, was an unusual woman. She loved her brother with a passion but she had some odd quirks & that bike had been sitting in her shed 20 odd years. Possibly longer. By anyone's standards it had reached antique status. In Shirl's eyes it was just another piece of junk, junk that didn't even work any more.

Shirley also lived in white ant country; termites; in a house over a hundred years old. These little blighters will eat their way through just about anything & eventually they ate their way through Shirl's front verandah steps. Being a do it herself sort of a woman Shirl set about rectifying this problem & bought herself a bag of cement & some sand. You know where this is going don't you?

Yep. Finding herself sort of *fill* for her new set of steps Shirl began clearing out her shed. Somewhere in the shire there is a hundred year old house with a fine set of curved cement steps with an old Indian bike firmly embedded therein!

Telopea ~ seen from afar

2008-09-30T14:07:00.000-07:00

None can have a healthy love for flowers unless he loves the wild ones.- Forbes Watson

Telopea speciosissima ~ The Waratah, one of the oddest flowers to ever bloom. This is the floral emblem of N.S.W ~ my home state ~ & the waratah blooms there in its National Parks. It is related to the South African Protea, likes nutrient deficient, sandy soil , regenerates from the root stock after a bushfire, blooming again within 2 years & it won't grow up here.

I haven't even tried to grow it. I hate killing plants & I've done a fair bit of it in my time. I insist on trying to grow things where I know they won't be happy. They reward me as I deserve by curling up their toes & dying a lingering death. Worse I want a white waratah, which are unusual & rarer & therefore, I supposse expensive & thus beyond my purse. Probably a good thing.

I have managed to grow a N.S.W Christmas Bush up here in solid clay & what's more, it blooms each year in time for Christmas. Hm. How to explain we all grow this beauty for the bright red husks that remain after the flowers have fallen! It's not just our animals that are more than a little peculiar. The flora is weird too. It has a beauty all its own.

2008-09-28T15:43:00.000-07:00

“Nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.” Oscar Wilde
That feather is back & I'm reeling! I mean most of this year I've felt like I've been dragging a reluctant horse to water & stressing because it won't drink. Thanks Ditz. How that child can find ALL her work duller than watching ditch water is beyond me.

We are sort of, not really, kinda on break...meaning Ditz is doing a little bit of reading & not much else. Dearest is on record as saying we need the break to cope with the end of the year. Ditz has taken that to mean she can plonk herself in front of the t.v set & watch endless movies. Naturally, it being the holidays, the weather turned nasty & I just couldn't think of something else she could do.

Several years ago a dear friend of ours died of cancer. She was only a young woman & her mum was devastated. Each year since mum has held an art exhibition in honour of her daughter. This year she asked if we would contribute. Ditz promptly hoyed out the acrylics & began painting. It's good. I'll post a pic separately.

I fiddled for a bit but the oil caps have all hardened & half of them are now soaking in turps in a last ditch effort at allowing me to unscrew them. I abandoned the effort & went to sulk on the computer...where Ditz joined me using the sort of voice that makes me instantly wary. You know, the voice that begs yes but expects a no.

And what did my darling child want? To do a study on WWII!!! The catch? She wants to do it from movies.

I actually have no problem with this. There are heaps of good movies around from The Sound of Music to Schindler's List to The Great Escape. This I can live with. Ditz informed me I had to watch the movies with her [weep for me!] & stay with her while she wrote her project up BUT she was going to do the writing. No help required...or wanted! When a child so firmly takes control of her own learning I am not about to try & dissuade her. Quite the opposite even if it means abandoning the Greeks & the Peloponnesian War mid stream & plunging forward hundreds of years. Ditz & I are random learners so no problemo.

I have given her The Diary of Anne Frank & The Day Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit for reading because quite frankly I don't give a tinker's dime whether Ditz remembers the dates of the war or which battles were fought. If she grasps how the second war evolved from the injustices [by the allies, what's more] from the first & how good people can choose to do horrible things she will have learnt a far more valuable lesson. For art we might try a propaganda poster. Ditz is into Anime & graffiti at present so that should appeal. Wish us luck.

The Pin.

2008-09-27T18:19:00.000-07:00

...may there be no moaning of the bar,When I put out to sea...Lord Alfred Tennyson The pin............

...............no, not that pin; this Pin....

Jumpinpin, possibly the most notorious bar in Australia.

On the whole Australian history is rather on the dull side. Convicts, mostly bog Irish, Mad Englishmen barbecuing themselves in the Interior, failed crops & failed colonies & shanties following fool's gold.

Lots of people would berate me for not being more enamoured of my own country's history but things of genuine interest are few & far between...or unless you're possibly male. I happen to think the explorers were stupid as well as boring but that's just my personal think. I just don't happen to think there's anything particularly heroic about heading into a desert or the great Divide as ill prepared as most of these men were. They paid dearly for their arrogance.

Which is beside the point. The point being that there are occasional sparks of interest. The history of the Pin is one of those because up until 1898 there was no Pin. South Stradbroke & North Stradbroke were one long island, the biggest sand island in the world.

Now I could give you the prosaic version but that is nowhere near as interesting as the *Romantic* version so you must take this version with a large grain of salt. I recommend salt with any version of history as a matter of course.

Stradbroke hugs the coast between south Brisbane & the Gold Coast. It has some of the best beaches & the best surf in the world. On September 3rd, 1894 the Cambus Wallace was plying her trade when she ran aground in heavy seas on the sand spit at Tulbeen. Five lives were lost & her cargo was washed ashore on the spit. The locals swarmed to the wreck to salvage what they could to find the cargo consisted of barrels of rum & a load of dynamite. The rum was drunk & then the dynamite collected in a heap & set of. The resulting explosion separated north Stradbroke from the south. Big storms throughout the 1890's completed the separation leaving a gap that has claimed more boats that any other bar in Australia ~ or so I'm told.

Jumpinpin has a tidal flow of 4.5k across a stretch of shallow sand making the wave sets erratic & unpredictable. Even good sailors & locals have come to grief on the Pin. The sands are constantly shifting. Stradbroke is moving slowly northwards as the sands shift but Jumpinpin is still the shortest route to the open sea with some of the best fishing around: bream, flathead, mangrove jacks. It is also a big reason for not eating seafood ~ ever! 'Cause guess what the seafood's eating? Gross!

The old order changeth...

2008-09-26T14:30:00.000-07:00

A mother's treasure is her daughter. ~Catherine Pulsifer

I had boys first, just as I was the sister to brothers. Girls bamboozled me. I never did get what it was with the clothes & the make~up & the purses bulging with unnecessay do~dads when you could stick all you needed in a wallet & ram the whole thing in a back pocket.

No I wasn't a girly girl. I played football. I sailed. I abseiled & hiked & camped. I read voraciously, which is one reason I can't do math. I hid books under my desk & read through math class. [I did it for science too with a different result.]

I worked with homeless youth, mainly boys. I was totally unprepared for girls. I was so unprepared [dareI admit it?] that when I clapped eyes on Liddy for the very first time my instinctive response was not, 'Oh, a girl. How nice,' but a horrified, 'Put it back; it's not finished cooking yet!'

Dearest, after 3 boys, was an experienced father. He sat in the rocking chair & rocked his big~ eyed newborn daughter while I climbed into the shower to recover from the shock. That was the only time Liddy let him anywhere near her for the next 3 years. She was not a daddy's girl, but mummy's ~ & she let the whole world know it.

Liddy was mummy's girl but unlike my boys she was not a cuddler. I adjusted to a girl who would not co~sleep [but at least she would sleep through the night] ,who slept spread out like a starfish, who objected strenously to being treated like a living, walking, talking dollie, to wearing dresses, long hair, any ornamentation, & shoes. Like mother, like daughter. What we share is a delite in feminine socialising: the girls round the table for a chat, coffee & cakes. Even at 2 Lid was all for sitting in her high chair with her cup of milk putting her 2 cents worth into the conversation ebing & flowing around her. I delighted in my daughter & though I mourned the absence of pretty frocks drying on the line amongst the grubby T's & holey shorts, I understood.

Then I got Ditz. Ditz was not the shock Liddy was. Girl parts, boys parts. I looked, I saw, I went, 'Ah, girl.' O.K, so we already knew & the kids had been calling her Ditz for months & talking to her through my tummy. Ditz too was prepared to sleep through the night. After boys who wouldn't I tell you that sleeping babies rates real high with me! Better yet, Ditz was a cuddler. She co~slept. Actually for the next 5 years she was more along the lines of a parasitic growth attached to my hip. My parents began to make comments along the lines of the child not developing leg muscles if she was never put down. The word*spoilt* got bandied around. Don't blame me. It was her siblings who caved in to her every time she screamed, not her mother. I was fighting a losing battle on two fronts.

Ditz looks like her daddy but temperment wise she is my daughter; poor thing. It is not an obviously attractive personality like Liddy's, though it has it's own charm. We got along well, though it was a battle royal when Liddy came home to school & Ditz discovered she had to share me! Share? Not on your nellie! Mind you she consistently drove Liddy up the wall by lavishly imitating her.

Things have changed! Oh my, how they have changed. Ditz is becoming her own person; her own person, not an off~shoot of mummy nor a Liddy clone. It is an uncomfortable business because what I discover I have in Ditz is a girly girl! Floored, I am. Speechless. [Well, ok, not too spechless to ramble in shock.] What's more she's good at the girly thing. As we went into town I peered a little more closely at my daughter's face. Yep. Make~up! Blush. Mascara. Beautifully done. A little lip gloss for effect. A silver heart on a chain around her neck. Small rings in her ears. Her clothes & hair are always immaculate.

I confess, I have no idea how to parent this child. I don't even know if she's normal. Seriously, why would you put gunk all over your face?

'But I have to mum,' my child explained patiently. 'It's for choir.'

'It's rehearsal!!'

I don't know whether to laugh or cry about the sparkly purple nail polish, the requests for eyeliner & lipstick, the emerging fashion sense in a notoriously unfashion conscious house. I'm not sure how much I can give because I do know it is impossible to reclaim ground once it's been ceded, so before I agree to anything I want to be very sure that I am stll going to be ok with it in a month, or a year.

God knows how much I like a challenge but I'm not sure I'm up for this one. I want nothing more than to pop the child back in a sling & carry her close to my heart, safe from all harm.

Getting it wrong.

2008-09-25T13:55:00.000-07:00

''It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.” Tolkien

I do not often get fraught about living on an island..but I was yesterday. Nothing is more fraught making than watching a boat pull out without you when you have to be somewhere by a particular time.

My less than numerical ability has taken a rather extensive hike so even had we been on the correct boat I had unintentionally cut things finer than I like. Leaving on the later boat had Ditz as well as me stressing. You see it wasn't only the boat we missed. It was the train as well. We got to watch that pull out of the station too.

I know perfectly well that once this happens there is nothing I can do but that does not stop my stomach from tying itself in knots & my will urge the train to go faster than the Railways designate. It also gave me far too much time to fret about Ditz bursting out all over from the uniform we paid a small fortune for at the beginning of the year & which Ditz has worn exactly 3 times! Ouch.

All this for one hour in at QPAC; one hour where I got to sit in the foyer of the playhouse reading, a playhouse we might never have found if not for the luminescent orange of the Vocal Manoeuvres shirts. God faithfully delivered us before they'd quite given up on us & just in time for Ditz to go into the orchestra hall with the rest of the ensemble.

4.30 ~ 5.30pm is a reasonable rehearsal time ~ until you realise it takes us 2 hours to get in to town, & 2 hours + to get back out again, which is dinner time however you look at it. Ditz was ravenous. She is at that stage where she is always ravenous & constantly eating. Given she was a rather picky eater as a kid & we had just missed another boat [it was that sort of a day :( ], I had to find food, the faster the better.

Chinese take~a~way went some way to mollifying her that I had refused to drive into town & had made her take the train. [Liddy driving everywhere is spoiling her.] However it was cheaper for us to go in by train once I calculated fuel & parking costs & the peak hour traffic & the train station was, as advertised, directly opposite QPAC.

Ditz is extremely aware of the time & costs involved in lugging her round to all these things & remembers to tell me how much she appreciates it. That goes a long way to compensating for having to endure an hour of Ditz on the train hamming it up with exaggerated faces & voices. *sigh* What the other passengers thought doesn't bear thinking about but even a little contact with the performance arts sends Ditz into a lather of imitation. Yes, I know it's fun & a full carriage is irresistibly a captive audience but honestly!

Whatever my lot...

2008-09-23T13:38:00.000-07:00

“Like all the best families, we have our share of eccentricities, of impetuous and wayward youngsters and of family disagreements.” Queen Elizabeth II.

I have 5 children. My oldest is 25 this year. I have not seen him or spoken to him in 3 years. I know he is alive. I know he is living somewhere in Brisbane & I know he does not wish to see or speak to anyone in his family.

I think Jossie may have Aspergers, a form of autism. I do not know because he has never been diagnosed. He was not diagnosed because when he was growing up few people had heard of Autism let alone Aspergers. He was in his teens before his behaviour became so outlandish we became alarmed. He is so high functioning (read diagnosed *gifted*) all the experts assured us his behaviour was normal teenage angst. I have raised 3 other teenagers. Nothing about Jossie's behaviour is remotely normal.

I have 4 other children. In retrospect I can see just how abnormal Joss' behaviour was but he was my first. I thought he was just odd & being different is no reason to be ostracised ~ but Joss was. He was clumsy & not good at sport, an almost unforgivable sin for a male in Australia's sport obsessed culture. He was easily angered by trivial upsets. He was manipulative & vindictive. He had trouble following directives & I would have to hold his face between my hands & make eye contact to issue instructions; never more than 3 at a time or he couldn't cope. The most telling thing is that he simply could not make friends. His grasp of the social niceties is almost non~existent. He was laughed at & ostracised by his peers his entire childhood. It did not help that he had an extraordinary grasp of language with which to abuse his tormentors & that he was obsessed with things of no interest to the average child.

I'm not a doctor. I could be wrong but as he entered his teens Joss became extremely aggressive. His rages were frightening & out of control. He shot up rapidly & became a gangly 6'6''. School became a nightmare & we pulled him out but Joss was on a spiral we were unable to halt. He moved out of home. For a while things would go well but Joss seems unable to manage his life or to grasp that there are consequences to his actions. Eventually someone or something would trigger him & he would go on a violent rampage kicking in doors & walls. I have never known him to hold a job; he cannot cope with the necessary social interaction. When he is calm he talks extremely intelligently & is an interesting conversationalist but his tendency to focus on the negatives in his life means he rapidly forgets kindnesses, positives, & that other people have feelings too.

He was living on the island with his only friend who, being homosexual, was nearly as ostracised as Joss. He was deeply into on~line computer games & seemed to spend all his time playing them when I picked him up for Christmas. It had been arranged previously, by Joss, so wasn't unexpected but he was put out at having to leave his game & not in the best frame of mind. Within 1/2 an hour he was smearing mango pulp all down our windows. It did not occur to him that this was socially unacceptable behaviour & flew into one of his rages when asked to desist. He demanded I take him back to his place of residence. He ranted the entire way about how badly he was treated & that he never ever wanted anything to do with us again.

A few weeks later, running into his friend, I asked how Joss was. His astonished friend blanched. 'But, I thought he'd moved back in with you!'

Joss was gone. He had told no~one & taken nothing, not even his wallet or phone, none of his clothing or possessions. The shock was devastating. You see, I love my boy. He is a piece of my heart & I have lost him. I cannot fix what is wrong. I grieve for his anger & sense of isolation; I fear for his safety. I know despite his height & age he has the emotional maturity of a young child, rather than a young man.

I am not one of those Christians who believe bad things never happen to true believers. I don't think the bible teaches that. Rather it teaches us to grasp hold of He who is our strength & refuge, our present help in times of troubles, our alpha & our omega. I cling to what I believe the Lord has promised me concerning my son & trust Him for the rest. It is all any of us can do.

Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say, It is well, it is well, with my soul. Horatio Spafford.

Thought of the Week

2008-09-21T15:30:00.000-07:00

The difference between school and life? In school, you're taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you're given a test that teaches you a lesson.— Tom Bodett

Ranting.

2008-09-21T12:22:00.000-07:00

''The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because generally they are the same people." G.K. Chesterton

I have been thinking (& don't ask if it hurts?!). I blog hop all over the place & skim from link to link so I read all sorts of stuff & the thing I find hardest as a Christian is doing the tightrope walk of what I actually believe because I am not as liberal as I was raised nor as conservative as many conservatives think I should be. And that, friends, is undoubtedly the result of a misspent life.

I do not get all hot & bothered about what the world does. It is the world. There would be something amiss if it was not behaving according to its nature. I do not get fraught about Christians who hold different doctrinal views, practise their beliefs differently, or refuse to attend a denominational church. I have worked with the homeless, the homosexual, the battered, & the drug addicted without feeling the urgent need to ram my beliefs down their throats because God gave each of us free will & we are free to exercise that free will by our choices. It is not that I don't care but however much I disagree I need to respect another's choice. After all, God does.

What does get my goat & have me frothing at the mouth, tearing my hair out, & up on my soap box ranting & raving are *professing* Christians living in blatant sin & bringing our Lord & saviour into disrepute. No, I am not talking about well known public figures who fall from grace. There but for the grace of God, you know. I am talking about the ordinary people who sit in their pew week after week all sanctimonious & self righteous, spouting all the right things & out in the world, instead of living God's truth, they behave in ways,week after week after week, that make one wish not to be known by the same name as they are. By their fruits...

Liddy says working in retail has been a real eye~opener. She has got to see the church when it isn't in church. To say she has not been impressed would be a massive understatement. Yes, lots of the church is the same but too often they are not & it is in the little things it shows up the most: a lack of patience when forced to wait; rudeness to staff who are on their feet all day; magazines that should go home in a brown paper bag & be burnt unread; sexual comments around young girls. It does not matter that they may be sexually active or heard worse. Christians should be different! The world notices & takes note of who we are every day & it judges, not by how many *good deeds* we do (charity is obnoxious), or how much money we give, or who we vote for, or what we wear but by how we are!

I do not care if you wear dresses or pants, wear your hair long or short, cover or not. I do not care if you are *only* KJV, or read the Good News. I do not care if you sing loud & long with your hands in the air or sit in silence. How is your personal walk with Christ? How are you doing with your personal holiness? It's hard, this holiness thing...& it must be done. Not only does no~one see heaven without holiness but genuine holiness is one of the most attractive things on this earth. It draws people like nothing else. Christ was, & is, holy. It attracted multitudes. Our lack of holiness is turning people away, indifferent to the gospel. If we are doing our job no~one will be indifferent. We should be being persecuted because the world should be antagonistic towards us. We should be attracting those whom God is calling. If we say we are Christ's we are meant to be becoming more & more like Him, holy as he is holy. If we would stop fussing about what doesn't matter & concentrate on the things God says are important we might actually be the salt & light in the world that we are meant to be.

Here endeth the rant according to Ganeida.

O'Reilly's.

2008-09-19T16:30:00.000-07:00

Friday starts Liddy's weekend. Thursday evening the clouds inevitably come over bringing rain for Friday. Liddy argued O'Reilly's is so far down the coast the weather would be completely different so I agreed she could be right.

O'Reilly's is set in the McPhearson Ranges on the N.S.W /QLD border as part of the Lamington National Park & is one of the loveliest places on Earth. It is not as isolated as it used to be though the long winding road up the mountain is still one lane wide for much of it's length. I had family who used to live on Tambourine, which is on the other side of the Canungra valley, so was well aware of the O'Reilly family's history & *the lost world*.Unfortunately Liddy's directions weren't all that clear & we were nearly to Cooloongatta & right on the border before she realised we must have missed the turn we should have taken. Instead of backtracking we cut across country ~ into the Great Dividing Range. Not the biggest hills in the world; not the steepest, just rugged & wind~y & convoluted. I struggle with maps at the best of times. Completely disoriented I'm useless. Liddy snarled & put me in the drivers' seat so she could wrestle with the map. I told her to relax & enjoy the journey. Afterwards she was pleased because she now feels she has a good grasp of the overall area but at the time it wasn't pretty.
Meanwhile the clouds lowered & glowered & the day waned. By the time we finally started seeing signposts for O'Reilly's the cloud was covering the mountain & Liddy got her first experience of driving in fog on one way roads up nasty mountains.

We may be smiling but there is a huge drop under us because this is the tree top walk. Six people per span makes you remember every movie you've ever seen where the hanging walkway suddenly gives way! We opted out of the crow's nests because while it wasn't actually raining (that's fog you can see) everything was wet & slippery & none of us are huge fans of heights. Nestled in amongst the bush walks are the lovely Green Mountain botanical gardens. O.K, so not the best day for traipsing round but they were still lovely.

Liddy had really wanted a longish walk to a waterfall but we were so behind time that was never going to happen so we only really did the treetop walk. Not a waste from my point of view. I spotted a yellow breasted scrub wren with a too big feather in his mouth & watching to see where he was headed spotted this nest dangling amongst the trees in the mist. We also spotted yellow robins, a male satin bower bird (& its bower with all his *blue* treasures) & the gorgeous yellow & black male Regents Bower bird. The girls don't get excited about the bird life but I'm not the girls & I was thrilled to spot birds we don't get on the islands.

Plus, the girls having woosed & sent me to ask the ranger about where the shorter walks began, I gathered all sorts of information about the campsites ~no open fires, eco~loos (Ditz hates these with a passion), *hot* showers, BBQs, costs...
The one thing with my girls is they like to eat! And boy, do they eat! We decided the valley would be cheaper than the touristy things round O'Reilly's so headed back down the mountain to the wineries! No I didn't need a pick~me~up but in Australia the best Mediterranean meals are usually got at the wineries; rather like a Ploughman's Lunch at a British Pub.

We were greeted by 2 huge huskies & a disappointed owner. Four girls, two obviously under age, a learner driver on a zero alcohol limit & a nervous mother was not going to sell lots of bottles of his red! Liddy & I left the younger girls to their pizza & went for pitta bread & 3 dips (olive, pesto & 3 cheeses ~ yum!) & a shared Mediterranean platter for two. This came with salami, prosciutto, mushrooms, artichokes, sun dried tomatoes, black olives, a little salad & slices of sourdough bread. Artichokes should be buried at sea with full funeral rites & I'm not a fan of sourdough so left that for Liddy who was perfectly capable of scoffing it all on her own but the rest was lovely & I got a cappuccino after while Ditz ploughed through a generous slice of cheesecake; she was the only one who could eat desert. We are planning a camping trip for mid October to celebrate the October birthdays (October is the BEST month!). Our winery informed us there was a campsite a 3 minute walk away & if we rang they'd do us pizzas to go. Pizzas & a night out to celebrate drastically reduces the amount of food we'd need to lug. And while we aren't planning to do either the border walk or the 3 day trip either we would be central to lots of hiking (& food!) options. Luckily we like camping.

Losing my mind...

2008-09-17T13:53:00.000-07:00

If I was Liddy I would have been in touch but I am not Liddy. I am me & my body is that thing I lug round to keep my brain in, like an old purse. I've had it a while now so it should not surprise me it is showing signs of wear & tear. It doesn't surprise me but it frustrates me no end.

I am not only losing words but sentences, even whole paragraphs while my children foam at the mouth & go, 'Would you finish what you were saying, mum!' I was talking?! Oh, right. So as I was saying...

I am not a high energy person. I can plod to some purpose if I pace myself carefully & am a long time night owl because night is the best time to write while it is dark & quiet & the rest of the house indulges in deserved slumber & can't annoy me! So I can't begin to tell you of my discomfit when I began doing what in my family is known as 'doing a Shirl' because my beloved aunt Shirley was notorious for nodding off as soon as the clock hands touched 7pm. Worse I nod of anywhere & everywhere ~ flute, band, choir, violin, on the jetty, watching t.v, on the boat. I am an embarrassment to the girls but my eyes just won't stay open!

It finally occurred to me, seeing as my cycle has always been hugely erratic that, I hadn't been plagued for some time & was in fact not losing my mind, or on the verge of a mental breakdown but simply menopausal. I am not enjoying it much! I thought I would. Rather my hormones have decided to play havoc with my emotions & unless I keep things very calm & stress free I am an emotional mess. Yes, I know. In this house! It is an uphill battle I can tell you. At least I now know what the problem is.

Ditz is not stress free at any time. Wednesdays are particularly bad. This week both boys decided to move back home temporarily. Theo is on R&R after his operation. Dino quit his job & doesn't start his new one till Monday. I have crabs & fish gut all through my kitchen along with Dearest's stamps. Theo arrived with a bag of fishing gear that I swear hasn't been washed since the last time I did it. It stank to high heaven. Wednesdays & Thursdays I am hardly here so whatever the boys get up to I walk into a full blown mess when I get home. No wonder I took Ditz to her violin lesson & promptly nodded off despite the wailing of two violins. I can sleep through anything.

We just had time to duck home for the mainland car keys before taking off for choir. Choir ran overtime so I was watching the clock like a hawk, calculating to the second how long I could wait before we would definitely miss our boat.

I find choir fascinating so rarely sleep there as it is far too entertaining & last night was no exception. Between the choir turning sulky as it battled the German & a difficult tune till more than half the choir dropped out & just listened & the news from Singapore I had far too much on my mind for sleep.

Alison spent last week in Singapore teaching & lecturing. She was such a hit she was offered a job, several jobs, more money, housing ~ the whole celebratory lifestyle! Wow! She was coaching Robert Redford! I know who Robert Redford is so I'm impressed even if the kids have never heard of him. She was such a hit one of the big~wigs is following her back to Australia in the hopes of changing her mind which means despite the school holidays, when choir is normally in recession, choir members have been asked to go in to Qpac next Thursday for rehearsal so Mr Big~wig can see how Alison rehearses her choir. I have this sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. It means driving in Brisbane without Liddy!!! Ditz is going to have to learn to read a map! Next year's tour was discussed. I have no idea if, or how, God is going to manage this financially. I am in meltdown already & it is still 12 months away! See Ditz is one of the kids not struggling with the German... or the music. Dit aced last week's test. I think she lost something like 1/2 a mark. This is my beautiful but flighty flibberty~gibbet with the concentration span of a gnat. I just want to run round like a headless chook screaming. Put it down to menopause.

Dearest keeps asking how we landed in this musical morass. What is God up too? Why our Ditz? All we wanted to do was allow the child to experience a more professional choir than the little island school choir. All Ditz wanted to do is sing. If you can spare a prayer or two pray that we will find a way to raise the funds to get Ditz & I to Europe next year. Um, I forgot to mention, Ditz is making sure she doesn't get sent off without me. I'm not going there.

History is a forgotten song.

2008-09-15T02:37:00.000-07:00

My Poppy was a Scotsman, a man, according to my mother who should know, who was better with his animals than his children. When I first remember him he was a dairy farmer ~ jerseys; cream like yellow silk & thick as butter; an accent as broad & wildly flavoured as when he left Scotland. He was also the only man my Liddy would let hold her & he would walk her round & round the home paddock murmuring to her softly in his broad brogue. Not even her father could hold Liddy. She screamed at men, about men, near men...any man. Her father quips she was three before she would let him anywhere near her. It is quite true.

But Poppy was different. He was my grandfather, so the children's great~grandfather & ancient in their eyes. He was also a different Poppy to the Poppy I grew up knowing, as that Poppy was different to the father my mother knew.

My grandfather intrigued me. Unlike everyone else I knew he wasn't Australian. He didn't speak with an Australian accent. He grew up in a foreign land. Then as now the lure of the strange enthralled me. I wanted to know very badly what it had been like growing up in Scotland. Poppy disappointed me. He had just two words to describe Scotland: cold, wet.

He lived over 70 years in the land where the sun shone, married & raised 8 children but he never went back in all that time. He never took my grandmother to visit his family, could rarely be induced to speak of Scotland, ranted about the 'Saess' & the unions. I saw Scotland before he set foot there again because he did eventually go back. He took my grandmother before she died. They did the tour as if he'd never been born & raised there & when he came home all his stories were of Scotland. He told the same ones over & over. He bored the family senseless.

The thing is he gave me a piece of history I treasure. There is no~one now alive who can sing the song. I have the words but no tune. Poppy never sang it for me but I suspect it was more a chant because it was sung by the children on their way to school, naming the crofts as they passed them by:

Cloch macrae, Langlan Bwrn, Craibstone,

Reamore, Midskeeth & Mains of Skeath;

Burnheads, Squardouch, Moss~side & Ardoch;

Brankend & the Clean, Lintmill, Tochenhill.

Last I heard they are all still there, many still in the same families.

Sin uile.

...lose some.

2008-09-13T01:14:00.000-07:00

Craft shops used to sell plaster of Paris. Now they sell something called *modeling plaster* which does horrible things like this. Disaster of the first magnitude. It hardened so fast we had no hope. It was only fit for the bin though Ditz did make a 1/2 hearted attempt to use it.
We had just enough left to try again ~ using something considerably smaller.

The really sad part is that Ditz was far less enthused than I expected so it was a struggle to get her involved to start with. Art is, apparently, now considered *baby work*. *sigh*. It never did what a fresco is supposed to do because it hardened far too fast & I got shocked looks because I wanted proper plaster. In our instant society it seems the kids can't wait to paint their plaster models so we now have this super quick drying stuff & thwarted fresco~ists.

It was a far better science experiment. We had quite a discussion about why the plaster was heating up & how hot it would get before it hardened & cooled off but as an art exercise it was not a success. Win some, lose some I guess.

Knock me down with a feather.

2008-09-10T12:36:00.000-07:00

I know year 8 is a *transition year*. OK, Ditz, like many home learners & many visual/spatial learners is all over the board, & her learning is hugely uneven, but her age level is year 8: first year of high school; puberty; hormones; sleep issues; identity crisis. Ugh! Never mind Ditz, I don't think I have coped well. Dealing with Ditz in full flight just makes me feel old & tired & this year we just seem to have battled our way though heavy seas with an undertow, a rip, & the sort of groundswell that just makes me seasick.

For 2 weeks Ditz has been telling me the holidays are nearly upon us. I do not want to know about holidays. This has been a frustrating term but some idiot taught the child to read & she can use the calendar so she knows when school comes out & she can angle for an official break because *everyone's on holidays*. So I never said anything, just worried a little more about how we were going to get everything done that needs doing this term before the term is officially over & I have to battle us back on track after our break.

I won't go into all the other things that need doing round here. Suffice to say I was sitting on the end of Ditz's bed outlining maps for her scrapbook while she waded through her reading & before I read to her & before we locked heads over her math, slowly sinking beneath the rising tide of what Ditz likes to call her *artwork*, when she starts chatting to me. This is a fairly regular Ditz tactic so I sighed & wondered how long we'd digress before I could get us back on track. Still, even at 13, Ditz likes me to keep her company while she works. I find it frustrating when there is so much else waiting for me to do but figure this is one leopard that is never going to change its spots. I have to face it; Ditz likes company. At least she's outgrown wanting me round when she's on the potty just so she has someone to chat to in the bathroom.

''You know, mum,'' says my Ditz, ''I think I should work through these holidays 'cause we're a bit behind.''

Well, knock me down with a feather!

That girl makes me just glow with pride some days! Makes me wonder how much of her fussing is fussing for its own sake, but I will take whatever blessings come my way.

And while I'm at it...our choir music this week was replaced by a German lesson. Ditz did 4 years of German from about grade 2 to grade 5, then decided she wanted to change to French & we've just never got ourselves sorted out on that one so she hasn't done a language the last few years. My French isn't good but my German is non~existent so a neighbour, who is multilingual & very fluent, was tutoring Ditz for German but when we stopped I figured Ditz would forget most of what she'd learnt simply because she wasn't using it regularly. That appears to be not so.

Ditz is rarely bored at choir but she was bored this week as the unwilling class was dragged word by word through a couple of German folk songs ~ to be sung in German. I was cross because 30 odd children, mostly from expensive Private schools, & a 1/2 dozen or so talked throughout the entire lesson. I know it was boring but it is necessary.

Random children were asked to read the German & we got the usual stuttering responses that completely mangled the language. I hadn't realised how frustrated Ditz was until she was asked to read. Naturally she blurted, 'Why me?' but I think that was more a self protective thing because she read an entire page pretty fluently. She only stumbled on one word, one of those long German words that are actually three or four words run together. Even in English you would take it slowly, breaking it down into its syllables; & that's what Ditz did. Yep, one shocked teacher. One child who has been taught (twice over) how to deal with unfamiliar words.

Dare I hope we are making progress? Dare I hope all Ditz's ADD tendencies are maturing into something we can all live with & my lovely flibberty~gibbet is maturing into the Godly young woman we pray for her to be? Grubs are ugly & chrysalis' aren't much to look at either but butterflies are gorgeous & I know you don't get butterflies without grubs & chrysalis soooo...

Yes, I know I've raised 4 others but I haven't raised a Ditz before & Ditz is in a class all of her own!

Mind like a sieve.

2008-09-07T13:49:00.000-07:00

My sister~in~law, who occasionally maintains a blog at duchess&theduke, is considering writing a book about my brother, Mark, for my nephew ~ the aforementioned Duke. I think this is a great idea as it will gather everyone's memories into one spot & help the Duke remember his daddy, warts & all. Fifty years down the track I still distinctly remember my reaction to finding out I had yet another little brother; 'Feed him to the sharks.' I have no idea why my parents did not take this very sound advice.

The thing is though, I have very few clear memories of Mark as a child. He was one annoying little brother & to say we did not get on would be one of the world's great understatements. I once threw him across a room & I riled him so much he threw a knife at me. It was war. I was a quiet & introspective kid. Mark, like my Ditz, was company incorporated. If he couldn't do it with company it wasn't worth doing. Actually he could easily have given Dino's quote as to why he came to school; to socialise & play sport. It certainly wasn't to learn.

We grew up & found that blood meant we shared a few more things in common than the odd gene or two. He became someone I actually liked & whose company I could endure without wanting to kill him. He married a wonderful woman who is strong enough to live without him but I find myself in a quandary when I am asked to talk about my memories of him. There's just this blank space that Mark used to inhabit when I was a child but we didn't share. Boy germs. He was 4 years younger. I was already in pre~school when he arrived & year by year of my childhood that gap just grew wider.

My brothers shared a room ~ not always equitably. Mark was not the easiest person to live with. My brothers sailed together. Mark was crew, John skippered. This suited them. John was the competitive one, so much so that in one disagreement Mark lept overboard & started swimming for the shore. John hauled him aboard, not out of concern for his safety but because he would be disqualified if he did not cross the finish line with his crew aboard!!!

Later on they abseiled together, flew together, shared the same friends, went to the same youth group, same schools, enjoyed cruising together~ all things I was not a part of or simply did not enjoy. Even when we had a shared interest we came to it from totally different viewpoints. Take the Arthurian Legend. Mark read & loved the whole Le Morte de Arthur. He loved Talesien. Both make me wild ~eyed because they are historically inaccurate in huge ways. I'm not sure Mark ever understood what I hated about them. Mark loved living out west in a small country town. I'm an island girl. Mark had a knack for simplifying things; I complicate them. Mark was the life of everyone's party & had more friends than he could count. I am the life of no~one's party & a decidedly acquired taste.

Mark was the world's worst driver. He rolled the family minor minor so often on the same corner coming home that the residents, on hearing him coming, would wait for the inevitable so they could help tip the car the right way up again. Definitely a hands on learner! He kept rolling it until he learnt not too! His driving was so appalling that John always insisted on doing the driving to & from their flying lessons & someone is on record as saying it was as well the boy wanted to fly ~ far less to hit up there. I always said the difference between John & Mark was Mark would go with his gut & John would go by the book. I figured by the time John had worked his way through the book it would be far too late to rectify any problem & always felt safer if Mark was doing the flying. I still feel that way two years after Mark's crop duster ploughed into the dirt. Whatever happened up there in those final moments I know Mark met it with courage & determination & the joi de vere that was so much a part of him. He was one of the happiest people I have ever known.

One weekend to go.

2008-09-05T14:19:00.000-07:00

The question of the moment is: will I survive Liddy's weekends?

Yesterday we picked Theo up from the hospital & took him home before heading south to the Gold Coast. Now the Gold Coast is tourist destination un numero uno, for those of you who don't know. It's bigger than the Great Barrier Reef. It's bigger than Ayers Rock or Uluru if you prefer. It's bigger than The Twelve Apostles. It crosses a state border & sprawls in a great metropolitan tangle along miles & miles of what used to be pristine surf beach. It is incredibly ugly. The skyline is jagged with skyscrapers of units crushed uncomfortably close together so Ditz was worried about them falling on her... with good reason but we won't go into that. It is a shopping mecca.

I'm not a shopaholic. For one thing I don't have any money to spend. For another even if I did have the money to spend I am unlikely to spend it on clothing. Whenever I find clothing I actually like I need to mortgage my soul in order to acquire it so I never buy anything & never own the sort of clothing I actually like. Besides, why buy clothing when you can buy books? My girls do not share my book obsession. After all, that's what libraries are for. You cannot borrow your clothing from a library. So we went shopping.

The attraction of the Gold Coast shops is the name brand outlets , meaning the clothing is cheaper. No tomatoes. I don't care what the girls put on their backs so long as it remains modest & non~offensive & there is no doubt the huge malls (we were at Pacific Fair & Australia Fair) offer much more variety ~ too much variety perhaps? We walked & we walked...& then we walked some more. We were in & out of shops like rabbits down holes. Ditz began to complain. My feet cramped & Liddy turned white. Still we walked. I started to worry because Liddy was driving & it is over an hour either way on the highway & the weather was unpredictable.

We did all this for exactly 4 shirts. Liddy bought herself a tailored flannel shirt, which looks lovely on her. Ditz, who actually really needs clothing, got 3, all in black, all lovely & long enough to come down over her hips. The child is a wanna be goth, I'm sure. One shirt has lines of music notes across it, one has buttons with music things on & one has birds...which Ditz swears she doesn't like but which everyone else tells her is a Ditz shirt & looks lovely on her. Black is slimming & Ditz is getting to an age where her size & shape are starting to worry her. There's no doubt she is going to be a big girl. She is not built along Liddy & my lines but we think she is gorgeous & tell her so but human nature being what it is Ditz envies us the racehorse build. She is Junoesque.

Liddy, who insisted on pulling into Australia Fair after we were already in the car with the mentality we were going home, sweetened the pill by giving Ditz free reign in Darryl Lee. She bought chocolates to share. I found some coffee beans coated in dark chocolate which is an indulgence of mine on the rare occasions I can find someone who sells this particular oddity. However we were tired; I was limping ( the graze is infected & doing gross things though healing.); & we lost the car!!! Levels & levels there were & Liddy in full blown panic mode hurtling up all of them with Ditz & I wailing in her wake that it was 'Back there! Back there! '

Ditz eventually made herself heard & back down we went to find the car exactly where we had left it; not stolen, not mysteriously vaporized into the nether regions, not magically moved from one level to another.

We had good travelling & Liddy did pretty well with the driving. She has learnt that nothing is unfixable. Missed a turn? Just take the next one & go round the block. Lost? Stop & investigate the refedex. She is not panicking nearly as much when things don't go exactly according to plan & this is a good thing. We were on the 6.15 boat home but not surprisingly Liddy handed me the island car keys & got me to drive us home. She likes driving but even she had had enough for one day.

On the Ancient Greeks.

2008-09-04T03:07:00.000-07:00

A child who can cope with Shakespeare should be able to cope with Sophocles, shouldn't they? Translated. It's not like I want the kid to read the original, just, you know, get an idea of how a Greek play worked.

Not according to Ditz. Much eye~rolling. Aristophanes...ok, definitely not suitable. We skirted quickly around the whole Olympic Game thing. Eeeew! was Ditz's reaction to that! We are doing a lot of skirting because there's a lot of *eeew~ing* going on. I hate doing the Greeks; I really do & they just can't be avoided because they are foundational to Western civilization but oh my goodness I could do without the whole eye~rolling thing when we get to the icky bits. Deal with it, my daughter, & move on. No~one is telling you their *lifestyle choices* were morally right, just that that's the way things were.

I know people who've just avoided the whole issue but I've never understood how you could do Ancient Greece & do that because you miss the whole point of how they thought & if you miss that you've missed the point ~ at least that's the way I see it & I don't gloss my history. Doing that is at best getting closer to downright untruthful than I like.

So far there's nothing we've touched on Ditz has liked; gods & goddesses? Nope. Myth & legend? Give that a miss. The Games? As already mentioned...Eeew! Which leaves us with music, history & art (sorry folks, we don't do politics or the more usual stuff; that would be to have both of us glassy~eyed)~ I am on my way down for the third time. We are struggling our way through one essay. One. Ditz is digging deep into the trenches but I have one last card to play: Plaster of Paris!

Yes, siree, Plaster of Paris may yet win the day. One foil baking tray, 5 tubes of poster paint & wet plaster = one fresco painting a la Ancient Greece! I am reverting to type. All the colouring in is driving both Ditz & I a bit batty. Too much of a good thing & not enough creativity? So I found this book, Geography through Art, & thought I could mix that into my History mix & give Ditz a more creative outlet.

I do hope it's just puberty causing all this negativity & teenage angst because I sure am sick of it already & Ditz used to be such a happy little learner. It's hard work being all excited & creative on my own!

Argh! or words to that effect.

2008-09-02T13:48:00.000-07:00

I love my computer ~ when it works. I am saying harsh things about it at present. It is behaving like the worst kind of psychotic. My DSL became dial~up & kept losing me my connection. The printer is chewing paper for lunch. The computer shuts down & restarts for no appreciable reason losing me all my work. The page I'm working on gets replaced with something I've never set eyes on before.

I blame Liddy. She unhooked all my wires so she could hook her laptop to the internet. Not being the most patient of children she was in a rush & not watching what she was doing. I think my poor old computer needs a professional going over. This I cannot do. All I know about computers I've learnt via trial & error ~ mostly error, which reminds me....

"I have not failed. I have successfully discovered 1200 ideas that don't work." Thomas Edison. Isn't that a great quote?

Strange goings on.

2008-09-01T13:27:00.000-07:00

My cat is strange...but nowhere near as strange as Dearest.

Yesterday Dearest emptied the mouse traps. A normal man would have simply put the body in the trash. Not Dearest. Dearest took the mouse, trap & all, & waved it under Issi's nose. He then wondered why he got one of those 'if looks could kill' looks.

Iss is your typical male. Nothing gets his goat so much as to be made to look incompetant. So last night he caught a mouse. Nothing so unusual about that. Under normal circumstances he would bat it about a bit, eat 1/2 & leave the rest for some unsuspecting person to step on. We do not go barefoot around here in mouse season. But Dearest had thrown down the gauntlet. Iss had a point to prove. He raced over to Dearest with his prize, shook it wildly under Dearest nose (thinking I am quite sure, 'Now let's see you do this!') & proceeded to perform gymnastics with the poor thing. He was so busy showing off he let his prize escape & slunk away, his tail down, avoiding all eye contact with Dearest.

Unkindly we all laughed. Iss is a scream. This morning I woke to a banging noise & thinking the traps had been unkind I quickly went to look. Nope...but I had one crazed cat wildly batting round a mouse in a trap. Guess if you can't beat them the only thing left to do is join them...but if that cat thinks I think he caught that mouse in the trap all but his own little self he's completely delusional!

It's Spri~ing!

2008-08-31T21:29:00.000-07:00

Peace...Blessed peace.

I slept all day Sunday, mostly because I was migrainy. My life caught up with me with gusto!

Here, in the land Down Under, spring officially began today. I know it is spring. There are flying ants in black swarms. I have sprayed. There are sandflies biting under the clothesline. There are mice. Ugh! Not that I actually dislike mice; I just dislike sharing my kitchen with them. Iss left several remains but I have set traps. Crunch! Crunch!

Ditz dislikes my cavalier attitude to the resulting carcasses. She dislikes the noise of animal warfare inside her walls as the snakes come out of hibernation & get to work. She dislikes the way Iss *plays* with his catches. My daughter is squeamish. Unfortunately there is a price to be paid for living at *the back of Beyond*. Nature is revealed in all her gory beauty.

This is also the season for chicks. The ducklings are cute; the plovers are not. Well, the chicks are cute but the parents are aggressive & they come with a sharp set of spurs & ...well, they just aren't fun to play with.

Unlike the north there is no burgeoning of bud & blossom in this sub tropical climate, only an almost imperceptable heating of the days, a lengthening of the sunlight, a tilting of the breeze to herald the first heat of summer. The water has lost the hard cold edged glitter of winter & shimmers instead with summer diamonds. I enjoy spring but I dread the summer swealtering & the way the lands shrinks from the sun's blast & withers to parched grass & eddies of red dust. I long for rain. Only the water deprived truely appreciate leaden skies & refreshing torrents.

I must be getting old. Spring isn't what it once was ~ though truth be told I grew up further south where the seasons are a little more clearly defined & even summer is not as prone to the leaky humidity of a Queensland summer.

Practicaly, Ditz is on countdown. Whatever the official school term may be I know that once the heat hits neither Ditz nor I will be doing much schoolwork so we need to get a move on now or November is going to be unbearable & there will be *tears before bed *as the saying goes.

By the pricking of my thumbs...

2008-08-30T15:53:00.000-07:00

Make up did nothing to improve my kidlet's beauty but she was relaxed & enjoyed her time on stage. Island events are a bit like that. Without the angst of the semi~professional stuff Ditz does she succumbed to a fit of the giggles on stage, artfully disguised as a witch's cackle, ad~libed freely & picked up the slack of those kiddies who forgot their lines.

I have rarely seen such a hysterical performance but anything remotely Shakespearean is hard to do & some of the kids are still in primary school. The producer loves Ditz for being punctual, knowing her stuff, enthusiastic & willing. She does not have the public schooled child's reticence about having a go in front of her peers & rarely suffers from nerves & quite frankly was delighted to strut her stuff for an audience. Oh please....!!! She was still in mode when I dragged her unwilling carcass home to try & ground her.

Macbeth according to Ditz was just want I needed at the end of a long, long week that ended with Liddy & I driving into town very early Saturday morning to pick up Liddy's laptop. We had thoughtfully sorted out our one way streets in before leaving home & had absolutely no trouble. While we waited on them doing the programing they were doing for Lid we went to visit friends. I truly wonder about us. Be grateful, my Kimba, we never got there with you. While I was scrabbling about on the floor for the referdex Liddy took off ~ the wrong way, straight into 3 lanes of oncoming traffic! She got terribly honked at & pretty rattled but as I always tell her, THAT is why she has L plates on the car! Sadly I never noticed until there were cars all around us that she'd got something terribly wrong!

Then, having found our friends with no trouble at all, she pulled into their neighbours' drive & cheerfully parked despite my remonstrances that the neighbours could feasibly object strongly to her blocking their exit. No, she'd never seen the fence & thought she was in the right drive because I'm the one who's blind. OK, Lid, whatever. She then had to reverse out & reverse parallel park under our friends' eyes; naturally she stalled, several times!

Heading home I suggested she find a garage & check her tyre pressure as every time she went round a round~a~bout the tyres squealed. Maintenance is the part of car ownership Liddy doesn't like so sent me, who's blind, remember, to put the air in her tyres. Naturally I couldn't read the instructions, printed very small on the pump, so Liddy had to get out & read them for me anyway. We remind me of those jokes that go...How many _ does it take to...? Sad; very, very sad.

Then a quick stop to pick up some meat because Dearest feels deprived if he is reduced to being vegetarian, & home. So no church. For nothing & no~one am I leaving the island today. Five days straight I've been on the mainland. I might as well live there & I hate the mainland! Next week looks much, much, better. We only have flute & violin to contend with & no trips overseas. I just hope I can resist the urge to fill the gaps with something equally insanely time consuming & just, you know, stay quietly at home. I like home. I should spend more time here.

OK, so who's got my grip?

2008-08-28T14:46:00.000-07:00

I hate weeks like this...exhausting & nothing to show for it. Firstly Dino arrived back in Brisbane after 2 months away. He rang home & said he would be over Sunday to pick up his things. Really? Sunday came & went; no Dino but he was here bright & early Monday, which is a school day for us, & ran me ragged till lunch.

Theo rang. Theo has two hernias & is going in for surgery next week. Theo has just moved house. Theo would like me to go over on Tuesday & do the final clean on the house he's just vacated. I agreed, which upset Dearest who gave me a long lecture on my sons' (yes, plural) selfishness & how they were imposing on my good nature. I would not have agreed if I'd thought it would upset Dearest so much but having agreed Ditz & I went over as agreed, on a school day, & did the final clean. Ditz did windows, Dino came & helped with the heavy stuff & I did all the fiddly bits. It took us 3 hours, which wasn't too bad, though we were both very, very tired that night.

Wednesday we scraped in a *little* school. Not enough to make a dint really because Wednesdays is now violin & choir so all afternoon we were busy & travelling.

Thursday! Ah, Thursday poor old Ditz had to compensate for the rest of her week & was worked really hard for 3 hours solid. Finally, finally, finally we managed to finish the science tests she had to redo. Finally, finally, finally all the math pages that were only half done because Ditz needed *help* got finished & she did 2 tests. Finally, finally, finally we got some dictation done! WhileDitz did the academics I cut & pasted all her history stuff into her scrapbook because she had done the work & if I leave it lying around, as has been happening, it disappears. Everything disappears. In between I ordered Geography through Art for Ditz, which I am really excited about & Ditz is actually interested in. Finally, finally something She is a little keen on!

Then I took Ditz over to band. Three hours it took just so Ditz could say in person that she was quitting. This is Ditz's choice. Her assessment of her life is she hasn't time to do band properly & practise (true) so she will decease for now with a view to the future. We won't be picking it up again. It is not worth the drama of getting there. She was very nervouse but she wanted to do it herself & in person & she did a beautiful job.

Liddy's weekend starts today, which should be a school day but won't, obviously. We are picking our friend up (I will desist from wheelchair jokes, 18+ card jokes, boat jokes & driving jokes ~ yes, Liddy is driving. Just shut your eyes & pray, Kimba). We are taking Kimba out, motor transport, movie & unbeknownst to her, all the way into West End to look at computers. Smile, Kimba. Liddy will be just fine. Ditz then has an extra long drama rehearsal.

Tomorrow is Macbeth ~ A witch's Tale. This is the Macbeth story told from the witch's viewpoint, for which Ditz has been rehearshing now for a term & a half. Ditz is, apparrently, going to be made up in purple & pink ~ her least favourite colours.

If you have been counting, out of 6 possible days, we did one day of school! I have to get a grip. Ok, so who's got my grip?

Oops!

2008-08-24T05:36:00.000-07:00

I am a klutz. I took Liddy to her game Saturday night & promptly fell *up* the stands! Did my shin like nobody's business. Liddy says I am too competitive. I wasn't even on the pitch & boast better injuries than she does...or at least more visible injuries. I have seldom seen a worse pitch for a premier game. It was all ditches & holes & saw 3 girls stretchered of in just the one game. Liddy twisted her ankle & we are doing the synchronized limp.

Liddy had organized to take a work mate's 10 year old to the game with us. Yikes. There I was a bloody, blubbering mess with my leg elevated at strange angles & an ice pack sending me into shock while poor old Ditz tried to restrain a very ADD child. She is getting a little too old to entertain Liddy's random outreaches. It certainly drove home how far Ditz has come & how much she has matured. Ditz, who found her companion exhausting, kept begging us to tell her she had never been like that. Sorry, Ditz...! Yes, you talked non stop at a hundred miles an hour. Yes, you whirled & spun like a runaway steam engine. Yes, you drove everyone else crazy.

Most of mine had varying degrees of ADD & Dearest always said I could read through the worst manifestations totally oblivious to kids swinging from the chandeliers so so long as he wasn't bugging other people I let him run Ditz ragged but I was sad to hear him say over & over that he tried to be good but he was just bad. He wasn't bad, just exhausting. I am getting old. Plus, as I hobbled back from the loo, white~faced & shaky, he picked up my bag to carry it for me which was so sweet of him so I complimented him on his manners & how gentlemanly his behaviour was. You'd have thought I'd handed him a million pounds. Guess compliments are a little rare in his world, at least from strangers.

So coming home Liddy & I looked at each other. Who was going to drive? The one who couldn't twist her ankle or the one who could barely move her leg? In the end Liddy drove because she had the keys & it is her car! She's been getting plenty of practise so at least we are getting fewer scary moments when Lid is behind the wheel these days & mostly she has the grace to listen when I ask her to do something. Better than the boys who were born knowing all there is to know apparently. Lucky them.

We got home to find Iss had totally disgraced himself by attempting to play with Dearest's stamps ~ & failed to listen when Dearest remonstrated with him ~ so today Iss was very sooky & we curled up on the couch together & were very, very quiet. Why is soccer always so exhausting when I don't play?

Movies.

2008-08-22T14:25:00.000-07:00

Liddy has her *weekend* Friday/Saturday ~ which is throwing my life in to even more disorder because she likes to share her weekend & do you think I can convince Ditz that if she has Friday off she should work on Sunday? Buckley's!

What Liddy likes to do on a day off is head to the movies, something I usually need to be in the right mood to do with Liddy because she likes light romantic comedy & a little of that lasts me a long, long time. What I tend to like are things that come with sub~titles. I have never understood why people won't watch a good movie just because they have to read the dialogue though my children have groaned & moaned & complained for 20 years over my predilection for movies you have to read!

So I was more than a little surprised when Liddy suggested this movie: Children of the Silk Road. No, it's not all in sub~titles but a good bit of it is. It was also a movie I had planned on taking Ditz to to reinforce what we've been studying about China. NOT recommended for children by me. Ditz grew up on dead bodies thanks to my love of archaeology so does well with the violence & the one love scene Liddy & I both said at once, 'Shut your eyes, Ditz', & Ditz being a good girl obediently shut her eyes. I must also say Ditz did not want to see this movie. Most emphatically not. She, apparently, does not like China. She did not want to learn any more about China. She is tired of China. She is also a very visual learner so she got dragged along willy~nilly.

Now this movie opens in 1937 so what is happening in China then is the Japanese invasion. War. Violence. Despite the reviews I thought this was pretty well done. As an educator it raised points for discussion: the opium wars, why the West was in China, the seeds of WWII, the National Guard & the communist troops, the depression in other parts of the world ~ lots & lots of things that a well educated person should at least have a nodding acquaintance with. Liddy, who did some in depth study on China her last year, was making connections & actually quite interested. Ditz yawned. I so love educating Ditz.

Because I can be quite obsessive about history I came home & did some research & found this movie takes some rather large historical liberties: Hogg was not alone, this was not his idea, people changed nationalities & others simply disappeared from the script. Fair enough from the point of tight story~telling but it is hardly accurate.

However, Liddy & I both really enjoyed this movie. The scenery as the children trekked over the Liu Pan Shan mountains was spectacular! Here are the bits of the Great Wall you don't normally see: lone watch towers on the edge of the Gobi Desert, the wall itself long lost in the raging sand storms, the moguls, for whom the wall was originally built to keep at bay, the mountains lashed by snow. Ditz yawned some more.

OK, lots of the movie was predictable. Those of us, including my children, who have seen Inn of the Sixth Happiness invariably drew comparisons. Hogg's death from lockjaw was inevitable. Some of it is laughable but in the end what is the test of a good movie for me is how much of it remains after the lights go up & whether anything niggles & bothers at me then. And yes, Children of the Silk Road passes both those tests. The *taste* of this movie lingers. At one point Hogg is jailed & the communists are angling to take his boys as soldiers. Hogg is released thanks to the intervention of his friend & business partner, a lady of trade & dealer in opium. He never knows the price she paid for his freedom but which is greater love? To leave a friend to rot in jail & the lives he is responsible for saving to perish because of it or to sleep with the enemy to secure his freedom? Hmm.

If we asked Ditz, & we didn't, I'm pretty sure she'd say the ham & cheese croissants, the slush puppies & Turkish delight we took into the movie with us was the best part of her day. Food is food. A really good movie is a rarity.

And I've had 2 in 2 days. Liddy, who went to the mainland on Thursday, brought home the Kite Runner. This is another sub~titled movie & definitely NOT a children's movie though Ditz was allowed to watch the beginning showing the kites fighting & the making of the cutting string as she had read about it in one of her Sonlight books. Both Liddy & I found this completely harrowing though it really brought home for Liddy the tradgedy that is Afghanistan & the horrors of the Taliban. We are planning to rewatch it when we have recovered from our first viewing because, again, there is so much to be learned culturally from watching it. Now I know I could go & get a good travel movie that even Ditz could watch but what I have found over years of watching foreign movies is how much of the cultural sub~text disappears in things like travelogues. When you get a movie made by the people who live in a country you get so much by default simply because it is part of their thinking, their culture, & that is always enlightening. It explains better than any lecture how & why a people think the way they do. That is far more important to me than simply knowing about a country. I do so like to understand.

To my utter surprise, as Liddy drove us in to Capalaba for some shopping (which I shall discuss in a separate post) Liddy confessed it had been a while since she had enjoyed a movie so much. I was discretely silent, waiting. Yes, she continued, there was so much more depth & though the Kite Runner had upset her she had got so much out of it she couldn't believe she'd nearly not bought it because of the sub~titles. I smirked. Seems like I may have corrupted my children after all! I have promised her Babette's Feast (that movie is sooo strange but an absolute joy!) & the Red Shoes (though I may have that title wrong). Both of those should give her plenty of room for thought & like others I particularly like are visually stunning ~ which is probably why the Kite Runner & Children of the Silk Road appeal so much; they are very strong visually & so visually stimulating they compensate for their flaws.

Conversation in this house is ongoing. Both Liddy & Ditz will continue to come back to discuss aspects of these movies over & over as they process new information & line it up with what they already knew ~ or thought they knew! And isn't this the essence of Homeschooling? I love that the kids will ask questions & really think about what they've seen ~ even Ditz. She won't say much but her ears will be flapping in the wind as Liddy & I do the talking & she will draw her own conclusions. Despite her utmost resistance she has no choice but to learn!

A little out of control.

2008-08-20T15:05:00.000-07:00

There aren't enough words in the English language to describe how much I loathe, hate, despise, dislike etc math. I have managed 1/2 a century without being able to add fractions & I'm sure I could manage another 1/2 century with no trouble at all. Math bores me. The brain shuts down, numbers turn foggy & waft away into the stratasphere, & sequences elude me so I should not be surprised that my daughter suffers the same illness.

Worse, I have no good answer as to why she needs to know this stuff. Why indeed? She won't ever use it again. We have a system that works for us when it comes to practical math ~ the math you need to get you round the supermarket without embarrassment or bake that special cake or get you around Europe on $20~ a day. Actually I haven't tried that one but I'm sure it can be done if you don't eat.

So I was very interested to read an article stating they've been teaching math wrong for all these years. (Really?! Who would ever have guessed that?) No, truely. The mind is hard wired for math without any need for language or *mathamatical terminology*. Which explains the visual *flashes* my Ditz & I get wherin we can come up with a correct answer & no idea of how we got there. For non~sequential thinkers (believe me it's a pain in a sequential world!) there really does need to be another way.

No, we have not been having a fun time with Ditz's math & Ditz, who has matured so much this year & happily works alone for History & English & Science, will not look at her math, will not open the book let alone attempt a sum unless I am right there to hold her hand every step of the way! She does not see why she should suffer the vagaries of math alone...so we both suffer.

Along with math, which is enough to send me stark raving mad & rampaging over the island like a wounded bull, Ditz's flute exams now loom uncomfortably close on the horizon. I am in full blown panic mode. They are nearly double what I was anticipating cost~wise & only get more expensive each grade. They are in town ~ which means I have to find the place, which means public transport, which means leaving the island at unearthly hours ,which means waking Ditz ,which means one tired cranky Ditz to sit her exam...This is not a pretty picture. There is more but that is enough for now.

I do enjoy my life...It's just, you know, a little out of control at times...& just now is one of those times.

A little bit of this...

2008-08-17T15:46:00.000-07:00

The flu has put us very behind with our schooling. A little bit of reading, a little bit of colouring is about all we've managed in the last fortnight.

It is scary how quickly we can fall behind. Still we have been plugging away at our scrapbook timeline while coughing & spluttering, working our way through Egypt, Assyria, Babylon &

the Phoenicians into Greece.

I had a rush of blood to the brain with the Grecian map but didn't it come up well?

Getting Ditz back on track after so much time off has been no easy task & not helped at all by stray fledglings crashing into our windows. Another pretty visitor who was stunned enough to make handling him a piece of cake. Then the computer crashed & our Irish friends left & things are back to the daily grind. Choir, flute, violin & piano should all be back up & running this week, which means I am running too & church is a non~event thanks to Liddy. Her shifts mean Ditz & I can make neither the morning boat nor the evening one & I have been too tired & ill do do more than bury my head in the sand & hope that a miracle will occur without me having to do anything. Unlikely, I know, but I'm the eternal optimist!

A mixed bag of Friends.

2008-08-15T02:32:00.000-07:00

Murphy's Law ~ that wonderful little quirk that says anything that can go wrong will & to every overloaded bucket, more will be added. That Murphy's Law.

So in the midst of our flu ridden epic Siano arrived. I threatened to post pics of her absconding down the jetty with jars of lemon/lime butter or better yet the tangelo/lime butter but alack & alas, she escaped the camera fiend unscathed.

She was lucky. She arrived on a Friday evening when we were all feeling a little brighter & we moved en mass into the kitchen for the butter making. Luckily it is a good sized kitchen & the girls & I are used to these co~operative efforts. We had plenty of odd sized jars as well & cooked happily. Why not? Siano was providing the chocolate! Chocolate is always good. She also brought special treats for the cat. Having 4 of her own & being cat deprived on her trips, she spoils Iss outrageously & he, 'orrible creature, snubbed her terribly because she brought the wrong treat!

At some point during the evening I completely lost my voice & if Siano didn't know it before she knows it now; We're completely mad for come Saturday morning I was back in the kitchen being supervised by Ditz as I struggled to make the regulation *to Die For* chocolate cake preparatory to the BBQ celebrations of Ditz & her leprechaun pals.

This is a bi~annual event & looms large in our calendar. Ditz & her pal share a birthday & every other year, when they visit Oz, we do a joint celebration at the little park down the front. I always do the chocolate cake. Ditz always makes a pinata. The adults eat, the kids do kid stuff, vastly improved this year as Ditz provided (LARGE) water guns as well as the pinata for entertainment. That it was freezing was no deterrent at all.

Sadly it is nearly time for the boys to return to Ireland & it will be two years before we see them again. We noticed big changes this year ~ as they did with Ditz too. Next time they will definitely be young men. As the changes happen I just hope they can keep the beautiful friendship they have always had, free of cultural, religious, or gender differences but rich in shared experiences & laughter. Ditz will miss them. For some strange reason they actually *get* Ditz. That's more than most do.

Tell me a story...before I go to bed.

2008-08-12T22:40:00.000-07:00

The Hojo's are Brits bravely going where no Brit has dared before in the land of taller than tall tales where the big whites bite & knives are ...large. I've seen Crocodile Dundee too.

To this land of larger than large my Dino came seeking his fortune...or at the very least a big fish. Nor'West fisheries operates out of Carnarvon in what are the toughest fishing grounds in Oz & though his first trip out saw him surrounded by 3 cyclones (about then I stopped watching the weather maps on the evening news!) I was comforted by the size of the boats; 80' & very well rigged out. They're not going to sink, right? Burn to the waterline (thanks, Jarrod) yes. Actually sink, no.

Now my Dino loves his mum & like all good boys he dutifully rings home when opportunity arises to let me know all is well in his world & I have no need to worry unduly. Yeah, right! After this phone call I no longer sleep peacefully at night...

Hi mum..
Dino! Where are you?
Still at sea.
So what are you doing?
Scurfing behind the trawler.

Whaat!!!! This is Great White Shark country! Even clean the boats stink of blood & fish guts. Do you know how far a shark can smell blood through the water?!

I believe an 80' trawler creates a considerable wake. Perfect for scurfing...& I think my sons don't use the brains I very thoughtfully provided them with. What was he thinking? No, I don't know either.

Normally insane or insane normality.

2008-08-12T02:29:00.000-07:00

And you'll know all is well by the cat!

They've got a knack for finding the warmest, comfiest spot in the house. Yes, that's our bed!

The good news is that the flu got me out of this year's Ekka. Now I know the Ekka is a Queensland institution...'nuff said. I'm a Sydney girl & the Ekka pales into tawdry insignificance beside the Royal Easter Show. The Ekka, for those of you lucky enough not to know, is the Royal Queensland Show, for obscure reasons apparent only to other Aussies & more particularly Brisbanites, is more commonly known as *The Ekka*.

I'm not really a show girl. I like my large animals in plenty of clean air because in confined spaces they, well, smell. I don't think they like it much either. Most animals are pretty clean given a choice. In the 30 odd years I've lived in Queensland I've been to the Ekka just once ~ & hope never to do it again. The crowds! And the filth! And the cheap junk that costs a fortune! Actually, I might like the Ekka minus child & allowed to peruse the painting & crafts & oddball displays I have yet to find a child interested in. Sideshow alley every time & I am so over sideshow alley!

So our Irish friends, being very Irish, went. They took Ditz with them. Insane I know. Three wildly excited kids on an early train into town & the sort of crowds where if you died you couldn't lie down to do it. No, not my idea of fun. And my funny little Ditz, who thinks she is all grown up at 13, wanted to know why I wasn't coming too, just in case, you know, she got lost. Darling daughter, I'm dying ~ cough. cough. Ok, I'm still not real well & the sarcasm's a little out of control but the child had a wildly satisfying time & was very careful with the money she was allotted to spend. She rode a dodgem, which every child should do at least once, shouldn't they, & took a flying ride down the BIG slippery~slide; just one. The slippery~slide was all too much for Ditz! Listening to her as she whirled through the door well after dark & rattled & chatted herself to utter exhaustion was all too much for me.

And Liddy is of to some cold old hole in the morning IT~ing. Chuffed to bits, she is. So things are pretty much back to being normally insane. Iss has the best end of the stick.

One wog to go.

2008-08-10T04:38:00.000-07:00

Not every bowl & cup & plate in the house...but pretty close. Dearest is the only one still on his feet & he's not domesticated, poor lamb. I can't stand looking at the mess & fretting about all the things that need doing & aren't getting done so I stayed in bed.

Poor old Ditz, who is well enough for company but not well enough to be hassled about chores, prowled the house like a lost soul wondering if anyone else was ever going to surface. Meals are a nightmare. Dearest, being well, is frying up a storm & curdling all us girls' stomaches. Liddy is only able to keep soup down. I'm on a fruit kick of strawberries, raspberries & kiwi fruit ~ none of which are in season here & all Ditz wants is sugar; sugar cures all ills in her book.

The worst part of being ill is the mess that accumulates & can't be dealt with but I am feeling slightly better this evening so I may be able to tackle my house in the morning.

Meanwhile, Liddy's work has lots of staff down with this horrible thing so all the supervisors & managers are working while ill & Liddy came home chortling that they got *Lemsip* breaks. How funny is that?

A Girl needs her mum.

2008-08-08T15:08:00.000-07:00

Liddy has the flu too...She put in a video & promptly crashed. Unfortunately Ditz is now feeling better.

The new job means Liddy has accrued no sick days yet & at 3 am I was doling out Panadol & Lemsip to a child convinced you could only feel this awful if you were actualy dying! We are not generally the delicate fragile violet sort & no, however awful she felt she wasn't dying. It just felt like it.

Liddy, my dear, just for the record: next time you're feeling cross with me remember it was absolultely freezing at 3am but I crawled out of my nice warm bed & got you Panadol & lemsip & crawled in bedside you while you shivered & shook your temperature down so you had some extra body heat & I didn't complain (too much) while I did it. Better yet, remember when I am old & decrepit & can't remember where I've put the grandkids. lol.

This one I couldn't resist! :D

2008-08-07T03:02:00.000-07:00

QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

2008-08-06T14:47:00.000-07:00

'' The Mermaids' Cave, for instance, was invented during an algebra lesson; a subject that has never made sense to me, & I have to confess that I still cannot see why X should equal anything except a kiss, a no~go sign, or simply two crossed sticks.'' M.M. Kaye ~ The Sun in the Morning.

A sentiment I understand perfectly!

One haircut.

2008-08-06T01:05:00.000-07:00

One hair cut...& just as well Ditz was still feeling unwell as it took 2 hours to go from this....

.....to this.

I think she likes it. It's a bit hard to tell between the, 'Don't you dare blog about this,' snarl & the 'Ma, I don't feel too good,' miseries.

After months of waiting for the new island shopping complex to be up & running the hairdressers is in full swing & were lovely as they tried to make Ditz's first real haircut a special occasion. Pity she felt too unwell to really appreciate it. On the other hand, I'm so not into encouraging vanity so maybe a good thing?

Give a girl a ball.

2008-08-05T02:36:00.000-07:00

I'm fluey, I'm woggy & I'm downright miserable ~ & you don't want to hear about it so here's how Ditz plays soccer. Yes, she was goalie. Yes, there was a game happening at the time. 'Nuff said.

Ball? What ball?

Oh, that ball! You mean I'm meant to chase it?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DITZ!

2008-08-04T15:46:00.000-07:00

It never rains but it pours. That's always the way in this house. Ditz was late for her own birthday! She was born just after 8am, on the only sports day I ever missed. One set of Grands put all the kids on a boat for their big day & their ma rushed down from Eumundi to be there for them & hold the fort until I got home again. Meanwhile I paced like a caged lion with a dumpling of a child who had so thoughtfully wedged herself sideways before attempting her entry into this world! Only Ditz! Just the same I did expect her up & sunshiney before 8 on her 13th birthday.

When she finally surfaced she was voiceless & fluey. Today she is completely bedridden with a raging temp but we managed yesterday though all my kids whinge they are the only people they know who make their own birthday cake!!! Really? I have tried, for 25 odd years I have tried, to make a birthday cake without at least one child in tow. It has never happened yet. The first whiff of me in the kitchen & kids start lining up to lick & beat & *test* & tell me just what I need to do to make it the perfect cake! Or in Ditz's case, take over completely. Interestingly I got a lot more meringues from my mixture because I actually followed my own instructions. Ditz was intrigued. She loves meringues. All that lovely crisp sugar & gooey insides.

The finished product was...unusual! Yep, the cheesecake is under that meringue topping. God broke the mold when He made my Ditz. So here's looking at you, kid...Happy Birthday, Beautiful Girl!

One Birthday Girl in a Pear Tree.

2008-07-31T13:44:00.000-07:00

As of Monday it's official: I no longer have any children, only teenagers & young adults. On the 4th, Ditz turns 13. She has always been such a happy sunny sort of a kid who likes to wallow in life ~ literally at times. I love her to bits but you know what teenagers are like. She's sorta at the , 'Aw, Muuuum!' stage so I'm not allowed to tell her just how much I love her. Sssh! She sometimes reads here.

My mum has gone to Thailand to spend time with my brother & his family so won't be ringing on her birthday & her parcel has already arrived ~ AND been opened! Dino is up on the Cape. Theo is coming over on Sunday to see her & we will do our family dinner then so I guess Ditz's actual birthday will be pretty quiet.

So what does one get a 13 year old? Nothing much. No, I'm not being mean. We have asked everyone to give Ditz money for her *music fund* rather than gifts as her ensemble seems set on travelling all over the place & we just can't come up with those sort of bucks but if Ditz has a fund she can draw on she may be able to do one or two of those trips.

I have just got her, on special, a DVD she wanted, a replacement set of pretty sleepers for her ears & a small book. My mum sent her 'something for her head (cap), something for her feet (toe socks)& something for her heart (silver heart on a chain)' & a cheque for the music fund. My Sydney friend has a fancy make~up bag for her & Liddy is going to pander to Ditz's girlie instincts & shout her a proper hair cut & highlights.

That has been something of an issue. Poor old Ditz got her father's glorious colouring & my fine fly~away hair. I have always kept it long as it is easiest looked after that way but Ditz wants it cut. Not short short but shorter than it is. Liddy suggested a styled cut. The problem with that is ensemble performances require her hair pulled back of her face so it has to be a certain length. I won't do fringes. Stupid, stupid fashion constantly getting in your eyes & needing cutting. A longish bob & highlights is a sort of compromise as Ditz thought black & bright red stripes might be the go. Uh, no, Ditz. No way.

Oh, & for cake Ditz has ordered our no bake cheescake with a meringue topping. *sigh* Only Ditz!

Island Walkabout.

2008-07-31T00:03:00.000-07:00

Thursdays are flute. After last night's late finish the Ditzy One wasn't her usual bright & sparkling self this morning. Indeed I had to wake her & she emerged bleary eyed & trepidacious (is that a word? Is now.)

I trudged in Ditz's wake up the long steep hill feeling at least several centuries old. Yes, I know it looks beautiful but it was (((Cold)))!!! And it's at least a 20 minute walk, all uphill. Watching people wizz past in their nice warm cars makes my bones ache, to say nothing of standing on a windy old jetty with icy slivers slinking down my collar.

Just the same there is always plenty to enjoy on this walk. All the wattle is starting to burst out turning everything golden....

The birds are nesting & there are baby chicks everywhere...

And Islanders are an inventive lot. I can cope with the roo but there's a croc as well & that is too, too much.

But for half an hour inbetween all this I got to listen to 2 flutes battle with Purcell's Largo from Sonata no.1 ~ & if Ditz will only count it will sound lovely. Being Ditz she doesn't like her music slow. Being Ditz she doesn't like counting. Being Ditz this is the piece she finds extraordinarily difficult, far more difficult than the Moderato, which goes at a cracking pace! Yet every so often there were glimpses... a phrase where alto & soprano were in absolute agreement & I thought how lucky Ditz is to be able to make this wonderful sound. I've tried. I just sound like a strangled goose.

A little travelling.

2008-07-30T14:08:00.000-07:00

Travelling. We do so much of it but some days are just insane. Take yesterday for example. I dropped Liddy at work. Came home & wrote Ditz out a *to do* list (can't think why as she just did what she'd normally do in a morning, certainly no more & considerably less math as she *forgot* how to do it!) & got Dearest & I on a 9.30 am boat. We came home on the 11.30 & I pottered round for a bit before putting Ditz & I on the 3.20pm boat for music. Left Ditz behind to meet Liddy at the jetty at 6pm for a rescheduled soccer game & managed to have all of us on the 9 pm boat home. Basically I'd spent my day driving in & out of town. Ditz & I were starving even though we picked up take~away, which is never as filling or satisfying as a proper meal, & Liddy was over tired & difficult.

The chill factor off the water just made me miserable & Ditz, who is always wired after music, couldn't relax enough to sleep so at 10.30 pm I found myself reading aloud a chapter of Artemis Fowl. I was emotionally exhausted. I hate days that are emotionally draining yet not really physically tiring. It's not like I actually did anything but sit & read for most of the day though I did the driving for the first two trips & think I should have driven home after soccer. Liddy's mental state really affects her driving & she was throwing the car round enough that I remonstrated with her & she snarled like a feral cat about just letting her drive. Hmm. We were all sooo showing our best sides!

Unfortunately Ditz & I have flute today ~ more travelling ~ but are too tired to really be at our best & this is costing us days of school. I would love to shift all Ditz's music to a Friday & have the weekend to recover but that is just not going to happen & ditching it altogether is not really an option however tempted I feel when it all starts unravelling on me.

To this heady mix all my friends have chosen to visit. O.k, only 2 but they are long distant friends we don't see too often so time simply must be squeezed from my hectic schedule for them. Local friends know better than to expect us to socialise during term time! My Sydney friend visits sporadically throughout the year & as an old uni mate is far too valuable to ignore while our Irish friends only visit for a few weeks every other year, at huge expense, & the boys get on sooo well with my peculiar little Ditz it is an absolute joy. The older boy's birthday falls within a day or so of Ditz's birthday & we have always done a joint birthday celebration the years they are here with them providing the BBQ & us doing cake & sweet treats. Ditz plans for their stay all year & for weeks has talked of little else except what she should buy as a present. The boys are into military history (which I know nothing about!) so what we have ended up with 3 large water guns. Despite the freezing weather I guess they will have loads of fun squirting icy water over each other! (((BRRRRR)))

The bible says not to worry about the future for each day has enough troubles of its own & ain't that the truth?! Ok, I'm off to deal with today's insanity.

A Package!

2008-07-28T02:09:00.000-07:00

Curriculum always takes a while to arrive here. When we start thinking it's about due we take to haunting the front yard anticipating the mailman, knowing the big box will have to be signed for & anxious to get a good look at what we've ordered.

Sonlight is particularly exciting. Firstly it is always a good sized box, well taped up & requiring a knife & a certain skill to open. Ditz wields a mean knife.

Inside there are books...& books...& more books. For some of us homeschooling mums we envy our children & wish this is the way we'd been schooled. Nothing gives me more pleasure than a big box of books. Ditz is eyeing them askance with a very dubious look. She may not be keen but at least I know she can & will read them without too much fussing, unlike her math which is fast becoming the last great taboo, totally unmentionable, guaranteed to have both of us scowling at the stupid stuff & muttering unmentionable things under our breaths. Ditz will do anything, promise anything, to get out of math. I love it so much that I am always tempted to accept her generous offers!

I am looking forward to starting this core! Our Irish friends are taking Ditz with them to the movies on Tuesday so I will have the day to sort myself out & make sure I've ordered everything I need to start. Our lovely supplier lets me order piecemeal so I am not up for a huge amount up front & just order before I get to the end of my supplies. It is far kinder to my budget. I have all the history so can wait on the readers as Ditz is still finishing up core 5 readers but my Irish friend couldn't believe the books we got & how much Ditz was expected to read over the next few months. Yes, well, reading is not the problem in this house! The math is slowly going down like the Titanic, unmourned by anyone. I think I want a very practical, concrete math for next year ~ something along the lines of household management or How to Ensure Your Music Manager isn't Ripping you off Thousands of Dollars 101. Something Ditz can relate to. I could be looking for a while. Somehow Ditz doesn't relate to anything mathamatical.

Money for water.

2008-07-26T13:43:00.000-07:00

Wells...a place where there is water...a place to quench one's thirst...a place of refreshment in an arid landscape. Yesterday we visited such a well. No, not a literal well, a metaphorical well; my favourite sort of well ~ a bookstore; better yet a Christian bookstore.

Koorong actually means watering hole or oasis & living where we do with limited access to all things mainland & limited (very limited) choices in all things Christian a visit to the Brisbane store is a rare & much appreciated treat. Now Liddy has her own car & is working again she couldn't wait to load Ditz & I up & go & blow a pay packet here...while the 20% off sale was on! She came home loaded down with books & CDs. Ditz already has her eye on at least one of those CDs & I'm sure it will walk out of one bedroom & into another very shortly!

Liddy was all done before I'd even begun to look & predictably what I wanted Koorong didn't hold; it is very mainstream & I am anything but mainstream. *sigh* Which is not to say I came home empty handed. I got Ditz a book for her upcoming birthday & given my opinon on much of what is considered acceptable children's Christian literature that in itself is something of a miracle. I got Liddy, who hadn't seen it, a book about BJ, dead at 17 from bubonic plague (they think) after serving as a missionary in Peru; Liddy has her eyes on the street kids of Brazil but the Lord seems to be growing her up before sending her out & I am treasuring this time I still have with her because once she goes I don't think we will see her very often in this world. I got me another CD by Edens Bridge, which no doubt one of the girls will eventually nab. I was also eyeing off Eric Liddell's biography for Liddy but I know it's coming up in Sonlight so decided to wait though flicking through the final pages I was very struck by the authors comments on the difficulty of being an elite sportsperson in this day & age & also a Christian. Almost impossible, & we have been learning how true that is this year.

Liddy did most of the driving although predictably she does not like driving in the city & it is very tiring for both of us. I have to remain as alert as she does without access to the brake! We stopped at the Bay for hamburgers & icecreams before coming home to one very unhappy cat. Iss does NOT like changes in our rountine & sits outside waiting until we arrive home ~ rain, hail or sunshine. He's quite mad. As we pile out of the car he rushes to greet us, tail high, uttering his warbling greeting chirrups, shoots between everyone's legs to be first in the door & promptly demands food although Dearest always remembers to feed him. Iss is a cat; he lets no~one forget him! Yes, he climbed into my lap for big cuddles then came to bed with me & snuggled in the crook of my arm possessively. I love him but I do think he's looney tunes.

All my duckies...& then some.

2008-07-23T13:33:00.000-07:00

I had all my ducks nicely lined up in a row. Truly I did. O.K we were over extended but that's life when you live on an island & have to travel for everything & have lots of kids all doing different things but you know I had my duckies lined up beautifully....

Because I'm not good about giving my mind to mundane but necessary matters. Line 'em up & hit the automatic pilot is my motto. So making adjustments throws me into a panic. It takes me weeks to realign my automatic pilot. I forget things ~ like kids. I miss boats. I don't get to where I should be & I certainly don't get there on time.

All this to say Liddy brought home her shift schedule & I flipped. I have a major reschedule to do. In the middle of term. Halfway through the year. This is not good news for anyone. Dearest must be roped in to do car runs so we can juggle everything. Dearest prefers not to be roped in but sometimes it is unavoidable. I don't want to think about it so I'm not going to anymore. Instead I'm going to bore you with yet another ensemble tale because watching a truly professional teacher at work fascinates me. The rest of you might prefer to skip this bit.

I can't help myself. I go armed with a book, preferably thick & fascinating; in last night's case, M.M Kaye's autobiography about growing up in the Raj's India & I read...at least until something grabs my attention & I get drawn in to the fascination of seeing how a musician pulls together her ensemble. I can't help myself....I already said that. What people do & why they do do it is riveting stuff.

Last night I watched Alison match up voices, pair by pair, explaining as she went about colour & tone & competing for *airwaves*, looking for voices that complemented each other, then voices that would complement them, voice by voice, section by section. It took all rehearsal ~ mature voices to ground fly~away ones; rich voices to undercut clear ones, voices like the deep swell of the sea & voices like ringing crystal; thin whispery voices & voices rasping like gravel. I think that's the first time I've listened to the ensemble voice by voice. It still amazes me that just by standing a singer on the opposite side of another singer the whole sound of what they are singing changes! At the end everyone had their ensemble position for the Britten carols. Ditz, for the present is on her own. I ain't a~goin' there!

Wet Wednesday.

2008-07-22T15:17:00.000-07:00

There's little that's more outright depressing than a dank day with the rain coming down the passage in fitful scuds & the wind straight off the pole.

Even the cat's not impressed. Ditz is snuggled deep in her purple doona pretending she's still asleep.

This is what I consider to be a baking day, filling the cold house with warmth & the cheery smell of good things cooking while I try not to contemplate heading out into it later on today to take Ditz to choir. Anything else, if I suggested a day off because of the weather, Ditz would be ok with that but choir is sacrosant. Come hell or high water, fire, flood or famine Ditz will front up for choir so I might as well put a cheerful face on it but oooh, it's nasty out there. (((Brrrr!)))

Of cats & pies.

2008-07-21T15:14:00.000-07:00

Ditz has been *cat sitting* for friends. While Ditz did the grotty jobs of cleaning bowls & litter trays Liddy & I played. Deafne is...well, deaf...& very into her cuddles.

Indy is a cat of another colour entirely. She is very young & smart as & has been trained to jump over a stick on command. Ditz was in charge of ensuring she didn't forget her trick while her owners are away!

Then I have been giving pastry lessons to Dearest who wanted to learn how to make meat pies. Here is his effort...& they were very, very yummy.

Liddy absconded with the leftover pastry to turn out small lemon meringue pies. Those lemons sure are coming in handy!

Considering God's Creation: a Science curriculum.

2008-07-20T22:57:00.000-07:00

There is a difference between a *hands on* learner & an *arts 'n' crafts kid*. I've had both sorts so I'm pretty aware of the differences. Ditz is in the latter category. We are talking a kid who won't do the science experiments, won't use manipulatives for math, thinks *acting out* for history too silly for words & promptly acquires *brain fog* if you suggest she should at least try these things.

Now this is not necessarily a problem for things like English (somehow drama is acceptable) or history (because we can draw lots) or math (which is not usually taught in a hands on manner anyway) but becomes excruciatingly difficult with science which seems to think people need to do things in order to learn about them. I have a fellow feeling for friends who banned science experiments when their child scorched a huge hole in their new carpet.

So finding a science curriculum that accommodates my child's predominant learning style becomes something of a challenge, especially when it's coupled with giftedness in non academic areas. Brains to burn if you can just do it right.

Our main science curriculum is Apologia. It's a great curriculum...& Ditz is struggling big time. It requires academic aptitude. Not Ditz's forte. I suffer from the same sort of blonde moments as my daughter so ordered science as our bible curriculum. I don't even want to ask how I got there but got there we did.

So Considering God's Creation is the curriculum I should have ordered for science & didn't. We get to do it anyway. If you don't like cutting & pasting & colouring don't ever order this curriculum. There's lots of cutting & lots of pasting & plenty of colouring & Ditz & I are perfectly content because we are happy to cut & paste & colour. This is an almost perfect curriculum for a visual/spatial learner. There is variety ~ of subject & approach.

Ditz had a ball putting all the flower bits together. She was less enthused about grasshopper bits or snake heads

The comic strip Bird in Flight , which makes the duck appear to actually be flying charmed her ~ as an artist!

I'm not sure what age this is aimed at. The CD is a little young for us so we haven't used it & because it's a supplementary curriculum I haven't followed the guidelines all that closely. What I do know is that freed of the high academic expectations of Apologia, freed of Scientific method & experimentation, & the need to be strictly factual Ditz still enjoys her science.

As an abstract, speculative, theoretical thinker myself I am less concerned with a strictly scientific approach to science. I prefer, like Mary to 'ponder these things in my heart' so that walking at night under the stars with Ditz & Liddy, speculating on the true nature of black holes & whether if we could get a camera big enough & far enough out into space it would really be possible to *photograph the past*, to speculate whether Hawkins expanding/shrinking universe is in fact *breathing*...so that Liddy charmed exclaimed, 'I never knew that! Why don't they teach science like that in school?'

I know there is a place for real science but I will never make a scientist & I'm pretty sure Ditz won't either. We still have a deep appreciation for certain aspects of science...in our own strange, quirky, artsy way. OK so photosynthesis is a word Ditz has already forgotten but her carnivorous plant garden is awesome! Guess which I prefer!

Lemons & Kidney Beans.

2008-07-18T22:42:00.000-07:00

We have been picking lemons ~ like this! They are huge, the size of grapefruit & lovely & juicy, not all thick skin & pith. Lovely after a hot game of soccer. We are out of lemon/lime butter (doesn't take long in this house) so we are off to buy some proper butter so we can make some more. Liddy has cravings...

And this is Ditz's body ~ complete with *parts*. She didn't mind the bones but the intestines rather grossed her out. Good thing it's not in techni~colour ~ & we're not adding any either! I must admit this was plenty of fun to make & the way we prefer to learn but there is a reason I took literature & drama at Uni ~ um, no, I don't do *insides* either, which means I made Ditz do it all to anguished, 'Ooh, that's gross/nasty/feral'. Then I had to tell her, yes it's true her kidneys look like beans (there's a reason for the term kidney bean). She may never eat baked beans again.

A woman's heart is in her kitchen

2008-07-17T22:17:00.001-07:00

The heart of the home is the kitchen. It used to be literally true.Women have a need to personalise their kitchens; the pretty coffee mugs displayed, the dresser with it's company crockery, dainty tablecloths & baskets of fruit, a pot of mint beside the sink. The centuries may have passed but some things never change.

Sigurd Towrie

When I go back to Scotland this is the kitchen I most want to visit! O.k, I know it's roofless & exposed to the inclement Scottish weather but this is the kitchen guaranteed to change your ideas about Neolithic man. I could really go for a stone dresser like this!
Skara Brae is the village that disappeared for centuries under Orcadian sand until the great storm of 1850 brought it to light again. The archaeologists have had a field day with it! It has the oldest Neolithic houses in Britain.

In the centre of the home is the kitchen & make no mistake; this was a home. In the centre is the hearth with the special stone for cooking good Scots griddle cakes, which are a picklet or small pancake. Perhaps they had honey on them; heather honey. There is the clay lined pit for holding water & perhaps fresh seafood. There is the huge stone dresser & big stone storage bins. I guess they'd keep the mice out.

I want to wander in this kitchen & imagine what the woman who ruled the hearth here displayed on her dresser. She would have had something she treasured that she kept here: a whalebone comb intricately carved, a pretty bowl, a necklace of beads & feathers & bits of bone, a sharp flint knife, an idol maybe, something that drew her eyes & made her heart sing as she changed the heather bedding, aired the animal skin covers, prepared meals & tended her folk. We aren't that different. The centuries shrink to fit in a woman's kitchen.

Musical chairs.

2008-07-16T13:41:00.000-07:00

I'm odd. I have missed being assaulted by strange sounds twice weekly. As I tucked into Wars of the Irish Kings I found myself thinking that a trained choir singing scales was rather a pleasant sound. Hm. Yes, well...

To say nothing of Ditz, who was quite extraordinary last night. I have failed to appreciate the gifts that child has. Between fog & rain & errands we found ourselves running late last night & scrambling for seats just as Alison began class. To my astonishment there were two other mothers there but my curiosity wasn't particularly roused. There is so much oddity from week to week what is a little more?

Frankly I wasn't all that sure we were off to a good start. Ditz was off with the fairies & Alison pegged her with her first question. That woke Ditz up all right & she began paying attention properly.

The dictation has been over my head for some time & is now moving into more complicated time signatures that my poor little unmusical brain simply cannot grasp at all. What I do grasp, as a chronic people watcher, is which children are most likely to have the answers or to volunteer themselves; not Ditz, who has yet to master the art of raising her hand. Her idea of raising her hand is to rest her elbow on the edge of the desk & waggle a pencil vaguely in the air. Maybe I need to do a lesson on correct classroom procedure?

So asked to sing back what they've just heard I know which children are going to put their hand up to solo & if they fluff it who Alison is most likely to call upon; not Ditz, who has no qualms about subjecting me to her outrageous performances in the safety of her own home. I started paying attention when I heard the timing go all over the place & the high notes flubbed. One down. Another hand, another child, same problemo & no~one else was offering to be the sacrificial lamb. I don't even know if it was difficult but while I'm waiting to see how Alison will tackle the mutiny in the ranks Ditz does her little pencil waggle. Yep. Coulda knocked me down with a feather. She nailed it. That strange sound you're hearing is my jaw hitting the floor. That child is not consistent. She fluffs the easy stuff, nails the hard stuff, makes mad mistakes in stuff she knows backwards, forwards & inside out then makes wild guesses at stuff she's never heard of & gets it right!

As we're waiting for the advanced students to arrive for rehearsals another mother approached me to tell me what a great voice my child has. I am so used to Ditz I take her, her voice & her music for granted. I haven't spent time comparing her voice to other voices. I have only been concerned that she is behaving herself, that she is coping in a classroom situation, that she is coping with the work, enjoying herself... & that Alison is happy with her. It is very important that Alison is happy with her!

In rehearsals Ditz, who is singing seconds, stands next to the boy with the best & loudest voice & happily cognizant that he is effectively drowning her out she has been letting rip...until she realised he'd dropped out & it was her alone making all the noise! She was most put out with him & I got to hear all about it all the way home.

Home again, school again.

2008-07-15T15:17:00.000-07:00

We are back up & running school wise & Ditz is looking good. Glimpses of maturity & just doing what she knows needs to be done. Just when I think things are one way she changes on me & we are on a different tangent altogether.

We have been doing Considering God's Creation, which was to be our bible study but which is a much better fit for science though putting together a human body rather turned Ditz's stomach & I have given warning I do not do dissections! Ever! Period. I am so not a good scientist but then neither is Ditz so that's all right.

Most of our day yesterday was taken up with putting this together. It just seemed sensible to put it all together at once then come back & do all the lessons. When it came to the drawing part Ditz was fanatical about colour layering to get the richness of her hair & the shades in her eyes. I swear she's getting worse!

Actually bible curriculum is the one thing I don't feel I've got a grip on at all & I am so fed up with looking & trying stuff that is just a really terrible fit for us. I have sent Ditz back to just reading her bible chapter by chapter for the present though I am considering trying the Character Journal. Ditz can cope with deep stuff but is not yet ready for apologetics & I'm at my wits end. Where are all the really excellent bible studies for homeschoolers? After all, lots of us Christian homeschoolers base our whole philosophy on biblical principals. Maybe I'm just too fussy? *sigh* Even though most of our curriculum is coming from a strong Christian worldview I really feel the need to have some proper bible study, especially as Ditz seems determined to head into the hotbed of secular insanity in the arts arena. We are already feeling the effects & I want Ditz to really understand what she believes & why it is important to stay strong.

I am still waiting on the new curriculum arriving. I hope it's not too much longer as we are very close to being done with this lot of readers & Ditz usually starts with her reading so she doesn't even have to get out of bed but can stay snuggled on these wet, drippy days surrounded by hot Milo, buttered toast & purring cat.

Liddy meanwhile has been sounded out as to whether or not she'd be interested in doing some occasional travelling to fix small IT problems. She was thrilled & could hardly wait to get home & talk about it. Even if it never eventuates she's simply delighted to have been asked. That she is still a non~driver is not a problem & nor was it that she blurted she'd have to discuss it with us first. Funny girl. A few raised eyebrows but Liddy just said she's got a close relationship & she'd like our feedback. She is so happy in her new job but she always does better working with the men & I just hope things are still cruisy when the stocking is done & she moves in to her regular job on the registers.

And now we are back on our regular punishing schedule & the rain is dripping down my body has betrayed me & I have come down with another terrible cold. I haven't been so constantly sick in years. I am girding my mind for the fray & pray I manage to keep my temper in check. Being sick makes me very bad tempered & me being bad tempered makes Ditz growly. I do not want a growly Ditz, especially not when she is cultivating the right attitude!

QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

2008-07-15T02:31:00.000-07:00

I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes

Training Daughters.

2008-07-13T20:28:00.000-07:00

I am blessed. I have an older daughter who is now perfectly capable of teaching her younger sibling so when we were given an excess of lemons & limes Liddy promptly moved into the kitchen to make lemon butter with Ditz. Liddy & I then promptly ate the lot. There wasn't a skeric left this morning. We did however still have plenty of limes & a lone lemon so lemon/lime butter it was. It was lovely to find I really didn't have to teach Ditz anything. She busily went to work cutting & squeezing & measuring all on her own & did plenty of the hard work of whisking as well. She is becoming a very competant cook ~ but then all mine love their food & have learnt to cook well in self defence.

This is the end result....& it is very yummy. If it lasts long enough I will make some small lemon meringue tartlets for desert one evening. Keeping it that long is highly dubious. Everyone in this house eats it by the spoonful. Why waste such a glorious taste on toast?

The good news is that we have an open invitation to help ourselves to the bounty for its duration so there are plenty more lemons & limes where these came from. More lemons & limes means we can make more butter. Ditz is going to be very good at this before we are done!

Rejoice with us!

2008-07-13T13:36:00.000-07:00

I hate changes. It means I have to stop & think. It means I can't operate on automatic pilot. It means I have to hoe a new groove in my schedule. Change upsets me so changing churches has really thrown me off balance. I struggle to be organised & make boats. I feel angry because I've been forced to make the change. I resent all the extra effort it is requiring to get us to church each week & when the weather is bad I just won't make the effort. I can't cope with being wet as well as cold. I have a bad attitude but the change was necessary & I am adjusting slowly.

All that being said my soul is singing within me this morning. Liddy & I had agreed to try the youth service this week, as much because her work schedule looks like the morning service is out for her. As we prepared to leave the island I wanted nothing more than to say we'd go another week. I was tired & crotchety. My day should have been winding down not gearing up for trips to the mainland. My temper was fraying & an over tired Ditz was being difficult. We left Ditz at home.

Liddy had asked one of her friends along & if we'd had another spare seat Ditz had two she wanted to bring. As it was it was just the three of us. Now bluntly I am struggling in this church. It is too big, too loud, too many distractions ( thank heavens for Meeting once a month!) but the preaching is excellent & we are being fed. I will put up with a lot if the preaching is good. So I was expecting worse from the youth service.

This is something I've never actually experienced before. Youth services were a fairly new innovation when I was Liddy's age so seeing 50 ~ 60 young adults on fire for the Lord, singing their hearts out, waving their hands, dancing on the spot was a wow! moment.

When Liddy is happy she lights up from within. Quakers talk about the inner light & letting your inner light shine. You really see that in Liddy when she is spiritualy fed & I watched her light up last night. She was absolutely glowing. There were a whole bunch of kids just returning from a mission trip. There were Christian concerts & events being advertised where she could fellowship with even more youth. And the preaching was absolutely fantastic!!! Liddy soaked it up like a dry sponge. They were still going when we left for the boat.

That alone would have made it all worthwhile but the best was yet to come. Liddy's friend is a little shy about spiritual matters & Lid & I can rattle on happily for hours, which can be intimidating. She comes from a non~Christian background though she used to attend the island Sunday school. Last time we took her to the morning service & it pretty much went over the top of her head. Last night she shyly confessed she likes this church. Praise the Lord! She understood the sermon. She has been encouraged in her fairly new walk with the Lord. She's been strengthened ~ everything you want when you bring someone new to church! O.K, like Lid she prefers the evening service but that it fine. I would go to greater lengths than this to grow on the next generation of Christians.

Now this is a church that likes to put all its members into *life groups* for prayer, bible study, encouragement & accountability & I have been fretting because I really, really don't want to have to travel yet again, not for any reason. Brainwave! I will run it past Dearest & Liddy, but we have enough between us to start our own small *life group*. It has the feel of the Lord's thumbprints on it. I am excited. I feel blessed. Knowing the move is right makes all the hassle worthwhile.

Changes, changes...

2008-07-12T09:07:00.000-07:00

The boys hired a houseboat for their 21st & had about 12 friends on board for the weekend. I don't know how much fun it really was as the weather turned nasty with wind & rain but Dino tells me they ate well so it wasn't all bad.

Yesterday Ditz, Issi & I went down the hill to clean up along the beach & make sure Dino had secured his boat like he said he had. He has left for 2 months up north where the roads are all dirt & pot holes & the crocs abound in the waterholes.

He comes & goes the Dino does but we miss him when he's not around & without any of the boys in the house at all it is a very different household, quieter, less hectic, less t.v, more Christian music. With Liddy working Ditz & I may actually be able to really get some solid work done this term. Hmmm. Now there's a thought to make Ditz's little heart sing!

We have friends on the Island from Ireland (lol, don'tcha love it?) at present so the Ditzy one is having a sleepover ~ so thrilled. She's not allowed many of these. Liddy is temporarily an only child & wants to know why can't it always be like this? Looks like we are going to end our holidays with a bang!

Outreaching...

2008-07-09T13:23:00.000-07:00

I love to watch how God works in His people's lives, like watching a garden grow. Things go along & go along & seemingly nothing much happens & then, all of a sudden, there's a wonderful flower!

Liddy's gift is missions & outreach. She has been quietly exercising her gift on the island & has a group of girls she wants to bring to church. I am calculating the number of seats in her small car & we have been discussing which service would be best as we have yet to go to an actual youth service. I wish she had her open license as that would free her up a seat but we work with what we have, right?

Her new job has been going along nicely too...until she was asked about working weekends as they'd like her in a supervisory role at those times. Liddy is a tad worried. She doesn't want to jeopardise her new job but we have church & soccer commitments. The soccer we think we can juggle but church is something of a worry unless we commit to the evening service, which, coincidentally is the youth service. Another evening I'm not home & we will be eating funny meals. Watching all the ducks line up in a row leaves me gasping.

When things start happening they tend to happen quickly. Liddy has girls asking to come to church with us & we are planning an evening service soon if the weather will only co~operate. Ditz, who has been the lone ranger in church for so many years has been absolutely delighted to find other kids her own age who are committed Christians & that she can invite her own friends along as well ~ so long as we have the seats available. I will be very interested to see how the youth service differs from the main service myself & what music they choose to use.

I'm not the social bunny in this house, merely the chauffeur for all the social bunnies so I am always surprised when things fall in my lap; & fall they must. I never seek them out. People like Liddy, who actively outreach astonish me, not because I am embarrassed by Christ, but because I always remember how much I hated people badgering me about Christianity when I wasn't a Christian & what a waste of time it was speaking to me so I never do it myself. I think it's rude when it's unsolicited. Liddy is always being asked things that allow her to speak about the gospel. I rarely am. However I do get the ocassional odd request like the one I got last week.

'I'm not a church going peron myself but next time you're in church would you say a prayer for me?'

Answer: yes, of course. I'd like to have added, but wouldn't you rather talk to God yourself, face to face, so to speak only I've discovered people have some funny ideas about God & only ask because they don't feel able to pray themselves so I guess that's my prayer for this particular person: that they are enabled to approach the throne of grace on their own behalf.

Along the catwalk.

2008-07-08T18:02:00.001-07:00

Today is the first fine day we've had after a week of rain so I decided to indulge in one of my favourite pastimes, one I rarely have time for in the hustle & bustle of term time; I decided to go for a walk along the waterfront. Ditz graciously decided I needed *alone time* so didn't come with me.

It was cool out but it is always much warmer at the bottom of the hill. The wind scoots over the top leaving the mangroves toasty warm. I started down the hill between the dripping ferns with pleasant anticipation. I hadn't got very far when there was a sqwark of protest behind me & a plaintive, 'Where are you?' meow. Iss had spotted me. I don't know what it is with our animals. They always end up confused. The cats think they're dogs & refuse to be left behind on walks. I sighed. Iss is pretty vocal on walks. If I lag behind he hurries me up, if I get too far ahead he cries a protest, when he's had enough he insists on being picked up & carried.
We haven't walked in a while. Iss shot between my legs & down the path. So much to do! Sniff the wild hibiscus.
Investigate the rotting dingies.
Roll in the sand & scamper about like a madman.
Well? Aren't you coming? At this time of the year the tides don't leave much in the beachcombing line but there were plenty of small birds ~ honeyeaters, flycatchers, bee~eaters, bronze wing pigeons, in great coulds of dusky feathers ~ & these jeweled beetles on the mangrove leaves.

We walked to the point where Dino's boat lay like a beached seal.

Exhausting. Iss stopped for a rest & a quick wash before noticing I didn't need to do the same & hurtled after me.

Poor boy. He's not real keen on the rocks.

There are 7 different sorts of mangroves here. You really needed to know that didn't you? I adore mangroves. They are fascinating. Each type grows at a different tide mark busily building new soil, claiming land from the sea far more efficiently than any Dutchman.

This, oh so originaly, is known as *the big pile of rocks*! Lots of crab holes & a favourite haunt of children for pirate treasure hunts & decaying medievial castles.

I have seen Ginger's kids' treehouse; this is not like that! I haven't ever been game to ask how the kids hauled all that timber up into the tree but up it most certainly is & there are no rails! I guess they figured they'd be falling into either mud or water if the worst came to the worst but no~one's ever fallen out yet.
Iss decided he'd had enough & led the way home again.
jiggerty~trot.

The cat has cabin fever!

2008-07-08T15:15:00.000-07:00

The psychotic one has lost the plot. It has been raining here, raining hard enough to float Noah's ark. Iss likes rain, but not the sort of rain we've been having, the sort that thunders down like a heavenly waterfall turning the paths into gushing rivers & the garden into a lake.

I keep a litter tray inside for him but like all my cats Iss prefers to go outside & has his regular times when he expects to be let out & I will find him sitting patiently beside a door waiting hopefully for someone to notice.

Beside the door is where I found him yesterday morning.

'You won't like it, boy,' I warned him as I opened the door.

He didn't. He stuck a cautious nose around the door & surveyed the downpour in disgust, gingerly picked his way down the sodden steps & along the path ~ a whole 3 cats steps, hesistated amidst the swirls of gushing water, turned tail & shot back up the steps & through the door so fast his wet paws skidded along the wooden floor.

Iss had serious cabin fever. All day he bounced at people, shaking himself like a fluffy mop, begging to be played with, rubbed & tumbled & cosseted & petted, fed tidbits & chatted to.

Sometime last night the rain stopped. When I let Iss out he surveyed the sunshine with smug satisfaction & meandered down the steps with an arrogant waggle of his rear end, king again of his small domain. I haven't seen him since. The air is rich with that fresh rainwashed smell & golden with sunshine. The birds are delirious with joy; all's right with Iss' world.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

2008-07-07T19:32:00.001-07:00

Arthur's Tintagel?

2008-07-07T15:58:00.000-07:00

I don't remember a time when my imagination was not possessed by images of Arthur, the *Once & Future King*, symbolically a Christ figure, though flawed. Nor was I possessed by the medieval tale as most people know it, though that is certainly where I began.
No, my imagination was fired by the thought that he might have been real & thus began my long fall into love with archaeology.

Tintagel is the suppossed birthplace of Arthur & I tend to believe that the old stories contain kernels of truth & that is why they survive down through the centuries & only a fool would totally discredit them. So I tend to the theory that Arthur was, in fact, a real person, a real war leader of the late 5th, early 6th century. What his true name was & where his actual Camelot was is still open to speculation though some theories are more probable than others.

So when I was in England I desparately wanted to visit Tintagel & travel through the west country. It is most beautiful & apart from the Lake District my favourite part of England. (Scotland & Wales are separate countries.lol.) Now I know what remains on Tintagel promatory is the remains of a 13 century castle. I also know that excavations have revealed a huge trade in medeterrian chattles in the 5th/6th century, our time reference ~ something only a very rich household could have managed. The household was a Celtic household & the castle went over the top of an old Celtic fort.

Unlike Stonehenge Tintagel was an awesome experience. As I waslked over the narrow causeway with the Cornish surf pounding the rocks & narrow beach below & the gulls screaming overhead I thought of Merlin doing his desparate trip late at night, a new born Arthur clutched against his chest ~ & shuddered.

There are ghosts everywhere amongst the ruins of Tintagel. The past presses down without weight & one can look out on the vastness of the ocean as Arthur may once have looked & one gets a sense of time pinched between the fingers of God as a small thing without substance.

I like wild places & Tintagel is still wild. On 3 sides the ocean growls about the cliff face, gnawing away at the Cornish rocks. Only the narrowest spit of land connects Tintagel to mainland Cornwall. It is now, as then, very isolated, isolated by that spit of land that has served it well as a defendable fort all down the centuries. Perched high above the water it gazes proud & solitary both across the waters that have brought so many marauders to English shores & north & east to what became England ~ Anlgeland, land of the Angles, who with the Saxons pushed the Celtic peoples ever westward into the furthest reaches of the Kingdom. It is ironic that Arthur held these very peoples at bay for a whole generation, slowing the Saxon invasion, perhaps changing the whole course of history. No wonder he has been remembered for so long.

Duloe

2008-07-07T01:24:00.000-07:00

In 1979 I was 21 & in England with pretty much just two things on my mind: I wanted to visit Stonehenge & cross the causeway into Tintagel.

Stonehenge disappointed, even before they fenced it off completely. We wandered round with all the other tourists but whatever Stonehenge had once been it's ambiance & secrets were not for me. I was given something far better & I have remembered it clearly all the years in between, the important things, not frustrating things like name & location.

I know we were driving west, still stinging from the disappointment of Stonehenge, probably somewhere on Bodmin Moor. I don't have a good sense of direction even in my own country. It could have been anywhere in Devon or Cornwall but there are limitations. Someone might know where we landed.Driving down the road I noticed a small standing circle at the top of a hill on the side of the road.

I remember it had been raining. We had to pick our way over the fresh ploughed fields. The heavy clods of black soil made us cautious; it was obviously a working farm but the farmer graciously gave us permission to climb his hill & walk around this site.I remember the view. I remember standing under the tall dark trees staring out over a very English valley with its patchwork of hedgerows & small fields & grey rainy skies.I think we had found by accident the smallest stone circle in Cornwall, Duloe. Duloe stands in the corner of a farmer's field on a flat ridge overlooking the Looe valley. There are only 8 white quartz standing stones in the circle & they aren't big ones. Even the diameter is small ~ about 11m.

There was no~one else round but as I investigated the circle I was overwhelmed with a sense of darkness & evil. My skin prickled. Without a shadow of a doubt I *knew* blood had been shed here. I did not know then (how could I?) that in the 1800's, when a hedgerow growing through the centre of the circle was removed, that a burial urn with cremated human remains was also found. I know the Celts, along with most primitive peoples, practised human sacrifice. Whether they did or not at Duloe there is no way of knowing for sure.

I have had the same sense of evil & doom on other ancient sites & have grown more cautious but the love of archaeology is, at root level, the love of people & a huge curiousity about who they were & why they were the way they were.

Deuteronomy29:29 is applicable ~ The secret things belong to God alone, but the things revealed belong to us & to our children forever.

All grown up... & then some.

2008-07-05T20:07:00.000-07:00

Dino & Theo, 1995

Tomorrow, just after 3 pm, the boys turn 21. Where have all those years gone?

Some things are printed indelibly in the psyche: my normal weight is around 7 stone; I reached 13 1/2 stone with the twins. Dearest joked I needed a wheelbarrow for my tummy. By 8 months it wasn't funny. Getting up a flight of stairs required more breath than I had to spare. And sick! I was so, so sick. My poor mother went frantic trying to get food in me & keep it there. I was past caring. Everything tasted horribly metalic! I ended up in hospital, as so many mothers of twins do, on bed rest to try & keep them from arrivaing far too soon. That was so not a good idea. I had far too much time to worry about what was going on inside me & all the terrible things that could happen to identical twins sharing a food source.

Imagine a galleon in full sail with a following breeze. That was me.

By the time I was due there was a small tear in the placenta ~ no, not fun ~ & my contractions were ambling along pleasantly. Everyone from Dearest to the Doctor was worried about my condition. I began to bake a chocolate cake. I was going nowhere until that cake was out of the oven! I'm like that. I never did like hospitals & labour wards are the pitts. Besides Jossie had already lost me for several weeks once already with this pregnancy & was unsettled. At not quite 4 he was a big boy yet, although trying hard. Besides I fully expected, since I didn't feel labour was well under way, to arrive at the hospital & be sent home again. Only Dearest's insistence made me even pack my bag. What I hadn't counted on was hospital hystronics. Once there no~one was letting me come home again.

They took just two hours to arrive & looked like skinned rabbits. They grew into gorgeous babies with big blue eyes & blonde curls. At 13 they were *chick magnets*. Where do they pick up such language? They were fishermen, long distance runners, soccer fiends & they have grown into lovely young men but I do not know how the hours & the days, became the weeks & months of the years it took to raise them. I embarrass them but they can never grow so big that they stop being my babies.

Chess anyone?

2008-07-05T02:44:00.000-07:00

I play appalling chess, mostly because I lack the logical, strategical mindset necessary to outmaneuver my opponent but these pieces are rather wonderful. They are part of the *Lewis Chessmen* & now very properly housed at the Edinburgh & British museums. Check out the glum faces! Some of the knights are beserkers, wild eyed, shield biting beserkers!

This is the oldest surviving set in England, dating back to about 1150 & may in fact be 4 or 5 different sets; there are after all 8 Queens, which seems a little excessive by any one's standards. Most of the pieces are carved from walrus ivory, a few from whales teeth. They may have been made in Norway; similar pieces have been found at Trondheim & as we all know the outer Hebrides was ruled by Norway during the 12th century. When they were found there were traces of red die on some of the pieces which would seem to indicate that the game was played with red & white pieces, not black & white.
I love the Queen. She's just sooo thrilled to bits by events, don't you think?! I don't know if these pieces are meant to be humerous or not but honestly, the pawns are shaped like gravestones! Talk about being expendable! Wouldn't you love to play a game with these characters? Tactiley they would be a joy to handle too. Won't be happening. The likes of you & I wouldn't be let that close to them. Pity. They're rather splendid.

A mystery to mull on.

2008-07-03T15:44:00.000-07:00

Before the gods that made the gods

Had seen their sunrise pass,

The White Horse of the White Horse Vale

Was cut out of the grass.

the ballad of the white horse ~ g.k chesterton.

The oldest of the chalk figures cut into the English downs, dating back to perhaps the bronze age & very fragile. Even stone does not last forever. A tribute to the goddess Epona or merely an unmistakable symbol marking some long forgotten tribal boundary? God has left us mysteries to mull over & I do adore a good mystery. This is one of the best.

Homeschooler's supivisory visit.

2008-07-01T01:42:00.000-07:00

Technically we are on school holidays & have been since Friday. In reality it hasn't worked quite like that & today we had our supervisory visit for the term.

Our supervisor is really lovely. I know I keep saying this but we've suffered from the other sort so really appreciate what we have. This was a longish visit, mostly because it is really hard to do a musical assessment along with an academic assessment in an hour or so ~ & there is more music in Ditz's schedule than anything else! It was a great opportunity for Ditz to run through all her exam pieces & for all her protestations that she doesn't suffer from nerves she wasn't playing with her usual joi de verve & elan. She also sang This Little Babe from Ceremony of Carols ~ a Capella. I love that she can pitch herself (on a good day) without needing the note. In the end I was joking that we had managed to fit in some academic work as well & handed over the tests for math & science.

Math is our supervisor's area. As Ditz & I are weak in math we appreciate the help she can give ~ well, I appreciate it, Ditz suffers it. It always amuses me to watch professional teachers try & work with Ditz. She's plain exhausting, particularly when she's uninterested & unfocused. When she starts jiggling & singing as she works the eye rolling begins. After 10 minutes or so of this the teachers start looking pained. Half an hour of Ditz absconding with the pixies & the voice acquires an unnatural patience. Not only is Ditz a very visual learner her methodology is highly unorthodox & trying to untangle her thinking a nightmare of confusion. Her answers are usually correct but trying to follow how she gets there is a medley of visual double~speak. I'm used to her but she can tie others up in knots faster than you can say Jack Robinson!

Plus Ditz refuses point blank to be helpful as regards her writing; no nano story (that I keep talking about to her supervisor; Ditz just won't share!), no resume, no song lyrics though I know perfectly well Ditz does all these things. I am going to have to be sneaky. *sigh*

Our history has been a bit all over the place also as we finished up China, began Oz but as I am transitioning us into Sonlight Ditz has done more reading than anything else, apart from a bit of scrap booking.

Our supervisor brought her husband with her today & he is lovely too but he & Dearest bolted to do the scenic tour while Ditz & I & her supervisor struggled with fractions & no guarantee that Ditz has got it even now. She puts these things in her short term memory bank.

While I rushed round frantically this morning to ensure we had some semblance of order about the house Ditz made *Roadmaker's Crunch* for morning tea.

Unfortunately everyone in this house loves these & Dino was home. Sorry guys, there's absolutely none left. You all arrived far too late. I sent 4 up with Liddy's lunch knowing that she knew we were making it & that otherwise she wouldn't get any at all & she had to share with her workmates. I dropped her lunch in as we were taking people back to the boat. Liddy saw the car & came rushing out. We were running late so everyone waved frantically at her & I kept on driving. The look on her face was priceless but she does know about the boats!

Having complained bitterly that she was on holidays & shouldn't have to work in her holidays, having complained & complained that school was dull & boring & useless, having made it clear on numerous ocassions that she had far more interesting things to do than be educated I was stunned when Diz sidled up to me last night.

'It's not fair,' said Ditz. 'You've ruined my life. I'm addicted to my schoolwork!'

The obscure point of this conversation is that having found herself with some extended computer time Ditz suddenly realised she was researching chipmunks & how to make chocolate instead of enjoying herself! She's a scream Aren't you glad she's not yours?

I am taking Dearest to his mainland Doctor tomorrow & then I plan on having a very quite week or so while we have no outside commitments. I might actually catch up on the housework.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

2008-06-30T20:58:00.000-07:00

“At times our lives seem like that of a tranquil island in a sea of chaos. The battle is to keep this sea of chaos at bay and not let it wash us away into utter chaos.”
Sanjeeva Ananthan

of Sheela na Gigs & other things.

2008-06-29T13:27:00.000-07:00

Diane, at Tomato Soup, named her cat Ranavalona (Anne for short), Queen of Madagascar, a lady of whom I had never heard...so I began a little research. After all, a female Caligula sounded intriguingly notorious. How notorious she actually was seems to depend on your point of view. This seems to be a more balanced viewpoint ~ or at least a different one.

I never comment on these clever blogs but sometimes I wonder because this interesting writer also had an article on Sheela Na Gigs ~ those grotesque, vulgar man/woman things you sometimes find over medieval church doors that along with gargoyles & dragon's heads seem a strange anomaly for a Christian people. I was not happy with her comments.

Now I admit I know more than I probably should about paganism ~ at least from an archaeological point of view. I have never been in the least tempted to practise it, mostly because I believe there is a very dark aspect to these things that many people blind themselves to. Ancient peoples tended to have a much more fundamental & concrete approach to their religion & sacrifice was rarely symbolic. However even some cursory research gives some insight into why these very exhibitionist ladies ended up adorning church doorways.

And by cursory I do mean cursory. You don't have to read very far to realise that Celtic women were not meek & mild keepers of hearth & home. From Mab & Boudicca onwards they've been a feisty lot wielding their own particular power. I suspect Celtic men were rather terrified of them. Just my think. Descriptions of Boudicca (admittedly by Roman men who had very different expectations of their women) are hardly flattering. Likewise their goddesses were warriors, harridans, hags as well as beautiful maidens & prior to Christianity there was a strong fertility aspect to Celtic religion. Hence it was circular.

At uni I majored in English literature & what literature deals in is symbols, so when I come across ancient fertility images on church doors lots of things immediately come to mind: doorways of another kind; Dana's doorways into Life & Death, Ceridwen's doorways into poetic inspiration, doorways into the sacred spaces. There there is the collary to 'ashes to ashes, dust to dust' because from woman is man born, to woman (the earth mother) does he return ~ at least in Celtic thinking. I know of several Irish hills whose older name is *the paps of Anu (another godess), so this was a rather literal interpretation. If you know your church history you will understand that the Celtic church was quite different from the Roman church (enough so the Roman church felt impelled to impose it's viewpoint in order to stamp out *heresies*). In the process Celtic godesses became *saints*. Brighid is a good example, however you want to spell her name. Another godess. The ancient religion has been rather difficult to eradicate completely. Even today, although much of the meaning has been lost, the ancient practices still continue as *festivals* that draw thousands of tourists. I suspect the sheela na gigs are simply the remant of a much older practise & belief that survived despite the onslaught of Christianity & are there because people were loathe to let go of the known & familiar & tried to blend the old with the new. Certainly one role of the sheelas was that of protectoress ~ though that begs the question, protecting from what?

Seeing the sheelas always makes me sad. Sad because Christ came that we might have life, & have it abundantly. So often what Christianity, the religion, has brought, has been death. Instead of entering into a vital living relationship with God people have been offered the dead ashes of ritual, liturgy & form. The sheelas & the gargoyles, the dragon's heads & cats faces are a poignant condemnation that we have brought people to Church instead of bringing them to Christ.

Music, music, music

2008-06-25T13:32:00.000-07:00

I like odd things, odd information, odd pictures, quirkiness of all sorts, so when it comes to music I was charmed the first time I heard a counter tenor. Actually I'm still charmed. Something about not being able to pick whether I'm listening to a male or a female voice intrigues me. I have learnt being in the same room with a counter tenor is far less fun. Standing next to one, as Ditz unreliably informs me, is even less fun.

One of our treble singers also has a pretty good baritone & last night we got a demonstration of his ability to slide between his baritone range & his treble range. Then we got the lecture on why good posture is so important & how the voice actually works & why boys' voices don't actually *break*. I just have to share. This is fascinating stuff people! I sorta got to learn how they do that!

Inside the oesophagus (about where the Adam's apple is) there are 4 *vocal folds* ~ don't ask. I don't understand biology so this bit I take on faith. The back ones are where you sing from in the lower registers, the front ones for the higher but regardless of where you sing you need good posture or the muscles develop lopsidedly. I can only imagine what that does to one's singing! Ditz, who is something of a sloucher soaked it all up & perceptibly straightened in her chair.

All this because at present the ensemble is working on Benjamin Britten's carols for the Qpac stuff at the end of the year singing firsts, seconds & thirds so lots of work is still needed. Ditz is singing seconds, right next to our treble singer. She comes home with her ears absolutely ringing. The sopranos actually make my ears ache & the acoustics in the music room seem to double the sound so with two strong male trebles & 10 high girl sopranos it becomes a little overwhelming at times. One drowns in sound.

I'm rather pleased Ditz is singing seconds because she tends to rehearse in the car. We have a very small car! Ouch! The seconds & thirds groups are rather small & I admit to generally having a preference for the deeper sounds but I must confess I really like the unearthly ethereal sound Alison gets from her ensemble for this music. Ditz doesn't like it much but I adore it. Yep, it's not your usual run of the mill music!

Ditz is also starting to compose her own music & I really wish I knew more about the process because I can't help her with this. I am hoping Sian, her piano teacher, can help her with the notation so she can copyright it & we can keep a record for her school work. I do like learning new things about stuff that truly interests me.

One of those days!

2008-06-24T18:40:00.000-07:00

Actually I'm having several of those days. *sigh* The first Tuesday of our holidays we have our regular home visit from our supervising teacher. It would be nice to finish up some more work, especially math, but it's looking rather sad. It's not even all Ditz'z fault. I just haven't had time to work with her. Instead I have been frantically trying to organize cooktops & washing machines which actually arrived yesterday. Great excitement all round.

At 8am Liddy's work rang asking could she come in by 9! More excitement. Frantic hunt for clean clothing & Liddy thrilled to be getting an early start & learning the layout & everything weeks before the store officially opens but another kink in my day. Ditz kept popping out of her room like a jack~in~the~box to watch operations on cooktop installation & the washing machine, which Dino did for me. I have piles of laundry but when I went to use the machine it wouldn't fill. It is a front loader (which I've never had before), all computerised & push buttons & frankly I'm terrified of the thing but it was on sale & I get a rebate for the water saving ( a substantial rebate ~ especially if I save water because I can't make it work! :}) so what was I going to do? Say no? Hardly likely.

I went into meltdown. Dearest fiddled & we got it to fill. Went to take Dearest to the doctor to find all the building going on meant we'd acquired a nail in our front tire. Mad dash to the garage instead to get the tire plugged. Emptied washing machine. Went to do 2nd load. Machine no fillee ~ again! I have now sorted it out but for a while there I was not in good shape. It's not like getting hold of a repairman or returning the thing is the simplest thing to do from here.

Meanwhile children arrived in the kitchen & fell in love with my flat top, glass top cooker. (It is very pretty! lol. also acquired on sale) & promptly started pushing buttons. Child lock went on & the thing promptly became unusable! Much fiddling later we had heat but then had the dilemma of how to turn it off & the only one prepared to read the instruction manual was me! Everyone else is a hands on learner & just kept fiddling!

However I am now slowly working my way through the backlog of washing ~ but this end of the week I am somewhere else more often than I am here & the machine not only holds less but takes a long time to run through its cycle.

At which point, stopping briefly to check on Ditz's progress, I found the child had failed to check the colours for the Aboriginal flag, coloured them wrong, & I had to remake her flag. At least I got her before she did the same thing to the Eureka flag. I mean, it's not like she's never seen either flag before. Obviously her mind is elsewhere. And the sad thing is she has been working steadily but I haven't had time yet to check her work & I just hope she's got a better grip on it than I suspect she has. I do know she very conveniently lost her math ...Again! How that book does disappear!

Australian Classics part 2.

2008-06-23T13:40:00.000-07:00

These are all books I loved. Mary Grant Bruce wrote a whole series of *Billabong books* set, for the most part, on a large Victorian cattle station. There is a slight deviation to cover events in WWI. I love these books particularly because the characters are very well drawn & there is a great sense of humour & fun throughout the series. Norah's wedding morning is one of the most hysterical things I have ever read, making me laugh till I weep each time. Despite their age they are free of sentementality or overt moralising. There is just a quiet expectation that men & women worth their salt will behave as they should. If you can, read these. They are truely wonderful.

Seven Little Australians by Ethel Turner suffers from all the flaws of the age: it is sentimental, moralising, romantic but the characters are so strong I have always been able to forgive it its many flaws & *blush* I like a good weepy now & then. It is also hysterically funny in places. Homeschoolers will be able to relate to the images of these home tutored children squabbling over the inkpot. I have always been so glad ball point pens got invented before my kids went to school.
Hesba Brinsmead's Pastures of the Blue Crane is another interesting book. While the Billabong books are located in what many people see as *typical* Australian bushland, Pastures is set up round northern N.S.W, where the tropical rainforest gives a very different cast to the landscape. This is the only children's book I am aware of that looks at what happened to Australia's *Blackbirds* ~ the Tongans, Polyenesians, etc who were brought in to work the cane fields. In a quiet way it looks at the theme of racism. BTW, blue cranes are actually a heron; we get them in the pastures round here too & to see one standing in the long grass swirled about with mist always puts me in mind of this book.
Brinsmead also wrote Longtime Passing, which I have never liked so well, but for those who are studying American Pioneers this would offer an interesting compare & contrast study, as would Elizabeth Wilton's A Ridiculous Idea, which I like very much, just couldn't get a cover picture for.
I Can Jump Puddles ~ Allan Marshall, documents Alan's struggle with overcoming polio as a child. This used to be a set text for grade 8 in N.S.W
Sun on the Stubble ~ Colin Thiele. Colin is a prolific Australian children's author & wrote so many good books on different topics I couln't choose. This is a biographical note about his early life, but , Blue Fin, tuna fishing the Straight (Bass straight where the *roaring 40s* come straightoff the pole), or Storm Boy, which became a film, are all worth looking at. His contemporary, Ivan Southall (Ash Road,children caught in a bushfire), is also very worthwhile.

These are books that just happen to be set in Australia but reflect something of the culture & times in which they are set without forsaking a good story & are all still available on~line.

Australian Classics ~ part 1.

2008-06-23T04:04:00.000-07:00

As it happens I don't like either of these particular books but they are considered classics & plenty of people like them & they are still in print; which says something. I find Snugglepot & Co., twee but the illustrations are gorgeous & worthwhile. This is a good read~a~loud for younger children. Snugglepot & Cuddlepie ~ May Gibbs.

This is just hugely annoying. I hated this book with a passion as a child, which is odd given that I adore Lindsay's artwork, voluptous, etheral Venus' et al. (They charmed me as a child & are quite beautiful in a romanticised way.) I am far less enamoured of his writing, which is understandable. It is nowhere near as good as his art. (warning: do not click here if nudity offends you.) I think this book is silly but I was definitely in the minority as a child & most of my classmates loved it so I recommend it with reservations.
If you are looking for something uniquely Australian then these books are it. Being Aussie I'm far less charmed by talking gum nuts, wicked Banksia Men & the vagaries of a pudding that doesn't behave like a well brought up pudding should. If I remember correctly the pudding is actually rather wicked & in constant danger of being stolen. Personally I'd be happy to be rid of it but then having a pudding that replenishes itself & runs about the neighbourhood complaining really puts me off my food.

Having got these two out of the way I shall move on to books I actually enjoyed & which I consider to be far more essentially Australian simply because far less fuss is made about the things that are Australian & far more concerned with story & character.

Ganeida's Knot.

Counting...

Gremlins in the works

That time of the year.

Words of affirmation

Death by Firing Squad

The Wildlife Round Here.

Music makes the Ditz go round.

Catch up.

Watched by angels.

Sleepy Heads Galore.

More history.

Happy Birthday to Me!

movies & DVDs

Conversation Stumpers & gardening.

Teaching History.

A little of this, a little of that.

Liddy's Wild Weekend.

Au revoir.

And one carrot cake...

Standing on the brink.

Riding the birthday train

That time of the year.

The *Decadent Monster*.

Telopea ~ seen from afar

The Pin.

The old order changeth...

Getting it wrong.

Whatever my lot...

Thought of the Week

Ranting.

O'Reilly's.

Losing my mind...

History is a forgotten song.

...lose some.

Knock me down with a feather.

Mind like a sieve.

One weekend to go.

On the Ancient Greeks.

Argh! or words to that effect.

Strange goings on.

It's Spri~ing!

By the pricking of my thumbs...

OK, so who's got my grip?

Oops!

Movies.

A little out of control.

A little bit of this...

A mixed bag of Friends.

Tell me a story...before I go to bed.

Normally insane or insane normality.

One wog to go.

A Girl needs her mum.

This one I couldn't resist! :D

QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

One haircut.

Give a girl a ball.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DITZ!

One Birthday Girl in a Pear Tree.

Island Walkabout.

A little travelling.

A Package!

Money for water.

All my duckies...& then some.

Wet Wednesday.

Of cats & pies.

Considering God's Creation: a Science curriculum.

Lemons & Kidney Beans.

A woman's heart is in her kitchen

Musical chairs.

Home again, school again.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

Training Daughters.

Rejoice with us!

Changes, changes...

Outreaching...

Along the catwalk.

The cat has cabin fever!

QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

Arthur's Tintagel?

The Decadent Monster.