A summery winter weekend

What fantastic weather we had last weekend. I took TLM and her scooter to the beach yesterday and she played in the sand and threw long ropes of kelp into the tide. People were strolling up and down the Parade, enjoying the warm sun and indulging in ice cream - the "proper" kind that comes in a cone.

I couldn't help remembering that at $4.50 per small scoop, it probably worked out 9 times as expensive as it used to be in my younger days. But in those days you didn't get gourmet flavours so I guess it's not a fair comparison (plus, it was a heck of a long time ago).

In the meantime, TLM's seventh birthday is coming up. We're going to break with tradition and not have a party as such. Just get a few of her non-school friends together (the ones she doesn't get to see much of) and go up to the Planetarium in the evening. Hopefully it'll be a clear night and we'll all get a turn looking through the gigantic telescope.

I've already given her the first early birthday present - a mood ring. We used to have those when I was a kid. Some things are just classics I guess.

Luxury toilet paper is no luxury

When I was at primary school, the loo paper that was supplied in the kids' loos was smooth, shiny and a lot like baking paper (except we didn't have baking paper when I was at school - presumably people just baked on metal trays and washed them afterwards).

At university I joined the tramping club. It was mostly populated with geology students - rough 'n' ready sorts who initiated themselves in the chunder mile and weren't too sick to go for a hike in the woods the next day. The guys used joke about how, if there wasn't a long drop nearby, you'd have to do your business amongst the tree ferns and wipe your bottom on something leafy that wasn't bush lawyer (I forget what it's botanical name is, but you don't want to wipe your bottom with it!).

The toilet paper we buy for home is the double layer stuff. No fancy prints or crossword puzzles. No quilting, no scents. But thick and strong (and here I will refrain from jokingly referring to thick and strong individuals, whom I'm sure we can all think of) and does the job.

The loo paper at my work, though. It's airy and featherlight, delicate.

It's like Tinkerbell's loo paper (but bigger and without the sparkles).

a couple of finished projects

Possible too late now, I "finished" this cardigan. I say finished because it's got all it's bits and pieces knitted an assembled. But it isn't really finished because the front edge curls back unatractively when done up. so I will need to work on it to fix that.

This cat turned up much more successfully (although that might be just because it's so slim). It's got lots of flaws, most of which TLM has already pointed out. Like, the ears are too big, the tail seam is really obviously and has already come unstuck from the side of the body, and one arm is more muscular than the other.

Censorship madness at The Warehouse

The highlight of many of our weekends is a visit to The Warehouse (yes, we are lame). We all check out the DVDs, the boy checks out the computer games, TLM checks out the toys, and I keep up with the Rachel Hunter Collection.

This time around we selected some DVDs to buy - Disney's Fantasia 2000 and a Star Wars Clone Wars collection for TLM, and Hot Fuzz on Blue Ray for the boy.

But when we got to the counter, the sales clerk explained that sorry, he could not sell us the Hot Fuzz DVD because it's PG13 and we were clearly accompanied by a person aged under 13 years.
I replied that we had no intention of letting TLM watch this DVD - she had two new ones of her own. But the sales clerk said no.
"Okay, I'll leave her around the corner and come back alone", I offered. But he still would not be allowed to sell the DVD to boy and me, because he'd seen TLM with his own eyes.

So we walked away with only the kids' DVDs.

Crazy.

Being blobby

I've taken a week off, for the second week of the school holidays. I had a list of fun things that we were going to do together:

• visit the observatory on open night and look through the giant telescope
• make crystals
• Go see Brave
• hang

Since the weekend, we've really only managed the last one.
This is due to a combination of TLM catching yet another bug, and TLM staying up all night to read instead of going to sleep like a good girl. And it probably doesn't help that I've been a bit insomniac myself recently.

The observatory open night is tomorrow - hopefully the sky will not be completely overcast as it has been lately, otherwise we'll only get to see cloud.

The chrystal-making will depend on whether I can get hold of any copper sulphate, sodium carbonate or borax. I still remember making copper sulphate chrystals at school and how pretty they were.

As for going to see Brave, TLM already went to see that last week during her school holiday programme. Still, she could go see it a second time and not be as scared during it.

Just hanging is pretty cool though.

Paua and ginger

 Of course, this top (which I just finished knitting) would look great on someone with model-like proportions; on me it probably only looks warm and colourful.

But I really enjoyed making this and it's very comfy and if I can just pretend that I've got a narrow waist then it will all be fine.

It's got cables at front and back, and the edgings are in twisted rib.

The gory details are on Ravelry.