This is not what you want to greet you when you walk into your wardrobe, amongst your carefully collected, much loved vintage clothes. My wee ferret Lottie has a climbing fixation, and it’s driving me crazy. But I digress. Winter is drifting into spring here in South Australia, and it’s been an exciting time. We had a TOTAL blackout of our whole state two weeks ago. Everywhere!! There was chaos in the city because all the traffic lights, ATMs, petrol stations and shops were closed down. All the country towns were blacked out – we were the laughing stock of Australia. I think over 1.2 million people were without power.

Us oldies knew what to do though. Luckily my muse and I have a gas powered stove. We hung a torch above the oven and proceeded to cook every evil, fattening, fabulous thing in our deep freeze and fridge (because by the morning it would probably be off). We had a feast of curry puffs, minced beef with bacon and a bottle of tequila. On reflection, the tequila probably would have kept if it had been thawed a little, but nonetheless. I still have an ancient landline, connected to a phone that doesn’t run off electricity. I called friends interstate, and they told me what was happening from their news updates on the TV. It was great. I also sat in my car in the garage (I wasn’t going out into the mayhem of the roads), and listened to the AM radio, which was still broadcasting. A fairly early, fat-fuelled, drunken night was had by all. I’m thinking the maternity wards will be very busy nine months from now…

Last week we had a week of hot, hot temperatures. I packed up my winter wardrobe – dry cleaned all my coats, washed and packed away all my winter tops and dresses – only to have us plunge back into freezing temperatures this week. I’m wandering around in the only two outfits I can be bothered to wash again. Life is so unpredictable.

So, as we slide into summer and Christmas, I’m left to ponder yet again, where did the year go? And what did I do in this year? But before I answer those questions, I need to figure out how I’m going to keep Lottie from climbing up the Christmas tree next month. Yup, I put the tree up on November 1st. I bloody love all the decorations and it takes so long to put them all away, I want to enjoy them. I’m thinking I’m going to have to find a really big box to perch the tree on. I wonder what Jesus would make of it? And Lottie! Well on that note…