Saturday, April 10, 2010

Me: Don't you empty that toy box onto the floor, Madam, or there'll be hell to pay! R: But I don't get any pocket money! How'm I supposed to pay anyone anything?

Ahem. Here are some of today's beautiful things:

• Finding a necklace I thought lost. It's of great sentimental value, and I'm absurdly delighted to have it back.


• Kate's post about a Marie Howe poem, and her comment about 'poets whose words save us just when we need to be saved': read it at Mother Words.


• Jack and the girls bake cinnamon pinwheels. They're sticky and delicious. Becca is beside herself with pride.


• We take the pinwheels to Morgue and Cal's Farewell To Newtown party, where we spend a couple of hours having afternoon tea while the girls entertain the guests with a synchronised routine on the elliptical trainer, eventually mastering the tricky 'one person on each footplate' manoeuvre.

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Friday, April 09, 2010

• A trip to the newly reopened Carter Observatory with Dave and his son Dan. Maggie, instinctively, homes in on the room with the ceiling-high ladder (that would be the one with the great big telescope in it). Dan and Becca squabble over who has seniority. (I'm six! – I'm six, too! – Yeah? Well, I'm six and THREE QUARTERS!) I learn that New Zealand adopted standard, nationally-observed time in 1868, possibly the first country in the world to do so. Becca is very impressed with the planetarium, and excitedly turns to her neighbour and announces: Excuse me, sir: I think the movie's going to show ON THE CEILING! During the show Maggie is excited by the rotating firmament. We go round and round! she exclaims.


• Riding the Cable Car up to the Observatory is equally exciting: the girls make friends with a young woman who gives Becca her seat by the window, and helps them count the tunnels, before getting off at the University.


• A do to celebrate Maxine's 30-year assocation with the crèche. There are a few speakers, and then Veronica asks if anyone else would like to say a word. A dad comes forward to thank Max for welcoming his autistic son into the centre.


• Theye've asked me to play fiddle at Maxine's do. So I do a bit of klez, kicking off with 'Yoshke, Yoshke', which sets a couple of the teachers dancing. Max is delighted, and sings along, when I finish with 'Someone to watch over me': it seemed fitting.


• A day so astonishingly blue that complete strangers turn to each other to point it out.


• Brian sends me more photos from the archives. If you fancy a laugh, here's one of me in Village Person drag.

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Wednesday, April 07, 2010

• Waiting for a prescription, I browse the cosmetics. You're already beautiful, Mama, says Becca.


• She's a lot better today. Her eyes shine with merriment and her cheeks are pink.


• At the mall, a bead shop is running free jewellery-making sessions. Becca spends a happy half hour methodically threading tiny purple and red beads onto a wire. She makes a perfect job of the repeating pattern she's chosen, and proudly shows off her necklace in the next shop we visit.

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Tuesday, April 06, 2010

• Being so engrossed in my book (the Coetzee finally made it to the top of the pile!) that I was hanging out for the commute home.


• Coming home from work to a warm bright house, a husband cooking dinner and two small persons engrossed in Spongebob. Sometimes domesticity can be pretty.


• Because her sister's getting medicine, Maggie, not wanting to be left out, announces, with a dazzling smile, I sick TOO!

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Monday, April 05, 2010

• Having weekend guests – my brother Jim, his wife Jo, and their five-year-old Evelyn – makes me appreciate the house all over again – the extra rooms, the space and airiness.


• The girls are delighted to see their cousin Evelyn and spend the weekend running around giggling and devising complicated games.


• We watch Galaxy Quest for the first time in ages. Much hilarity. That was ... a hell of a thing...


• To settle Maggie for a nap she needs but won't take, I lie next to her stroking her hair and watch her fall asleep, then doze next to her for an hour, listening to the excited scampering and shushing on the other side of the wall.


• An Easter egg hunt in the back garden turns up for each delighted little girl a chocolate bunny the size of a table lamp (bounty kindly supplied by Jim and Jo).


• At the end of a long and busy weekend, a quiet and productive hour in the garden as the sun goes down, watering pruning the tomatoes, spraying and deadheading the roses, potting up herbs. The small-leaved mint Rose gave me is flourishing, putting out tiny mauve flowers; it's been promoted to a bigger container; the ambitious wee oregano plant I got from the garden centre has a huge terracotta tub to take over. And a pot of purple sage joins the happy herbs on the brick ledge in the front garden: hopefully it'll be as happy as the others.


• My friend Brian sends me a photo he found while trawling his archives: it's me and Sarah Abbott at Jim's wedding on 5 February 2000, just a couple of weeks before ours. Good gigs both.

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Saturday, April 03, 2010

• The four of us get the house ready for our Easter visitors. Becca enjoys helping me make up the beds and rearranging her room, which she'll share with her cousin, putting the Dorothy the Dinosaur bed linen on the air mattress for her.


• The flame-coloured roses in the front garden, petals clinging tenaciously in the autumn winds.


• Wondering what colour the camellia buds will be when they open.

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Friday, April 02, 2010

• Becca's hair's so tangled I give it a quick trim before school, evening out her fringe where she hacked a clump out of it a few weeks ago. Am very pleased with the results - my technique is definitely improving and the wide, blunt-cut fringe and collar-length bob suit her lovely heart-shaped face and emphasis her big green eyes.


• She walks herself to school for the first time. I follow her slightly disconsolately to our gate, where she turns and says kindly It's OK, Mum, I don't need you any more.


• Leaving Mummy Ducky behind at the library provides the opportunity for a second walk into Jville in the sunshine while M, who won't sleep at home, dozes in the pushchair.


• By some miracle of timing the second return trip coincides with Becca's Jump Jam assembly. Her face lights up when she sees me sneaking in with Maggie and her face glows with pride as she performs. Meanwhile, Maggie is squirming on my lap and hollering Mummy! I see Becca! Wave to Becca! HELLO, BECCA!! as teachers and Other Mums smile benevolently in our direction.

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