Where was I?

I spent some of last week at Trentham, trying to finish the new book. I went up there thinking there were two chapters to go, wrote the two chapters only to realise that there are another two. It was a good, peaceful writing time. I took the dogs and we had a great time.

I did some knitting, too - have finished the Shetland Shawl but it remains unblocked. I intend to block it tomorrow. My feeling about it is that I should have used bigger needles, but I will love it nonetheless.

I also watched some of Buffy while I was away - I've rejoined ACMI and actually started borrowing again. I took up a stack of stuff, but actually didn't do all that much apart from write, walk the dogs, a bit of knitting, watched two episodes of Buffy (I'm going back to the beginning) and some reading.

The Accountant and the Exchange Student came up on Friday night and we had a rowdy dinner with some country friends. It was mainly rowdy because there was a bit of a political stoush. The next day we spent pottering around Daylesford where the Exchange Student discovered the bookshop, Paradise Books (?) which used to be the Avante Garden. I had already looked at the wool shop in Daylesford - did a special secret trip the day before - but I resisted all the yarn until I can claim a few more FO's.

On Sunday I had to go with the girlchild and buy a formal frock. We finally found something at about four o'clock. Then we had to get shoes and tights. Still we came home with the goods and that was the important thing.

The teenage years are far more...challenging than the toddler years. Toddlers - ha! Nappies and naps, a lot of mushy food, toilet training. Easy peasy. Teenagers? Sure, they can mush their own food up and tell you when they feel sick, why and how it could relate to the stress of family life. They can regulate their own clothing as in put warm clothes on. No, sorry, that's teenage boys. Many teenage girls still can't.

Some can make their own lunch, cook the occasional dinner and even forge your signature on excursion forms (not speaking from personal experience. Much.)

But they do things. In our reasonably small household they: debate, perform, play netball, volleyball and do swimming, go to to gym, study for lifesaving certificates, have paid work, do life drawing classes, attend formals and debs (surely the most archaic kind of celebration of young womanhood around?!). They go on exhange programmes.

And they require all the necessary equipment for these various activities. Plus there are rehearsals, matches, performances and meetings about many of them. We're all Vitamin B supplements.

It's no wonder I have to head off into the country to do any writing!

The formal is this Thursday night. The Accountant has to do the jive. He did it last year with his daughter, so I dobbed him in to do it this year with the girlchild on the grounds that he'd had practise. I shall take my camera.