Charlotte's Web

Of Pictures and Princesses

noreply@blogger.com (Charlotte Elvis) — Mon, 17 Feb 2014 00:22:00 +0000

One of my ambitions is to be able to draw beautiful pictures on the computer. I love drawing with a pencil and ink but there are times when you want to be able to do something a little bit different. I'm not really good at digital art yet but this is my best picture so far.

Princess Rosalia

This is a portrait of a character from a novel Imogen and I are writing together. We each have a special character and this is Imogen's. I like my character but he isn't quite so fun to draw. Rosalia though is wonderful to draw because of her floaty skirts and cool hair. I believe that this is the best out of the three pictures I have drawn of Rosalia. She's a happy bubbly sort of person who is always twirling and laughing.

My next ambition is to draw my character on the computer as well. Rudy's a different sort of person to Rosalia, more of the strong silent type but he's quite funny on the inside. He'll be challenging but I'm looking forward to it.

Science of the Winter Olympics

noreply@blogger.com (Charlotte Elvis) — Tue, 11 Feb 2014 00:41:00 +0000

In the evenings we have been watching the Winter Olympics and really enjoying them, though I don't really like the Ski-athlon very much or Curling. I prefer the Snowboarding and the Figure Skating. Mum found a site with videos on the Science of the Winter Olympics. I was interested to see how figure skating works. It's beautiful to watch and I think that the physics behind it are also interesting.

The Drovers Road Collection

noreply@blogger.com (Charlotte Elvis) — Thu, 06 Feb 2014 07:20:00 +0000

Yesterday evening I finished reading The Drover’s Road Collection by Joyce West. It is a collection of three books in one, telling the adventures of Gay Allan and her cousins who live at Drover’s Road, a sheep station in New Zealand.

I really enjoyed The Drover’s Road Collection. The characters were hilarious, animals and humans alike. Amazingly all of the stories were equally good. Normally the first book is the best one in the series. But all three of the books were so good that I read them in two days. Even the proposal scenes were funny and readable, which is saying something as I usually hate proposals. I’ll definitely be reading these stories again.

A New Use For My Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Charlotte Elvis) — Tue, 04 Feb 2014 22:19:00 +0000

For this new term, I’m going to be using my blog as a record of what I’m learning instead of writing it down in a boring list. No matter how many pretty colours you use, a list is just a list. So I’m going to put pictures of what I’m learning about up and write a bit about them so that I’ve got a record of what I’ve done this term.

And I’m going to start this record with the book “Jamberoo Road” by Eleanor Spence. It is set in the days of convicts when people were just settling Australia. “Jamberoo Road” is the actually the sequel to “The Switherby Pilgrims” and continues the story of a group of orphans who travelled from Switherby in England to Australia with their teacher and guardian, Missabella, to start a new life in a new country.

I liked the story, though I didn’t think it was as good as “The Switherby Pilgrims”. It was not a very long book and seemed to end rather abruptly without much happening. I expected there to be far more conflict and more about each character. On the whole the problems were solved without there being much trouble. But it was still a very enjoyable book.

Attack of the Bath Monster

noreply@blogger.com (Charlotte Elvis) — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 23:51:00 +0000

Usually Imogen wrestles the cats through the bath. They are caught, bundled off to the laundry and all we hear are wails and meowing until a sorry soggy cat scoots out and takes refuge under the nearest table. But this week Imogen wasn't there. She is away at a mission school. So that left me as Bath-Master-In-Chief.

I eyed my first victim, a pitifully meowing fuzzy lump. I began to wonder if this might be easier than I had imagined. I plopped the cat in the bath, ran some nice warm water and bath day began. Soon Jenny began wailing, insisting that I'm a mean horrible monster who tortures poor little cats for fun. Bathing moaning cats is not my idea of fun.

One soggy cat scurried away, sliding on the tiles and hid under the table. I grinned. Only two more to go. The next cat was a breeze. Sammy hates the bathtub but he's so silly he won't try get out. Either that or he knew I'm the master of the bath. When I say "you will sit there" I mean it. He just sat there, meowing pitifully like a little kitten. But I was still cautious. There was still one cat left to go.

Poppy is known as a horror in the bath. The first time we bathed her, she jumped out of the bath onto Imogen's head. So I eyed her cautiously. We both put our best stubborn faces on and the battle began. At first things seemed to go well. Poppy stayed mostly in the bath, along with the water. Sophie help me pour cupfuls of warm water over her back. I relaxed slightly. Then the whirlwind began.

For some reason, Poppy decided she hated the bath more than usual. Or maybe she thought I was weaker and more likely to let her out of the bath than Imogen. She started clawing her away out of the tub. I yanked her back in. Sophie helped me pin her down. We settled back down to wetting her. Then Poppy climbed the air in front of her. I've never actually seen a cat climb thin air before but this one certainly did. She leaped into the air and wriggled like an eel.

"Turn off the water," I yelled at Sophie.

She wrestled with the taps and a little of the airborne water disappeared. I put my best stubborn face on and tried to wrestle Poppy back into the bath. The horrible animal decided at the moment that she wanted to be gone and scratched me, jumped out of the bath and ran away, dribbling water all over the floor. I clutched my arm and stalked after my foe.

"Fetch Dad," I told Sophie.

It was war.

Dad appeared a couple of seconds later and grabbed Poppy by the scruff of her neck. He dunked her back into the tub and the battle began again. This time it went our way. Dad held her down gently but firmly. There wasn't any climbing walls with him there. In record time we had a third soggy animal hiding.

I've decided that Imogen may keep her delightful job. This Bath-Master-In-Chief wants to retire. I've got several huge scratches on my arm and a horror of bathing animals. But we won.

Almost Evacuating

noreply@blogger.com (Charlotte Elvis) — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 03:40:00 +0000

Someone was knocking at my bedroom door. I flipped the lid of my laptop down and went to open it. A very excited Sophie stood outside my door.

"The fire danger is catastrophic," she said. "We saw it on the way home from the shops."

That was the first time I've ever heard of the fire danger being that high. But I didn't worry. It wouldn't really matter. I settled back down to enjoy the rest of my evening in peace.

At bedtime I headed off to say goodnight. I'd just go kiss Mum and Dad goodnight, tuck myself up in bed and snooze. That was the plan. Instead I went out to say goodnight to Dad and was greeted with an unlikely message.

"Turn off your laptop and unplug it. Get your USB sticks and Imogen's laptop ready to evacuate."

That was rather random. I hadn't quite expected that.

I promised I would do it and went to say goodnight to Mum. She kissed me and said,

"Get yourself a pair of trousers and a long sleeved shirt ready. Also pack some other clothes."

This was getting rather serious.

"Are we in danger then? Sophie said the fire danger is catastrophic."

"There are any fires near us but fires move really quickly. We have to be ready in case we have to evacuate. We would feel pretty stupid if a fire came and we hadn't bothered to get ready. Also pack up any electronics," Mum said.

"What about the cats?" I asked. "Shall I get out the carriers in case?"

"That's a good idea. Put them by the front door where we can get to them easily."

"And what about the guinea pig?"

"We'd better move her up to the house so we can get her quickly."

I headed off and found cat carriers, hunted and failed to find a box for our ancient guinea pig and helped carry her cage up to the house. Then I was sent to find Sophie and Gemma-Rose's computers and cameras. They were awake and wanted to know what was going on. Before I knew it, we were preparing the whole house to evacuate. Bags of emergency clothing, laptops and cat carriers appeared by the door.

Finally, after everything we could possibly need to evacuate was packed, I headed for bed, much later then I had expected. But there was still clothing and laptops in my bedroom to pack. I slipped everything of importance that I could find into a bag and flopped into bed.

The next day dawned cloudy and rather cool. That didn't last. By lunchtime the air was scorching and any anxious thoughts about evacuating were banished from my mind by the heat. We spent the day hiding from the heat in the coolest places we could find. Mum checked where the bush fires were every few minutes. But the hottest day this summer ended without us evacuating.

It really was rather odd. Preparing for an evacuation felt rather scary. We rushed around, half expecting to hear the hooter go and to have to run. Then we got up in the morning and nothing happened. The day ended without any problems. The worst problem we faced was staying cool. So we almost evacuated. But I'm glad that we didn't have to.

A Shiny New Computer

noreply@blogger.com (Charlotte Elvis) — Sun, 06 Jan 2013 01:57:00 +0000

One day I got up to find that my computer refused to turn on. It wouldn't charge. It adamantly insisted that I was being mean and it couldn't possibly be expected to work. At first I thought, "It's just the charger cord or something. I'll show it Dad and he'll fix it in five minutes."

So I picked up my little laptop and toddled off to find Dad. He took it and plugged the charger in. As I expected, nothing at all happened. He unplugged it and tried again. We tried another charger and got the same result.

"I'll take it to be repaired," Dad said. "You can use my laptop while it's being fixed."

Dad took charge of my laptop, I started borrowing whatever computer was on offer and things went on as normal. A few days ago when Dad had some spare time he start ringing up about getting my computer fixed. He rang everywhere, even India, to work out what had happened to it. Then he came to my bedroom.

"I've rung them about the computer and they think the motherboard has crashed."

"That's like a computer heart attack isn't it?"

So that was final. My computer wasn't coming back...so would I continue to beg and borrow computers? Nope.

"We'll get you a new computer soon," Dad promised.

I thought that it might be a few weeks before we'd do anything. But just a couple days ago things happened.

The doorbell rang. I dropped the cheese slicer on the board, abandoned the sandwiches and ran to let Mum and Dad in. For a few minutes everything was forgotten as we unpacked the shopping. But once things had calmed down and I was eating my lunch, Mum called. I hurried to her bedroom.

"Would you like this laptop?"

A large shiny brand-new laptop sat on her bed. It was black and silver and very shiny. My eyes widened.

"Yes please!"

I couldn't believe it. A new laptop! One that went at the speed of light, didn't die in the heat and wouldn't toast my feet as I wrote.

In the afternoon Dad began setting it up. I stood behind him, eyes glued to the screen as he installed basic programs and got rid of random things it had come with. I couldn't believe the speed. It didn't go in fits and starts and moan the whole time. No, my new laptop took everything in its stride. Then came the most important part, the background. We hunted through the stock backgrounds it came with.

"There's these tulips or these other flowers," Dad said as we scrolled through.

"Can we try the koala?"

Dad clicked on the image and my screen filled with a massive fuzzy koala.

"I love it."

"Are you sure that's what you want? We could look for something else."

But I was sure.

By evening I had a brilliant laptop, ready to do anything. I could write novels and blog posts and play computer games, even on hot days. And it was mine. Thanks to my wonderful parents I now have one of the best computers in the whole house.

Zany Zoo Photos

noreply@blogger.com (Charlotte Elvis) — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 02:46:00 +0000

For us going to the zoo is a great treat. We only go once every few years and when we do, we make the most of the trip. During the holidays we set off on an adventure. We collected cameras, lunch and coats and set off for the zoo.

Usually, I forget to bring a camera, or if I do neglect to take any photos. I'm hopeless that way. But this time I did remember to bring the camera. With my pink camera in hand and a bag of tiny teddies in the other, I set off to see if I'm any good at photography. Maybe I'm not, but here are some of my better photos.

When I think of koalas, I think of dozy animals who can't be bothered to move and will sit still for photos. But these koalas were climbing around like they'd never heard the word doze. Thankfully I managed to get some of the koalas when they were almost still. But this photos is one of my rare action shots.

This Meer Cat was cold and found the perfect place to stand: under the heat lamp. But when the bucket of food arrived he had to choose between the heat lamp and the meal.

This little deer agreed to stand still while I took the photo while juggling my tiny teddies. It was a good deer and didn't move a little bit.

These lions are sensible. It was drizzling when we got to the lions and they weren't coming out even for their fans to take photos. But cameras have this wonderful thing called zoom so I got a picture despite their reluctance to come out.

By the time we got to the bongo, we were getting a little tired and I'd already gotten myself lost while we were watching elephant playtime. So I was grateful when the bongo stood still and kept eating. I don't think the greedy thing even realized we were there.

I never meant to take this photo. I meant to take a nice stationary shot of a turtle. Turns out the turtle had other ideas and wanted to look like a monster. Still, it made a nice shot even if most of the zoo is reflected in the glass.

Now I have my photos to remind me of our wonderful trip to the zoo. I admit that some of them are rather strange like the one where a Meer cat actually wandered out of the shot by the time I took the photo or the fuzzy alligator. But some of them are good and I'm glad to have them to look at.

Millions of Molecules

noreply@blogger.com (Charlotte Elvis) — Thu, 24 May 2012 03:51:00 +0000

As some people might have gathered from my Nutty Professor post, I like chemistry. So Mum bought me a molecule construction kit. This morning, armed with the kit and my trusty chemistry textbook, I set out to explore the strange world of molecular bonds. I started with diamonds...and quickly found that I like the molecular structure of diamonds.

Diamond

Then I found another molecule to build: Methane. It sounds a bit weird to be making methane for fun but oh well.

Methane

Ammonia was fun to make. It looks a bit like a little robot.

Ammonia

This one just looks wrong. It wouldn't sit still for the camera so the picture is a little blurry. My Hydrogen Fluoride is...orange.

Hydrogen Fluoride

So I had a good morning. Making these molecules was a little like playing Lego, except it was educational and Lego isn't.

Camp NaNoWriMo

noreply@blogger.com (Charlotte Elvis) — Thu, 17 May 2012 23:47:00 +0000

Last November I participated in NaNoWriMo and enjoyed it. Well, I enjoyed it when I wasn't pulling my hair out over my stubborn novel which refused to get written. So when Imogen discovered Camp NaNoWriMo I was delighted. Here was a chance to get two novels written in super speed. We signed up as soon as possible. Now all I needed was a story.

So I sat down at my computer and began my planning. I quickly found that I have the attention span of a fly and could easily become distracted by the slightest thing. After half an hour's work I decided what I had wasn't any good and began all over again. And it happened again. Imogen was filling a notebook with ideas and that seemed a good idea. So I grabbed a fresh clean notebook, dumped it on the table and look at it blankly. I hadn't a clue what to write in it.

After a nice long session talking to Imogen I found found an idea to write down. Then the ideas started flooding in. My notebook pages were covered in scribbles. Of course I hadn't a clue whether these ideas were any good but they were a start. Random ramblings on characters I couldn't possibly leave out, evil ideas for my villain and hundreds of possible names for my heroine who was maddeningly vague poured out into my notebook. Who was she anyway? I could name everyone else in my story but the heroine and that was really getting me annoyed.

When I sat back down at my desk with my plans in front of me, my fingers began to fly. I pounded out my ideas and tried to put them into some sort of order. Probably I failed and I still changed the name of my heroine every couple of minutes but I was getting somewhere.

Now my planning is sort of going on track. True I get distracted easily and hate leaving any of my amazing secondary characters out of the story but I getting there. I have even decided on a final name for my heroine. This time I'm determined to keep it. Unless I find an even better one. Hopefully by the time I reach Camp NaNoWriMo next month I should have some sort of a plan. If I don't accidentally delete it like I did last time...

The Nutty Professor

noreply@blogger.com (Charlotte Elvis) — Thu, 10 May 2012 01:00:00 +0000

Chemistry to me means explosions. I know there are other ways to use chemistry. Neon lights don't explode, neither do mobile phones. I think everyone would be very surprised if things like that started happening. But I like the exploding sort of chemistry best. What's better than seeing an innocent bowl of water explode when a tiny itty bitty piece of sodium is chucked in?

I've been watching videos on the periodic table and love it. I didn't know before that I liked chemistry but now I do. Funny the things you find out. That was interesting but it was all watching and no doing. So Mum got me a chemistry kit. It came with Litmus paper, tiny plastic cups and everything that an evil scientist would need to destroy the world.

"Why don't you give Sophie and Gemma-Rose a chemistry lesson?" Mum asked.

"Um," I replied, sounding incredibly intelligent. "Er, yes."

"When do you want to do it?"

I scrambled for a day.

"Wednesday?"

That left me enough time to actually work out what I was doing. Wednesday dawned, I planned to devote a good part of the morning to planning my amazing chemistry lesson. I would dazzle Sophie and Gemma-Rose with my chemistry knowledge. What actually happened? The morning disappeared. We went running, Imogen and I went for haircuts, lunch interrupted my planning. So the morning passed without me doing a tiny bit of planning.

I was determined to get some planning done before the girls came for their lesson. I wasn't going to turn up, grin foolishly and tell them that I hadn't got a clue what I was talking about. So I grabbed my trusty chemistry text book and got thoroughly confused. Out of my kit I had picked the Litmus test. So I had to look up acidity and pH. But the chemistry book was so confusing. I just wanted to know about the litmus test and what acidity actually is. But they wanted to tell me who defined acidity when and how an acid is named. Some time later I dumped the chemistry book. This wasn't getting me anywhere.

"What will I do?" I wailed to Imogen.

"Search the Internet," she replied calmly.

Filled with new hope I searched the Internet. Almost immediately I got results in a form I could understand. Grabbing my trusty notebook and pen I started scribbling. Interesting facts popped up. Hydrogen ion causes the acidity, blue litmus paper goes red in acid, fish will die if the pH in the water goes below five. Finally I felt prepared.

Armed with my notebook, a pile of plastic cups, some strips of litmus paper and a whiteboard I headed for the kitchen where my two students waited. I started with explaining acidity but we soon dealt with that and got onto the exciting part of the experiment.

"Get some lemon juice, Sophie," I said. "We need some tea Gemma-Rose."

The girls scurried around the kitchen fetching ingredients. It looked as though we were going to cook something truly horrible. I marked cups and the girls poured in water, balsamic vinegar, lemon juice and bi-carb soda.

"Er, tea is next, I think."

Gemma-Rose brought the tea bag and we began to make tea. Then we made an important life changing discovery. You can't make tea with cold water. We soon fixed that though. Our little plastic cups sat lined up, each with it's name written on the side. But still there were two little cups left empty. At that moment Mum walked past.

"What else could we use?" I asked her. "What about milk?"

"Milk is a good idea."

I looked around the kitchen. A bottle of Fanta caught my eye.

"Could we use a tiny bit of that for our experiment?"

The last cup was filled. The whiteboard was ready for noting down the results and so we started. The girls took turns dipping the litmus paper in and working out the pH against our chart. All was going well, my lesson was turning out beautiful, when we hit a slight problem. We were working on balsamic vinegar. Sophie lifted the strip out. It was a lovely shade of brown.

"I'm not sure what that pH is," I said, putting the stained litmus strip away.

We dissolved into giggles.

"Why don't we use some other vinegar."

The rest of the experiment went perfectly except for the time I accidentally used a permanent marker on the whiteboard and we found that permanent markers can be removed using some Gumption. With seven or eight soggy strips of paper lying on the side and our results written down the experiment was over.

"Now you may drink the fizzy drink and milk. Although," here I grinned evilly. "I'll let anyone who wants to drink the vinegar."

Sophie and Gemma-Rose hastily grabbed the little pots and started sipping. For some strange reason they didn't want to drink the vinegar. I can't imagine why. So my lesson did go well after all and Sophie and Gemma-Rose requested another one. But what was really fun? Getting to do real chemistry.

I'm the nutty professor.

Hundreds of Hamlets

noreply@blogger.com (Charlotte Elvis) — Mon, 07 May 2012 04:45:00 +0000

Shakespeare is one of my favourite subjects. We read his plays out loud, taking parts. Occasionally four people is not enough and we must double up. I can remember times when I've talked to myself because everyone else already had two or more parts. We love almost all his plays (Titus Andronicus just made me feel sick) but the one that takes the prize is Hamlet. Last time we read Hamlet I wasn't very good at reading out loud. I butchered Ophelia and Queen Gertrude and made a complete mess of minor characters. But last term we started it again. This time Sophie was just starting reading Shakespeare. I'm jealous. She got Hamlet as her very first play. I got Twelfth Night.

Sitting on our family room table was a stack of DVDs. There were far more versions of Hamlet than I ever thought we'd watch. So we began reading. Imogen starred as Hamlet, I was horrifically Evil as Claudius, Sophie claimed Ophelia as her special property and Mum got Horatio. We each took various other parts and we muddled through. As we read we started watching the BBC production of Hamlet. That took most of the term and we still had more versions waiting for us on the table. Having finished watching the BBC Hamlet we started on the David Tennant version. By the time we were finished term was over and we still had at least two versions of Hamlet sitting on the table.

This term we have returned to the world of Hamlet and are watching yet another version. But we never get tired of Hamlet. Today, armed with sandwiches and cups of tea, we put on the next Hamlet from the pile. Munching on sandwiches and sipping tea, we watched as Hamlet soliloquised and Horatio nearly had a fit when he saw the ghost. We stared when we recognized the actress of Marianne Dashwood from Sense and Sensibility and laughed when we realized that this Claudius acted Hamlet in another version.

Hopefully, with any amount of luck, we'll get through the last of our Hamlets this term. They have after all lasted us over a term of enjoyment. But as I said, we never get tired of Hamlet. I'm hoping desperately that when we come to the end and nearly everyone dies I won't sniffle. It's very distracting and rather embarrassing to have to pause the movie to run and grab a tissue. Still, it'll be worth it even if I do cry.

My Marvellous Mermaids

noreply@blogger.com (Charlotte Elvis) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 08:59:00 +0000

Drawing is one of my favourite hobbies. When I don't have any other necessary things to do like eat chocolate and sew socks into toys I like to pick up my drawing pencil (or any other pencil that happens to be at hand) and scribble away in my sketchbook. In fact sometimes it's more like the pencil hops into my hand. I don't always decide to draw. I just sort of end up doing it.

My newest theme (I like themes) is mermaids. I wanted something new, something fresh and I hadn't tried mermaids for sometime due to a lack of variety in clothing. But Then... something pretty with fins and a tail and quite a nice cardigan appeared on my page.

Me being Charlotte I did something no one else in my family would do. I coloured every single scale seperately... and enjoyed it. But one mermaid wasn't enough so I draw another one.

Still being crazy me I did the same to this one. But instead of rainbow scales I made her scales blue. I don't like mermaids that just stick to one colour so I went totally wild on this one. No blue mermaid for me. This one has enough colour to blind you.

But just mermaids floating around the page wasn't enough for me. I want my mermaid to be doing something. So I drew one leaping into the sunset. After stealing pencils from everyone I set about the sunset sky. Admitedly I'm not sure whether it looks like a proper sunset but I like it. Ideas for clothing just kept pouring into my head. A floaty shirt? Why not?

My last mermaid is quite different from the rest. I did a full background for her and got my hands rather covered in pencil while attempting the night time scene. I have a love of sparkles so in a picture covered with stars and glowing mermaids I just had to add a couple or twenty. For some reason this one ended up being mysterious. I suppose the glow and the flowing white dress has something to do with it.

So these are my latest pictures.

Dad's Right-hand Girl

noreply@blogger.com (Charlotte Elvis) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 21:52:00 +0000

I'm reading my new Christmas book, totally oblivious to the surrounding world. I'm not paying the slightest attention to anything that isn't inside my book and doing awesome things. But a really annoying noise has burst my little imaginary world and I'm back in the real world. Some one's knocking on the bedroom door. Sighing I shove the closest thing at hand into my book to hold the page and open the door. Gemma-Rose is standing outside dressed for intensive playing.

"Dad wants you," she says and prepares to run off.

"Where is he?"

This is an important question. Dad could be anywhere. I might spend ages looking for him in the house to find him fiddling with something in the garage or getting ready to do something in the garden.

"He's outside." Gemma-Rose is gone in a flash.

I shove my feet into a pair of garden shoes and head for the laundry door. Outside I pause for a moment. Where should I look first? But the bright cleaning cloths give Dad away before I've had a chance to go the wrong direction. I run around the side of the house and find him by our van.

"Would you like to help me vacuum the van out?" he asks.

I nod. Helping Dad is one of my favourite things to do. Already I've forgotten about reading and charge back inside to change to some cleaning clothes.

Armed with a super powerful vacuum cleaner that wants to eat the carpet inside the van I kicked off my shoes and climb in. The vacuum cleaner roars into life and I start sucking up the dirt. Almost hidden in the carpet I find some rather odd things. Wood chips from a run away maple tree, dried fruit and sand (also from the maple tree). Dad meanwhile has found something even stranger.

"There's proper soil in the windows," he exclaims, digging it out with a screwdriver.

I lean over to take a look. Sure enough there's lovely damp soil sitting in the edge of our windows. It's wonderful soil but not exactly what you want in your van's window.

I've only done the back of the van and moved to the middle when I bump my hand against the leg of one of the seats. Strangely my finger's really sore. After a nasty accident with some table mats and a curved side a few weeks ago I wasn't taking any chances. I slide out of the van and turn the vacuum cleaner off. On closer inspection I find there's blood dripping out of a cut by my nail. I sigh and head for the house. First Injury has been gained.

Patched up by Imogen I again fired up the vacuum cleaner and sucked up the dirt, fluff from the carpet and even the colour. This time I'm more careful. No more cuts for me. With the middle cleaned I head for the front.

"Can you do the driver's side first?" Dad asks. "I need to top up the coolant in the engine."

I heave the heavy vacuum cleaner around and suck away. The driver's side is easy. If there wasn't a huge steering wheel stuck in the way it'd have been done in a flash. I'm done before Dad's even started so I abandon the vacuum cleaner and go and watched.

"We'll need a container to mix the coolant in," Dad says.

He pulls a small pop top bottle out of the recycling.

"Should be big enough," he decides.

Dad tips some de-mineralised water into the bottle and tops it up with a glug of evil looking coolant. The passenger side seat is tipped right back into the middle of the van and underneath I can see the engine. I think it's a ridiculous place to keep the engine but never mind. The coolant mixture glugs down the pipe and disappears. We peer in but we can't see anything. Dad mixes some more and tips it down. We still can't a drop.

"There ought to be a bubble of coolant," Dad says.

We tip a third bottle down and finally there is a bubble of evil green mixture burping at us. We sigh with relief.

"There can't have been much coolant in there," I remark. "It's a good thing we checked."

Quickly I vacuum out the passenger's side and we're done. Dad and I pack up the cleaning tools and heave the vacuum cleaner away. I'm taking a spare windscreen shader into the garage when I scrape against a bike rack that's in the way. A long scratch runs down my arm. I shrug. It's not as bad as the finger cut. Today I'm accident prone. In the morning I cut myself on my braces. All up three injuries. Thankfully I manage to get through the rest of the cleaning without killing myself. Feeling satisfied with ourselves we head for the house and a drink.

I grin to myself as I flop in a chair beside Imogen to check on the cricket scores. I like helping Dad. I'm Dad's right-hand girl.

Wonderful NaNoWriMo Pictures

noreply@blogger.com (Charlotte Elvis) — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 21:47:00 +0000

It was only when Mum downloaded a copy of 'No Plot No Problem' that Imogen and I started to think seriously about joining in NaNoWriMo. Before that I'd never really thought about it before. Write a novel in a month? I've only ever finished one story before and that was hopeless. But it sounded so fun. We thought a little bit and when were we finished our little bit of thinking we said,

"Why not?"

So we booted up the computor, opened a word document and... were interrupted after a few minutes when something else for the wedding needed to be done. Over the week I continually tried to plot out my story and every time something happened. We had people to dinner, the wedding happened, we all got sick and so on. But the day before NaNoWriMo started I sat down and remained glued to my computor screen until I had banged out a sort of plan. Then, feeling very pleased with myself, I switched off the computor and went to do something else.

NaNoWriMo started, I hit the power button, opened up my plan and... it wasn't there. I'd deleted the whole of my plan by accident. Only a few notes on the characters and the story remained to show that I'd spent ages planning. NaNoWriMo was upon me and I had no plan. I flipped to my empty word document that was waiting to become my novel. I clicked back on the missing plan.

"Oh well," I thought. "I'll just have to make it up as I go along. I didn't like that plan much anyway."

I had a vague idea what was supposed to happen in my story so I just shrugged and began to type. Words started to trickle out of my fingers and onto the page and I giggled quietly to myself as some ridiculous characters jumped into the story with both big feet.

When we were finished for the day Imogen and I decided to do some drawing for a break. Imogen whipped out her sketchbook and was happily drawing away but I had no ideas. If I didn't want to draw a fairy or anything like that, what did I want to draw? I just sat there doodling away. As something vaguely head-shaped appeared on the page I started to take a little more interest. A roundish body joined the head and I added some stick thin arms. When a couple of huge feet and a mug of hot chocolate on a tray appeared I knew who it was. It was one of my NaNoWriMo characters, big nose and all.

Over the next few afternoons and evenings I added similar pictures to the first. My main character turned up, a few sidekicks joined her. I whipped out the inking pen and drew over my sketchy lines. I tipped out my colouring pencils and picked out suitable colours but I wasn't satisfied. I wanted more colours. I needed at least three shades of red on one picture. Finally I had a cast of crazy, wonderful, magical characters sitting in my book.

Since I'm so pleased with them I decided that I'd scan them and share them on my blog.

Party Hats and Fairies

noreply@blogger.com (Charlotte Elvis) — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 22:52:00 +0000

It all started with my birthday. For my birthday dinner, everyone wore party hats. Pink party hats with funny fairies on them. Even while I was laughing at the sight of Dad in a tiny pink hat, my mind was working.

"That fairy would make a great picture," I thought. "Or maybe I could make my own picture based on it."

As soon as possible, I sat down and began to draw. With a party hat in front of me I started to copy the fairy into my sketchbook. With some minor changes, a couple of additions of my own and plenty of silver and gold pen my fairy appeared. But she didn't occupy me for long enough. I grabbed my pencil and started to sketch again, working out how to draw the body, arms and legs and try to avoid making a dirty grey mess of my page.

Later I discovered that my new small drawing-on-the-go notebook was the perfect size for my fairies and I started filling the first page. In a few minutes I had a fairy in pleated skirt with tall boots standing on the page. I drew my colouring pencils towards me and rifled through them. I pulled out a yellow and looked at the dress. I decided that this fairy really did need a yellow dress and started colouring. Orange boots? Of course. Why not make the wings orangey-red at the tips and make them fade into yellow? When the last bit of skin was coloured and the last strand of hair was brown I ran to show Mum my notebook.

Since then I've drawn even more fairies. Ballerina fairies, party fairies and butterfly fairies and just about anything else I can think of. While supposedly watching a movie with Gemma-Rose I asked,

"What should my next fairy be?"

"A party fairy," she replied.

I thought I might draw her in something puffy, maybe with frills and quite a lot of pink but Gemma-Rose had other ideas. Our fairy ended up in a long light blue dress with purple frills, gold and silver dots and pink hearts. On my own I don't think I'd have ever thought up a fairy like that.

There are more fairy pictures on my artworks page.

A Beach Holiday Diary

noreply@blogger.com (Charlotte Elvis) — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 00:29:00 +0000

Last week my family and I went on holiday to the beach. I thought I would share some extracts from the diary I wrote on holiday.

Sunday 2^nd of October

Piles and piles of boxes, bags and backpacks lay in a sea on the dining room floor…It was horribly cold and seemed unlucky weather for a beach holiday.

Dad and Callum loaded the van…We all piled into the van and set off for Swanhaven. I read ‘No Name’ by Wilkie Collins on my e-reader. We went down the Jamberoo Pass. I enjoyed going down but Imogen hates going down the passes. After making a short stop for supplies we finally arrived at Swan Lake Cottage…

Our cottage is wonderful. Dad and Mum have a really tall queen-sized bed. Gebbles and Sophie also have a queen-sized bed. Imogen and I have the bunk beds.

In the afternoon Mum suggested we went for a walk down to the lake. It rained a bit but we walked down the cycle track. It petered out after a while but when it did, we could actually hear the sea…

I'd also like to thank my three new followers. It was a lovely surprise to come back and find you'd followed.

Trying Singing

noreply@blogger.com (Charlotte Elvis) — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 06:09:00 +0000

Some time ago Imogen borrowed a book from the library filled with the words to eleven Gilbert and Sullivan plays. Not only did the book have the words to the eleven plays it had some of the music with a piano accompaniment. She, being a really good singer, was able to sing whatever she liked and sort of play the accompaniment. I on the other hand refused to even attempt to sing with her and flatly refused.

Recently we borrowed the book again and Imogen, after much persuading, was able to convince me to sing a little. She decided that we could sing a piece from the Mikado with the Mikado himself and Katisha. I sang the Mikado (never mind that he's supposed to be a bass) and Imogen (who is without a doubt a soprano) sang Katisha though she's a contralto. Much to my surprise I actually enjoyed the singing and wasn't too hard to persuade the next time Imogen suggested a little singing.

Since then we have done some singing most afternoons and I (horrors of horrors) might even be starting to like singing. Imogen generally sings the ladies' parts and I sing whatever mens' parts that might be going spare. When we sing duets I take the man's part and Imogen the lady's. Sometimes I even sing pieces on my own while Imogen plays the accompaniment. Though I still don't think that I'm ever going to sing as well as Imogen I'm happy to join her at the piano. Maybe (just maybe) I might be losing my fear of singing.

Book Meme

noreply@blogger.com (Charlotte Elvis) — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 01:30:00 +0000

I love books so when Imogen from Dancing with Dragonflies tagged me for her book meme I was delighted. I was bubbling with ideas so I got down to work to fill in the questions.

Novels I have enjoyed recently

The Ruby Talisman by Belinda Murrell

The Horse Who Bit a Bushranger by Jackie French

Clearheart by Edrei Cullen

The Locket of Dreams by Belinda Murrell

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

My Favourite Genres

Fantasy, Historical Fiction and Mystery

My Favourite Authors

Jane Austen, Rick Riordon, James Dashner, Angie Sage

Novels I’d like to read

If Only They Could Talk by James Heriot

The Sherlock Holmes books

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

The Moonstone by Wilke Collins

The Stories of Father Brown by G.K.Chesterton

Fire in the Stone by Colin Thiele

Story Girl by L.M. Montgomery

Novels I am currently reading

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

Bleak House by Charles Dickens

My Favourite Novels

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

The Seer and the Sword by Victoria Hanley

The Dragon Whisperer by Lucinda Hare

My Favourite Series:

The Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordon

The Septimas Heap books by Angie Sage

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by JJ.R.R. Tolkien

The Thirteenth Reality Series by James Dashner

And now that I've answered all the questions I'd like to pass this meme onto:

Sara at God's Girl

Sophie at Sophie's Seabed

Bethany at Bethany's Cave

Baskets of Books

noreply@blogger.com (Charlotte Elvis) — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 23:22:00 +0000

Over lunch yesterday Imogen and I made a startling discovery. Sophie hadn't read even one of our favourite books. I couldn't imagine not having read A Little Bush Maid, The Borrowers or Heidi. This had to be remedied. We couldn't let any sister of ours go without reading the best books in the world.

"We'll gather some books for you to read," we promised Sophie.

So, after we washed the dishes Imogen led a raid on the books shelves. I stood next to the stool she was standing on and held the books as she pulled them down.

"Has she read The Little White Horse?"

"What about Kensuke's Kingdom?"

The pile grew and grew as we discovered more and more of our favourites that Sophie had never read.

"I want some books to read," Gemma-Rose said.

"We'll find some for you too."

We started a new pile for Gemma-Rose and popped in Fantastic Mr Fox, A Bear Called Paddington and The Owl who was Afraid of the Dark. When we decided that we had found enough books for now (we were limited to one books per author) Imogen said,

"I should make you up a basket of books too."

I liked that idea. There are so many books on the shelves that I haven't read and I really didn't know where to start. Imogen did though and started a second raid on the bookshelves.

She handed me The Woman in White, Sherlock Holmes, James Heriot and Robin Hood among many other books. My basket quickly filled and when Imogen decided that we had enough for now I was at liberty to choose myself a new book. Having looked through my books I decided on The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins.

For the rest of the day I read and day dreamed about The Woman in White. Imogen was right about Wilkie Collins books. They are great. Now I have heaps of books and don't desperately need a trip to the library.

Returning to the Regency Period

noreply@blogger.com (Charlotte Elvis) — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 04:42:00 +0000

"I've bought you a new Jane Austen book," Mum said. "It's called Jane Austen's Guide to Good Manners, and it should be here soon."

I love new books and a Jane Austen book is wonderful. I waited impatiently for the book to arrive but I didn't expect it too soon. After all it was coming from America. So I curbed my impatience and got even more Jane Austen books from the library.

Several weeks passed and no book turned up. Every time the parcel man came to the door I'd look up excitedly but every time it was something else. But finally, ages after it was ordered, the book arrived.

My book was white, stiff and very new, filled with life saving skills for the Regency period. Naturally whatever I was reading at the time was neglected horribly and I returned to the time of Jane Austen.

I do love all things Jane Austen!

Drawing Paper Dolls

noreply@blogger.com (Charlotte Elvis) — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 03:42:00 +0000

When Imogen and I started our first blog 'Paper Dolls by the Serendipity Sisters' we decided to post up a paper doll every month. At first we posted up paper doll after paper doll, each one a variation on the same doll. But, after some time I started to lose interest. Each one was just another Annie Belle. Ideas were getting scarce and I missed some months, nearly forgot others and eventually just forgot to draw one at all.

Months past and I couldn't be bothered with drawing paper dolls. No Annie Belle paper dolls were posted and the artist (me) had a very long rest. But on the first day of spring Mum declared an official art day. An idea popped into my head. Why didn't I just invent a new paper doll? Something different and interesting.

We piled paper, pens and paints onto the table and I grabbed a sheet and my pencil and got drawing. Ideas started to flow in and I was hard pressed to remember them all. Why not a fairy? I'd never drawn a fairy before. How to attach wings? What should the dresses look like?

"What do you think?" I asked Imogen at last, holding up my sheet of paper.

"It looks really good," she said.

I looked down at my fairy and mentally compared her to the last doll. She certainly was different from Annie Belle.

"I like it," I decided and started drawing clothes.

A cloud dress? Why not? Every fairy needs a set of wings. Finally I had four fairy dresses and one set of wings. I handed it in to Imogen for scanning and colouring. While she was colouring the clothes on the computer she asked,

"What's her name?"

I hadn't thought of that. We searched the Internet, begged Mum for advice and rummaged through our own brains for the perfect name but nothing seemed to fit. Finally we thought of one that fitted.

"I like the name Francesca," I said when Imogen suggested it.

So the fairy ended up as Francesca the Fairy and finally 'Paper Dolls by the Serendipity Sisters' has a new paper doll. Admittedly she is very late and I did take a rather long holiday but at least I drew one.

Risking 'Jane Eyre'

noreply@blogger.com (Charlotte Elvis) — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 03:40:00 +0000

I've read all six Jane Austen novels but I've never read any of the Bronte sisters novels. Imogen has read 'Jane Eyre' but that's all. So when Mum suggested we go and see the new 'Jane Eyre' movie I was interested. I've got a reputation for not liking many movies but this time I decided to risk hating 'Jane Eyre' and go.

Originally Mum wasn't going to go to the cinema with us but when Imogen and I pleaded with her she agreed to come and watch with us.

The lights dimmed, we settled into our seats and the huge screen flashed on and the speakers boomed, but this wasn't the movie. All that was on the screen were ads, long boring ads for newspapers and nursing homes.

Finally after add after add 'Jane Eyre' began and we sank into her miserable world. I half expected that I was going to cry or even sniffle but thankfully my eyes remained firmly dry as Imogen pointed at tiny details I might have missed if she hadn't shown them to me.

"It's Queen Henrietta Maria," she whispered.

I searched the walls of the creepy old house and found the painting of the queen. It's funny how things you learn about creep into unexpected places. We were learning about the kings and queens of England not long ago and Queen Henrietta Maria was one of them.

I watched interested, hoping that this was one of the few movies I actually like. Thankfully it didn't disappoint me. I believe that 'Jane Eyre' is one of those very few movies.

As we emerged into the sunlight we discussed the movie. Mum had enjoyed the movie as much as I did and we compared it with the other version we saw. Imogen says it's closer to the book than the other version but I can't compare it to the book, having never read it. Now I'm going to read 'Jane Eyre'.

Losing Myself in the World of Jane Austen

noreply@blogger.com (Charlotte Elvis) — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 01:36:00 +0000

Imogen walked in the door. On her back was a bag of library books. She opened it and pulled out two thick juicy looking books.

"I found these for you," she said.

I looked at the titles. 'Jane Austen, The World of Her Novels' one proclaimed. The other said 'Jane's Fame'.

"Thank you," I gasped.

I was blissfully happy. Two new Jane Austen books to read and they were big ones. I wandered over to an armchair and flopped down already flipping open 'Jane Austen, The World of Her Novels'.

I opened the page to Chapter One and lost myself in the world of Jane Austen. Soaking myself in knowledge of the Regency period I would emerge only once in a while to spout out some interesting fact. I would corner Imogen or Mum and say something like,

"Did you know that Colonel Brandon doesn't have a first name?"

or, "Did you know that in the movies the producer added scenes showing the hero doing manly things like chopping wood, shooting or fencing?'

"Edward Ferrars chopped wood?" Imogen would say incredulously. "That's ridiculous. He's a gentleman."

"I know," I would giggle and hurry back to my book to find out more.

Unfortunately for me the books, though really thick didn't last very long. I finished 'Jane's Fame' yesterday. I shall have to go to the library to find some more. Poor librarians when I get to the Jane Austen section.

A Beautiful Performance

noreply@blogger.com (Charlotte Elvis) — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 05:24:00 +0000

People streamed into the parish hall. A hum of voices and the scraping of plastic chairs on the wooden floor filled the room. From my place in the audience I could just see the choir moving into position in front of the audience and finding their pages in their books. If I lent a little to the right I could just see Imogen sitting in the choir but Dad and Callum were hidden by old ladies.

The conductor stepped up onto a little table so that the whole of the choir could see her. One of the singers sat at a keyboard and started the soft accompaniment. At the wave of the conductor's hands the choir burst into song. I don't know how they understand the strange language of waving hands and sticks but somehow singers do.

Imogen's high voice was clearly noticeable among the slightly lower voices of the other sopranos. I could hear her through the whole performance but especially on the high notes. Imogen has the highest voice in the choir and is the only one comfortable on the highest notes.

If I listened carefully I could make out Dad and Callum's voices rumbling away in the bass section. Even when they were being trains and chuffing along it sounded brilliant. I don't see why any choir would want to pretend to be trains but still they did it wonderfully.

The choir sang heaps of songs, broken up by a few solo performances. One of the singers sang two solo pieces. One of them had the audience chuckling and whispering to each other. The other was much sadder and the audience sat hushed through it all. Another time the conductor's husband played 'Over the Rainbow' on the keyboard.

The whole performance lasted an hour and half but it didn't feel half so long. It didn't feel like I had been sitting there for that long when Dad, Imogen and Callum came to collect me.

In our parish there is a group of ladies who are famous for their sandwich making abilities. We always hope when there is an event in the parish that they will be organizing the food. Thankfully they were at this event and had brought heaps of their sandwiches along with loads of scones, cupcakes and biscuits. Gratefully we dug in.

I loved listening to the performance and hope that I can go to more. I've been to two performances by the Berrima Singers now and loved them both.