a little from column a, and a little from column b

a half-arsed catch up.  you with moi, since you lot don't seem to post anymore.

finished the half year course - well, end of next week, but this week is a quiet one. let's just say I won't be doing that again in a hurry.  student life is grand, in many respects.  delightfully self indulgent and such.  campus life is novel for a week or three, too. then the backpack starts getting heavier, packed lunches start to taste a bit samey, the dirty dishes from brekkie are still there at 8pm, and mixing with 28 year old academics from well heeled families (hence the failure to earn their keep at age 28) gets old rool quick.

on the hacienda frontage, all the winter veg went in, amazingly.  thriving too, this year.  haven't had to buy spinach, brussels sprouts, parsnips, carrots, lettuce, beetroot, leeks, nor herbs yet this season.  yee haw! even my basil is still going, now that I've found a super sheltered north facing possy under a frost shielding shrub. kids are still growing, for some reason, and the elder of the two has been experimenting with lip and scoffing, now that he's in HS. the smaller one is still delightfully free from such experimentation for the foreseeable future (the next week or so). both have recently taken up fencing (the 'en guarde!' type, not the other kind involving posts and rails), which is a slightly arresting past-time.  still, it's nice to have kids who are able to vanquish an intruder with a sabre, should the need arise. and they do get to dress up like storm troopers every saturday for 2 hours.  that's apparently a good percentage of the appeal.

we're about thiiiiiiiiiiis much closer to run away and joining a commune, since you ask.  the rosey vista beckons eternally.  Tasmania keeps looking betterer and betterer. the only obstacle at this point being the storm troopers, who go a bit berzerker when the prospect is discussed out loud.  kids really REALLY hate the idea of poor old Taswegia, for some reason.   seems universal, too, as comrades with similarly aged kids seem to get the same response.  if you say "we're all going to live in Melbania, on a semi-urbany communey thingy but not quite in town!", it's "do we have to?". if same is said about Tassie it's "OH MY GOD .................NOOOOOOOOOO!" and is accompanied by full body flails and other theatrics.  it must seem like some sort of pergatorial banishment :/

drat, time to go.  back with more tomorrow.  because I can :p