4:30AM

I have been waking up at this time for a week now, it's all due to excitement regarding our family trip to America. We're leaving tomorrow!!! It looks like I won't have time to write up my Avatar thoughts, too busy being excited, sorry about that. I'm not sure if I'll be posting during the next few months, I would like to capture some of my experiences as I travel but I do know from past experience that I'm often too busy living in the moment to step back and document my holidays. I'll see how I go. In any case, rest assured that I will be back at some point, because writing this blog has been one of the best things I've ever done. I've looked back at my posts from this past year and I am amazed to see how much fun I had with all of you. My dear blog friends, I wish you a wonderful December 09 and a superb January 2010. Blog on!

Eleanor from your commentbox xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

No Way

And the winner is....Suse!!

Yep, the true-blue Aussie response to the chorus of the song featured in my previous post is indeed Suse's version.

I'll tell you a little secret...I didn't actually know anything about this aspect of the song until I read the comments to the last post. I suppose it shows that I was moved from Australia to England and then back to Australia at that crucial stage of development when I should have been experiencing this rite of passage. I'm quite upset about this.

In any case, my blogging is taking care of the gaps in my teenage development, thank goodness. You see, I googled the song name with an addition of "rude words" and what do you know...I found this.


I really feel much better now. Plus...my choice of song is even BETTER now than I had originally realised!!

Thanks everyone. You rock!!

Tinniegirl to the rescue

You may remember that I received a wonderful box of luckies from Tinniegirl a couple of weeks ago. I have kept that box on my desk, looking through it every day, and every day I notice something different about its contents.

Tonight, feeling restless, I looked through it once again and decided to finally get my act together and write a poem using some of the items as my inspiration. Thanks Tinniegirl, Mrs. Mills is working her magic still.

PATTERN FOR A SUNDAY NIGHT

Two of diamonds
Eight of hearts,
Longest day
Of far-fetched love.

All my knights
Have fled the house,
Castled, queened
And kinged at last.

Funds divided,
Lessons learned,
The job
Which must be done.

So why do I
When darkness falls,
Want only
Far to run?

Do I now sprint?
Or just retreat?
These patterns
Oft repeat.

Yet here I sit,
With darkness linked,
To bed-made
Sad sing-song.


**Here are the objects which I used:

Thanks Tinniegirl xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

A craft most divine

I am off to Melbourne this afternoon, and I'm taking all of you with me. Except for those of you who are already in Melbourne, of course.

Mary and I started planning this trip a while ago, and we were already having so much fun giggling over the phone about the planned get-together with the crafty creme-de-la-creme of the blogosphere. Although Mary can't come with me this time, I have assured her that I am viewing this solo trip of mine as merely preparation for our many trips together which I clearly and joyfully see in our future.

I have been thinking about Mary, about how dear she has become to me, and to so many bloggers around the world. I have also been trying to choose joy in my life, something Mary has taught me so well this past year.

So....instead of concentrating on packing for my trip I sat down and wrote this little ditty for all of you, but mostly for Mary, with love.

I know not your real name,
You may not know mine,
Yet this feeling is real
And this friendship does shine.

This friendship does shine
From the smiling eyes
Of our blog-band of women.
Hear our patchworking cries!

We cry out to each other,
"Come sew onto the quilt,
For with boxes of many
This garment is built.

As this garment is built,
The patterns will play,
And a well-knitted comment
Can make someone's day."

For joy cultivation
Is crafting most rare,
And it takes a community
To do it with flair.

So let's raise now our glasses,
My sisters so fine,
And let's celebrate joy -
A craft most divine.

The circle widens

Oh my goodness.

Just when I thought blogging couldn't get any better....two new comments arrived at my box and led me to discover that two new women have joined the circle in the forest.

Stop everything and go check out these two wonderful bloggers! Soft Rock Mama has a gentle and honest voice, and photos of a mountained magic which she calls home. Go on...go visit her and be swept away by the peaceful honesty of her nature. Anne is an artist who was born in Sweden and has been living for the last decade in London. Heelllooo...... does this blogging thing get any better???!!! She responds to comments in both Swedish and English and her illustrations...her illustrations will intrigue and amuse you and then you'll revisit them and they will stay with you forever.

So everyone scrunch over and make room for two more women in the circle.

Wedding Cake Island

The boat was only big enough for two, which was fine, because there were only two of them on the journey. The sea which had once been so very rough was now a flat and peaceful landscape for them to push through. She stood at the head of the boat and signalled to him when they had reached the perfect spot to drop anchor. It was past Wedding Cake Island and then a little to the left; not very far, but far enough to be away from other people. He dropped the anchor and they floated there, the two of them sitting cross-legged, side by side, facing the massive expanse of blue and white. Her hand slid slowly, secretly into the pocket of her jacket and she took out the cache of jewels which she had dug up out of their backyard that very morning. She didn’t open the hessian sack to look at them, she simply let it fall from her hand down into the blue water. It made a very slight splashing sound as it landed in the water, and then it was gone. He looked at her for the first time that day, and he said “I think you may have dropped something.” She turned to him and nodded.

After a while they decided to sail back home. He pulled up the anchor and they picked up speed as the wind blew them towards the shore. When they finally walked through the front door, all of the children were lined up in the hallway with serious faces. The eldest boy had what looked like tear-streaks down his cheeks. “Someone stole the jewels again,” he said to them, and the other children nodded and the baby sniffed a couple of times and wiped his nose on his sleeve. “What?” asked their father, “Again?” They all nodded slowly and stood together without moving, in complete silence. “That’s all right,” said their mother, “It wasn’t a stranger who stole from us, don’t worry, I dug the jewels up myself.” They all turned to her, shocked by what she had said, trying to understand what she meant.

Their father suddenly understood. He turned to her with this new knowledge in his eyes, a knowledge of a boat big enough for two and an endless ocean and a cache of jewels floating down, down, down to the sand. “Well, that’s that then,” he said. “Yes,” said their mother, “but it doesn’t mean that we don’t love you any more.” The children didn’t understand what their mother and father meant; they only understood that their mother had taken the jewels and had hidden them somewhere else, somewhere only adults could find. Then, surprisingly, the baby stepped forward and looked at his father’s damp sailing-shoes, and his mother’s wind-blown hair, and he said “Did you take the jewels sailing with you?” His mother nodded, and his father looked down at his hands, and that was that.

I wasn’t there when all of this happened. I only heard about it afterwards; after the house was sold, and the boat was sold, and the dog found itself a new owner in a new home. The mother told me her side of the boat, and the father told me his side of the boat, so that I sailed away with each of them past the island and out into the open sea. But, at the end of the day, I always found myself sitting on a bench at the beach, looking out at the vast expanse of water and wondering to myself which side was true, and which was false.

From then on, every day, after work, I’d wander back down to that beach and find myself on that bench again and again and again. Once, while I was sitting there on my bench, I thought I saw something floating on the water. It was something that looked quite similar to a hessian sack of jewels, and it was being pushed towards the shore by a series of cascading waves, all foamy and full of promise. But I was wrong, for when I stood up from the bench and ran towards the sea, I could see it was merely an empty, plastic shopping bag floating on the water. I reached out to grab it, and suddenly found myself engulfed in the waves, and pulled by the current.

Of course, I managed to save myself from drowning that day. I wouldn’t be sitting here writing this if I hadn’t survived. I am not sure how I found the strength to pull myself out of the power of that ocean, but I did, and I returned to my bench the very next day, and every day that followed, to continue looking out at the horizon.

On one of those days, to my surprise, I found the children sitting there on my bench and staring out at the ocean. They were all there, even the baby, who wasn’t such a little baby any more. When they saw me they moved over to make room for me to sit down on the bench with them. “There are always so many people sitting at the beach and looking out at the water,” said the baby, “Do you think they are all looking for jewels?” I turned and looked at the baby with love. “I remember the day your mother and father called me to tell me you were born,” I said to the baby. “After they told me the news that you had arrived in the world, I decided to go for a walk along the beach. On that day the beach was covered with the most beautiful shells, and I started to collect them. I stuffed them into my pockets and brought them home and put them in a bowl, and the following day, when I went to visit your mother in the hospital, I brought the bowl of shells to her as a present.” The children were all looking at me now, instead of at the ocean, so I continued telling them my story. “You know what sea-shells are? Really? They’re jewels that have been in the ocean for such a long time that the water and the salt changes their shape and colour and texture.” “How long does it take for a lost jewel to turn into a shell and come back to the beach?” asked the eldest child. “I can’t answer that,” I told him.

That all happened a long time ago, and I still can’t answer that question. But I’ve started collecting shells again. Just in case.

Hello friends!

When my daughter was two years old, we would walk down to the park on the corner, and the minute she would see some children on the swings or the slide she'd yell out to them from her stroller, "Hello friends!" Most of the time, as we came closer, I would realise that they were complete strangers, but in the eyes of my skinny little brown-haired playground toddler, they were friends. I really loved it when she did that, because I was never a particularly social child, and I had hoped that my daughter would find friendships easier than I had. My own reaction upon seeing other children in that park was usually, "Oh god, now I'm going to have to make small talk with the parents."

I am still a very private person, and I am still not very social.

So now I'm back from my holiday, and my daughter comes into my study and sits down and says to me "You are being missed in blogland, and I think you are being a very bad friend." Once again, my daughter (now sixteen) is pulling at my hand and dragging me towards the playground and saying "Look! Friends! Hello friends!" And, to be honest, I am thinking "Oh god....what am I going to say to all of these strangers?"

Coffee with Colours the Clown

I visited Colours this morning in the urban trendiness that is her current stomping ground. We had a coffee, as one does, at the cafe around the corner, and we waited for Ms. Blanchett, but she was a no-show. We wore our new fingerless gloves ("armies") which had been recently purchased from Etsy (etsyetsyetsy). No prizes for guessing which is Colours' pair. Our arms not only looked lovely, but they were also being kept nice and warm, just in case Suse showed up and challenged us to an arm-wrestle. She didn't.

Then we walked back to the circus tent and Colours shared this gem of a song with me, it's called "Teenage Song":

We had a lovely morning.