Day 29 - Question 1

My last post had been in draft mode for days - how can one person in a 2 person household have so little time? Answer: dial-up internet. When we got a new computer (12 months ago) we were planning to move to a place with cabling in place so persisted with dial-up. Twelve months later we are still planning to move, but I've decided to lash out and get a new modem so I can get broadband - I don't enjoy spending hours in front of the screen waiting for things to download and it leaves so little time for other things I'd rather do. So in a week or two ...

We have just had four days visiting Grandpa Flea's brother and his wife in Temora - a NSW country town. The drought is very bad all over NSW and I was shocked to see how little livestock was around - the few cattle I saw were skin and bone and being hand fed. We did pass a a couple of flocks of sheep that looked to be in good condition. None of the farm dams we passed had any water in them and the crops that did survive gave very low/poor quality yields. The paddocks were eaten down to the bare earth and we saw quite a number of willy-willies taking the red topsoil away. We've had bad droughts before - I can remember them from my childhood - but combined with climate change, this one is very scary, for the cities as well as the country. Australia is one of the driest continents on earth and we are fast running out of water - one of the cousins-in-law was telling us that she took her family to a caravan park in another small country town in the school holidays and they were told to bring their own water with them, as the town is trucking water in.

My question is this (as the politicians are fond of saying): the average person in the street has been concerned about climate change for years -so why have the governments been in denial for all that time? Meanwhile the pollies are all running around telling us we won't have to drink recycled water. I can't believe that they can be so short sighted - ignoring the long term needs of the country for their own short term power trips. Country people have always drunk recycled water - treated sewage goes into the rivers and the towns downstream use those same rivers for their drinking water. Current membrane technology delivers water that is far cleaner than the water we drank when I was a child in a country town.

As you can see, I'm feeling a mite tetchy - don't get me started on the incarceration of David Hicks for five years without charges being laid against him; the use of "extraordinary rendition" by the US government with the full knowledge and complicity of our government; the failure of our Attorney-General to admit that sleep deprivation is a form of torture; or, for that matter, the invasion of Iraq - to mention only a few gripes. It puts my difficulty with Annie Blatt patterns into perspective.

Tomorrow is another day. Perhaps I'll post on knitting.

Day 25 - Where Has January Gone?

At last I have managed to reset my email address so that Blogger recognises me and lets me in - I'm exhausted - it's been a hard battle! But that's not the reason I haven't posted for days (and days). We've had two grandchildren staying - one for two days and the other for seven. We picked them up the Subday before last but Ms 10 had to go home early to meet her obligations with Nippers (junior surf life saving) so we put her on the bus on Wednesday afternoon. She has been travelling alone for the last year now - it's a two and a half hour journey. It's a local bus company and if no one is there to collect a child travelling alone, they take them on with them while the office tries to contact the family.

Before Ms 10 went home, Grandpa Flea took her and Master 7 to see "Walking with Dinosaurs" - they loved it - Kate from Blue Mountain Knits has given a very good description and photos of it on her blog. Then I took them to see the movie "Arthur and the Invicibles" - they looked pretty bored during it, but came out wanting it on DVD so they must have enjoyed it. I was not that impressed with it, but then who am I to know the workings of little minds? The rest of the week was spent playing "Bub & Bob" with Master 7, taking him to swim at a friend's house, raking huge piles of dry leaves with him - which he really enjoyed - watering the garden with a watering can on the days when we can't use the hose (which he also enjoyed) and taking him to see "Badjelly the Witch" - a Spike Milligan play which he seemed to enjoy. I say "seemed" because anything other than computers is second rate entertainment in his eyes. Master 7 does love to knit - albeit in a rather gung-ho manner, so this holiday I had a French Knitting thingy for him. He spent hours making i-cord on it - 6 and a half metres! which he wanted me to sew into a draw-string bag for him to keep his money in - and, like the good Granny I am, I obliged.

Another major undertaking was a BLITZ on table manners with both, and GRAMMAR with Master 7. Using your knife and fork(!) and PROPERLY, eating with your mouth closed and wiping your fingers on a serviette were the main manners we attacked. With some success.

Grammar was a different story. I only attacked "them" as in: "what are them things?". Not much luck until I introduced an incentive - $1 when he used the right word spontaneously, and 50c when he used the wrong word then self-corrected. You have to be quick though - he started introducing "those" into the conversation at every opportunity! So we had some success, but I'll be interested to see if he maintains the change when he's been home for a while.

During this time the weather was atrocious - 40C degree days - the tree ferns have browned right off, and some of the bird's nest ferns are severely sunburnt, as is the mondo grass. I'ts impossible to give them enough water by hand. Still, if it's a choice between the plants and having water to drink, I'll go for the drinking water, thank you.

Not much knitting has been done - probably an amount equal to the amount of FROGGING. I've been doing an Annie Blatt baby cardi for Sue at Cherryhills, and I've found the pattern very confusing - even more so when I am working from the graph and reversing the shaping for the other side! In the end I had to write it out, and I'm still not sure it's right.

Day 14 - That Janette's not just a pretty face ...

Thank you Janette for your advice on how to load a photo - it's nothing to do with having a Mac - being dumb is a better explanation!

So here is a photo of shawl I knitted for Flea No. 1 - modelled by her, taken on the deck at our house. It's here to prove to myself that the upload bit works. It was knitted after a Lyn Johnson workshop. As all the interesting photos are in the old computer and I can't copy them to the new computer, I'll just have to start scanning things to post - but that might not be anytime soon!

I still can't get into my blog, nor can I make comments on other blogs, unless I go through the Blogger homepage. Why? I do not know. When I try to log in anywhere it tells me that there is no user account by that name - even when I do the "recover user name" bit. I've emailed Blogger about it so we'll wait and see if they return the favour.

Today we picked up the two little fleas - Ms S. and Mr N. - Ms S. is only staying for a couple of days as she has other pressing commitments back home - ah! the world of 10 year old girls (whoops! I've just been corrected by said 10 year old - nearly 11 YEAR OLD girls). While Mr N. who absolutely adores his Grandpa Flea is staying for the week. They are going to see "Walking with Dinosaurs" with Grandpa Flea.

Just to prove to myself that it DOES work, I've posted a photo of Grandpa Flea in "Sommerfulgen" a great yarn shop in Copenhagen. It is one of many yarn shop photos I have taken all over the world ( I call them 'knitting around').


At first this photo appeared above the first photo and all the text went strange, but I seem to have that one sorted - for the time being. Ms S. is looking over my shoulder giving me the benefit of her vast experience in computing, so I'm off - it's way past her bedtime.

Happy knitting.

Day 12 - Lesson No. 3 - Don't send all you Christmas cards ...

Small actions have unexpected effects - the butterfly wings flapping here and the tree falling there thingie. This year I didn't finish getting all my Christmas cards done (and still haven't - this bloggy blog takes all my time). It is always the cards that I want to send a letter with, that get left to last - and this year anyone who lives overseas, or at a distance in Australia, missed out. But today I had coffee with a friend Ms S. from Brisbane that I haven't seen for ?eight years - she was in Sydney for a niece's engagement party and rang me. Despite being flat out with family things, she made time to meet - her reasoning being that as she didn't get a card this year, and for various reasons doesn't send them herself, it was about time she made some contact. I should add that it always Ms S. who rings me from time to time, usually as I'm rushing out the door, and despite my intention to ring back later, the evil senior moment bug deletes the intention from my memory bank. So I think she was being a bit hard on herself. We had a great catch-up of family news and probably, for the first time ever, we didn't mention any of the people we knew from when we worked together! That's a hallelujah moment, as we used to reminisce about the mean and evil, nasty ones that made our lives difficult - I guess we've moved on - at last.

It's been a social few days - yesterday I had lunch with Janette, of Knitting-on-the-Avenue, and two other knitting friends. They put me to shame with the knitting that kept emerging from their bags - it was like a magician's black hat x three - how did they do it? the bags weren't that big! - there was great discussion of fibres and patterns, their modifications to patterns and was Debbie Bliss or Kim Hargreaves the better pattern writer amongst many other topics (Janette's patterns got a big thumbs up from Ms P. - I'm ashamed to say that I have had Janette's book for quite some time and still haven't knitted the jumpers on my list). When I go out and meet with friends I realise I should do it more often - it is so stimulating and ..... stimulating! I think I had too much stimulation, as when I stopped on the way home to get some moisturiser, I got carried away and bought a BRIGHT RED lipstick! You see my lips coming about 10 seconds before the rest of me. It wasn't that bright in the shop - I'm sure they swapped the packets around (yeah, right). The woman who served me at the beauty counter was probably not much younger than me - she had the fairest, most flawless, unwrinkled skin I have ever seen on an older woman - I've been thinking/wondering about it, ever since, and today the word BOTOX suddenly jumped into my mind. I think she might have - I'll have to go back and have another look with my, now, cynical eye.

I have started knitting a baby jacket for Sue at Cherryhills - it's an Anny Blatt pattern knitted in Bambini - it's a beautiful yarn to use - soft and elastic - it's making my fingers itch to do a cardigan for the 10 year old little flea - the pattern I have in mind is in "Pipsqueaks" - one of the best knitting books I have - I've knitted so much from it and have wanted to do this cardi for some time, but have felt obliged to keep knitting up the stash and none of the yarns in the stash appeal. Guess I'll just have to let my inner knitter free and pay another visit to Cherryhills!

It has been 40deg Celsius today, and 38 yesterday. We can't water again until Sunday so the poor old tree ferns and bird's nest ferns are looking very dehydrated, but it has suddenly started to thunder and look like rain - so I'm off to get the washing in.

Happy knitting.

Day 9 - Lesson 1: NEVER have liquid near your computer ... Lesson 2: And if you must, only drink wine (or gin)

How well I remember scolding my grandbaby fleas for wanting to eat over the keyboard of the computer (I'd never do that, of course), and woe betide them if they even THOUGHT about taking a drink near it .... it's a bit like the old "when all else fails read the instructions" ... she who ignores her own advice very clumsily spilt a glass of water (yes, water - I must have had shaky hands from the alcohol withdrawal symptoms) over the keyboard of the computer last night. Surprisingly it didn't explode in a shower of sparks, nor was I electrocuted (oh! you already guessed).

Lesson 1: NEVER have liquid near your computer - self-explanatory.
Lesson 2: And if you must, ONLY drink wine (or gin) - I'd never be that clumsy with alcohol.

So I have spent all day today trying to fix the problem. Fortunately I had a keyboard and mouse from the old computer, but the damage had been done when I tried to use the still slightly wet one this morning. Somehow I managed to delete the password from the email account's memory and for some reason the wretched thing kept wanting it! so I couldn't access my email. From which point I proceeded to undertake a journey that even Tolkien would have admired . I made a call to Brendan at Applecare who, after some time, referred me to Microsoft - where I spoke to Bakvin who referred me to Bigpond - where I spoke to Ari who said he couldn't help with Macs - he only did PCs - and referred me to Krunal in another section, who insisted that the telephone account number I gave him was WRONG (despite our bills reaching us at that account for forty years or so) - and referred me to James in accounts who quickly fixed me up with a new password - which didn't work. So - another call to Bigpond - to Ben, this time, who said I didn't need the Mac Section (duh!) and had that naughty James told me that the new password was in CAPS (NO - or else I was so excited to think that the problem was solved that I didn't take it in ). So many, many hours, phone calls, sittings and listenings to "hold music", dial-ups and downs later, I can access my email.

It's exhausting doing all that sitting and waiting.

I have tried to load photos from the old computer, but it won't work either, so I'm thinking of changing to another blog place, but I'll tell all you assembled thousands - who hang on my every word - where it is, when I do.

I've just been looking at a genealogy DNA analysis site (www.dnatribes.com) - thinking very hard about it - I don't know enough about DNA to make an assessment of whether the claims they make are reasonable, or just a money spinner for the company. When Grandpa Flea did his family history he discovered, much to everyone's surprise, that the ancestor with aboriginal heritage had actually come to Australia from Mauritius, and was listed on the ship's manifest as a "black serving girl". It was before the time of indentured Indian labour, so we assume she came to Mauritius as a slave, or as the child of slaves, from Madagascar or the East coast of Africa (Mauritius had no indigenous population). But Grandpa Flea's father maintained that she was Indian. Would DNA analysis solve the mystery?

On my side of the family, my brother has long held the view that we have some Chinese ancestry - my mother was not impressed when I asked her about it - "it would be on your father's side!" she cried and no further discussion was allowed. Would DNA analysis solve the mystery? I often suspect that Mum knew about the convict ancestry on her side as she was very unwilling to help me when I started to look into our origins - to say that she was angry wouldn't have been too harsh. It turned out that her grandmother was the child of convicts - but by the time I had discovered this, Mum had died . These days we all regard having a convict as a badge of honour, and love to find we have some exotic racial mix in our backgrounds, but in Mum's day a convict ancestor would have been a source of great shame and having a non-white ancestor just wasn't allowed.

So much for knitting - I'm off to search the internet to see if I can hold dual citizenship - my brother is convinced that because we also have German ancestry we can apply for a German passport! Yippee! I wouldn't be an "alien" when I visit old mother England if I had an EU passport!

Happy knitting.

Day 8 - I'm laughing

Roxie always makes me laugh! - even when I feel blah - less blah than yesterday. We did see kangaroos on a golf course recently (as we were driving by, not chasing a funny little ball with dimples around) but we have none in our neighbouhood; we do have flying foxes in the neighbour's huge mulberry tree when it's fruiting and they crap all over the car and the washing when I leave it on the line overnight; yesterday when I was watering the same neighbour's plants (NOT the said muberry tree) I saw an enormous fat blue tongue lizard - I swear it was 2 feet long - maybe more - maybe as big as that fish that got away - I didn't know they grew that big. We haven't seen them around for years (as the neighbourhood has become more populated and there have been more cats around). We do currently have a possum living between the ceiling of the bathroom and the floor of the bedroom above - although I swear it moves into the wall cavity some days. We hear it scratching itself. I think it has a baby. The other night we had two mothers with babies on their backs prowling around the house (outside, thank you). And yesterday I had a noisy miner (bird) wander into the house off the deck, crap on the dining room chair then proceed to get agitated because it couldn't fly through the glass windows. Eventually I was able to shepherd it out. But the really big wildlife news of the neighbouhood is that two echidnas have been spotted wandering around - once in my yard (while my neighbour was watering MY garden - damn); once at that neighbour's and once by other neighbours - I'm the only person who hasn't seen them. We have lived here for forty years and this is the first time that they have been seen - maybe it suggests that the termites are increasing - most houses have had some problems with them. We also have rainbow lorikeets, sulphur crested cockatoos, eastern rosellas, crimson rosellas, very occasional black cockatoos and today I saw five gang-gangs (another type of cockatoo - very pretty with grey tipped black feathers and some brilliant red markings) do a fly by in formation while I was having my breakfast on the deck. We usually only see gang gangs when there is a drought - which there is at present and has been for a long time.

It's past my lunch time - I shall leave you in suspense about Baby Flea and her Dada.

Day 7 - Little Flea

Yesterday we babysat the littlest Flea (4) while her Mama and Dadda had a very upmarket lunch to celebrate Dadda's birthday - ?52. I can never remember ages - not even my own children's. (That apostrophe nearly got me). They arrived home with a computer - a PC, so once they have it up and running I might be able to post photos from there. Apparently OSX is a known "issue" to Blogspot. In the meantime I'll try on our old computer which has an earlier operating system but in all respects is a very sick girl.

I have now finished 3 more baby jumpers for Africa and started a fourth, but will have to give some time to Eloise before I can indulge myself with the little projects in the Knitting Calendar.

The weather in Sydney is crazy at present - yesterday it was blistering hot and the forecast was for more of the same today, but it is overcast and very mild. Usually our summers have days of hot weather followed by a cool change for a few days then hot again. This year we have been having very hot and very cold (relatively of course) - we've even had several nights where it was cold enough to put a heater on!

This is a blah entry - I have been feeling very blah with nothing to say for a few days now , so am signing off to do some blah housework - it might perk me up a bit. Or maybe I should indulge myself by starting a new knitting project. Do stop by again - I'm not always like this!.

Happy knitting.
PS - Lucia - I love your blog