Having racked up a couple of days of TOIL at work, I was thoroughly looking forward to some R&R. The plan was to have a long weekend full of peace and tranquility. The plan was to take Friday and the following Monday off and try and regain some sense of self. The plan was to take a trip into the country to recharge my soul. I discussed this plan with DW. I'm pretty sure the plan didn't include piles of frozen ants. The plan didn't include freezing my bum off while searching for scraps of paper to start a fire using large, wet, icy logs of wood. The plan did include an amount of strenuous activity, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't carting large, wet, icy logs of wood for the fire. And next time I "plan" such a trip, I "plan" to take a shotgun and I "plan" to blow away any stupid, chirping, too-damn-high-to-reach, faulty smoke detectors.

Ok, so maybe I'm exaggerating a little. I must say, DW's Police record doesn't do justice to her ability to light fires, even with large, wet, icy logs of wood. And to be fair, she did such a good job that she managed to warm up the whole house in just a couple of hours and its a very big house with high ceilings. She also managed to keep the fires blazing the whole time we were there, so fortunately my bum didn't freeze off, just went a little blue for a while.

The freezer looked as though someone threw a shovel of dirt inside. Upon closer inspection, hundreds and thousands little ants where piled on top of each other, frozen and bumless, all stuck in the "Everyone push" pose against the door. Clearly they had not made it to "...three!" I'm not sure what they were after but my money is on the tub of low fat ice-cream, which they probably thought would be lighter. Ants are not too bright. Its also possible but less likely that they were trying to open the fridge to get the light to go on. Its a great party game until everyone freezes to death but you just can't tell some people or ants.

Ok, so there was also the whole wood thing. I admit I threw that comment in there because of the cadence of the paragraph. I actually quite like wood and wood fires, but obviously not as much as DW, though she assures me fire is just a tool, not a passion. Actually now that I think about it, I'm wondering what she means when she cries out "Bern! Bern!" Anyway, I grew up in a house that had a wood fire oven and I was pretty damn good with that but I didn't get within cooee of the matches this weekend and had to sneak bits of wood I'd smuggled inside in my underwear onto the actual fire when I wasn't looking. I had to do it when I wasn't looking because if I'd seen myself do it, I wouldn't have been able to keep a straight face.

Princess is used to visiting this house, owned by her grandparents on DW's side, and being the centre of attention. Actually, Princess is used to being the centre of attention at whatever house she visits. But for this particular visit, DW's parents had decided "its too bloody cold!" and headed to the sunnier climes of far north Queensland. "Just drop in and check the place if you could" they said. "Stay a couple of days. There's plenty of wood and help yourself to anything in the freezer." Sorry, off the track a little. Princess found the idea of Grandma and Grandad not being at their house a little strange but what she found even stranger was that there was no-one to fill their role of doting servants. She wanted me to play with her. She wanted DW to feed her treats. She wanted Little Man to stand up for himself, though she means that literally. She wanted everything, the whole weekend. Dancing monkeys, a ball of cheese the size of her head and even a side of ham dressed as Ghandi. Where she comes up with these crazy ideas, I have no idea. It rained the whole weekend so we didn't go outside much but finally we caved in and let Princess prance about in the garden with her umbrella, pink boots and overly large raincoat that looked like a wall at a kindergarten. If she hadn't looked like a Ken Done painting on Speed, she could have been straight out of a pre-school version of My Fair Lady.

Little Man on the other hand, is just learning to stand up for himself and the Grandparents house is full of things that look like they must taste good to a nearly-one-year-old. When we weren't chasing Princess or carting wood, we were pulling things out of Little Man's mouth. More than once we found several strands of Princess' hair in either his mouth or hands. And the grandparents are in for a sticky surprise when they next use any of their remote controls.

So, that was our weekend away. Fun, fun, fun. I blame the ants.

Ciao!

Thought for the Day: I should have known it was going to be a bad day when I took the top off my drink and inside the cap it said "You are not a winner. Just thought you should know."