Day 48 - Question 3: Why is it always ME?

Question 3: Why is it always ME??

Does anyone remember that plaintive cry from the children when asked to do ANYTHING along the lines of taking out the garbage, packing up the table, wiping up etc? Well, today I reached a milestone - I KNEW I must be old and declining into my second childhood when I wanted to shout "WHY IS IT ALWAYS ME????".

And what, I hear you say, could have prompted this usually very calm (well, sometimes) and reasonable person to descend into such childish ways? - the blogging computer of course!! When I turned on today, instead of rebooting, there was some sort of message involving the word "PANIC" and no activity - there continued to be no activity when I rang Apple, as most of the process involved waiting for very long periods while a dinky little circle thing ran around in circles on the screen .......... I should have had my knitting with me. Eventually the problem was solved by reloading all the software - joy of joys.

So, dear friends in cyberspace, I shall reveal to you, the secret of life, just as I imparted this very special knowledge to the Fleas as they were growing up - the answer is this :" LIFE ISN'T FAIR and it's time you accepted this fact and stopped complaining!". Just as well I took my own advice and am now a happy little vegemite once again.

I keep seeing "Saturday skies" on other people's blogs - so thought I'd join in - hope that's okay, or are the sky police going to get me? I'm scared. If I never blog again, you'll know what happened.


The beautiful deep blue Australian summer sky - I love it so much. Whenever I'm overseas I miss that blue, along with the blue-green of the eucalyptus trees. I had often read that Australian painters fell in love with the light in Europe - and wondered how could that be? But the first time I went to the UK I knew at once what they were talking about - the softness of the light, pink skies at midday, misty hills covered in the soft pink heather - it was all so different. And, wonder of wonders, the trees that I disliked so much here, the ones with a very bright, verging on a yellow-limey-green, foliage, looked absolutely beautiful set against the soft colours of the English countryside and sky. I still dislike those trees in Australia.

As I have no new knitting photos to display, I'll amuse you again with another of my "Knitting Around the World" collection:


This photo was taken in a wonderful yarn shop in Ketchikan, Alaska (I can't remember the name). I fell in love with it - didn't buy any yarn - but got to feel Lorna's Lace for the first time, and remembered the Mariposa shawl knitted in a soft green bamboo for the future. I did buy some necklaces though - one was silver with lapis lazuli blueberries and the other had a quaint silver octopus pendant. I'll add photos at another time (code for when I can find them in the mess in my drawer!).

Happy knitting.

Day 42 - Question 2

This post has been in draft mode for a while, waiting for some photos - which leads me to: QUESTION 2: how do all you bloggers out there get the time to read all the blogs on your "Blogs I read" lists? let alone do your own blogging?

Answer: Beats me! I have had broadband for about two weeks now - I used the entire download allowance in the first week - developed a wonky knee and hip from sitting at the computer all day (and night) - got next-to-no-knitting done, did absolutely no housework (boo hoo!) and read thousands, well, maybe a hundred or so, blogs. Each blog leads to another - it's an infinite regress - I'm trapped in a never-ending cycle and can't get out - HHHHEEEELLLLPPPP!

Speaking of blogs - I stumbled across an amazing blog - Yarnstorm - the photography and use of colour are amazing. Check it out if you get a chance.

It's hard to believe. but it's raining again here. It started two nights ago and after petering out has been honouring us with quite heavy downpours, alternating with drizzle. The best news is, that there have been some falls in the catchment area for our drinking water. I hope it continues. So far we have had no more leeches in the house - and no, Roxie, they don't climb on the furniture like spiders - just across the ceiling and floor. Poor old Grandpa Flea had one drop off the ceiling onto him while he was in bed . He felt an irritation in the corner of his eye - and it was a leech, just about to attach. He was a bit put out about it! As I said before - the joys of wildlife!

Today we went down to see the hole where our new home will be:

Well (no pun intended), it has been raining! The builder assures us that the drainage (yet to be installed) will cope with future rainy days - we hope! It looks like they will pour the slab in the next week, weather allowing. Now all we have to do is sell our house so we can afford to pay for it!

I went to the Craft Show at Rosehill with a friend, Nunel, on Friday. I know Janette was out of there in an hour, but we arrived before the doors opened and left when they closed! Of course, there was some time out for coffee, lunch, gossip and putting our feet up. It was a much smaller show than I'd imagined - Janette gives a good round-up of what was there. Nunel and I are not focussed - we spent hours looking at beads which we rarely use,, vintage buttons which I love, cross-stitch for Nunel, and needle felting, amongst other things. I came home with a needle felting kit (I've already broken the needles), some heavy duty cotton to use for a button necklace if I can work out how to do it, some button backs to turn old buttons into pendants or earrings, and five buttons which I don't need but liked.

At the beginning of the year I intended to knit from the project a day calendar, as lots of the small things looked good for street stalls for The Shack but so far I've only done one thing, an angora scarf that turned out a lot smaller than in the pattern. But then again, I wasn't using the recommended yarn, but a Wendy angora I've had stashed away for years. The scarf is very cute - I think I'll give it to one of the little fleas and knit another larger one out of mohair for The Shack. There is no way I'd buy angora for a street stall - people want bargains and won't pay a realistic price. How inadequate can one person feel - I'd love to have the eye for colour and design that Yarnstorm has - I'll keep trying!

I have started Lucky from Pipsqueaks and have finished the back, two fronts and am on the sleeves. It is a very quick knit, but I think I've knitted it once too often - there's only so much moss stitch a girl can do ..... but it is a great pattern for tiny people - the button does up below the chin, so they don't have wool irritating them, especially when they have a little chuck-up. And the Zara is beautiful to knit with.


Eloise is still on the back-burner and Annie Blatt's ........ blocking.

Well, it is now Day 46 and at this rate the draft will never see the light of day - so, as someone once said (any idea who?): PUBLISH AND BE DAMNED.

Day 37 - It's Raining - Leeches!!

A couple of hours ago thunder and lightning started and then came the rain! Not a lot, but it wet the ground and rainwater seems to revive plants in a way that chlorinated water doesn't. Along with the rain came the leech - since we have had so many possums around, we have been getting the odd leech in the house when it rains (that's the only reason I can think of to explain 35 years or so without a leech and an influx since we've had possum boxes around). Grandpa Flea has just had a tiny one on his wrist, and is bleeding like the proverbially "stuck pig". Ah, the joys of wild life ...

Knitting group today at Cherryhills - it was good to see the group again and to catch up on what has been knitted over January. I came home with three balls of Zara in a pale blue to knit a baby jacket from Pipsqueaks (a Rowan book) - I was going to post a photo from the book - but can't find it! And I wanted to cast on tonight! My chiropracter is having her first baby and I want to have it finished for her before she goes on leave. Guess I'll have to battle Annie Blatt a bit longer. I love Pipsqueaks - I have knitted so many things from it over the last five or six years.

I was roving around the internet tonight and made a terrible discovery - Grumperina and The Knitting Curmudgeon ARE NOT THE SAME PERSON! My apologies to each of you. I have removed the offending reference. I was sure that I had read in Grumperina's blog somewhere that she had posted previously under the other name - I was devastated when The Knitting Curmudgeon seemed to disappear from the internet and had a bit of trouble reconciling the two writing styles when she "reappeared" under another name - okay, so someone now tell me they are the same person and I can feel doubly foolish!!

My apologies again.

Day 36 - Knitting Groups Start Again - Yay!

First day back at the Guild and for the first time for months I was looking forward to it. I haven't been for quite a while as I haven't been enjoying it. The group at Cherryhills starts up again this week too and I'm REALLY looking forward to that - there's always something new to see, feel, try on, read - and it's good fun.

Everywhere I go I look for the local knitting shops - sound familiar to you? And whenever they agree, I take photos or get a photo taken in there, so I'm very generously sharing them (?boring you) with you! This is a photo taken in Victoria, Vancouver Island at The Beehive Store. For some reason the link won't work: "FORBIDDEN" was the stern reply - if you don't already know it, I'm sure you can google it. This was a wondrous store, stacked with yarn. I bought a skein of Fiesta in African Violet there. It wasn't available in Australia then, but now my LYS has it - and I keep drooling over it, and one day - soon (after I knit all my stash up - ha! ha!) - I'm going to get some more.

I haven't done much knitting other than wrestle with Annie Blatt.
Janette assures me that the pattern has suffered in translation, but I'm not too sure about that - I've had these problems with English patterns too - but then, we speak Australian here - maybe that's it!

We had a busy weekend and I got lots of kisses and hugs from Ms 4 during her sleepover and Sunday we had some friends over for lunch at 12.00 noon. They left at 8:00pm so that's why nothing got done in the knit department. Last night we put some of the scraps out for the birds and the possums. (We don't do it on a regular basis so they don't become dependent on us.) And just for Roxie we had a visit from a small glider possum. They have a wide fat flat tail and a flap of skin between their front and rear legs which acts as a parasail? when they glide between the trees. This particular glider is quite large - usually two of them are on the tray together and they still have lots of space. They are cute little things, and it's always a relief to find that they are still around, as a lot of the bushland around here is being cleared for housing.

I'm off to bed - this broadband thing just means instead of sitting around for hours getting frustrated, I sit around for hours making typos and looking at blogs - Grandpa Flea is no fool - he told me I'd be going to bed at 1:00 am - again.

Day 34 - It's Raining - Rain & Broadband!

Can you believe, it rained yesterday! and I got connected to broadband! Of course all good things have a down side - it took me ALL day on the phone with the techs to get my connection working and then it threw me off last night at 1.00am (wh should go to bed earlier) and I've been on the phone all morning - mainly on hold -listening to music designed to drive you to drink - until I got reconnected again. Ahhh - the elctronic age - it saves soooooo much time - not.
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Here is a photo -at last - of the baby jumpers I have been knitting If you look carefully, you can see one of our possum boxes in the tree behind. We love the wildlife around here, but I have the crankies with the possums at the moment - the bigger brushtails have kicked the ringtails out of all the possum boxes, and the ringtails are more vulnerable than the brushtails. To add insult to injury, one of the brushtails has taken up residence under the house in the space between the floor of the study and the ceiling of the bathroom. AND not only that, I got up one morning recently to discover that my beautiful cyclamen pink cyclamen (Ha! work that one out) which lives on the table on the deck, was sitting there with all the flowers intact, but every single leaf eaten off - just bare stems surrounding the flowers! It looked very funny. Back to the baby jumpers - the knitting group I attend at Cherryhills has been producing dozens of these jumpers to go to Africa. Someone's mother's church group asked for help, so superwomen flew into action.

Annie Blatt's pattern is still giving me lots of problems - I admit to being spatially challenged - refer back to the school uniform disasters - I admit to reading a paragraph of a pattern and knitting 10 rows with a line of bobbles on the 6th - then discovering the next row says: AT THE SAME TIME INCREASE blah blah blah. Even acknowledging these deficiencies on my part, THE PATTERN IS BLOGGING CONFUSING!!

So I'm still tetchy.

Just for you, Roxie:


This is a large birdsnest fern that grew (self sown) under the airconditioner outlet at home - it obviously thrives with the constant drip of moisture.

By contrast, here's a photo of a tree fern that has been severely burnt off in the all the hot weather we've been having:



Also a photo of one of my my bromeliads that has survived the hot weather in relatively good condition because it's in a pot out of the sun: .Don't ask me why my photos are all over the place in relation to the text - I"VE ALREADY TOLD YOU THAT I"M SPATIALLY CHALLENGED and TETCHY!

Ms 4 year old Flea is arriving at 2.30pm (it's now 12.10) for a sleepover and we are having people for lunch tomorrow. Not a bed is made, including the little Flea's which is still stripped from the last Flea invasion, not a dish is washed, not a cake is made, not a chicken thigh has been marinated, not a dip has been made,and not a thing has been hung on the line (probably will need rewashing because i t's so steamy and washing smells very quickly if not dried straight away- so much for the water conservation drive) and there's nothing decided for tea tonight. Sounds like someone has tied me to a chair in front of a computer screen and said "FIDDLE YOUR LIFE AWAY, FOOL". On the upside though, Ms 4 loves her mama - and Grandma Flea doesn't score it for a kiss or a cuddle when mama's there. BUT when we have sleepovers, I'm very popular and get lots of juicy little wet kisses on the cheek and heaps of cuddles. I feel better already.

Conscious as I am of throwing many punctuation and grammar stones at those other people who DON'T CARE about our language, I am also conscious that I live in a glass house and do VERY occasionally slip up myself. Of course it's NOT MY FAULT- oh no - (I learnt this one off Grandpa Flea - Mr Infallible!) - any mistake is the result of a typo!! So my apologies to my fellow grammar police out there.

Peace to the world - in my dreams of course.

Day 30 - I Forgot Our Wedding Anniversary!

I have NEVER forgotten our wedding anniversary - but today I did. As Grandpa Flea rarely remembers it, it was not such a disaster, but I can't believe that I forgot. 42 years married might explain it and I have had a lot of other things on my mind.

Good news - today I signed up for broadband - it will take about two weeks for the modem etc to arrive, and I'm really looking forward to it.

I finished another little jumper for Africa when we were travelling - they look really cute in the bright colours. Annie Blatt is no easier than before - I discovered last night that, despite careful measuringand counting, one front is longer than the other - you know what happens next - creative blocking! I've unpulled it too many times to do it again. I'll start the two sleeves tonight and with a bit of luck will finish the cardi by the end of the week. Then I'll have to go back to Eloise or it will finish up as a permanent UFO. I have just tried to upload some photos but it is taking forever so it will have to wait until our broadband starts.

We have a meeting with the builder later in the week to finalise our contract for the townhouse. The year will go quickly, but I wish it were already built (hope the tense is correct - people in glass houses and all that ...). We have taken our house off the market over the hottest part of summer but the pressure will be on to get it sold before our new place is finished - otherwise I'll be putting out a call for food parcels!

Our garden is looking soooo bad - I think we will lose at least two tree ferns this summer - they are all self sown, and have all prospered until last summer when we lost a couple in the heat. Every time we go away we lose something in the garden - this last four day absence meant we missed the watering day and it coincided with very hot weather. There is not much we can do about it.

I'm glad you didn't mind the rant, Roxie - I'm not as tetchy today, but still not happy about the state of the world.

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.