Happy New Year. In the News (from Time): “The ’00s: Goodbye (at Last) to the Decade from Hell” The dreaded millennial meltdown never happened. Instead, it was the American Dream that was about to dim. Bookended by 9/11 at the start and a financial wipeout at the end, the first 10 years of this century will very likely go down as the most dispiriting and disillusioning decade Americans have lived through in the post–World War II era.

It is pouring with rain, pouring, pouring, pouring down and I am thinking of S (aka the mold man) and Connor. I was so happy when they left to go camping this morning. Finally, the house to myself. I am still having a reaction to New Years Eve, when we got Connor in the morning before I even got up and Cohen in the evening so that B and Stac could party. I wasn't exactly lively but trying to get into the spirit of things for Connor's sake, I took the plunge and left the house with the boy to participate in the festivities at Kings Beach. I bought these glow stick things we had activated and made into halo's necklaces and bangles and I was surely glowing but it was not quite dark and I was not quite sure whether we would find a park close enough for me. It began to rain while we were still in the car but by the time I found a parking spot it had stopped. Just showers. Been a bit like that all week actually. Not bad for camping since it was not downpour type rain, and better than full sun beating down on a tent. We walked along the beach to avoid the crowd but had to enter into it, buy food and find a spot to watch an open air "Horton" the elephant movie. It turned out Connor had it at home anyway and all he cared about was finding kids to play with so we headed back down to the beach and I let him run around. Not long after it started to rain and we got wet but it was warm so it did not matter and everyone else just sheltered under trees and awnings too. But in the crowd, Connor disappeared several times so I had to just wait for him to find me all a glowing. The first time, a lady brought him to me and he gave me a big hug but after that he knew he would find me in the same spot. I was getting a bit impatient to go and he was deliberately taking off.

We came home to Cohen running around the house and getting into everything. He was supposed to be asleep in the cot. The mold man refused to help out much. He had been in a semi schizo mood (for lack of a better description) all day. That was the main reason I took Connor in the first place.

New Years Day was not any better, Brett was late getting Cohen, I was too tired and the mold man had determined that the boy Michael, Flora's grandson was not a good influence on Connor for some unexplained reason which he would not disclose, so he banned Connor from playing with him. Connor has always gotten on well with him - they play make believe type games together, very nicely around the tree out the front, making things out of dirt and scraps that are significant to them. I have heard them ducking bombs but Connor said they were playing pretend "creatures" that day. So I have no idea what got up the mold man's nose.

I call him the mold man because his car has smelled of mold for a year, since stuff in the boot got wet and when he pulls in the driveway, I can smell it from inside the house. I think I am allergic to that smell. I cannot stand it. Everything he brings in from the car smells the same and now my vacuum cleaner smells like it because he has used it to clean his car out. He is also the mould man because he refuses to open the shower door to air which I have been in the habit of ever since I lived in a hot sub tropical climate...so the shower is now mouldy far too often. Another reason is his constant watering of the lawn (even through water restrictions) which combined with grass clippings which he puts on top if his seeding areas, is all turning moldy. Even throughout this showery week, he continues to water his grass.

Anyway, the mold man was not able to keep Connor happy and he begged to go to his other Nana's and I encouraged it with a view to picking him up today for the camping trip. Yesterday he decided to cancel but somehow I got him to change his mind - and like I said, now it is raining, raining, raining and their tent (actually my tent, my gear, which is a worry) would have water running through the front part for sure if they got this rain that we are having. So now I am wondering about a moldy tent and whether my long awaited time to myself will end abruptly tomorrow instead of Thursday. Surely they will stick it out one night.