a saint for fitzroy

Sorry if I've been felling flat of late. Miss l'Uccello tells me it's just the October Blahs and I think she might be right. Normally the Cottage quiet time is around August/September but with the groundhog day grand final malarkey and the weather returning to the way I remember it years ago (October and November rain pouring down, meant to be studying for exams but really sitting looking out the window at the irises in the backyard and thinking how pretty they looked all wet) things have been quiet in the shop and I have been getting slowly flatter and lacking in ooomph. It's hard to sell Spring clothing when the rain is coming down and there is snow in the hills! So I am conflicted between loving this weather we are having and wishing for finer days so we can sell our pretties. There is still lots to do though, I am so low on some stock it is embarrassing and I have beautiful almost finished new things sitting at the studio waiting to come in store as soon as one important component arrives.... talk about frustrating!
For years when I lived smack-bang (no pun intended) in the middle of Brunswick St I got to have the fun of the Brunswick Street Festival right outside my door/front window. They were seriously fun times. Now I am up on Gertrude and tomorrow the street is being closed for the Canonisation Parade for Mary MacKillop. From one extreme to the other! How I love Fitzroy!
Somehow I seem to have missed out on the whole religious thing. Not Catholic (although my friends say my sense of guilty is impressively Catholic), not Protestant (except for the 'work ethic') and certainly no Buddhism, Yogic or Eastern Mysticism has ever managed to take. My paternal grandmother became a Christian Scientist after being 'healed' of spinal tuberculosis and tucked away somewhere is a tee-total pledge my father signed at the Christian Scientist Kindergarten (when grandma d died it was sent over amongst other mementoes she had kept). My maternal grandfather was a Penn (and before you ask no that's not why I was named 'Penelope') and I have to admit I would quite like it if there was a link back to Quaker Brother Penn, founder of Pennsylvania and Philadelphia, if for no other reason but that I quite like the Quakers. Well, actually I really like their 'meeting houses' and there have been some interesting people who are Quakers.
Oh my!
Look at the time! I better dash, almost time to open the shop!