Not for kittens

I haven’t been terribly inspired writing-wise recently. My mind’s been occupied with a project I can’t really write about here, and I’ve been focusing on other things, like my Italian CD (io parlo molto bene l’italiano!)
We spent a few hours cleaning the house on the weekend and dealing with Horace’s latest habit of pissing [...]

Attempts at decoration

I never thought that I would love being interrupted from my reading by a small kitten practicing her tight-rope walking along the back of a couch that is far too high for her. And then have to put my book down to haul her off only to discover she has dug [...]

New territory

Moving was - is - an exhausting process. I found myself flopping down on the floor at various moments during the weekend, wiping sweat from my forehead and wailing things like, “Why do I own so many candles?” and “Why have I carefully stored a Marie Claire magazine from 2005?” [...]

Cough cough cough

I went to work for an astonishing hour and a half today before being sent home. I hadn’t recovered as well as I thought I had from my weekend of feverish coughing, and my co-workers patently didn’t want me to spread the infection around, so they firmly encouraged me to leave. Not that [...]

Evenness of mind

I was scanning down the page of a garden blog, when I glanced at a photo and its accompanying caption and gasped. “It’s Eric the Pot Plant!” I exclaimed as I read the text which described the plant as Hoya australis. Mum had been questioning me as to Eric’s identity the previous day, [...]

The dangers of prawns

I seem to have upset the composting system with the addition of some prawn heads and shells two weeks ago. I pulled off the lid last night to put in some vegetable scraps, held my breath and worked fast, shaking the powder over the contents. “It’s not that bad,” said the Prince, standing [...]

What year is it again?

A new and rather Orwellian regime has been implemented here at the workplace, much to my irritation. Every outgoing phone call is now logged by new software, and must be allocated to a client’s file. Likewise every page printed from your computer, every document photocopied, anything scanned to be attached to an email. [...]

Days in the garden

I heard it begin to rain last night, at about two in the morning, thundering down on the roof. It must have been shortlived - I expected to walk out to a little flood in the backyard this morning, but everything was just damp, and the potted plants looked happy.
Many of my plants have lived [...]

Kind of organic

I woke up this morning, certain that I’d heard the alarm go off, got up and took my backpack out of the bedroom to pack my gym gear and lunch. And then I realised that it was Sunday, and I didn’t actually need to go to work. That’s what dreaming about the office [...]

The curse of the uncoordinated

I had an incredibly clumsy couple of days last weekend. As well as walking into the pointy wooden corner of the bed frame in the morning, I broke two glasses in the kitchen, one of which was half full of stale beer which went all over the floor. After cleaning the floor and [...]