Treasure #1

forgotten in my camera until  just now
the Morning Moon, 16 May 2014 @ 0811, from the kitchen looking west

Minecraft. It's hell in there.

It's school holidays.  And Milo's been watching endless videos about the possibilities of Minecraft on the computer as opposed to the limitations of Minecraft on the iPad.  So we did a deal.  If he promised (pinkie swore) to eat his veggies (not bok choy or butternut pumpkin, but everything else) and not to groan when asked to do things and very importantly didn't enter the multiplayer zone (I am eagle eyed) I would download the computer version of the game.

So the deal was done.  I downloaded the game.

But there's a problem with the expletive (and you know by that I mean a short word starting with "f") code.  And I don't know how to fix it.

THIS IS HELL.

So instead of having a relaxing afternoon while Dad has taken Milo to the opening of an envelope, or an exhibition, or some such, I am going to be doing battle with something about which I know more than nothing and I will more than likely be very cross.

Glad there will be no-one around to know that the usually very sunny and lovely me has a very dark and angry side.

Ah...oops!

It's been a while but the place hasn't changed a bit...

I'm reading Milo a marvellous book at the moment about Molly Moon who everyone knows has amazing hypnotic abilities.  BUT, in this instalment, she learns how to time travel.

The cover depicts Petula the Pug and Petula the Pug puppy from the past.
It's an inter-dimensional adventure and we like that sort of thing before we go to sleep.

And strangely, as I clicked on the little, much overlooked bookmark button marked PSH (Porter Street House) at the top of my screen I felt just like Molly clutching her red time travel crystal when I saw that my last entry was 12 September 2012!  WHAT THE FLIPPIN' HECK DO YOU MEAN 12 SEPTEMBER 2012?!?  How can that be?  What have I been doing?  Where has the time gone?  What's going on here? 2012? 2-0-1-2?

Once I smoothed my hair and reinstated my teeth, I realised it's been an oh my heavens non-stop, drama-filled 24 months between then and now.  And as I sit on the not-so-white-as-it-was-in-the-last-post-sofa, due to a whole raft of reasons, many of which are upheavals which aren't the most jolly (so one wouldn't really want to broadcast details right now without the risk of floods ensuing) there are a whole lot of exciting changes afoot.

So thanks to W, who herself has just begun to blog, and was the inspiration for my pressing of the PSH button, I am reminded I can come here and chat and tell.

So now the ice is broken, I promise to be back.  And maybe I'll actually say something next time.  Who knows.... Ooooo!

Meccano Dreamin'

When I was little, around six I guess, my brother, who was eight had a Meccano set.  I thought it was the coolest thing in the whole damn world.  And I wasn't allowed to play with it. I don't think I was even allowed to look at it sideways.

Was it because it wasn't a girl's toy, or was it just that Hec wanted to have some stuff that was just for him:  something my meddling little mitts wouldn't get all into.  Whatever the reason, it was strictly out of bounds.  And I don't remember EVER crossing the line into the forbidden territory.

About 36 years later, I was in a toy shop in Athens pondering what to get Milo for his third birthday.  It had to be something light, something that could be transported easily back to Australia.  Something durable, something deconstructable. Something either age appropriate or something he could grow into... SOMETHING MECCANO!

And so it came to pass that Milo got his first set.  And the first time he played with it, was with Hec.  I think they made the helicopter.  Sure its components aren't metal.  Sure it doesn't have any mechanical bits or engines or pulleys or strings or anything, but still, it's 21st century Meccano.  And that's Meccano none the less.

Today, Milo is a few months shy of turning six, and after school he pulled the bag of bits out of the drawer in his bedroom and asked me to help him assemble the car.  So we did.  He located the parts, I did the construction.

By the time we'd finished we were both too stuffed to even look at the thing.  But the point is we did it.  And together.  And in doing so I fulfilled a dream.

Where did that year go?

It's been a long, cold winter since the last time I wrote. This whole year, actually, has been a long, cold winter.  But with the arrival of this September, little glimpses of sunshine have broken through the chill.  So maybe spring will spring soon.  And maybe this long, cold winter will come to an end.

It's a week short of twelve months since I last wrote anything about the house at Porter Street.  And funnily enough, just yesterday I found myself digging and planting without gloves, which is what my last blog entry was about.  How curious that the universe led me tonight to click on my blog, when it has been so distant from my radar for the last 51 weeks.  

I think I didn't write because I lost sight of inspiration as we settled into preparations for our first full summer in the House at Porter Street.  It was our first full summer with our oddly merged family and its sometimes straining dynamic trying to make sense of itself.

It feels like I can't really say what happened to the summer which took us from 2011 to 2012.  But if I try, I can.  There was swimming in the pool.  

There were blue tongue lizards in the garden.  

There was a wicked storm on Christmas Day that kept our beloved visitors trapped here with a thunderous light show over the valley and torrential, driving rain that was almost more exciting than Father Christmas, his avalanche of presents and all the food we'd consumed throughout the day.  

There was our sunflower.

There was preparation for Milo starting school in February, and then the adjustment to the new paradigm as my baby and I went from constant companions to mummy missing her school boy (with giant schoolbag) having a whole life away from me for six and half hours a day, five days a week.

It all felt like a revolution. Life was happening, and we were all swept up in the fullness of it.

And then the world as we knew it ended.  6.42am on 9 March, 2012.  Because that's when Evie rang to tell me that my brother had just died.  My dearest, darlingest, one and only brother.

And so, right in the midst of a blazing hot summer, when everything seemed to be happening with nothing going on, there began the longest, coldest winter.

Dirt under the finger nails.

The sun shone today, so out into the domain of the spiders and snails did we venture.

A colony of snails, discombobulated by our 

turning of their soil, decided to pack up their 

houses and leave.

Equipped with bags of soil, rescued pots, an assortment of tools, seeds, seedlings and a pair of gardening gloves for each of us we took upon us the task of making a start on our herb garden.


We planted:  mint, oregano, parsley, purple carrots (!), coriander, marigolds and chives.


After much hauling of the extremely sodden soil we'd just bought, heaving of prickly pots, hoeing, digging, root tickling and watering I felt I'd earned the right to stand back and admire the fruits of our three hours hard labour...  

...and realised that the fruits weren't visually that impressive after all.  But it's a start, and that's the main thing.


Besides, we found a hoe in the garden, and how often can you say that?

Something funny happened on the way...

You don't even want to know what's been happening at the House at Porter Street on the way from the last post to today.


Suffice to say, there's been a concussion, a household insurance claim, motor insurance claim, a drowned computer, a new computer coupled with a corrupted  back up, shattered crockery, a badly bruised foot and an unwelcome mauling of our weekend papier mache fun by some rampant, bad mannered possums.  (I say bad mannered because they left a calling card in the shape of faeces on the terrace table in case we didn't know it was them.)


I live in hope that writing this now draws a line beneath the horrors that have been the last few weeks.


And we can move on.


The chook shed is being demolished on Thursday (weather permitting) and the remaining garden stumps ground out as well.  I'll let you know how we go.