how’s the weather?
There are several useful things I could be doing this afternoon, but it’s got hot and I’m not really in the mood for useful, so I thought I’d do a blog instead, because while it’s not exactly useful, I do feel that it’s a better way of employing my time than checking up on my Fairyland garden for the umpty-zillionth time. (By the way, if you’re on FaceBook and you also like playing Fairyland, friend me. Just put “Fairyland” in the message and I’ll be your bestie for ever. I love that game.)
Uh, sorry about that.
Yeah. The weather. I’m sending warming vibes to all my friends in England at the moment because it’s ridiculously cold there. It’s colder than I can actually comprehend. Stay warm, hey? I’m sweating and drinking hot tea (as you do). The tea’s important though, it was Dad’s Christmas present to me. Well, sort of. He sent money and I went to that fabulous tea shop in Sassafras and treated myself.
I wanted to share my tea shelf with you. Not only is it loaded with super tea goodies, but it is also tidy and has labels on it. Oh yeah! It’s that combination of tea and stationery that’s totally working for me. Radio Boy gave me the label maker for Christmas a couple of years ago. Just in case you can’t read all of the tea labels, from left to right we have: Japanese Morning Dew – a green and herbal blend, Tropical Star – a black tea with fruity highlights, Chai Chocolate – a black tea, well I don’t think I need to draw you a picture with this one, Blue Hawaii – another black tea with flowery bits in it, Melbourne Cuppa with rose petals in it – I love rose petal tea but they didn’t have any, so I’ve just mixed up some petals with their Melbourne Cuppa blend. Haven’t tried it yet, letting the petals get some rosy flavouring into the black tea. The last three (you can’t see them all) are Russian Caravan, Oolong and Mango Sencha. Beloved likes the Russian Caravan, the Oolong belongs to Poss, and Mango Sencha is my breakfast tea. I do like a nice cuppa.
I also bought myself a new jug last year. Our old one was made of plastic that had sort of deteriorated so that all the plasticy bits were flaking off, and I kept thinking how much tea are we drinking and how much plastic are we drinking? Then it died completely by setting off the circuit breaker every time we tried to boil it, so I had a great excuse to chuck it out and get a new one. I was going to go for something cheap and respectable and then I saw this Breville one with buttons to press and it matched the toaster so well that, what’s a girl to do? I had to buy it. It one of those things where a bug has become a feature, and you can get it to not boil water for you. Yeah. Making green tea or white tea or coffee? Boiling water will scold it and make it bitter. You want water that isn’t quite boiled. Just push the button. The kettle goes “beep” when it’s done.
I’m all sweaty and not particularly looking forward to work tonight, manily because the first week of school holidays is fine. Parents are all keen to spend quality time with their children (sitting in a large dark room, not talking, eating salty, sugary, fatty food, and probably watching improbable violence or inappropriate sex) and they’re all happy and jolly. By the second week of the holidays things have become a little jaded. The budget is getting all out of shape, requests become more irrational and everyone is getting just a little bit ratty. Oh well. At least these holidays we aren’t showing any MA15+ movies. This rating means that anyone under 15 (and they need photo ID to prove that they aren’t) must be accompanied by an adult (parent or guardian). I can’t tell you the number of grandmas and grandpas who have been duped by 11 year olds into going to see the most wildly inappropriate movies. I don’t mean to sound like a prude, but just for the record, no – I do not think nana should be taking the boys in to see Brüno. It’s just got to be too embarrassing for everyone.
On top of that, it’s hot. It’s hot here and it’s going to be hot at work. Not in the theatres. It’ll be fine and cool, 22º for the comfort of our patrons. But out the front, not so fun. And our uniforms are the same, summer or winter. And I don’t get cold in the winter. It’s hot today. It’s going to be hotter tomorrow, even hotter on Sunday and a stinker on Monday. Then a cool change. With rain. This makes me happy because this is how Melbourne weather is supposed to work (looks skyward and raises eyebrows at Hughie). We are supposed to have a run of increasingly revolting hot days that end with a wonderful thunderstorm (which is why I was running round naked in the rain on New Year’s Eve).
The bad news is that our pool isn’t quite swimmable yet. Beloved’s back is not in good shape and I’m increasingly worried that he has prolapsed a disc. His symptoms sound just the same as mine and I finished up needing surgery. This was a long time ago, and I hope they have a better (and quicker) way of treatment these days. Not that I mind. The surgery I had was brilliant and cured me at once, but surgery is a tough thing to do and it doesn’t always end well.
Now sometimes, our pool looks like this
and sometimes it looks like this:
and sometimes it looks worse.
This summer it has been full of tadpoles, frogs, waterboatmen, dragonfly larva, ducks, any bird just wanting a bit of a wash, and a cormorant. Very ecologically sound but not a good idea if you want to go for a swim.
At the moment it doesn’t look so filthy. This is because Beloved emptied about 20 litres of chlorine into it a couple of nights ago. We spent about 2 hours rescuing dragonfly larva and tadpoles, hooking them out of the water and dragging the bottom of the pool to release a smell that was halfway between refreshing lovely eucalyptus and mouldy old socks.
It was kind of anti-Darwinian really, because the slow tadpoles got rescued, but the fast, alert ones got chlorined. Did I already say that in a past post? Never mind. They’re in the pondy thing with the guppies now. I go out and these tiny frogs with tails jump off the bits of driftwood and hide in the murky water there. Protected from kookaburras and the dog’s swimming attempts by a wire frame.
Anyway, that’s about all for now. I just have time to go and check my fairyland garden before I get ready for work.
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