Hello, Good Friends,

This is just a quick post to let you all know that I've decided to transfer my blog elsewhere.

I've thoroughly enjoyed working on this blog, "Keep Homeschool Fun" at homeschoolblogger, which has been ongoing for about a year and a half. I've made some fantastic friends, who I intend to keep coming to visit here on their blogs. But the reason I want to change is that I find it will be far easier for me to share photos at my new address. And for a long time, I've wished to be able to share glimpses of my home in Australia with my blogging friends. I think it'll be a good move.

Meanwhile, I haven't decided whether to close this blog completely or to try dual posting, minus some of the photos. I'll decide soon. Meanwhile, please visit me at my new home, which is:-

www.appleleafblog.blogspot.com

Blessings to everyone who's shared parts of their lives with me here,

Paula

Treat your imagination with kindness

It's a bit like a shy kid who won't come out if he thinks he's being criticised. And we're often so rough on ourselves, telling ourselves that our writing is rubbish and that we're not happy with it. Your subconscious mind believes every word so tell it, so be careful what you think! I think writing is probably one of those activities in which we never feel we're perfect. Sometimes we think it's absolutely shocking, but we must get into the habit of respecting our brain's sensitive Creative Chamber. In those low phases, we could tell ourselves, "It's all come out OK before and I'm sure it will this time, too." Trust yourself. And don't wait for 100% acceptance of your writing in your own head because it'll never come.

I was quite encouraged by this quote from Philip Yancey on the subject of creative writing.

"For three hours I strained to develop three dimensional characters and purge cliches from their dialogue. A raw beginner at fiction, I was getting a terrific headache from the effort. Naturally, I used the excuse to stop writing and walk across to a coffee shop. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that all the people in the coffee shop were two dimensional characters who talked in cliche! None seemed nearly as interesting to me as the people who populated my story. I fled back to the security of the false reality awaiting me in my basement office."

Don't look at the entire picture.

Imagination is also a bit like an artistic soul who hates huge commitments. Although it is a huge commitment to work on a big project, I've fooled my imagination into thinking that I'm only working on small, little bits, but just doing it often.

In other words, when I'm working on my novels I break it down into small chunks, working scene by scene, chapter by chapter. I pour my energy into one scene at a time. This is the easiest attitude I've learned to have while writing novels, because in the past, I've become impatient, thinking, "This'll be so long, it'll take over a year and that's if I work every day! I'll never be through!"

What I do now is give myself a small weekly goal of getting through a particular scene or chapter and forget about the big picture. For example, on a Monday morning, I might decide, "By Friday night I'll finish the part where P. walks into the cafeteria and finds C. sitting there with E." Then by Friday night, that four page episode within a chapter will be finished, and I'll be happy because I've done what I intended to do. Working in chunks has helped me to feel as if I'm always achieving something and I don't have that, "I still haven't finished" frustration eating me at the end of each week. The imagination hates to feel swamped.

And I've had to learn not to be in too big a hurry to finish. I absolutely love my characters. They become like best friends and I always love to have feedback from readers about their actions. Sometimes it's frustrating when I have to wait so long for that to be forthcoming. But I need to remind myself that I should be enjoying the process. It's supposed to take awhile, and gives me all the time to enjoy them.

I'll have another installment on Harnessing the Imagination before too long.

I was honoured to chosen as a "Rockin' Girl Blogger" by my friend Cristina, aka Juggling Paynes.

As part of that honour, I'm to choose 5 other ladies whose blogs rock to do the same. Hmm, there are so many blogs I thoroughly enjoy but I'll limit myself to five. Please excuse me, ladies, if you've already been chosen by others, but consider it as reinforcement that your blog really rocks.

1) Callmekate    My friend Kate's blog is always a pleasure to visit because every entry she makes is a work of art in itself, full of thought-provoking wisdom, not just on the subject of homeschooling but nurturing self, family and general living.

2) Coffee Mum  Kathleen's blog is a must-visit, but I warn you now, make sure you have plenty of time at your disposal! As well as reading all about the fun activities in lives of Kathleen and her family, there are often fun quizs, activities and challenges to do. And I often learn such interesting nuggets of trivia.

3) Comfy Denim  Always well worth catching up with for a glimpse into the life of a self-professed easily amsued, sanguine mother with four gorgeous children ranging in age from 8 to 1 (I think that's right!) Her humour and witty insight about the noble task of mothering is guaranteed to brighten your own day.

4) Author Donna   A treasure of a blog I've re-discovered full of wisdom, Bible study and thoughts about writing and creativity; all things that I love to glean other peoples' brains about. And Donna is an experienced author whose children, now grown, were homeschooled. Her insights are very valuable.

5) LadyPoet33  It's my day to honour the creative spirit. These are the very interesting thoughts and experiences of another lady who writes and homeschools with a variety of other interests including history, education, nature study and the fine arts.

One of our local supermarkets sells classic novels at a very cheap price. I'd bought "Heidi" by Johanna Spyri to read aloud to my 8yo daughter, but when I got it home and opened it, I was in for a shock disappointment. The story turns out to have been "adapted" for modern readers. In my opinion, this means that it's been slashed, shortened and stripped of its character. I went to our local library where I know they have the original "Heidi" and borrowed that one instead. Since then, I've been reading the 1880 version to Emma and glancing through the modern retelling to compare the differences between the two.

To start with, many of the wonderful descriptive passages of the Swiss Alps have been taken out. I wonder how Johanna Spyri would feel if she knew what'd been done. She had lots of very lovely parts of the story which dealt with Heidi being taught about God and His love for her and the way in which prayers are answered. For example, in Chapter 11, her friend Clara's grandmother explains, "If we go on praying earnestly and and never run away or lose faith, our prayers will be answered. You see Heidi, what you asked for was not good for you just at this moment. God has certainly heard you. He can hear everyone at the same time because He is God and not a human being like you or me.... You see, when someone behaves like you so that God never hears his voice among those who pray, He lets him go his own way. And when he gets into trouble and then complains, "There is no one to help me!" God says, "Why did you run away from me? I cannot help you when you run away!" And all of this totally complements the plot of the story. I love reading stories like this to the kids, which reinforce God's love and care for them, but do you think the modern adaptation of "Heidi" has left any of this in the story? I think you've guessed it. Not one bit. Every mention of God has been deleted, leaving a "Don't worry, everything'll be OK," sort of wishy-washy theme.

I'm beginning to understand why we, as homeschooling families, need to turn to the Internet to order to search for the good and excellent books of our childhood. Bookstores no longer stock most of them. I'm going to order the "real" edition of "Heidi" along with its sequels, online. Emma has proven that she enjoys the original version and didn't need to have it watered-down like that at all. Her friend was over to play yesterday, and I heard Emma mention the story. They were both having a glass of milk, and Emma told Hannah, "You ought to see the gross thing they used to do in the book we're reading! The grandfather squeezes milk straight from the goats into a cup for the little girl to drink from!" And Hannah groans, "Ough, YUCK!"  I sit there smiling to myself. Nothing will ever convince me that the good old books, untouched by 21st century hands, are not superior.   

It's been cold around here lately. Lots of indoor activities and I was back to our interesting booklet of "Thinker's Keys". The exercise we chose this time is called "The Interpretation". You take the description of an unusual situation and then think of some different explanations for the existence of the situation. The example they give is this.

Your neighbour is making large circles in his backyard by pouring sump oil from a can.

And here are some sample explanations you could think up.

1.  He is a disguised alien and is sending cryptic messages to his friends in outer space.

2. He considers himself to be an alternative artist and will soon be rolling around in the grass, attempting to create an environmental masterpiece.

3. He has had a fixation for circles since his childhood, and later will be seen dancing around the circles in the light of the full moon.

As you can see, these are a stretch of the grey matter for children and adults alike. I sat there with the kids while we tried to make up possible explanations for all sorts of wild scenarios. We can invent some of our own when we exhaust those in the book, but for now, we have enough to keep us going for a long time. A few that we tackled are,

Give three possible explanations for:  All the oceans have turned orange.

Give three possible explanations for:  The Prime Minister is standing on top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge holding a meat pie in one hand and a boomerang in the other.

We had all sorts of fun with that second one. One of Emma's suggestions was, "He is trying to show that a pie is more yummy than a boomerang."

Logan wrote, "George Bush and Tony Blair came for a sleep-over. While they were playing "Castles, Cowboys & Kangaroos" he was defending his territory and eating dinner at the same time.

As I played along, here's one of my suggestions. "A worldwide publicity campaign has been started in which every world leader must stand in a prominent spot bearing some of their national icons to be photographed. John Howard chose the boomerang because it's light and brought his lunch up to eat with him."

We also came up with, "Huge monsters have invaded Australia and everyone has to run for cover as fast as they can. John Howard has bagged the highest spot in Sydney over water for himself, hoping the monsters can't swim. He's taken the boomerang in case he needs to defend himself and the pie in case he needs to deviate a monster's attention by feeding it."

And "The pressure of being Prime Minister has gone to his head and he's threatening to commit suicide by leaping off. He's going to belt himself over the head with the boomerang if anyone approaches to talk sense into him, and use the meat pie to fling into the person's face."

Apart from being silly with these, we celebrated Andrew's 39th birthday by taking the whole family out to tea at Fasta Pasta, where we enjoyed a nice hot tea and some luscious desserts. Mars Bar cheesecake and Mint Slice mousse that just melted in our mouths. It was a Friday night and we finished off with a drive through the city lights in the warm car. I love doing relaxing, out-of-the-ordinary things every so often.

Last night I borrowed "The Pursuit of Happyness" from Blockbuster and watched it. I love Will Smith's acting and this was certainly a tear-jerker. It made me feel very heavy-hearted for salesmen and homeless people. I think it's the sort of movie that can help us appreciate our own blessings. Of course the ending was satisfactory, although after all their hardships, I would have liked to have seen him and and his little son enjoy a bit more of the good life before the movie ended.

Meanwhile, I'm steadily reading through the pile of books I"ve acquired from both the writer's and homeschooler's conferences, one of my favourite things. So winter has passed quite comfortably so far.

I've just attended a homeschooling conference at Adelaide University. After several years of attending no conferences at all, I've been to three just within the last few months and I can honestly say that is enough! However, they've all been very timely, and although vastly different from each other, reinforced my lifestyle decisions in the same way. I feel reassured in my own heart that writing and homeschooling, although both slow and sometimes frustrating occupations, often with nothing tangible to show from one day to the next, are valuable and worthwhile things to do.

I had to jump out of bed early to get down to the city by 9.00am. The previous night had been crisp and clear, the perfect ingredients for a bitter cold morning. I had to pour water over the windscreen before I could even go. The whole car was covered with brittle frost like some sort of massive crystal. The whole world looked icy white and when I passed the digital thermometer thing on the road out of town, I saw that it registered minus zero! All this coldness was just a bit of fun and didn't deter anyone from the hills from attending, because one of the main keynote speakers was John Taylor Gatto, who we were all anxious to hear.

It was quite a weird feeling as I walked through the Uni grounds to get to the conference in the Union House block, because I used to walk it every single day in my past, and haven't done so for many years. As I passed the Psychology office, I remembered how often I used to step into the foyer just to check if the results of some major essay or other had been posted on the bulletin board.

As I'd expected, John Taylor Gatto was fascinating to listen to. I choose homeschooling four years ago because I had a shy son who was unhappy and I was convinced that the teachers couldn't possibly care as much for his welfare as I could. Yet Mr. Gatto has so many more interesting facts to say about what he considers the corruption underpinning the whole public school system that I didn't even know way back then! He spoke in several two-hour blocks but here are a few pertinent points.

1) Schools keep stating they are going to "change" and implement all sorts of fantastic, revolutionary programmes, yet they never do.

2) An astounding percentage of  "history changing" individuals  (and he rattled off a whole list) were "C"-average students. He thinks that the "A" and "B" students have been conditioned to spout the rhetoric that the education system has been spoon feeding them. It was a very entertaining spiel, especially from a former award-winning public school teacher. I've purchased his book entitled "Dumbing Us Down" and I'm looking forward to reading it. 

Do you know, his first point was driven home to me in an interesting way during the lunch break. I took a browse in the Uni bookshop downstairs and discovered that the English section is still full of many of the same dreary old books I'd studied in my time there. And keep in mind, I began my degree in 1988! In almost twenty years, the Adelaide Uni English Department has apparently been meandering along simply repeating whatever it'd done the year before.

And what was wrong with so many of those books? I've come to see that many of them present a bleak world view. They used to make me feel depressed whenever I read them because of their content. Having had more time to think about writing over the last decade, I have to say I prefer texts that build you up and make you feel richer, happier and more optimistic for having read them. But someone in the Education Dept. once told me that this "rosy" view is short-sighted and unrealistic. But is it any more short-sighted than the one they present?

I think both world views are true, simply if you believe them to be. Some Biblical quotations I've been pondering lately spring to mind regarding this. God told the Israelites, "I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to His voice and hold fast to Him." Deuteronomy 30: 15, 19-20. I think the people at the top of the public education system may often "choose" the "curses" instead of the "blessings". And this is another very good reason why I'm glad to have my children at home instead of trying to live up to the education system on those terms. I'd rather choose the blessings every time.

One dark evening not so long ago, I was driving back along a winding road after shopping down near the city and almost ran over a koala who was loping across. I'm glad nobody was directly behind me at the time because I instinctively slammed on my brakes and might've caused an accident. As it was, a few other cars banked up behind me while I waited for him to make his slow progress. Those drivers must've seen him too because nobody honked me and we all waited very patiently until he was across. He was dragging one of his back paws behind him in a funny way so he must've had an injury. Other than that, he looked very fat and cuddly and healthy.

We've seen a few koalas high up in trees from time to time and they're a rare enough sight for people to stop and stare, and point them out to others. They're quite funny because they tend to sit wedged behind very slender twigs and we all wonder how they could possibly hold their weight. However, I've seen no tumbling koalas as yet, so they must quickly clutch the bark with their sharp claws if they feel they might be falling. 

Other than koalas, we get lots of wonderful bird life here in the Hills. At their old house before I left home, my parents used to get several laughing kookaburras. I don't know if the North American kingfishers laugh the same way as our kookaburras. If not, it's got to be heard to be believed. Dad liked them so much he built a feeding tray in the middle of the yard and used to buy cheap pet mince from the shop to feed them. Every early evening at the same time, about a dozen kookaburras would swoop down to the trees to wait for him. If Dad was slow coming out at the right time, they'd make such a din with their laughing and cackling that all the neighbours would know about it too. Friends used to try to time their visits to catch the daily 'feeding of the kookaburras'. It was really lovely, but sometimes a bit of a pain when we were out for the day. Whenever about 5.30 came around, Dad would fret, "The kookaburras will be disappointed." Whenever we went off on holiday, he always tried to get the neighbours to feed them.

Eventually, when we kids had all moved out of home, the house and yard became too big for my parents and they sold it. Dad told the new buyers about the kookaburras and even wrote down where to purchase the meat. They promised to keep up the tradition. Every so often when we see a lone kookaburra around the place with the kids, I feel a bit sad because they hadn't even been born when their Papa had his kookaburra feeding ritual going.

Before I stop, I've just to mention something about emus. They are such quaint birds, but can be a bit scary if they strut over to you with their stern expressions and deep voices. My brother had an emu peck once when he was a boy, and I've heard it was quite dramatic. Some of the emus are actually taller than we are. And boy, can they run! "Emu Oil or Ointment" is one the remedies for eczema and other skin complaints for sale over here, but don't ask me how it's acquired.

I'll finish off with one of my true stories, this time from friends of some of Andrew's old friends, who used to work at the hospital with him. It seems these people wanted to start an emu farm, so they drove way up to the outback to purchase a big male and female to begin their stock. On their way home, they put the birds in a horse float while they drove along the highway. You can imagine their shock and horror on their first stop a few hours down the road, when they went to check and found two crumpled, headless emus lying dead on the bottom of the horse float. It seems the birds had been poking their long necks out of the horse float and some of the huge Mack trucks or road trains whizzing past had knocked them off. I really had the heebie-jeebies when I heard that, so I'm sorry if I've upset anyone else. The buyers were more upset about their loss of thousands of dollars than they were about the birds themselves. It seems breeding emus aren't cheap. I guess if this was some sort of fable, the moral could be, "Don't put your emus in a horse float"

By the way, we get plenty of kangaroos around the place too but I'll mention more about them another time. 

I'd really love to include the occasional photos so I've decided once and for all to work out how to do it. I asked my husband to take me through step by step. For lack of anything more interesting on the camera at present, we just put on before and after shots of the haircut I had last Wednesday. As you can see, the experiments worked, and not only that, I could follow the steps. So look out for more interesting photos from me in the future. Soon, I might even try to download some of the ones I took in Brisbane.

By the way, I'm happy with a shorter style for now, although some of the family were a bit disappointed because it'd taken a while to grow as long as it was. But for me, lightness and simplicity make my life easier.

BEFORE

Although it was awhile coming, here is more of what I shared at the conference regarding creative writing of any sort.

Anybody who says, "I have no imagination," is mistaken. Everybody has imagination. It is like a well in the middle of a green field. It may be an open well from which it is easy to dip the fresh, clear water OR it can be a covered well with no way of any access to the water. As a result, the water becomes stagnant and still. For writing to be vibrant, powerful and colourful, you need to learn to tap into the well of imagination.

Trust Yourself

Sometimes we block the imagination by censuring what we write at the very start, while we're still writing it. We purposely hold back from writing some of our good ideas out of fear that we'll be laughed at or criticised. You might have a brainwave for a plot, then instantly decide, "I'd better not write that. Uncle Fred might think I'm basing this character on him and then I'd never hear the end of it." So that idea never gets a chance to see the light of day, the water in your well goes stagnant and part of your imagination withers.

You must be willing to write what might sometimes embarrass yourself. It's called being original and "real". It's breaking out of the herd mentality that so many of us unconsciously find ourselves in. I can remember some of the boring, trite and spark-less writing that came out of my High School English class twenty years ago simply because we were all too embarrassed to write about strong emotions when we knew the teacher often read our stories out loud to the whole class.

All our lives we're learned the "right" clothes to wear, the "right" words to say, the "right" attitudes to have. Western society doesn't encourage us to develop our uniqueness. (Just as an aside here, this is also something that can said in favour of homeschooling). Although we might conform to a group, look good and earn respect, it's often at the expense of something valuable. This, of course, is our imagination. We've made a choice to keep the cover on our wells. It's a voluntary sacrifice. When original thoughts do pop into our heads, we instantly judge them as not worthwhile and let them moulder. I encourage you to trust what you come up with and write it down anyway, especially in that first stage draft with the "creative brain" that I mentioned before.

Don't keep too busy

Another problem particular to the western world is that we tend to smother our imaginations and leave the lids on them simply because we crowd them out and leave no time for them. There are always 1000 "urgent" matters to take care of first before we allow ourselves time to settle down with pen & paper. It's vital to schedule time for your writing and then make sure you keep the appointment. Find a quiet place to sit and reflect. Let your thoughts and feelings well up so that you can examine them and jot them down. This may feel a bit strange and forced at first but this is just the creaky cover being forced off the well. Nothing kills the imagination as quickly as being busy all the time. It's more than merely letting the water in your well stagnate; it's actually filling it with stones. (I think those of us who are homeschool mothers can be very prone to having all sorts of extra-curricular, worthwhile outside events crop up to keep us busy. I used to, and still sometimes, have real problems knocking back invitations just because I've already done a few things that week and simply want to work on my current writing projects. It's a matter of continually reminding ourselves that our writing is as important as whatever we've knocked back and not merely self-indulgence. It's important because we've decided it will be)

I'll write Part 3 soon and to end Part 2, I'll finish with an anonymous quote I found that sums this up very nicely.  Why are you trying so hard to 'fit in' when you were made to 'stand out'?

Last Thursday we all went shopping down near the city for a new computer because our old one gets slower and more unreliable each week. We looked at Office Works, then Harvey Norman's, but decided to go back to Office Works because their computers seemed to be better value. It was fairly late on a cold and wet afternoon and we were in a hurry to get back before the store closed. But suddenly, as we waited to turn at a busy intersection, the car just conked out! We were stuck there waving the rest of the traffic past.

I called the RAA on Andrew's mobile phone and the receptionist told me that they'd have somebody out to help us in under an hour. "It's a very awkward spot," I reminded her, hoping to get us closer to the top of the queue. "We'll see what we can do." However, when the RAA car finally arrived, we're certain that if it was within the hour, it must've taken him 59 minutes. Blake had been a very good boy, singing songs patiently in the back of the car while we were waiting. In fact, they were all pretty good. Emma said, "I'm scared. I wish we were home." but didn't make too much of a fuss. Logan scrunced down as low as he could so people couldn't see him and muttered, "Why is everything we ever get a lemon?" Then he worked out a list. "Computer, car, printer, DVD, video recorder..." He was right. We have had a few problems with purchases over the years. The only bright spot is that it helped the time pass.

It turned out that we had a battery problem, even though our mechanic had just put a new one in along with a new alternator just a few weeks ago. The RAA mechanic told us that the alternator from our mechanic must've come from a faulty batch and we needed it to be replaced. So on our nervous way back up the Freeway home, Logan said, "See, another lemon! I told you."

As it happens, I had quite a busy day planned for Friday and as the family car was out of action for the time being, Andrew graciously let me use his work station-wagon. In the afternoon there was a meeting of an Adelaide Christian authors group and then Emma and I were going on to a  church lady's conference in the evening. I knew I'd be tired but I thought I'd try to fit them both in. I knew that Emma would be bored at the writer's group so I dropped her off at my Mum and Dad's place, which is on the way down to the city.  As it happened, an Auntie and Uncle of mine were there visiting, so I stayed a bit longer than I intended to talk. Then back out into the pouring rain to drive to the writer's group. I'm not used driving Andrew's car, and I'm not used to city driving in wet conditions so the combination made me tense. By the time the group finished it had grown dark and it was even harder to drive back to my parents'. The rain was still gushing down, the roads were shiny and I was caught in peak hour traffic. Mum told me, "We were getting a bit worried about you and we had some tea warmed up for you." So I tried to eat without bolting it down and then it was time to leave for the conference. Out into thick city traffic once again.

Emma was overwhelmed by the lovely things at the conference before it even started. The highlight was a huge  white chocolate fountain! There were marshmallows and fruit chunks to dip into it and she had a wonderful time. There was a winter theme of snowy white. Trees in boxes with white snow flake decorations, silver lamp posts, and my favourite, two beautiful snow white doves in a gorgeous cage. Then when the conference started, Emma went out with the young girls to learn scrap booking while I went into the main auditorium. It was there, when I was able to sit down for an extended period after all the rushing around, that tiredness began to catch up with me. It felt like a long drive back home up the Freeway, although Emma was happy and chattery. "I can't wait to tell Logan about the chocolate fountain!" she was saying.

On Saturday we had to be ready to leave very early before the boys were even awake to be back for the second day of the conference. She loved the opportunity to spend all day scrap-booking and listening the stories with no boys, and I found the conference was pretty good with some very thought-provoking sessions, although by the last one in the evening, my eyelids were beginning to droop while the speaker was still talking. Emma got to take home her lovely big scrapbook album and it was good to get back home to the boys and relax. 

This year we seem to be moving into a "proper" winter again, instead of the mild, dry one we had last year. The country has been so anxious for rain, it's the first time I can remember that we've had a rainy week and nobody I've heard has been complaining about it. It's a real praise point! Here are some of the things that have happened around our place recently.

A new juicer

This is one of my favourite things. On Saturday I bought a fantastic machine that can juice both hard and soft fruits and vegetables so that we can make our own fresh juice. You feed in the chunks of fruit and veg, the juice gushes out of one side and left-over pulp falls into a catching container on the other side. Brilliant invention. We experimented with apple juice first. Then I gave Emma pineapple, mandarin and watermelon, which turned out to be delicious. Next I tried something ultra healthy - apple, carrot, fresh red beetroot and ginger. However, that one was not so successful. I mean, the juice was certainly successful enough but not the flavour. There was a bitterness about it that needs to be sweetened somehow. More experimenting is required. Sometimes I go a bit overboard on healthy ideas.

Poor Emma's joke falls flat

After visiting my parents near the city on Saturday afternoon, I came home and had a short lie down in the early evening. When I got up, only Logan was in the house. He told me, "Emma wanted to go to the shops with Dad."

I asked, "Did they take Blake with them?"

"I suppose they must have because he's nowhere about."

Then, after half an hour or so, we heard the car come home. Emma was first in the door with a big smile on her face, waving a chocolate bar. I asked a silly question. "Did Blake go with you?" meaning it to be just a rhetorical question. But she put a blank expression on her face and said, "No." Then Logan and I straight away went into full panic mode. We started tearing around yelling, "Blake!" Emma started laughing and said, "I'm just joking. He is with us." When Andrew and Blake walked through the door I rushed to pull Blake close to my heart (yes, I really did feel that dramatic). He started patting my face and saying, "Don't worry, Mummy." Logan was shouting at poor old Emma for making him so worried, and I told her never to do that sort of joke again. Then she got upset and went off crying because she really didn't mean any harm, so I went and calmed her down too. And all the while my legs were still rubbery and my heart still thumping. It doesn't take much for a full blown fear reaction to take control.

An illustrated safety booklet

This is something the kids began making on the computer, complete with their own funny graphics. They have instructions like, "Don't sunbake without sunscreen or you'll shrivel up like a pizza" and there is a picture they've drawn of a slice of pizza lying on a beach towel with a binkini on. Quite funny and they enjoyed themselves. In fact, I don't think they've finished yet. It's good because while they're hard at work on it, Blake sits on Logan's knee carefully watching. He really benefits from having them at home and not at school.

Night in the Museum

Andrew and the kids borrowed this new-release movie to watch a few nights ago. I didn't think it'd be my cup of tea and I was concerned about the others too, as it sounded too much like a horror movie. However, it turned out to be pretty good and we all enjoyed it. It's more like a big history lesson than a horror movie. The story is that Ben Stiller's character, Larry, gets a job as a night-watchman in a big natural-history museum, and he's amazed to find that when darkness falls, all the exhibits come to life!" I think Ben Stiller is a very funny actor but I haven't come across many of his movies that are really suitable for children so I thought I'd chalk this one up, being the first.

Today I enjoyed a real treat. It was a free concert of music from Jane Austen's own collection, along with readings from her novels. This was held in the library of my sister's university and she'd let me know it was on early last week. There was a grand piano, a flute and a few singers. In the interval they fed us up on all sorts of delicious food. Soft cheeses, figs, gherkins, olives, sweets, macaroons, fudge, all sorts of cakes. I couldn't believe it was all laid on for nothing. I'll have to ask my sister to look out for future library happenings.

I enjoyed listening to all that music from the turn of the nineteenth century, yet a little bit would go a long way with me. It's nothing like my favourite music, yet I guess if I'd lived back then, I would've loved it. They would've been the popular love songs and ballads of the time they were written. I'll tell you the style of music it is. They are written very much like grand old hymns, such as, "Holy, Holy, Holy," "To God be the Glory" and "How Great Thou Art." Yet they were just common loves ballads and parlour music. It showed me that the hymns were merely Christian music written in the current style of their era, just as our favourite Christian music, such as Hillsong music, is written to suit modern listeners. All very interesting.

A few more things about Jane Austen. I've enjoyed all 6 of her books but my personal favourites were Emma and Persuasion. As it was her shortest book, I re-read Persuasion this last week, to get me in the mood for this concert. It highlighted to me how sad it was that Jane Austen herself remained a spinster and maiden-aunt. That book's hero, Captain Wentworth, is as big a hunk as you'd find in any day and age, proving that Jane certainly wasn't immune to the charms of men. Her novels always lift my mood whenever I read them, so I think her general faith and attitude toward life must've been great. Whenever I'm working on my own writing, going over and over what I've editing, changing words, slashing out bits of text, adding bits that should've been mentioned earlier, I think of how much harder it must've been for Jane Austen, sitting in the Parsonage parlour with her pen and ink, doing everything by hand!

Now that I've started, I might re-read Northanger Abbey in the near future too.

I was surprised to find that my daughter seems to have made great strides in her Maths without any intervention from us. Not so long ago, she was having trouble with the value of numerals. Her dad and I would explain about units, tens, hundreds and thousands in every way we could think of, but still the penny refused to click.  Now suddenly, Emma can read any large number before her, which means that she's also able to work quite big addition and subtraction sums that include carrying numbers and borrowing from the previous column. I couldn't believe it, because I knew I could take no credit.

Emma told me that her understanding is all due to her battery-operated Barbie Cookbook. This was one of birthday presents from last November and my dh and I both thought it was a bit of a rip-off at the time. I remember saying, "$50.00 for a dozen or so little recipes, and we could buy a whole cookbook full of them for $2.00." However, Emma had been very anxious to have one and we wanted to make her happy. Her older brother gets fed-up with Barbie's tinny voice continually saying, "Now add one cup of flour and stir..." But it seems that all that time, Emma has actually been learning the value of numbers and other Math concepts all by herself. The recipe book has a little calculator gadget included, which gets little girls to push buttons until they reach 500grams, 1/2 teaspoon, 250mls, and so on. She's certain this is what made her understand number values. So the toy that we all thought was a bit of a nuisance has actually helped make our job easier.

It's another of one those pleasant surprises I've had from time to time since we started homeschooling. Maybe Emma felt under stress whenever Andrew and I tried to show her what to do, but when Barbie shows her, the pressure is off and she's just having fun. I've decided yet again to never underestimate the possible educational value of anything in the house.  

I'm going to discuss some of what I spoke about at the conference. I found it very encouraging because I got plenty of very positive feedback. I'm not an experienced speaker and after this session about the imagination in particular, I went away feeling as though I was a bit of a flop and not very interesting or polished. Shortly after that, several people who had attended approached me to say how much they'd appreciated what I had to say. One lady about my own age even said that she had tears streaming down her cheeks because it was so perfectly what she needed to hear! Another older lady told me, "I enjoyed yours most of all because you're so down-to-earth and encourage us to believe that we can be writers too. Thanks for being so real." I really appreciated that. That's when I began to think, "Hey, perhaps my rough-around-the-edges style has advantages of it's own."

Anyway, here's the first part of what I had to say. How do we harness our imaginations to work in our favour? When you're beginning to write a story, do you write a few sentences, scrub them out and start again? Do you examine each paragraph and sentence as it comes off the pen and start trying to "fix it up" before you continue? I used to always work like this and found that I'd never get beyond a chapter or even a page. The most valuable tip I ever learned was to stop doing this.

Think of your mind as a 2-chambered organ. The Creative Chamber comes up with the brilliant flashes of inspiration and the Judgmental Chamber assesses and edits your work. They are both vital in your writing but they can never work as a team! If you try to use them together, they sabotage your efforts. They only real way of getting anywhere is to practise the following advice.

Always begin with your Creative Chamber and push the Judgmental Chamber out. Write whatever comes into your head straight onto paper without judging it. What you end up with will almost always seem ridiculous, untidy, boring, disorganised and trite but keep going anyway. Work through it. It is actually providing your work with fresh ideas, individuality, brilliancy, uniqueness and character. It's too busy being a genius to worry about legibility, tidiness, punctuation and sense. It's very important to forget about these matters for now and just keep your hand moving.

Next you let your Judgmental Chamber loose to work on it. This specialises in the bits I used to call "boring", sharpening and tightening what the Creative Chamber has come up with, correcting spelling and grammar, assessing parts of the storyline for merit and choosing alternative words to use. Now I've come to enjoy this part too but it didn't come naturally. I think our natural impulse is always to want to consider our finished as soon as we finish the first draft. I've grown to think what fun it is when the Judgemental Chamber does it work.

If your Judgmental Chamber tries to butt in while your Creative Chamber is still working, push it right back out again. Promise it, "You'll have your turn later." I can guarantee, you'll hate what you've written if you start to criticise it before it is ready. Give your Creative Chamber free rein because it is brilliant enough to deserve that much. And remember that it's supposed to be messy and disorganised. I like to imagine it as an absent-minded professor, complete with messy hair, odd socks and pencils sticking out of every pocket. And I think of the Judgmental Chamber as a prim-&-proper old-fashioned type of schoolmaster with every hair in place. That shows how absurd it is when we try to force them to work harmoniously together.

In our western civilisation, we tend to have very developed Judgmental Chambers while our Creative Chambers are the poor guys who are put in the paddock to go to seed. Think of using it as developing a muscle, just as weight-lifters go to the gym to develop particular muscles. It'll get stronger by use. I can personally declare that since I started working this way, my productivity increased by over 100%. I always work chapter by chapter. I write each chapter free-hand, then go over it several times with my Jugmental Chamber as I type it into the computer. This works well for me.

So to summarise:-

1) Keep your pen moving

2) Write down your first thoughts

3) Let yourself write junk.

And stay tuned for more on Jump-starting the Imagination.

There are just two times in the year in which I'm eligible to receive presents and they are both double-ups. One of course is late December, when I have my December 24th birthday together with Christmas. The other is early May when I always have my wedding anniversary close to Mother's Day. We were married on May 9th, which happened to be the day after I arrived home from the conference this year. As Andrew had his TAFE woodwork course that evening, we postponed going out until Friday night. We could've just let it go, but I felt it was quite a milestone anniversary as we've been married for 15 years. So we left the kids with Andrew's parents and went out for dinner. We finished up at "Spat's Cafe" which is a little gem of a spot straight from Queen Victoria's imperial empire. There are British and Indian artifacts from that era in every nook and cranny in the place. The booths are tight and secluded with pretty screens and velvet cushions. The whole place is dim with hazy red and green lantern light and the music is straight from the war era and the '50s. (I know that's quite a bit later than Victorian but it still added to the overall effect). On every table was a different china teapot, just making the whole place cosy.

I found myself remembering the circumstances of my first meeting with Andrew. My ex-brother-in-law (who now lives way up in Cairns) was working as a chef at a local hospital where Andrew had just become the accountant at the tender age of 22 (I was 21). Kevin kept telling me, "There's this young fellow you might fancy. He's a Christian like you, but he's also a lot of fun." Kevin often used to make remarks like that. Apparently he'd been building up stories about his single sister-in-law to Andrew at work, too. Then one day, he asked me to visit the following Saturday because he'd invited Andrew around for a game of chess. I was supposed to pretend that I'd just called in on Kevin and Julie on the same day by chance. By now, my curiosity was very healthy and I was willing to go along with the plan.

So both Andrew and I turned up and had a pleasant afternoon. It was quite a hilarious situation because as we later discovered, both of us were there with the express purpose of meeting each other, and we both knew that was the reason we were there, yet we both played dumb and pretended that we were oblivious to Kevin's schemes. We must've carried it off well. To be honest, I don't think I was bowled over by Andrew's stunning good looks on that first day, but by the end of the afternoon, I did think that he had very nice bright eyes and decided that if ever he did give me a follow-up phone-call, I'd be willing to go out with him. And that was just what happened. It seems that he'd summed me up as an 'ultra-modern' girl by the new haircut I'd had, and decided I was probably wasn't his type, but thought he'd give me a phone-call anyway. We've both laughed over that initial impression, because the fact is, I'm just the opposite, with an old-fashioned outlook in many ways.  I think one of the first dates he took me on was to watch the Symphony Orchestra under the stars in the city, and as they say, the rest is history.

Our brother-in-law fancied himself quite the matchmaker for a long time. It wasn't uncommon for acquaintances to say, "Kevin tells me he's the one who introduced you and Andrew. Tell me more." Somebody suggested that his nickname should be Cupid, to which my sister would respond, "Well, he's often been called something that rhymes."

Hey, now that I've written this, I find myself wondering how other blogging friends of mine first met their husbands. It's an interesting subject for a chat so anybody who wants to, please consider this a sort of informal tag. If you decide to take me up on it, please let me know so I can log on and have a good read.

Paula

Whew, after a jam-packed five days, I'm back home. The conference was fantastic and I'm so glad I went. I won't talk about course content just yet. I'll make some general observations about things relating to travel and family in this post. My dh and children dropped me off at the airport very early in the morning. After quite a long drought period, we'd been enjoying our first decent spell of rain for quite some time. The heavens opened the moment we parked at the airport and by the time we stepped inside the terminal, we all looked like drowned rats. There was a slight hold-up when we walked through the security sensors and Andrew set the beepers off. They made him empty his pockets of coins but still the problem persisted. He was frisked up and down with the wand. I had to laugh because Logan, our eldest, was standing there writhing with embarrassment at his dad being the centre of attention. Finally Andrew realised that he was wearing his work shoes, which just happened to be steel-capped boots. All's well that end's well. We met up with my friend Rosanne, a local children's author also attending the conference on my flight. I felt very sad to wave my family goodbye but soon we were on our way.

It was very interesting to fly into Brisbane and see from the air some of the sights I'd seen with my family on our caravan tour three years ago. A lady named Lyn, one of the conference organisers, was there to meet us and drive us to our accomodation, a beautiful Bed-&-Breakfast named Cream Gables. It turned out to be run single-handedly by a lovely lady named Anne, whose business cards bear the name, "Anne of Cream Gables". After settling into our shared room, Rosanne and I had the day at our disposal so we strolled into the city centre, bought some lunch and enjoyed a ferry ride on the Brisbane River. That evening, Rosanne went out to dinner with a friend from Brisbane and I was happy to settle down and phone my family. They'd just returned from buying a take-away pizza. While I was talking to Andrew, little Blake was yelling at Logan & Emma in the background for polishing off the pizza. I heard him cry, "Leave some for Mummy!" while they tried to explain that I wouldn't be there until the following Tuesday.

On Friday I was taken to read several stories which had been sent to the conference team for possible inclusion in a published anthology. We were asked to give stories a rating from 1 to 5. Now, I'm definitely no editor and feel far more comfortable writing my own stories than judging those of others. I was the only person who gave a few ratings of 5, and the general concensus was, "Paula must be very generous." That day, Cream Gables filled up with many other guest writers flown in for the conference, like myself. My friend Meredith, who helped me learn the ropes of publishing several years ago, was one of them. Then on Saturday, the conference itself began and we were all kept very busy either running our own sessions or attending those of others. As I said, I won't fill this post with those details but save them for later.

I'll just finish off with a few observations about Queensland. The weather was sticky, humid and around 30 degrees the entire time I was there. It had been reasonably cool when I left Adelaide but the few long sleeved shirts I took along didn't get worn. I don't mind the tropical atmosphere but I can understand how others may find it oppressive. It is sometimes difficult to draw a deep breath, a little like walking around all day in a mild sauna. I'd bought a banana for my supper on the first day, yet it turned out to be starchy and inedible. I thought I'd just struck a bad one but since then, I noticed that every banana on the breakfast table had a slight starchiness. Most of our bananas are from Queensland, so I decided that the Queensland ones might be sold too early to the public. By the time they arrive as far south as Adelaide, they must have that extra bit of time to get ripe and luscious. However, Brisbane is a real taste experience for the palate. On the busy street around the corner from us were many colourful Asian and middle-eastern restaurants from Himalayan to Japanese. On Monday night, when the conference was over, Rosanne and I went to a tasty Lebanese restaurant to celebrate. Sticky squares of genuine Turkish Delight for dessert, dipped in icing sugar instead of chocolate.

I woke up in high spirits on Tuesday, anxious to see my dear family again. I'd heard their voices over the phone every evening and they'd told me that Blake had been happy most of the time, and that helped me get through. They also told me that while Brisbane was sweltering in the heat, Adelaide's rain had continued. I could see the truth of that when the cabin crew told us that we were about to descend into Adelaide. The countryside appeared so green and verdant, like billiard table felt, after just one decent week of soaking. The paddocks, vineyards, gardens and our small city centre looked as beautiful as a fantasy setting. (I'm glad I live right where I do rather than Brisbane, as pleasant as it is, and apologise to any Queenslanders who might be reading this. You have a wonderful state to visit). It was wonderful to see the faces of Andrew and the children waiting for me. Emma and Blake raced to meet me while Logan stood back grinning and in no time at all, I felt as if I'd been back for ages. I found that Andrew had been worn out by the constant looking after of them, so now he appreciates more fully the work of a full-time housewife and mother. As a bonus, he even went and bought a new vacuum cleaner. It seems that after one day of using it, he decided that our old one, which has been patched and repaired for several years, is ready for the rubbish tip! I think that's something he had to find out through experience rather than just being told.

Now that my time for attending the Christian writing conference is only a few days away,  my mother and older sister are full of advice. "Make sure you have a hanky in your pocket or up your sleeve," and "Eat plenty and don't hang back," and "See that you speak slowly and clearly and look people in the eye," and, "Don't be nervous because many other people might be just as scared as you." (In fact I didn't tell them I'm scared. They just seem to assume that I will be. If I reply that I'm actually quite confident in my material, they don't seem to hear). Anyway, the advice that I'm getting from them is practically the same, word for word, as the advice I used to get from them when I was in Primary School. Then they finish off with, "You'll be great if you just remember my advice, Missy." When I was very little, instead of calling me by my name, everybody in my family used to call me "Missy" all the time and my mother & sister still do it, even though I'm only a few years short of 40. A few weeks ago when Blake was sick with croup, they both told me over the phone, "You have to steam up his bedroom!" and seemed quite surprised when I told them that we'd already thought of this most basic step. "We didn't know you knew!"

I used to get very irritated at being treated as the helpless baby sister. I'd try my hardest to prove that I'd earned the right to be treated as a grown-up, but felt that people still treated me like a 6-year-old when I was 12, like a 12 year-old when I was eighteen, and like a teenager when I had my first baby, aged 25. Now I think they still regard me as a young, inexperienced mother of little children. Not so long ago, my brother & his wife gave my 12yo son the simplest of dot-to-dot books. I explained to him later, "They assume that you must be only little because they haven't stopped thinking of me as the baby sister."

My point of acceptance came about five years ago, when I was sitting at my parents' house, telling them that I wasn't sure whether or not I'd like a third baby. Dad said, "I can remember when we were discussing the same thing, just before we decided to have you. Mum and I crept up to look at Julie & David while they were sleeping, and I distinctly remember saying, 'They're so cute and they're growing so fast, it'll soon be too late. We have to have another one."

As soon as he said that, a penny clicked in my head and I knew the reason why they persisted in treating me like the baby well into my thirties. It was because that was what they had me for! My parents wanted one final baby. My role in the family had been set in their heads before I was born. No wonder nothing I did would make them stop. I wished I'd understood and accepted this fact years earlier and saved myself loads of frustration and extreme efforts to make myself appear "grown up". It's such a simple fact but I overlooked it for so long, I might type it out in bold print just to make it stand out. There is no point in trying to change what your family think of you.  Whatever you do, family are very fixed in their minds just where you fit in. You might as well just accept this and quietly get on with your own life.  I guess this holds true whether you're the "responsible" eldest child, the "rebellious" middle one or the "baby". Having said this, of course, I'm going to make the attempt not to do this with my children. I think homeschooling helps. When we go out as a family, everyone just piles into the car and participates in whatever we're doing.

Please spare a thought and a prayer for me when I fly up to sunny Queensland on Thursday morning. I'm not sure I'll log on again before then so I'll catch up when I get back.

Tonight, dh & ds1 are off to see a live football match. I'm talking Aussie Rules Football, generally known as "Footy". Logan's favourite team, Port Adelaide Power are hosting the Saint Kilda Saints, one of Victoria's many teams. After several trials of getting there, Andrew & Logan have worked out the easiest way to attend. They catch a special "Footy Bus" from our local shopping centre which goes straight to the big football stadium, at the other side of the city and drops its passengers right near the entrance. It is a much better system than trying to find a carpark, probably having to walk a few kilometres because that's as close as you can get, and then sitting in a traffic jam for 45 minutes before you can move two inches. I know what I'm talking about because I've been along when we've done it that way.

My 12yo son is very serious about his footy, and could tell you every player on every team across Australia, including their vital match statistics. He & his dad participate in on-line "footy tipping competitions". In the past, he's been a very one-eyed supporter of his team. It was a fun experience when we visited other states and saw his reaction to their own blinkered attitudes about their local teams. We happened to arrive in Brisbane the very day before Logan's team, Port Adelaide, were due to fly in for a Saturday night match. A TV advert said, "They come from Adelaide, a lovely city full of churches and flowers and wine. Well, we'll give 'em something to WHINE about!" I think it was a good experience for Logan to rub shoulders with supporters of many other teams in caravan park TV rooms, when they watched evening matches.

As I said, I've been along to a few games here at home. On one occasion, it was a Sunday and we were going to go straight after church. As it was cold, I put on a warm red jumper with a pair of black jeans. As we walked among a crowd of other Port Adelaide supporters, I noticed that I was getting some funny glances. I looked down to see if anything was wrong with my clothes but nothing seemed amiss. When I looked up again at the other Port supporters in their team colours of white and teal blue, it dawned on me with horror what the problem was. The colours of the visiting Victorian team, the Essendon Bombers, are red and black. I gasped, "Oh no, I look as if I'm supporting the Bombers!" Then Andrew was horrified and said, "Well, of all the silly things you could do..." I reminded him, "You saw me! You could have tipped me off!" There was nothing for it but to sit through the game in the Port Adelaide stand, standing out like a sore thumb in my red & black. One friend told me later, "You're a brave, brave lady, Paula. I wouldn't go wearing Essendon colours in the middle of a swarm of vicious Port supporters, like shark bait!" This story just shows two things. 1- If you haven't guessed, I'm not a 'true blue" footy supporter, and 2- Husbands don't necessarily pay any attention to what their wives wear.

On the subject of sport, I have to mention how excited Logan & I were recently when we visited New York City on Google Earth to find a live baseball match happening at Yankee Stadium. To start with, Logan was talking about the difference in shape between the baseball pitch and our football & cricket ovals & stadiums. Then I noticed that the carpark and surrounding roads were crammed with cars, like one of our footy match Saturdays. We saw that the spectator stands appeared to be crammed to the hilt and then, as it must have been a clear day, we saw tiny little players standing on the baseball pitch. (I'm sure the players aren't really tiny, but they appear like little ants on Google Earth). We were both delighted to think that we managed our cyber-visit on a day when a game was on.     

I've been busy working on the two workshop/presentations I'm going to be giving at the conference next week and I'm just about done.

1) The Impact of Christian Fiction

I'll discuss some unique qualities of fiction that help it get straight to the hearts of readers. We'll see that storytelling and the invention of Christian fiction was an example set by Jesus.

2) Priming the Imagination

Many people feel as if they have a great story to tell but find it hard to start. This session contains several tips in jump-starting your imagination to work for you.

I'll also be on a few different panels (self publishing and writing for children) and on the Friday, I'll be conducting some workshops for school students, along with several others. That is actually more daunting than the adult sessions. Having the eyes of heaps of teenagers fixed on me is far more scary so when I get through that one, the adult sessions ought to be a breeze.

For part of one of my presentations in a few weeks, I'm going to talk about the power of story-telling events from one's own past. It got me thinking about some of the surprising or contradictory things that have happened at different times of my life. The first story shows that being frightened might be counter-productive and cause harm instead of good, but the second seems to suggest the opposite. Here goes.

1) This event occurred way back in 1986, when I visited the Northern Territory with my family. We had a long train ride to the on "The Ghan" up to Alice Springs. From the Alice, we drove even further north to visit other attractions, such as Darwin, Kakadu National Park and, of course, Ayers Rock. We learned a lot about the outback and some northern aboriginal culture and lore. I'm glad I visited these places with my parents because, as yet, my dh and I have been unable to take our kids there. Anyway, we had to drive on rough and lonely country roads through the Red Centre.  At some spots, the roads were washed over by shallow fords with murky, red water. There was nothing for it but to drive through them, and my father was always ready to give it a go because turning back seemed out of the question.. Our car was not a four wheel drive, so driving through that water caused my mother lots of stress and she shouted at him. She had scary visions of all of us being washed away up the river, trapped in the car. In the end, she refused to stay sitting there and felt safer to hitch up her skirt and wade across the ford. So my brother would climb, grumbling, out of the car to wade across before her and test the depth of the water. It usually came up no further than his lower thighs, so he'd wade back and help Mum across, holding onto her elbow. Then Dad would drive the car through, they'd get in and we'd be off again. This happened four or five times. There was a bit of friction but it seemed the best solution.

Anyway, when we reached one of our destinations, I think it might have been Katherine, there were signs up everywhere warning tourists not to wade through the water which covered the roads because lots of crocodiles had been sighted! Then Mum had a dizzy spell, thinking what a close shave she and my brother may have had. It made me feel a bit giddy too, thinking how terrible it would have been from my spot in the back seat, if one of them had been grabbed by the leg and dragged under. People told us that the road workers hadn't yet got around to putting up signs at each individual little ford in the road but they were working on it and thought it probably didn't matter much because nobody would be daft or silly enough to get into that water! Well, needless to say, Mum didn't get out again but stayed in her seat, groaning with her hands covering her eyes. I really don't think she's cut out to visit the outback and while the rest of us enjoyed it, she was glad to get home. She and Dad never went there again.

2) Fast forward about 17 years to 2003. I was expecting my 3rd baby and dh and I had taken our 2 children on our first caravan holiday as a homeschooling family. We drove east to Victoria and stayed one night at Phillip Island. We drove down to the coast to witness their tourist attraction, the Penguin Walk. Each evening when the sun goes down, thousands of tiny fairy penguins swim out of the Southern Ocean and swarm up the beach to nest down for the night in the rocky shore along the coast. There's a tourist centre with a big viewing platform for folk to watch them. When we booked, we'd been warned to rug up warm, and while we put on all the jumpers and woollies we'd taken in the caravan, the icy gusts coming straight up from the Antarctic had to be felt to be believed. They were like freezing knives, cutting straight through our bones.  For the first hour or so, we sat with no sign of any penguins. Then, in the moonlight, were a few, dark, weeny shapes waddling out of the water. We all kept our binoculars focused on them for a long time, but no more seemed to follow. Finally, Emma & I were frozen to our cores and decided to shiver back to the warmth of the tourist centre for a hot chocolate. Andrew & Logan preferred to tough it out for a bit longer, because they really wanted to see more penguins. We were happy to leave them to it.

On the long boardwalk over the sand back to the tourist centre, we came across an incredible sight. Lines and lines of cute fairy penguins like an army, marching up the sand dunes right beside us so close that  we could've reached out and stroked them. Emma and I and all the other faint-hearts walking back had a great time kneeling down to look closely at them. We could hear their squeaky little noises really clearly. The penguins didn't seem a bit shy and there were hundreds and hundreds of them. They must have come up another part of the beach when we weren't looking! We assumed there'd be more by the viewing platform and turned back and join the boys. There were Andrew & Logan with their teeth chattering, still standing in the same spot, bravely trying to fix their binoculars on a few far-away dots on the horizon. They said, "You should have stayed. We've seen three more penguins. At least, we think they might've been penguins because they were moving." When we told them about the army of penguins near us, they hurried back with us to the boardwalk, but only a few stragglers were left because most penguins had already found the way to their rocks. So in this case, being afraid of facing the cold for longer paid off, and we got a good display.  

I don't really think I can draw any lessons of parrellels between these two stories but it's fun to remember back to times past and keep stories to tell for family posterity, and that's partly what I'm going to talk about. I have many more and I'm sure we all have stacks and stacks of them. This is now long enough, but I have more to say about the value of keeping personal stories, which I'll remember for another time.  

Hope you all have a great week,

Paula