Notes from the side of a volcano

It's 7.30am on Saturday and I sat down to quickly check my emails, to see who in the US was trying to contact me while I slept.

I've been sitting at my desk for five minutes and already I have accumulated (courtesy of Daughter-Two):

- one marble

- one book with a large ruler in it as a bookmark

- one pair of scissors

- 1 piece of printer paper with a hole cut out of it (where a badge was made for Daughter-One and posted under her door as she won't emerge for hours)

- 1 drawing

Sometimes I feel that if I sat at my desk long enough and did not do my usual gathering up of stuff and tossing it on the floor/returning it to its rightful place I would disappear under a mountain of paper and junk. Only the faint sound of typing would be heard from underneath. (Actually, that sounds quite peaceful ... )

I am also defragging the hard drives, not having too much faith in the supposed scheduled defrags that Vista is supposed to run. And it seems I may have been right judging by how long the defrag is taking ( 12 hours and counting ....)

Although it is Saturday I am on my own (having had them here 24 hours a day for the past two weeks due to the school holidays). Bernard has gone to Cambridge to go out to dinner with his parents and uncle. Since my mother is away in England and Daughter-Two would not take kindly to a strange babysitter in a strange place I am left here. (I suppose I could have left them with my Dad and she could have discussed science till late at night ..)

Bernard always used to say "I owe you one", but has stopped recently. Perhaps he has realised that if  actually did add up all the days he "owed me" (from weekends spent at Foo Camp,  time spent in Wellington, evening rugby matches and to trips to Australia to follow the rugby with his brothers) I would be able to say "see you" and take off to Paris for several months.

Yes, I am in a bad mood. Yesterday I achieved nothing. I lost two hours of work when my PC shut down for no reason and for once (for complicated reasons) I hadn't saved what I was working on. The first time I haven't been saving religiously as I work and that happens. And the worst thing is, I KNEW it was going to happen but just ignored that inner voice.

Still, it was not as bad as last Tuesday. Ever had one of those days were you just know everything is going to go wrong? I should have definitely cancelled Tuesday.

I woke to the sound of the dog whining in his crate at the crack of dawn, but kept drifting in and out of sleep. By the time I dragged myself up, my nose was assailed by an unmistakeable stench. Nothing like scrubbing poo out of dog crate to put you in a good mood for the day.

Daughter-Two got up and asked if she could watch her "Planet Science" programme (saved on MySky ie TiVo) but it was gone - along with all our other saved programmes that we hadn't got around to watching yet. Worse, it would no longer let us record anything new so I had to call up the helpdesk and to a total system reset.

Daughter-Two then said "whoops" and spilt all her juice on the floor.

Daugter-One had arranged to go out to Henderson to meet her best friend, who now goes to school out west but remains close thanks to the wonders of the internet. As a treat for Daughter-One I said I would take them both on the train. This should be a seamless operation, since buses to the train station leave every few minutes from the end of our street. We caught the bus OK, but made the fatal mistake of choosing to get off at the bus stop AFTER the train station instead of the one just before it. Which normally wouldn't  matter except the whole side of the road was being dug up, the bus stops were all barricaded off with cones and that bus just kept on going. And going, and going ... By the time it let us off we were a 20 min walk from the train station and it was raining.

In Henderson we found ourselves in a horrible box of a mall full of teenage mothers, swaggering gangsta wannabes and schoolchildren on a YMCA holiday programme being chased by minders yelling "if yous don't come back here, yous'll be in trouble".

Daughter-one and I high-tailed it out of there in the next train, got home and refused to leave the house again that day.

I did manage to scrap one day this week:

 

And don't forget, the Designer Digitals quarterly sale has already started - with every regular item marked down 30%!!

Here's what is new in store:

 

 

 

Seven

 

Finding that hard to believe!

She woke up bright and early on her birthday morning, but thankfully followed the written instructions not to get up till her clock said 7am.

Bernard and I had been out till late the night before at the Lucinda Williams concert and I didn't want to spend her birthday yawning.

She loved her presents (especially the interactive talking Wall_E) which had come all the way from DisneyWorld in my luggage. She spent the day drawing him pictures of Eve or making him little lego Eve figures. (When she placed the drawing in front of him he "scanned" it and then said "Eeeeevaa". Well, there was a one in four chance!)

We popped down to Newmarket to change the English pounds that came in her birthday cards from her great-Aunt and great-Gran, and to do a quick shop for party food. Then Bernard's mother and father arrived for lunch. A slight hitch when Nana gave her a birthday card that read "Guess who's SIX!". You would think that would be enough to set out a total brain malfunction in a hyperlexic (ie number and letter obsessed) child ("Does not compute, does not compute...") but it turned into a good joke when she decided Nana was playing a trick on her.

Then it was time for the Fairy Party at the Fairy Shop in Ponsonby. Not a cheap option, but we don't splash out on much else and it's definitely the no stress option compared to having a party at home. Or so you would think .......

The standard party size is 10 children. I whipped up some very professional looking invites in PS using some of Katie Pertiet's fairy graphics, and passed them out to 9 selected girls in Daughter-Two's class about 10 days before the party. Her special friends in the class are a few Chinese and Indian girls, and they were all very excited about the party before the end of term.

But by a day before the party only three parents had contacted us to say they could come - and one of those cancelled later when the chicken pox hit. Another three had called to say they would be out of town on that day (always a problem with a holiday birthday). So I set Bernard the task of ringing the others to see what was happening. Well, one was also sick with the chicken pox that has cut a swatch through the class. And whenever he called the others they would answer in Chinese, say "sorry not speak English" and hang up.

Next year I shall get the invites translated!

So three hours before the party I grabbed the shcool phone directory and had him ring the (English speaking) parents of three girls that were in her class last year and tactfully invite them to please make up the numbers.

Which they did, and had a ball:

 

Here's the birthday girl before the party:

 

 

Then, despite strict "no food" instructions, they bought out a little fairy tea party. Luckily it was just juice and little marshmallows, which at least don't contain dairy. I didn't really want a little fairy with hives.

So that was her birthday.

Today we took her, plus Daughter-One and Tosh the dog to Bethells Beach, which was total dog heaven. Both Daughter-One and Tosh came home wet and covered in sand.

Here's what new this week in store at Designer Digitals:

 

 

This week I lifted Ali Edwards for the Big Ideas blog:

By lunchtime yesterday I had already taken the dog for a walk, dressed Daughter-two in Easter-suitable attire, been to the supermarket and baked a batch of gluten-free, dairy-free muffins so we had something to take to a family lunch.

Then we drove in convoy with Bernard's mum and dad out to Kingseat in the countryside (past the old Kingseat psychiatric hospital - "drop me off" I said, but it has now been turned into a "haunted tours" venue).

Our destination was the large house and garden belonging to one of Bernard's cousins who was having an 80th birthday party for her mother (Bernard's aunt). Apparently she used to look after Bernard when he was little but he has no memory of her. In fact, contact seems to have been lost with that side of the family when he was little so the afternoon was spent meeting first cousins of whom he had no knowledge (some of whom live five minutes down the road from us, it turns out).

Daughter-two didn't care about any family politics, but had a great time running around with the little kids and nearly falling into the ornamental ponds. Then she suddenly appeared at our side looking very pale and said she had a headache and wanted to go home. She seemed to have a fever, so we put her in the car and started to drive home, but five minutes into the trip she threw up. I tried to get her to lean back in her car seat, but when she tried she started screaming "my neck, my neck!". By the time we were nearing home, 15 minutes later, she was drifting away and her eyes were rolling up in her head. I was trying to support her head while convincing Bernard we needed to take her straight to Starship (Children's Hospital) after we stopped at home and I ran up the steps to throw some food at the dog and pack a hospital bag (something I can do in two minutes flat).

When we got there we were seen by a nurse who managed to convince Daughter-two (who was curled up in a fetal ball by this point) to take some Pamol, then we had to wait for hours to see a doctor. Daughter-Two threw up again, then slowly seemed to recover. So by the time the doctor called us, she was able to stand up and walk towards her and say "I'm fine" when asked how she was (gee, thanks darling). Although she did then negate her reply by sinking to the floor and then throwing up copiously all over the doctor's chair.

However, vomit aside, by this point it was clear she was recovering and she could also move her neck again without pain. So they had no answers other than the "it's a virus" (possibly and/or a UTI). Trouble is, they wouldn't let us go home but neither would they give her a bed so the poor thing had to sit there for another two hours occasionally throwing up until they got the test results (inconclusive, more tests being done later) and did the paperwork. Finally we got home just past her bedtime.

Because we had been at the family lunch, I had my camera with me. But it felt too heartless to be taking photos of her when she was really sick. This is when she was "better" and waiting to go home:

 

This morning (Sunday) she woke up at the crack of dawn, still with a fever but happy as a lark. She was even able to hunt for the dairy free chocolate the Easter bunny had left AND even eat a little!

 

 

 

I have always tutted at people who take their kids to the ER for simple childhood bugs and illnesses, but that was seriously scary. I have never seen anyone get SO sick so fast, and wouldn't have thought it possible.

Anyway, speaking of Easter, there are new goodies in the store at Designer Digitals:

 

 

 

 

 

Some layouts:

 

 

 

I've been trying to get a good night's sleep for days, but there seems to be a conspiracy against me.

The first attempt, I had a very restless night. I kept having odd, vivid dreams about cats. First, a mangy kitten that I discovered behind my sofa. Then a dream that I was living in an old house and found a Siamese cat and her kitten trapped behind the wall, which I had to smash a hole in so I could rescue them.

Then I got up and discovered Daughter-One had shut the cat in the hall all night. Obviously I was too tired for his miaows to wake me up but they did filter into my dreams.

Then, last night, I tried going to bed early but was woken by the dog (who sleeps in a crate in the hall) at 4am. I got up to get a drink of water and was standing in the dark in the kitchen when the cat came barrelling through the cat flap with a huge clatter and a yowl like a creature from the underworld. (No doubt being chased by some neighbourhood enemy). I found it a little difficult to get back to sleep after that.

Still, we had a busy weekend. On Saturday we went up to Mt Eden road, which was having a market day.

 

 

 

In case you are worried for my safety, the guy on the left gave me a big, beaming smile immediately after I took that photo.

The pilot in the background of the next photo never smiled though - just stared. Something tells me he isn't a REAL pilot despite the sexy uniform. I wonder if he wears it to bars? Can imagine the women asking "oh, are you a pilot? Which airline do you fly for?", "Oh no, I just dress up as one and stand around for hours outside Flight Centre shops ...". As impressive jobs for  grown men go it doesn't really .. fly, does it?

 

There were cats (of the freaky stuffed variety) haunting my waking hours as well as my dreams:

 

And we went sneaking about behind the shops and found this, which is kind of sad:

 

 

Today was wonderfully sunny, and we went for a picnic on Bastion Point - which, all through my younger years was constantly on the news because of this:

 

 

But is much more peaceful these days:

 

 

And because it was SO warm and sunny, Bernard, Daughter-Two and I decided to go to the beach where even I swam in the sea (which is pretty incredible for April)

Daughter-Two's swimming togs have died so she had to wear a flouro pair from goodness knows where (a hand-me-down to her sister from someone years ago I think). And before the New Zealanders reading this suck in their breath in outrage, it was 3pm and she was smothered in sunblock! Still funny to see her at the beach in this though - we are so used to UV protection rash tops and shorts.

 

The new items for this week are in the store at Designer Digitals: