Thursday evening, Kit and Greg stopped by to pick up some stuff from the shed. I was in bed - Thursday is my day off, and I'd been luxuriating in a very early evening with a book. Kit came inside to find me - Nutmeg was in the car port, having a fit ( Read more... )

In February 2005, Fidgitboy and I acquired an 8 week old silver blond labrador puppy we named Digby. From the very first, he was My Dog. I loved him dearly, and when 8 months later we got Nutmeg from the Animal Welfare League to keep him company, I'm ashamed to say there wasn't an equal amount for her. I do love her, but Digby was my boy, smart and ( Read more... )

I've always worked through difficult questions by talking to myself, holding a conversation with a non-existant other (who is also me - I don't have an imaginary friend or believe there is actually someone else there.) I work through plot lines and dialogue for writing the same way. It's freaked out a few housemates over the years, but it's been ( Read more... )

Found out this morning someone I love died on the 3rd. Via Facebook. I understand why, and I have no beef with the person who posted it, but it's a shitty way to learn something like this, and it's one of the reasons why I hate how much people have come to use Facebook for scatter-shot communication. I'd probably feel as shocked and upset if I ( Read more... )

So it's February 13th again, and it's 11 years today since my father, Peter died. Today the hot weather broke at about 5am, and it started raining. Raining enough that my empty rainwater tank is almost full. The garden is full of plants slowly reviving out of defensive wilts. It's cool rather than cold, and I spent nearly an hour out in it, ( Read more... )

Today would have been my mother's 64th birthday. There's been so much happening in the last few months on the world stage that I want to talk with her about. I've been watching the TED talks on-line, there's all the stuff that went on with Julia Gillard, now there's Rudd back in power and the question of whether Abbott will be outsted in favour of ( Read more... )

So today was the 10th anniversary of my father's death from Non-Hodgekins Lymphoma. In some ways, it feels like such a long time; in other ways, it still feels like I last spoke to him only a few days ago.

I've spent a chunk of today reflecting on the last decade of my life - what has changed, what has stayed the same. When Dad died, Drakey and I ( Read more... )

Someone once told me he thought of me as being like a duck - everything just rolled off my back, nothing bothered me. I was shocked by that, but it occured to me then that I'm more of a sponge - everything gets soaked up, and it's not until the sponge simply cannot hold any more that anyone sees there might be a problem ( Read more... )

It was one year ago yesterday that Denise died. The odd thing was, I was so busy yesterday, I just didn't think about it. I knew it was the anniversary, but there was no emotion to it - the brain was on 'get everything fixed ( Read more... )

Some mental switch obviously flicked in the Week of Great Cheque Writing; something, somewhere said 'Ok, enough grieving for dead relationship, enough grieving for lost parents. Time to fix your life.' Am fired with enthusiasm to deal with stuff. Only hope it lasts!

The Library has been my bug bear for some time. It was always my space when ( Read more... )