What's Been Going On?

What a great day! Woke up to rain and gusting winds and a warm, toasty loungeroom.

Meg and I bravely headed out to do the chooks - sometimes I wonder about her! She makes me laugh often - and she's really enjoying life at home on the farm. She just finished her second week of full-time work in town and is six months away from finishing her Masters degree. At the end of this Uni year she will have been studying for five years - 3 full-time and 2 part-time.

She is dying for a pumpkin to ripen in the permaculture garden. It's a bit late really, a self-sown one but looks like it might go the distance. We rarely frost on our ridge so fingers crossed. Here she is, assessing its' progress.

Drew is ploughing through Term 2, Grade 12. The last two weeks have been heavy with assessments including a dramatic monologue from Macbeth to write and deliver in character for English; a Drama analysis on a Brecht play; three Japanese exams and a 10 minute multimodal presentation on "finding the sacred in the earth community" for SOR. No wonder he doesn't want to get up in the mornings! He continues to grow and change. We go to the doctor next week for his medical for the student exchange application. I think there might be a couple of vaccinations to catch up on because I've tended to skip a few along the way. The school is presenting a theatre restaurant next weekend - he will play the part of the Train Inspector in Mystery on the Orient Express. It is his job to be the conduit between the audience and the stage and to encourage audience participation. I'm a bit anxious (as I always get) but he assures me it will all be fine (such confidence in the young these days).

Gibbo finally came home again last night. He spent 2 days in Brisbane at head office then three days in CQ trying to tie up supply and catching up with the couple of properties up there that he looks after. It was good to have him back.

On Tuesday I took my brother to Brisbane for some medical tests. I had to pick him up from his home and deliver him back so we probably spent 8 hours total in the car together. That's more time spent together in one day than what we've spent alone in a couple of years. We talked a lot about the state of the world, family and growing up.

While he was at the hospital I walked to Mary Ryan's and bought two books and had a coffee. I just cannot help myself in a bookshop; I have to buy a book. I can walk into a hundred dress shops or shoe shops and not buy a thing (and barely be tempted) but put me in a bookshop and I'm immediately seduced, sucked in by a great looking cover or a fascinating blurb on the back.

A friend has asked me to make a full bodysuit with hood for her daughter for the athletics carnival at the end of June. The kids all dress up on these days and Lucy wants a gold one. I borrowed a pattern off an old school friend who assures me it will be "dead easy" to make. I've made many ballet costumes over the years and if it was for one of my kids I wouldn't bat an eyelid (well maybe I would at the thought of Drewboy in a golden full bodysuit) but when it's for someone else a certain element of "I better do this neatly" comes into it. If it works I'll post a picture; if it doesn't, I won't!

It's only 9 weeks until we leave on our trip to Singapore/Ireland/England for the Golden Oldies Cricket World Cup. I still can't believe I'm travelling half way around the world to watch a bunch of hasbeens play cricket. Anything but cricket.