Conversation with my brother

“Yeah, Dad was going on about George Orwell, but I’d never heard of him.”
“Well, he wrote a book called ‘1984′ about this very depressing future where everyone sits in little rooms in front of big TV screens and books don’t exist - that’s where the phrase ‘Big Brother’ comes from. And he wrote ‘Animal [...]

More practice

My mum flew down for a visit over the weekend, so I spent a lot of time with camera in hand, taking photos of family and various flora and fauna that she identified for me. Mum and her partner are both Super Bird-y Garden-y Experts Extraordinaire - I go to them with all my [...]

I Remember

The morning after the funeral, I sat and wrote for a while, recording the afternoon for myself. But really, a description of 45 minutes of me crying and hugging people doesn’t make for a fascinating narrative. I thought I’d take a cue from a speech my cousin made at the funeral, which she [...]

Saying goodbye

My grandmother died yesterday. She has been in palliative care since Christmas, so it wasn’t an unexpected death.  I had been expecting my mother’s phone call for weeks.  She, in turn, had been expecting her brother’s call.  It’s only a few weeks until my grandmother’s next birthday - she would have been 93, I [...]

Overflow

I drove my Dad to the train station this morning, after having him stay with us for two weeks.  He’s heading off to China for a year, although he’ll be popping back into the country briefly after 6 months, and I was glad he was able to spend some time with us before he left.  [...]

Gardening tangent

Uninspired. Hence, links!
I wanna dress like Annie Butterfly - oh, the colours! The accessories! I tend to wear a lot of black, and I would really like to branch out into wearing more colour. I suddenly feel an urge to race off to St Vinnies and have a browse. [...]

Pobblebonk

“Hello!” I said cheerily. “I’m just calling so that you can identify a frog for me. Hang on for a minute, I’m going to hold the phone out - listen for the one that sounds like, “pok! pok!” - sort of like someone chopping wood in the distance.”
Our population of frogs have been [...]

Walking

I misplaced Prince Valiant at the beginning of the fundraising walk for juvenile diabetes that we participated in on the weekend. I made the mistake of not keep an eye on him as the enormous crowd around us, complete with balloons, children and many dogs on leashes, moved off, and when I looked up, he [...]

Final days

The dressmaker wants to make a few teeny-tiny final adjustments to the dress, and so I’m picking it up on Thursday. I hope she’s properly grateful that I’m not too neurotic, and am therefore not pitching a fit about picking up the dress two days before the wedding.
Although her perpetual vagueness has annoyed [...]

Onion free

I typed a long string of numbers into the phone’s keypad, made a mistake, sighed, and tried again. “You… have… approximately… 50… minutes,” a voice said mechanically, and then the phone began to beep loudly in my ear until the call was answered. “Hi Dad,” I said loudly. His [...]