Big Friendly Vegan

Visiting Santa each year is a lesson in terror. Firstly the terror of parking, then dealing with the terror of Santa (although there is only one youngster left that is terrified) and added to that is the terror of the shopping centre. Fortunately this year the shopping centre was quite easy to deal with, we got a parking in our favourite spot and the crowds weren't too bad, even though we went three days before Christmas day! Sant was OK too. When the kids were little babies, they seemed oblivious to Santa and it all went fine. Now the two oldest ones have worked out that Santa equals presents and they know the drill. It is the itermediate age that is the problem.

My eldest daughter wouldn't go near Santa for her second Christmas photo. I had to put her in the pram, stand in front of the display, and while she was distracted by the photographer I vanished and Santa came up behind. Click, photo.

For my second daughter, Santa had to vanish while I sat with her and my eldest. I distracted her with christmas baubles while Santa snuck up and sat beside the girls. Click, photo.

This time around, no tricks would work. I tried everything I could think of, as did the photographer, but she still screamed in terror the whole time. In the end we just had to take what we could get. The beauty of digital photography is that you can take dozens of photos and choose the one where she was the least terror stricken.

Don't you just love Christmas?

Ah, swords. I love 'em. I feel complete now that I have finally obtained a rapier. I already have a basket hilted Scottish style broadsword (made by Tim Harris in Melbourne), a two-handed sword (which is a bit heavy, but is still nice and is a good general non-specific style of two-handed sword), a very long and mean looking sabre (made by the great Quarf) and now a cheap but nice Hanwei 43inch rapier. I also have some other swords, but I don't use them so I don't really count them. One of them is my first sword which developed a crack across it and cannot be used or else it will break. Another is a really heavy and very short sword that was so bad it was given to me! I need to reduce the weight of it by 50% to make it usable, but I will give it a go since it will make a nice gladius or similar.

There is no point to this post, save for my joy at having a rapier. I am not very good with them, yet, but I realise that there is a gap in my sword skills and now I can fill it.

I had thought that no one read this blog. This is not something that overly bothered me, but it did sap my motivation a bit. I mean, what is the point of writing if there is no one to read it? (Sounds like a very Zen question, doesn't it?). Today I found out that there is someone who reads this blog, my beautiful wife!

She asked me if I had updated it recently because she likes to read it from time to time. Therefore, I am updating it. Every thing I do is for her.