gnomes and hi tech parenthood

In the maX files, Mr Farty caused a stir recently with his post on Gnomes.

It seems there are a few closet garden gnome lovers around, Mr Farty included, but I must hasten to tell you that I am not one of them. I do get a chuckle from seeing them coyly peeping out from under other people's bushes, but have no personal aspirations to host any in my garden.

Several years ago, we were the leaders of a youth group, and the topic of gnomes came up. A friend had 2, so I got her to give me one, on condition that I painted her other one. I chiselled off bits of my one, and remodelled him until his clothing resembled the sort of leotards sometimes worn by wrestlers. The idea was that, since gnomes are kitsch anyway, I would push it to the max (no pun intended!)

Anyway, here you see him being remodelled,

and all dressed up in his leopard skin leotards and purple hat.....one really camp gnome! When one of the girls in the group, who had expressed a particular dislike for them, had a birthday, we gave it to her as a tongue in cheek gift. Much to her relief, we got it back shortly afterwards and gave it to another guy in the group (whose name, coincidentally, was Guy!) Guy became quite attached to the gnome, but I am sure his mother was relieved when the other chaps in the group kidnapped it one night, and gave it to another girl for her 21st!....After that we moved and I lost track of them, I wonder what became of it?

And now for something completely different..........

It was delightful to welcome Ian home on Wednesday, and have the whole family together for a meal last night. It seldom happens, these days, that we are all in the same town at once, so it is a rare treat to be surrounded by the whole tribe! Naturally, he and C were ecstatic to be together again after a month apart. And Wednesday was my sister's birthday, today is C's birthday, and the baby is due on Wednesday, so it is a time for celebrating all round!

On his first day back, off they went to look for baby stuff.

Wow, it seems that the simple things of childbirth and parenting that prevailed when our babies arrived are a thing of the past. Gone are the basic push chair(stroller), carrycot, car safety seat and pram of our day. Now you get a super designer all- in- one gizmo, which costs about the same as a small second hand car. The only problem is you apparently need a pilot's licence to operate the thing! We even hauled out the teddy bear which we bought for our eagerly awaited grand-daughter, so that her parents could practice on the scary gizmo without causing actual bodily harm to the baby. (Note that they did quite well in the end, and no teddy bears were injured in the making of this blog!)

However, it does fit in very well with our family's obsession with all things 'Macho'. After all it is a Jeep! And no doubt the super supension, pneumatic tyres, snake retadant fabric, built in GPS and compass (OK a LITTLE exaggeration) , hub locks on the front wheel (for real!) etc will be very useful back in the less civilized areas of our continent, where it will come into its own as an all terrain vehicle!