I do remember one April first, though, where I scored big time...We had just moved to the West Coast town of Queenstown here in Tasmania. I was a newbie at Murray High School and had celebrated my twelfth birthday just 10 days prior. To be the daughter of the new police inspector was not a good introduction into the social life of this rather rough and ready mining community and I had to develop some extra layers of skin very quickly in order to survive.
It didn't help that mum and dad had become dinner party friends of the headmaster and his wife, who often asked me to babysit for them...being friends with the "head", who often offered me a lift to school, was seen to be another very unfavorable aspect of my personality...
Come April first though, I scored such a hit that I was even invited by some of the senior students to join the tennis roster and to help with the compiling and printing of the school newspaper...and my life changed quite significantly overnight, from being a prime target for bullying to a bit of a celebrity...what did I do to achieve this remarkable turnaround?
Well, a couple of days prior, I had taken several dark brown and navy blue sticks of chalk to the art room...this was back in the good old black board days, you understand...I then dipped them a couple of times each into white poster paint, leaving them to dry between dips. They looked exactly like white chalk after the second coat.
On the big day, our first class lesson was double geography with Mr Miller who I knew was a sport (one of my favourite subjects), so I got into class before anyone else was present and removed all the regular white chalk pieces, replacing them with the white coated sticks...
Poor Mr Miller, he was most perplexed that the chalk he was using would not actually write on the board, causing such great hilarity with all my classmates that Mr Crawford, the head master, came to see what the trouble was...
To be honest, once he walked in, I was expecting to get a bit of a rocket, but it was all taken in good spirit in the end, but the kudos it gave me lasted for the rest of my time at the school. The best bit was that every teacher that came to our class for about a week after, always broke a new stick of white to check that it was indeed white...Mr Miller had obviously spread the word in the staff room!
I also remember having coffee with my mother in law on morning when she asked me to read a newspaper item which discussed the treacle mines of Cornwall (or Wales, I forget). She was quite perplexed, asking me if I knew that treacle was mined...I laughed rather too heartily, I'm afraid, pointing out to her that it was indeed April first...she insisted it must be true, as The Australian was, in her eyes, a very reputable newpaper...another nail in my likability coffin, for that family! Sigh, (but it was very funny!)
Would I use the selfie of Karina, Sarah and Chris all wearing buckets as hats at a cricket match, or Brother in law, husband and brother playing trains on the dining chairs after a family party...in the end I decided that dad needed to feature, in the photograph he is attempting to cut Tim's twenty first birthday celebration cake (beautifully made by my clever older sister), with an axe! He was always a very conservative man, especially socially, so this image with Tim in the red jumper turning away as dad gleefully threatens to axe the cake, (Tim was slow to get on with the cutting in a more orthodox manner), is just a delightful memory! I don't think Tim's family and friends were too impressed at his shenanigans, as there were a few po-faces in the subsequent photos, but to be brutally honest with you, that now simply adds to my quiet delight...but that's a whole other story...
Tim and I visited my cousin Robyn and her husband David on Sunday...we don't catch up very often although we live quite close to each other, really. They are such busy people it is always hard to find a spare hour. We had a lovely chat and afternoon tea, and saw some of Davids lovely wooden dinghies and his new canoe...each time we meet we try to unravel some more of our shared family tree information.
I have almost finished my next journal...more on that next week, once it has been passed on to the recipient. The cover has given me some challenges but I am hoping it will be alright...I might have to redo it, sometimes it is easier to start again rather than trying to problem solve a recalcitrant item. Somehow these can be the ones that one is never quite happy about, in the end.
I am also crocheting Easter eggs at the moment, trying to perfect my increase/decrease skills, and also being far more careful in regard to counting rows and stitches...crochet doesn't come naturally to me, I'm afraid. . I think Hollie and Mungo will enjoy having the wonky test ones to play with, anyway!
Bye now,
Di