School hols

Apparently being a newly fledged teenager does not prevent you from enjoying a swing. George thinks he needs a haircut. Wombat does not. It doesn't actually look too long in this picture, but the tossing the fringe out of the eyes is a bit of an issue.

My kids claim to hate each other.

Baby Bear and Sirius on a rare sunny day. The rocket run to seed is a bit of a worry. We did eat a lot of it during the winter though, and very nice it was too. Behind Sirius's head there is healthy sage and oregano, and to the right of the disgraceful rocket is a healthy parsley plant. I am not complaining about the paucity of sun recently. It won't belong before we have six months of blazing sun and can't find a way to keep cool.

I believe Baby Bear had tidied her room before this was taken. As you can't see much of the floor it is hard to tell. She has a filing system for her clothes but it mostly involves the floor and is so arcane that an alchemist would scratch his head over it. She has had this bed since she was 2. We bought it in an antique shop in Tetbury (Gloucestershire, UK) and it is Dutch, I think. It had fallen apart last year and she had spent the time sleeping on her mattress on the floor whining that she needed a new bed. WE did look briefly at new beds in the summer but she hated them all (they were horrible, i don't blame her!) except for the expensive and huge ones that we were not going to buy her. Eventually I got sick of the situation and told her to mend her own ******* bed if she wanted one, she didn't need a new one. Being a girl with a power drill, she did just that (with some help from George), reassembled it herself, and is remarkably proud of it!!

It being the school holidays we are being busy, in between providing Wombat with the space to relax as he is exhausted from school. Baby Bear, having been off school for most of the last term with Post Viral Syndrome, is exhausted anyway, poor thing. Wombat and I have been to see 'Up', which was an utterly charming Pixar film that I cannot recommend highly enough, and are no doubt going to see less edifying films as well - he wants to see 'Shorts' and we are off to that 'shortly' (groan). Baby Bear is about to take the train to stay with her Nana for a few days. Hopefully Nana will spoil her, and teach her to sew. We bought some fabric last summer and I have been trying to summon the strength to teach her - we do not survive very well as teacher and pupil but she will listen to Nana!! So I am sending her with a skirt pattern and three lengths of fabric (which probably need rewashing and ironing as they have been lurking around since January!) and hopefully she will learn basic operations of a sewing machine over the next few days. (She does want to do this, I am not forcing her!).

We will pick her up on Sunday when we all go down. There is much excitement at the old homestead as she has just bought a house in town - 82 is getting a bit old to be living on a 7 acre property out of town that no-one will come and do the maintenance on, despite the supposed unemployment rate in town! So there is a flurry of activity (which I am avoiding as much as possible). She has been resisting the move for some time, but after last summer when she had to evacuate herself 2 or 3 times from encroaching bushfires even she has decided that it would be safer and easier. That said, I think the local estate agents were a it bemused as to why a woman her age would be wanting to buy a 4 bedroom house!!

I don't think I took any of these pictures

My beautiful children. Pity about the cross-eyed one! We were waiting for a bus to gointo town to the opening of my exhibition, of which more in another post.

Baby Bear WILL play with her food. We eat kangaroo at least once a week and for some reason it prompts her to play. The first is a kangaroo, obviously, and the second, a bass and treble clef. What can I say, she is a mad muso with a camera and a warped sense of humour!

And this to prove that my kids hate each other. Honestly, they are always fighting, and then someone catches them looking like this! Notice the tense, coiled spring of a dog as protection.