Women’s Day

Yesterday was Women’s day in Vietnam.

I don’t think it’s easy being a woman here, in a society of extended families often woman return home from a long day at work to look after not only their own, but those of their extended family. Some pedal or drive for hours in the heat or the rain in order to work.

Velvet Underground comprises of 25 woman, all of us have our own personal dreams lives and our own unique past.

I have to confess that often I find myself dreaming of morning teas, lazy afternoons painting or reading and a whole other life that does not require the nine to five of life in our workshop.

However today when I went into the shop I was greeted by Quynh, she was helping a customer, who she had met several times before and as with many other regulars, she knows her by her first name. I was struck by two things.. firstly her hair cut newly framing her smiling face, and secondly; by the confidence and ease with which she dealt with her customer. “I feel like Victoria Beckam!” she said, and we laughed. “go girl! “ I thought to myself…. Move over Victoria.

I guess Saturdays are good days for lazy afternoons.

Why we made a cot blanket

My baby brother was given a blanket when he was born. It was pale blue on one side and white on the other. It had a satin trim. And if fitted perfectly over the bundle that was him asleep in his crib. It was his cot blanky. 

When he was old enough to suck his thumb and grasp and hold he would rub the cot blanky over the space between his nose and lips. It made him feel safe.   

Over time the satin trim wore thin and the corner of the blanky became permanently matted from being held in his tight little fist. My mother had to wash it often,  and it shrunk a little too.  

When it had been washed my little brother would wait slightly impatiently for it to dry. My mother always tried to chose a warm windy day to wash the blanket and so it dried in the sun and absorbed some of the smell of the grass and the trees.  

No amount of washing however could take away the particular smell  it held though. A cot blanky that has been truely loved should smell of whispers and nursery rhymes; some  tears (not too many); and dreams of trains; of planes and even of tigers.