Quite fed up

What with emissions trading and such.

Otherwise, mysteriously tired for no good reason, didn't eat any chocolate today, clicked on a PowerPoint button, figured out how to make something appear on the laptop screen and the big screen, have a nice glass of wine, won't be watching The Pacific tonight, discussed hamburger flipping with the Noodle.

How was your day?

Pride

Some days you feel really proud of your work. And then the next day you feel really, really tired.

Ash

Stupidly neglected to include 'volcanic ash cloud causing economic collapse' from my end-of-the-world scenarios. Please consider it added.

Also, Iceland was just picking up some much needed dollars from the tourist market and so a volcano happens so that people can't fly there to spend spend spend. What has the universe got against Iceland? All they have is colourful knitted sweaters, epic poetry and rugged scenery, give them a break.

E Nesbit, time travel and breakfast

The Noodle is so absorbed in The House of Arden that he won't come out and make himself some breakfast. He will pop out from time to time to tell us where (or when) the children and are and to marvel at the nature of the Mouldiwarp, but then he is straight back into it. I started reading it to him a few nights ago, but he is leaping ahead without assistance.

He is a young person who highly values time travel.

The thing I like about E Nesbit's attitude to time travel is that you probably can't change the present from the past, but the past can certainly change you. And then it's up to you to choose the sort of future you want. So you don't get any Homer Simpson style donut-rain anomalies, but you do get a happy ending.

Of course, the other thing I like so much about E Nesbit is the way her children bicker and fight all the time. Frequently they have little in common with each other, except the books they have read and the fact that they are brothers and sisters. Children who have not read the same sorts of book s are viewed with a deep suspicion, something that also finds it's way into C S Lewis's books. It's a bit of a way of being awfully snobbish, while pretending not to be snobbish, and also I should think the sign of a rather balloonish ego in the author. The author's books, naturally, being just the right sort for the right sort of children to read.

I won't get into all the patronising class issues in Nesbit, except to say that A S Byatt might have forced me to stop gliding over the top of it all quite as easily as I used to. Which is no doubt a Good Thing and all.

The Noodle has only really loved The Railway Children of Nesbit's otherwise. The husband (who is not so much a fan of children's books or fantasy - having grown up watching telly and not reading much) read him The Phoenix and the Carpet but I'm not convinced either of them enjoyed it a great deal.

From a bibliotherapy point of view (a point of view I am really quite opposed to) it is no doubt good for only-child Noodle to read about other families and for over-protected Noodle to at least read about children rampaging around the countryside pretty much unsupervised. I know I used to rampage quite a lot more than junior does, but I am not sure if I was a few years older - I can't remember which level of rampaging goes with which age.

Certainly there is not much rampaging at 38, alas.

Memory

Sometimes I feel like I only have enough space in my brain for one lot of childhood memories, and as the Noodle reaches the age of things I can remember, I start to remember my own childhood less and less.

Fear

Things I was afraid of when I was seven. Daleks coming to kill my family. Growing up and not knowing how to put make up on.

Things I was afraid of when I was eight. Collapse of society requiring my family (or self) to lead a self-sufficient, subsistence life, caused by nuclear holocaust, oil crisis or industrial action .

Only one of these fears came true. I leave it to all of you to decide which one.

Some important things

The Noodle has much chocolate, some of which he will share.

I have inveigled my way back into reading to the Noodle at bed time by abandoning Sam and Frodo in the Slough of Boredeom (ie outer Mordor) and turning to Joan Aiken. Go Joan!

I handed in my essay and questions on constitutional law and now have only to dread writing two essays on contract law.

There are many, many snails on our front door step region. Radio National advise a locust plague is imminent on the way.

As well as not knowing if imminent is the right word, I also don't know how to pronounce 'slough' or if the Slough of Despond (from The Pilgrim's Progress via Little Women) is pronounced the same as the Great Slough (from Little Town on the Prairie and the Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder). My guess is sloff, but it could rhyme with 'ow' or 'oh'.

I do know that Laura and Carrie nearly got lost and/or drownded in the Great Slough, but I do not know what happened to Christian in the Slough of Despond. I guess he was not thrilled by it.

The Noodle has learned how to draw seven eighths of a tennis ball. So glad he is getting a good education.

Everyone's Easter lamb roast was nicer than mine, but my guests have been very polite about it.

Splodge made to a recipe still just tastes like splodge.

Justice Gleeson might know a thing or two, but I know it is only two more days until the weekend.

Procrastination

If I had anything interesting to say I could procrastinate by blogging. I guess I could go and stack the dishwasher and then check out Cake Wrecks instead.

A world of fun for everyone

Yes, public holiday central around here. The house is loaded with sugar (some hidden, some not). And there will be footy.