Efficient

and I didn't even have a bet. Probably because my mother was out of town and she's the one who rallies us around, gets us reading the guide to form, makes us pick our winners and then puts on a trifecta for us all. I wouldn't have had Efficient anyway - not my kind of name for a horse!

We all went to The Accountant's sister's place for a barbeque. I knitted more of the Modern Quilt wrap. It was a low key kind of day.

The year's rapidly coming to the end of the TAFE term - I've already had my last class at Box Hill - where my students endured a children's writing quizz (but got prizes - that had to help!).


I want bits of my life to change. I want a little more order and grace. A little more Efficiency - should have put a bet on him! But just don't seem to get the necessary oomph to make it happen. When I've got some extra spare time, I know I should be working on The Wish Pony - and do. My ordinary spare time just seems to fade away in walking the dogs, laundry, cooking and so on. I tend to stare at some of the chaos in paralysed disbelief and go away and do something else. But today, I shall make a small start. After I've hung out the laundry and walked the dogs. And taken a photo of my little cymbidium orchid, which I've been meaning to do for a week now.

This afternoon the Boyman is going to help me find a porgramme compatible with Ubuntu that allows me to record my voice and then the Girlchild and I will upload some poems on to the web site. I hope. Switching backwards and forwards between the microsoft pc and the Ubuntu laptop is proving more challenging than I first thought.

Then The Accountant and I are going for a walk in the Sherbrooke Forest.

It's curry for dinner and House on t.v. Though I don't like House with his happy band of hangers on as much as I liked House with only the three musketeers. Never mind, it's still a television night. More Modern Quilt Wrap!

That's the other thing I'd like to change, actually - I'd like to do some more adventurous knitting. This project has made me long to do more colour work, but on the other hand, I feel I should also embrace lace. I want to make a felted bag, as well. And a cotton le slouch.

Oh dear, the world is so full of a number of things, we should all be as happy as kings. But we're time-stressed, stretched to breaking, our lists are full of should haves and happiness seems to be a rarer and rarer emotion.

Books read: I'm Being Stalked By a Moonshadow by Doug McLeod. Loved it. Great little book! Going to use it for Writing for Children next year.
The Steps - Rahel Cohn - yeah, I enjoyed it but it was a bit too sweet and too many loose ends tied up nicely into pretty bows.
Trick or Treat by Kerry Greenwood - amother of her Corrina baker mystery series - loved it. I like the bakery setting, the recipes at the back and I like Corrina, her sterling lover, Daniel, her ex-druggie apprentice, Jason and the two girly girls who help out. I also like the chick lit/mystery crossover. It means the murder-y part is never fiercely frightening and the chick lit part is never overly saccharine.

Still Listening to: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in the car and Old Filth by Jane Gardam on the iPod.

The latter is a study in excellent writing. An example I remember from listening the other day was the description of someone's voice being 'threadworn'. There's also quite a complex and layered plot happening which is revealed slowly, very slowly. It's a joy to listen to and I must buy the book when I come across it. Jane Gardam is one of my absolute favourite writers.

Harry Potter is - well, Harry Potter. Rollicking boarding school story with enough inventive fantasy to keep it interesting. A good yarn but nothing to remember after the event. Not the way, say, Ursula le Guin's Wizard of Earthsea series continues to haunt years after the reading. I wouldn't even know which Harry Potter books I've read, if I wasn't keeping count because I've borrowed them from the reader-girls across the road. (Who are insisting I read them in order...)

And don't get me started on the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer. Why, oh why, force the books into something more than a trilogy? Why? There's not enough happening already. Except that we're all wondering how Ms Meyer is going to get out of the plot-bind she's put herself in. I want Edward to bite Bella sooner, rather than by book five. I would have liked him to bite her somewhere in the middle of book three. The endless yearning of Bella and her frustrating victimhood is irking in the extreme. It's gone beyond the hopelessly romantic love of Twilight into something far irkier and masochistic. Although probably having her fall for the werewolf as well was a good thing. Well, a complicating factor. And useful for teen girls to understand you can be infatuated with two boys at once. I suppose. It's okay, you didn't get me started - I got myself started on that rant.

Time to walk the doggies...