And it's only a plastic storage box.

This is Henry's newest and most favourite way of having a bath. We have only a shower and up until Maya came up with the bright idea of filling the tub that usually holds his hundreds of matchbox cars with water and letting him languish till his hearts content he was satisfied with a quick shower.

He gets into that thing and then won't get out. I have to bribe him with a spoon full of "kintella" (nutella) to get him to even hang one leg over the edge. He'll stay in there until he resembles a flaky prune. He puts his cars in and washes them then starts on the shampoo bottles. He insists that whoever is in there supervising him must read several hundreds of books all to his choosing. It must be just the right temperature and have no less than five squirts of baby soap in it and the supervisor must not, under any circumstances, join him in song. If he starts to sing five little ducks he wants to do it alone. The supervisor is allowed to sit, only on the stool, but must not do anything other than read the books he has first approved.

I should be grateful that he considers a square plastic storage box to be the equivalent of a porcelain spa bath complete with gold fittings.

Pool Ghoul

Lately I've been thinking about the psychology behind modern day conversation. It might be just me and in actual fact probably is but a lot of conversations I have, even with complete strangers such as the sales assistant at the local bakery, are all pre-played in my mind before I have them. I feel the need these days to ensure that the words that come out of my mouth has been studied and cleansed of anything that could possibly be considered offensive, defensive, rude, racist, accusatory, selfish, ignorant or nosey.

This morning for instance I've been rearranging words in my head that I need to tell the manager of the pool where Henry goes to swimming lessons. She's done nothing wrong and is in fact a very nice person if not a little dismissive at times. You see I developed some horrid rash along my arms and lower back and I had no idea what had caused it. I never get rashes and have never had an allergic reaction to anything before that might have caused it. I ignored it and hoped it would go away. It didn't. It festered and blistered and got itchy and sore. I went to the doctor who told me it was folliculitis - an infection of the hair follicles caused by heat and synthetic clothing or heated pools and spas. Since I rarely wear synthetic clothing and on the rare occasions that I have in the past have never developed such a rash I assumed it may have come from the heated pool at which Henry has his lessons but I don't know that for sure.

I have antibiotics, usually prescribed for severe acne, which is clearing the problem up but I don't want to go to swimming lessons this morning in case it flares up again and also in case I transmit it to someone else. I also had surgery on my shoulder last Wednesday and don't want to risk getting that infected. Anyway I wanted to call the pool and tell them I wouldn't be coming this morning but I also feel I should mention the folliculitis to them but I'm unsure how to bring it up without sounding like I'm accusing them of infecting me. I'm not angry about it and I have no proof that it was the pool that did it to me but I feel I need to let them know in case someone else gets it. It's not nice and definitely unattractive, especially when it's making your bum spotty like the face of an acne prone teenager.

Give me some advice people. Run that conversation over in your mind and flip some words around and give me your final version.

Student of the week AND a job

And this is where I get to act like the proud mother.

Last week Maya scored a Student of the Week Award and a part time job at McDonalds all on the same day.

In her interview at McDonalds they asked her what her favourite subject was and what the teacher of that subject has to say about her. She was able to very proudly report that earlier that same day the teacher of her favourite subject (History) had awarded her Student of the Week.


Now the job thing makes me VERY proud because she will now be able to sink her own dollars into her other passion...fashion.

Views from the Mountain

Wedding Cake by Miss Susan (Sister of the Groom)

So this is what we did last weekend.

That's my brother and his beautiful wife and her two children. There's another one growing beneath her wedding dress right now.

And this is what Henry did at this place



A family weekend turned into a wedding weekend but nobody minded. Not even Henry who had a great time helping pack the booze into the esky for the onslaught of guests that were soon to arrive.

Congratulations you two! Soon you'll have your own baby to pack your booze for you.

When the Outside World is not in your home.

We've only just been hooked back up to the world at large. We had no internet and no telephone for four days. On Tuesday as I pulled the car in the driveway on my way home from work the neighbours mower man came running up to tell me that my cables had been ripped away from the mains and it looked like a truck may have been responsible. I went to talk to my elderly neighbour about it as all the cable had been neatly rolled and dumped in her front yard, right in amongst her prize winning gerberas. She told me that while she was ironing in front of Days of Our Lives earlier that day she'd seen a truck come past and then stop and some men got out and rolled up the cable and dumped it in her yard and drove off again. We all tsked tsked and shook our head at the rudeness of people today. How they hadn't bothered to leave a note or to even see if anyone was home and admit to what they'd done.

As all this was going on my sister called me on my mobile. I told her to call the phone company for me as I wasn't about to pay he exhoribant prices they would charge on my mobile while they put me on hold for several hours to sort it out. They called me back soon after and I explained in great detail what had happened. I told them that the lines had been completely severed from the main line and that the part still connected to the house was many metres above the ground. She told me someone would be around the following day.

The following morning I went to tell my elderly neighbour that they would be here later in the day to fix it and not to touch the lines in the meantime. I asked her if she thought the truck may have come from the house that was being built two doors down. Her reply - "Oh I don't know. I didn't see anything or any truck". Go figure that one out! Someone did come that day, while I was at work, and they called me on my mobile to tell me that they would have to come back with a cherry picker the next day because THE LINES WERE COMPLETELY SEVERED AND SEVERAL METRES OFF THE GROUND AT THE HOUSE LEVEL. I uttered a very obvious "Der" down the telephone line. I had to stop myself from telling him that I was no technician but I had easily figured out that a cherry picker would be needed because, as I told them on the phone, the LINES WERE COMPLETELY SEVERED AND SEVERAL METRES OFF THE GROUND.

Never the less we still had no phone or internet connection and would have to wait another day. When I arrived home from work the following day there were still no connected lines, no internet and no telephone. I called them from my mother's house. Asked why there was no connection. I was told that they were not due until the fifteenth. I told him it was the fifteenth and he very embarrassingly backtracked, attempted to call through to someone to ask what the problem was and why the hadn't been there. He couldn't get a hold of anyone and so rebooked the repair for the following morning - Friday.

Friday morning came and went and no signs of any technicians. They finally showed at around 3pm and had it fixed in an hour and amazingly had no cherry picker. One guy with one very big ladder. Done. Easy. Back to normal.

Maya was more pleased than anyone when the internet was back in service. She had acted as though someone had been slowly sapping the blood from her veins over the four days we were without it.She had been unable to chat for hours on Messenger with friends she had spent the entire day with at school! She had been unable to check her emails and readjust her myspace. It was terrible and heartbreaking to watch her wither away and go to the computer and click the internet icon in the hope that it had somehow miraculously reconnected itself while she wasn't looking. I was getting a littel titchy because I had internet banking to do and bills to pay online but not enough to make me want to tear my hair out. I was actually quite enjoying the peace and quiet that came with a non working telephone. There were no boring telemarketers calling trying to get me to buy telephones or change my internet plan. Best of all I thought my husband wouldn't be able to talk for hours to his best friend...that is until his mobile rang. Not that I mind most of the the time, it's just that those two can talk much longer than any woman can to her best friend. I get a little jealous.

The peace and quiet ended abruptly at around 4.30pm with the first call. It was a telemarketer, wanting me to change phone plans...

So I have a lot to tell but right now I have a lot to do. More later.

Fireman Sam is gonna save the day

Making Tacos

Fireman Sam is the hero next door - well at home anyway

Henry hurt his arm. Well only a little bit but Sissy insisted on wrapping it in a bandage because he wanted a "sticker" (bandaid) and we didn't have any. He was so proud of that bandage and looked at it for a long time while posing his arm several different ways just to try it on for size.

He's into role playing now and has a toy helmet that he likes to get from outside to wear while he's watching Fireman Sam on the TV. Sadly he knows every line from every episode that we own on DVD, which are at some point going to melt from endless rotating they have to do across the laser reader or whatever that thing is.

He sings along with the theme song and if anyone else tries to they're quickly told "no, don't you sing it, Henry sings it". We're not even allowed to poke fun of Dillis (the single mother of the town's naughtiest boy - Norman Price) when she chats up Trevor the bus driver from behind her shop counter. "No, don't say Norman's mum".

When it's finally over he runs outside to get the length of hose he uses as a fire hose, attaches it to the tap and plays out what he's just watched.

"Get the hoses Elvis. Right, now put the fire out, hurry!" (followed by nee naw siren sounds)

"I'll get Tom in the helicopter, we're going to need him, hurry Tom".

It's hilarious and he's terribly passionate about it. If anyone attempts to stop him in his rescue attempts they're quickly told where to go.

He has a pair of winter pyjamas that have fire engines on them and he's currently had them on for three days running. He won't take them off. He's hot and sweaty but he doesn't care. He's got everything he needs -Fire truck pyjamas, Fireman Sam DVD, firehose and helmet. All that makes for one happy boy.