D'Arcy Developments

Somebody had his party today in a local park. Check out Flickr for action photos (click on the photo at left). He had wanted to have it at my house, but the sheer volume of numbers involved meant that we had to go elsewhere. In the end there were 30+ children there and their parents. It all went swimmingly: the weather was great; all the kids got on and had a good time; the parents hung around and talked to each other (our main aim); and there was more than enough food. D'Arcy got way too many presents, but we will figure out how to cope with that. His cake rocked (and there was hardly any left at the end - yaaay!) When he was leaving for his dad's house, he said to me (after encouragement from his dad's girlfriend) "thank you for my party" and I said to him "thank you for being born so we could have this party". He liked that.

Seen in the playground on Wednesday. When I showed interest in it, D'Arcy claimed authorship, but I totally don't believe it. I think this is a photo that he took of it though. it is an arrangement of sticks and blue metal at the base of a tree in D's school playground. The installation remained for several days.

Not real rain, mind you, more like that yucky feeling you get when someone sneezes on you. But who am I to complain?

Someone, a long time ago, bought D'Arcy some 'bath crayons' - which are washable non-toxic things for bathtime fun. He goes through phases of playing with them, and has discovered that they make shower time more fun too. Here are some vampires that adorned the wall of our shower for a few days. The one on the left is the 'vampire D'Arcy', but the one on the right is my favourite.

It's been the school holidays here, and it's also been unseaonably warm. the October daytime average temperature is 19C. Last week it was in the 30s. More than once. One of the things we did this week was to play around in the garden a lot. While I was dong that, D'Arcy was making himself a new swing. He even tied the knots for it. They held.

This item is what we call here a 'chatterbox' or 'fortune teller'. Some of you may know it by the name 'cootie catcher' though just what cooties are, is a matter of translation. (Actually some in depth research has enlightened me as to the true nature of 'cooties' so I feel less obfuscated than previously).

I digress. A friend of mine (known only as Gyfforrrd) moved house today. When we were in the stupid market I got a phone call from him, saying "come and see the new house". We obliged, with a 6 pack of the amazing "original VB", a bottle of Tanqueray and some warm tonic. While the gin and tonics were chilling in the fridge we had the tour and consumed the beer, and a bottle of champagne. D'Arcy had ginger beer and played with the Lego.

Actually, I still digress. Later another friend (Salim- can you see where this is heading?) came round and we continued on the beer and moved towards the gin. As we were doing this, D'Arcy requested some paper so he could make some planes. Gyff was reminded of the making of water bombs in our youth. D'Arcy was reminded by this of making the aforementioned 'chatterboxes' which he apparently learned at 'afters' (After School Care).

So, the meat of this post. D'Arcy's chatterbox contains the commands: west "Kiss Gifford" north "kiss S(a)lim south "kiss J(ay)" and, most dubiously east "drink win(e)." How did he learn the fundamentals of a drinking game already?!?!

So we've been doing a lot of gardening lately, getting ready for putting vegies in. Here is one of the three beds, now full of what I hope will be good dirt. Those of you who are from round here will know how much magpies love to help in the garden, and here are three of our locals. They've been scaring the crap out of the beloved - he knows they swoop - with their antics, bombing each other in our huge tree, and then coming down to see what there is to be had in the new garden beds. I did get cranky with one when he tried to eat a small brown skink that I'd disturbed with my digging around, and I had to reprimand him for that.The skink dropped its tail (as they do) and the magpie had to be content with it. They have been a high point of my life the last few days (I'm easily amused), and very good gardening companions in general.

* I edited this for truth, clarity and to add the Wiki magpie link that I thought some of you might fine interesting. I recommend listening to the audio of the magpie song at the bottom of the Wiki page.