It does my insecure heart good to read Crazy Aunt Purl. My sister may find my blog too personal but Purl shares everything. Like her cat eating lilies. Cats eating flowers are such a normal occurrence in this house that it isn't reported. When I was recovering from my hysterectomy, the girls at the Library brought me red and white carnations. When I came home from hospital, the vase was put on top of the refrigerator to prevent them from being eaten. Each night thereafter one carnation disappeared. How the cat (I know the flower child) got to the fridge is still a mystery. Since The Imp has entered the household I try to leave anything vegetative outside, because even if she doesn't eat it, she will probably break something, or simply make a loud crash in the middle of the night, trying to get to it. A Georg Jensen crystal vase got broken while she was investigating lemon verbena brought in from the backyard. There was no need to break the vase, but we like maximum impact. I found out why the window beside my bed is so sought after that we will try to sit in it even while the venetion blinds are down (very noisy when Mummy is trying to nap). There are little twittery birds called silvereyes (see photo) in the shrubs between the 2 houses and they are very much fun to watch. Sometimes there are bigger birds like currawongs or magpies. Being visually impaired (me not the cat) I am very grateful that Australian birds are often large, brightly coloured, and unsually incredibly tame. When you go to a picnic area in a national park you may have to shoo the birds off the picnic table or guard your sandwiches. Before our terrible bushfires burnt out our best nature reserve Tidbinbilla, there were signs at the entrance saying "Do not feed the emus". Ha! When the Bear took me there the first time, an emu took the sandwich right out of my hand and I was NOT trying to feed him (or her).

I also have a similar relation to eBay as Purl does. It's like porn and I have to stop myself from bidding on things. But I was very sad to see that I missed out on a vintage Alice Starmore book by $3 when it is selling now for over $100. She who hesitates and doesn't buy luxury yarn because it's too expensive loses out on buying a book for $69 when it now costs $110. Purl reads knitting blogs instead and so do I. But some people knit so fast it is incredibly disheartening to people like me, especially since I am spinning too (or actually plying, the last of the tan merino). All I have accomplished is about an inch on my socks while waiting in the the dr's office. I decided to do the Trekking socks in broken rib just to be a little less boring.

Swannies play Collingwood tonight. They have 3 matches with top-of-the-ladder teams soon and I hope they don't fall asleep and they manage to kick straight but that's like hoping to cockatoo I just heard won't eat the nuts on my juniper.