Floods, moats, socks and ponies

Woke up this morning to discover we have a moat!

As this house is big and old Victorian Italianate, it actually has a tower – so we look just a bit castle-y, and now we have a moat!

In the 7 ½ years we’ve lived here, this has happened 4 times. Next to our garden is a low (and usually dry) area marked in old maps as ‘Slacks Creek’. Usually it is the opposite of a Creek, but when we get lots and lots of rain and the Mersey River floods – the water takes a shortcut from river to estuary via Slack’s Creek and we have a moat.

More prosaic people may suggest it is an arm of the river, but we know what it is!

While the wind blustered and the rain came down – often horizontally - over the last 2 days, I figured this would happen at some point. Further along the north west coast people have been evacuated from their homes, and down past the Southern Capital there’s been flooding – we just get a moat.

On the knitting side of life, I should finish the first Turtle walk tonight. Last night I finished the heel and gusset– will post pictures Monday – tomorrow the entire clan of in-laws (minus my favourite sister in law) will descend upon us to celebrate the birthdays of Princess and Destructoboy. This means I need to engage in thankless drudgery involving dusting, vacuums and Shower Power. Bleuggh!

I also need to make soup and quiches, French bread and desserts, apple teacake and various other bits and bobs. I would much rather be knitting, even though I love cooking. I pulled out the yarn for Juno and I’ve investigated getting a different wool winder. Still trying to find a nice swift (one that doesn’t make sarcastic remarks would be good).


Thinking about animals again, I mentioned the horses. My second pony was Gilligan, a very Irish pony with an odd sense of humour. He loved nothing better than messing with your mind – he would pull a saddle cloth off a fence for hours – and once tiptoed (or should that be tip-hoofed?) up on my mother and removed a heedful of curlers before she even noticed! She suddenly realised that the ground around her feet was littered with them and she hadn’t felt a thing! Gilligan gave her a horsey smile (you know, the one with the upper lip pointing skyward) and ran away.

He had a strong bond with our extraordinarily dim blue Persian. I would be riding him full tilt up the hill and Kimi would streak out and throw himself down on his back right under Gilligan’s front hooves. Gilligan would screech to a halt and blow gently up and down the cat’s tummy.

I would sail over his head and land hard on my bum! This happened a number of times and was almost impossible to anticipate – I almost always ended up on the ground.

Gilligan rather liked that – he had a tendency to jump brilliantly until it really mattered. We were well known in local pony club circles for leaping enormous practice jumps and then being disqualified for refusing the first jump in the actual competition 3 times. I think we made it to the second jump once!

My other pony, Anna, was so good that it was sickening – but she couldn’t jump – she was great at gymkhana games like the bouncing pony and barrel races, but that was it. Anna was such a goody goody that if you dropped her reins in the middle of a paddock, she would still be there 3 hours later, looking virtuous. She was a sweetie, but nowhere near as interesting as Gilligan!

Someone found my blog by searching for Labrador Retrievers! – Strangely, no-one has found it yet by searching for paraplegic budgies – but I’m sure they will in time!