Trash Towers Dictionary

a/c - art crap. CK's fond term for the means of assuaging my addictions.

BSD - Been Seen Done. Devised while travelling the Great Ocean Road on CK's first Australian trip. Every lookout point was as fabulous as the previous and we got a little bit magnificenced out so rather than pull in we would shout BSD and keep driving.

Now general usage for when a situation is over or beyond repair.

bob - noun. Princess Curly- Wurly's word meaning all sweets, chocolate and yummy things.

blurry - (pr. to rhyme with hurry) Sth African/Zimbabwean term and my favourite polite swearword. Means kind of like bloody but usuable in mixed company. See 'Feck' & 'Eejit'

eejit - Irish term meaning 'idiot'. Suitable for use in polite company. Used by my Aunt Marion.

feck - Irish term used by my Aunt Marion so it cannot be rude!

ho-ho -(pr. with a short o). Zimbabwean word for bugs.

lani - (sp?) Sthn African word - means posh, expensive, elegant, stylish.

La Villa de Lamaca - (translates from Ital. as The houseof snails. My 'green' house out in the garden with all my a/c (ref: above) stuff in it. Built by CK and Babyman for me. CK lost his fingerprints over it. I cannot actually get in there at the moment!

lubbard - derived from 'beloved'. Devised by my then two y.o. son b/c unlike his sister he could not say 'Mother Beloved'. Usually prefaced by a noun.

OfStEd - Office for Standards in Education. Bossy civil servants who would like to see every child in formal, full-time education from birth.

Q.I. - Quite interesting.

terence - sobriquet applicable to all small children. Originated with one 'borrowed' child who could not pronounce ' terrorist' .

TG - exclamation. Thank God! An interesting choice for the dictionary of a recovering Catholic but is a phrase used by my Irish family and is now deeply fixed in my conversational repetoire. (reference also PG - Please God).

TGTH - The Great Trip Home. Alt. known as 'How I spent Christmas and N.Y 2008.









Thursday, 29 October 2009

Sometimes you realise how small the world actually is

I have just read this post over at one of my favourite places in the world - the Women's Colony. It made me think of neighbours, helping hands, government interference, blurry OfStEd and the (pleasant) smell of small people. But most of all it made me think of holding a small fussing person and jiggling my way towards a window and soothingly suggesting the child look for the birds.

It made me think of watching my mother doing this with my nieces and how many times she must have done just that over the years with myself and all those older siblings. It joined me to the parents and carers who have spent many thousands of hours pointing out the (usually non-existent) birds in an effort to calm a screaming baby back down through the generations.

4 comments:

Stomper Girl said...

It was a lovely post about a moment of kindness and community. I always took a sad baby outside, if there were no birds to see, there was usually a leaf blowing.

Mary said...

Cats, birds, dogs, caterpillars - anything to distract a crying baby!

And it was a very good reminder of small acts of kindnesses making a difference.

Gina said...

Lovely post!

Sew Create It - Jane said...

I do the jiggly dance at work on a regular basis (I work in a playgroup for 2-3 year olds) It breaks my heart to see kids upset and it's a real comfort and honour when you can settle them and reassure them.

Great post.