Zeffwee's Bwains

This is Zeffwee. Well, I think it's supposed to be Jeffrey but it certainly sounds like Zeffwee when Woody says it.  And this isn't Woody, it's Rex, sorry that's confusing.

Zeffwee is very old, possibly originally belonging to my brother, Wee Bro.  His forehead has been mended many times but keeps coming open.  Woody occasionally finds a quiet moment to sit with Zeffwee and fondly "pull his bwains out."  Lucky Zeffwee.

This is the worst game you've never heard of.  The mother is vaguely aware of the sounds of her offspring riding bikes and scooters on the driveway, and then comes the sickening sounds of bikes and scooters forcefully falling to the ground.  She looks around to see her offspring lying in a horribly mangled, twisted heap, apparently having had a major crash and all fallen over.  Just when the mother's finger is hovering over the zero ready to dial 000, the children all gleefully jump back up onto their bikes and scooters and repeat the whole process.  It takes a while for the lower-intelligence mothers to learn not to be fooled by this again and again.

I would like to apologise for all the guests who have visited us over the last month and been treated to the seven signs in the toilet, all bearing the same recommendation.  I never remember to remove the signs before guests come over, I'm only reminded they're there when a guest either laughs from the direction of the toilet, or comes out sheepishly saying, "You'll be pleased to know that I flushed."  The signs are down now.  It seems that when they're up for longer than a day, they cease to work.  It's maddening to see a child casually walk past seven signs urging him/her to flush and saunter off without flushing.  And anyway, it's time for my next project: seven bright yellow signs saying, "For the love of all that is good, WASH YOUR HANDS!"

Here is a little boy on his first birthday.  All he needed was a few new clothes and books, and some tiny cupcakes called "Angel Babycakes"which was cute.

Jessie's hair is extremely thick and it's getting very difficult to brush.  I said to her once, "If you don't let me brush it, we won't be able to get the knots out and you'll ... you'll ... you'll have to get it shaved off or something."  She then went away to write her usual passive-aggressive note about life, only it was more sad than aggressive.  "Dear mother I don't want my hair to be shaved off or else I'll be so disappointed!  Because I will burst with tears and I'm doing it right now.  Love from ... etc."  And a little picture of a girl with extremely long thick hair bursting with tears.

Well I couldn't leave it like that, could I?  To make it a true representation, I did this and let her discover it for herself.  It seemed that nothing was noticed until ...

...her usual game of Hangman now had a new punishment for not guessing the target word in the appropriate number of guesses:

The player who doesn't guess the word in time gets their head shaved.  Cool!

A Clown Car and other things

This is the cutest picture you will see all day, even if you happen to see pictures of kittens and duckies.

It is, of course, a Clown Car.  A car full of clowns.

They collected "kindling" from the forest, but a lot of it isn't good kindling, it's just leaves and green stuff.  Then they made a shelter using what they learned in SOSE at school about how Aboriginal people built shelters and had a great time.

This water table has been great fun!  I usually put warm water in it, and this time I put some detergent and food colouring in as well.  Playtime always ends in children sitting in the table completely soaking, only to be stripped off and put in a warm shower at the end of it all.

Jessie gets in moods when she wants to be so close to me that it's Just. Too. Much.  Pulling ghastly faces doesn't work, in fact nothing seems to make her want to give me a little space.

Kasparov never had to deal with spectators trying to suck on the bishops and eat the pawns.

Rex has a lot of favourite things, but baths and showers rate in the Top 5.

He laughs a lot.

He cries a lot too.  Here he is crying for no reason while Maisie models a hat I made for a tiny little baby boy who is now home with his family after many weeks in hospital, charged with the important task of growing bigger.

Sixty seven kilobits per second

That there, people, will stop anyone blogging.

Long story short, it's all fixed now (only took three months, yip yah!) and now I can share some more Pieces Of Nothing with you.  Not very efficiently on this incomprehensible Mac, as I'm still emailing photos to myself from my phone then saving them in who-knows-where and uploading them onto my blog, but I CAN and that's the point.

Technology fails me (or the other way around) to the point that I am only using my poxy little phone camera instead of my nice Canon.  It seems that I HAVE nice things, it's just that the nice things don't work for me so I usually go to bed at this time of night instead.

Anyway, here is a lot of Random!

This playground contraption is called a Vomitron.  It is called that because Mr de Elba named it that.  We were horrified to see the old orange Vomitron being dismantled one morning, but delighted to see that afternoon it was replaced with an even-more-appropriately-coloured TECHNICOLOUR Vomitron!  Oh yes!

Some of you are thinking, "Oh how nice, three children baking."  Others are thinking, "She obviously gave up and bought packet mixes for each of them."  I'm just thinking, "Buzz really needed a haircut back then." We're all correct.

Long story short: Woody split his scalp on a heavy iron pole and so we bought him a swimming cap to keep the water off the glue they used to 'suture' it and the associated yuck that was dry and crusty.  He loves his swimming cap, and when I ask whether he will have ears in or ears out, he thinks deeply and decides on "one ear in and one ear out."

Woody fell asleep with his wand just in case he needed to do "Expelliarmus" in his sleep.  Or perhaps his signature spell: "A-woghurt!"  That's a spell he made up, claiming that "it covers you in woghurt."

My dear old Grandma died aged 90 years 1 day.  She was an absolute gem.  I will never feel I had enough time with her, not because 90 years 1 day isn't long enough and not because I didn't spend lots of time at her place in my childhood, but just because her years were very busy, filled with work that she needed to do.  My sister and I played piano at her service.  A few hours before, Jessie threw a few girlie items into a little handbag: three bottles of nail polish, a few brooches, a pink teddy bear, etc ... without checking to see the lids of the nail polishes were on tightly.  When the stench of nail polish became unbearable I went searching and found the contents of the handbag swimming in an ocean of thick, sticky blue nail polish and I frantically tried to scrub everything clean, as Jessie was distraught.  Then I looked at my hands ... blue.  Very blue.  A few hours before playing for my Grandma.  This pictures shows me half-way through the process of scrubbing it off because I couldn't feel things - you know - I had no fingerprints - so playing piano was difficult.  Scrubbing your hands with detergent and steel wool isn't great for them either, it seems.

Playing in the winter afternoons.  Rex is most unhappy when he doesn't get some outside time with his siblings every day.

A long time ago, we chopped Baby Rex's door down with a mattock.  You should try chopping one of your doors down with a mattock sometime.  Put it on your bucket list.  Then after you've done that and replaced the door, painting the new door might be on your bucket list for quite some time, because after all that effort ... meh.  I knew I was never going to get around to painting Rex's new door by myself - there is never a day when it is remotely convenient for me to paint a door - so I asked my Wee Bro if he'd be up for it, and he obliged.  He and his lovely girlfriend took a few days out of their holiday to paint Rex's door!  I am deeply thankful.  I gave them a manly apron and an outrageously girly one, and they decided who would wear which (above.)  Just as I thought they would.

And I have no explanation for this.  See it and photograph it, that's what I do.