Overindulgence achieved (warning: overuse of brackets ahead)

I've had Christmas.



Truly I have, but not in the 'I'm so over this capitalist pig-fest' sense; I've actually had my Christmas Day, done and dusted, and now I can just sit back and watch the rest of the western world go crazy for a week. It's a great feeling.

We went down to Colonel & Lady Duck's prickle farm and had our day on Saturday, since on Wednesday this week Bumblebee heads off for three weeks with his father (we take turns having Christmas access; the one who misses out gets the next Easter).

When we do this, the day is so authentic that the 'real' Christmas Day feels wrong. This year we waited until 3pm to start festivities, since my godmother auntie was driving down from Wollongong to join us. At the dot of 3, the bubbly was popped, the presents were doled out, and the yummies began, starting with a hug pile of prawns and oysters and lemon-cooked tuna (as in not cooked, but marinated in lemon juice all day). Scrabble was played, stomachs were rubbed gently in front of a late night screening of Tim Minchin (better than the Queen's speech) and a good time was had by all. Especially Bumblebee, who not only scored an iPod Touch out of us all collectively, but extra stuff as well because everyone secretly (and stoopidly) felt like their portion of a tiny appliance wasn't enough and bought him various other things. DOH.

My present pile included a ukulele (a Tanglewood tenor, for those who care), chocolates, a pair of shoes and some clothes, a Scrabble mug (heh), lots of books (including Best Poems of 2011) and a book voucher (Colonel Duck and I exchange vouchers for most occasions). I also got a beautiful carved wooden illuminated cap C that I should be able to use on my press. Lovely!

I overindulged so much that on the way home yesterday I had to stop at Nimitabel (the small hamlet at the top of Brown Mountain) to hurl my guts at the nearest clump of grass near the car door (I wanted to make it to the portaloo, but I just couldn't get there), much to the interest of a couple of dogs picnicking nearby. I haven't done that for YEARS, must have been the lunchtime bourbon & cola UDL (left over from the office xmas party: see below). :)

Ah yes, we also had Best Beloved's office Christmas party at our house (he told me three days before). I skulked in my studio for most of the time, until the real fun started: Mean Santa. It's a Kris Kringle type of affair, with everyone buying a random present for around $10, but then all the wrapped presents are put in the centre and all the participants pick a number out of a bowl. Number 1 gets to pick and unwrap a present. First choice! But no... number 2 gets to pick & unwrap, and then decide if they prefer their choice or the other opened present, and they can take it if they want. And so forth, with each person getting the choice of all the presents that have already been opened. So the best number to get is the last one, because you then have the full gamut of presents to choose from.

I enjoyed the deviousness of some of the presents, bought by people who have played before. One was an ARRRRRR bra (that's the noise we all made when we saw it) which made all the ladies laugh but the men were reluctant to even touch it. Another was a bunch of lottery scratchy tickets -- very smart, because it was indeed such a gamble. Did you take that over a $10 Koko Black chocolate voucher? Would you be left with a bunch of useless bits of paper and a longing for lost chocolate or would you be a millionaire who could buy all the chocolate you wanted? MWAH HA HA HA HA HAAAAAA...

They had a big BBQ (once we ran down to the shops to get a new gas bottle. So hard to tell how much gas is left in them!) and one of Best Beloved's authentic puddings. We had one on Saturday too, and there's one left for next Sunday, that we'll eat with the cats and a few human strays, which will be our only Xmas effort. Oh dear, that sentence makes me sound like a cannibal who has cats for entree. But you all know what I mean.

So hopefully the next week is going to be lovely and relaxed with some quality studio time and a lot of lolling, in the traditional, prone sense.

There's been a little bit of rushing around getting things together for another reason. Two years ago we flirted with the idea of sending Bumblebee to the local private high school and when he didn't get in (they had a bumper waiting list that year) he went happily to the local public school and we just got on with life. The private school is closer than the public school, which is really why we thought we'd apply, plus the fact that we'd been REALLY cranky with his half-arsed primary school (which HAD been one of the best primary schools in the area until the last 2 years of his time there).

Anyhoo, a week ago we were called by the school to say that there were vacancies in the year 9 intake, were we still interested, and if we were we had three days to accept. GAH! Emergency family meeting. As much as B enjoyed the social life at his current school, we've been less than happy with the school and its organisational skillz. Plus the fact that it's headlined the local news twice this year, once for a girl-bully knife fight in the middle of the school yard and once for a Hep-A outbreak in the school canteen that resulted in lots of people needing immediate vaccination.

Also, B had fallen in love with the private school's facilities when he did the tour a few years ago. They cater really well for both kinds of students, the academic sort and the vocational sort, with a full commercial kitchen, mechanics workshop, great library, and a school intranet that actually works (the one for his current school SUCKS, despite it being the 'new, improved' version). When we pointed out that he's not moving cities, that his friends will still live a short bike ride away and that he'll still see them on the bike path every day, Bumblebee became quite interested in giving this new school a chance. Plus we gave him a promise that if he gets to the end of the year and he's miserable and hates the school, he can go back to his old school. We mean it. The other option is he just does year 9 and 10 there, and goes to the public college which is even closer again to our house.

So we said yes, and that means big changes next year for all of us, including budgets and belt-tightening. We went in today to have another look at the school, and I was really pleased to see B bouncing out of the place enthusiastically, so I hope he does enjoy it. The uniform is in his favorite Sith colours: black and red, which sweetens the deal. The official list says 'in winter, you can wear a scarf, but it must be black': BUMMER!




So happy Christmas preparations to you, may it all be sweet and simple.
Don't forget to wrap your cat (thanks Elephant's Child!)

Charming.

Best Beloved has been away this week. He's gone off to northern America, skipping through various parts of the US and Canada for work. Most of it is meetings, but he gets a day here & there to see things, and he's an expert speed tourist, so he'll cram a lot into a day. Last weekend he went to the Getty Museum in LA, and last I heard was looking forward to the Smithsonian in Washington DC.

I took Bumblebee back to Colonel Duck's farm to see Lily the lamb, who is nice and fat these days.



The tree that they are sitting under is very typical of the area, it's an apple gum (I think, from memory) and they cover the slopes here. When the wind blows (and it blows A LOT), limbs come down, so I don't tend to spend a lot of time under them, having been emotionally scarred by poor Judy's death in my childhood.



Back at home again, there's been no real food in the fridge, since I've been away from the markets for two weekends and I don't count Woolworths as a provider of real food. Nearly every night has been a non-cooking night:

Monday I had to assess over 40 students for their complimentary courses of either book, etching or screenprinting (we three teachers combine as a panel and do all of our students together), so I was absolutely buggered and couldn't do anything but buy fish & chips.

Tuesday my lovely Dr Sista Outlaw was in town and staying with me while she attended (for her work) the opening of the National Museum of Australia's heartbreaking Inside exhibition. Her job at the moment is working on the NSW arm of the new Find and Connect website. So at the end of that day we went around to my local yumspot, Wilburs, and had pizza and wine (well, she drank, I'm off grog for the month or so) and caught up with Zoe.

Wednesday was a bit of a lost day, spending most of it with Dr SO and an old friend of hers, and then hosting my regular fortnightly scrabble-dumpling soiree. It's a great night: people bring packets of frozen dumplings and whatever they want to drink, and eventually we play scrabble, or not, or read poems, play chess, watch Spicks&specks, whatever the dynamic of the night wants to do, as the mix of people is always very different, depending who I've talked to that week or who gets brought along. This time we had a couple of fellows at the start, but they had to run off, so we ended up with seven women who all wanted to play scrabble and have a good natter at the same time, so we put two boards out and pooled all the letters and had a big single game. It was very civilised, really. You could choose either board in your turn, and both boards were used quite equally. Lots of dumplings steamed & eaten, lots of good conversation.

Thursday was again a not-studio day. I yearn for the studio, but sometimes it just has to wait its turn. I had to ride my bike into the city to meet up with the other people involved in the ArtsACT Artists-in-Schools Residency this year. I rode because most of the city was pretty chaotic with the visit by POTUS (or Barack Obama to you non-acronyming non-Canberrans) whom I completely missed seeing, because I'm never at the right moment at the right time for anything like that. I was in Bega when the Queen visited too. I did hear all the planes and helicopters yesterday, but that's as close as I got to the action. The meeting was great fun - we all got to tell stories of our early childhood teaching encounters and give feedback about the grant stuff.

After that I went home and did some intensive gardening, pulling out a small tree (I'd noticed the same tree in other people's gardens around the corner and NO WAY was I letting it get that big, ever) and doing lots of weeding.

Oh -- and throughout most of this activity was the ongoing stoooooory (in Muppet tones) of Bumblebee's homework. More like SAGA. He had has two major assignments due, and the first finally got done (it was like pulling teeth), with the second one more enthusiastically tackled when suddenly we discovered a THIRD one that had been forgotten and was a day overdue when remembered. ACTION STATIONS. We (WE) got it done, and now he's back to researching the Samurai era, which is much more fun than creating a travel brochure for Rwanda (DON'T GO THERE, he put on the front, after looking up DFAT's current travel advice for the country :) )

So, Thursday. Oh yes, in the evening I went to Megalo's African Famine Fundraiser night, where lots of very good art was for sale to raise funds for CARE, to be matched dollar-for-dollar by the Aust Govt. The speeches were amazing: Jon Stanhope, looking very well and fit, talking about Human Rights and the Arts; a speaker from CARE, who realised she was banging on a bit by about the 6th page of her talk and cut it down quickly, but I was actually completely engrossed in her statistics and facts... more people then the entire population of Canberra living in one refugee camp, among other shocking things. And then another young woman (I am SO BAD with names) speaking really eloquently about our capacity to engage with these events when they are ignored by mainstream media, and how to incorporate a charitable sensibility into your everyday life without giving in to periodic guilt (in other words, how to help consistently, rather than reacting to emergencies). She was amazingly good. I hope Megalo made a decent amount for the fundraiser. I bought an Alison Alder screenprint, called Drought, which seemed very fitting.

Today... I have to run around some more, but I'm hoping the weekend will be studio-based. The cats keep nagging me to go in there, because they like to watch me work (eyes like whips, the two of them). Actually, poor Pooter hasn't been 100% well this week. On Sunday night he came down with a raging fever, all limp and droopy and off his food, with red-hot paws and ears. I put him on the bed beside me, and slept lightly, checking on him, and by morning the fever had broken and he was bright-eyed and demanded FOOD, and lots of it. Phew! I was all gooey over him until yesterday, when he pooed in the bath. Charming.

Checking in

It was only when Colonel Duck nagged me on the phone tonight that I realised how long it's been since I blogged. I feel light years away from the calm of the farm (say that out loud), pictured above. I have got some more photos, as promised, here.

Since then I've been... hmm, what have I been doing? I've been sucked into my lovely studio space, that's what I've been doing. I've been doing all sorts of interesting things, like helping people print their book pages, and starting my two broadside residents off in their new printing adventure, and teaching a book class at Megalo with an excellent bunch of people, and having lots of people visiting and staying and playing. It's been good fun, and it's actually my work. How lucky am I?

Sorry, I'm keeping this short, mainly because I've had a long day and I can't remember most of the things I wanted to blog. When I can remember them, I'll check back in!

Live to you from Farmville

This is such a good holiday, although there's a lot to remember. I have a big long list of things to do at particular points of the day, and as I type I realise that I have forgotten to feed the fish for the last couple of days.

*feeds fish, who don't seem very grateful but perhaps they're shy*

So. Here I am, at the Duck prickle farm, with Lily the poddy lamb and all the rest of the sheepy family. Lily comes from another farm, and was adopted because her mother had rejected her (stomping harshly on her in the process and leaving her with a deformed ear) and her owners were going away. She's a dear little thing.



This is Lily, along with her best mate Lucky. Lily is trying to drink her bottle and Lucky is trying to get me to throw the ball for him. Because I'm a woman, I managed to do both things at once.



This was taken by Colonel Duck before he went travelling up the coast and left me in charge.

We're trying to persuade Lily that she's a sheep, so she spends most of the day with the mob (apparently a 'flock' is smaller than a 'mob', and since the number of sheep has doubled in the last few weeks, it's now a mob) but once you're a poddy animal you're always yearning to be with the humans, so I've been letting Lily come & play with the dogs every now and again. She loves a good scratch under the chin, and between her horns and down her long Roman nose, and as she feeds she stops to butt me in the same way that the other lambs headbutt their mothers' udder, then once she's finished she jumps on my back joyously. I hope she grows out of that bit; she'll be heavy once she grows up!

She's the middle child of the new generation. There are two rams just about a week older than her, and a pair of new lambs, a boy and a girl, who were born on Monday, and they are the cutest little things. (I will post more photos when I get home, because I'm a bit scared of blowing the teeny web quota this farm possesses). They all have very long tails, and as they feed, the tails spin around like cranked handles, winding up their energy.

I'm completely enamoured of my live animal experience. I'm used to the wonderfulness of cat company, but sheep company is another thing entirely; the warm milk-covered snuffliness of Lily's nose and the soft nibble of her lips on my fingers, the slightly greasy rough yet soft feel of her nubbly short fleece and the pointy poke of her cloven hoofs against my foot and up my spine. She has long white eyelashes and her eyes are too dark to show her sideways pupil clearly, but as I feed her I look over at the other sheep (who stand nearby, comfortable yet disdainful of me as a human) and their bright yellow eyes with a horizontal black pupil remind me that we don't have to look far for a sense of something being alien.

My nana is the most present person I've ever known. She doesn't dwell on the past, never has done, really, and I while I know that much of this sense of being in the moment is due to her dodgy old memory, she's always had the knack of being perfectly comfortable with just being wherever she is, spending all her time with her plants, her animals, her books and the tv. She's not a particularly social person and I've never known her to have a friend outside of her family, but she's content in her own space, not antisocial.

It's been nice having the time & space to talk to her. While my dad's parents used to come and visit us when we were living in various places, including overseas, she & my grandfather (papa) never did. Papa went overseas with WWII but nana never made it, and I asked her if she regretted this.
"No," she said, "I probably would have done if I'd lived in a different time; when I was a child all I wanted to do was travel and see lots of things, but then I met your grandfather & started having babies [4!] and life just kept going. But when I was a child we didn't have tv and movies, and now I feel like I've seen so much in my life through books and movies and magazines that I don't think I really missed anything."

Imagine if she'd got into the internet!

The other thing she's said that sticks with me is when I mentioned that her life here is like being in a nursing home without the people. She said that was fine by her, she couldn't bear having to be part of a group or being made to sit & talk to other people her own age: "It's hard work having to conform." She's said this a lot to me as I grew up, and it always made me feel better about my wariness of groups. I have a lot of friends and acqaintances (hello, all of you) but I don't have a 'group' that I hang with regularly. Apparently, according to my friend Kim, in social networking terms I'm what is called 'a hub'. Heh. I think -- I hope -- I'll end up like nana, happy in my own space, puddling around with books and catching up on a lot of crap tv, but hopefully all my lovely networks will still be swirling around, and we'll all be using our large-button keypads (or whatever the appropriate technology will be) to stay in touch to bitch about our carers and compare notes on our incontinence.

I'm doing a lot of reading while I'm here. I was given a book voucher for the local bookstore for my birthday (keeping the money in the Bega Valley!) in an attempt to lure me down her and lo! it worked.

I've just devoured Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus, a lovely sensual fantasy about a black & white circus that operates only at night. It's one of those books that operates like The Arabian Nights, telling multiple stories and leading you back to the beginning so that you want to read it again once you've finished. It reminded me of a much more readable/understandable Jonathon Strange & Mr Norris.

Now I'm juggling AS Byatt's Ragnarok and China Mieville's Kraken, mainly because I couldn't decide which to read first, and I opened up each and read the first page and I was sucked into both.

Ok, time to let out the chooks and feed the dogs. Home on Sunday, not that I really want to leave...

Country stuff

The Country Show opening was great: lots of yummy things, lots of fun activities.

I'm just trying to herd the cats into a box to get them down to the parental farm for the weekend -- parentals are in WA -- but Padge hasn't shown, and I'm afraid our departure may be delayed until he can be found!

So I haven't got time to write more, other than that BB won second prize in the cake comp for his Quince & Nut Cake and Bumblebee won second prize in the chook raffle, so I now have a very annoying rubber chicken squawking at me whenever he's home.

Photos next week, when I can get some from the gallery. I was -- ahem -- selling raffle tickets at a table, so missed out on a lot of the action. The drawing of the raffle was very fair though: we sold hundreds of tickets, and Bumblebee only had four in the mix. it was drawn by the child an artist not in the show!