Always with us

When we first met you you were sprightly and jumpy and full of a cheeky, playful energy, that just couldn’t be stilled. We descended on your home like a noisy, chittering storm of crickets, and you just smiled and smiled. You took it in your stride as we took over your couch and your floor with our bums and our beds, and still you just grinned and wagged your strange little curled tail.

Stanley ruling The Pit

You were named after The Stanley Cup, a trophy based on a gentleman’s agreement between the two professional ice hockey organisations, and you personified that spirit: a regal gent, a pug among pugs.

Remember your Henry the VIII costume, with the turkey leg? We do.

We would stumble home after an evening of refreshments, and you’d be up waiting for us, twerking that tail for all you were worth. You’d sit with us as we sang and laughed into the small hours, making fun of your grin and your snuffling snores.

Twins

Eventually giggles would make way to groans, and we would fall into slumber, and that’s when you would come alive, taking every.single.toy out of your basket, placing them carefully in piles, and then back to the basket again, and then again, your clickety-clack toenails marking out the placement pattern for hours on end. We wanted to be cross with you, and make a fuss over our lost sleep, but you were too funny to grump at.

You had a way of bringing out a sweeter side in people, Stanley.

When we next met you, your muzzle had gone grey and some of your fur had been loved off, but you captured Liam and Coco’s hearts in a beat. With your tongue hanging out and your failing eyesight, they wanted to cuddle and love you to bits. They wiped your nose and scratched your belly, and you taught them what it is like to love a pet.

When we left, they waved to you as we reversed down the drive, and they said they’d be back in the summer to see you do a “Stanley Float” in the pool.

They won’t get to do that now.

Today when I told them about the peaceful end of your days, they stared at me with big eyes, two brown, two blue, but both with the same shocked pupils, not wanting to believe me, waiting for the punchline.

Unfortunately there was only a punch in the belly.

I saw Liam swallow and then swallow again, then he popped on his helmet and scootered up and down the path for a while, preferring to be in his own thoughts.

Coco’s eyes grew as wide as finger-bowls, then the tears started dripping and dripping as she let her emotions fall onto the pavers at her feet, forming a tiny rivulet between the weeds.

I was surprised at the emotion, but not of the depth.

You had a way with people Stanley. You opened them up and made careful etches on their hearts, Lord Stanley III.

Thanks for all the laughs, and for the joy and softening you brought to people I love.

You’ll be missed S.Gup.

Vale Stanley

…From The Ashers

For a few years now, I have been rallying people who are clever with their hands to sew some love into Softies for Mirabel. Gorgeous Pip Lincolne of Meet Me At Mikes first made me aware of this initiative, and I was taken.

Last  year, one of my big-hearted practice members encouraged the sewing teacher at her school to get the kids to make some softies as part of their assessment. I imagine the project may have been met with initial trepidation: would the kids sew then donate the toys? Would they sew them well enough to be given to these young children? Would the Mirabel kids even want the toys?

Well they did and they did and then they did.

Softies for Mirabel is now it its tenth year, and if you have any sewing nous, then I encourage you to join. Or if you are sartiorially challenged like me, then perhaps you can become the food and bevvy biatch, keeping your crafty friends fed and watered, and then have the priv of posting the toys down to Mirabel.

But that is not what this blog is about.

This blog is about Flopsy.

Because, you see, as the children have become part of the Sofites for Mirabel drive, Mirabel has made softies of them.

Since becoming patrons for the kids who are often without, these Sunshine Coast teens have somehow changed. They now no longer care about keeping the efforts of their labour for themselves: they donate them freely and with all of their hears. They now no longer whinge about sewing class, saying things like, “When are we ever going to use this?” or “I can’t believe you have to get the thread onto the bobbin yourself”* They now run to class, expectant and enthusiastic about knowing precisely where they will use this: to heal the hearts of those who need it most.

This week my big-hearted friend delivered a bag of Easter softies, and before I sent them off, I had a look at the creations. Usually there are some with punter’s eyes** and uneven ears. Limbs askew and mouths agape. I got ready to have a laugh at the messy, imperfect cuteness of them all.

I dug in to the bag of cuddles, and out came Flopsy.

Flopsy

Can you see her?

REALLY see her?

She’s like a young Velveteen Rabbit, with wonky eyes and fur loved half off, except she is possibly even more wonderous. She has been made with pure love. The sign reads:

HI. My name is Flopsy. I’m here to bring you happiness and love. In my apron pocket there is a spell for happiness. I was made with TLC by Sasha. I love you forever. Flopsy

And yes, inside her pouch there is a spell.

Get a handful of bad memories and a pinch of sadness. Mix it together with some love and boil it. Lots of love.

Oh my heart. That spell. It really is the answer.

I don’t know if Mirabel will be able to pass Flopsy on with her label intact. I don’t even know if Flopsy will go to a child who can read. But in this age of disrespectful ‘youths’ and online drama and drug use and horror, the simple joy of Flopsy gives me hope.

Flopsy tells me that it will all be okay.

For if there exists a teenager who can conceive and then create a bunny such as her, if there exists a kid who cares enough to go far beyond the desire for a good grade in sewing to bring joy to another, if there exists a young person who can share such beauty with purity and love, then I know that we are all going to be okay.

Thanks Flopsy.

The world is safe in your paws, and the magic of your apron.

*Maybe that was me

**One each way

…From The Ashers

Capricorn: Loyal, career focussed, pragmatic, bloody minded and stubborn. Just climbing, climbing, climbing that craggy, stony mountainside. For ever.

And she hated mountains. There was something about the air up there, a heaviness that stopped her lungs from expanding properly. A constriction in her chest. Much the same as the density of her star-sign. She wanted to dismiss astrology completely, in order to be free of the shackles of a personality that she never wanted to have, but when she voiced her rejection, people would titter, “Oh, that’s such a Capricorn thing to say.” She could neither win, or be liberated.

After a time, the ideas and expectations of those around her became self-fulfilling- the pygmalion effect to the extreme- and she sat in her practical home, with her sensible things and smiled a wry smile of contented disgust. She was proud of the things: they were to be revered, weren’t they? They made sense. They were functional. Each thing served a purpose, and each one was precisely placed.

At various times, things and people that didn’t make sense would bubble into her life. They would arrive in a colourful flurry of noise and excitement and for a moment she would feel her tear ducts tingling with the pure beauty of the impractical and frivolous. And then the moment would skitter away on the 10am sea-breeze, like the dust-bunnies under the couch, and she would look at the person, the thing, the idea, and think it silly, and think herself foolish for entertaining the idea that such frothy nonsense was of any use in her life.

And she would dismiss it all.

Then one day something happened.

Someone secretly delivered a bag of illogical things to her front door. Worse, they were placed there in the moment between her husband taking out the rubbish and the children taking out the dogs for a walk. How did they not see the anonymous courier? Was it some puckish sprite, poking fun at her with the promise of self-centred time to bathe in exploding bath crystals, and slather her skin in thick lavender body butter? Surely they must know that baths were for babies and a waste of water to boot, and body butter? It would make her bed sheets oily and pungent, requiring extra washing. What nonsense.

So she planned on how she could give the pretty little things away to someone who would use them. Someone who would relish the nonsense of it all. Someone who valued such things. Someone who valued themselves.

Wait.

What?

All these years she had eschewed all of the fizzy, delightful things, convincing herself that they were dizty and wasteful, when perhaps she just didn’t feel worthy of receiving them. Could it be that she didn’t see herself as being deserving enough to warrant the waste-of-time that items such as this implied? Or did she (remember, she was a capricorn) simply not like things that made her soften? She didn’t know.

And in the unknowing, something magical uncoiled.

Perhaps it was the unfurling of her caprine horns. Or just some secluded desire that had been tucked away for forty-five years, too shy to show up, lest it be seen as daft.

She realised there are far worse things than a little frivolity.

In fact, one far worse thing might even be, the denial of self-nurturing and expression of private truth… One of the very things she was always banging on about.

So she set the floating candles free in a simple bowl of water, and instead of bobbing around with the gentle flickering worthy of a Vogue Living cover, they melted together like a blobby Mer-Angel. And that made her giggle. (She never giggled. Laugh perhaps, but not giggle.)

She lavished the body butter on her sun-kissed birthday skin, and yes, it did make her clothes feel a little sticky, in the muggy Queensland evening air, but beyond that, there was something delicious in the faint whisper of lavender, and the silken feeling on her skin.

Perhaps she was really a Cancerian.

…From The Ashers

Last week Coco received what truly is the gift of life.

If you could see the difference in her before and after a transfusion you would be like me, urging people to give blood, give blood, give blood whenever they can. Before, she is fractious and intolerant, prickly and itchy. She might cry if she drops a pencil, or doesn’t like the colour of her cup, her skin a pallid yellow. After, she is full of energy and cheeky fun. Our house zings with the sound of her deep belly laughs, and she is literally, in the pink of health.

Yesterday I went and gave some of my blood, and as always, my heart warmed, to see the number of people who, at this crazybusy time of year are willing to slow down in the sanctuary of the blood bank for an hour or so, and offer up their veins to share that bright red fluid that makes us all tick. And keep on ticking.

At the blood bank we smile at each other, little nods as we unite in our goal of saving anonymous lives. We sit in the cool, calm confines of that haven of life, protected from the jostling activity that seems to get everyone jangling at this time of year, and take some time out to reflect on how lucky we are. Lucky that, this day, we aren’t the ones needing blood, and in fact, we are healthy enough to have a surplus to share around. The efficient blood angels will drain about half a litre from our bodies, and our clever marrows will slmply pump out some more, with barely a blip. We reflect on the magnificence of the body.

Once when Liam was small he asked me how rainbows are made, and I gave him a long and fanciful answer involving paint and fairies. He didn’t believe it for a moment, and when I told him what it really was, describing white light and the dispersion effect of the light being seperated into its different wavelengths, he listened in rapt silence. He then asked me why I would make up a ‘weird story’ when the reality was so much more magical. I think of that often. I think of the wonderous abilities of nature, and clevernesss that resides within every single one of us. The way that yesterday, without any conscious effort from me, I was able to accomodate and create another half litre of those beautiful little biconcave discs that carry around our breath.

As I looked around the busy room at he blood bank, I was humbled at the number of lovely people who will stand up (lie down?!) to give Coco a gift so special, without even knowing her. A gift better than any trinket or shiny bauble, and one that allows the walls of our home to swell with fun and vitality and joy.

The true gift of Christmas.

If you would like to give blood, call the blood bank on 13 14 95 to book a bed. You won’t regret it.

…From The Ashers

A most wonderful thing has happened.

Thankfully I wasn’t writing this blog during my dalliance with Edward the Vampire, for it may have very embarrassing. All the swooning, all the gushing.

I will now freely admit that I was obsessed, for he was the love of my life. For a time at least.

Then by and by my love for Edward waned, and I thought it was because I no longer loved his immortal wisdom, his porcelain skin, his immeasurable strength.

ABC2 has a done something amazing: they are showing the Twilight movies every Wednesday.

And I have found my love for Edward was not a fleeting infatuation.

My love was true.

Hence. This blog. Can’t write. Watching.

…From The Ashers

Okay everyone, check this out: Mirabel is a cool charity that provides support for kids and families affected by parental substance abuse. So every year, they run a bit of a drive to collect cute handmade toys for those cool little kids to cuddle.

I know, I know, at this time of the year it can feel like everyone has their hand out asking for either your time or your money to help out someone who doesn’t have as much as you. And I know it’s difficult to know who to help, hell, sometimes the problems seem so big and so widespread that you can feel like you might be swamped by it all, so it’s easier to just bury your head under a sea of shiny plastic crap.

So I’ve found you a solution: Sewing for Softies.

Gorgeous Pip of Meet Me at Mikes has all the details on her blog right here.

Pesonally, I can’t sew for shit.

I once asked my family for a sewing machine for Christmas, so they pissed themselves all the way to the shops and got me one. For some inexplicable reason it came with a complimentary fondue machine, which incidentally has had quite a run. Here is a pic of my machine:

It makes a nice shelf, no?

It has ugg boots on top of it, which, quite frankly get more use all the way up here on the Sunny Coast.

So being a bit challenged in the manual arts, I have appointed myself CEO of Operations and Snacks, and have managed to get a whole lot of lovely fabric donated by Alisa from Plump, (a ripper of a local lady who is in the business of all things cushions you can see her stuff here or at the Eumundi Markets every Wednesday and Saturday), I’ve set up a venue for a sewing-bee and am in the process of recruiting a small army of sewing-ladies to do the actual work.

Easy.

Perhaps you might consider doing the same in your town? Maybe you have some crafty friends that you can bribe with the promise of sweet treats and crisp glass of bubbles for their troubles? And if you live on the Sunny Coast and would like to be involved in our night, then message me and I’ll send you the details.

Let’s see if we can make some little kids smile big toothy grins, with gifts made with love, this Christmas.

…From The Ashers