Croftville

Cosy

Cosy being the 2nd in Pip's Word and Pictures

Cosy is being curled up on the couch on a rainy afternoon. (Even better if it is being home on a weekday.)
Cosy is the fire being on, ours is a gas one that has flames, so I don't have to leave my little nest on said couch to put on more wood, or poke it with the poker, or leap desperately after waywould embers before they set fire to the carpet.
Cosy is being wrapped up in my Bonds trackies and hoodie and my snuggly mink blanket, my pink striped explorer socks keeping my feet toasty.

Cosy is the puppymen snuggled in and hogging the blanket.
Cosy is tea in my mug - snoopy or Mr Winkle.**
Cosy is re-reading my favourite books, like any of the Moomin books, or Terry Pratchett, or Susan Cooper.

And here's a pic of Mr Winkle, because he is quite cosy-making just on his own, actually.

School Lunches

I was reading Looblu's blog the other day and she was talking about Words and Pictures, a Pip Project (she always has such great ones!) inspired by Anne Lamott's book Bird by Bird, which is one of my favourite writing books.
So I put my mouse-click where my mouth is and signed up. The first topic is School Lunches.

It was always really really exciting when I got to have a tuckshop order for my lunch. Not Christmas exciting (I wasn't that lame) but maybe on a par with getting new books from the library. (ok, I was that lame. I knew I couldn't hide it.)

Our tuckshop orders were written on brown paper bags in biro or felt tip pen, the money carefully wrapped inside and taken up to the canteen in wire basket by some proud class representative. The basket then came back at lunchtime, bags filled and only sometimes leaking.
I always got the same thing. Cheese and tomato sandwich on white bread (because they didn't have brown - yay!) and two or three licorice strips. Like Loobylu's mum, mine had embraced healthy eating and was dragging her family along for the ride, so food was negotiated - so no to twisties, yes to licorice.

One time, tired of feeling deprived, I changed my lunch order to match my class mates. I asked for a plain white roll, a small bag of twisties and a pink doughnut. (The twisties went in the roll to make a crunchy salty filling.) I remember being quizzed by the tuck shop lady, who somehow didn't believe my mother had changed her mind and made her amendments to the paper bag in badly written, badly spelled grey-lead pencil. She took pity on me though, and my forbidden lunch duly arrived with the others.
I poured my twisties onto the roll, closed it up and smashed it down with my palm, listening to the crunch (and the echoing crunch as my classmates did the same) and then tucked in.

Ok, and here's my confession. I just didn't get it. The soft floury-ness of the bread didn't seem to match the cheesy, crunchy saltiness of the twisties. It was like my tastebuds were forced to wade through the thick dough to get to the quickly sogg-ifying twisties, taking away their normal sparkly crunch. It made them taste stale somehow.
And my doughnut wasn't that great either. But that wasn't the dougnut's fault. I was dazzled by its plump, shiny pinkness and I just somehow forgot that I don't like icing.

I missed my cheese and tomato sandwich, the smell of freshness when I unwrapped it. Even now, the smell of sandwich paper and brown paper bags takes me back to those cheese and tomato sandwiches and the licorice. Everything was neatly wrapped and twisted shut - no gladwrap here.

Sometimes, if I go to a small sandwich shop, or a milk bar that makes sandwiches, I can get a cheese and tomato sandwich that tastes like it's straight out of the 70s  - Tip Top white bread, plain cheddar cheese, solid slightly crunchy tomato, salt and pepper and, most importantly wrapped in sandwich paper.

queryfail

Am sprawled in the couch, reading the tweets from #queryfail, laughing my a@! off and thanking god the queries I sent out last week had none of the quoted examples in them. It's hard enough without causing the agent to bang his/her head on their desk in complete frustration/disbelief/manic laughter.

Little things

Over at her blog this week Magic Jelly has been talking about Little Things. And about how when she was child she collected tiny little trinkets and toys and kept them safe in a tin. It reminded me of my own childhood collections.

If it was tiny, cute or looked like it belonged to a fairy, it joined my collection. Cicada wings, special buttons, a little plastic pink piglet, green sand-rubbed glass, the head from a ceramic christmas angel - ok, that last one wasn't a childhood trinket, but one from a couple of years ago.

Because I'm still adding to that tin. And the second tin.

Here is some of my newest little things. And they're deer! I got them from Robio on Gerturde St.

And a shot with a 5oc piece for sizing comparison.