Thursday, January 1, 2009

Welcome 2009!


Can you see the four children on the left, and the balloon caught in the tree, to the right?

We walked to the Oval today with our neighbour's children, carrying a basket of Hal's home made paper aeroplanes. He was hoping to fly them into the duck pond and see how they fared as flying-planes-that-are-also-boats.

The children all delighted in seeing the balloon in the tree; a remnant from someone's revelries last night. Fragile, fun, trapped and irretrievable (despite much tree shaking).

On the Eve, I stayed up beyond the witching hour, and was surprised (in our very quiet street) by all the fireworks, cheering...and running.

Yep.

Naturally, if I hadn't been looking after the blighters I'd have been out there myself. Gangs of people seemed to run to and fro, calling out good naturedly to one another. A bizarre South Australian phenomenon? As my chum Jodie pointed out, if only there'd been a good exercise bike at the party she was at, she'd have been spinning the wheels at midnight!

I shan't let you see the New Year's Eve created pin boards until they are installed in their new homes. (I am concerned that they are too fussy, but it will take hours of careful styling to be sure.)

In our new home. Our seventh in twelve years. It is just round the corner, so not a huge upheaval, but oh, so much better than our current one. Instead of falling over furniture (quite literally, quite a lot) I am wondering whether it will all look rather insubstantial in the new place.

As I do very frequently, I have been musing on the nature of my domestic life, which is transient but rich, imperfect but full of lessons...no answers, just thoughts.

We made it to the Oval today. There were too many ducks to attempt the flying plane come boat (didn't want to pose a duck threat) so the boys indulged in normal paper aeroplane flying. The girls wandered about and sang (apart from me. That would have been hazardous to the ducks.)

This afternoon we had a MAJOR clean out of the blighter's bedrooms (financial reward for the most things put in the bin or given to the Sally Army) and I scourged my wardrobe. I decided I would rather have hardly anything in there than lots of grim, old things to depress me. Some of those babies had lived in each of the 7 houses! Time to go!

Well, it's possible I'm rambling. I'm sure a rambling blog is an oxymoron, so it's time to go.