the day could've started better

The day did in fact start out perfectly fine - goat wrangling and so on - but THEN it got to 9am and David and I headed to town at which point one of my younger neighbours decided to tear out of his several-hundred-metre-long-downhill-all-the-way-picking-up-speed driveway without
a] slowing down
or
b] actually looking
I saw him - just as well because usually I might not have - and stood on the brakes...
ok dirt road, so I wasn't exactly doing Formula1 speeds but still, stopped pretty damn suddenly as neighbour, completely oblivious, tore off like a bat out of hell ... no doubt looking in the mirror and wondering where in hell the old bat in the green Subaru came from.
...and as I sat there, heart pumping furiously and almost hyperventilating, is where the s**t hit the fan in a truly spectacular manner.
Most of you are aware that David is severely autistic. Autistic people cannot cope unless they are in total control of their environment and one of the things that causes David anxiety is any sudden and unexpected application of the brakes. Result: full blown panic attack and some fairly savage biting of his own arm. Bad enough that the adrenalin was still coursing through my system but to then have to continue the drive into town with someone screaming, red faced, and tearing at their own flesh with their teeth [ yes, seriously, there was blood drawn ] wasn't the best. Particularly so because I was just about to drive 50km for a class at Daylesford and didn't really have the luxury of time to calm him down.
Mother Teresa I'm not. There were some decidedly uncharitable thoughts.
Anyway we made it into town without me running into any trees or other cars.
The placement worker who met him at the door deserves a medal for her calm and unflappable manner as I handed over this still unsettled, bloody individual for Bandaids and Dettol.

deep breath
think serene thoughts
admire the scenery
deep breath

Anyway by the time I reached the venue - the Anglican Bishop of Daylesford's Residence no less - that was all behind me, the sun was shining and fortified by a nice Earl Grey with extra sugar - for shock y'know - we were set to go.
What had started out so ... not nice ... soon turned into a fabulous day.
and - after 24 years teaching adults - I finally had a male student!
John and his partner Kath did the Silk Paper class together and we all had a ball.
After which we toddled home with John and Kath to meet their Australian Shepherds and, perhaps more importantly in my book, the goats, whose names I have since forgotten, but aren't they handsome ex-boys?







and just so you can appreciate how warm the day was,
Zoe left my framed silk paper kimono [ class sample ] in the car for maybe an hour after she got back to the shop and the frame MELTED !! Literally melted. Now, of course, she wants to replace the frame despite the fact that it was a $20 cheapy from an Asian shop and so not something that needs to be worried about. It could've just as easily melted in MY car yesterday.

oh and in case you hadn't noticed... when I went over to the updated Blogger this week so that I could do the Christmas blogerating, I lost all of my Blogs-I-Like list and also all of the knitting and quilting webrings I'm part of... bugger bugger bum.
I've managed to reinstate the Australian and NZ Knitters one but I've lost SCQuilters, FibreArts Bloggers, Knitty Kitty, Knit1Blog2, and any others that I had and can't call to mind at the moment. Bum