And so it was that some time ago, in a state of high anxiety, his mother contactrd me in the hopes of getting me to perform one of my well known tutoring miracles. She pleaded with me to transform Lachie from the giggling, cartoon watching, illiterate lump of teenage odour that stood before me, into a well versed young man.

I’d be lying if I said it was easy, but after a gruelling week of visual aids (including some of Lachie’s favourite action figures), long discussions on the origins and usage of the language, the dull witted lad was almost able to differentiate between a verb and a noun. We spent the following week working on adverbs and adjectives but ultimately had to abandon our efforts as he just couldn’t grasp the concept. Not to put too fine a point on it, but the kid was as dumb as dirt!

Finally after weeks of blood, sweat and tears (mostly mine), we made a monumental breakthrough! Lachie had reached his literary apex. He produced not one, not two, but three consecutive sentences!! Even though there was no evidence of tense, person nor polysyllables, I still managed to determine that they constituted a paragraph; with that I declared my involvement with the project at an end.

Lachie, cognizant of my significant sacrifices over the past few weeks, wanted to give me a token of his appreciation, but instead he bought me this…

Lachie's thanks.

Thanks Lachie, I love it!

From workshop/den

His shell pattern is the same as the wire.

From Shed

I’ll see if I can get a little closer …

From Shed

From Shed

Can’t see it? I’ll get a little closer…

From Shed

Still no good huh? Ok, maybe a different angle…

Hang on, the phone is ringing…….

Quilt

Hmmm, it came out a bit smaller than I’d hoped. Perhaps if you click it…..

PS. Thank you Gailen. xoxo

While I didn’t make a conscience decision to stop blogging, it seems that’s what happened. Enough of the navel gazing, let’s get to it! I knew it would take a monumental event to squeeze another post out of me. Sit back and relax while I show you some pictures …

A very old friend of mine, someone I’ve known for quite a while (haha, did you see what I did there?), promised to make me a quilt. Now this isn’t just any old long time friend, this is the same friend who made me an Afghan 30 years ago that I still use today (seriously, I used it today). To say I was excited would be an understatement.

This afternoon I received a phone call from a neighbour telling me she noticed there was a package sitting next to my mailbox as she drove past. I was pretty sure I knew what it was. Now, it may seem strange to get a quilt in the middle of summer, there’s only airmail these days so it got here really quick.

It’s just on midnight, and I want to do the pictorial justice, so I’ll do the reveal tomorrow.