the scent of water

This is my fourth attempt at a title because they all sounded naff

Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

I'm a little bit over quoting dead American men, but still. The man has a point. Though I should be so lucky to travel the world over.

Eilidh's trying a full day at school to see if she can cope with it. I'm surprised her uniform didn't fall straight off her. I have everything crossed that she did okay. I visited the dentist for a couple of fillings; one replacement, one new. He told me I was the quietest patient he'd ever had, it seemed to worry him somewhat. He must have asked me half a dozen times if I was alright. I had a drill, suction thingy and water other-thingy all crammed into my rather numb mouth; it just didn't seem like the most appropriate moment in which to hold a conversation. Also, the treasure chest with seaweed over it in a picture on the ceiling above me looked like a naked woman's backside and I was trying to figure out if it was intentional or just a trick of my own twisted mind.

How I got to there from a quote about carrying beauty with us, I have no idea.

 

I grow bunting out my head.

It's pretty clever and I'm quite sure only a select few can do it.

Nathan is playing with finglejangledolooly equations. I play with them too, I told him. They especially like hopscotch! No. He showed me a graph of what they look like. They're very pretty. Symmetrical. Is that why they're binomial, I asked? No. They're polynomial. He told me that the first time. Does that mean they're, um, not Methodist, not Muslim, that other one starting with M? They're not any type of religion. Mormon! That's it! I think they might be Mormon. THEY ARE NOT HOPSCOTCH PLAYING ANYTHING MEMBERS OF ANY CHURCH OF ANY POLYNOMIAL LATTER DAY ANYTHING.

I may have paraphrased. I totes get stuff wrong. Nathan would like to point out that higher level polynomial equations don't have to be symmetrical, he just made them so. And by higher level, he means above six. Which is the usual.

Iona took a quiz in Health which revealed she has a Choleric personality. I gnash my teeth at my children being taught such unscientific mumbo jumbo. She agrees with everything the profile said, except she thinks she probably shouldn't agree with the bit that said well organised. I am well organised, she explains, it's just that no-one else can understand it. I start to challenge her on her definition of 'well', but Nathan comes running over to give her a high five in celebration of the oxymoronic concept they call organised chaos.

Dear God. What have I wrought?

 

I'm running late, but at least I have some photos

Thing to be grateful for today: people who love you and safe landings.

They're probably things to be grateful for every day.

 

Featuring the lights

They're on the deck. It's not my deck. I spent the evening with the owners of the deck at a restaurant overlooking the ocean, eating good food and drinking nice wine. There are worse ways to spend a Saturday evening. Rumours circulating that I was the only one to order dessert are entirely spurious. There were two of us.

We skipped a walk along the wharf to go home and watch the rugby. Totally not my idea.

I am not keen to live inside Tim Burton's head.

Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so. - Douglas Adams

Friday night. I'm ready for it, more than happy to see this week ended. Karate chop to this week.

I bought Miss E.G. a soft toy puppy to cheer her up, she called it Schnitzel. I thought calling quadratic equations erratic equations was comic gold but Miss I.H. thought not so much. Aquatic equations is surely a little funny. Necrotic? Botoxic? I got excited to see Hulk come up on the TV listings but Master N.C. did not approve of the non-Marvel abomination, so we watched Frankenweenie instead. But whatever.

Do you think sleep ever gets sick of knitting up the ravell'd sleave of care? Not tonight, I hope.

Clean teeth

And another couple of shots of the sky. Well, why not, eh? It's a very nice sky.

I had my teeth waterblasted, and scraped, and flossed and polished. I didn't want to; power tools and teeth are not a happy combination, is all I'm saying. It's been, I confess, nearly a decade since my last dental visit. I know. But in one of those weird genetic lotteries I have teeth that can withstand a little bit of abuse, and I took reasonable care of them. The hygienist said she's cleaned off a lot worse build-up, and the gums were all fine and dandy. I took a weird sense of pride in that. I wanted to stop people in the street and tell them, hey! Guess what? I have good teeth! Crap immune system, but really quite excellent teeth.

Iona is on her bed reading a Tom Clancy novel while listening to music, or podcasts, or god-knows-what. Eilidh is doing Japanese homework. I asked Nathan what he was doing, and he said he was playing on his calculator. They're such fun, calculators.

A visit to A.

I was so surprised to walk into my friend A's house to find a quote from my blog hanging on the wall. That sort of surprise makes me so happy. She made the board it is on too, and those cushions. She repurposed a scarf she loved but never wore, cut it up into cushion sized pieces and sewed them on to a calico base. I think they're exceptionally lovely.

Eilidh remains unwell, but at least now we have appropriate tests being done. We'll take it from there; first job, I told her, is to find the problem. Second job will be dealing with it.

I have no idea

Funny old day. Not sure why, it just feels like I'm a day, or a decade, out of sync.

I got Iona to her netball game on time though, and Nathan continued weeding my garden. Score.

Lucky Dip

 

It's twilight, or what passes for twilight this far north. The sun goes down so fast. The house is in the post-school, pre-dinner mess that I pretend is otherwise under control. Warren has gone off to practice with his band and left Nathan in charge of replacing the broken dishwasher part. Iona's written out her mind map for tomorrow's test and wants to know when dinner will be ready. Whatever is wrong with Eilidh has taken a turn for the worse and sent her back to bed pale and exhausted. I am officially Worried.

Our lounge renovations keep throwing up stupid surprises left by some previous owner. An open electrical socket that has just been papered over, a piece of gib board replaced by chip board, and wallpaper covered with plaster. Weirdos.

Do you think that origami box has a quote hidden inside, and do you think it is by Shiro Amano, and do you think it says that there will always be a door to the light? I hope so. I'd like to believe in that.

Consolations

She's still not feeling well, is young Eilidh. 2 weeks is a long time to be sick, for the both of us. She was going to rest on Saturday afternoon, but went out with friends instead. The lure of a peer group and the mall was too great.

Nathan dug over some of my garden for me, strictly paid work. His favourite band has an album coming out and he needs the money to buy it. I planted out some sweet peas for the spring, at least Iona and I did. Masses and masses of sweet peas. Last week we got some tulips into pots, and ranunculus. Makes Spring seem more like an inevitability than a distant hope.

The roses keep trying to bloom, even though I've warned them it's pruning time. Mind of their own, those plants. I'll be hacking into them anyway.