Quite a reasonable rate

We went to a birthday party today. I'm not completely sure, but I think it's quite an ex-pat thing to stay at the children's party and hang-out with other parents, surreptitiously swigging gin whilst their kids quietly throw up over the cat. In Perth, however, I heard of a friend throwing a party for their seven year-old where the parents not only dropped-off their invited child, but also additional siblings (leaving her to run down the street after the retreating 4WD with a child under each arm).

I was asked to do the face-painting. One child, possessed by an old lady, as 6-year olds generally are, observed very seriously "Goodness, you can paint birds *and* draw butterflies on faces. Gosh". Luckily, they are still only 6 or 7, so even when I painted a butterfly wing which actually resembled more of a small dog poo, but in pink, it was quite all right as long as I put glitter on afterwards. Small girls can be very forgiving in their criticism as long as there are sparkles involved.

We saw a small patch of grass today for the first time in five months. The Minnesotan equivalent of hearing the first cuckoo.

And I have just put a chicken carcass out on the garden, and already a grey fox has come down and helped me out with my recycling.