The Good Life

What a joy to be back home in my own dear house on a sparkling autumn day. Posy was up half the night deciding whether to be sick or not, so she spent her first day of the school term at home, sleeping in (nice for some), pottering about with her lego and her drawing, and having me read to her. When I was allowed off duty I went to visit my garden. There was an enormous storm the afternoon that I left for the funeral, and I was told in awed tones about the hail that was so thick that the kids in the street rolled it into hail balls to throw, and made hailmen. Luckily by that time I was in Melbourne, where it was raining, not hailing, otherwise I may have refused to set foot in another plane, and never got to the funeral at all.

Anyway, upon inspection, all my large leaved plants - the brassicas, the rhubarb - looked like they had been slashed with shards of glass. Some of the lettuce seedlings didn't survive. And, like the Whomping Willow in the Harry Potter movie, the big pear tree and my golden silver birch had lost all their leaves in one fell swoop. So I had a lovely afternoon raking the leaves off the lawn and onto the garden beds, and sniffing in lungfuls of essence of damp-autumn-leaf., which is very restorative after plane travel.

One of the nice moments of being away was meeting the darling new baby of my very dear cousin. He was Grandpa Ken's tenth great-grandchild, and only five weeks old. I know I don't really do craft, but I do occasionally knit, and I had made him a wee hat. Unfortunately, it was one of those patterns that requires a particular yarn, without specifying the ply, and I also don't really do tension squares, so the hat turned out a bit large, but I am hoping his little head will fatten up before the end of winter.

There is also a slightly bigger sister, and a brother, slightly bigger again. We all know how annoying it is when other people get presents and we don't, so I did a little more knitting. The cousins have real chickens in their backyard, but I made some inside chickens, for when it's raining.

These are seriously the easiest knitting projects ever. A square of plain knitting, folded over in a triangle, stuffed and sewn up. A little embroidery for beak and comb, a button for her to stand on. My children have a number of these in their farm set, because they are easier to knit than sheep and donkeys..

So having celebrated the end of a life, and the beginning of one, I am back in the garden, enjoying the middle (I hope) of a very nice life indeed.