The Lair of the Emerald Serpent

Izzie's been a lazy lazy serpent. Been slinking in Cyberia but doing bugger all posting. Using it as a lurking ground for procrastinating and mindless zombie pottering.

Been seriously neglecting stuff on the 101 list and the garden is getting all overgrown and like a jungle. Got a batch of buckwheat and sunflower seeds growing but not much else interesting. Some new seeds arrived from Diggers on Thursday so it's time to get planting and see if we can get those giant Russian dinner plate sized sunflower seeds to survive. First they've got to get past the birds

Also thinking that it's time to increase the officially scheduled offline days adding Thursday evenings as well as Sundays. Stayed away last night but that was less to do with indulging in useful or artistic activities and more to do with simply being so zonked from being out and about since 6 in the morning and being at the Royal Show for most of the day

Thursday would have been better spent slinking about the Lair rather than venturing into the city at the late hour of 3pm or so. Didn't go to the King's Park night stalk as intended as it turned out to be a bookings required event and had been all booked out. Google has its uses. Would have been annoyed to find that out at 6pm on the night itself.
So instead peeked in the new gourmet store near the city train station and gobbled potato pizzas and happy hour half priced sushi at 5pm.
An attempt to visit His Majesty's theatre cafe to do a bit of scheming, squiggling and playing with our new tarot toy - the dark one with the spooky bag turned out unsuccessful. Was all nostalgic for the first visit there some three weeks ago. But it only opens in the evenings when there is a performance on.

Friday fared somewhat better but it was going to be tricky trying not to be all neurotic and claustrophobic like the last couple of days.
It was a good start to slink around the blissfully quiet Queens Gardens and to drink coffee in the cafe of City Farm to the sound of clucking and cackling chooks
Used the opportunity to start reading a certain vampire tale which shall remain nameless. Purely for research purposes of course.
Actually, apart from wanting to know why Edward has such an aversion to biology classes, it is rather boring. Unlike Roald Dahl, J K Rowling or Stephen King who all have very distinctive and often playful voices, this Meyer writer seems to have none at all.

Looks like "Mindhunter" is going to be a much more interesting read. Also snaffled Thomas Harris's "Hannibal" in hardback for a mere one silver sickle from another op shop.
So much for this Septembers' newest new year's resolution of no more books and toys except returnable ones from libraries

So got the train to the show and arrived around 11am. The grand plan was to first visit the only decent eatery in the place which is a gorgeous old house with a large wrap around veranda right next to the train station entrance. Then the heritage trail, pigs and alpacas followed by the chooks before spending the rest of the day in the greenie territories full of straw bale houses, weeds, vegie patches and permaculture gardens

Was surprised at how quiet the cafe was. It's a bit of a rip off - a coffee in a paper cup and one scone for $$6.50 but it's the gorgeous location that is the main attraction. And it's the YMCA and not some nasty goblins running the stall.
Not only was there not a queue but a choice of 3 empty tables. Apparently Wednesday was the seriously busy day infested with children.
So sat at the same spot as last year and squiggled a few postcards and then indulged in the ritual being saved especially for this dark, gloomy old spot. Shuffled the dark shiny new Bohemian Gothic deck and drew three sets of four cards - for the first 3 chapters of this year's Nano novel. Stacked the deck by keeping out the majors and not returning cards to the deck after each draw.
So now the serpent subconscious has some spooky pictures to mull over while trying to conjure plots and sub plots for the first few chapters

Was hoping to also read a few chapters of "Twilight" at this same spot but that's when it started getting crowded and folks wanting to sit at the same table and stuff. Took that as a move on call and headed off to peek at the old farm machinery and the two old men doing free Morse code telegrams

There was also something new amongst all the old stuff. There was a couple from Queensland with lots of old fashioned gadgets and they were demonstrating old fashioned wood turning from the days before electric powered lathes. Always wondered how that was done and this improvised portable pedal powered model was amazing. The man was also making ropes and then set this wannabee witch's heart all a twitter by then making a millet broomstick from scratch. The story behind it was amazing and included Benjamin Franklin. The new brooms proved to be serious competition for the old fashioned birch brooms so the old broom makers lobbied to protect their industry. Some things don't change

The couple also had a dog whose main job seemed to be chasing chickens around. Later in the day he rounded them up into their chook shed just like sheep dogs do.

Looked at the wedding cake displays, creepy crawlie lizards and the gorgeous permaculture garden displays before slinking off around 8pm.
Most post about those later. Got itchy green fingers looking at the gorgeousness.
But it was amusing to think that most of the interesting stuff at the show costs nothing at all to enjoy. It's also very quiet and the odd kid lurking was not squealing and squawking like the little brats at the awful showbag stalls

But now it's time to slink off and get ready for work. No online lurking until Monday evening.