Catching up and other random stuff

Last week I was finally starting to feel like I was on the mend from this horrible lingering bug, and then I made the mistake of walking home from TTP latish on Thursday night, and I think it's given the damn thing another foothold in my chest.

My sister has been visiting for the last week (she went home on Friday). I didn't see much of her, because I was working, and after having so much time off lately I didn't feel like I could take much more. I think the kids may have induced shell shock. Liam has been a bit manic lately.

The garden is doing okay. There are about a million lemons on the lemon tree just coming ripe (anyone who wants lemons just holler), and the vegies I have growing are doing well, if growing rather slowly. I think they need a bit of sun. The only thing that is not doing too well is the peas. I thought it was a bit of a risk planting them in autumn, but they were supposedly a sufficiently tolerant variety, and it's not like we've really had any frosts. However they are in a very damp spot that doesn't get much sun, and since we're not getting much sun anyway at the moment I think they are just kind of mouldering.

I also seem to be having some success rehabiltating the actual vegie garden out the back, which has been sadly neglected the last few years. Whoever built it seemed to think it would be a good idea to put a polyethylene roof on, which keeps the birds out, but also keeps the rain out. Hence it's very hard to keep moisture in the soil, especially over summer, and the beds just end up being dust bowls. The quantity of compost that we produce has not been adequate to keep up with the rate of desiccation.

Really it's just in keeping with the bizarre design of our garden, which has some fabulous things in it, but just put in the wrong places. The two cherry trees (you need two in order to get cherries) are crammed in a side bed up against the fence (cherry trees can grow to be very large). One of the plum trees (again you need two of these for mating purposes) is in the front garden, the other is in the back growing up a trellis. The wisteria (wisteria is a beautiful climbing vine with clusters of grape-like purple flowers - there's a really spectacular one at the Adelaide zoo) is growing in a big clump in the middle of the lawn (with nothing to grow up, out or over). And earlier this year we discovered an olive tree growing right in the middle of a large hibiscus bush down the side of the house. It was so completely in the middle of the hibiscus that we have managed to live in this house for six years before noticing there was an olive tree here.

I just got a copy of the latest Lois McMaster Bujold book Cryoburn from the library. I was surprised to see it came with a disk in the back. Even more surprised to see that the disk apparently contains copies of all the books in the very very excellent Miles Vorkosigan series. Finally I get to read Cetaganda which is the one book in the series I never managed to get my hands on. Happy happy.

And finally, here is Ashwyn's version of 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star':

Twinkle twinkle little star
How I under what you are
Up the, up the, up the sky
Down the, down the, down the side
Twinkle twinkle little star
How I under what you are.