The Lair of the Emerald Serpent

The Izzie does not need to let some has been toxic old toad ruin her day. Just come back from seeing a very quirky play. Aside from now being possessed by spooky cowboy monsters lurking at night with very large butterfly nets looking to catch peoples memories or souls if they are feeling particularly malicious, got to thinking that it is wonderful to be able to go to a show in the city, just walk around the corner to the train station and then connect to a bus on the bridge with only a couple hundred metres walk from the bus stop.

Would have been most happy to just linger around the Lair snoozing and slinking and listening to all the tasty morsels on Radio National. Wednesday would have been the logical day to see this particular play being the start of the serpent weekend and all. But there was a method to the madness. The theatre website said that the Tuesday show would have a question and answer session with the artists afterwards. Izzie could not resist such a delicious Easter egg in spite of having to be up early the next day to endure another day at Toad Hall.

It is worth an awful lot of money and time to be able to live without wheels and Izzie intends to stay that way as long as possible. No need for the toad to know. It would be just the sort of excuse she needs to twist her dagger just that bit deeper as she knows being without wheels in Durlseyville makes it damned difficult to search for work

So looking forward to a lazy day in the Lair tomorrow doing bugger all and maybe even catching up online if this stupid useless new Portkey starts behaving itself.
They must have stolen it from the day job. It ticks all the boxes. It is connected to the internet. The wifi signal is five full bars but there is just this one minor problem. The only web pages we get to see is shit like “Cannot find the server” or “This web page is not available”
It worked perfectly for an hour this afternoon but this time today and yesterday was a total and complete dead zone disaster. Should have stuck to the little prepaid critter.

At this rate will never catch up with replying to all the recent comments. It will likely get to the stage like it used to be with DODO the ISP from hell that even just thinking about going online would be sufficient to induce a state of frustration and murderous rage. Certainly not conducive to creative thinking

Will just have to stick to squiggling over in Scrivener and simply not even bother trying to slink into Cyberia.

PS the bright slimy wifi gadget finally lets the Izzie lurk and post yesterday's entry a whole day later. Still not worked out if there is some peak and off peak access times but so far between 9pm and midnight is a complete dead zone

There were so many temptations to start the serpent weekend. A greenie mob called Earth Carers had an evening full of wormy goodness starting at 7pm on Wednesday. A movie about community gardens and a compost competition in the very gorgeous Grove Library. Very tempting

But the Izzie got to thinking that the time might be more productively spent actually doing stuff in our own patch of green instead of watching other folks. After two of our usual gardening days last week being sacrificed on the altar of certain serpent rituals, there was lots of catching up to do.

Four consecutive days of scheduled events and activities was simply way too much excitement for such an introverted serpent even though all of them were interesting and did not want to miss a single one

So after the usual coffee crawl after work on Wednesday set about doing all sorts of stuff in the garden. The main project at the moment is digging a grave for the recently deceased macadamia tree. Marked out the burial site which includes the spot the poor critter is still standing lifeless and leafless with one single solitary nut clinging to its bare branches. Been bringing some of the sad excuse for soil to the front garden, mixing it with piggie poo and tossing it under the big orange tree

Picked up a useful permaculture trick called ‘hugelkultur’ which involves making a pile of large logs followed by smaller ones, twigs and other assorted organic matter, covering the lot with manure, kitchen scraps, prunings and a final layer of top soil. This can be built on the ground or in a pit. Much depends on the pile’s visibility and whether one’s neighbours are Dursleys or Weasleys.

So dug out half of the hole on Wednesday and this morning was to be spent digging out the other half and filling the thing with large logs and branches from some of the green wood in the shed. Then it will be the turn of the poor macca to be chopped and tossed in the grave.

( Plotting and Planning )