29th November 2011 (Tuesday)

The Marvellous Miracle of a Mowed lawn: a delight to the eyes, a salve to the conscience, a caress to the toes and a chlorophilous whiff to the nostrils.

I bought a ditsy, teeny tiny little rotary push-mower after discovering that the mower the people in the house left us doesn’t work. Of course, it doesn’t gather the clippings but that’s fine. No cords, no weight, just shove it about a bit and watch the grass go flying. Lovely!

Lara’s home, and it’s wonderful! Yesterday she skipped in with a huge yell and exclamation of delight to be back home. Well, this was after swimming. Amazing what good swimming she does, really, considering she’s only six. Amazing what good swimming they all do. It’s not often you see a six-year-old doing the butterfly. At least outside Australia.

Today we went to drama – it being a Tuesday. They have their performance on the 7^th December. She ate a donut on the way there, crumbed it joyfully all around the back of my car. Exited looking like an explosion in a sugar factory. We did a barbecue later, and she insisted on a story about Lemon Shark, Big Eyed Six Gill Shark and Shovel Nosed Shark all chillin’ out in a whirlpool bath (?) in Shark Bay on holiday, when they’re joined by a little girl called Lara with her friends Platypus and Pink Bear, who took  a running leap from the door into the hot tub and send the peanuts and crisps flying… etc. Then she named a local spider Mr Jiggles (because his web jiggles sometimes) and we played a Bird Board game she’d just made. Instructions like: “Find a worm! Go forwards five paces!” Or “Storm! Swept back to 22!”

In short, such a lovely evening I think I may just take my Kindle to bed and chill. She’s likely to join me at the crack of dawn anyway, certainly did this morning. 5:30 and there she was, perky as the whip bird, with THREE books tucked under her arm, desperate to read them before tomorrow (!) because she hasn’t read any of them with Daddy and she needs to take them back to the library on Wednesday. These aren’t little picture books but sizeable little chunks of 14 chapters apiece. We read one today, and might manage another tomorrow morning but I suspect the last one will have to go by the wayside. Unless she comes to bed at 4:30 this time – which isn’t out of the question.