And now it's May!
What happened to April? I still have that Brand New Year feeling ... yet when I look at the calendar I'm all out of whack.
There's been lots happening at Schloss Zed.
• I've had a great time with grandson Mack, who is fantastic fun and, with Uncle Will, can spend hours and hours playing with a couple of old rice-paper shades


and then making a cubby

and baking banana buns.
• I've been painting — there are now no storm-cloud blue walls left in the family room (hooray) and the dining room-cum-bookroom-cum-spare room has been transformed from a mustard and purple room to a calm-looking creamy white room. Much much better (sound of contented sigh).
• Laura and I have had a couple of play days and have put together Jaryd's quilt, which I am now quilting. I'm trying to get it done ASAP as winter seems to have descended over in Victoria ... while here in Perth we are loving week after week of perfect, clear and sunny autumn days in the mid to high 20s with lovely coolish nights (sound of another contented sigh).
• I have painted a few bits of furniture and we've bought some glorious big rugs for the jarrah floors and the house is looking better and better. Despite the fact we are S-T-I-L-L waiting for all our stuff from the US, which someone in Singapore managed to forget to load on to the boat to Perth (that would have been a bloke, is my bet).
• We have succumbed and had Foxtel installed and here there is the sound of another sigh of contentment. Will and I gasped, groaned in disgust, held our breath, pulled our hair out and sat like stunned mullets all at the same time while we watched "My Super Sweet Sixteenth Birthday" — well worth the price of connection to the satellite dish.
• I have started getting myself organised to create a new, improved range of Chrissie angels — yes, I know December is months away, but these things take time and I want to get a goodly host all ready in the hopes ... maybe! ... of selling them!
• We have a baby kookaburra living in the park behind oour house. It came and sat on the garden fence this morning as I was having a morning cuppa on teh deck with my neighbour.
• I finished reading The Slap, which has to be one of the very best new Australian novels and which I cannot recommend heartily enough. Now I'm reading Births Deaths and Marriages, a collection of finely-written memoirs by Georgia Blain, daughter of feminist, journalist and columnist Anne Deveson. Books are so exy here! I'll have to join the library.
• Lily and Nick are planning to move to P{erth. Life on teh farm is fantastic, but they need the internet and library access in order to study efficiently. They both just had a weekednd in Perth with us, which was wonderful, and I'll be very happy to have Lil in the same city. Very happy.
• I'm knitting away — I've started another clapotis in exactly the same wool as I used for the last one (I have a L-O-T of it). Knitting keeps me awake when I'm watching telly at night — otherwise I'll just drift off in heavy, contented slumber.
More news bulletins later!