Back in the saddle

Morning!*

Best Beloved turned out to have an infected root canal, which is going to cost an arm and a leg to fix. Still, the nice dentist drained it all yesterday (much to the distaste of the poor gagging assistant) and he is today riding his bike to work again, albeit a sadder and sorrier bear.

Bumblebee has come back from an extended weekend with The Albatross, having been drifting along the Georges river in a vessel and bumping into bridges. For some reason that puts a large smile on my face, despite my initial alarm at the thought of mixing boats with children.

I myself am counting the hours until Friday, when I will be queuing up at Paperchain to make the acquaintance of Garth Nix and hopefully get a signed hot fresh copy of Superior Saturday. I am under strict orders from his mother, a friend and fabulous papermaker, to make myself known to him, since she and I will be working on a little handmade book next year using one of his short stories.

Also on Friday, straight after the meeting of Garth, is the opening of sculptor Jan Brown's retrospective exhibition at Canberra Museums & Galleries (CMAG). More than twenty years of her good work (including my new book if you're interested in seeing it for yourself). More birds than you can poke a stick at, and she does wonderful, deceptively simple drawings. It's about time her work was presented on such a large scale. I'm really looking forward to it.

OK, time to get out of the jim jams and wend my way to work -- on my bicycle. Actually, I'm staying home today. Bumblebee just woke up all pale and snuffly. He had quite a severe and scary chest pain last night around dinnertime that scared the bejeesus out of him (and me, just quietly) so I think we're going to have a Mental Health Day today and stay in our pyjamas and watch old movies etc. No-one's going to miss us.




*snaps to Morbid Anatomy for the image (the original caption is 'nude on a bike'). I seriously love that blog, but it's not for the faint-hearted...