I’ve got started on my JJ blouse muslin.

I cut a 38 and the fit is perfect with no alterations (yay Burda!), but that standing collar has got to go. It feels a bit tickle-y around under my chin, and how did I forget that I have really no neck to speak of? I can’t be covering up what neck I’ve got with nehru collars. I’m going to draft a flat collar instead, with no collar stand.

I’ve been sewing it all up on my newest toy, a super little machine I scored on ebay, of which, more later…

Our neighbourhood is a little unusual. Immediately next-door a party-hearty passell of twentytwo-year-olds collect Holden Kingswoods in various states of repair that they restore and display in their front yard and nature strip; on their other side is an actual squat which caught fire last weekend and was attended by not one but two firetrucks in addition to the police. There are two bona fide mansions- not McMansions, but a proper stately-home National Trust-worthy Victorian pile housing a family and their chemical stock-control business at one end; the other is a decaying sixties eyesore inhabited by our landlady, who is never seen except for when she backs her Rolls out of the driveway, her blue curls quivering over the steering wheel. Everyone seems to buy a new television, printer, microwave, dining table and queen mattress on a quarterly basis, leaving the old appliances and furniture piled on their nature strips, only occasionally setting fire to them. Racehorses are exercised at a facility a hundred meters east of our home, and each morning we wake to the sound of their hooves beating a tattoo on rubber equine treadmills. Folks whom I suspect to be dealing in illicit substances skulk about in that furtive manner they love.

It’s Australia Day on Tuesday, and we’re going with a group of friends to Como Historic House in South Yarra for a big, lazy, all-day picnic. You pay to get in and then inside is lots of free entertainment- there’s going to be live music and roving performers, vintage cars and people in historical costume.

There’s lots of little games and activities, facepainting, that sort of thing. My sister Jenno is running an old-fashioned photobooth for kids- they can play with old-timey dressups and if they want a picture of themselves they can give a $2 donation. What I am really looking forward to is the marketplace, there’s apparently going to be quite a few local crafty-people selling their stuff.

They’re having a ‘Best Ever Aussie Cooking Competition’ and I’m considering entering. You make either lamingtons or scones. I’ve never tried making lamingtons, might be fun. I’d have to do them the night before. I don’t think I would win with my first attempt but the prize is a four hundred dollar cooking set so I’m tempted to give it a go, you never know!

If you live in Melbourne and you want to come along too all the info is here!

Every Christmas the Smiggle stationery store sells a kooky moneybox. Last year I bought the one shaped like a bright sparkly-pink garden gnome. Simon and I decided to put all our gold coins in there, and when it got filled up we’d use the money for… something. We never decided. It was just fun to come home, empty our pockets of all our gold, and give it to our grinning pink friend to squirrel away.

Every once in awhile if we were low on cash, we’d talk about whether or not we should ‘raid the gnome’ to tide us over. It became our favourite idiom, a phrase we used to define whether the financial situation was dire, or if we could manage to ride it out. ‘I won that midi keyboard on ebay, so we’ll have to pay the phone bill next week- but it’s not like we need to raid the gnome over it or anything.’ ‘I’spose I do need new work shoes, but it can wait till payday- I’m not gonna raid the gnome!’ ‘It’s Mum’s birthday! Unless we put her present on credit card, we’re gonna have to raid the gnome!’ ‘Yeah, I want to get the next series of Mad Men too, but we just have to be patient. We’re not raiding the gnome.’

Always, we prevailed, and the gnome was unassailed.

It shames me to tell you, and chills me to my core to recall Simon’s screams of horrified disbelief upon his discovery that one day, I had RAIDED THE GNOME!?!?!?! Don’t get excited, I didn’t go on a drug binge or lingerie-shopping spree or to the TAB to blow it all in the poker machines. Basically I was just too lazy to visit an ATM. Simon was very disappointed in me. He said putting the money back wasn’t an option, because it wasn’t the same if you stuffed him with notes. Now, ‘raiding the gnome’ means something different. It means you ruined a fun game due to your lack of self-control and inability to delay gratification. The gnome smiled on in beatific disregard of his voided interior, but seeing him up on the mantel made Simon pout, so I hid him in a cupboard (the gnome, not Simon).

I bought the owl moneybox this year, and I’m starting the gold-hoarding again. I think Mr Owl’s dour, vaguely disapproving mien will give me pause if the urge to pillage again overcomes me. Because although I have been forgiven, it makes me sad that I ruined the fun. Once the owl has taught me my lesson, we can think about bringing gnomey back.