The Knight: chapter 2

2. An older brother for me?

The next day in kindergarten I played “castle and kingdom” with my friend Eric. It’s not a proper game of any sort we just pretend we’re kings and knights. Eric and I usually play together and it’s often nice, but this very day I was quite absent-minded. Knowing that I had a knight called Christopher living in my house made me unfocused on the game as I was dying to go home and get to know him better.
”Don’t you want to be a king, Mike?”
“No. Knights are much cooler,” I answered him, all while feeling very confident.
“But if you’re king you get to be on a stamp!” Eric persisted.
I had to stop and think for a bit. Stamps are nice, but it might hurt to get marked on the forehead by the post office all the time. I hesitated a little and Eric made a silly face. An ugly-looking silly face. He rolled his eyes and pushed the tip of his nose up. It looked like a pig’s snout.
“Don’t do that!” I complained fearfully – but Eric had no intention to stop. ”Your face can get stuck like that!” I burst out horrified.
“It can’t get stuck.”
“Yes, it can too!” I persisted “My mom says so and she’s a nurse!”
Eric went quiet and let go of the tip of his nose. He probably didn’t want to look that ghastly when he got older and I could well understand that. I was happy he had quit making ugly faces.
”Mike, your mother is here”, said Charlotte, the kindergarten teacher. I hadn’t even noticed when she came to the doorway and was therefore rather surprised that I’d already played an entire day with Eric. Time had gone by really quick.
Immediately I got very excited to hear that my mother was there to pick me up, especially since I knew Chris was home and to be honest I hadn’t really let go of the thought of playing with him all day.
”Mom!” I shouted cheerfully and ran to the hallway without even saying goodbye to Eric.
When I got there I threw myself around her neck. She was totally taken by surprise and laughed so that all her teeth showed and her green eyes glittered. My mother is pretty.
“Hi, Mike,” she said gently. ”Are you that happy to see me?”
“Yes”, I answered and started to struggle to get my shoes on, without her having to nag on me like she usually has to do since I really love kindergarten. Most of the time I’d like to play some more with my friends and with all the fun toys they have. But not today.
Mom looked at me baffled and reached for my bag on the shelf just above my jacket hook.
“Did I miss something, or are we in a hurry?” she wondered.
“No,” I answered lingeringly.
She smiled while adjusting her long dark brown hair. She started to understand why I was so eager to get home:
”Mike?”
“Yes…” I understood it was time for a confession. I could tell by the meaning tone of her voice. “I want to go home to Christopher,” I reported rather shyly. “Perhaps he is feeling better today and would like to play with me.”
”I see.”
Mom helped me to close the zipper on my dark green jacket and I couldn’t stop myself from asking a little more.
“Do you think he’s better today?”
She thought about it a few seconds before replying.
“I don’t know,” she said truthfully. “We’ll have to ask Oscar as soon as we get back.”
I grabbed her hand and waved goodbye to the kindergarten ladies with the other hand. I was still cheerful, mainly because she hadn’t said that it was an impossibility to play with Christopher.
We walked off to our blue car in the parking lot. I like blue cars. When I grow up I’m going to have a blue one. Or maybe a yellow. But I’m not having a red car, ‘cause red is a girl’s colour.
I followed mom and glanced wistfully at the huge piles of colourful leafs that had formed along the edges of the parking area. Normally I would most likely have thrown myself in them and started to play. But not today. Today I just wanted to go home as soon as possible. It was very exciting to have a brother.
Of course Christopher wasn’t really my brother, I knew that. As a matter of fact, I didn’t even know him yet but I was sure he was a nice boy and I had always wanted an older brother.

The Knight. Intro

1. An ill knight

I could’ve never even begun to imagine just how much my life was going to change as Christopher entered it.

I still remember when he sat there the very first time. It was almost Christmas. I know that, because Christmas is not long after my birthday the 28th of October, and my birthday had just passed. I turned five that year.

The young man sat in the kitchen with my father and uncle an hour or so after I came hom from kindergarten that day. He looked a little bit uneasy. Almost like I do when I’m about to go on a rollercoaster, but I get very happy and excited at the same time. Christopher wasn’t happy.

He was tall and handsome and he had red curly hair. It struck me straight away he looked just like a knight. I’m not sure if all the knights have red hair, though. Probably not. I’ve only ever seen two knights before in my life; one on TV and one toy knight at kindergarten. Neither of them had hair like his, but he looked very nice and noble and so I decided that red curly hair is very suitable for knights.

My uncle Oscar sat next to the young man and dad just across him. They all seemed slightly upset for some reason.

“Hi,” I said just to let them know I was there.

I had been trying to do some drawing in my room, but I thought I heard voices coming from downstairs and I just had to find out what was going on.

Dad turned around and looked at me standing in the kitchen doorway. He smiled a friendly smile but he didn’t answer.

“Hi, kiddie!” Oscar greeted me. He appeared to be the happiest one of the men sitting by the table.

“Who’s that?” I asked pointing at the knight. Had I not been so excited to see him I would’ve remembered it’s actually very rude to point at people.

Oscar went quiet for a little while.

“Well…” he began. “It’s… Christopher.”

The boy nodded silently to agree and then closed his eyes and made a face. He looked funny and I couldn’t help but laughing a little at him. Being the only child in the family had bored me for years, so I instantly thought of Christopher as a brother and found myself wishing I could play with him. He seemed very pleasant.

“Hey, Michael,” dad said, keeping very calm. “Oscar and Christopher are going to stay here for a while.”

I didn’t know what to say. I felt really happy to hear that but at the same time I suddenly felt very shy, so instead of saying anything I just nodded. I gazed at the three men for another bit.

”Why are they going to stay here?” I then asked.

“Christopher is very ill and Oscar is responsible for him, so we need you to take it easy around him,” dad said as if he could read my mind when it came to playing with the newcomer. “Do you understand that, Mike?”

I nodded again, even though it disappointed me a lot to hear that. Most of all I wanted to play with Christopher straight away, but if he was sick he had to rest. I knew that. Because when you’re sick you have to. And that’s just the way it is.

I didn’t see Christopher anymore that entire evening. Oscar brought him to the guest room upstairs and poor Christopher must’ve fallen asleep straight away.

Creativity

Despite being busy and quite stressed at the moment I'm really excited about a few creative things I've decided to do :)

First of all, I'm really looking forward to Christmas this year. I have high flying ideas on how I'd like to create my own Christmas traditions. Unfortunately I may have to stop with the Christmas hyenas, it will be very hard for future children to explain why we, in Casa de Chuckles, make Christmas hyena-ginger bread....
I'm also preparing a Christmas card list and planning where the Christmas tree will be and what sort of lamps and ornaments to have in it. It's marvellous altogether :)

I have also bought new sewing patterns. One skirt, one dress and one top. I intend to be really good at sewing, so I'm also looking for books to purchase on creating own patterns, alter already made patterns and style in general :)
Now I just need to find some fabric - and someone to cook and clean the house while I spend all my free time behind the sewing machine :)

The Happiness Ninja

I'm terribly happy today. Mainly because I'm back at work after being sick for an entire week.

It started kinda so-so. When I went to change into my working clothes it turns out the guy next to me had no idea I had been gone. Even though it was for a week!! My closest boss(es) said it was fine, me being gone. A little bit panic-y towards the end of the week, but managable all the same. I spoke with another colleague and he had no real idea that I had been gone either.

Then at 9, we all gathered in the pantry to have cake and coffee. It was someone's birthday and the entire company was invited. To my great joy everyone showed up and I loved it so much I had to count them. 25. We were 25 people crowding up a pantry in order to have cake and coffee :D

I was sitting in the sofa, munching cake and minding my own business when someone yelled out "Howya Trinny! You're back!" :D
When I looked up I saw a third colleague of mine across the room, and I yelled back (as you do): "Finally someone noticed that I have been gone!"

He explained my absence had been very obvious. Everything went apart little by little as the days went by, he said. I called flattery of course (in my head) but the other colleagues sitting beside yer nice man nodded and agreed :)

Another friend of mine, who doesn't work with me, suggested that I'm the happiness ninja at my place of work - and therefore the office wasn't as fun when I wasn't there but they didn't know why. I'd like to think that is the truth in the matter :)

Who wouldn't like to be a Happiness Ninja?

Fashionable Chuckles?

So, I'm back with a problem after quite a long a holiday break from blogging.
The problem is that I desperately need clothes and the way I see it, I can either go shopping and search for some, or I could order a few custom made pieces online (in TWEED!!!) :)

The solution is more or less obvious, I should totally buy my stuff online. It would save me the hassle of searching through shop after shop and not find anything anyway. The problem is that the things I'm looking at getting are rather fancy... not expensive, but dressy - and my job requires a uniform so I don't really need nice clothes. I rarely go out either but I'd love to look my best all the same :)

You only live once, isn't that what they say?
I want to live my life feeling pretty and being happy. It is important to me.




Wow, I think I managed to make up my mind all on my own this time... :)
Ruffled top and pencil skirt it is. A new lipstick too.

Now the only question is will I make that a red top and black skirt? A white top and green skirt? Or A white top and a red skirt? Any ideas or advice?

Tweeeeeeeeeeeeee *catches breath* eeeeeeeeeeeed!! :)

Craving creativity

For some reason I don't write anymore. I'm not even sure I miss it.
Don't get me wrong, I love living inside my head and imagine what people do and tell their stories through carefully thought out words. I could be anything I want. But sometimes stories just run out, or in my case; all my stories seem too much alike (at least to me they do)

The problem is that I haven't started up a replacement yet, so I've spent too much time playing stupid video games - yes, they are stupid if you'd rather do something else with your time ;)
Upon thinking about it this morning I realised I want to do something crafty. If I was any good with drawing that would be perfect, but I am not. I want to create something with my hands, like hats or mending old watches, but since I have no clue about watches or hats I decided to start off with something I do know; sewing.

I have no idea where I've placed my old sewing patterns, but then again how fun is it to do the things you've already done a couple of times? So I decided to buy a few more patterns online, just to get my imagination going and that feel-good-feeling you get when you're about to embark on something brand new and exciting. I bought 2 dresses, 1 blouse and 1 hat pattern. I can't wait until they show up in my letterbox :)

Meanwhile, I decided to have a look for some fabric. I love quirky fabric, despite wanting to be classy and elegant. I REALLY love this fabric:

It would be the coolest dress or skirt ever!! :)
My mister isn't as thrilled by it though, so when I buy it (I will anyway, because I love love love it!) it will most likely end up as pillow cases.

A new type of lazy

Another quest I couldn't be arsed to complete just yet...

Thank goodness my holiday is almost over! I've discovered a new type of lazy going on and I'm not sure I like it...
I've been lazying about this whole summer, doing as little as I possibly can. A lot of my time has been spent video gaming :) - but recently I've come to realise the laziness has gotten even worse. Whereas I used to think I was being much too lazy sitting around with my video game all the time (apart from the time I spent sorting in the garden) but the last few days "lazy" has reached new hights. Before taking on any quest in the game I've started to check online for walkthroughs, in order to find out if it will take me long to complete. If the page I end up on has an awful lot of text and different stages I usually pass altogether.