My friend Roger

has been sending me some ancient riddles and I have been responding in kind.
I asked him, "What's soft and yellow and jumps up and down?" His answer "Spring loaded custard" was not the one I expected - I think I like it better than the answer I had which was, "An omelette at a football match."
It is the unexpected which delights. "What has four legs and two tails?"
The answer is a ridiculous image. I wonder who thinks of these things and I am also grateful to them.

There was a hint of frost

this morning. We are two days out from the official start of winter and it is beginning to feel colder. Dad needed the heater for a short while last night.
This morning my fingers felt a bit numb as I hung the first load of washing out. Pluto padded in silently and, while my back was turned, jumped into the clothes basket to explore the damp clothes. He did not stay long.
Our back garden is probably akin to cat heaven. We have grass, we have trees, we have the compost bins. Currently there is a resident fruit rat. He or she is shy. They are outdoor animals so s/he does not worry us too much although we would prefer s/he returned next door to the fallen fruit. Pluto is interested in the rat. So is little "Miss Puss" from across the road. The two cats treat one another with a sort of wary respect. They have not fought - yet.
I have not seen either of them catch a bird or a lizard. They watch them but, so far, they have not bothered to chase them. They will wait for the rat. So far, the rat seems to be too smart.
All this leads me to wonder if the local government authority ('the council') is right in trying to introduce some rather draconian cat control laws. They claim that cats damage the environment. They claim that cats chase and kill wildlife and dirty other people's backyards. I am more inclined to agree with the local retired vet. Peg is nearly 90. Mentally she is more like 29 or 39. A lifetime of observation of animal behaviour has led her to believe that cats will chase mice and rats. They will bring down vulnerable wildlife - old or ill or not watched over by a parent. Peg says this is natural. She says that cats should be kept in at night just as they should be well fed, cared for and played with. She also says that cats do not spend their days chasing magpies, kookaburras, honey eaters, parrots of any variety or the swallows. Peg wishes they would chase the blackbirds. They don't.
So, what is the council concerned about? Why isn't it concerned about the dogs which foul the footpaths, bark and generally make a far greater nuisance of themselves because owners do not train them?

I know that judging anything

is difficult. It is probably wrong.
Despite that I gave up yesterday afternoon's working time in favour of trying to help people understand what judges are looking for in the knitting section of the Royal Agricultural and Horticultural Society Show. This is South Australia's annual big event for the rural community. It is when they descend in hordes on their city siblings and try to make them understand that, without their brothers and sisters from the bush, there would be no milk in the coffee (or tea) or a good many other things.
They have a permanant venue - the Wayville Showgrounds - and the craft people now have part of the nice, new, light, airy (but rather noisy) Goyder Pavilion. There is renewed interest in people entering the cookery and craft sections of the show. So Ann, who now takes care of all this, 'phoned me and asked if I would come along to an information session. She would pick me up and bring me home. How could I say no? Ann volunteers her time. I should volunteer mine. I really do believe that creating things is good for people's mental health. I am not so sure about the competitive streak. I went anyway.
It turned out to be quite an interesting experience. There were quite a lot of queries. Nobody was belligerent and nobody blamed me for their failure to win a prize the previous year. (No, I was not a judge but that would not necessarily have stopped anyone.) I took along a couple of useful books and suggested they search their local libraries for them. Interestingly, everyone wrote down the titles/authors. They may not look them up but they now have the information. I suppose if they bothered to come to the session they really were interested in getting some information. I took on some useful feedback for Ann.
I still came away thinking that it is difficult to judge. The items that are produced are, presumably, the best that someone can do. They have, presumably, been worked with materials the maker loved. I do not like bright orange acrylic. They might. Why should I judge them?
But, feedback can be useful. It should be positive. It should show us how to improve.

There are more mutterings

in today's paper about the need to get more 'working class' students into university. This puzzles me. Surely we should be aiming to get more able students into university? It should not matter where they come from.
The system is clearly wrong when an able student cannot get to university. There are far too many mediocre students there under the "everyone must aim for university" approach of the politically correct brigade. Many of them do come from 'working class' families. Some of them would rather be plumbers (and earning more than a 'professional') but they have been told that university is where they are supposed to be. There are also students from 'professional' families who have assumed that university is where they are supposed to be.
I think I must be terribly out of date. I think university is somewhere you should go if you want to go not somewhere you go because someone else tells you it is the right place to be. University should be for those with academic ability, a burning desire to learn more and a willingness to work. It should NOT matter what class of society you come from. If you have the ability and you are willing to work then you should be able to go. The same goes for an apprenticeship. If you have the ability, want to learn how to do the job and have a willingness to work at it then you should be able to do so.
Perhaps if we stopped to think about, took in less students to universities, recognised that houses do not build themselves, drains do not unblock themselves and electrical wiring does not appear at the flash of a light bulb, then we would all be better off. I should not have to spend time with students who are doing university courses they hate because they think they must.

The good news is that yesterday I finally managed to buy some paw-wear (footwear if you must). I detest buying anything like that - or clothes. I just cannot be bothered. As long as I look clean and tidy does it matter?

How long are they going to take to dry?

My father sadly eyes his "socks knitted by Imperia" on the line and asks this question yet again. He only has three pairs of hand knitted socks - all from my friend Imperia. Imperia knits beautiful socks. I know. I own two pairs as well.
There is nothing quite like hand knitted socks, especially woolly handknitted socks as the weather gets a bit cooler.
Dad has skinny feet and skinny legs and, despite a good appetite, he does not weigh as much as he used to. Woolly socks are especially welcome to him.
As he said that I was reminded of something else I had not thought of in years. When my youngest sister was about two my mother made her a very rough doll out of a scrap of pink cloth. It was stuffed with foam plastic (fairly new at the time) that her father had given her. I do not know for certain but I rather suspect it was all we could afford at the time. I know it was one of the years my birthday was not celebrated. This doll used to get filthy dirty from being dragged around all the time. Periodically my mother would wash it and hang it on the line. My sister would then sit under the clothesline and watch, waiting for it to dry.
I bought socks for Dad. They are called "Explorer Socks" and they are thick - and mostly wool. This is something of a miracle in the country which once lived off the sheep's back. Our wool goes overseas. It does not seem to return.
I will probably do the same thing one day.

Vanessa has finally managed to update her blog.

Anyone who is interested in this earth shattering revelation can head for Fidra Books. I have mentioned them before. Fidra publishes retro books for children. Real books, not the social-awareness-you-need-to-be-educated type books. Sigh.
It is partly Vanessa's fault that I have a blog at all. Vanessa and a few other people who thought it would be useful discipline for me made me start but do not bother to read it. I am not sure why I bother. (According to my young neighbour Ciaranne I should be writing a second novel for her benefit "because Vanessa says you should". I might if Vanessa ever tells me how bad the first one was.) The idea of course is that I will eventually blog my way around the UK. Perhaps.
I would like to. Realistically I may well be too old by the time I am free to do so but I need to be able to dream about it or I would feel totally trapped by having to care for my father.
Do not get me wrong. I love caring for my father. He is the most amazing and incredible person. At 86 he has a mind as inquiring as a 3yr old who keeps asking, "Why?" At the lunch table he asks questions like, "What's the difference between morals and ethics?" and then questions like, "Did you know the Inquisition continued into the 19th C? What made it start? What made it finish?" or, on a totally different track, "That leopardwood the Loggerheads chap sent is amazing stuff." (He's making more boxes as well as toys at present.) We can talk about things that we would not even be able to mention if my mother was still alive.
I would worry if my father sat down and watched television. Well, he watches a little now and then but it is very little. He will look at the television programmes occasionally and then forget to watch some documentary or other because he is too involved in something else. I would rather a read a book too.
But, blogs should be updated on a regular basis. So, I sit here thinking of all the things I want to say - and end up saying nothing at all.

My great-grandfather Bray

did not attend his daughter's wedding. He disapproved of the match. My paternal grandfather came from 'the wrong side of the Port River'.
It did not matter in the least that my grandfather owned a highly successful tailoring business that employed more than thirty people or that he made the uniforms for the Governors of the state of South Australia for more years than most people could remember as well as a wide variety of other people, including many ship's captains. It did not matter that his father was the man who had first mapped the 'Port River' - not really a river at all but an inlet which was the safe harbour in those days. It did not matter that his mother was today's equivalent of the social worker, dispensing advice, food, clothing and even housing on occasion. It did not matter that they were highly respected citizens on whom the community was also highly dependent. They came from the wrong place. Worse, they were Presbyterian and the Bray clan was Methodist.
Years later my grandmother and I were making the beds one Saturday morning. I was sixteen. My grandmother was 86. We were talking about the upcoming wedding of another cousin and my grandmother told me the story of her wedding. Her eldest brother gave her away. Her mother was there. Her sister was there. Her seven brothers were there. There were other relatives. Her new husband's clan had travelled the, in those days, great distance to be there.
Her father was not there. She looked at me and said, "And you know, it still hurts."
My grandparents were married for nearly sixty years. It was an extraordinarily successful marriage filled with love and understanding, support and forgiveness but it did not have her father's blessing. She wanted it, indeed she needed it.
So, it was with immense sadness that I learned a friend of mine did not attend her daughter's actual wedding ceremony. Like my great-grandfather she had her own reasons for not being there but I wonder whether her daughter is going to feel the same way. What difference will it make to their relationship? It must make a difference.