Our garden is a quagmire. I noticed that even Day-z has started picking out the tiny islands of grass to walk on, afraid she’ll vanish in the bog. Of course, Carmen just charges through it, making it worse. I have made a few trips up the back but generally avoided it for fear of being sucked under.
Our mud garden
And so the day has been spent largely inside. I went shopping, of course, and had my coffee in Starbucks.
Actually I was in Starbucks, happily reading The Indian Mutiny – 1857 on my reader when a cheery voice beside me said “Oh, hello!” It was Alex, who used to work there but then worked in Cote. She is working on her final piece for uni and has, therefore, given up work. So she says. She graduates in July but her piece has to be in by May. She’s at the uni here so I’m assuming she’s doing something arty.
I asked her what she was going to do when she’s finished. She thought it over and then said, with utter confidence “Do a Masters.” She thought for a bit more then said “And another Masters. I can just keep doing lots of Masters.” I smiled, unsure if she was being serious. She’s Schumanian and maybe I didn’t get the joke intonation or something. However, I think she was serious.
This then made me wonder what sort of arty Masters you could do and what the dissertation would be about. Make a wedding dress, maybe. Or stuff a doona. Then I thought about Mirinda and her multitude Masters of Arts and figured I’d best stop thinking about it.
I made myself toad in the hole for dinner which, while I loved it, is also a major treat for the dogs. The minute I take the sausages out of the wrapper they are sitting in the kitchen watching and waiting. As they bubble and spit beneath the grill, the dogs sit and watch them, enthralled like kids watching Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs for the first time. When I take the snags out, they get all excited, thinking I’ll just pop them into their mouths like dolphins with fish. They then guard them – well, Day-z does, Carmen feigns a careless disregard by going into the lounge for a sleep – until they are cold enough for me to cut up and drop in their bowls. And they don’t waste any time tasting them! God no. They’re gone in seconds and then the dogs are back in the kitchen looking for the rest.
Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed my dinner though possibly not as much as Mirinda did her Moroccan dinner in Bath today.
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I spotted this on blip today. It is from someone who lives and works in Christchurch, New Zealand. It was posted the day of the quake. I think it shows the power of blogging that we can get such a human perspective on events happening in the world these days. Broadcast news is always a distant, unattached view; this is a real person. I felt sad but also cheered by the human spirit. It’s well worth a read: New Zealand