For Nathan

Too young, too precious. Thank you Darling Boy for being such a good friend & mate to our son Lachie. I can still hear your laughter as you both kicked the footy around the yard - two energetic little boys just having fun after school. You fought your short, devastating battle with strength, courage & dignity.

What a privilege it's been to watch you grow into a truly wonderful young man. At 27 you were a loving husband to Sara & an amazing new Daddy to baby Liam, a cherished brother to Prue & a beloved son to Karen & Tim. You will be remembered always - God bless.

And, when he shall die, Take him and cut him out in little stars, And he will make the face of Heaven so fine That all the world will be in love with night And pay no worship to the garish sun.

Image: Flickr

Promises, Promises

Son #5 @ 5 days.

.......@ 5 years

......@ 25 years.

When son # 5 (our baby!) was about 6, he & I were having a good night cuddle. As he hugged me tight he told me "I love you Mummy & when I get married I'll build you a little house behind mine & you can live with me & I'll always look after you." It was one of those moments that Mother's tuck away in their hearts & hold onto forever!! Well, my gorgeous boy, here's a picture of my perfect 'house behind yours'!

Image apd Architects

As has been well documented here at The Hedge, we are very proud of our Bub & tomorrow he turns 26. The day of his birth proved to be very traumatic, as I had a very unexpected surgical emergency & needed to be resuscitated & transferred to ICU. I didn't get to hold him for a few days, but despite this we bonded perfectly & are very close. His beautiful quiet soul & generous, caring spirit endear him to everyone who meets him, so Happy Birthday lovely boy & enjoy your special day.

Happy Birthday Gorgeous Boy!

With his lovely girlfriend Missey H. @ MOTH's big birthday last Sept.

Best Man for his best mate from school's Wedding last year.

Son # 3 is 29 today. He 'defected' to the bright lights of Melbourne 8 years ago & I still miss him dreadfully, but that's life I guess. He was home for Christmas, & we had some delightful Mother-Son bonding sessions, so I'm grateful for the times we do manage together. He surprised us all when he entered the world weighing a thumping 10lbs.4ozs., & can I still recall the nurse's surprised gasps in the corner of the Delivery Suite when they took him over to the scales & saw the numbers come up on the screen! At only 162cms. & 60kg., they wondered where on earth I'd been hiding him!!

We are so proud of all he has achieved, although his legendary status throughout the family for his untidiness goes unchallenged. His brothers still talk about the look on my face the day I went to clean out his room after he'd left home & found a bowl of breakfast cereal shoved under his bed with the spoon still in situ. It was positively fossilized & his siblings reckon that it had been there for a least 4 years!!

Spot the Mistake

Lovely house in Toorak, but pleeease lose that car! Much to all our boys delight, their Mum Millie has been car crazy forever & there has been many an animated conversation around the dinner table over the years about the subject - what's in, what's out, what's hot, what's not etc. Interestingly MOTH couldn't give a hoot about it all & generally retires to the sofa to have a snooze as we all continue on for hours. I think my new favourite (pictured above) would look just perfect in place of that boring little white car of absolutely no consequence!! There is the small matter of the Merc's. price tag of AU$550,000, but that's only a minor point!

The Mercedes-Benz SL 65 AMG is powered by a twin turbocharged 6.0-litre V12 engine pumping out 493kW at 5,400 rpm & 1000Nm of torque with a sprint time of 0-100kmh in less than 3.9 seconds. Now you're talking my language! How I would love to take this baby for a spin down the Hills freeway & then park it in the driveway back at The Hedge - wouldn't that get the neighbours talking!

Hit Refresh!

Hitting my refresh button nearly 4 weeks ago was a very good move & its really made a difference to Miss Millie's general demeanour! I've had such a lovely time, eating & drinking, reading & snoozing, swimming & gardening & enjoying the wonderful company of family & friends - all very therapeutic. Although I'd still rather be down on the coast, its back to work tomorrow & the 'fun' of disabling the Out-Of-Office reply on my laptop & watching all hell break loose!

Thanks to everyone for all the gorgeous comments left while I've been away, you are all just the best - big, big hugs. I've taken the occasional wander around Blogworld & I have to say wow, has this year started with a bang & the occasional controversy!

It seems that everyone has cranked up the quality & content of their blogs a notch or 50 - a very scary thing I reckon. I sat here today having an attack of the 'OMG no-one will ever want to visit the Hedge again!' but then I realized I have Blogland's secret weapon - MOTH!!!

While he's still wearing his favourite daggy shorts, rolled down Melbourne Footy Club socks, torn paint-covered 'I rowed in the 1997 World Masters Games' t-shirt & his eyes still have the glazed over appearance of a Serial Renovator, the Hedge won't run out of posts for a while!

He started the total demolition of our main bathroom last weekend, see pic below. More of the advanced stages later in the week if you're up for it! As you can see, those turquoise beauties on the floor are the original tiles circa 1972. I did mention to MOTH as he started, that as there's probably a market on ebay to sell these tiles intact to mosaic artists, maybe he should try & remove them individually, unbroken. I shan't repeat his answer here, but it was somewhat colourful, & involved something about what both ebay & myself could do with the tiles & delicate parts of our anatomy!

We had a wonderful Christmas & New Year & the Birthday Fairy paid me a visit to add another year to my odometer. She also warned me her wicked step-sister the Wrinkle Fairy has me on the top of her Priority list for 2009! This year everyone felt the overwhelming need to put my new age on all my birthday cards - very poor form in my opinion. However in looking at them again the other day, I had a cathartic moment - 53 backwards is 35, so that's going to be my age for all of this year - yippee!!

The Christmas Lillies finally appeared this month (thanks Kimberlee for your care & concern) & so will be renamed the Hopelessly Late Lillies, however they redeemed their late arrival by giving us literally hundreds of blooms. It's been an absolute treat wandering down & picking armfuls to put throughout the house. The kids are so impressed they reckon they are putting a Business Plan together for MOTH to go into commercial production, in exchange for a healthy Consulting commission for them of course!

And we've had some communication (unedited) from Son # 2, who's travelling in far away places .
Just letting you know im still alive & so Im now in Fes which is one of the nost surreal places you could ever imagine.

Anyway: the people are great and the food is excellent so enjoying it very much. (Editors Note - this comment validates my observations in previous post!)

The guy thats showing me around is just like Borat: Hes quite strange. Might have to forget the Sahara for now as the some kind of conflict involving large missiles.

I hired a car as all the donkeys were out of action and driving around the mountains. (Editors Note - how do they get a drivers licence?!) - Ended up in the oldest University in the world where it was snowing. They wouldnt let me in because I havent finished year 12. Couldnt wait to get rid of Borat in the end though. Where ever I went hed pop out from a building. Nice guy but really annoying. Hanging out with some french guys which is very handy in language department.

I'm in Spain, Barcelona actually which is great. Today's my b/day so off for tapas and copious amounts of ceveza. Think I need to shorten the trip as the euro seems to be eating my balance at faster rate than expected.

And this gem after a comment by his father about the 'interesting' construction of his emails:

Yes da gramma duz need emproovmant!

A new week begins

Image Country Cream

Thank you to everyone for all the lovely comments left on Friday's La Bombe post. Life with the 5 boys has been busy, exhausting, fun, exhilarating, at times terrifying, but never dull! Even in their 20's, they continue to provide MOTH & I with the occasional 'challenging' moment, (if they all paid off their speeding fines at once it would immediately wipe off Australia's national debt) but I love them all to the moon & back!

I had the chance to do some serious research over the weekend into the Bombe Alaska (BA) issue & believe I have the answers. However, 2 of our major client groups have their annual Scientific Meetings here in Adelaide over the next month, so I have a very busy time ahead at work. But once that's all over I'll fire up Millie's test kitchen, conduct the big BA experiment & post the results. Talk about living life on the edge!

La Bombe!

Image Sandra Lane

In this house the word bomb generally relates to one of a number of cars of dubious age & ability, that have 'graced' our driveway over the years. As the mother of 5 boys, if I hear those immortal words "Don't worry Mum it won't be there for long, I just need to do some work on it" one more time I'll go into melt-down!!

Son No. 4, who is the main culprit in the old bombs saga, had the 'honour' of being the first to experience the now famous 'Millie Solution' to this dilemma. He returned home one evening to find the worst of his cars Missing In Action, as his long-suffering mother Millie had finally reached the end of her rope when she couldn't get out of her own driveway and so made a phone call to the local Wreckers Yard.

A nice man came straight over, backed his Tow Truck down our driveway & removed the said car from my sight forever!! And he gave me $150 for my trouble! Although said son did have the cheek to later present me with an Invoice for $700.00, which he claimed was the true value of the towed car. However, his brothers quietly took him aside & gave him some firm brotherly advice about the veracity of his claim & strangely, the subject was not mentioned again!

Now with all the boys finally gone from home, the only bomb I want to know about now is the gorgeous one in this post. However, as I've never been game enough to tackle the famous Bombe Alaska, I need as much advice as I can get. So please post tips & tricks, if you have any, to make the Bombe process a great success!