My sunny daze

These are flars from my garden. Already.

Here in Perth, the sun seems reluctant to let us have winter.

It can be cold and wet, the nights long and dark, and we can get those windy storms that uproot trees and rip off roofs, but none of it lasts very long. The sun is simply holding its fire, hanging back, letting the other elements have a tanty.

Just when you think the bleak midwinter has got a grip, you'll wake up to the most glorious sunny day with birdsong from the bare branches and the air full of the smell of blossom and greenstuff.

It's the first day of August today, and being a winter-lover who dreads summer, I got up in the not-too-chilly morning and, looking at the perfect blue sky, asked David if winter was over.

But he reassured me that no: August is the dead of winter.

So I can enjoy it all for a little longer before the sun gets on its power trip.

:: I went along to a craft fair last weekend with my best mate Shelley and her amazingly well-read and crafty daughter, Isme. And afterwards, out of the blue, Shelley gave me the most beautiful present (above): a page by the eminent British papercut artist, Rob Ryan.

I can't believe it is mine! I have put it on my desk where I can look at it constantly, and where, for a brief period, the sun shines through it, casting wonderful shadows on the wall behind.

Thank you so much, Shelley! I treasure it.

:: Just watching old Bob Hawke get his federal ALP life membership, and wondering if he'll weep. He does look amazing for his age, as Big Kev remarked. But as Dave — who has a similarly fine head of thick white hair — says, imagine if Hawkey had a few wispy tufts on that wrinkly old head and you'd think he looked every bit his age.

:: Lunch last week with our old Subi playgroup members. Lots of laughs as we remembered how desperate we all were for Friday to come round so we could bundle up the kids and head off for coffee and cake and — far more importantly — adult female company! And amazement at how those babies have all grown up and how most of the older ones are now out in the world seeking lives and pathways of their own.

I miss my kids being little.

Exactly like that exquisite little Yeats poem:

I sigh that kiss you,

For I must own

That I shall miss you

When you are grown.

:: Dinner, chat and tarot (a fab French card game, not fortune telling!) last night with best mates. I cooked up a chili that was so ridiculously hot that we all got rather red in the face and runny of nose. I misjudged how very hot chili powder is here — woops!

:: More dinner tonight with more best friends — making a curry tonight and will be careful! Why am I so spicy right now?

:: Simon, Marnie and Mack are in Bali for a couple of weeks' R&R ... and there's another grandchild heading my way in January — YAY!

We bumped into Simon's dad, Mark, in the supermarket the other day and he and his wife, Lee, are coming to dinner in the week.

:: This week, I thought I had landed the absolute gift of a job, handed to me on a fine porcelain plate, with sauces, sides and all the trimmings. Alas, it was too good to be true, as I should have realised. It's not that I didn't get it, but that the keepers of the job have decided to vaporise the position and it has disappeared into the ether like a puff of mist that dries up in a lovely Perth sunny morning. Poof!

:: But life, she is being grand and I am loving him.