Time

It's the mid-term holiday and most of my classes are suspended for the week. I decided not to give the old men a holiday because it just gets too confusing. Last term one student didn't come back for a month and when I asked where he'd been he said 'You say one week holiday'.

I had been saving a couple of medical appointments for the holiday. I saw a very friendly dietician from Brisbane on Tuesday, 'You're my first Australian patient in London!' and I went to the doctor for another round of blood tests. I'm going to have arms like a junkie soon.

After my appointments I took the train to Birmingham to stay with Nan for a couple of days. It rained and we spent a lot of time looking through old photos. I was left wondering about a few things:

- How did my parents look younger than me at my age, even after having kids?
- Did I really spend 70% of the time carrying my younger siblings around or was that just something I liked to do for photos?
- And how, in our healthy family, did my sister get so fat at such a young age?

I texted her: Nan and I are looking at photos where you are so fat you can hardly move.

And she replied: Ha. Are they recent?

Photos weren't the only old thing we got out. Nan found out a candle I had made when I was fourteen and we lit it during dinner. It's weird how something kept for years burns out in a couple of hours


I made the candle at school in Design and Technology. Our teacher had asked the class to split into groups and produce a product to sell at a market. I was very lucky that she was prepared to indulge my desire to become a chandler. Actually she was probably excited that someone was so eager.

Anyway, despite my teacher's concern about the the shape of some of the candles (too rude to repeat here), they were a huge success. We sold out on pre-orders and made a good profit. And thus ended my brief foray into the worlds of candlemaking and business.