Not camping in the rain

For these reasons, I am not camping in the rain.

First, we booked a hut, not a campsite. Wilson's Promontory is notorious for dramatic weather, and we aren't keen on digging trenches at 3am.

Second, I didn't go anyway. I write this from my bed, while Trudi and Hazel and Ivy are far away. Three weeks ago I twisted and bent over to get heavy shopping out of the car, and I felt a distinct PING in my lower back. After two relapses I am finally improving, but I can't sit down for more than a few minutes. The thought of sitting in the car for hours there an back made me sad.

So here I am, having a solo weekend. It's been a blast, sort of.

What I have done:

• Slept in until 7:15am.
• Lazed in bed for another hour, listening to Minke the cat snoring in the next room.
• Cooked chickpeas. Not sure what I'll do with them.
• Had a lie-down.
• Made mayonnaise using a bamix, which is dead easy and took two minutes. Oh my goodness, it is so fine! I actually made two batches but I threw the first lot out. I had used olive oil, and it turns out that the fast-moving blades somehow chop the oil into tiny bits that taste utterly bitter. The second batch (canola oil, mustard and fresh dill) is amazing.
• Lay in bed some more.

Things to come:

• Fleur is coming over for dinner tonight. I plan to make butter chicken and freeze some for another night. She is bringing DVDs and I expect I will make some dessert involving cream.
• Lie down for most of the day.

Overheard dialog

The kids are nattering in the other room. Who is wearing whose shoes, how to do them up, natter natter...
My mind tunes in to hear Hazel say:

There is only one right way, and that is my way.

She has no irony in her at all, bless her.

It's all Nigella's fault

In the Epicure section of the Age last week, I read Nigella's list of 20 ways to be a better cook. Right now I cannot recall one of them, but at the time it was a nice read. There is a photo of her looking smily and vibrant, how nice.

That evening I casually tossed a fish fillet into the frying pan, and hot butter and oil splashed out.I think that was subconsciously channeling bloody Nigella. I'll just FLIP this fillet into a vat of hot butter.


I wonder if it will leave a scar?

Consolation prize

I just realised that my phone creates DRAFT blog posts but can't actually publish them.

So here is something from January 2013, when I was working "from home" in Merimbula.

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It is 40 already, at midday, and today is my first day back at work. Trudi and the kids are at the pool, and I'm sheltering.

This morning Ivy made me a picture to make me feel better about working today.

She knows I like rain, so here is a green grassy hill with rain coming down softly (make gentle wafty handgestures). The rain made puddles all over the hill. That's me smiling in the rain. I also have a happy cat, and a rainbow.

I also received a foot massage, a hand massage, and some desperate clinging.

"I thought I would feel different"

Here's a post I wrote on the girls' fourth birthday. I stuck it in Drafts and never posted it.

    **********

Four years ago, two people were taken out of my body. I gestated them long enough for them to breathe on their own, and since then they have grown a little bit each day. Today, both girls walk, talk, and eat on their own, and have their own internal lives.

Yesterday Ivy said that no-one else would be allowed to eat her cat cake. Today she was fine with her cake being devoured by others.

During the party, I noticed that Hazel was missing. She had snuck away to do some drawing. She knows how to handle overwhelming social events!
When I found her, I told her that she was four now. She looked stunned. Gazed at the wall. Turned to me with wide eyes and open mouth. "But I thought I'd feel different!"

And then she bent back to her drawing, narrating it quietly. "and the villain jumps up in the tree and here is a tiger to lick his head and they go flying up in space and..."

Reading

A loooong time ago, when she was little (as she likes to say), Hazel pointed to the word BED on a shop window and said "BED!". I think she was two.

Now Hazel is four, and shows no sign of reading. Yes, she writes her name and likes counting and learns books off by heart, but actually reading? Nup, I have mummies who do that for me.

At the last twins playgroup for the year, I was holding Hazel (who is four, and thus big, but still needs a cuddle) while chatting with Jane. Jane was standing on a stepladder, holding a plastic bike over her head, and trying to place it on top of a teetery stack of other plastic vehicles, stacked high inside a hard-to-reach cupboard. That's the way it rocks at playgroup - the kids get to play, but the mums have to do four-dimensional Tetris when it's all over.

So I was holding Hazel and leaning against a cupboard, when Hazel leaned over and placed her finger on the first letter of a hand-written word on a piece of masking tape.

P

She said the name of the letter.

P

She said it again.

Puh

Then she said the sound that it makes.

Rrr

O

Dj

Rr

Aa

Mm

I said that in this word, the G is a hard Guh, not Dj. Try again.

She sounded it out very slowly, twice more. Then she did the sounds quickly. Then, she said "Program! This cupboard is for Program! Why is it for Program?"

We found the word Holiday and talked about holiday programs and how school kids sometimes do stuff in their holidays and our day continued.

I can feeeel the books just over Hazel's horizon. She loves hearing the old favourites read to her, but think of all the new favourites that she will read to herself one day! The private worlds, just for her.

Pea and ham soup

I love my pressure cooker. Last time I made pea and ham soup, I tried to hide too many vegetables in it. Miss Hazel wasn't keen. This time there's just the one grated carrot... I hope it will pass undetected. For a girl who loves her veg, she is picky about things being mixed into old favourites.