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You can get pants like fried chicken legs. We'll all be wearing them next year.

(I also see on that page the suggestion that I might like to purchase knee-high socks like chicken feet. Wear them together!)

I kicked my big toe this morning and tore half the nail off. The toe is now bandaged like in a cartoon. It looks silly, but at least it's not rubbing against my shoe.

Yes, today was a quiet day.
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Friday! I am usually alone in the office on Friday, so I have declared (to myself) that it is Casual Friday every week. Such decadence.

My first job was in an accounting firm, and it did not do Casual Friday. Suits for the accountants and only slightly less formal for the support staff. At one stage the partners were talking about getting uniform blazers for anyone who wasn’t a partner to wear, but they never went ahead with that, fortunately. Also fortunately, they weren’t quite as formal as some other accounting firms: the City by the Sea’s biggest accounting firm (allegedly) insisted on skirts and makeup for all women. How they must have envied those of us in a boutique accounting firm, able to go around bare-faced and be-trousered if we wanted.

After that, I worked in the local council’s business incubator, which was based in an old factory. I still had all these suits to wear, but because the incubator was far more casual I used them as separates for mixing. And then I spent twelve years at Old Job, which was the very definition of Business Casual. Per Old Boss, who often wore shorts to work in summer: no suits, because suits are for funerals; no jeans and t-shirts, because we have some standards; other than that, we could do what we liked. And we didn’t do Casual Friday, because it wouldn’t be all that different any other day.

So I’ve got twelve years’ worth of Business Casual to wear, and now I’m at New Job, I’m close to being over-dressed. We have a lot of manual workers, so they’re in hi-vis and overalls; volunteers wear logo t-shirts; all the office workers never see anyone, so they wear anything they want. Which I like, I should say, but it has meant that I have had to think carefully about what I wear. Me, whose style could best be described as nondescript. Here is my dilemma: I occasionally have to go out and do things in public or have teleconferences with our big boss in Canberra, so I need to look professional; on the other hand, I don’t want to look so formal that I don’t seem to belong. So I’ve decided to stick with Business Casual, or, as I think of it, Would I Wear This To Old Job?

Which brings me back to today being my own personal Casual Friday, and I wore jeans, ankle boots and a new striped top. I looked presentable on a teleconference with my counterpart in another state; I didn’t look out of place when I went to the warehouse to pick up some stuff; I was comfortable enough that I didn’t have to get changed as soon as I got home. And now it’s a long weekend, so I don’t need to think about work clothes for three whole days.
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I'm so glad this week is nearly over, f-list. It's been one thing after another. Which is how things normally happen, I suppose, but there does seem to have been a lot of them this week and all of varying degrees of stressfulness.

Monday to Wednesday we had a storm. Three days of bone-slicing wind and pounding hail, just to give everything an apocalyptic air.

Alistair had his annual vaccination last Friday, which always knocks him flat. He's all right now, I should say, but he spent four days sleeping, not eating or drinking, and generally looking sorry for himself. He's such a chatterbox, it's just not right to have him silent for four days. "I never thought I'd miss that racket," said my mother, "but the quiet is unnerving." I'm now expecting his whiskers to fall out, which is what happens whenever he gets stressed.

Monday afternoon my boss, who is in a different state to me, called to say he and the powers that be had decided not to renew the contract of one of my accounts officers when it finishes at the end of June. Nothing to do with his work, but restructuring. My boss said he'd do the deed, but I said i thought I should be there. So I had a sleepless night on Monday and felt sick all Tuesday until it finally happened. Not to make it all about me — it was far worse for the accounts assistant — but it was upsetting on a number of levels, from having to let go someone who does good work and whom I really like, to feeling let down by the powers that be. (I would have more to say about this, but in light of my company's policy on not talking about work on social media, just imagine me making a Marge Simpson grumble at the situation.)

I've spent all week trying to track down an EFTPOS banking terminal that was supposed to be delivered to a new shop that my work is opening in a town in another state. I called the bank to ask why it hadn't been delivered by the due date, and the guy said, "Oh, our system shows the courier tried to deliver it at seven a.m. on the day, but left as there was no-one there." Well, of course there wasn't. And what had they done with it then? Well... no-one could tell me. For four days! This one little EFTPOS machine was being driven around rural New South Wales and no-one knew where it was. Anyway, it turned up at the shop at ten this morning, which, as I said to shop manager when she rang to tell me, was legitimately the best news I had all week.

At home, I received an email on Wednesday that a parcel I was expecting had been delivered and "left in a safe space". Not my letterbox. Not the electricity meter box. Not at the back door. Even in the most idyllic weather, my front step couldn't be described as a safe space for a parcel, but this week, if any courier had been silly enough to leave it there, it would have been blown five streets away. So I looked online to see what to do about missing parcels and found Australia Post's definitions page, which defines "delivered" as: Great news, your parcel has been 'delivered'! I mean, yes. It was "delivered".

And my favourite work shoes have worn inners, so this afternoon I went and bought some new ones. They're quite cheerful, I suppose, so maybe things are looking up — but I think I've earned a lie-in tomorrow morning.
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Here is a thing. Not a good thing, but we'll all be wearing them next year. Ha.

This week, I got my act together and bought a present for my mother's birthday next week (she's getting an insect house), and Easter eggs. So organised. So smug. Until I wasn't.

Driving to work on Thursday morning, I was nearly at the train station where I park when Freddie — that's my twenty-year-old car — started making a noise. I'm not a car person at all, but this did not sound like a good noise. And it wasn't. Long story short, I'm getting a new car. New to me, I mean. Not brand new. Anyway, poor Freddie. He looked very sad this morning when I went to the mechanic to get my stuff out of him. They took his number plates off, poor lamb. And I'm without transport for the next few weeks. So that's what I get for feeling smug about how organised I am.
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The fashion spread in today's newspaper supplement was for men's fashion, and featured not one but TWO blazer-and-formal-shorts combinations. That's following the one they suggested a month or so back. No. It's still not happening, Sunday supplement.

Back in spring I planted some seeds in my seedling tray. All sorts of things. Most sprouted, except the eggplants. Only one sad little eggplant seedling popped up. So I tended it and nurtured it and soon it was big enough to be planted out into the garden, where it grew. And grew and grew and grew. It's big. So big. I mean, you could climb this eggplant and find a giant at the top, that's how big it is. It's the biggest eggplant plant I've ever seen.

Today I was looking at it and noticed that it had buds and... they didn't look like eggplants. If anything, they looked a lot like the plants that had been in the next row of the seedling tray. That's right. My eggplant is a sunflower.

My computer's auto-correct has lately taken to auto-correcting my email address from alician to Galician (in fact, I let it do the work just then) when I have to fill in a form. It's very hard to fix, because I will reject the change, so it suggests it again, and I reject it, and then it will change it anyway, just to spite me. Which is irritating.

I have been put in charge of making the non-pudding Christmas dessert this year. Most years I make pavlova, but I thought this year I might do something different. Since outsourcing my Kris Kringle decision worked so well, let's try that again. The two options are:

1. Pistachio and Turkish delight ice cream pudding

IceCreamPudding.jpg

2. Brown sugar pavlova with strawberries (or whatever other fruit looked nice) and cream

BrownSugarPavlova.jpg

They're both health foods, obviously.

[Poll #2031285]

Perhaps in 2016 I could make all my major life decisions this way. Then I could write one of those "I did X for a year and this is what I learnt" books about it.
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My mother's former neighbours rang this morning with worrying news. Someone broke into their garden overnight, gave their dogs bones, then broke into their garden shed. The dogs are fine and nothing was taken. "But they wondered if someone was after something to break into John's house," said my mother. So she went out to John's and had a look, but nothing had been disturbed.

I am trying to talk her into getting one of those automated light switch turner-onners, but unsuccessfully so far.

* * * * *

I think it has been years since the fashion page of the weekend magazine has been anything other than wearable. Not necessarily wearable by me, mind, but certainly capable of being worn by tall, thin people without attracting the derision of passersby. Today, though, was a return to form with five ways to wear a pair of shorts. Four of them were fine. One... wasn't. Just look at the model's face. Those eyes are saying, "This was not my idea. I know it looks horrible. DON'T BLAME ME."

No. )

* * * * *

Actual line spoken by Inspector Barnaby in last night's repeat of Midsomer Murders:

"All nuns look alike in the dark."
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What are slumbies, f-list? I walked past a shop today that claimed to have slumbies inside for $15. Are they something I would want? Is that a good price for them? (It turns out they are slippers. I think I will be able to resist purchasing them.)

I am thinking of hiring Alistair out as a declutterer. He is so good at it. He is particularly good at windowsills. You don't need that here, do you? Let me swat it onto the bench. And that. And that. And, oh, how lucky, this windowsill is empty just as I'm ready for a nap. I have had my follow-up interview with the RSPCA, so they can make sure I haven't turned him into a pie or something. As I was talking to the woman on the phone, Alistair decided to tell me there was no food in his bowl. NO FOOD in his BOWL. No FOO-OO-OOD in his BOW-OW-OL. Which made the woman laugh, so I passed the test.
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I am spending my week of leave spring-cleaning. I did the wardrobe yesterday. I am always surprised to find things that I didn't throw out last time. One thing that went this time was my overcoat. It was a beautiful coat: a wool-cashmere blend, floor-length, soft grey in colour. I bought it from Stephen's, the City by the Sea's former department store. In fact, I bought it at Stephen's closing down sale, marked down from $435 to $90, nearly twenty years ago. I know the price, because it still had the tags on it. That's right: I have not worn the coat once in all that time. What I forgot, in my youthful excitement at seeing that bargain, was that City by the Sea is situated in a Mediterranean climate (Wikipedia tells me it is on the same latitude as Palermo, Sicily), with not many days that lend themselves to dressing like an extra out of Elton John's Nikita video clip. Not any days, in fact. Also, I am not very tall, and the coat is quite long. It looked like a dressing gown on me.

I also threw out the coat I was probably wearing when I bought the overcoat. Also a wool-cashmere blend, but hip-length, and black with a bold white check pattern. I tried it on and it was like wrapping myself in a big bowl of soup. It was lovely. I was tempted to keep it, and start wearing it again next winter. Coats are timeless, aren't they? No. Well, coats may be timeless, but shoulder pads aren't. In the mirror, I looked like I was just popping out to say hi to Melanie Griffith in Working Girl. I am surprised I could get through any doorways without turning sideways. So it has gone with the overcoat to the op shop, where, one hopes, they will find new, probably retro-loving, owners.

Today I tackled the craft cupboard. Why do I have so many balls of self-striping sock wool, f-list? And one skein of grey wool pre-hung with sequins. What was I planning to do with that? And four balls of luridly coloured cotton. 'What were they for?' asked my mother, who had come to visit. I remembered that, at least: I was going to knit dishcloths. 'That's a bit mad,' she said. 'Buy them like a normal person.' Happily, I was spared a lecture on what normal people do their dishes with, because something distracted her. 'Is that the swimming bag I made for you in primary school?'

Yes, that's what it was, tucked away at the back of the cupboard. It was a good swimming bag. She wasn't content with making a simple little drawstring swimming bags such as the other kids had, no. This one is shaped like a proper handbag, in a bright tropical flower print. You could carry it down the street today and get nothing but admiring glances. And I may do just that, as the bag has now been washed and revitalised. But what was in the bag when we pulled it out of the cupboard?

It was a cardigan I was knitting for myself. 'That's right,' I said. 'I never got round to finishing that.' I pulled the pieces out. The fronts had been sewn to the back. Do you know the only part I hadn't got round to finishing? Sewing in the sleeves. So close. What a cardigan it would have been, though. The pattern was still with it: I had pulled it out of a magazine dated 13/06/1992. It was cream. The front and back were solid, and quite short, with a tight waistband opening up to a sort of baggy blouson in the body. And the sleeves? Lacy crochet. It was the most nineties garment ever conceived. I was probably going to wear it with a black velvet choker.

They're all gone now. My mother took them round to her friend, Val, who runs a weekly craft session for the Anglican Ladies' Auxiliary. She called later. 'I told Val they could rip the cardigan out and use the wool,' she said, 'but Val said no, she'd sew the sleeves in and see if she can sell it at their fete.' So now I'm tempted to go and see what it sells for.

Incidentally, the reason my mother was visiting today was so that I could help her cut out pieces for a laptop bag she is going to make for me at her annual quilt camp this weekend. She's my bespoke bag maker. We had to go and get some supplies for this new bag today. Spotlight (a craft chain) had a big display of Christmas crafts you could make, including this pattern. I don't know if you can see it clearly, but the expression on the man in the elf costume made me laugh. He's not convinced by it, is he?

Finally, oh! A woman in Melbourne fell into a person-sized sinkhole while hanging out her washing. I love sinkholes.
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This weekend I pulled out what was left of the summer vegetable garden. By popular demand (well, one person), here is a photo of my final haul:

IMG_0627>

That's thirteen white eggplants, a handful of chillies, seven normal-sized capsicums and about 300 dwarf capsicums. That's only the last of them, remember. I'd already picked about that many, if not more. I've kept a handful, but, really, I'm about capsicummed out. My mother took what she wanted plus a few for her neighbour. I took the rest to work in a big bag and told my colleagues to have at it. So that's the end of them.

While I'm messing about with photos: Mushrooms and slippers )

Myki ('my key') is the ticketing system for Melbourne's public transport. I don't usually have to bother about it down here in the faraway City by the Sea, because a day's travel on Melbourne trains, trams and buses is included on a regional return train ticket, and that's more than I ever need. Anyway, I had to look up something today, and found this as one of their website's FAQ:

5. Can I use the myki money on my myki card to pay for my myki pass?
You can use the myki money on your myki to pay for a myki pass at a myki machine.


I don't know. I think they could have squeezed the word myki in at least a couple more times.
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I thought slippers were supposed to be soft? I wore my new slippers yesterday evening, and they've taken the skin off the back of my heels. That's not right, is it?

March books read

* The Ghost Pirates - William Hope Hodgson (1909)
* William Shakespeare's The Empire Striketh Back - Ian Doescher (2014)

The Ghost Pirates )

William Shakespeare's The Empire Striketh Back )
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Today I saw an advertisement for a 'pu-trimmed cardigan'. I don't think I want to know what that is.

Also, I have long since converted to buying double-length rolls of toilet paper. That is, those rolls where they somehow fit twice the number of sheets into a roll more or less the same diameter as they used to. Isn't that magic? Only today in the supermarket, I saw triple-length toilet rolls. Three times as many sheets on one small roll! Such advances in toilet paper technology.

Kim Next Door came round to ask if I could feed Next Door's dog tomorrow evening, as they are going to be out somewhere for the whole day. We were chatting about what we've got growing in our respective gardens and how to use them — it's been another bumper year for zucchini on J Street — when she told me this: when she peels potatoes to make mashed potatoes, she keeps the strips of potato skin aside to chop into little pieces that she then fries in a little butter, with salt, garlic and chilli powder. Then when she dishes up the mash, she sprinkles the fried skin on as garnish. This is obviously the greatest idea in the history of cooking, and I'm kicking myself that I've never thought of it. I'm sorry that I wasn't planning to cook potatoes tonight.
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Back to work. Among the email newsletters that had gathered while I was gone was a link to a quiz testing how many fun medical news stories from 2013 one can remember. I scored 15, making me Dr Quinn, Medicine Woman. Sounds about right.

I am currently trying to knit a mitten. Eventually I hope to knit two, but I am struggling with the first. Three times I have cast on, and three times I have joined to work in the round, as instructed, taking care not to twist stitches, as instructed, and three times I have somehow managed to twist it into a Moebius mitten. So I have had to throw it into the knitting bag in a fit of pique.

I started doing that 100 question meme that’s going round, but it wore me down. I bored myself writing the answers, so I won’t bore you with them. Only with this one question, which was about something nice that something has done for me recently. My original answer was the lady who works in my local milk bar (=corner shop), who gave me a mini candy cane from her Christmas display when I went to buy the paper on New Year’s Eve. That wasn’t just for me, though. She had a stack of them, so I think all her regulars were getting one.

Only then I remembered that a random stranger passing by left a comment on my Pinterest shoe board. Just one sentence, and it made my day. This board is a gift to society, she wrote, and you know what? It really is. (If you click that, may I recommend scrolling down (or Ctrl + F) until you find the barefoot high heels, which as far as I can tell are nails.) If I have learnt anything from gathering all those shoes together, it’s that there is more than one make of high-heeled flipper.
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Imagine the most hideous light switch cover you can think of. Are you holding that idea in your head? Right, is it as bad as this? You could not pay me to put that in my house. (What sort of decor would that go with, do you think? All white, to make a feature of it?)

On the other hand, rather that than this sweater.

I went to the supermarket with my mother and John yesterday. That was an experience. It was like shopping with the tortoise and the hare. My mother is a fast walker. She says it is all those years spent walking up and down hospital corridors. John is a slow walker. He likes to pick up things not on the shopping list and look at them. We would all start off at the start of an aisle, but by the time I reached the middle, my mother would be turning into the next aisle with an armful of groceries, while John would be back at the start comparing two tins of fish. So my mother covers four aisles in the time it takes John to cover two, when they meet up again and my mother can deposit everything she's picked up in the trolley that John is wheeling. That's one way to shop, I suppose.
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'Attention all staff members,' said the announcer at Bunnings Hardware and Nursery yesterday. 'There are still three gnomes missing throughout the store.' What was that about, I wonder?

I saw an advertisement yesterday for a vacuum cleaner with 'guaranteed no loss of suction', according to the voice-over man. And later he said it came 'with no loss of suction guaranteed'. That seems a really awkward way of expressing that, doesn't it? Unless No Loss Of Suction is some sort of trademarked property that this vacuum cleaner has.

This will be the last time I mention this, I promise, but in case you missed it: I have created a Pinterest board to keep all my terrible shoe finds for posterity. (I've changed the name and therefore its link, as I found another Ugly Shoe board.) I had all my ugly shoe links in a folder before; more than I thought there were, and some I had completely blocked from my memory. The human-tooth-bottomed brogues, the rat slippers, the fish thongs. Enjoy!
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This is an Ugly Shoe in that I would never wear it, but it is also kind of cute as a non-shoe object:
kate_spade_owl_pump3

I've seen worse, is what I'm saying. In fact, I've started a Pinterest board so I can get rid of all my ugly shoe bookmarks. It's a work in progress, but do have a peek if you like.

Also: the catleidoscope is surely what the internet was invented for.

Yes, I've spent my holidays well. Only three more days until I go back to work. Hmph.
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A new entry in my ugly shoe files:
guiseppe-zanotti-1
It looks like a glittery little animal with great big teeth.

This is Race Week in the City by the Sea (race in the sense of horse, rather than skin colour). Thursday is a public holiday, but the other two days of the racing carnival are busy enough. My work shares a car park with a motel, and we've been asked not to use it for the duration. I had to walk, ooh, MILES from where I ended up parking this morning. Two minutes, at least. Maybe even three. Aside from that, it was a beautiful autumn day - warm sun, chill wind - and we got to spend some of it hanging out the top floor window looking at a team of draught horses, complete with Dalmation on the back, as they clattered down the street. So that was nice.

Angela's research assistant, Mya, filled in for a friend's trivia quiz team last month. They came fourth, just missing out on a prize, and ever since she has been dreaming of winning something, anything. So with her friend's team back up to full strength, she put together a work team, comprising herself, Angela, me, Tim the new chap, Angela's husband and Angela's 16-year-old German exchange student. Obviously, that is a crack team, and we came second, thus winning a prize pack and making Mya the happiest girl in the world. The highlight of the evening for me was discovering that Mya believes that, if stretched out, the average person's small intestine would reach the moon.
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I have a new entry in my ongoing quest to find the ugliest shoes in the world. Sadly, I can't link to a picture of them, because I saw these in real life. Get ready for this as a concept: high-heel sneakers with no heels. As in, this sort of thing (which is bad enough):

high heel sneakers

... only without the heel at the back. Just shaped to make it look as though the wearer is on tip-toes. The girl I saw wearing them was walking very oddly.

Or perhaps you've all got a pair, and I'm just way behind the times.
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Annoying red-suited jumping lady has disappeared from the log-in page! Oh, happy day.

I had my emergency optometrist appointment yesterday. They had the lens expert ready, and he took the glasses away to check that they had the right lens in. When he came back he had a little ruler to measure the distance between my eye and the lens. 'Seven millimetres,' he said, and sucked his breath. He took the glasses away again and changed the nose pads so the glasses now sit closer to where the old ones sat. While I was wearing my new glasses, the optometrist held some other lenses over my right eye, and one of them was perfect. I don't think I've ever seen as clearly as that. I said as much, and she noted it down, but she didn't say, 'Well, that's the very thing!' Maybe I need glasses for my glasses?

Anyway, I've got drops to put in, and I have to wear my new, adjusted glasses for a week, then go back on Monday to see how things are going. After twenty-four hours I can still feel my right eye working harder than the left one (and I still can't see as well out of it, which is the reason I wanted new glasses in the first place), but it doesn't hurt like it did. Although now I've thought about it, they do feel a bit achey. But then, if I concentrated on my toe, I'd be hyper-aware of how it might be feeling, even though there's nothing wrong with it in the first place. So I'll give it time. I'll go driving one night as a test, though I'm a bit nervous about that.

I saw these in a shoe shop catalogue today. Would you wear socks or tights with them? Or just bare feet?
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Do you find it strange to catch sight of yourself when you are wearing new clothes? Particularly with jeans or trousers, I look down and catch a glimpse of a different fabric than I am used to, and think, 'What's happened to my legs?' It is happening today because I am wearing a new top (this one, thanks to the strong Australian dollar) with a black undershirt, so in my peripheral vision I can see my newly green upper arms. It makes me feel oddly panicked. I'm sure the moment will pass.

I received an email from Reckon today. They make Quickbooks, the accounting software that we use at work. Only it will not be Quickbooks much longer; they are changing its name. Why is the Quickbooks name changing?, the email asked, before answering its own question: Over the last 20 years Reckon has become known for the development and distribution of QuickBooks software in Australia and New Zealand. Renaming QuickBooks software will allow us to more clearly align our accounting suite under the Reckon brand, enabling us to better articulate our product offering, our company values and our vision for the future. That makes no sense at all, Reckon, but okay.

So what is it changing to? Well, here's the thing: they don't know. The reason for the email was to announce a competition: suggest a new name with a brief description of why that name is the best, and you (or I) could win a holiday to Mauritious. I'm thinking of suggesting Pointless, but I don't think I'd win.
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I normally avoid the sporting part of the news, but I saw it tonight. There was a story about a man who used to play for a football team, who now plays for another team, and this week he will be playing against his old team. 'He knows what to expect on the field,' said the reporter. 'Verbal ribbing.' Oh, no! Not... verbal ribbing! How will he cope?

I am in one of my gloomy fits about work, so I am thinking again about doing a Master's degree. Today I got as far as seeing what I had to do to apply. Apparently the university needs a copy of my birth certificate to prove that I am me, even though it gave me a bachelor's degree without it. That makes no sense to me. As it happens, I don't have a birth certificate; I've got this far in life with just an extract of it. So I thought, even if I don't apply, it wouldn't hurt to have a copy of my birth certificate handy. I looked up how to get my birth certificate from the Northern Territory. I can get it in person, but that seems a long way to go just to get a piece of paper. I could mail or fax my application, which would require getting certified copies of other proof of identity. Or I could just fill in this simple online form, no questions asked. So I did that. It seemed a bit too easy.

I have a new pair of blue suede slippers. They have a delightfully springy sole and a sequinned bow on them.

My little cactus, which has sat like a spiky green blob for about four years now, has some little pink spots on it, which I think are going to be flowers.

Today I needed a lemon and I picked one off my tree. This is my second tree: the first one died after years of doing nothing, and this one had a rocky start to life. But here we are, two years down the track, and I've finally got a lemon. It was delightfully lemony.

So that's what's going on today.

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