I am writing in the hope that the act of writing will inspire me to write something worth reading. Are you with me?

I'm home this afternoon with one sleeping semi-sick child and one on holidays semi-bored child. Marianna awoke this morning with a temperature and a bit of a cough and a bit of a runny nose. Nothing serious (I hope). No curly tail or oinking at this point. Will is home on school holidays. So Big Jay stayed at home for a few hours this morning while I whisked myself to the office to get the wages done. I've been home since about 11 am (at which point Big Jay went to work). So far I've hung out laundry, put away laundry, printed off a tonne of envelopes for the invoices I printed at work last week and packed the envelopes (with Marianna on stamp duty). I've also printed off some maths revision sheets for Will (who was thrilled, let me tell you). I'm about to boil up some pasta to go with the bol sauce I made yesterday afternoon.

Speaking of cooking I have to tell you about the Jerusalem Artichoke Soup I made for lunch yesterday. These little critters are very confusing. They are not artichokes, they are the tubbers of the sunflower and they look like ginger, so by and large people who don't know them avoid them. I really loved the soup I made from them so I would recommend people giving them a go. Very similar to a potato in usage, you could mash them or roast them or pan fry them. I made a cream soup and it was sweet, nutty and delicious.

Tonight I'm off to another free movie care of http://www.kidspot.com/ . This time it's the new Aussie flick Last Ride with Hugo Weaving. It's on at Dendy Newtown so I'll be off to where all the young hip people are, I'm sure to blend right in.

Better mention the girls' weekend I enjoyed the weekend before last. Our playgroup mums' annual weekends away are now a well established institution, this having been the 3rd one. This time we enjoyed the attractions of beautiful Bowral and surrounds, including our now famous long lunch on Saturday afternoon at Centennial Vineyards (where I had previously seen Leonard Cohen earlier this year). The long lunch is a highlight of our weekends away and this one lived up to expectation, especially my rhubarb souffle with walnut ice cream (I wish I had ordered it for entree and main, it was THAT good).

This weekend just gone featured Saturday afternoon at the Swans vs Essendon game. We lost which was disappointing though not unexpected, it's been that sort of year. The highlight (or possibly low light) of the afternoon was the farewell to Barry Hall. Sure he's a thug, but he's OUR thug and we love him. The kids (with a great deal of help from mum) made a sign stating "Bye bye Barry. We'll miss you. Love Will and Marianna". Not sure if Barry saw it but it did come to the attention of one Deborah Hutton who was walking behind us after the game. We had a brief exchange regarding Barry's teary goodbyes and I will count that as one more in my pathetically short and dull list of brushes with fame.

A couple of pics to finish off this bit of useless drivel:

My big girl blowing out her candles at her 4th Birthday Party in May.

Cheer cheer the red and the white...

Nothing better than a hug from a giant baby swan...

Bye bye Big Bad Bazza.

For those who don't believe a four year old can love oysters.