Morning all

there was drama at 7 am, Holly came into our room bawling, Flash was faffing around looking for something ( a child has MOVED it !!...middle age madness has set in, only half-zheimers, not all-zheimers) I'm trying to sleep in, and I have this woman-child land on my bed in torrents of tears...not a good way to start the day.
Flash found his lucky tie/cufflinks/jandals (whatever) and we eased the words out of Holly...NCEA (cursed be its name) ( the new NZ equivalent to HSC) results had been released on the net, Holly's were not there, so she phoned and was advised that her school had withdrawn her from all subjects...this is a BIG DEAL, all of a sudden the spectre of NO UNI loomed ahead of us, and we were sorely afeared...I sat with Holls, pen and paper in hand and wrote down the facts, then phoned the NCEA people myself, struck a lovely guy name of Richard ( not usual in my experience...) who advised me that he could see no reason why she had been withdrawn, as she had paid her fees, attended, not cheated, and that he would organise for her reults to be released, he phoned back a little later on, and advised that there would be an investigation, a report would be written, and it would all be available for us on the net on monday, he thought that some (expletive) at the school had probably un-enrolled her by mistake...BIG MISTAKE...un-enroll my child, my first one to have made it almost through the wilderness despite the odds, come monday morning when I have the whole story laid out before me, so I can't be tricked or conned ( preparation wins the war) someone is going to get a blasting, man, they are lucky I am in another country!Make my Holls cry... that's Charlotte's job.

(Reason for Flash's faffing...biggest bloody meeting of his career...the other guy felt sick, meeting cancelled.)

Ok, now that the household has settled down again ( we do drama so well) Holly's knitting is coming along great, she is knitting a blue and white (go the Blues!) rugby scarf, this time yesterday I was ready to poke her in the eye with her 5.5mm, but it all went "click", she is tucked up on the couch knitting as I write this, and in a lovely frame of mind, I have just finished telling her that knitting is very relaxing when you are feeling tense, much better than Tim Tams.

Here is my new knitting bag, I have just finished sewing it, my friend Jason was astounded that I found a picture of a knitting mermaid on the web, I'm like "it's the INTERNET, that's it's JOB!"