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Showing posts from February, 2012

The thing which annoyed me most today

The supermarket. For many adults, they have little choice about going to the supermarket. You people in your flash big towns of more than ten thousand people, you might assume that online grocery shopping is available to us all but you are wrong. Somehow, we all need to get some food. Our local supermarket has a Lotto shop in it. It is depressing watching how many people line up for Lotto (sitting on a raffle stall opposite the Lotto counter makes it hard to avoid), but equally who am I to say that spending $6 on a Lotto ticket is better or worse than spending it on a glass of beer or wine at the pub. After the checkout at our supermarket, you have to walk past the Lotto shop to get out of the building. There is no other exit. But the new development which annoyed me so considerably is that there is now the phrase "What would you do?" written on the floor with footprints painted on going towards the Lotto counter. For people with gambling addictions or vulnerable to ov

Green things

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This is not quite how tomatoes look in the magazines. Or in the gardens of sensible people, dare I say 'normal' gardeners. Those people stake their plants properly. I staked mine with sticks which didn't withstand the last big wind and then the prone stakes prevented the plants from recovering upwards. The tomatoes are finally ripening though, and they taste good. This is hardly Home and Garden country either. But it is testament to the enduring prettiness of self seeded borage and calendula in the face of total neglect. I did plant some red onions in this patch, and a tomato plant and a chilli, but they got swamped long ago. Favourite Handyman stacked this. I think it is excellent. More crazy overgrownness. Canna lillies, roses, tansy, lemon balm, red hot poker and a dahlia, twined throughout with convulvulus. I still love my red fence. The next sewing project is the green top above (B) Remember the $4 too-pink jacket ? No longer pink. St Patrick's Day, I am

The new decade

I'm back in cyberspace again, one week, a new modem, about a hundred trips to Dick Smith, endless expensive cords which were never the right one the first time, later. In the interim, I turned 40. It was a great night. I only decided to do a party once I had a weather forecast a few days beforehand, which did rather knock out inviting anyone who didn't live down the road. I cleaned the laundry (wash house in my world) to such a shining, usable, uncluttered state that I considered holding the entire bash beside the tumble drier. As it was, Favourite Handyman lit the brazier and kept us toasty warm outside until the wee hours of the next morning. I've almost finished my floral curtain colette crepe dress. I really like it, though quite where I should wear it is unclear and even less clear is what possessed me to hanker after such an item. It is quite flattering, apart from the bit where the pattern on the bodice is off kilter slightly and it gives the effect that one bo

Looking forward to the sangria project

Sewing is so quiet! After the intense shock of a Monday, sitting down with my floral curtain dress project (which is coming along nicely thank you, just need to buy some lining fabric for the bodice to make the next step) is bliss. My children are blessed with particularly fabulous teachers this year, only today they began their homework programme. Whoah. I've mostly ignored homework in past years beyond listening to reading and a bit of maths, but it does appear that that loose excuse for a formal home learning regime is at an end. I carefully prepared all the swimming gear for the children and a snack for them after school and whipped out of my work meeting early to collect them for swimming lessons. Next week I must remember that I need a snack after school to get me through watching the lessons. In preparation for turning the corner into another decade, I'm looking forward to my great friend Jan from university days coming over the big hill to visit and a sangria-fil

Dire dangerous dumb things from the Sunday Star Times

and that's just the front page (12 Feb 2012). A deliberately inflammatory and pandering to racist persons lead article: "Ethnic rights advice stuns communities" The largest image is of the head of a burka-clad person with just eyes showing through. The three images below are of men with names . That pissed me off quite enough without dealing with the flimsy nature of the content which isn't substantial enough to warrant front page news for any reason except playing to a red neck and racist audience. Can someone tell me why covered and heavily veiled, unspecific and unveiled Muslim women are invoked as a symbol of danger in our media so ridiculously often? As for the next article: "Spoonful of obesity anyone?", I can only reflect on my own stupidity for paying money to people who litter their front pages with such drivel. Some flimsy piece of research showed that babies who led their own food intake by using their fingers rather than being fed by a spoo

Floral curtain project begun

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I have begun the floral curtain fabric Colette crepe wrap over dress. I've only cut the bodice front and back and sewn one dart but I can report already that I love it. In all its resplendent-Grandma's-curtains-ness. While I'm talking clothes, these things have merits, merits so meritorious that I have to show them here. Exhibit A: the model of the Goddess bra, new to Avokado . It's ridiculously rare to see a curvacious lingerie model, but I am delighted this time. Clearly, in order to endorse and support this choice, I shall have to buy the bra. Exhibit B: The boots I have on layby. Mine are black not red, only because I have not yet reached that wealthy point in my life when I can own enough pairs of boots to have black and red. I will admit to having my eye on some red shoes though. Black boots plus red shoes isn't so extravagant. They have a flat sole because I need to walk everywhere all the time in winter boots, not just clip clop around work making a

The freezing machine

We are now the proud owners of a small chest freezer, about one third of the size of the massive chest freezer my parents have. When I was a child they had two massive chest freezers. My new freezing machine comes from Mary K, who no longer needs it now she is living in a rest home. Perhaps this new capacity for frozen goods will transform my life and grant me unforeseen efficiencies in the kitchen. Right now I'm mighty pleased if I can cobble dinner together of a late afternoon, let alone cooking in advance and freezing goodly sized amounts. I have bought some pastry and extra bread and butter and put in the basket. Don't talk to me about trans fats and bought pastry. I wear my blinkers for my own mental safety. I also have a box of daffodil bulbs that I dug from Mary K's front garden/lawn. These bulbs are over sixty years old and come from the garden of Mary's late in laws. I'm looking forward to dividing and growing them on in Wetville soil and enjoying

Still Here

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After a fabulous weekend, I am back in blur land. Once upon a time I thought life post children was about a) going out to paid work OR b) staying home and looking after children. Then, when reality hit when I went back to work, I realised that going out to paid work does not mean that the home stuff is magically done by someone else. It means that the other stuff has to get done round the edges. I cannot pretend that I enjoy running three loads of washing through in the evening and washing the toilet and porch floors while FH reads to the children and washes the dishes. But I have experienced living in a home (my own) that is chaotic beyond any reasonable functioning level, and therefore I accept that some evening housework is my reality. Just as soon as I can create a window in our budget, I'll be on the lookout for a cleaner. Still, life is beautiful in many other ways. I read Still Here by Linda Grant in the weekend. She is one of my current trilogy of favo