It’s only natural to reflect on the year as it comes to a close. So here’s some highlights – and lowlights – of 2011.
New Cats
It’s hard to believe that Andrew has only had Pickle a year! He arrived in mid-January 2011 and was a playful and bitey kitten.
Now look at him… all grown up!
Then came Gesso! Much smaller than Pickle had ever been and far more sooky from day one.
His deafness has brought a few new challenges. Getting Pickle to steer clear of walksticks and wheelchairs was difficult enough. Gesso has taken ‘challenge’ to a whole new dimension; culminating on Christmas Day when he got too close to Andrew while he was standing and ended up being trod on. He sunk his teeth in to Andrew’s foot in protest. Fortunately, Gesso was unharmed and although left with a nasty bite, Andrew’s foot is healing. I’m hoping that after that experience, Gesso will learn to dodge feet, walking sticks and wheelchairs as well as Pickle does.
My girls, Licorice and Saffron, continued to be good company; for me and for each other:
The learnt how to get food from their new three-tiered cat toy; how to get nibbles from the treat ball; plus basic targeting skills using clicker training. (Short videos hyperlinked)
New Art
There were few surprises in the artistic area. I continued my pattern of putting things in paintings and then removing them. (The daschund below first had a skateboard; later replaced by stilts.)
I rediscovered an old canvas and turned it from this:
to this:
Andrew started art school (of which I am more than a little jealous). I don’t have many photographs of his work… I wish I had more. Here’s just three from this year:
These two oil paintings are still in progress:
New Sewing projects
Some things never change. Saffron continued her dressmaking assistance into 2011. Her favourite habit is sitting on the fabric one is trying to sew!
I embarked on some heirloom work for a white cotton sateen slip:
and completed a thoroughly indulgent silk slip.
Somehow I quickly forgot how difficult it is working with slippery and lightweight fabrics, for I moved on to this 1940 pattern:
which, as at the time of writing, remains incomplete (needs sleeves, facings and a hem!)
New places
I explored some other parts of Sydney in 2011 and we ventured a little further afield. First to Fitzroy Falls (reasonable disabled access):
then to Mogo Zoo: (access was a bit dodgy due to uneven and steep paths combined with recent rain!)
To Balls Point Reserve in Sydney: (inaccessible!)
Of course, I couldn’t forget the Dubbo trip! (Dubbo Zoo is wonderfully accessible and we had such great experiences photographing countryside on the way there and back).
La Perouse was not new but offered up some beautiful sunsets for us.
New Wheelchair
Looking back on this, I have to laugh. Below is a cake I made to celebrate receiving news that Andrew would get a new wheelchair.
We received confirmation we would get a chair back in April. Naively, I made this cake in May thinking the chair would arrive any day! We finally took delivery in September!
For anyone wondering why the mm’s on this cake are lime green and orange… well that was the colour choice being debated. The triffid, as I like to call it, brought much needed relief in the form of a more lightweight chair. It also caused a crisis by being too wide to fit through the bathroom door.
New home
Once it became clear that the bathroom door could not be widened, after much drama, it was time to move house! Now I can only be thankful that Andrew has nowhere near as much crap in his place as I do in mine. Even so, packing was not easy. Pickle helped by packing himself in a crate.
New family
Not content with expanding our feline family, my brother and sister-in-law, gave me a niece as well!
New job
A minor little thing that happened this year!
New ‘disabilities’
This is one ‘new’ thing 2011 brought that my family could have done without. However, we don’t get to choose these things, so I went about learning what I could about MS and being as supportive as possible.
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Well, put like that, it was one hell of a year. Here’s to 2012.
