Hooray for Bertie Bee!

My sweetly silly ex-husband (who, I'd like to digress and point out for newbies is NOT the father of my son -- my bad) had a lot of odd sayings and habits, one of which was to call the motorbike-mounted postperson 'Bertie Bee'.

Here comes Bertie Bee! he'd chortle if he heard the buzz of the bike. And he'd caper outside for a chat with whomever was doing the delivery. Since he worked fulltime, this didn't happen often. But often enough that the postie always gave me a smile if I was in the front yard of a day.

Today Bertie Bee did himself proud. I got fantastic mail. No bills, a couple of boring thingies and two EXCELLENT parcels. Hooray!

1. KATE IS THE BOMB

I sent Kate a Buffy the Vampire Slayer comic that I picked up at a Lifeline Book Fair, as a reward for her excellent and popular Joss Whedon post. I didn't send it straight away, because I am a slack tart, and the gap between impulse and post office is often wide. I'm delighted to find that Kate is a friend of the delayed impulse. She has sent me a gift in return, which she did not have to do, but hey, we're parcel sisters now. Check it out!



There are some of her wonderful photos (thanks!), a letter, some nice wrapping... and... HEY WOW! Black knitted kittens! And a knitted bookmark (which Bumblebee has decided is actually a bed for the knitted kits and won't be persuaded otherwise)!

Black knitted cats are as hard to photograph at night as real black cats. I'm sorry about the photo quality, but if I don't blog them now, they'll never get posted (heh). Aren't they beauties? Padge thinks so.



They bring out his nurturing side.

They now live atop my computer, looking down at me as I work.



Thanks Kate, you rock!


2. DAD DOES SOMETHING WHITE



We have a longstanding family joke that I stole all of my Dad's Patrick White books when I started uni 20 years ago. Whenever Dad visited he would look at my bookshelves and mutter something about getting them back sometime. My theory is that he stole them from my youngest Auntie on my Mum's side, who is a voracious and open-minded reader, and that she gradually took them back everytime she visited. I may be totally wrong about this, but it's not totally off-base.

I have 'borrowed' many of the books on my parents' shelves, but all of my PWs are post-1980 editions, which prove that I bought them for myself. The only PW books I definitely remember my Dad owning from my childhood are The Burnt Ones and A Fringe of Leaves. And until today, that copy of FoL has been on his bookshelf.

Along with his Collected Shakespeare, I have coveted his hardback FoL, but have never dared 'borrow' it because it looked so distinctive. When I visited the AP the other day I admired her shelf of Patrick White hardbacks -- nearly all first editions. (None of them are signed, but she does have a few letters from him!) I also noticed that her copy of FoL was the same as Dad's.

I mentioned this to Dad the other day on the phone whilst telling him about the Patrick White Reading Circle. He went and got his copy, and discovered that yes, indeed, it is a first edition. Not a pristine one: a bit shaggy around the edges, but well read (mostly by me!).

And today it arrived in the mail. Shucks, Dad. I'll re-read it and love it and care for it. And we'll know I haven't stolen it. xxx