Thanks a lot, Michael...

I'd like to take the time out of my busy schedule to thank someone for reacquainting me with my dark side.

The OCD- I cannot leave it alone once I start it jigsaw puzzle gene I inherited from Dad.

Staying at Clair and Michael's (and Dawn and Daniel's) as I was last month,Michael popped out his Australian map jigsaw puzzle...which I tried to resist, briefly, and later had to drag myself away from as I feared I'd complete it before he returned home from work the next day, thus ruining the experience for him.

Hooray for my self discipline.

A week or 2 later, I made Hell Boy take me jigsaw shopping, both of us knowing full well that this was going to be bad for everyone, except maybe the cats.

K-Mart obliged us with a selection of ghastly $4 jigsaws, which sadly meant that between the 2 of us, we came to the conclusion that we should purchase all of them.

I've done an average of 1 per week (1000 pieces) and the last one was virtually within 2 days...and we went out for Yum Cha into the city, so...

In other news, my neck and shoulders seem to be quite painful.
I was even so brazen as to confess to Ed, my osteopath, that I had indeed injured myself doing a jigsaw, perhaps the nerdiest thing I've ever said.
I didn't help that he was genuinely impressed.

The last puzzle, I even had the help of Igor's 5 year old boy, Lennon. He actually found 2 pieces of the sky which was all the same shade of blue.

Lennon declared to me," not everybody can do this...you have to be smart."
"And patient," I added.

The second puzzle I did - the one with the missing piece - I'll blame the cats, but honestly I believe I vacuumed several pieces up, I got Dad to help me with.

He was over at Easter and I brought the board out. He went through his usual routine of,

"Shit, Simone, what are you doing to me? No, Jesus, that's terrible!"

And then kept Viv waiting for 2 hours while he refused to budge until he'd found that piece with the stripe and the crooked leg.

Glorious.

So, after doing 3 1000 piece puzzles of images I really didn't like at all, I decided that I wanted to do a puzzle of Schloss Neuschwanstein - my favourite building in the world, and a place we're going back to in October.
We trekked into nerd headquarters, HobbyCo in QVB, but they only had a 1500 piece one, so now our house has a permanent source of frustration, triumph, musculoskeletal disorders and profanity right in our dining room.

So, once again, hats off and a very big thank you to young Michael for setting me off and a bender.
Where was Beagle Bay btw?

Fuck the blue team!

Well if that don't beat all...

Yesterday was Round 1 of the NRL competition, and as always, we play the filthy Roosters at this time.
This was their home game.
I hate giving the pricks my money, but I love being part of a non-fragmented Souths crowd who sits together, sings together and completely invades their ground and dominates the crowd numbers.

I knew it was on when we got to Fox Studios for lunch at the German Bier Hall, 3 hours before the game, and saw 4:1 Souths to Rorters fans stalking around.

It was a hot day and the Burrow sits in Bay 38 which is on the eastern side, this making it in full sun.
We managed to get under cover and happily managed to dodge the sun until the final minutes of the game when I felt it hit my legs.
How much good luck is that?

We arrived at the ground 20 minutes into the first game - Toyota Cup which is for players aged about 17-19 I think.

The noise coming from the half-full Burrow even for this early game felt like a first grade grand final atmosphere might for most other clubs.
I love this about Souths fans. They support the club and not just the first grade team.
OK, so this young side was smashing the junior Roosters (is there such a thing?) and went on to hammer them by around 40 points, but still...big effort from the crowd. Full credit even.

My favourite moment of a football game is, and always will be, that very first cohesive moment the crowd experiences when they all look up in unison and cheer some unexpecting young player, half scaring him to death with their sudden attention.
I love it.

That moment yesterday was glorious. One of the best.

It sparked a burst of singing and chanting from The Burrow so loud and so passionate that I did the only thing a girl can do at such a time, I rang my brother in India so that he might hear it too.

And hear it he did.

He copped a whole round of "Still hate the Roosters" and "South Sydney clap clap clap" before the noise died down a bit so I could ask him what he was doing.

He was naked in an ashram somewhere in the north of India, he tells me.
Did he find it strange that I would place an international call on my mobile and hold my phone up so that strangers might sing into it?
No.
He sang along.
Naked by the Ghanges though he may have been.

Hooray for Yoga Boy.

And as if this call wasn't costing me enough, he went on to ask me about the rest of the round's results and demanded statistics so he could get an idea as to how his fantasy team were doing.
After telling him what I knew, I excused myself by saying, "I gotta go, Dad's here now."

Which he was.

I had invited my 15 yo step-niece, Emily to come along to this game, knowing how good the atmosphere always is.
She had previously told me that she thought she was a Roosters supporter.
I had asked her why this would be, considering she wasn't a cheat herself.
Didn't make sense to me.

After explaining to her that Souths own Xmas (red and green) as well as Easter (bunnies) she decided that she would like to support Souths with me and that the Rorters could go to hell... And they will too - but I think on an earthly plane it's called the Central Coast.
How more people haven't seen the similarities yet is beyond me.

So, Dad brought Emily along despite the fact that he is a low-grade Parramatta supporter.
Actually, he arrived in full Arsenal kit and sporadically stood up and bellowed "Arsenal!!!" loud and proud, making me rather suspect I inherited my tribal behaviours from his side of the family after all.

They arrived just as Kieren's gigantic Souths banner was being unravelled and stretched down to cover the entire bay of supporters.
This banner lists all of our premiership wins and has a message on it directed at the Rorters fans, "Forever in our shadow."

Being under that massive banner reminded me of being in primary school when you'd play under a parachute, except that it was stinking hot, red and green and much more wonderful.

Dad was enchanted with the atmosphere from the start, and I sat him between Greg and Jeff in order that he might enjoy the experience to it's fullest.

He had a ball. Each time I looked over, he was either standing and shouting his own words to songs that were happening or yelling out, "Fuck the blue team!!!"

When we left, Souths having destroyed our arch enemy by 52-12, his eyes were spinning in his head.
Much like mine, only his mascara wasn't running.

My voice is shot - my thyroid and the nodules near my voice box are now doing God knows what in there, my forearms are sore from all the clapping and I have small bluish areas appearing on my hands... and I couldn't be happier.

Well, maybe if we'd held them to nil... ;O)

Any road, FUCK THE BLUE TEAM!!!

Forgive me? Worry about yourself, Sunshine.

As I was writing some nonsense on Facebook today, I was reminded that I need to get something off my chest.
I have something to confess.

For those among us who are religious and easy to offend, get thee to a nunnery, coz you ain't gonna like this one.

Even as a child I had bad feelings about organised religion.
This was, I suspect, made a good deal worse by the fact I was born into a quasi-Catholic house to Mr. and Mrs. Closet Cynic.
Actually, closet isn't right. Intermittent is closer.
Mr. and Mrs. Intermittent Cynic.

Yep.

Most children do their First Confession and First Holy Communion around 7 or 8 I think. Just before they start to be able to think for themselves.

I delayed mine until 9, when social pressure caught up to me via my parents.

Due to the fact that my father had insisted on a public school education for my brother and myself - he felt that coupling religion and snobbery was ugly, I had to attend "lessons" at nights and on weekends, run especially for the spiritually backwards children of recalcitrant parents.

Oh, and what a joy they were too!

Sour nuns, and intolerant priests who gave even the stupidest child that distinctly strange, slimey feeling that one looks back on now as the aura of the kiddie-fiddler.
A divine halo.

I never had any fears for myself, but I certainly do remember being always at my brother's side when we were unhappy enough to find ourselves on that hallowed ground.

I don't know what it is that some people give off exactly, at the time I thought perhaps it was authority or unfriendliness, but kids can smell when something's not right, they just don't know to do about it.

Regardless, there I was each weekend for what seemed to be an eternity, trying to stuff 9 years of garbage into my head and finding myself, for the very first time (excluding scripture classes at school), mentally disputing what an adult was telling me.

I never got over the whole Mary was a virgin thing, and I never saw the value of having Our Father or Hail Mary prayer races. What has speed to do with holiness?
Well, as much as virginity, apparently.

I never saw the genius in the statement, "God is good," despite the fact there was only one o difference. I wondered whether the man who presented that to us as proof of God's existence was an idiot, or whether he just hoped we were.

And few things had ever struck me as less sincere than that priest asking,
"Are there any questions?"

I know I squirmed about in my seat and thought the nine year old's version of,
"Well, none that you can answer and fewer still that you won't humiliate me for asking."

Nope. Not buying it.
Not even at nine.

But I went through with it because at nine, I had no alternative, my parents had a party planned and I was to have some lame white dress that I really didn't think made up for it at all.

I still don't wear white and I never, ever feel comfortable in it.
As I write this, I wonder if perhaps that's why.
I have never felt like such a fraud as I did on that day.

But before the communion, there was the confession.

I had to go alone into a barren little cubicle with the very person who made my skin crawl, drop down into a degrading position and beg him for forgiveness.

Ummm, no.

I felt as judged and frightened as a small child might in such an unpleasant situation.
And I felt something else which I now know to be resentment.

Who the Hell was this awful, unfriendly man to be judging my sins?

My turn came - I went in the first batch. Just like going to the dentist - I'd rather get it over with quickly. That's what she said.

My knees hit the wooden kneeling bar and due to my size, pained my instantly.
My nerves were in disarray as I had to participate in the role playing exercise of,

"Forgive me Father, for I have sinned. It has been *****days since my last confession and during this time I have ********* "

Well, with croaky voice and a mounting terror of messing it all up, I got that far due to the gruelling rehearsals of those dreadful weekends.
Unfortunately, this was all they had taught us.

The rest they left to us....

I guess they supposed we'd know what we'd done wrong and that we'd just insert it in neatly after all the rote learning.

Nuh-uh.

During those few defining seconds, instead of pleading my case, I chose to think about what this all meant.

My conclusion was that it all stank.

I couldn't think of a single thing I'd done wrong.
I hadn't embezzled, committed adultery, killed anyone, raped, pillaged or plundered...I was at a loss.
I was only nine years old FFS.

Nothing.

This moment cemented my stance on religion for all time.

"I haven't done anything wrong, you horrible man, but I'll bet you have, " I thought.

So, knowing that the robed ogre was waiting expectantly, judging not only me, but my parents by my response, I made something up.

I lied.

Even as it left my lips I knew it felt bad and that I was probably in some very serious bother.
The kind of bother you can't tell anyone about, but must sort out all by yourself.

And so, when he pronounced his judgement on my soul and told me my penance was two Our Fathers and three Hail Mary's, I said them.
Good and fast too.

But I said them in compensation for lying to a priest during my First Holy Confession.
I think I even threw in a few extras just to be sure.

Now, I carried this stain on my soul around from age 9 until age 38.
Well not really.
I mean, I never worried about the opinion of any God who would judge a small child, but I never verbalised the event except to Hell Boy, and then only for comic purposes.

But, waiting (once again) at Kingsford Smith airport for Yoga Boy to return home from India, I turned to my Dad and suddenly said,

"Forgive me Father, for I have sinned."

I went on to explain the whole debacle and I really did feel relief from offering up such an earnest confession, albeit in such a public place and to someone I respected.

Probably it was made easier for me by the sound of his laughter and the strange look of admiration in his eyes as I detailed my queer childish logic.
He thought it was great.

It was not long after that that I heard him telling a friend that although I look like my mother, I think like him.

Amen to that.

------------------------------------


LOL

After Hell Boy had read this, I asked him, "Do you think I'll be going to Hell for that?"

His reply, "Well I hope so, otherwise I won't be seeing you."

Check mate.


---------------------------------

I wondered lonely as a cloud?

Hooray, it's done!

Dad's Schimpf Quilt for his 7oth birthday is wrapped and under the tree.

Dad and Viv are going on a two week cruise before his birthday (31st December), so I'll be giving it to him on Xmas Eve.

woot woot

The quilter managed to quilt the first verse of William Wordsworth's daffodil poem into the yellow border for me, thus saving me months of agony.
I love that woman.

Sadly, she made a spelling error. She wrote wondered instead of wandered.

I wondered lonely as a cloud... I like it.

I dreamt that this would happen, but that I could fix the problem easily, so I wasn't too upset when it came to pass.
I was able to change the O to an A with a minimum of fuss.

In fact, when Dad used to read this poem to me, I often thought that wondered was as appropriate as wandered anyway.

So, here it is in all it's glory.

Do you think it looks like wandered?

I'm very proud of this one. Not for it's appearance, I would never intentionally design a quilt to look like that, but rather because of it's edge to edge significance.

I hope he likes it.



Oh and by the way, I was wrong, wrong, wrong, about Lynda's Shitmas gift for me.

She simply looked uncomfortable when I had my rant about the Tudor's because she's not used to passionate, cynical, opinionated people.

LOLOLOLOL

Pity for her, I say.

Gift idea for Simone.

Anyone who may be looking for an ideal Xmas gift for me, please consider that I'm in desperate need of more cookie cutters, as evidenced by this pic.

How a girl is meant to survive with only 70 something is beyond me.

hmmm I believe I have discovered something else that I collect rather than just have plenty of.

Where is the line though?
That line is my holy grail - never seen it, never expect to see it, yet I always keep a lookout for it.

Today being so lovely and unseasonably cool, and being that Alice decided it was good to be alive and celebrated the fact by sitting on my chest and purring loudly at 6:30 this morning, I gave in, got up and started baking.

I couldn't use the hand mixer as Jeff was still sleeping, so I decided to make a double batch of shortbread, which is all done by hand.
Despite that fact that I genuinely hate rubbing butter into flour, they are easy and satisfying to bake.

By the time they were out of the oven, Yoga Boy was upstairs and introducing himself to the new fish I brought home from work yesterday.
Wartie spat a rock at him in acknowledgment.

Being on a roll, and having company (4 fish and Yoga Boy is a party in anyone's books), I pressed straight on and made a double batch of the dreaded flat Anise Bogen.
The cooler temperature meant that they were that much easier to bake that I got excited and began making not just one Stollen, but two as well.

I have no idea what I'm going to do with them, I just like to make them.
Actually, although they are traditional throughout Europe at Xmas as they are shaped to represent to baby Jesus, I prefer to make them on Good Friday instead, in a bid to loosen the bible belt a little.

Well, I'd bought the ingredients a while ago so I could show Clair and that nutty German bird how to make it, but that play date never eventuated, so I thought it best to use the fruit up.

To help the yeast rise, I had to put the heater on and place it in front of it to stay nice and warm.

To my very great surprise and delight, Hell Boy offered to take over the stirring of the Stollen(s) as they are very dense and must be kneaded for 10 minutes before being left to rise a second time.
I think he enjoyed it.
It is a very lovely dough to knead - not sticky, but moist and elastic.

Unfortunatley, he'd left to interview someone from a band called the Eastern Dark by the time I was ready to knead the dry fruit and nuts into the dough, which is a absolute killer.
My arms will be sore for days after that.
My forearms look like Popeye's.

While the dough was minding it's own business in front of the heater for two hours, I made a double batch of lebkuchen/gingerbread - a different recipe to the one we'd used at Clair's last week.
Far more honey and golden syrup.

That had to be left standing for a couple of hours too, so the timing worked out rather nicely.

So, I've just taken all that out of the oven and washed my collection of cookie cutters, shaking my head all the while.
You know I have a giraffe cutter? LOL
WTF

The boys both being out, and with the cats taking advantage of the cool by stretching out on our bed, there was nothing left to do, but to put on the Elvis Xmas album as company for me and the fish.

We had a good day.

In so far as the rest of the Xmas baking, I've already done a double batch of Vanilla Kipferl and Fruit Mince Pies, so next week I just need to make Yoga Boy a lemon cheesecake, Hell Boy a Pavlova and Dad some fucking Apple Strudel.


erkkkkkkk

Fucking strudel, I hate it.

Hate it.

Hate.

It.

Fuck them, those green appley bastards!

sigh

But I'll do it for Dad with smile in my heart because he just loves it so much.
Crazy person.


BTW, the last pic of gingerbread would have been for you, Gretchen had we lived closer. ;O)

Head full of gravel.

Rolling over last night, I became aware that I was still actively planning our next Euro trip while sleeping.
I suspected as much, but now have concrete evidence, hence the gravel in my head.

Around about 3am, I was pitting the elegant virtue of Vienna against Leipzig and Trieste.
The battle wasn't all that pretty either.

Never mind.

Anyway, I thought that spitting it out might prevent Potsdam taking on Venice tonight, thus sparing my muddle from confusing the Earth's energy any further.

Three weeks of course has become five, and various magnificent cities have been auditioned, only to be cast aside due to reasons I can no longer pretend to guess at.
No Dubrovnik, no Oslo, no Northern Lights or fjords, no Split, no Heidelberg, no Amsterdam (boo), no Cologne.

OK, poor darling Hong Kong bought the farm this trip because it can be stinking hot October and I have to dodge hot weather.
Plus we're out of time.

We can easily duck across to Hong Kong for a week next year.
Also because I discovered that I can take sleeping pills and bomb myself for several hours during long haul flights, thus making the Asian stopover less necessary.
HellBoy informs me that after about three Temaze, I can sleep with my head on my knees.

hmmm

Paris disqualified itself by being self important, smelly and full of pretentious fuckwits on cheesey romantic weekends.
In fact, Paris can bite me on the fuzz.

Just yesterday, both London (my fault) and Venice (Jeff's fault) made it back into the mix.

By 9:36 this morning, I had to place an urgent phone call, almost waking HellBoy up, to tell him to start mentally preparing for Vienna yet again.

"OK. Good."

Any other response would have surprised me from him.

Should I call him tomorrow and tell him I'd like to collect space shells on Mars, he'd give me the green light without missing a beat.
He knows how much I like shells.

Well, in case I haven't told you, we decided that we'd bring our next Euro jaunt forward a year or so to coincide with Dad's trip.
Jeff's brother, wife and daughter have also decided to join us.

But not for the whole thing.
They are keen to go to Paris and EuroDisney and to Italy.
We are not.

Mickey Mouse + Paris = SIMONE HELL.

Plus, Italian culture is too dominated by Christianity to hold my attention.
Poor Jesus is almost as over exposed in Italy as Mozart is in Austria.
At least Mozart was real though.
And he has chocolates named after him rather than wars.

We all but sprinted through the Italian Renaissance section in the Louvre earlier this year.
I remember hearing HellBoy say,

"Oh fuck me, not this guy again," while looking at some crucifixion pic or other.

Anyway, Italy...I gotta tell ya, it's enough with the Jesus already.
Talk about monomania.
I'm trying to imagine my reaction to the Vatican City, better known as JesusDisney.
Quite probably the only place that would let Paris off the hook for being the cuntiest city.

We are having a total of three nights alone(!) after spending time with Tone and Line in Berlin and then are going to re-trace the Tischler and Planinc family footsteps with Dad and Viv through sleepy Slovenia.
After that we meet up with Greg, Giulia and Yasmin in Venice.

At this stage, the itinerary is:


Germany
Berlin/Potsdam(4 nights with Tone)
Leipzig (1 night)
Dresden (2 nights)

Slovenia (meet Dad)
Celje (1 night) = birth town
Vitanje (2 nights) = home town
Ljubljana (2 nights)
Bled (2 nights)

Italy (meet Greg and Gules and Yazzie)
Venice (2 nights)

Austria
Vienna (3 nights)
Salzburg (3 nights)

Germany
Munich (5 nights) incl trips to Rothenberg and Inglostadt

UK
London (4 nights) - return visit to Lizzie's underpants.

Yes.
I think I feel better with that stored somewhere.
It'll be interesting to see how much it changes before I make final bookings.

So, this time next year, we'll be in Celje.

Of course, my only real concern is that Souths will take this opportunity to make the finals and force a very ugly decision on me.
Those bastards.

I suspected as much.

Well, considering my eternal love for nonsense, I was delighted yesterday to hear from my aunt, that Celje, the town my father's family hails from is sometimes pronounced as SILLY.

SILLY!

Hello, my name's Simone. I'm from Silly.

So, on a serious note, the bones of my ancestors rest in Silly. Many of my family were been born and married in Silly. They laughed, loved, cried, ate, baked and sewed in Silly.

Hell, my kin roam free through the very streets of Silly as we speak.

Of course they do. Of course they do.

And I have now made the final decision that the destination that for my 40th birthday celebration, as well as the celebration of Jeff and my 20th anniversary as a couple wll indeed be in Silly.

Except, my birthday cake will be found in that scrumptious little Konditerei in Salzburg, where we shall certainly make our way to, either before we go (to) Silly, or after.

Poppyseed strudel. Yes indeed.

Most importantly, we stand a pretty fair chance of co-ordinating our trip with Dad & Viv's, so that Dad may be able to show me the house he was born in, where the Tischler factories were, the route he took to school, the church and even the Tischler bridge.

And perhaps via Singapore this time instead of Hong Kong... although...hmmm

And a slight side trip to visit Tone and Lina again, but this time in Berlin.
And perhaps a cruise down the Rhein so that Jeff can visit the hamlet of Bacharach, which enchanted him so on our last journey.

OK, got to go, I have a date with TripAdvisor.com.

My father's daughter.

Just because I'm avoiding Dad's quilt (with pretty reasonable success), doesn't mean I won' get there.

It's not even the excrutiating technical minutia of the current stage that's putting me off, it's the harrowing behavioural comparison that I'm having a hard time dealing with.

I don't know why exactly, but exhibiting such overt Eric-like traits seems to be interrupting my concentration.
Not in a bad way, rather I make myself laugh at critical moments, thus causing me to fuck it all up.

Just consider how many little yellow circles I have to machine sew around (buttonhole/blanket stitch- aaarrrgh) before I can even think about moving on to the next stage....
I have slaved away, and I'm not even half done.

Simone doesn't handle repetition well.
She's OK with routine though.
Go figure.

In order to give you a glimpse of my mental disarray and agony, I made a mental note of my thought process during just one circley bit.

"OK, let's get this done.
Right. Fuck. Fucking thread. Shit. OK. I'll start here. Yes.
OK. Fuck, did I change the foot? Where's the foot? Poppy?! You shit little cat, where's the...oh never mind, sorry, here it is. Sorry Pop.
OK. Right.

Well this isn't too bad. Why did I put it off?

Oh fuck. Damn it. Fucking thing, that's so crooked. Maybe no-one will notice if I get an all over quilt design.
Shit,shit, it's August, I'm running out of time.
I need less coffee.

Alright,time to turn the corner. Fuck!
Why did I sew those bits together already? Idiot.
OK, got the hang of it now. Turn, turn, turn, oh fuck, that sucks. Shit. Cunt of a thing.
I hate this.
Yeah, that'll do.
Turn, damn, OK, no, that's OK. Shit.
*giggle*snort*
Nearly done. Cocksucker. You absolute cocksucking son of a monkey whore!
No, no, noooo. Fuck.
Got it.Yay. Bloody hell.
That sucked."

This is followed by a moment of smugness and then all too quickly by deflation once I notice the next 100 circles waiting for me to mentally injure myself on.

Those sneaky little yellow circley pricks.

Well, there you have it, you can see what kind of energy I'm imbuing this thing with.
Hence my general discomfort when people exclaim over the sweetness of my creations when I issue them.
Little do they know.

You can also see that mentally at least, I am certainly my father's daughter.

And fucking proud of it too.

Tischler! Tischler! Tischler!
Fuck! Shit ! Cock!

Progress report - Dad's Schimpf quilt.

What follows is a progress report on the quilt I'm making for Daddy's 70th birthday, which will be on the 31st of December.
So far it's title will either be That Fucking Quilt, Schimpf, or if I'm suddenly feeling horrifically racist by the year's end, The Yellow Peril.

The Yellow Peril was a 1970's quirky jigsaw puzzle that had no map, 1000 pieces which were all the same shade of yellow, was circular and as if all of that were not nasty enough, it was saddled with a rather vile and racist name, the significance of which really only dawned on me as I was sewing today.
Yuk.
The 1970's WTF?

Anyway, so I'm thinking that I won't be calling it that...


The manufacturer all but dared people to finish it and rewarded them with a certificate in exchange for photographic evidence upon completion.

Somewhere, buried beneath a million other ghastly 1970's snaps, we have said photograph. Right next to it is my dad, looking really, really tired.

But as my family has always considered it proof that my father has some sort of jigsaw OCD, we thought it best not to send it to any sort of authorities, even the jigsaw bigots.

And rightly so.

Dad has always enjoyed (and loathed) a good jigsaw.
It's something we were able to share as I was growing up. Just watching how his mind worked was fascinating to me.
Laborious, logical, methodical, compulsive, yet joyous at his task.
And stamina! Fuck me dead this guy's machine.

I used to love it when we'd do a puzzle together during summer. With the cricket day/night match on TV, fresh fruit, leftover Xmas biscuits and a cup of tea, we'd sit hunched up for hours as Dad methodically sorted the pieces according to differences I had never noticed in them. And, he turned them all over before proceeding. Who does that?!

During all of this, he would complain strenuously to me about how much he hated jigsaws, sing the occasional silly song and punctuate any other silence with, "...bowled him!" or "...bullshit!" if he happened to glance up at the cricket.

Eventually, I would pack it in for the night - probably due to a cat who was sleeping in the puzzle box lid that I was using, or worse still, on the sorted pieces themselves.
Dad would exclaim, "...bloody pussing katzens!" and "...shit!" whenever he noticed such feline misdeeds, but I never once recall him actually moving a cat. I do remember him shifting his own seat though. Perhaps this was simply a coincidence though. ;O)

In the wee hours of the morning...you know, the wee hours... when I'd stumble out to pee, there would still be the shape of this diligent creature, moving somewhat slower perhaps, but nevertheless, still absorbed in his work of finding that three legged piece with the crooked leg.

When he realised it was me geistering (ghosting/wandering) around rather than Adrian (no jigsaw puzzle lightweight himself, although not inclined to procure them), he'd yell out, "...shit, Simone, shit, what are you doing to me? Shit! This is awful."

And so it was awful, I guess.
But not to me, I always found it reassuring to recognise so many aspects of my own personality in my father. I childishly hoped I'd be able to keep them as I matured and expand upon them. I like to think I've done just that too.
I recently overheard Dad remarking to a friend that yes, his daughter looks like him, but that more importantly, "...she thinks like me."
Best compliment I've ever received. Certainly the only one I can quote.

So, in addition to the jigsaw component of the quilt, I'm planning on (probably) bordering it with two plain yellow borders that I plan on doing various stitcheries on, plus one with a printed fabric.

The first border will have the prose from a William Wordsworth poem about daffodils that Dad used to read to me at bedtime rather than fairy tales.


I wander'd lonely as a cloud... *sigh *

I love it, but to this very day, it does make me very tired.
Just call me Pavlov's dog.

Then a border of daffodil fabric.
Daffodils have a special significance in our family.
Apart from the nightly poetry readings, my mother adored them. When she died, we chose a headstone with daffodils on it for her.
Also, daffodils represent the fight against breast cancer and are in bloom during August and September the months of Mum's birthday as well as the anniversary of her death.

Finally, I'm doing a larger plain yellow border that will have all of Dad's favourite swear words on it. Well, not just his obscenities, but his silly words as well.
I'm even including the Yugoslav word for c*@&.
A family fave.
Plus his new favourite, which is taken from his second wife, Vivien, a gorgeous Maltese lady...Ma-donna!

So far we have:

• Ma-donna
• schimpf (meaning to go crook on or berate)
• pitchka (C@#& in Yugoslav)
• pfuitsch (Dad/German hybrid for yuk)
• verschlagen (from MAD magazine - I thought for years that it was Yugo)
• schmutz (Dad/German hybrid meaning to make a pig of yourself)
• goodie gums (Eric for lollies and chocolate)
• yebem te sunse (motherfucker - Yugo)
• verflixt noch mal ( Dad/German hybrid meaning damn or for god's sake - sort of)
• umdrehen (German for turn around - what he used to say when we were little kids and he'd towel dry us after a bath)
• compulsories (referring to Vitamin C tablets which he insisted we took...prescribing vitamins is genetic?)
• extra wurst (mostly German - meaning a food bonus or treat)
• hops (a command he developed for our dog, Holly, so she would jump over stuff thus saving him time and trouble)
• a good cleansing panic (Holly was a Doberman cross Rottweiler, but was a sooky nervous Piscean dog who would freak out with monotonous regularity, in fact, she would panic on command too - Dad thought it was good for her)
• sugar, scheissen, shit! (this quintessential Dadism begins with an attempt to be reasonable, but quickly gives way to common sense)
• runter! ( German for get down - often heard and ignored by cats)
• yumich ( NFI from whence this comes) it means something delicious
  
• 14-14 (his favourite football score - who has fave score? FFS what a weirdo)
• and finally, my contribution as a 6 year old...bernarner (I was asked to spell banana, and sounded it out, with what I still maintain was good success...Dad still belly laughs at this regularly, in fact I've never seen him eat a bernarner without giggling)

So, there it is. My masterpiece.
I have no concerns about littering a perfectly good quilt with obscenities because, eventually, I shall inherit it anyhow, and I like it.

When I told Viv of my idea, she pissed herself laughing and then said in all seriousness, ..."but not bright yellow, buttercup yellow."
So I'm guessing that the thought of having Yugoslavian obscenities draped across her lounge is of little concern to her so long as the colour tones in with the curtains.
And with little wonder.
Viv's surely heard it all by now, so I guess nothing I can stitch onto this quilt will come as a surprise to her. :O)
I'll try though.


I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed - and gazed - but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz..