Someone left a nerf bullet in our letterbox. The kids in this neighbourhood are tough.

One being this.

This morning after the gym I went to get coffees. I was waiting for the order when I noticed a mum from school She is the mother of one of Bert’s friends from Prep. I know her enough to nod and say hello, but not even well enough to know her name, so I nodded and said hello.

She said hi and then followed up with ‘”you’ve lost too much weight, you’re too skinny now. Not enough meat on your bones, don’t loose any more.”

I have no idea why a person who is to all intents and purposes a stranger would say that to me. Sure, if you know me it would be okay, but imagine if I walked up to someone I had seen a couple of times at the shops and said “gee, you’re fat, you really need to loose that weight, stop eating”. Quite rightly I would be told where to go and how quickly I should go there.

What do you think? Is it okay to tell someone they are too skinny but not okay to tell someone they are overweight? What level of acquaintance makes it okay? Me, I think a person’s weight is completely their own business and not a topic for conversation unless they raise it, especially with someone you don’t know.

n u

i l

I wish I knew more about why this is. For now I’m going to tackle it one letter at a time, tonight we nailed ‘p’.

Before

After

On Twitter a person with this as their bio line "I believe that happiness comes from within & that life is what you make of it. Have a wonderful husband and am an aunty to a gorgeous niece" just posted this little rant

"Sick of incompetent people! If I order TENDERLOINS I expect tenderloins, NOT thighs! **** you @NandosAUS!! #derrimut #nandos"

Not much happiness within, must be all the chicken things taking its place.

Now that’s a conversation I wasn’t expecting to have.

I explained how I worked from home and it generally fell to me to get the day to day shopping She seemed happy enough and went off to get my chook.

Suddenly they have become the most amazingly social creatures, and brought Bert along with them. As I type this I’m looking out the window and can see a posse of kids racing up and down on scooters’ Moo, Bert and to a lesser extent Henry screaming along.

The street seems to have come alive this year. Two new families have moved in and both have kids in the same year, or it could be class, still trying to figure that one out, as our kids. Now I hear them yelling ‘Albert!!!!!!!!!!!!!’ to get him to come out. On the weekend I came out of my office to find two new kids walking through the house with Henry. I said ‘Hello’ and one of them, pointing to the other, said ‘I’m his brother’. Right you are then. Then they all disappeared. It was only then I realised I had no idea which of the neighbours they had gone to. Dad of the Year stuff there.

Last night I was walking back to the office and noticed a shadow outside the front door. It was the little girl from across the road. After telling me she was a vegetarian (right you are then) she had a chat to Albert about reading books or something. Sometimes no matter how much attention you pay kid’s conversations just don’t make sense.

So now it looks like I will hardly be seeing them after school, unless I look out my window (oh, look, there’s another kid shown up out of the blue) but I can hear them no matter where they go. It’s a good thing, I’m happy they have friends next door and it makes the street feel more like a community.

That’s two 17 year old girls wanting to watch Doctor Who. My teenage self just exploded in confusion – girls like Doctor Who? What on earth is this world coming to.