Double, Double, Toil and Trouble

I was tired of the gargoyle.

blah.  have been at home, cooking and cleaning and looking after the small girl.  if this goes on much longer i will end up crazy like battery chook.

have lots of time for reading, now, though.

poor small girl is totally exhausted after her preschool adventure, and is now installed, pantsless, on the couch watching hp2 while she waits for her spiced slow-cooked lamb shanks and polenta to be cool enough to eat.  she did not want to come home when i went t pick her up this afternoon, and had to be dragged out the door.  the carers seemed pleased with her too, they all agreed that she's a crack-up.  so, all in all, the day was a great success!  hurrah!
i spent a heart-stopping amount of money on groceries and power (can't say exactly because i'm too scared to add up the receipts), but the fridge and pantry are now well-stocked (actualy, we are prepared for the apocalypse!) and to celebrate the largesse of grocery day i've made the aforementioned lamb shanks for dinner, and there is a tray of vanilla-sugared rhubarb baking in the oven for afters.  the question is, icecream or marscapone?

*sigh*
feeling a bit sad and lonely this morning.  i miss being able to visit family and friends whenever i want to :(  i should sign up for belly dance classes or something, so i can talk to real live grown-ups.  t6he only person i know up here (besides my love) has patched things up with her partner and doesn't need lifts to medical appointments, and is now far too busy to waste time with me.  ooh, bitter!  i know i'm being uncharitable, but she's cancelled several 'dates' now, and i'm feeling a bit rejected. 

good thing my daughter is such a joy to hang out with, or i'd go completely mental!

anyway, time for a shower and some proper clothes, things always seem worse when you're still in your dressinggown at this hour of the morning! 

the small girl and i had a lovely day together yesterday.  we started out at a playgroup run by the local catholic school and the small girl had a fantastic time, fitted in really quickly and easily, and behaved beautifully.  this school also runs a prechool long daycare programme on fridays, so i'm signing he up for that as well, to give her a whole day of socilising and getting out of the house (and to give me a whole day off, to catch up on housework, gardening, sewing, and sitting around reading books).  also finally managed to post off a present (a romper, locally hand screenpinted with a jolly-looking bumblebee) and card to D & A (well, the romper is for baby J, obviously), and then we headed in to Launceston for the afternoon, an outing which small girl felt required the donning of her blue tutu over the top of her jeans.  we visited the monkeys (who thankfully weren't masturbating or poo-throwing today), and played on the strange giant cushions in the mall, went to some bookshops (but failed to find anything we wanted to buy), went to some shoe shops (but failed to find nice leather boots for the girl for winter), found a wholefoods shop and succeeded in stocking up on seeds for my homemade bread mix, organic raw sugar, an assortment of dried pulses, and proper dutch cocoa (lovely dark rich red-brown that makes cadbury bournville look and taste like dust). 
today is the day for running around doing errands i forgot to do yesterday, like renewing my drivers license and getting a printout of the small girl's immunisation records for daycare.  and maybe go to spotlight with miss k (although i forget what it was i needed...)

well.
we headed out for an auction in railton this morning, hoping to pick up some feed oats and a few other odds and sods, and just as we parked the car thor got hammer-happy and the first peals of thunder rolled out.  by the time we'd signed in it was bucketing down; big, fat, very wet and apallingly numerous raindrops, so we spent a few minutes in a shed with may other damp and gently steaming farming-type people, then ventured out in a lull to investigate a few of the lots spread out in a paddock.  got caught in another downpour and spent several minutes more crouched with more people than fitted comfortably under a trailer with a tin roof (which very quickly revealed itself to be, in fact, full of holes).  decided that a hasty retreat was called for, as staying much longer would have meant swimming back to the car, and had a round-a-bout and steamy drive home via shefield to but an old cream separator.  the small girl, being only three and a half, had a lovely time playing in the rain, and quite happily danced through puddles and sang a rainy song while all the foolish grown-ups forwent this pleasure in order to stand around grumbling in the sheds.
anyway, st andrew is coming over for dinner tonight as a thank you for helping me move, and i'm feeding him marinated sesame crusted chicken drumsticks, roasted onions and potatoes, steamed greens, and then my sublimely gorgeous sticky date pudding (served, as always, with slightly more butterscotch sauce than one would think strictly necessary).

today is the day for conquering the Laundry Beast.

i'd just like to say that my daughter is awesome.  truly, she is the light of my life, and i'm really proud of the bright, stubborn, chatty, good person she's turning into.  and all the credit is not mine anymore; a gold parenting star to my love for persuading the small girl to have a nap this afternoon after i had failed dismally to do so, and for taking her for a good, long walk after she woke up.  after feeding the goats, eating her dinner, and having a bath she is now happily back in bed.  this being the case, i'm off to sand, then paint, the door frame of the new linen cupboard before having a nice, long, hot shower...

technically speaking, my thirties start today!  yay!

i had such a lovely day yesterday.  i got to sleep in until 9, and even then, i only got up to read my book on the couch until my pancakes with lemon and sugar were ready.  we pootled around the cuontryside for a few hours, then came home and i tidied up a bit before some friends dropped in for birthday drinks and tapas (made by my beloved with help from miss k, while i sat and drank a glass of wine and DIDN'T HELP AT ALL), and it was all very jolly.  i scored a book called 'the medieval art of love' from mama (many pretty pictures of garb!), kisses from the small girl (after we managed to convince her that it was not her birthday), new embroidering scissors from miss d, and the aforementioned breakfast and dinner from not_an_elf .  i is pleased.

oh, but everyone in our house is sick.  feverish and snotty and throat-raspy, and the small girl is coughing all the time.  we're off to the doctor tomorrow, and now i'm going to go and paint a big red X on the door.  where is the spray paint...