my timing could be a wee bit better...

[laylee]

Happy Saint Patrick's Day everyone! I wore green today, did you?

I had a burst of nostalgia on the weekend when I found my old copy of Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfield in a bookcase at my mum's house, and oops, I'd forgotten that I stole it from the library at my old school. I am such a bad librarian!

I loved that book when I was young(er). Like many girls I had dreams of becoming a prima ballerina while I was growing up and I did take dance classes for a few years before I realised that my talents lay elsewhere. I still love the ballet, though, and go whenever I can. And reading this book the other day brought back a lot of fond memories of leaping about the house in my leotard and ballet slippers to my parents classical records.

*iz a giant dork*

Meanwhile it's still hotter than hades around here, but the bureau of meteorology assure us that the cool change is on its way and the rest of the week will be in the mid to high twenties, as opposed to the current mid to high thirties. I'll believe it when I have to put on a cardi against the evening chill.

One week until I jet off to Perth and I feel like I cannot possibly go until I clean my entire flat from top to bottom. I've been scurrying around since I got home from work, putting things away, changing the sheets and folding laundry. I'm about to do the dishes, and after that I'll sweep mop the kitchen floor and hang my sheets on the line to dry.

Why is it that I only get this urge to spring clean when it's hotter than hell?

Comments

[phoebesmum.livejournal.com]

Not being Irish, and having no ambition to be, no, no I didn't. What is it with all the fuss about St Patrick's Day? It's another Hallmark Holiday that seems to have crept in, like Hallowe'en, and Valentine's Day.

Ballet Shoes is wonderful - I just reread it earlier this year after there was a TV adaptation on at Christmas (which was also wonderful, although they made a lot of stupid unnecessary changes) - I don't blame you for stealing it. Would it comfort you at all to know that on my shelf I have a copy of Alison Uttley's A Traveller in Time, AND an Edith Nesbit that by rights belong to Wycombe High School?

[laylee.livejournal.com]

Since more than a third of Australia was populated by Irish immigrants, St Patrick's Day is kind of a big deal over here. Plus, my mother's maiden name was O'Brien so I can say that I am Irish, despite the Italian surname.

I also have A Traveller in Time lurking around my bookcase (bought and paid for at an opp shop) and I also still have my Ruby Ferguson's (also bought and paid for from a secondhand book shop in the old home town) from when I wanted to be a famous ballet-dancing equestrian :~)

[phoebesmum.livejournal.com]

I don't have my Ruby Fergusons - or my Chalet School books (from when I wanted to be a ballet-dancing, pony-riding, boarding-school girl with a Sand Fairy at the bottom of my garden) - and it's a source of some annoyance. They might be in my mother's attic - actually a rather nasty crawlspace in the roof of her bungalow - but I'm too scared to go and look. It would be awfully expensive to replace them, but I keep an eye open in junk shops and so on. You have to watch out for the Jill books, because at least two of them got re-titled in the (extremely dirty-minded) mid-90s: Pony Jobs for Jill and Jill Enjoys Her Ponies! (I imagine that if Christine Pullein-Thompson's I Had Two Ponies had been re-published then, it would have met with the same fate.)

A lot of the Noel Streatfield books have been re-titled too, not because of any double intent but to turn them into a uniform 'Shoes' series - which they aren't, of course - thus Circus Shoes, Theatre Shoes, and so on. That makes filling up the holes in my children's bookshelf a lot of fun, I can tell you, as I try to work out what matches up with which original title.

[laylee.livejournal.com]

A lot of the Noel Streatfield books have been re-titled too, not because of any double intent but to turn them into a uniform 'Shoes' series

Ah, don't you just love the way marketing gurus take the fun out of everything.

/ironic

[delurker.livejournal.com]

I wore green today, did you?
Accidentally, but apparently fortuitously! \o/!

[laylee.livejournal.com]

Yay!

[dzurlady.livejournal.com]

We subscribed to the ballet this year! I am looking forward to it.

[laylee.livejournal.com]

Oh, how lovely! I don't get to go very often these days, although I'm sure if I made more of an effort I really could.

[mergatrude.livejournal.com]

OMG! I used to love books like that. I think I had every one of the Sadler's Wells books by... someone. Then I got into horse books. *g*

Completely forgot the green, but I'm the daughter of non-Irish immigrants.

[laylee.livejournal.com]

Then I got into horse books.

My other big obsession was the Jill books and the books by the Pullein-Thompson sisters. And don't get started on Trixie Belden...

[mergatrude.livejournal.com]

My other big obsession was the Jill books

OMG Yes! I'm afraid I was quite prejudiced against Jane Austen by one of those! *g*

And The Silver Brumby. I think I had them all.

[thehousekeeper.livejournal.com]

We have season tickets to the ballet. They have some pretty good shows.

I have to wear a uniform to school, so there was very little green-wearing. I did, however, draw a four-leaf clover with marker on my hand. So I suppose I could wrangle a few points for effort.

[meadowlion.livejournal.com]

I am such a bad librarian!

Tsk, tsk!

As a wee!Kim I never wanted to be a prima ballerina, but I think for about a year I labored under the delusion that I could, if I'd wanted. *g*