Pirating...

... for Knots in the String.

The week has flown by.

Not sure why except that I have something on my mind which I will post about next week.

Because of the preoccupation, I was beyond glad when childminding day arrived. Our littlest farmer has the knack of ripping one into the present no matter what.

So today, we’ve weeded the veggie garden together. Well, I weeded and he shifted dirt in his Tonka trunks from one part to the other. Then he asked if he could help me cut back the Lambs Ears. He’s four and I thought what’s the worst that can happen and passed him the secateurs. He did a brilliant job!

We built a bus with a garden trolley and a sunlounge and he drove me to the lagoon and back.

We played on the rope swing under the willow, and had a picnic lunch.

And then we went treasure hunting…

I love creating adventures with him and for him. It’s the writer in me – fiction worlds are the bees’ knees. We had some time ago, been to a favourite and somewhat isolated beach, and as we walked, talked and fossicked amongst the rocks, I told him about Jack Sparrow.

At the time, I had a chocolate frog in my pocket, and I hid it and made out Sparrow had sent a message to say he’d left treasure for our little man and he had to find it with certain clues.

He did. The frog was hidden behind a stone cairn.

Since then, I’ve purchased a little wooden box at a discount store, aged and stained it and then found chocolate coins in a lolly shop half way up the Midlands Highway.

Last week when we left the beach after swimming, he fell flat on his knees occasioning a graze and tears. I hugged him and said that Cap’n Jack had sent treasure to our house.

‘How?’ he sobbed.

‘By seagull.’

‘But how can a ssssseagull carry a box of tttreasure?’ The words puffed out and tears rolled down his cheeks.

‘Let’s go home and you’ll see,’ I said, wiping his tears and tending to his knee.

At home, wet, sandy and expectant, I sent him to the bathroom to strip off his swimwear and whilst he was gone, I laid a mesh bag of gold coins on the cane chest.

‘H! H!’ I called. ‘Look!’

He ran out and spotted the mesh bag. I held it up. ‘See? The seagull carried it from The Black Pearl in its beak!’

Treasure dries tears very quickly.

Today, the little treasure box filled with coins was secreted on the beach. We played amongst the rockpools and sea-wash, the sky clear blue, the ocean turquoise. Finally, I said, ‘Jack Sparrow texted me, H.’ (Yes, I know. Can you imagine Sparrow with a mobile phone?) The nice thing about little children is that they readily play games of pretend and this time, he was fizzing with excitement as the clues rolled forth. ‘The large gum tree near the track, the logs beneath… see what yer can find, young fella…’ (with Jack Sparrow voice).

Sure enough – tree, log, chest, coins.

But the story didn’t end there.

‘How did Jack Sparrow put it there?’ he asked.

‘Ah, he sailed the Black Pearl round the headland there, dropped anchor and…’

‘Did he row a little boat in? Or a big one?

‘Oooh, I reckon he came ashore on a middle-sized one rowed by one of his pirate crew.’

Two chocolate coins later, I asked if he thought he should thank Jack Sparrow and he said yes, and together, we decided a note in a bottle, left under a log near the big gum tree by the track was the way to go.

It was a good day…

Books:

Audiobooks have taken up some time – or more particularly trying to find one I really enjoy. I had finished The Wah Wah diaries by Richard E. Grant and needed a good replacement. Richard gave a no-holds barred narration of just what is required to get a movie from idea to screentime. In this case, his early life in Swaziland with an alcoholic father and a mother whose morals were… interesting. It’s a tender telling, and I’m sure seeing the movie to fruition was a rite of passage for him.

I don’t know how the dear man didn’t go bonkers as the story moved into screenplay and movie. His relationship with the French producer beggared description and it’s a testament to his personality that he didn’t offload her with a vituperative broadside! Ye Gods! What a piece of work!

I really enjoyed this narration but then I’m a fan of the man anyway. He could read dishwasher instructions and it would be superb!

I have passed on Ten Thousand Stitches by Olivia Atwater but suspect it was more to do with the narrator than the story as it seems to review well.

I’m now listening to Godersham Park by Gill Hornby and read by Bessie Carter. Carter sounds like Michelle Dockery, an actor whose voice I adore, and as this is another Hornby novel about the Austen family, I suspect it’s right up my alley.

In print I’m reading a Monty Don gardening book and on Kindle, The Shifu Cloth. But I’m so tired at day’s end that I barely manage a paragraph of either. Suffice to say, Monty Don is one of my icons, and I can’t believe I wrote The Shifu Cloth…

Watching:

Spooks. The end of Series Five. Adam Carter’s a bit of a mess, shocking PTSD, and of course I know what happens, but watching his disintegration, and sinking into each episode’s plot, my heart does thump and I’m usually on the edge of my seat.

As Time Goes By. Gentle British humour. Almost at the end of the show’s life and have so much respect and affection for the whole cast. This viewing has really just been comfort viewing as the weather chilled, the rain bucketed down to flooding point and the world’s political elite met at the G20 and other G this’s and that’s. I expected to see Adam and Zaf speaking into their lapels from various corners as they tried to keep their own country on an even keel.

In reality, I watched our Australian Labour PM and President Xi of China meet – and thought that a little diplomacy and measured conversation can go a long way. Take note #LiberalPartyofAustralia!

Meanwhile, with four more bags of chocolate coins stashed away, I’m thinking about the next Jack Sparrow clue.

Haha, me hearties!

Thanks so much for reading. Share it as much as you like - it’s free.

See you next week? I hope so.