Mat

This chap's mum asked me to do this pic (and the last one). He unwisely tried to avoid the camera, resulting in the gormless look. Want to get Mum back, kids? Send me a photo of her where she looks silly and I'll see what I can do.

8 days to go.

Look who came to visit

9 days to go.

Think it's trying to tell me there's no escape?

Kiddie quote for today:
(while attempting to read, on her own, a book she's never seen before)

"One day, it was night.
It was berry dark.
And we sat and we sat and we sat and we sat. (Thanks Dr Seuss)
It was berry BERRY dark
And it was beautiful, and a bit stinky."

In Other News:

Aliens landed in my garden. No they didn't kidnap anyone or offer free anal probing. They did, however, leave this:

Isn't it cute? Look at those tentacles reaching up to the sky. Hmmm, I wonder what it did wrong to get left behind like that. Perhaps I better give it a wide berth until I get some idea of its long-term intentions.

Countdown.

In 10 days, I will no longer be a 30-something. I'm sure my hair is going to go white overnight, such is the import of those numbers showing another decade closed. Well, ok, I know someone out there is going to say the numbers aren't important and follow it with some reassuring platitude. Actually, I'll kill the first one to say "You're only as old as you feel." because with a sore neck and blurry vision the last few days I'm not exactly feeling youthful.

I'm watching the numbers with the same sort of feeling I had as a kid when I'd watch the new-fangled digital clock tick over all the numbers at once. You know those clocks that had the numbers on thin sheets of plastic or whatever that flip down as the minutes and hours change? I had one of those next to my bed, was always fascinated at night, when I should have been asleep, watching 9-5-9 suddenly flip into 1-0-0-0. So here I am, counting down the days till my own numbers flip.

Another "I love my verandah" post.

It often occurs to me that I've become quite boring. Life, although I don't have a lot in the material sense, seems to be very good. I love doing the simple things like picking something from the garden and eating it, or sitting on my front verandah and looking at this:

On the horizon you can see the skyline of Melbourne (click on the photo for a larger view). I used to be a city girl, but after having spent a decade or so in the country I started to find the city noisy, claustrophobic and just all a bit too much for the senses. So, why is this my favorite view?

I don't spend much time these days talking to people. I read a few blogs and web forums but spend almost no time at all participating in them like because it all seems like so much shouting into the wind (the exceptions being a couple of irregular personal blogs which are more like conversations than fora). There is very little good I would have to say about the outside world, but there just doesn't seem much point in bringing up criticisms because for the most part people just don't want to know.

So, this is the thing that bothers me... a personality paradox. I read the 'shouting into the wind' of others, but feel disinclined to participate. I prefer quietness, to be away from the busyness of the city, but can't get enough of staring at it across the bay (I could just as easily stare at the You Yangs in the distance). Perhaps I am missing something?

Another "I love my garden" post.

These aren't the blood plums - I only wish the blood plums had been this prolific - but they were nice too - yellow flesh inside.

I had a friend from Melbourne over for the weekend . It felt pretty good grabbing stuff from the garden to serve up, it's still all new and novel to me.