Calendula and Pepper

Excuse brevity. Am neck deep in Romance Australia online conference right now, and loving it :)

The first of the calendula have started to flower in the front garden.

Calendula left, Pepper the cat right

The front garden is the domain of The Cat Who Will Not Die.  Her name is Pepper, she has been with me now for 17 years and is showing no sign of slowing down.  She spends her days chatting to me through the kitchen window, treating the dog with the disdain he deserves, hiding under the steps from the kids and using the entire front garden as a toilet.

Day of Excrement

My day in bullet points...

• 2.30am Smaller screamie discovers every action has an attached consequence, ie, if you remove your nappy after lights-out then at some point you are going to wake up cold and soaking wet.
• 5.30am Cat needs to have a wee
• 5.37am Cat discovers it is very cold outside and comes back in
• 6.10am Cat needs to have a wee
• 6.15am Entire family gets up
• 8am Counselling - plum depths of subconscious, find nothing of interest
• 9am Swap cars/children with hubby; he heads off to mumndads for a day of manual labour, cups of tea and chatting (more of the latter than the former)
• 9.30am Take children to The Mall to buy cake for playdate
• 9.40am Leave The Mall with two gingerbread men but no cake
• 10am Drop off children to playdate
• 10.10am Run around like a headless chicken gathering supplies for our forthcoming Halloween party
• 1pm Pick up children
• 1.04pm Discover the Smallest Screamie has had an accident of monumental proportions in her pants
• 1.15pm Get home and spend a happy fifteen minutes in the bathroom sorting out the accident
• 1.35pm Find Larger Screamie has had a similar but slightly more daunting accident in the other bathroom
• 1.37pm Get back in the car to go to the second playdate of the day
• 3.37pm Arrive home from two hours of drinking tea, gossipping and eating caramel crowns
• 4pm Bribe children into silence with a gigantic bag of Cheese&Bacon balls (Yes, it seemed like a Good Idea at the time) - and attack both bathrooms with a lot of bleach and lavender oil
• 4.45pm Clean breakfast detritus from kitchen
• 5.30pm Attempt to feed hyperactive and over-tired children
• 5.45pm Feed children's untouched meals to dog
• 6.10pm Cook Laksa - using Ayam brand Laksa sauce
• 6.12pm Hubby gets home
• 6.13pm Taste Laksa
• 6.15pm Ring for Thai take-away. Never in my life have I tasted anything so vile as that laksa (well maybe except for the Aldi chicken stock that didn't have any chicken in it).
• 6.3opm Get home with take-away; Phone is ringing
• 6.31pm Take over bath time from hubby who is on important call
• 6.51pm Get everyone through bath time; smile tensely at lengthy Christmas present discussion
• 7pm Smallest Screamie wees on floor next to toilet
• 7.01pm Retire to television with dinner for the safety of rest of family
• 7.03pm Glance over to find dog eating cushion...

• 7.06pm Realise that the dog has done a wee on the floor next to where he killed my cushion - and yes, that is a lit fire at the top of the photo - its October and TWELVE degrees outside. Two days ago we hit thirty-four.
• 7.10pm Crack open the Violet Crumbles

• And now at 8.34pm I am feeling deeply queasy and going to bed.

sigh.

The First Strawberries

Had a bit of a strawberry disaster this year when 70% of the Chandler strawberries I bought from Diggers died - could have been snails, fungus or transplant shock - or all three. Anyway, I had to buy several more to fill in the gaps in the patch, and instead of going for one type I went for several varieties - Kanawase, Toigo and Red Gauntlet.

What we have here are the very first Kanawase's ripening. The first strawberries I have ever grown and here they are, nearly ready to eat.

Only I dont want to.

Why? And you are going to be sorry you wondered... under the greyed out spot in the photo is a pile of poo. Could be dog, could be cat.

SIGH.

They happen in threes...

OH. MY. GOD. Excuse me, but I'd just like to make the point that SOMEBODY/ANYBODY should have warned me about the things your children dream up to age you faster. I mean seriously. They know I have a High School reunion in a few weeks and after the last week of my life, any lingering smugness that I may just look just a smidge younger than I actually am (let's say 35 rather than 37 years, 9 months and 17 days) has been vaporised.

I am convinced they're doing it on purpose btw (that's trendy youff for By The Way, Diana).

Oh I shouldn't make light of it. That would make me sound like a worse mother than I actually am. You see it was horrible and serious. Miss 3.5 was bitten by a spider. Mmm. Nothing quite like having your husband tell you that your child is hysterical because she has been bitten by a spider that she is describing as black and red and has fang marks in her arm. Trust me interwebs it ages you.

We calmed her down, and whilst hubby hit google for advice, I tried to ease the story of what happened out of her. No easy feat, as anyone who has chatted to a pre-schooler will understand. She was climbing a tree in our front yard, came inside and there was a spider on her, which bit her and she knocked it onto the floor. She is was red and black, but then changed her story and said it was gold with red and black on it.

Meanwhile hubby had done a heap of research, and we knew that if Miss 3.5 had been bitten by a red-back she'd be in serious pain by this point. She clearly wasn't. We kept her calm and under close scrutiny, but once a band-aid had been applied to the bite-mark she continued as if nothing whatsoever had happened. Okay, now with a very healthy respect for creepy crawlies, but fine nonetheless.

See here she is, just fine...

Of course, having two disasters in the space of a week (see below for visit to hospital story) has led to many many people kindly pointing out that these things happen in threes.

Weeeelll - as Sam from Bewitched used to say - actually the spider thing technically could be counted as our third disaster of the week. We did have another one. A poo disaster.

A poo disaster involving my personal nemesis - the playground equipment at McDonalds.

Many of you will remember the incident at McDonalds where Miss 3.5 took off all her clothes and refused to come down from the highest heights of the McDonalds play equipment. Full horrible story here. We do not eat Maccers much, but lately hubby was lured back by the McAngus burger.

Everything was going smoothly and so when Miss 3.5 asked to go and play I only hesitated for a split second before saying okay. Well, hubby and I finished our burgers and went to get her. Grinning from ear to ear she whizzes out of the slide and into our arms. Awww. A kodak moment.

Until I glance in the direction of her trousers, and wonder out loud to hubby, "What's that coming out of the top of her pants?" Pretty much at the same moment he says, "What's that smell?"

Oh crap.

We rush her into the bathrooms, and quickly ascertain that this is one that we're not going to fix easily. We stripped off her bottom half, bundled up the clothes and threw them in the bin - trust me, you'd have done the same thing - cleaned her as best we could, wrapped her in hubby's jacket and made a run for it.

I still have the compulsive urge to wash my hands every single time I think of it.

So. One week, three disasters. I've aged.

sigh.