wordplay: C is for...

• cats... love them. Currently have Oakley and Sophie, although as I write, Nadie's Suki and Sumi are here as well.] Hostilities have commenced, peace negotiations failed abysmally and World War III may break out at any time. Because of the huge native bird population, my cats are totally housebound 24/7. They have a catflap from the laundry into a catrun [ cunningly disguised as a shade house ] but that's all, so when the 'interlopers' are here, they have nowhere to escape to.

I also collect cat stuff... cat themed picture story books, fabric, cards, china,you name it. Notice though, I didn't say " and kittens". Not into cute and fluffy, more into sleek and elegant.

• clogging... Appalachian clog dancing or western tap ... like tap but a bit more down-home and we have double the number of taps on each shoe... a conventional fixed tap on the toe and heel and a floater on top of each of those. We make a LOT of noise en masse. Nadie clogs too.
• children...Stephen, David and Renata aka Nadie ... mine are all adults now, ranging from 24 to 31. Quite like the people they've become [ well most of the time :]
• colour... I'm a colour junkie.
• cushions ... have to have lots of them... big squooshy comfy cushions
• caramel... love it but not too much or I'll get sick
• coffee... mmmmmmmmm Iced coffee.
• chocolate ... love it but it doesn't love me back. Can we say MIGRAINE?
• crochet... took it up again about a year ago after not doing it for probably 20 years and if you'll pardon an execrable pun ... I'm hooked
• Castlemaine and Central Victoria. I moved here not quite 2 years ago after living in suburban Melbourne for 51 years. which could, I guess, lead to an entry on
• culture shock. A steep learning curve but I'm getting there
• chai. Tea with black pepper, ginger and cardamom. Delicious. Generally served with great ceremony : a tray with a proper pot of tea, another of frothed milk and a shot glass of honey for sweetening. Nestle have released an instant beverage that they call Chai Latte but as it's coffee with the indian spices, and chai actually means tea, someone at Nestle is just showing their ignorance.
• cooking. Never been a particularly enthusiastic one but now I have the time and space, I'm really getting into it. Nadie and I try out at least one new recipe when she's up here... and David helped me make the vanilla biscuits [ cookies] today...which leads us to:
• chilli, cumin, coriander and cayenne... the staples of my kitchen [ along with a couple of G words we'll get to later]
• collections... I'm a hoarder. I collect fabric, books, magazines, yarn, china, vintage kitchen paraphenalia, knitting patterns, postcards, japanese dolls, japanese clothing ... well anything japanese really, bears ... and probably some other stuff I haven't thought of
• clutter... the result of the preceding entry. There is a very fine line between 'stuff' and 'clutter' ... I may have crossed over it.
• CDs ... hundreds of the buggers. Classical, celtic, aussie folk, opera, ambient, but also Evanescence and James Blunt.
• crow ... what my singing voice sounds like these days. Used to have a quite useful soprano but damaged my throat in my first year of teaching.

Christmas. I'm one of those people who go a wee bit overboard at Christmas. It takes me at least a week to get it all up and nearly that long to pack it all away again. I'm not into tacky decorations. You will find no animatronic xmas trees or singing elvis santas in this house. At the last house I used to have 16 xmas trees... now I'm down to about 10.

Creativity... central to who I am. Creativity is like breathing.

• counting ... either you're a counter or you're not. I count pages left to read in books, blocks left to do in quilts, rows done in knitting or crochet, and then I ...
• calculate ... what percentage I have achieved or have left to do. All of which will probably confirm the next C word which is...
• compulsive. Not in an obsessive/compulsive disorder sense ... not quite... but probably close :]

• My least favourite C words are probably chaos and confrontation.
• and finally two really GOOD C words : contentment and coexistence