Hammer

I'm embarrassed to admit that I have been in our new home for three months now and have only just today put up our pictures on the wall. We left our tool kit in Perth, so I decided to borrow a hammer from the guards that work in front of our lobby at Forest Hill. Now it needs to be said that the guards are very friendly here, always smiling and waving to the children and me, but they speak virtually no English. In fact as far as I know, their English is restricted to the two phrases "Hello" and "Good morning", the latter which is used at any time of day or night. So, I decided to use a method known in the field of autism as "visually augmentative communication". Basically it involves the use of pictures to exchange information.

I hunted through our books in the playroom to find this children's pictorial dictionary.

It features this page of illustrated "household items", including the desired hammer.

So, confidently armed with my book, I approached the guards and asked if they had a hammer I could borrow. As I thought, they gave me blank stares until I pointed to the picture, at which point they giggled delightedly and told me it was a "chui zi". One even wrote the Chinese symbol on paper for me before handing over a perfect, beautiful hammer.

I demonstrated my delight in my success by happily pounding a few nails into the wall to mount some of the art work we brought from Australia. The items included...

Keegan's framed drum poster


Our wooden carving from Bali

Our painting from Ghana


Keegan's print of David and Goliath


Jemilla's huge canvas print of poppies


And this lovely art work done by my best friend, Amanda

And now we can enjoy them so much more up on the walls of our apartment!