It's Spri~ing!

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...

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?

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!

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.

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.

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...

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

'' 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.

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.

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!

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!