Dribs & drabs

I want my food dead. Not sick, not dying, dead. Oscar Wilde.
We haven't had many clear blue summer days this year...& now summer is over. The mornings are definitely cooler than they were. I have pulled the vegie garden & Liddy did a massive clean up ready for the winter planting but that will have to wait. Everything always happens at once. I can only do so much at one time & now Ditz & I are miserable & grumpy with the first inklings of a cold. I am hoping against hope it will make a noise like a hoop & roll away because I really can not afford to be sick.

We got watermelon. They weren't huge but, oh! So crisp & juicy!

I don't eat it but Dearest & the kids polished them off in no time at all & declared them sooo much better than shop bought watermelon.

Ditz, who definitely doesn't believe in being like everyone else, has been on a cooking spree. Firstly she declared she was going to do tea one night. She planned the whole thing & started preparations in plenty of time but time management is not one of Ditz's strengths & if I hadn't given her a hand we could still be waiting. I don't know if I've actually taught either of my girls to cook ~ as opposed to baking ~ but if they've been round they've been handed a knife & a peeler & old to make themselves useful. Either way they can both cook & we ate very well.

Baking has also been in Ditz's sights: choc chip cookies, melting moments, chocolate muffins & apple turnovers according to Liddy. Liddy invented these one miserable afternoon when she wanted a sweet treat & there was nothing in the cupboards & they are incredibly simple. A sheet of filo pastry, quartered into triangles. Enough peeled & diced apple to make a filling & a sprinkling of brown sugar. Put the diced apple & sugar on the triangle of pastry, fold over & bake till golden. Ditz also *invented* the muffins. Wherever she found the base recipe it makes a lovely moist muffin & Ditz created a crisp sugary top by sprinkling sugar on top before baking them. She took a batch with her to drama last week & they were devoured but no~one seems to bake any more & homemade stuff has novelty value.

Ditz also got her first VM certificate. These are handed out so the kids have proof that they have spent time at the academy as apparently people go to auditions claiming to be graduates of VM that VM has never heard of. She's really proud of it. It's gone into her portfolio along with her flute exam results & her drama work. It's surprising how much she's done when I look back & it's starting to really add up now.

See. In between all the drama & running around & Ditzy theatrics we have another life; a quieter, simplier life. The trouble with quiet simple lives is that they don't make for good stories. Just the same, I like my quiet, simple life far beter. Constant drama gets terribly wearing.