Half-unbuttoned

A quickie post. I am off to Melbourne tomorrow, wondering what possessed me to book a relatively early flight. I am almost at the organised stage of packing. Well, no, not really, as all the clothes still have to be sorted out, but I am charging the iPod, remembering the charger for the camera, have made lists of the medications to pack, printed the boarding pass, and have a load of washing on. I phoned Dr P's Sydney daughter, SD1, and asked her to check him each day, and gave her all my contact details. All his food choices have been provided. Etcetera.

My second daughter and children have been here for the past four days. We had a good time together, (except for Dr P. whose tolerance level is fairly low, but he coped, and has cheered up now that they have gone.) They have been to the Powerhouse Museum, ridden on buses and ferries, had a couple of swims and have played in parks. It is so interesting watching the ways children interact with each other at parks, and how they manage to make friends while they play. Even if they start off shy or grumpy sometimes, they mostly manage to settle down and play happily.

My grandson is into everything. Not just crochet, but even my sewing things. I bought a blouse at the sales, and recently found some buttons to replace the less than perfect ones on the blouse. I bought two cards of four buttons apiece, and when I got home, there was only one card in the bag. I rang and arranged to pick up the other card, and a couple of days later we managed to get over to the shop, and get them. However, little H, who is an inveterate fiddler, found the first card, cut them all off, put them somewhere, and now they cannot be found. It feels like an Icelandic saga! Drat the boy! I am back to four buttons again, will have to make another trip, after which the buttons are likely to miraculously appear, thus aggravating me even further. Unless, of course, the shop has sold out of these buttons, which is extremely likely. The effort required to rectify this problem is by no means commensurate with its seriousness. Why can't kids leave things alone?

However if this is the worst thing they get up to, I suppose I must be grateful. They also made bead necklaces, assisted by their kind and clever mother. Now, despite not looking for them, I am finding beads everywhere, in the couch, under rugs, on floors, and mixed up with other toys. There are also little wads of plasticine everywhere. But buttons? No.

My daughter stayed until today to pick up from the airport a friend from primary school, who is visiting from Prince Edward Island in Canada. It is about thirty years since they last saw each other, and I think they managed to contact each other electronically through Stomper. Nancy is as lovely as ever. I could not join in all the fun as I had to go and pick up the pants and jacket that have been made for me to wear at my nephew's wedding on Sunday, and had to wait another hour, while the shop fixed various details. On the bus back to the city, my ticket became stuck in the validating machine. I felt very guilty, but the bus driver was kind, soothing and friendly, and phoned ahead to have a man with the keys waiting, after which my mangled ticket was extracted and returned to me. Not daring to insert it in the next bus, I explained it to the driver, and reached home without further ado. The bus drivers are terrific, as a rule.

Time to make the final choice of clothes and see if everything fits into a smallish suitcase. It will be lovely to see Stomper and her family, and everyone is looking forward to the wedding. My nephew is one of everyone's favourite boys. He fixes everyone's computers, too.

Here's hoping Dr P manages all right in my absence.