Animal rescuer

Our house has a wood-fired heater with a chimney that goes straight up from the heater, takes a ninety degree turn to horizontal and heads into the wall to the outside of the house, does a funny dogleg and then shoots straight up to just above the roofline at the back of the house.

At the very top there is a little roof to stop stupid birds from falling down the chimney. Unfortunately it doesn't do its job very well.

What ensues is as follows. First we get the incredibly loud tinny scratching as the bird gets to the bottom of the long drop, but is still in the outside section of the chimney. From there I guess they can still see daylight so they're trying to claw their way up the chimney. Sometimes they squawk a lot, sometimes not.

Then the bird gives up on that brilliant plan and inches its way across the horizontal section into the house. The scratching gets even louder at this point and you can hear it right through the house. Now comes the first big test of bravery for the hapless avian twit.

It can see that its new chimney home has a bit of a drop down to something, but it can't tell what. The chimney is too narrow to fly down, so it's going to have to jump unless it wants to live in this short horizontal section forever. Sometimes it takes several hours for a bird to get up the courage to make this jump. I don't envy them.

Once they make the jump things are a lot easier. The heater has a glass door on the front, so the bird can see out and we can see the bird. This is where the human participation comes in.

First we close all the blinds so that when released the bird won't fly straight into a window. Then we make sure we close the door to the rest of the house, because once Supernerd forgot and the bird flew upstairs. Boy, was that a fun day.

Then we open the door out to the deck and we gently open the door of the heater and eventually the bird flies out of the heater, around the room and quickly establishes the way to freedom.

My good deed is done for the day, and it's only ten in the morning.

Would you buy it?

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Squid Brand Fish Sauce, complete with a picture of a very creepy squid on the label.

I checked. This particular fish sauce is made with anchovies. No sign of squid inside the bottle, just on the label, which is good because having seen a real and actual giant squid in our local museum, I just don't think I could have brought myself to a) buy it and then b) use it.

Thank you little anchovies. Vietnamese rice paper rolls just aren't the same without you.

Elvis has left the building

Well, we've lost our first fish. Usually when we feed the fish we like to count them. It's good counting practice for the children and it presents a bit of a challenge as well, as the Bobs aren't all that good at sitting still, particularly now that they've worked out when they're about to be fed.

The other day we came up one short and it didn't take long to work out who was missing. We couldn't find Elvis anywhere and we were trying not to alarm the children when I spotted a foreign object in the tank which turned out to be a corpse.

Supernerd wanted an autopsy so he collected the remains and went back to see Daniel at the aquarium. Daniel's view was that Elvis had most likely died of natural causes, or possibly in a fight to the death with Joe. Apparently bristlenoses can be a little bit territorial and they stay up at night and fight when nobody's looking.

So Supernerd came home with Elvis II and we explained to the children that Elvis I had got old and died, but we got another Elvis to keep Joe company. They took it pretty well, better than I would have expected.

Let's just hope Elvis II lasts longer than Elvis I.

Superheroes

Few people realise that Mars and Venus have secret identities, that they are more than they appear, that they are, in fact, superheroes.

They are Magic Boy and Strong Girl.

Magic Boy relies on the help of his magic pets: magic horse, magic dog, magic cat and magic monkey. Magic Boy told me that he is able to do magic on his own, but there's no guarantee that it will work. But when he teams up with his magic pets then his magic will definitely work.

Magic Boy seems to spend a lot of his time searching for one or the other of his magic pets. Maybe I should find him a magic bag to keep them all in.

When I asked Strong Girl about her superpowers she told me that she is good at cycling and picking up toys, lifting bikes, using the computer, playing games, knitting and watching television. She then clarified by saying that she can lift anything, but she's only little, so she can only lift little things.

I don't remember much of my childhood, but I do remember that I loved Wonder Woman and would bounce on the trampoline as high as I could in my Wonder Woman underwear, pretending I could fly and fight crime. Well, maybe not fight crime. But I could fly.

Masterchef

Over two days last week I made biscuits, scones, a pasta salad, bread (in the breadmaker), a birthday cake, mini ham and cheese quiches (pictured), and tiny mince tarts as well as a roast for dinner.

Had they all been successful I'd have been feeling pretty good about my skills in the kitchen. After all, it's an impressive list. The biscuits, salad and roast were all perfect.

What I won't tell you is that I burnt the scones, the bread somehow didn't bake so after three and a half hours I had a tin of mush, the birthday cake rose funny and looked funny (but tasted fine, thankfullly), one third of the mini quiches ended up on the floor before they made it to the oven (think ham, cheese and egg all over the floorboards), and I used the wrong pastry for the mince tarts so they puffed up and fruit mince went all over the muffin tray I was using.

Oh, and there was also a very special exploding gravy to go with the roast we had on Friday night.

Don't ask.

New fish

A little while ago we noticed some greenish brown spots on the rocks in the tank so we headed back to see Daniel at the aquarium. He recommended that we get some friends for the Bobs, namely a couple of bristlenoses who like to inch their way across the surfaces in the tank with their mouths. It sounds kind of revolting, but within two days they'd made a big difference to life in the tank.

So when it came to naming them Mars wanted to call them Harry and Peter. Supernerd wanted to call them Jake and Elwood, but the children didn't get the joke. In the end we settled on naming them after the two owners of our local cafes, Joe and Elvis.

Just don't tell Joe or Elvis (the people), we're not sure they'd understand.

Once upon a time

Venus thinks that she can read. Now, to be fair, she is starting to recognise letters and has a pretty good go at writing her own name, but she can't quite read yet.

But she does like to pick up picture books and make up a story that may or may not relate in some way to the pictures. I like to think that what she's doing is in some ways more challenging than reading, as she has to make up the whole story herself.

Anyway one day recently she was reading me a story in this way. It was quite long and involved and when we got to the end of it instead of the traditional "They all lived happily ever after. The end" she announced:

"They all had broccoli ever after. The end"

And then she couldn't understand why I got the giggles.

Magical juice

Recently I was at Mum and Dad's house when I spotted this on the kitchen table.

It's called "smart juice" with the subheading "brain power" and the ingredients listed on the front are apple, orange, banana, mango, passionfruit and lime with added guarana, gingko and ginseng.

I'm wondering whether it's the combination of fruits or all those yummy extras that start with 'g' that will allegedly have an effect on one's brain power. Perhaps we should start adding food beginning with 'g' to all our meals.

Having breakfast? Throw some gorgonzola on that cereal!

Up to morning tea? Try some guaccomole on those scones.

Late night snack? Why not tuck in to some gizzards?

Hmm, perhaps not... but I'm sure the juice is nice.

The Bobs

Supernerd and I have never had pets together. I grew up with animals, first a dog and then several cats, we kept mice for a while and Mikey the chicken stayed with us briefly before her retirement to Nana's henhouse. But Supernerd has never been keen on having animals in the house who would shed hair and smell bad and poo everywhere.

Instead we had children.

But when we decided to get fish for Christmas Supernerd and I got quite excited, not only about surprising the children but also about finally getting pets. We researched setting up a tank on the internet so that when we got the aquarium we wouldn't look ignorant. We went to more than one aquarium to try and work out what kind of tank we should get. It was good fun, and this was all before we'd even bought any fish.

We've wound up with tropical community fish, so they should live happily together. We started out with ten neon tetras. The children agreed that it was impossible to tell them apart, so giving them ten different names would be silly.

So I named them all Bob.

How long is it?

Every now and again one of the children will find my measuring tape and proceed to wander around the house measuring people, furniture, and anything else that will sit still.

The last time this happened it was Venus who was wielding the tape and I was the person sitting still. The conversation went like this:

"Mummy, what can I measure?"

"Do you want to measure the table?"

"No."

"Do you want to measure the couch?"

"No, Mummy. I want to measure you."

"Okay. What part of me do you want to measure?"

"I want to measure your arm."

"Okay."

I held out my arm obligingly. Venus measured my forearm.

"Mummy, your arm is fourteen cantermillars long."

It's always helpful to know these things.

Look, up in the sky!

Is it a bird?

Is it a plane?

No, it's Jesus!

I spotted this in the sky just before Christmas, and I'm hoping the skywriter went on to say Jesus Saves or something else entirely appropriate.

There's nothing worse than inappropriate skywriting.

When is a fridge not a fridge?

About a week before Christmas this arrived in our family room.

As you can see, it's a large fridge box. Our kids are fairly used to having boxes of stuff they're not allowed to touch all around the house because of the kind of work Supernerd does. So when we explained to them that our friend Martin, who is between houses at the moment, asked us to look after his fridge, they asked no questions and went about their days completely ignoring this great big box.

Which meant that on Christmas Day when the children came into the family room to find this...

we got exactly the reaction we were looking for. The first thing Mars said was "Wow, where did this come from?" Then Venus said "Mars, look! Fish!" It was gorgeous.

All the work that Supernerd did to hide the fish tank totally paid off. We had to split the fridge box up one side so that we could tuck it around the tank to completely conceal it - that was my contribution to the clever plan. I thought Supernerd was mad when he first suggested that we could disguise a fish tank as a fridge, but it worked beautifully.

Months later it still hasn't occurred to the children to ask what happened to that fridge.

Nephew

This is my nephew, let's call him Mighty Mouse.

In this picture he is seven weeks old and a bit hungry. After Christmas we travelled north to meet him and it was a wonderful time. We spent a lot of time with Mighty Mouse, his mum (my sister) and his dad.

Mighty Mouse is gorgeous and gangly, with big hands and feet and a strong will. He only cries when there's really something wrong and is a very good eater. All together he is a charming little lad and I am so very proud of my sister.

Mars' holiday highlights were giving Mighty Mouse cuddles, and playing Guitar Hero with his uncle - something he'd never done before. I suspect Supernerd also had such a good time that Mars wasn't the only one who came home wanting his own Wii guitar.

Venus' holiday highlights were giving Mighty Mouse cuddles and having him fall asleep in her lap, and visiting the local outdoor water park where she talked Supernerd into taking her down a big waterslide.

I think the part I liked best was really just spending time with my sister and her baby.