Happiness is ...

Happiness is curling up with a good book.

Sometimes when the house is quiet I wander around and find all three ducklings lost in a book. It always gives me a thrill. I love that we’ve managed to pass on our love of reading to the offspring.

Of course, even more frequently I’ll find one or more of them glued to their ipod instead, which doesn’t make me feel quite such a success as a parent, but oh well. Can’t win ’em all.

The other thing that makes me happy about this picture? Look at that quilt Baby Duck is parked on. A finished quilt, actually on a bed, being used for its intended purpose! Something of a rare sighting around here.

I know I showed it to you while it was in progress, but I forgot to show the finished article (something I do a lot!), so here it is for your viewing pleasure, ladies and gentlemen – Baby Duck’s “bugs in bottles” quilt:

And a little close up:

Some cute fabrics in this one. Thank goodness I finished it before he outgrew the cuteness!

Genetics: a demonstration

A recent conversation in the car, after picking up Baby Duck and Demon Duck from their respective schools:

Demon Duck: Oh, Mum – I got my maths test back today. I got 100% again.

Baby Duck: Well, try harder next time. You’re a disgrace to the family name!

I’m not sure what the Carnivore would be prouder of: that his daughter inherited his maths ability, or that his son got his warped sense of humour!

Turnip Brain strikes again

Is this the world’s stupidest dog?

I’m starting to think so. Guess where she is today?

At the vet’s. Being operated on. Again.

Remember the chicken skewer disaster last year? Baby Duck dropped his chicken skewer, she pounced and swallowed it whole. Expensive vet bills ensued.

Just one of those things, you think. You can’t really expect a dog not to try and gobble manna from heaven, can you? Shame Baby Duck wasn’t fast enough to grab the skewer before she did, but what can you do? A once-in-a-lifetime freak accident.

Or not, as it turns out.

No, Baby Duck hasn’t dropped any more skewers. Two Planks just seems to have even fewer brain cells than we’d thought.

On Monday she vomited a couple of times. Nothing unusual there – till the Carnivore noticed weird streamer-like things in it. White, about 5 mm wide, made of some kind of light plastic or fabric. We wracked out brains but couldn’t imagine what she’d eaten, or where she’d found it. Could some packaging have blown over the fence from the building work next door? It seemed unlikely, but what else were we to think? She will occasionally chew on things she finds in the backyard, but she doesn’t eat things out of the house – not since her puppy days.

Except now she does, apparently.

Yesterday morning there was more vomit and she wouldn’t eat breakfast, so we took her to the vet. Still mystified, we showed the streamer thing to the vet. It wasn’t until Drama Duck came home that we identified it. It was ribbon. She’d left a spool of it on her bedroom floor after a friend wrapped a present on the weekend. The next day she’d noticed the spool was broken and empty, but just assumed her friend must have used more ribbon than she’d thought.

I’m still shaking my head over this one. The chicken skewer I could understand. That was food. But ribbon? What on earth possessed the stupid animal? Who sees a spool of ribbon and thinks hmmm, that looks tasty?

So today the vet has the delightful job of hunting through her innards for it. Who knows how much is in there? 10 m? 20? It was originally a 50 m spool, but we don’t know how much was left on it when she decided to chow down on it. Several metres has already been up-chucked all over our backyard, but there’s obviously still enough in there to block up the works.

The vet tells me he’s known dogs to eat padlocks, mobile phones, even remote controls. Ribbon seems almost tame by comparison, but unfortunately, being long and linear, it's a devil to get out again. Stupid bloody dog.

Has anybody else got any good stupid-things-my-pet-has-done stories? Please tell me I'm not the only one!

Depilated Demon Duck

Well, she’s done it. Determination and feverish fundraising have brought her total raised to $150.50. At this rate she may even top $200.

Her school is one of the biggest fundraisers in the state, with their combined total currently standing at over $36,000. Twenty-one girls shaved their hair off in the school hall this week, with many more colouring their hair red, blue or pink.

Today it was her turn. She went from this:

to this:

I’m surprised you didn’t all hear the squeals of glee from wherever you are. To say she was excited to see her new look doesn’t begin to cover it. She bounded off to the nearest mirror like Tigger on speed, and the shrieks of delight echoed through the house. She is not a child who believes in hiding her feelings. Thank goodness she was happy with it, or things could have got ugly!

I have to admit, it does look good. Let’s hope it doesn’t wash out too quickly. The packaging refuses to be pinned down: “colour will last from three to thirty washes”. They couldn’t manage to be just a little more specific? There’s a bit of a difference between three and thirty! Might as well just say “we’ve got no idea how long this stuff lasts – probably not as long as you’d like it to, but we’re not giving you your money back if you’re not happy, so there!”

Fingers crossed she gets to enjoy the reward for all her hard work for at least a few weeks. Myself, I’m quite looking forward to my own reward – I get to stop making friendship bracelets. I’ll hardly know what to do with myself!

Might even have to do something radical like getting back to work on my Nano novel.

New Zealand through a quilter's eyes (Part 1)

Lines, patterns, colours. Sometimes a quilter’s holiday snaps focus on things that don’t interest the average tourist.

Take this wall down by the docks in Auckland, for instance. It looked like it had been made out of old weathered packing crates.

The Carnivore just shook his head. Why are you taking photos of this piece of junk? But I thought the soft aged colours were beautiful.

Then there was this building nearby. Patterns of lines and colours. Very cool.

At the aquarium the jellyfish looked like an abstract painting, softly glowing.

Or maybe some kind of alien life form? So pretty!

We took the ferry to Devonport quite unexpectedly, having to fill in a couple of hours before our harbour cruise one morning in Auckland. Imagine my delight in finding a whole row of poles along the street covered in crochet! Naturally I had to embarrass my family by taking scads of photos.

Aren’t those frogs just the cutest?? I just love that there are people out there who see a whole bunch of plain poles and think wouldn’t it be great to cover those suckers in crochet? So whimsically pointless, but why the hell not?

Further north I was taken by the light through foliage, particularly the marvellous umbrella-like spokes of the ferns.

Out on the beautiful Bay of Islands I loved this pop of bright orange against the blue water. This photo doesn’t do justice to the colour of the water there, though, which was a glorious deep blue, shading to a clear green in the shallows.

So much colour everywhere! And of course I’m all about the colour, so I loved it. I have lots more pretties to show you, but I’ll save them for another post lest you die of old age waiting for the page to load.

D is for Determined

Everything’s relative, isn’t it? If I’m starving to death and you offer me boiled potatoes, I will wolf them down and think them the most delicious thing I’ve ever eaten. But if I’m accustomed to eating at five star restaurants every night, your boiled potato offering might seem plain and uninteresting, even offensive. Same boiled potato, different circumstances.

Demon Duck has many fine qualities, but some of them are definitely boiled potatoes. Take her determination, for instance. It gives her drive, it makes her see projects through – it will probably take her far in life. A great quality to have, yes?

But the other face of determination is stubbornness, and the child will argue till her last breath when she’s set on something. When you are the parent of a determined child, that fine quality can seem like nothing more than a humungous pain in the butt. And when you add high intelligence to the determination, what do you get?

Rat cunning.

I tell you, this kid’s teenage years are going to give me more grey hairs than the other two combined.

She started asking me months ago about getting her hair dyed. I said no, and gave her all the reasons: bad for your hair, have to keep doing it once you start to cover the regrowth, too expensive. She accepted that and didn’t nag, but every now and then she’d mention how much she’d like to dye her hair that really bright fake red.

Meanwhile she pondered ways and means, never letting go of the idea.

Enter the World’s Greatest Shave, a fundraiser for the Leukaemia Foundation. Several girls at school were signing up to shave their heads, raising money for the foundation through sponsorships. But if you didn’t want to shave your head, you could still raise money by pledging to dye your hair a crazy colour, like … oh, I don’t know … bright red.

You can see where this is going, can’t you?

I had to laugh, really, but I wasn’t going to be a pushover. No hitting on her grandparents for ten bucks and calling the job done. I said she could do it if she raised at least $100 (though only with a temporary dye that would wash out after a few washes).

Not being terribly outgoing, she was quietly horrified at the prospect of asking people for donations, so we came up with the idea of making friendship bracelets for her to sell to the girls at school.


Here’s just a few of our creations. We’ve each made about 30, and Drama Duck made a handful too. I’ve spent so much time making friendship bracelets lately it would have been easier to just give her the money, and almost as cheap, considering how much I’ve spent on cotton and beads. But I think it’s a valuable experience for her, having to work to achieve her goal, and she’s certainly put in a lot of effort. So far she’s raised $66, and still going strong.

D is for Determined Demon Duck.

Happiness is ...

Happiness is being reminded what a great guy you married.

Being an old married couple, the Carnivore and I haven’t celebrated Valentines Day in years. It’s too commercial, we don’t need a special day to say “I love you” – the usual reasons. Occasionally we might give each other a card if we happen across one that’s insulting enough (I was tempted this year by one that said They say opposites attract. Happy Valentines Day from your intelligent, beautiful and amusing wife) but usually the day slips past with no acknowledgement.

But …

This year at the girls’ school they had a scheme whereby, for the princely sum of $2, you could buy a rose for a friend and have it delivered during roll call. There was much excitement and planning of who was buying roses for whom. All would have been well, except they underestimated the number of people wishing to buy roses.

Demon Duck came home devastated. She’d managed to order a rose for her new best friend, but they’d run out before the friend could get her one in return.

“I’m not going to get a rose on Valentines Day!” she wailed.

You might imagine this wouldn’t be too much of a problem, since she’s never received a rose on Valentines Day any other year either, and managed to live through the experience. But she was really quite disappointed. Briefly I toyed with the idea of buying her a rose myself, but a) roses are hideously expensive on Valentines Day and b) I’m a cheapskate, so that idea didn’t fly.

I decided to do something more in the original spirit of the day. I gave each family member four red paper hearts and told them to write a loving message for each other member of the family. We sealed each person’s messages in an envelope to be opened and read out at dinner on Valentines Day, so we could all hear the nice things we’d said to each other.

Satisified that Something Was Being Done about Valentines Day, I thought no more of it, and was taken completely by surprise when I came out for breakfast on the day and found this:

The Valentines Day fairy had been and left me a beautiful bunch of flowers, a single rose for each girl, and a beautifully wrapped present for Baby Duck (which of course turned out to be a box of lego).

Demon Duck was thrilled that she got her rose after all, and I was touched that her thoughtful daddy had taken in all the lamentations on the subject and decided to do something about it. It was such a sweet surprise. He’s so sneaky! And obviously not as much of a cheapskate as his wife. I think I shall keep him.

As for the messages we wrote each other, they were a lot of fun too. Some members of the family cough cough demon duck cough couldn’t quite get the hang of being unreservedly nice, and had to get their snark on. For example, her note to her dad began “I love how you think you’re so funny even when you’re not”. Others, like Drama Duck, crammed whole heartfelt essays on to their little paper hearts.

Baby Duck’s note to me said “You are the awesomest mum in the whole known galaxy”. Can’t do much better than that, can you!

Hope you enjoyed it too, if Valentines Day is your thing. And if saying it with flowers doesn’t appeal, maybe next year you could take a leaf out of the Carnivore's book and try saying it with lego instead. Guaranteed to make an impression on the small boys in your life.

Baby Duck's guide to Auckland

Hi there! We’ve just returned from a couple of weeks touring the north island of New Zealand. Very pretty place, lots to see – we didn’t even cover the whole north island, much less get a chance to see any of the south island.

I tortured the kids, as I did on our Japan trip last year, by making them keep travel diaries. There was much complaining, but I hope one day they’ll be glad to have them to look back on and help them remember. Baby Duck’s is often unintentionally entertaining, so I thought I’d share a few extracts.

Baby Duck’s Guide to Auckland

15/1/13
Today we went to some café. Then we left, walked, and went to a park. [Ed: I hope you weren’t expecting actual useful details] But it started raining, so we went back to the hotel. But on the way there we were stopped by a bridge we had walked over that had gone up like this.

But the bridge lowered a little while later and we decided to take the SHARK-BUS to the Aquarium and set off yet again.

[Perhaps you can guess from the excited capital letters that the shark bus was pretty impressive to a certain nine-year-old tourist.]

When we got there the Aquarium looked really small but the person driving the SHARK-BUS told us the actual Aquarium was underground. [It was Kelly Tarlton’s Underwater World, and well worth a visit if you’re ever in Auckland.] There were rays, sharks, a giant squid that’s head was coming off so you could see its brians [very nasty, being able to see a creature’s brians, you know. Probably goes without saying that it was a dead giant squid], fish, jelly fish, shrimps, sea horses and a octopus and also some penguins.

Don’t eat the yellow snow, penguins!

There was also a little stall that had water in it with a sign above saying “Arctic water see if you can put your hand in for thirty seconds”. My sisters touched the water, said it was too cold, but I put my hand in for thirty seconds.

[I shall spare you the regular descriptions of what he had for breakfast, lunch and dinner. He hasn’t quite got the hang yet of only including the salient points. Or maybe food is very important when you’re nine.]


16/1/13
One Tree Hill – long drive up the hill, no tree. Should be called “no tree hill, instead of tree, big monument”. Boring.

Dad’s office: extremely boring!

After One Tree Hill we went to a museum. It was boring.

[Are you sensing a pattern here? Yes, sadly, dear readers, Baby Duck has little appreciation for cultural experiences. Or sightseeing. Or shopping. Or pretty much anything you do when visiting a foreign country other than checking out its amusement parks.]

Then for dinner we had Mongolian [one of those restaurants where you select your own ingredients and they cook it in front of you on a big drum]. I liked how you could serve yourself.


17/1/13
After breakfast we went on a ferry to Devonport. Then we went on a harbour tour. The captain was very funny “Please don’t fall overboard because it creates lots of paperwork wether I find you or not”.

When we stopped at an island the captain said “If you hear this sound (HOONK) you’ll know to start walking back to the boat. But if you hear this sound (honk honk honk) you should have been running because you just missed the last boat back.” Since there were no houses at all nobody would want to sleep there. Dad got off the boat but got back at the last minute. [His timing gave me a few anxious moments …]

But when we got to dry land nobody started kissing the ground. (Well at least I didn’t see anyone doing it.) Then we went to Lord Nelson’s for dinner. [He didn’t mention the shopping that came in between, but I can assure you he found it boring.] When we got out we saw two girls get on the bungy ride across the road. I think it looked really fun, but mum and dad said “NO”. So that was decided.

Happiness is ...

Happiness is a pretty rainbow of threads making a bright spot in your day.

I took this photo in the midst of the renovation horrors of last year. I was sitting on my bed in the middle of the kitchen, sewing little birds and resolutely ignoring the chaos all around.

It looks so pretty and serene, doesn’t it? – almost like something out of a magazine. But just out of shot the debris of our lives was piled up in huge, depressing, tottering stacks. I can still see it when I look at this photo.

Sometimes sewing is a real sanity-saver.

The cat crept into the crypt ...

… crapped, and crept out.

Possibly my dad’s favourite tongue-twister, judging by the number of times it got mentioned through my childhood – though for a long time I didn’t know what the cat did when it crept into the crypt, because my mum always shot Dad That Look, and he would just laugh instead of finishing the sentence.

It’s so annoying when you’re a kid and all the grown-ups are laughing at a joke they refuse to explain! Almost as annoying as opening your front door and finding the next door neighbour’s cat really has crapped on your doormat. Or thrown up on it, as our neighbour’s cat occasionally does.

Cats and their unsavoury habits came up over Christmas. I went to a social evening at the local church with a friend to make gingerbread houses. I was very pleased with my effort when I brought it home.

They provided a generous supply of lollies, so I went to town. Like my row of spearmint trees? And the cute little icicles?

I was quite proud of my candy-striped front door too, complete with door handle made with the top of a chocolate bullet. Only next morning I discovered my little brown door handle had fallen off and was lying forlorn on the doorstep. See it there? A suspicious brown lump, looking just like the next-door neighbour’s gingerbread cat had crept in during the night and crapped on the doormat.

Stupid gingerbread cat.

Happiness is ...

Happiness is a sister to cuddle up to when you’re having trouble falling asleep.

It’s nice to remember the little things that make us happy. I’ve been thinking for a while of doing a photo series to remind myself to appreciate the everyday. A good excuse to practise my photography skills too!

They look so peaceful in this photo, don’t they? Ironic really, when you consider the hundreds of thousands of dollars we’ve just spent and the months and months of angst, living through the renovation from hell. All so that these two didn’t have to share a bedroom any more, because they fought so much.

And now they have their own bedrooms, where do I find them? Squished into a single bed together, naturally. That’s kids for you.

On the subject of the renovation, it occurs to me that I never posted a photo of the completed project. Because it is – finally! – complete, landscaping and all.

We started with this:

progressed through this:

and this:

(oh, the horror!). Till at last we arrived at this:

Renovations are a bit like childbirth. Once you have the finished product, the pain of getting there recedes into memory. It’s certainly a wonderful house now, set up to suit us perfectly. But unlike childbirth, I don’t think I'd ever line up to go through it more than once. We learned a lot of valuable lessons about dealing with builders, but the main one was: don’t.

Next time, just move.

One day to go!

Baby Duck, like nine-year-olds everywhere, has been counting down the days till Christmas. He built his own countdown calendar out of lego, and has been happily updating it all month. We progressed from “I can’t believe Christmas is so far away” through “it’s still two weeks to go” to “it’s Christmas in 12 more hours!!!!!!”.

The good thing about being a kid is you have nothing else to do but look forward to Christmas, unlike all the frazzled adults who have a million things on their plate and wish the whole thing would just go away. I’m sure that’s why kids love it so much – the sheer joy of presents with none of the seasonal responsibilities and pressures.

The bad thing about being a kid, of course, is also that you have nothing else to do but look forward to Christmas. When you’re not busy and distracted, the big day seems to approach at a snail’s pace. Why does December go so slooowly?

“I wish it was Christmas tomorrow!” has been heard a lot from a certain small boy. Not enough to make me rich if I had a dollar for every utterance, but certainly frequently enough to buy me a very nice Christmas present.

Now at last it is Christmas tomorrow, and soon enough it’ll be gone in a frenzy of unwrapping and excitement. Such a short thrill after such a long build-up.

Already he’s planning to update that lego calendar tomorrow: 365 days to go!

Made it!

Phew! Finished my NaNo novel at 3 pm this afternoon. Soooo relieved. An entire first draft in a month, a new PB for me. I estimated I’d need about 60,000 words to tell the story, and it came in at 60,088. Not bad!

The ducklings all finished their novels too, though you will be shocked to learn there was some “cheating” involved this year. The girls both set their goals a little higher than turned out to be achievable. Not to worry – just change your goal to something lower! It’s not really cheating, of course, since that’s allowed in the Young Writers’ Program, it just feels like cheating to those of us who have to make 50,000 or bust!

I bought “Nano carrots” again this year – a much-desired book each, that they couldn’t have until they reached their “goal”. (Maybe next year I’ll have to specify which goal if they’re going to keep changing them to fit.) For a while it looked as though Drama Duck was going to have to wait till Christmas to get hers, but she put in a final effort this afternoon and managed to stagger across the (adjusted) line.

Baby Duck finished before any of us. His goal was 1,000 words, and he did more than that in Chapter 1 of his magnum opus, so he stopped writing and read his Nano carrot instead. It may take some effort to get him going again, but his idea is interesting so I’d like to see him finish the story.

All in all, a successful November. I hope, if you were doing NaNo this year, your novel went well too.

And now – oh joy! – I get to do something other than write again. Like maybe read some of these:

Or do some more of this:

Or even this:

Yay! So happy!

Life is full of purple satin

Let’s face it: there’s never a perfect time to undertake a large project, is there? Like, say, writing a whole novel in a month. Life will always get in the way, whether it’s family emergencies, dramas at work, sickness, or just plain old daily grind. We all try to fit so much into our lives, it’s hard enough to carve out time for another big project even if everything goes smoothly.


I lost a great deal of time this November to making dance costumes for Demon Duck’s class of thirty kids. It was my own fault - I stupidly volunteered, underestimating, as usual, the time it would take. Funny how I always think I’m some superhuman production machine when these things come up. Ten bubble skirts and twenty singlets with fake satin braces sewn on them? Sure, no problem!

In the end, with the dress rehearsal mere days away, I had to put my NaNo novel on hold. For three whole days I did nothing but sew *@#%^$!! singlets, till I was so sick of the sight of purple satin I could scream, with not a single word added to my wordcount.

But eventually even this torment had to end, after 17 metres of satin, 600 metres of thread and about 60 hours of swearing, and I had to face the novel again. The idea of giving up was hugely tempting at this point. After all, that was 6,000 words I had to make up, and time was already tight because I wanted to finish the whole novel by November 30th, which I estimated meant writing 60,000 words instead of 50,000. A big job, and one I’d never managed before. To have lost three days, when I’d been determined not to miss any, was a huge blow, but that’s life, isn’t it? Just chock-full of damned purple satin.

I’m hopeful there’ll be a happy ending to this story. I have three scenes still to write, and three days left to do it in. It’s tight – tighter than I’d hoped – but should be do-able. I’ve passed 50,000 words, which is kind of a psychological barrier, and feel the end just over the horizon.

I’m glad I forced myself to go on. If you have a goal, it’s no use giving up at the inevitable setbacks. Giving up seems so much easier, and so tempting. Maybe there’ll be a better time later, you think, and you’re desperate for sleep and sick of the whole thing anyway.

But there’ll always be purple satin, in some form or another, and you just have to pick yourself up and keep going. However much the to-be-read pile beckons, or however many tempting crochet projects you find on the internet in those too-frequent breaks from novel writing!

Writing a novel is only glamorous and exciting for about the first week. After that it’s work, like any other task that takes hours out of your life. Like making *&#!!%* purple satin bubble skirts. Often interesting, occasionally exciting, but still work. It requires some stick-to-it-iveness. (I’m sure there’s a real word for that, but my brain is too fried at the moment. Tenacity? Stubbornness? Something like that.)

Every time this month I’ve sat down to add more words to this novel, I’ve thought “I can’t do this”. The temptation to give up never goes away. But every time I push myself to do just a little more, and slowly the story grows. Tortoise-like, I inch my way toward the finish line.

Have you ever felt like that with a big project? What kind of purple satin has life thrown your way?

Imaginary medicine

Recently I took the ducklings to the dentist. In the grotty old carpark out the back is an equally grotty sign, advertising for a chemist shop that no longer exists:

CHEMIST: Prescriptions made up

This tickled Demon Duck’s sense of the absurd.

“Hey, look Mum – ‘prescriptions made up’. What’s this prescription do? We don’t know! We made it up!”

In other efforts of the imagination, I progress with my NaNo effort. Yesterday I would have said I was progressing well. Today has been more of a struggle.

I’m trying a new approach this year. In the past I’ve started writing with no more than a premise, a handful of characters and a couple of scenes worked out. This can bring great delight, as your imagination throws up exciting ideas and connects elements in surprising ways. It can also, of course, create a huge amount of stress, as you struggle to work out the plot on the fly. I’ve never managed to write more than about 500 words an hour this way, and often considerably less, so it’s always been a stressful slog.

This year I have much more of the story mapped out – perhaps as much as three-quarters – with many scenes neatly noted on plot cards. This has meant a more cohesive story and a writing speed hovering close to 1000 words an hour, or double my usual. Go, me! This is more like it!

Sadly, today I arrived at one of the holes: “memory scene involving characters A and B”. I hoped by the time I got here something brilliant would have occurred to me. No such luck.

After procrastinating most of the day I decided to skip it and write the next scene I knew instead. Lord, it was like pulling teeth. Eventually I got something half the length of my usual scenes, that took twice as long to write, and lay limp on the page like cold spaghetti.

And I still have to write another 900 words to make the day’s quota. I’m well ahead, but I’m determined not to lose any of my buffer. This year I’m not stopping at 50,000 and outlining the rest of the book; I want to write my way all the way to The End.

My poor imagination is feeling bruised already. I could do with one of those imaginary prescriptions!

'Twas the night before Nano

’Twas the night before Nano and all through the house
Every writer was panicked and glued to their mouse
The outlines were dodgy and full of plot holes
And 50k words seemed impossible goals

Okay, so now you know why I write novels and not poetry. But yes, Nanowrimo starts tomorrow, that month of mass insanity where writers all over the world egg each other on to write a 50,000-word novel during November. I’m equal parts excitement and terror. 50,000 words in a month – even though I’ve managed it four times before – is very daunting. Or maybe that should be “because I’ve managed it four times before”. I know exactly what I’m getting myself into!

On the other hand, knowing what’s ahead is also kind of exhilarating and I guess that’s the reason I keep coming back – the excitement when marvellous plot twists come to you seemingly from nowhere, the buzz when the writing’s going well and, above all, the rush of making it to the end. (And maybe the joy of collapsing when it’s all over!)

This year we have four Nano-ers in our house. The girls will be doing it again for the third year, with Drama Duck aiming for 15,000 words and Demon Duck going for 5,000. Baby Duck is joining the fun for the first time, with a goal of 1,000 words. I don’t think he’ll have any trouble. Some of his dinnertime monologues about lego or Skylanders are waaaaay longer than that.

If only he could find a way to write a story using lego bricks he’d be set.

Taking flight with Andromeda Spaceways

Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine has been around for ten years now. To celebrate, ASIM#56 is a bumper edition containing no less than 20 – count ’em, 20! – fabulous stories of sffnal goodness. From aliens and asteroids to demons and zombies, if science fiction and fantasy are your thing, there’s something here for you.

There’s also the story of a sphinx who’s bored with asking riddles and the desperate family of merchants who have to outwit her or lose everything, including bits of their anatomy they’d really rather stayed attached. A story – and I quote from the editor – which is “light-hearted and whimsical, a story that makes you smile”.

Well, it certainly makes me smile, because it’s my first semi-pro publication. Very exciting to see it looking so grown-up and real in print. And even though the pay rate wasn’t “professional”, everything else about this magazine and the experience of working with them was.

They have one of the best submission systems I’ve seen. Instead of disappearing into a black hole for months, as happens with so many other magazines, you can track the progress of your submission through first readers, second readers, editors, etc. When you get accepted, the editing is painless, and the contract, payment and contributor’s copy arrive in a timely fashion.

The whole process was smooth and stress-free. And now I get to hold this cute little magazine in my hands that has my name on the cover and my story “The Family Business” inside.

It’s almost exciting enough to make me stop procrastinating and write another one …

Snow White and the Night of the Living Dead

We went to see “Snow White and the Huntsman” recently. There’s a scene where All Hope Seems Lost, where Snow White is laid out in a chapel, apparently dead. I say apparently because Kristen Stewart’s facial expression is no different here than in any other scene in the movie, so it’s a little hard to tell.

However, since we’re all up with our fairy tales, we know she’s only awaiting the prince’s kiss to awaken and live happily ever after. Chris Hemsworth duly supplies the kiss then wanders outside to grieve. Next thing we know Snow White appears in the doorway. The courtyard hushes as all turn to look upon this miracle. Snow White paces slowly into the courtyard, a pale and beauteous vision in white. No one moves or speaks.

No one, that is, except Baby Duck.

“Braaaaaiins,” he moans and the Carnivore and I crack up.

Gotta love that kid’s sense of humour.

Lesson learned

You know how sometimes when you’ve been working on something for a while and you just want it to be finished now already – you put your head down and bolt for the finish line? And if there’s a few little corners cut or things not done quite up to standard in the rush you just go Who cares? Don’t be such a perfectionist! No one but you will ever notice.


Or maybe you tell yourself that’s the best job you can do when really deep down you know you could make it better except you can’t be stuffed fiddling with it any more.

Yes, well. Check out Exhibit A:

Many moons ago – possibly even before the first duckling arrived, but so long ago I can’t remember any more – I designed my own quilt, based around a beautiful printed panel I bought. Naturally, being me, the finished quilt top got stuffed in a drawer and never quilted, till earlier this year I had one of those seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time moments and entered it in a quilt show.

Then of course I had to finish it. But ohh! the horror! when I dug it out of the cupboard and saw those terrible mismatched seam intersections. This wasn’t going to be a quick quilting job. Present-day me couldn’t bear to enter something so dodgy in a big prestigious quilt show, as if that was the best I could do, even if lazy-beginner-quilter me had been satisfied with it.

So out came the unpicker. Man, I hate unpicking! So much that I was tempted to just let it go. And there were so many of these hideous seams to unpick. But I got through it, thinking unprintable things about my lazy-ass close-enough’s-good-enough former self the whole time, and managed to produce a much better finished object.

I’m glad I took the time to fix it, though I hated every minute. It would have bugged me ever after if I hadn’t.

So, lesson learned. Do the damn job right the first time! Words to live by, I reckon.

The ducklings' big Japanese adventure: Tokyo

Konichiwa! The ducklings have had their first-ever overseas trip since last we spoke – eight days packed full of temples, shrines, trains and theme parks in the Land of the Rising Sun. (You have to guess which of the aforementioned they enjoyed most. Hint: it starts with “theme” and ends in “parks”.)

In many ways Tokyo was much like Sydney. Skyscrapers, tree-lined streets, cars and people everywhere. Starbucks, McDonalds, Subway. Yet in other ways it was very different. So many, many people, and hardly a non-Japanese face to be seen. Temples and shrines popping up among the office towers. Businessmen riding bicycles, their briefcases in the basket on front.

And just. So. Big.

Sydney is tiny in comparison, a little doll-sized city. There are two people per square kilometre in Australia, 300-and-something per square kilometre in Japan overall, but an eye-popping 5,000-plus people per square kilometre living in Tokyo.

“So help us out,” said one tour guide, “and take some Japanese people home with you!”

Our first day in Tokyo was a beautiful clear day, and Tokyo Tower looked stunning against the blue sky.

I thought this place was meant to be smoggy? Why are all these people in the street wearing face masks?

We had a sweet park on our doorstep.

And a stunning temple just around the corner.

There are Shinto shrines everywhere, some big, some small, like this little one nestled on the side of a hill in the park.

In the afternoon, after admiring the expansive view from the 40th floor of the World Trade Center, we glided up the Sumida River, passing under twelve brightly coloured bridges.

I was fascinated by the patterns everywhere: looking up under bridges, the ornate roofs of temples, railings, columns. Lots of things to inspire the travelling quilter.

We did some souvenir shopping for the girls’ friends at a rather touristy marketplace at Asakusa, then visited the big Kannon Buddhist temple and neighbouring Shinto shrine.

Most Japanese happily combine the two religions in their lives.

“We are born Shinto and die Buddhist,” our guide told us. “And in December we all become Christian to celebrate Christmas!”

There was a large dog statue on either side of the Shinto shrine, which is common. The one with his mouth open is saying “ah”, the first syllable, representing birth and beginnings.

This one, with his mouth closed, is saying “mmm”, the last syllable, representing death and endings.

After our long overnight flight and busy day touring, we started to flag by dinner time. Finding somewhere to eat was a little challenging, as many places had no English menu, and the ducklings had had enough foreign adventures for one day. We ended up at a little Italian place where the owner spoke English (as well as Japanese, Italian and Spanish!). The food was great and comfortingly familiar, and we got to admire the Tokyo Tower in all its nighttime glory on the walk back to the hotel.

All in all, a most satisfying first day in Japan. But what inspired the most awe and wonder in the ducklings? Was it the magnificent gold-encrusted Buddhist temples? The endless vista of Tokyo laid out at our feet seen from on high? The insights into an exotic and foreign culture?

No. It was the toilets.

So fascinating were the plumbing arrangements they deserve their own post. So stay tuned for “True Tales of Tokyo Toilets”.