fiveandtwo

A Very Muddled Week

Ally's description, "This has been a very muddled week". So accurate.

It started last Saturday with me going to the Curves gym (recently joined to deal with stress and apalling level of fitness) and developing a blinding, excruciating headache halfway thruogh the circuit. Carted off in an ambulance. Nausea and vomiting, photophobia. In retrospect, classic migraine symptoms.

It was decided, eventually, that I'd had a sudden migraine. Fortunately, I don't have these evil headaches very often, but in the past there's been some warning: a thudding headache that doesn't go away, thirst and fatigue. One coming on suddenly was rather disturbing. I was out and couldn't get back home under my own steam. What if that happens again?

I'll go back to Curves, but I'm really nervous about doing so.

Oh, and there's nothing like a shot of morphine to deal with pain, and Stemetil for nausea/vomiting (Maxolon didn't work).

Took a couple of days to throw that post-migraine weird, disoriented state.

A long appointment sucked up Tuesday. I did fly in to work and do the pays though - disgruntled employees weren't on my agenda.

The usual routine was thrown completely by now. Transporting kids uses so much time. With Giles, mostly I drop him and some mates at the favoured surf beach, one of the other kid's parents pick them up. It's still a 1.5 hour round trip to drop them off. Sometimes, if the bus timetable works, they can catch the bus both ways. Their favoured surfing area, Red Bluff, doesn't have a bus for them to catch home. V-Line buses = strange timetables.

I managed to buy some food and pick up Leah from Lakes Entrance, where she'd stayed with a friend. Leah looked pretty crook, she could hardly speak. Criminal sore throat. GP appointment...tonsillitis? All the glands around her jaw were huge. Can only imagine the state of her tonsils. Antibiotics prescribed and duly taken. I worry about her fluid intake. It's so painful to swallow that the poor kid just isn't drinking.

Thursday: buy more food. Take Leah to A&E because she finds it hard to breathe, and looks really "flat". Leah is admitted to hospital, IV fluids perk her up a bit. But only a bit. She's on her third type of antibiotic now.

Ah, but the waiting with Leah in A&E meant reading time! Good progress made on this:

When I read As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning, well, I was going to Spain. Never did though. A friend who read it around the same time spent three months in Spain with her baby daughter.

I've enjoyed all of Laurie Lee's books. This one came from the op-shop. How lucky! A $50 book for a couple of dollars. I'm enjoying this biography.

This pre-order came too, last week:

Resisting starting it until I'm done with the Laurie Lee biography!

Back in the early 80's I read Monkey Grip. My impressionable seventeen-year-old self wanted in to that lifestyle. Never did though.

A Number Of Things All In One Post

Where to begin. With The House of Disease, I think. Our usually quite resilient immune systems have developed cracks, crevasses  more like it. First the hacking cough, then the evil gastroenteritis. Poor little Ally had a spell in hospital having some IV rehydration. Vomiting, diarrhoea and a constantly sore throat (even with paracetamol) made it an uphill battle to get her to drink, or even suck ice. Friday morning saw her alarmingly flat. It's quite impossible to get a same-day (or even same-week) GP appointment in this town, so I went to sit and wait, hoping to catch one of them as they came off their hospital rounds. Strike. Off to A&E for IV insertion prior to admission. Admitted to Children's Ward at around 3.00pm - the saga began at 8.30am!

Not one to waste all that waiting time sitting around twiddling my thumbs, I read The Trout Opera by Matthew Condon (recommended), and started Barbara Kingsolver's book of essays, Small Wonder (lovely, insightful, thought provoking). If I could knit with any competence that would've had a look-in too. Ally just wanted to lie down. Poor little chick.

(Giles with dreadlocks, Linsey, Ally and Suska-the-dog)

The difference even a couple of hours of IV fluids made was...well, miraculous. By the next morning she was pretty much her usual cheeky self. I'm grateful to live in this country, to have access to modern health care, to have it low cost (the GP fee is claimed at Medicare), all that was required was hours of waiting (gainfully used). And Ally is well again. It's so important to maintain accessible, low cost health care for all. Free for those on a low income. Same with education. And...now I'll climb down off my soapbox.

Prior to The House of Disease there was The Wayward Daughter. Leah is grounded for the entire holidays. Having a couple of friends sleep over turned into sneaking out when the house was asleep. At 1.30am a phone call from the police to collect the trio. Picked up by the patrol car making a racket and in possession of several Vodka Cruisers. Leah is not quite thirteen. I don't like to swear, but shit. Shit. So, grounded, has to pay a $55 under age drinking fine = no pocket money for quite a few weeks = not being able to buy phone credit = out of contact with buddies = torture for a (not quite) teen.

Actually, she appears to be mortified and embarassed by the results of the escapade (rather than proud). I take this to be a good sign. Ah, she's such a sweetie. May she navigate this adolescent stuff with skill and emerge intact. This stuff, it's me, back in those years. I will fight for (with) her to emerge with a strong sense of self ( because I didn't).

I'll probably edit this post soon. It doesn't need to stand for eternity. I just wanted you to know that I'm no perfect parent.

Several years ago women at my Steiner Playgoup, and later, Kinder, were convinced I was some sort of super-parent. No assurances that I was fine as long as I took my medication had any weight. They only saw that I had five kids, did this, did that and so on. I think they didn't believe I was on Zoloft. I just couldn't shake the super-perfect-parent label.

I think this label is starting to creep in to the impression people have of my blog. Nooo-oo. Hence this divulgence of family shit.  It's all here, but I just don't post about it. Mostly I just want to post about nice things, and keep the other stuff out of the picture. It occupies my daily life, and I don't want my blog to be a constant reflection of the daily stuff. I can't write about it eloquently like many of my favourite blogs (see sidebar).

Ok, scale down. I got a "Sewing Susan" needlebook from a garage sale on Saturday. I'm attracted to these because my name (formally) is Susan - and I sew!

This is the third I've bought. They're all different.

But similar. Lovely.

Kathie Winkle

I got a most interesting book from Amazon today, ordered some time ago.

Very occasionally I would come across a lovely and unusual plate or bowl at the op-shop.  I posted a photo of a bowl a few months ago, and librarygirl (who doesn't have a blog as far as I can tell), alerted me to Kathie Winkle. Never really paid much attention before - bought china if I really liked it.

Now, I'm an enthusiast, and my interest was sparked. Who was Kathie Winkle? Hence the book, discovered on a Google search.

Kathie started work in the Staffordshire  pottery industry in the late 1940's, as a lass of fifteen, as a "paintress".Primarily women who hand-coloured the designs stamped on in black by machine. She worked at Broadhurst & Sons from 1950 until her retirement in 1992.

Around the late 1950's Kathie was asked if she could draw, "...a little", was her response. Her design career began. Kathie's designs were very popular, this was recognised with her name on the backstamp (on the back of the piece). Apparently, at least 122 of Kathie's designs were put into production.

I love the picture of her on the front of the book, so...unstyled.  Kathie had no art training. I think it's wonderful that her talent was recognised.

The book is only 32 pages, it's a bit like an exhibition catalogue but Peter Leath's  writing gives it livliness. I have to share this excerpt.

..."Last year we went to a table-top sale in a small village hall in the Isle of Wight. I spotted a Kathie Winkle plate on a radiator. "Oh it's not for sale", I was told, "it's part of the hall's china". "Is there more of it?", I asked. "Lots", was the reply. Eventually, the woman in charge arrived and I managed to buy thirty-two cups, saucers and plates, including those I retrieved from the washing up bowl." ...

It was a chance find by his wife at a car-boot sale that started Peter Leath on his Kathie Winkle research.

My meagre collection! The cup & saucer is Broadhurst but not marked Kathie Winkle. It is so much her style that I think it is. Once I had a couple more bits but, dang, being in general circulation they got broken!

How Do You Know If It's Wool?

This question was asked after my last post and my pic. of wool fabric, an op-shop find. So, how did I know?

It felt "woolly". Vague description, I know, but after years of fondling the stuff it becomes familiar. Acrylic/synthetic, or a high wool-to-synthetic ratio feels "squeaky". I am very technical in my descriptions.

If the fabric is really lovely or potentially useful and I'm confounded by the fibre content I bring it home and subject it to the burn test: snip off a small amount of fabric and hold it to a candle flame with long tweezers. Wool smoulders and doesn't burst into flame readily. It also smells of burning hair. Synthetic fabrics melt when burnt. I have a chart from Threads magazine, Feb/Mar 1999, that lists the types of fibre (or fiber, since it's a US mag) what happens approaching the flame, in the flame, removed from flame, odour, type of ash.

However, if it feels like wool that's good enough for me.

Change of subject entirely.

I've really enjoyed this book recently.

An amazing house, highly decorated by  two of those living there: Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant.

These two were part of what is known as the "Bloomsbury Group" something that's fascinated me for years. Their appearance of arty bohemia perhaps? Unlike my own life? They had their petty squabbles, their rivalries and griefs though.

I would wonder how Vanessa Bell had time to paint, then I read that there was a cook and housekeeper, as well as a gardener. And often someone to tutor the children. I'm glad of that, for her, otherwise she may never have painted.

Now I've started on The Art of Bloomsbury by Richard Shone, which is about the painting of Roger Fry, Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant. Lots of colour plates - mmmm, lovely.

Change subject again.

Appearing in my stats is a lot of images.google.com/imgres.  When I click on them a photo from one or other of my blog posts comes up. Can anyone tell me what this means? Am I being paranoid in thinking my photos are being "lifted"? Would appreciate any feedback you can give people.