The end of 2015

Grace is often scared at night. Recently she was scared of volcanoes, mudslides and getting shot. She begs me to sit in her room until she falls asleep. Sometimes I refuse and then she and Lily talk themselves to exhaustion - not great as it takes a while. Sometimes I acquiesce and sit in the dark, scrolling through emails or Instagram or the photos on my phone. These are a few of the final days of 2015.


We went to Lucinda Williams at the Forum and then by chance I heard her interviewed on the podcast Death Sex and Money.  I like that podcast quite a lot.

Basil grew up and grew naughty.  He chewed up Grace's glasses, the cord of my sewing machine foot pedal, and many other, less expensive to replace items.

Ruby had orientation for high school.  I was surprisingly nervous.

Washing never ends:



But school does. The annual end of school tossing-of-the-hats.



End of school ice-cream - the first and last 'last day' with all the kids at the same school.

This supermarket facade always looks like a film set from behind:

Ruby and Nina made hundreds of paper cranes and then decorated their room.

Nina, of course, went as tiny as possible.

There were some hot days but not very many.

I performed tap in public for the first time.  It was fun.  This shot is the group 'shim sham' at the end of the night, where the kids of the performing adults were invited to join in.

We took to eating outside whenever possible to avoid having to clear the kitchen table.

Winnie grew frailer and thinner

And the girls continued to write delightful notes to each other.

Rottnest Island

things I loved about Rottnest Island :

• no cars - the kids could safely ride everywhere.
• the kids rode everywhere - on their own, with their cousins, in smaller packs.  Even Lily.
• no one owns Rottnest - everyone is staying in similar fairly basic accommodation, no one has more of a claim on the island than anyone else, no matter how rich or poor they might be.  It lends a very egalitarian air to the place.
• the beaches are unbelievable.  Really unbelievable.  I'm reminded again why it is really never worthwhile travelling overseas for a beach holiday  -unless you are going for super cheap massages and hair braiding, rather than the actual beaches.  The water was perfectly clear and so clean, the sand so fine and white, the scenery so spectacular and everywhere we went it just seemed to get better.
• my (extended) family.  We went with my brother and his 4 boys and his amazing wife, Jodi, a local Perth girl who has been going to Rottnest annually since she was a kid.  Jodi is the sort of person who effortlessly plans a week's worth of meals and snacks for 12 people and thinks to pack a decent knife and a cleaning mitt.
• the weather - perfect 23-25 degree days and cool evenings.
• walking through the salt lakes, to the lighthouse, down to remote beaches where there was not a soul in sight, listening to podcasts and getting my steps up all in one fell swoop.
• lino floors. The accommodation is basic and the fact that half the beach was brought inside each day mattered not a damn, when the floors are lino, everyone is wearing sandals and there is  broom that can be used every so often.
• Lily and Jack making sand balls for hours.
• the endless hunts up trees, in water, and in dunes, for the frisbee.
• our proximity to the beach.
• the way my 14 year old nephew spent hours fishing, rigged up some PVC piping to his bike so he could carry his rods, then filleted and cooked his catch for lunch.
• the little baby quokkas in their mothers' pouches.  Less appealing was the way they went through your bag at the pub looking for food.

Such a great holiday.

Tall skinny animals and other things

These were some of the things I made for the fete this year.  I probably made fewer items, but enjoyed making them more and was happier with the outcome than in past years.  Though I quite enjoy the challenge of seeing what has been donated and turning it into something, it's rather nice working with fabric that I really love.

The monkeys, rabbits and rag dolls are mostly fabrics that I bought back from Japan.  All dots and stripes are not equal.

I'm still not over tiny owls and mice in tiny beds.  When I was a kid I did a Saturday morning pottery course for years and years.  I made lots of different things, but I kept returning to dragons again and again, even though I was not otherwise interested in them.  I wasn't into fantasy novels at all (romance all the way) nor was I attracted to other representation of dragons (I had a pig collection).  I just really liked making dragons.  And it seems in my 40's I really like making owls.  And mice.  And possibly now, bats.  We shall see.  I think tiny bats in beds could be quite adorable.

Signs of Spring

I couldn't help thinking of that Michael Leunig cartoon - Awful Aspects of Spring - The new dog digs up the old dog when I was putting up this post. Our dear old Cairn terrier, Pablo went missing one July day last year when our rear roller door malfunctioned and he (presumably) went wandering out. He was microchipped and had a collar, and we weren't too worried for the first few days - he'd gone missing before and had always turned up nearby.

But this time he didn't turn up and after endless calls and visits to the Lost Dogs Home and other animal shelters we slowly started to realise that he wasn't coming back. It was a very sad end to a very long relationship. Craig and I got Pablo and Winnie about 17 years ago when they were just little puppies and we had no children and a tiny courtyard in North Melbourne.  To not be able to say farewell and see him off seemed a bit unfair.  Pablo, by the time he went missing, had lost both his eyes and was mostly deaf, but was still a happy, fairly frisky little fella. At some point around the 15 year mark, he and Winnie had had a major falling out. She'd kicked him out of the communal kennel and exiled him to his own basket. But in the months before he went there appeared to have been rapprochement.  He was allowed back into the kennel, and they shared the basket, and seemed to be settling into a quite old age together.  I can't figure out what could have happened to him.  Surely no one would just keep such an aged and clearly loved beast? And yet there were no reports to the council of dogs killed in our area and its hard to imagine he would have gone terribly far being completely blind.

Anyway, after a suitable period of mourning, we started to talk about the possibility of a new dog.  On the one hand, we weren't sure if now-seventeen-year-old Winnie would cope - she has only 3 teeth left, she's entirely deaf, mostly blind and intermittently incontinent.  On the other, she just keeps on keeping on, despite all of the above.

So - meet Basil.  He's adorable and we love him.  Winnie is not so sure.  He's a bit boisterous and he's twigged to the fact that she can't actually do much beyond make threatening noises.  So he jumps all over her and tries to play and she closes her eyes in resignation.  Poor old Winne.  Dear young Basil.

Dolls in Tins

Little Miss Muffet

The Princess and the Pea

Sleeping Beauty

I find little things in little boxes very appealing.

Sleeping beauty has a mattress and bolster style pillow, the inspiration for which came from a holiday I took with my family when I was fourteen and we were spending a year in England on a teaching exchange.  We rented gite in France - Normandy I think - for a week and the beds all had these weird (to us) bolster type pillows that were terribly glamorous and terribly uncomfortable.

I did make a little felted pea for the Princess, to go under several mattresses, but it didn't make it to the photo.

And I tried to make a tuffet for Miss Muffet but it was just too odd.

Black and white

emoji rocks for mother's day

grace at the optometrist

nina playing the trumpet

ruby's 12th birthdya party

grace and lily at the underpass

Lil at my work

The kids have played a round robin of colds and flu.  This week was Lil's turn.  The first day she had a temperature and was miserable so I stayed home but the next day she was pretty chirpy so I took her into work with me.  How much did she love my whiteboard!  She's just hit that stage where she wants to write everything all the time.  This says Gols (girls) and, behind her head Bois (boys).  Sweet sweet sweet.

Nina gave up the piano and took up the trumpet.  I maintain that I don't care if they learn music or not, but that if they do they have to practice.  Piano practice with Nina was unbearable, for both of us.  As a child I was also an incredibly grumpy instrument practicer, but was blessed with a much more patient mother.   Nina is not so blessed and in the end it was not worth the insanely ridiculous levels of rage I would experience trying to get her to practice an instrument that she professed not to particularly care for.  The wonderful wonderful thing about the trumpet is that I know NOTHING about it.  I learned piano for about 15 years, but the trumpet I can't even blow.  I don't know how to make the notes and I can't help her, even should she want me to and I think this is a great thing for us both.  Because, however much I try, I am just not the sort of person who can listen to the piano being played without butting in with my ever-so-helpful suggestions and my little carping criticisms.  It's something I especially don't like about myself.  So when she plays the trumpet and calls out 'how did that sound?' I say 'great!' or 'much better', and when she says 'it sounds kind of wheezy' or 'the valves are sticking' I say 'oh dear' and 'remember to ask your teacher about that'.  Oh sweet relief of an absolution of responsibility.

Ruby turned 12. Twelve!  She got her ears pierced.  I took her to a crazy hipster tattoo parlour where her ears were expertly perforated by the most tattooeed and pierced person I have ever seen.  Even his eyelids were tattooed.  He had holes through his nose so you could see daylight from one side to the other.  He was an incredble looking man, with a gentle and professional manner and I would highly recommend getting ears pierced with a needle over a gun.  She has had not the slightest hint of redness, blood, infection or weeping from either ear in 4 weeks.  

Gracie (she wants to be Gracie now) got new glasses.  She wears a kilt with suspenders, a crocheted poncho and runners, like an escapee from the 70's.  Sweet sweet sweet.  Today in the car she asked me what a convertible was.  I remembered coming across that word in Nancy Drew book and never knowing what it was (but surmising it was some sort of car).  I explained and said, why do you ask?  'Well in my book, there's this girl called Nancy and her father gives her a convertible'.  Turns out she is reading Nancy Drew.  Ah the passing of time and all that.