Chip Dancing
I see you have a pile of chips, I’m sure you can not finish them.
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Advice Safe
Parenting – 18 words
It’s hard being a parent. Training is given informally as we grow, good and bad examples are set, it’s rather a sloppy affair. Society dictates ever changing rules, standards constantly evolve so we might measure our attempts.
Congratulate Commiserate Compare
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Campfire Stories
Stuck inside
I look out, the windows need cleaning.
Disconnected, I contemplate the work.
She reaches in, her bright fingers search
For something to cling to,
A secret place to hide her light.
Her pink body already sinking,
I wonder why she fights so hard.
Night always comes, he wins Continue reading “Campfire Stories”
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Advice safe
Can you see what I see?
There is a walkway where I live. At some point, the Council decided to make a coastal path over large pipes, by dumping tonnes of concrete, over the lot, or so I have been told. It connects the bays along the foot of sandstone cliffs, who are forever moaning and crying down their rock tears. If you beware the sadness of the stones and do not mind being splashed by the sea, with guile and good timing, you can make it, from one plop of sand to the next even at the highest of tides. Today, a weekend morning, a high tide, exceptional weather, and the excitement of the official start of summer created an ant line of us along this thin piece of concrete. Happy dogs, bare legs and the smell of sun cream moved along the path with alarming efficiency. Did anyone see what I saw?
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The Advice Safe
A walk with a snake beneath my feet
There is a beautiful path I take regularly, it carries me past a tall tree, whose trunk has split in the growing. It flicks out of the earth like the tongue of a giant serpent, tines spread wide, to collect the chemicals of my existence. Sometimes I daydream that the mighty head with rise out of the ground and the creature lurking below will paralyse me with fear and eat my dog. I walk a little quicker on these broody dark days. Sometimes I just think about what to cook for dinner and hardly notice the trunk, when the sun shines bright, my crowded mind is filled with marshmallows and gravy.
Today I am standing under the tree looking up. It is the end of a bright blue sky day and I have just watched two Rosellas scramble up from the grass path before me. They chatter now, among the leaves, avoiding my gaze, waiting for me to go. My dog is busy with a smaller one of his kind further back along the path, I have time. The pair are annoyed with me, they want to eat the grass seed, I want to see their bright feathers, the dog is still sniffing, there is a standoff. I can not see the birds among the cones and glare of the sun. Continue reading “The Advice Safe”
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Campfire Stories
When glass gets broken
I am reading a note, in my husband’s thin blue handwriting, it starts.
- ask about prescription
- appointment at doctors?
- sick days?
I feel the familiar prickly sting start at the back of my eyes, I do not want to cry so I put his list back down on the table by the bed and continue to hoover. My husband is in the shower and I have a few minutes to clean up a little, take away old flowers, change the sheets and suck away crumbs. He can not tolerate the noise, so I work quickly. The water stops and I turn the hoover off and hit the button that pulls back the chord. The black line pulls the plug back quickly, the machine and I feel we should not be here. I pull the door shut quietly and wince at the loud click of the lock as I leave. I do not want him to see how upset I am. Continue reading “Campfire Stories”
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The Advice Safe
One day you might have children of your own
I fear this part, the letting go. I know my children are good, I know they understand right from wrong, I know they want to do their best, I know it is time to let go. I just hate the thought of it.
I have spent my time as a parent preparing my children for an independent life. I have taught skills, spoken of life with all its complications. I have explained the good and the bad. They understand life is a hot soup, to be tasted with caution, enjoyed to the last scrape.
I am not sure what it is I fear, broken heart, broken limbs, broken mind. These things can be mended.
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Advise Safe
Life is a river, everything changes
An old lady knocked on my door.
I said “Hello”
She said, “I hope you don’t mind, my husband built this house.”
I was confused and left space for the explanation.
“It was the first house on this section” she continued, looking back to the road. “We bought it from the farmer.”
I wondered whether she was still talking to me.
“I hope you don’t mind but I see that you have been doing a lot of work on the place.”
We had totally renovated, an 8 month project, I was still titivating.
I remembered my manners. “Would you like to come in?” I put the roller in a plastic bag and tapped the lid back on the pot of paint. Continue reading “Advise Safe”
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The Green Folder
The most misunderstood purple fruit.
4 great aubergine recipes that are quick, easy and healthy
There is just so something utterly seductive about a glossy purple aubergine. I just have to buy the egg shaped fruit whenever it is in season. Not everybody feels the same way, in fact the earlier varieties, which were more bitter than the ones we use today, were thought to be able to cause insanity, leprosy and cancer. Funny because we now know that the skin is an antioxidant.
You say Eggplant, I say Aubergine – it’s a fruit
The ancient ancestors of eggplant grew wild in India and were first cultivated in China in the 5th century B.C. Eggplant was introduced to Africa before the Middle Ages and then into Italy, Europe was last in the chain, where it was used more as a decorative plant for some time. Not until the 18th century did it throw off it’s bitter reputation and wear the royal purple with pride. Anyway, here are 4 great ways to eat them. Continue reading “The Green Folder”
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Campfire Stories
Top 20 family games and how to play them
in no particular order and according to us.
I am a game fanatic, love, love, love to play family games. I will pull in anyone who stands around long enough at a gathering, to play whatever game I am obsessed with at the time. We have 6 shelves of games, more in another room, which I played with the children when they were young, just waiting, I will play them again. My husband and daughter mostly groan, roll their eyes and move into another room when they see me heading to the boxes of entertainment, but my son enjoys the cut and thrust of a good strategy game as much as I do. We often play, just the two of us, but now he groans and rolls his eyes because he can beat me at almost everything and it is boring to win at everything.
I could have written about my top 100 family games, to compile a list of only 20 has been enormously difficult for me. In the end, the games I have chosen are the ones that we play again and again. I have tried to include a bit of everything. Looking at them on the table in front of me, most of them share the same traits. (spoiler alert I couldn’t do it, there are 21 here).
- They are easy to learn
- Quick to play
- Luck is just as important as strategy
- They make us laugh
- I do not win at any of them!!
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Crowded Mind 