More Detail

Please don’t follow this link unless you are prepared for some pretty gruesome detail. I link to it only so that people will understand precisely the hell I’ve been facing while following this case. I knew this detail in the early days, but wasn’t able to talk about it with loved ones due to the disturbing nature of the details.

Disturbing Link

An Open Letter To Bendigo Woollen Mills

Thank you for the shade card. I do hope it didn’t cost a bomb to send out (I assumed you sent one to everyone), becuase there seems to be a terrible, glaring, horrible travesty of a mistake.

No, not the fact that the colours are dreadful, we’re used to that, and not the fact that the yarn doesn’t seem to come in black – or even cream so we can dye it ourselves (for it is rather yummy yarn), or even that fact that you included a colour which strikes me as being rather fungal, a sort of mouldering beige that should never have been let out of the biology lab. No, none of these things. It is the name you have given this revolting festering ecru.

Neon. Please tell me the printer was on acid ? They haven’t quite got the medication right, it’s a horrible mistake, and the real shade card is in the post ?

The Lorax

The Lorax by Dr Suess was a kind of mascot for our wedding, and the message of the story is one that is very important to Mark and I. Amy (see previous post) is looking for a photographer for the Big Girl Knits 2, and one of the applicants posted a link to her portfolio, where I found a photographic re-telling of the story. Definitely worth a look.

I Love My Dad

Mum and Dad just got back from a month in Vietnam. I am close to my parents, and I missed them dreadfully while they were away. I popped in to see them on saturday arvo, and mum told me of a dream that dad had while they were away. In his dream, dad was expected to come to visit Mark and I, but he didn’t want to come, because he knew that Rhubarb wouldn’t be here to greet him.

Dad isn’t an “animal person”, and neither is mum really, but they both instilled in me a respect for life, and the understanding that ability comes with responsibility. If you can, then you should. And if somebody relies on you utterly, then to betray that responsibility is a dire thing indeed.

As a child, it took me a long time to understand that lesson, but now I think it is the overriding principle of my life.

Many have forgotten this truth, but you must not forget it. You remain responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.
— Antoine De Saint-Exupery

McMahon Locked Up

SMH Article

I was in court today, hopefully for the last time. After summarising the evidence against McMahon, which was chilling, and kept out of the papers, he commented that there was no contrition of a guilty plea, just repeated attempts to have the case thrown out on mental health grounds.

Ultimately, the judge made his decision based on two factors – that NSW law offers no protection to people who take drugs then claim that the drugs they took impaired their judgement, and that there was “community outrage”.

So maybe I made a difference. I choose to believe that.

Let’s hope he doesn’t appeal.

Nothing to see here…

I’ve been a bad blogger.

No posts, and no pictures. And almost no news.

Work has been horrid – the stress has obvioulsy affected my immune system, as I’ve been sick for the last few days. Or maybe it’s not getting enough sleep. Remember the gorgeous baby chicks we took in just before Christmas ? The ones that were borrowed for a PETA photo shoot with JD Fortune from INXS? The ones that couldn’t go back to the horrid petting zoo they came from?

Or did I not mention them?

Anyway, we took them and the grown up chook that we called Grace, and it’s been a delight watching them grow up. Until the crowing started.

All three are boy chickens. Roosters. Handsome, big, healthy, boys, with a compulsion to greet the day before it arrives, at the top of their little lungs “I’m alive, and it’s a BEAUTIFUL DAY”. “WAKE UP AND ADMIRE ME, I AM SPECTACULAR”. At 4am. Really. 4am. In Denistone.

Not Good.

So the race was on to find them a home, before the boys ended up in someone’s oven. The call went out, and animal lovers in two states were alerted. I was given a number for a lovely man who lives on 5 acres near Canberra, which has been set up as a sanctuary, and he already has more than his fair share of roosters.

So Mark and I are driving there tomorrow, with a car full of feathered machismo.

I Have a New Love

I’ve just cast on a gauge swatch for a beanie I am knitting for a work colleague who is leaving to move to Tasmania, to work on a house he has bought down there. Toby is a funny guy, with possibly the driest sense of humour I have ever come across, and we have had our clashes in the past, but I really like and respect him, and will miss having him around. Toby loves good craftsmanship, classic design, and things that are handmade.

So I thought it fitting to knit him a beanie to keep his head warm in the cold Tasmanian winter. I chose Naturally “Harmony” 8ply 100% merino, in a charcoal grey. It’s a low twist, with an almost felted feel, and it knits up to be an incredibly soft and wonderful fabric.

I bought this at Champion Textiles in Newtown, for $6.50 a skein. I can feel a Rogue Hoodie coming on. Though I would really prefer the zippered version that Kris did, but this is such a lovely fabric, the fact that the colour is lest than exciting doesn’t bother me.

Oh dear. Have I finally seen the merits of substance over style ?

The Bigots Strike Again

National Anger As Gay Civil Union Ban Upheld

The Sydney Morning Herald poll shows that 71% of respondents have no problem with Gay Civil Unions. And yet our government continues to act as though allowing a public display of love and commitment will irreparably damage the fabric of our society.

The Marriage Act was written with consideration of the understanding that the family is the basic unit of society, marriage protects property, and hence protects the family. The legal nature of marriage is nothing more than a extension of property law. Allowing equal access to both the legal protection of marriage, and the rite of passage of marriage adds value to the institution of marriage. Denying that right to a significant number of people, in my opinion, devalues it.

Society is changing. And the liberal party isn’t keeping up.

To have your say, click here.