She's back!

And then it was over! And for her it all now seems like a dream. I know what that's like. Sometimes it's hard to imagine that there are all these worlds out there, and us not a part of any of them, but every one just as real as the one we're existing in, whether it's the vast savannahs of Africa, the turquoise waters of the Greek isles baking in the sun, or the cluttered chaotic streets of Jerusalem.

It's over, and she's missed The Gadget Man's family Christmas -- which for the first time ever they moved from Boxing Day (to the day before she came back). How unfortunate -- especially as this was the one year where she would be bursting with things to tell them. I can't tell you about the maternal outrage this roused in me -- a most interesting thing in itself, as I'm not particularly given to maternal outrage.

But it is lovely to have her back: the excited girl who has been dying to tell us how she ate dog and snake's head, but who stood (sadly for me to witness) somewhat aloof from the other girls, not quite fitting in, as is usual for her. It leaves me to wonder how we managed to have two children who are both outside the box. I know this should be a good thing -- what's wrong with raising individuals, after all? But it is hard when you see all the other kids with invites and not your kid, and it happens again and again and again. Still, I was never the most popular in class either. I had a few friends who were intensely loyal, and that was enough.

She has the prospect of starting at a new school next year, but that must all be the stuff of another post. In the meantime, let me dwell for a moment on just how wonderful it's been to have her back. Let me have that moment, for no doubt in a few more, she'll be fighting with her brother again, and I'll be left wondering what happened to the peace of the last four weeks and longing for that peace again.

Lack of communication

Now the funny thing about travel in the modern world (compared to when I travelled some twenty-five years ago) is the availability of email. When I went away it was a few addresses on your itinerary where you would hopefully wait for mail (and get it if you were lucky), or otherwise a post restante address. I do remember searching the V to W box at The Walkabout Club in London on the hunt for mail, and missing opportunities because my Dutch aunt wrote my name in such a way that my post was filed under D rather than V, and I only found my letters accidentally several months later when looking for mail for a friend of mine.

I wouldn't necessarily have expected any communications between Princess Sleepyhead and home because she's not that computer savvy and hardly ever uses email at home. But when we did have a few communications and knew that whenever she was going to be in Hanoi (which they're using as a home base) that she would have access, I became more hopeful. Only they've been told not to communicate, not to tell us anything about what they're doing until they're back.

Now, I understand this directive. The world can, at times now, seem too small a place, and not having communications adds to that sense of isolation, that sense of distance, of being in the wilderness, if you will, of being independent. But someone I teach with also has a daughter on one of these expeditions, and her daughter has been told the same things, but is emailing regardless. Oh, if only mine were as rebellious. Not often I'm wishing that from her.

I ought to have known. A few years ago, we were in Sydney and running late for a lunch appointment, prior to seeing Fiddler on the roof. So, there was my brother, crossing a deserted road on a red light, and me and his wife following, and PS standing resolutely on the kerb, unwilling to budge from it until the little man turned green. Neither my brother's entreaties nor his threats could make her move, and he was pulling his hair out with frustration. I had to admit is was funny to see him lose his temper, but even funnier to see her unmoved by it.

I should be glad she is not easy to persuade to break rules -- after all, ADD kids have a high rate of unwanted teenage pregnancy, and for many years this was The Gadget Man's fear for her. Now I see she is too much cast in my mould: too reserved and risk-averse (though she hasn't been risk-averse in physical situations that may have benefitted her to have been risk-averse -- but so far she has been lucky). So I shouldn't be cranky about not hearing. I really shouldn't. But I am. Well, not so much cranky, as frustrated. Just like my brother, really. 

Astronomy

How cool is this? Tonight (yesterday as I write this) we had a sliver (crescent) moon and two planets in close proximity: Venus and Jupiter, giving the appearance of a smiley face in the sky. Here's some photos I took on my new camera -- without a tripod. I do have a very old and slightly wonky tripod somewhere, but I'm not sure where it was. Image stabilisation helped me handhold (with the help of a post) with a 1.6 second shutter speed. These aren't perfect shots by any means but for handheld, they're pretty amazing. So we have the regular shot showing the smiley face, the close up, where you can see the moon's disc (and a ghost of it -- some kind of interference), and then one with a reflection, though it's too dark to see the water.

Having heard . . .

Surprisingly, we've had a few emails from her -- she's arrived safely, she's lost her journal (what? I spent hours on that, gluing in her itinerary on separate days, writing little notes from home, writing out addresses etc), she's bought a lot of DVDs. Silly girl. I told her not to buy anything until she's back from her two treks. Now she'll have to carry them!

We're all missing her -- even Sir Talkalot, which is the greatest surprise. I knew I'd miss her. I expected it. The Gadget Man's been reduced to rumblings about where she is, and consulting her itinerary every five minutes. All right, all right, that's an exaggeration! But he looks at the map at least twice every day.

We had her Opa's birthday, and put out a photo of her to represent the missing one -- because that's the one thing she said she was sorry to be missing. My, the bond those two share -- it's touching, but will be scary the day something happens to him. She's so devoted to him -- always has been. I still remember when she did have that febrile convulsion, and woke from unconsciousness crying, not "Mum, Mum", but "Opa, Opa". Yes, that made me feel really good! Made him pretty happy though.

And so we go on with our relatively uneventful lives, which seem that little bit less chaotic than usual, but quieter, more melancholic, and not at all living vicariously through all that she is doing. (Only because we don't exactly know!)

Good morning, Vietnam!

She's gone. After all that planning and all that scrimping and saving to get the funds together, after the school's concern that she's not punctual enough, and all the medical clearances (because of her scoliosis, her ADD, her allergy to bandaids, the fact that she had a febrile convulsion at age two, and one other thing that I can't currently remember) we've had to get, she's finally gone.

She stood in the car park, loaded up with pack and daypack, and I don't know who was more nervous: her or me. But I didn't let her know that I had anything but the utmost faith in her going on this journey. My mother said that she wouldn't have let me go at PS's age. And she's not very mature for her age -- but then neither was I. I did a lot of growing up on my travels (but then I was 24!).

This expedition will try her, and there will be times when, no doubt, she will be lonely, homesick, and wishing she had never gone. But there will be times that will exhilarate her. Times that will challenge her and make her grow. Times when she has never felt more alive.

Am I nervous about her going? You bet -- and if anything goes wrong then I'll never forgive myself. But neither would I forgive myself if I held her back. Two days I gave her the most precious gift a mother can ever give: I gave her the world.

Our day in the mountains

Here's a typical day in our chaotic life:

(i) Drive Princess Sleepyhead to choir rehearsals for a concert she's not going to attend because she's going to be overseas. The drive is 3/4 hour each way, and we should, of course, for good measure take a wrong turn and not have the Melways with us!

(ii) Many hours later, pick PS up from the rehearsal and cajole her into going on a trek up in the mountains (even though it's late) as training for her real trek that's happening in far too short a time.

(iii) When we (all four of us) arrive at the mountain, have PS refuse to go on the walk.

(iv) Let The Gadget Man and Sir Talkalot go, but before driving to the top to meet them (because it is, by this time, very late), decide it is silly for us to sit in the car for an hour or so when the whole purpose of the exercise is for PS to do it.

(v) Send PS up after them to tell them to come back.

(vi) Find a car park (no mean feat) and sit at the bottom for half an hour, and realise that PS isn't coming back.

(vii) Presume she must've caught them up and been convinced to go on, so drive up to the top, and find the boys already there (even though The Gadget Man has said it's a 1 1/2 hr walk up).

(viii) Ask where PS is and realise, with horror, that they haven't seen her.

(ix) Find out there are two separate tracks up, so let the boys take one each down, and meanwhile drive back down to the bottom and find another car park.

(x) Find within five minutes of arriving that TGM, on the steep path, has run all the way down. No sign of PS.

(xi) Start worrying in earnest. But not panicking yet. She might still be on the main path. She must be, right?

(xii) Realise there is a third track going off sideways. Let TGM, who grew up in the area, take that.

(xiii) Wait. No PS. No Sir Talkalot.

(xiv) Finally, spot PS coming from behind me and find she'd gone up partway, couldn't find them so decided to come back. Then she couldn't see the car and was cross with me because I hadn't waited, but noticed a whole chain of car parks, so went off investigating those, in case I was in one.

(xv) Wait for the boys.

(xvi) See ST arrive, and then realise his hand is streaming blood. He'd been coming down with his hand on the railing, and there was a protruding twig that went through the webbing between his thumb and hand.

(xvii) Wait for TGM.

(xviii) When TGM finally arrives, call in briefly at his dad's and clean up ST's hand.

(xix) Drive an hour to our local hospital, so they can glue his hand up and tell him he's not to stretch it for a week. He has a piano exam next Saturday, which he isn't ready for, and the doctor absolutely forbids him from practising, so now I'll have to let the teacher know.

Just another typical day in the suburbs really.

Schools: part 2: the high school saga

Choosing the right high school for your kid is hard. When they're in about grade 3 or 4, you start making the rounds at the various Open Days and thinking about what's best. Do you want the school with top VCE marks? (That might seem a no-brainer, but it's really not.) What about the one with that's strong on PE? Or has a fantastic performing arts studio? It's hard -- and it's very much horses for courses.

I went to a co-ed high school (state school), and I always insisted my kids would go to co-ed schools. I wouldn't even consider a single-sex school, regardless of statistics of whether girls got better education in single-sex environments, and that was largely because I don't see school as a place that is purely about education but rather social conditioning as well. (And I can see evidence from when my left-wing brother did a business-type course and came out at the end right-wing.)

What I was after for Princess Sleepyhead was good pastoral care -- she was a kid who was always going to benefit from a bit more care. A friend recommended a Christian college -- said it was the most caring school she had ever taught at, if we could stomach the religion, which she said she couldn't. Couldn't be that bad, I thought. Till I saw the prospectus. Every subject was centred around God. PE is where students celebrate their God-given gifts of athleticism and suppleness; art is where they worship God through drawings and paintings. Hmmm. A bit full-on. And then the history room with the timeline that told that the world only started a few thousand years ago. Hmmm.

I don't have a problem with a school that teaches creationism if they do it in the RE classes, but this school was teaching it in Science. I do have a problem with that. (Especially when they tell you there's no proof for either theory. I know what the more evangelical Christians say about the fossil records, but still...)

"You do teach evolution as well?" I asked, knowing they had to say yes.

"Yes, because if our students go on to university they need to know what they have to argue against."

That was the final straw. No, really, I think I was just pursuing the argument; the timeline had really been too much.

On the plus side, I had been very impressed when the principal, in his talk, spoke with pride about the child who had just failed VCE but who had far exceeded everyone's expectations. (It was a student with a learning disability.)

It's very easy to be bamboozled by schools with great scores, but you do have to bear in mind two things:
(i) that such schools often preclude students who are not doing well from sitting for VCE (and if they're private schools, there's the added indignity that they've accepted money for the right to educate your child for so long and then are prepared to ditch them because they may not reflect well on the school's results record)
(ii) the selective schools get good results because they start with the cream -- this is not to say that such students won't thrive among like-minded, dedicated people, just that you have to expect that the results will be better anyway.

PS has never been a particularly academic student. She was not going to thrive in a school where all the emphasis was on academic achievement. We looked at schools that seemed more proud of the architecture of their new science wing, than of the attitude or dedication of their teachers. We looked at schools that impressed us in their variety of subjects but which we didn't think she'd cope well with. In the end, we settled on a Catholic school with excellent pastoral care, somewhat surprising because we're not Catholic. This school has a mandatory RE program, but with a much more moderate view than the other school we looked at. I don't have a problem with a school that teaches all about a whole lot of different religions: Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism etc rather than trying to brainwash kids into any particular ideology. This school is also single-sex, but I know this was absolutely the best thing for PS (even if she didn't think so herself). As I said, horses for courses. Of course, the worst thing about a single-sex school for the parent with a girl and a boy is that when it's time to place the second-child you have to get back on the Open Day merry-go-round and start all over again.

Schools: part 1, the primary school saga

When I was a kid, our parents (most people's parents) sent us to the nearest state school, and that was it. No hard decisions. Nothing. I do remember, when I finished primary school, wanting to go to a private school because one of my friends was going there, and my mother just dismissed the idea out of hand. "We can't afford it," she said, and that was that. Then, when I was in year 10, she said, "You know, if you still want to go to that private school, we could probably send you next year."

Hmm. Trouble was that by then I was firmly ensconced in my friendship group. I said, "If you send me to another school, I'll drop out." And I meant it.

When the Gadget Man and I first married, we chose to build in a new area, and one of the first things we made sure of was that we were going to be near a public school. It wasn't built yet, but it was scheduled to go up, and would be walking distance when we finally had kids. Beautiful. Only then came a change of government, and the school, slated to soon begin, was put off, and there were talks of the block being carved up for housing. We were horrified.

In the end, the school did open a year before we needed it, and all was good. I remember walking around with three friends and our small children, thinking, it looks so small. And one of the other mothers said, "It looks so huge." Perhaps it was just my perspective. Nope. By the time Princess Sleepyhead was in Grade 3, they had run out of classrooms, and weren't able to acquire any portables but got the go-ahead to build. Great. All would be well.

Trouble was, by the time she started Grade 4, the building, which was supposed to be nearly finished, had only just started. The principal's letter told us it would be finished by the end of first term. We looked around and thought, nup. No way.

In the meantime, short of classrooms, they had bundled three Grade 4 classes into two rooms, taking out the divider in between, which meant there were around eighty kids and three teachers all together. Now, for a kid with ADD who was struggling to stay up this was going to be a disaster.

On the Thursday of that first week of school, I went and spoke to her teacher and asked when he expected the buildings to be ready. Really ready.

Not before half year.

Right. That was a no-go solution for us. Half year was best-case scenario. (As it was, they weren't ready till the beginning of fourth term.) The next morning, with our hearts in our mouths, we rang the new school that had opened up in the next estate. They could see us straightaway. It was a forty degree day, with a fierce north wind. The school, without any lawns yet in place, was like a dustbowl.

Class size at the new school was currently twelve. What? Wow. (Within a few weeks it had hit the twenties.) Perfect for an ADD kid. We said we'd give her a week to get used to the idea, and the principal assured us we were much better to move her straightaway, before she formed new friendship groups. "Start her on Monday," he said. What? Things were moving fast. Way too fast.

So we drove back to the other school to make an appointment to see the principal. She could see us straightaway, they told us. Hearts in our mouths, we told her of her decision. "You should take her out of class to go and see the new school," she said, "to get her used to the idea." Now? Now.

So we fronted up to her classroom. Poor kid had no idea what we were thinking and thought she was in trouble. We had no appointment to take her to the other school, but fronted up in all the heat and dust with this dazed kid who must have thought we were taking her to the school from hell. Ah, well, I thought, it will be a new start for her. Only one of the kids, when she was introduced to the class told the class who PS was, and that she had ADD. Great. (That same kid went on to bully her at high school.)

We were very happy that first year with our decision. This school had a much firmer hand on bullying than her last, where she had had her finger broken. The new teacher was terrific, even if we didn't see eye-to-eye on phonics.

At about this time, one of my students and I were comparing notes. Her daughter, also in Grade 4, was at a Steiner school. The previous year she had been telling me how wonderful it was -- all about the great things the kids were learning, and I was jealous. But this year, she was more bitter. "Oh, yes," she said, "my daughter can tell you all about Greek mythology, who this god is and who that one is -- she knows more about it than I do -- but she can't read or write."

My daughter had also been in an at-risk literacy class. "What, not at all?" I said, surprised, and thinking she meant not read and write well.

"Not at all," she said. "We're about to move her to a state school." And here I had been wondering if that might have been a good solution for PS. All children are different and have different needs, and some systems work better for some children than they do for others.

By the time PS was in Grade 6, we were moving suburbs. We didn't want to interrupt her final year, so left her at her new school. Her brother was only in Grade 4 and still at the old school, which we were less and less enchanted with. The decision to move him to our new local school was easy, only he refused to go. Of course, parents get the last say in such things, and we did move him, but not without angst. And he went from being the top of his grade to the bottom of his new grade, which said a lot about how far ahead they were at the new school. The new school put both other schools to shame. It had a fabulous arts program, a fabulous performing arts program, a fabulous sports program, and the most committed teachers I'd ever met. At the first school, all I'd ever heard from parents was grumbling; at the second school, I'd heard a mixture of grumbling and praise; but at this school all I ever heard was parents raving about what a great school it was. I felt like I was in a position to make a judgment (naively or not) because I'd experienced three schools, but these people didn't need convincing about how lucky they were. They knew it.

Sir Talkalot went off to school on Day 1 unwilling and unhappy. He came home that day loving his school, and was soon saying how much better it was than his old school. He never looked back, but when we say how PS struggled in her early years at high school, and how ST's school ran a transition program, we wondered how it might have been for her if she'd gone to that school for a while, if they'd both gone there all along. Better, I suspect, but we can only make the best decisions we can make at the time.

Learning from quails

The bird sagas at our house continue. Last year we bought some more quails to replace those that had been lost (escaped), and ended up with a few babies. This year we had four females and two males, and one day all four were ensconced on separate nests that were absolutely bursting with eggs. OMG, was there going to be some serious overcrowding or what?

One day I came home from work to find seven babies (five yellow and two white) and three mothers on nests. There were also a few scattered eggs that were half-hatched: obviously the effort of getting out had been too much. Quail chicks are not like canaries or many other baby birds in that they don't sit in a nest and wait to be fed. They're like tiny hen chicks: up and running from a very early age.

Over the next few days, I observed some interesting things. The next day, one had died -- it looked like someone had pecked its head. But the really strange thing was that one of the other mothers had adopted them: so she seemed to be sitting on the babies and her eggs, and was having trouble keeping them all warm. Now and then, the real mother would run up to the nest to try to get her chicks back (or so it seemed), only to have the adoptive mother fight her off.

I assumed this was an accident: that maybe she had strayed too close to the nest, or wandered past while the other quail was off the nest. In any case, over the next couple of days, the adoptive mother abandoned all her eggs -- she didn't need them: she already had her babies. But over the next few days, both other mothers abandoned their nests too, all taking on the care of the shrinking numbers of survivors. We're down to three now (two yellow, which will become grey, and one white, which will become light brown). The chicks don't seem too fussed who the huddle under, and I'm left whether this whole situation arises out of some innate biological desire to prevent overpopulation and stress on the food chain. Fascinating stuff.

Banana sagas

So, yesterday morning is a typical day. (Well, all right, not quite typical.)

I get up to take child #1 off to school. He finds an almost black banana skin in his bag. One he left there, I might add. He dry-wretches. He pulls himself together, but he's late. Has missed his bus -- but there's another that goes around the corner ten minutes after his. He might make it. But he doesn't. Not to worry. We can chase his, which ten minutes up the road has to do a big loop. While it's looping, we'll circumvent the loop and cut all this time off the trip and beat it to the stop. Only we don't. The bus stop is empty. We drive back home, having wasted nearly twenty-five minutes.

Child #2 should by this time be nearly ready to go to school. She's not. She's in the shower because no-one has been around to give her a time-check. Never mind droughts and soaring water bills. I give her the check and a kick up the bum. Metaphorically, of course.

Eventually, she comes down, and finds a squashed black banana in her bag. It's through her music notebook, all over her notes, its through her maths folder, her maths workbook, her maths textbook. Squished banana everywhere. She dry-retches. She needs both the music and maths books at school, so they can't be left for me to clean later. Both child has dry-retched over black bananas, so neither one is capable of helping me clean up. The books are fiddly. I have to clean each page individually and because the pages are soggy and sticky, sometimes the text comes off or the paper rips. It's a frustrating hour-long job. And then there's the bag itself...

Both kids are now very late for school. I have to write notes. And become taxi driver. Child #1's trip involves well over forty minutes. I have work to do, but by the time I get home it's after 10.30. Half my morning's gone. And I wonder why I never seem to get anything done. Go figure.

The selectiveness of memory

Yesterday morning Mum called to tell me a longtime family friend -- one of the stalwarts of my childhood -- had had a severe heart attack the day before and his kidneys were shutting down. Later that day came Dad told me he had died. By happenstance, I bumped into him last week, perhaps the week before. We traded words, a bit of banter couched as lighthearted, affectionate insults. That was our way, something we had done since I was a child. I walked away, frowning, thinking how frail he had grown. My parents' generation are falling. My mother speaks of what it is like to know she is next (generationally) in line. It's not something I like to contemplate.

Today, Mum composed the death noticed. We to-ed and fro-ed on it: whether to add the strange little joke we'd shared with Nev, the one that no-one else would get but that would have made him laugh (we didn't). Tonight, my parents came over, and we reminisced. Nev was the third of eight children. Only three remain. Mum was talking about the trip we made to his sister's once in South Australia when I was small. Perhaps five? It came up when she was listing his brothers and sisters, and was talking about one I didn't remember, though I knew her name. Mum said I should remember her from that trip as we'd stayed with her.

I cast my mind back. Even now, I remember just three things. I remember going in Nev's station wagon, the long, lonely kilometres (or was it miles?) as we drove all night long. My brother and I were crammed into the back area, with beds laid out, but it was bumpy and cold, and I remember looking up at the glittering stars -- so many stars -- and listening to the voices talking, watching my brother sleep and knowing then that I wasn't going to sleep in this forever night. That car was one we'd go down to Shelley Beach (the Back Beach) in, and we'd all line-up, sitting on the backrest of the back seat, and Nev would slam on the brakes so we'd all go flying. Not like these days where everyone is belted up, and no-one does anything irresponsible. (I remember Nev telling me he never trusted a driver who needed two hands on the wheel, something I often think about when wondering if I'm being irresponsible driving one-handed.) So there was the long lonely night drive, under a thin blanket, being jostled and jounced with every rut in the highway: that was the first thing.

The second was having breakfast at a diner in a service station, and having baked beans on toast. We never had hot breakfasts, so that was something special, something wildly decadent. Why I should remember that all these years is beyond me, but there it is: number two.

And no. three? No. three is a beach, a beach with long, flat yellow sands, too shallow to swim in. And the men going crabbing. Catching big crabs, crabs of a size I'd never seen before, crabs more than a foot wide, mind-boggling crabs for one who was well acquainted with their smaller variety. Hundreds of people harvested the beach. The walk out to the water took forever, and I desperately wanted to swim. I've always joked that I could swim well before I could walk (although strictly speaking it's not true), and talked of the year I went swimming every day with my dad, right through winter. These days they have a name for the people "brave" enough to do it, but in those days it was just something you did -- we did. Neville often came with us. Sometimes his brother, Kelly, too. But that day in South Australia, I didn't get to do more than wade. It felt like we walked through shallow water for more than an hour and never got past our ankles. But when the tide came in, the whole area flooded in a matter of minutes. I'd never seen such a thing -- so different to the miniscule differences (comparatively) between low and high tides at Williamstown beach. Everyone had bucketsful of crabs, and that time I ate crab for the first time. But that's another memory -- discovering how tricky it was to extract meat from the legs and pincers of the crabs, trying to crack them open.

As I'm sitting here, a few more things come to mind. Sunburn. That day I was burnt -- my arms and shoulders and face, tender for days. And I think they had a seesaw -- not the standard type with a wooden plank that used to be so common, but one you sat in, in a big metal frame. Or perhaps it was one of those groovy swings, I used to love, that would seat four people facing one another? Something anyhow. But that's it. There's a vague memory of a woman in a white and blue dress, but that could be pure invention.

And other memories (not of SA) of course. Going to his parents' house in Albert Street and being allowed to play on their piano -- or make noises on it, because I had no idea how to play. And, when my mum tired of the sound and forbade me banging on the keys, playing with the metal crocodiles on the floor -- about a foot long -- lifting their tails made their mouths open. And their mum, who always seemed small and doddery (in a way neither my grandmother nor great-grandmother were) would make us fizzy lemon drinks based on bicarb. How strange. I didn't really like them, but they were so different from what we ever got at home that I quite looked forward to them.

There are so many memories attached to Nev. The summers down at Port Campbell. Summer barbecues at Somers. Perhaps, more than any others, theirs was a family we belonged to by default, and he, more than any other, to ours. Nev never called my mum anything but Aunty. He was hard when he played with us, rough (in a masculine, acceptable way), didn't have kids of his own (at that time -- that came much later), and all the kids loved him and perhaps were a little bit scared of him. We used to taunt him: "Bombev Nev, Bombev Nev". None of us knew what it meant, but we'd hurl it at him and squeal and run, hoping he wouldn't catch us.

I remember him holding me out over a blowhole once, and being scared but trusting him implicitly. He would do things like that -- things that challenged us. We could show no fear. My dad tells the story of sending him overboard on a fishing trip once -- no accident -- and how Nev did the most elegant swan dive. Dad never fessed up that it was done on purpose, but Neville knew, and the two had joked about it for years. There's the story about how he got between our lab, Kim, in a dog fight and got bitten by accident. A severe bite, but not done intentionally. Memories, so many of them -- and as I write they well up, things I thought I'd forgotten. Strange how they do that. Strange how so many wait in there, stacked away in some dark recess, seemingly forgotten until something drags them back into the light.

The stalwarts are falling away, leaving behind holes that will never be filled.

A few more from the top!

And some pics from the top

Some pics from the Rialto tower

Views from the bottom

How exciting is this

Last Tuesday, as part of the school holidays, we went up to the viewing platform of the Rialto, which happens to be one of my favourite Melbourne buildings. Sir Talkalot, who'd been up before, was not at all keen to go because he wanted to go up Eureka instead. (For those who don't know Melbourne, the Rialto was for a long time the tallest building, but has recently been surpassed by the newer and much taller Eureka tower.) But we had cheap tickets (through a newspaper voucher) for the Rialto. Watch this space over the next few days, and I'll put up some of the photos. I'm very attached to place, so took lots of photos, and I love them all.

Anyway, while up there I found this groovy wall thingy (and didn't I wish I had an SLR with a polarising filter so I could cut the reflections, but I didn't so I couldn't, so my apologies for the crappy photos). Okay, so it's a world map with all the time and date zones, but it also shows what parts of the world are in sunlight at any one time. Now, I have never seen this before and found it wildly exciting, something that completely baffled and mystified my kids, who got to see their mum in all her geeky nerdiness. But I love this device. Look at the sweep and curve of sunlight -- how it portrays the seasons too. This wasn't quite the winter solstice for us, but fairly close. Now I'll have to go see it near the equinox.

The strange, the good and the tragic

(i) I get up this morning, and there's a pumpkin floating in the pool. We don't have a vegetable garden or any pumpkins. (Well, we have one now!)

(ii) Sir Talkalot wants to enter a competition. He's not completely happy with his entry. Segue to yesterday: we run it down to our local PO right on closing time to find out about express posting it. We compare this to the option of running it in by hand ourselves, which would give him time to improve his entry. The PO people explain if it has to be in at 5 pm, it can be picked up at any time during the day because the post is delivered at 6 am, so the boxes can be cleared any time after this. I get their point, but it seems a bit immoral if the conditions say that 5 pm is the cutoff, that the judges (or admin people) might turn up eight hours earlier...

Sir Talkalot decides to go the hand-delivery option. We are supposed to run it over this morning, only he decides to completely redo the entry. We have other commitments today. Finally, it's ready, but we have to run to catch a train and can't take it. We just miss the train home and get back at 4.20 pm, which gets us home a few minutes later. It's a half hour drive to where we have to go -- on a good run. We'll be picking up peak-hour traffic. But we can use the pay road, which may get us there a bit quicker. We leave the house at 4.35. It's really why-are-we-bothering territory now. We get stuck in traffic where we shouldn't, but then also have a good run where we shouldn't. We get there at 4.59. Pull over. Dash across busy road. It's 5.00. The PO is shut, but there are people inside. One in leaving lets ST in. He holds up his parcel, and the lady behind the desk nods. Strangely, it costs him $5.40 just to pass it across the desk! But it's in. He made it. He's happy.

(iii) A friend's daughter rings up to say her mum is really ill. In the last six months the daughter has lost her father (who didn't live with them) and her grandmother (who did). Now it looks like she might lose her mum. I'm really sad. I can't believe it.

Recently, another friend was talking about a mutual friend of ours who has this same illness and said our friend doesn't deserve it, and I said no-one ever does. And it's true. Life just sucks sometimes.

Surrounded by id... Nah, I'm not gonna say it

So, picture this. You are lying on the couch trying to take a nanna nap because you've only had a few hours sleep the night before, and when you've been trying to write the words are blurring, and your eyes stinging... In the distance, as you lie there with a brain too active for sleep, you can hear a conversation. It is your husband and your son. Your husband is telling your son he can drive the car (already in the driveway) further up the driveway. Your son is only thirteen. He's never driven a car before, and this car's a manual. You think, should I get up and tell him (the husband) not to be so stupid, that if he asks the son to do this, the son will put the car through the fence? You consider your answer. While you do, there is a sound. You know this sound. It is the sound of a car crash -- the sound of a car going through a fence. You get up, but you already know what you will find. You have taken too long. Your warning is moot. The horse has bolted. (Metaphorically, speaking.) The fence is broken -- the crossbeam broken and all the pickets out. The car is several feet into the garden, and the dogs are just staring. Lucky they were further back. You hear your husband blaming your son for this. Time to have a little discussion, you think.

Daily life with a twist

We currently have no lighting -- nearly a week now. We do have electricity, but only one light in the whole house is working; it's obviously on a different circuit to all the rest. And we also don't have a hotplate (oven's okay though) or pool pump, or any electricity out in the shed. It's not a fuse; I know this because we have circuit-breakers not fuses.

Happily, we still have TV, the fan on the heater (or I'd have moved out by now), and my computers. It is curtailing what can be done in a day though -- especially when you're trying to get a book finished. Grrr. There go the evenings. Still, imagine if I didn't have my computer! I don't think I could survive.

The bathroom's still full of candles, and we have a couple of lamps around the house -- and the kitchen lighting is currently via the rangehood. How lucky are we that we changed the globes the weekend before last?

I suppose it really is time to call an electrician. Mind you, I was out with a friend last night who told me she had friends who had no lighting for three years. Three years! Imagine that. Just don't let The Gadget Man find out, or he might use this as the latest let's-cut-our-bills-down scheme. Actually, perhaps not. He's not very good at turning lights off!

Romance or lack thereof...

I have the best husband in the world: he is kind, he is patient, he tolerates my writing and the house being in a mess because I'm writing and not cleaning the house, and he tolerates getting dumped with the kids because I'm on a writing retreat with my writing group or with my friend Ellen. He doesn't mind that I go to a reading rather than spend family time -- as long as I don't want to drag him along. He helps around the house. He is the best husband in the world. But he is not perfect.

So what doesn't he do? He doesn't do romance.

Take the other Friday night, for example. Princess Sleepyhead's formal. It was also a few days after our wedding anniversary. We had been going to go out for dinner for our anniversary, which is a huge thing because he would normally say why would he want to go out when he can have a nicer dinner at home. Men just don't get dinners out. (And if he thinks my meals are better than restaurant meals, he also lacks a fine culinary appreciation.)

So, the night of the dinner out, he was ill. Really ill. Miserable with a cold. So I suggested postponing it to the Friday night, when we were going to be stuck in downtown Tullamarine with several hours to kill, waiting to pick up PS. Okay, he said, let's do that.

Fine. Except that then Sir Talkalot tagged along. Okay, a romantic dinner for three. Not quite what I had in mind.

Oh, and in the food court. Did I mention that? Definitely not what I had in mind. I was thinking candlelight, soft music, some sort of romantic ambiance, fine food. Instead, I got food court. My choice of takeaway, and I should be grateful for that! Hmm.

Except, did I also mention, he decided he wasn't hungry, so while ST and I ate, he wandered off to look at shops. A nice romantic for two: my son and I. Most definitely not what I had in mind. As I said, men don't get dinners out, and my husband doesn't get romance! (But he's still the best husband in the whole world!)

Three faces of Eve

These photos are all off the same "roll" in the camera, and were taken a few days apart.

So face no. 1 is Princess Sleepyhead after a drama performance for school the other day. I'm like -- what the hell happened to your hair? She was wildly excited about the wild hair and the crazy look.


Face no. 2 was her getting ready to go to her school formal. A bit too much eye make-up, but that was my fault. It would've helped if I'd had something other than a blusher brush to apply it with, but that's the problem when you (ie me) hardly ever wear make-up: you don't realise all your eye-shadow brushes have disintegrated. It looked okay at the time, but seeing it in the photos, I'm left thinking, hmm, too much. Anyway. She was less wildly enthusiastic about this hairdo and cut, which I absolutely love. Too short, she says. So flattering, I say. So much nicer than all the one length, which it was. Now, I'm thinking perhaps I should get mine done too, though neither of us will be blow-drying it to make it look like this every day. Don't have time or the inclination, which is perhaps a bit sad.


Face no. 3 is the chorister, after her first Australian Girls Choir performance at Monash University. Oh, my God, does that girl light up on stage. She loves her singing and performing, that's for sure. I wonder wear she gets it from: not from either of her parents, that's for sure. But then my brother has always been a bit of an exhibitionist.


But the formal was on Friday night, the performance on Saturday night, which meant getting her to rehearsals in the afternoon, and taking and picking up Sir Talkalot from an exam in the city. The weekend was altogether too full on. Ah, but isn't taxiing one of the great joys of this generation of parenting. I won't miss that once they both get cars!

You know you're living in a good suburb when...

(i) You stand outside your local Coles and you can see the sea.

(ii) The overhead traffic mostly consists of pelicans.

(iii) The one time a hoon hoons down your street in the middle of the night has the neighbours speculating for days.

(iv) You can contemplate going for a walk alone at 11 pm without any qualms.

You know you're living in a bad suburb when...

(i) You go to Coles and the checkout gals are talking about the customer who came in with the green bag he'd vomited in...

(ii) Some man pretending to be lost asks your son to get in the car with him and show him where the main street is...

(iii) Your number plates get stolen while the car is parked at the local railway station...

(iv) All of the above happen within seven days...

How cool is this girl?

No, not me! Gabriella Cilmi -- cool name, cool look, cool clip, cool sound. I have her song so stuck in my head at the moment that it's driving me crazy. It's just popped up on my iTunes list. I cannot believe she is only 16! She looks about 25 in her clip. But I love the way her clip really does work in with the theme of her song. (Oh, I do love my playlist. I've gone from Madonna's and Justin's "Four minutes", to Sinead O'Connor doing Gershwin's "My man's gone now", to Gabriella to The Verve's "Bitter sweet symphony".)

Flying dogs!

This weekend I promised I'd go out and have fun -- see a movie -- and do some writing because it was my first week in ages where I didn't have lots of marking to do -- just four late assignments (and one early one!). Very little workshopping. I didn't get to that movie, but did do quite a bit of writing and editing, so I'm feeling happier and less stressed. And I went out a few times with my dogs, which was good for them and for me as I need the exercise. They were so happy they both attempted launches. Here they are in action:

Hectic plus one

Well, our big news this last week or two is that Princess Sleepyhead has been offered a place in the Australian Girls Choir. She auditioned late last year and was accepted into Concert Level, but there were no actual places available in this level. But now one has become available -- unfortunately not in the nearest venue, so instead we (or rather I, once my current crop of evening commitments finishes this week) have to hike on over the other side of town, battling peak-hour traffic, so that she can go sing for an hour and a half. She is keeping up her commitment with the Victorian State Singers as well -- they are such an excellent group, and are so privileged to work with Doug Heywood, who must be the best conductor on the planet. Yes, I am effusive in my praise, but not too effusive! Believe me, he deserves it.

Anyway, my writing friend Lita is over that way, so I'm hoping some times to catch up with her (and perhaps our other friend Ellen, depending on her commitments). Not sure how it will work yet, as I'll be time-limited by drop-off and pick-up times. The other weeks, I might just take my laptop -- and a rug for when winter settles in properly. I may just be able to squeeze in an hour and a half's writing, which would make the drive over worth it! Perhaps I can get myself a pair of fingerless gloves!

Dumb things

Oh, today I had the culmination of a dumb moment. I cannot believe it. Here's how it played out:

I'm in the bank, see, filling out my form. I've just written a cheque and dated it 2 May, but when I look at the date in the bank it says the first. Oh, they've forgotten to change it, I think, and for reassurance I touch my mobile phone. Hang on a minute: it says 1 May. Freaky. That can't be right. So I stand there and think. They must've forgotten to change the date, and the phone is out because it's a leap year, and it's like daylight savings and doesn't automatically correct. Except the logic is wrong -- it should then show the third.

Okay, Tuesday was the 29th -- I know this because the prior Tuesday was the 22nd, and I know this because it was my birthday, and I had to do my long day at work. 22 + 7 = 29. But it says today is the first. And today is Thursday. It is Thursday, right? What did I do yesterday? Work? No, I was at my writer's group: today is definitely Thursday. The banking staff must've got the date wrong. I count out knuckles to check my maths. Looks right. But there are only 28 days in April -- 29 this year because of the leap year. So what was the date on Wednesday? I've lost a day somewhere. Was Wednesday a non-day? How can that be? It can't. It's nonsensical. And yet -- and yet -- Wednesday doesn't have a date. It's after April, but before the first of May. It's no-month day. Bizarre. Wondrous.

So I make my way over to the line for the tellers, determined that I will ask if they have the day wrong. And then it hits me -- there are actually 30 days in April. Not 28/29. That's February's domain.

Oh, God.

It just occurs me that in both my Tuesday classes I've made a joke about this day coming around only once in every four years, and they've chosen to spend it with me. And in neither class did anyone laugh -- or point out the error of my thinking. They must've been wondering if I were on drugs!

Oh, well. It'll make my mum happy, as I still remind her of the dumb things she said when we were travelling.

Missing the action

One of the things I sometimes do is take photos for my swamp blog. (I used to have it on my blogroll but since changing skins I don't seem to be able to have a blogroll anymore, which is a bit sad.) I'm sure no-one else is interested in the swamp blog but me, but I really enjoy looking at it. I must have over 100 photos so far, and no two are the same, which I find totally amazing. I think my kids think the whole swamp blog marks me as mildly odd, but that's okay. I'll take mildly odd over dull and predictable any day. And to be honest, I don't think it's odd at all. I think it's fascinating. (But maybe that does just mark me as a major sad case.)

So, what I hate is when I see some weather anomaly, and I'm not close enough to the swamp to capture it. Tonight it was an unusual sunset, seen when we were descending the Westgate Bridge. Here it is -- would have been the right direction to capture it and all. Never mind.

Now it's me...

falling apart. Today, I lost half of a tooth. I was eating something I shouldn't (of course!) -- some Toblerone -- and said to my son, "Ooh, it's got a bone in it." And of course we both thought this was a bit silly, so then I thought it must be a stone -- only my tongue found this new sharp object in my mouth. Yuck. Lots of new sharp angles -- quite uncomfortable, but the good news is that the nerve isn't exposed. That's the worst thing. I've had teeth play up that hurt when I opened my mouth to speak because the air temperature was cooler than the air temperature in my mouth. This isn't actually hurting, and it's a second-back tooth, so I'm spared the embarrassment of not being able to open my mouth in public. Which is good because I have work commitments and won't be able to get to the dentist for a few days.

In the meantime, as far as the house roundup goes: I have no idea what's happening with the fence. Our neighbours are in a rental property and had contacted the estate agent, and the owner wants to make all the arrangements because he can claim it on his tax. Only we don't know what's going on. And if I'm at work I'll have to make arrangements for my dogs.

In between doing stuff for work today, I've been to the movies to see In the shadow of the moon, and I am just ... WOW! Oh, I have been a space geek for as long as I can remember -- largely because I am just old enough to remember the moon landings, and the huge effect that had on my life. I remember visiting NASA (in Houston, at the Cape, at Langley...) and at Houston, the audience being quizzed -- "Which American made the first space walk?" and muttering "Ed White" under my breath -- knowing all the answers and being too shy to put up my hand, and the guy doing the quizzing being disappointed that no-one knew any of this stuff. Oh, my God. I was as excited to be in those places -- and to visit the Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian -- as I was to visit Tintagel in England. Ask my mum about me in any of those places... Pigs in shit and all of that! Walking on an orange gantry! Running my hand along a Saturn V! Is that heaven, or what?

Our birds

I've blogged a bit about our birds lately, and thought it must be time I posted some photos. None of finches because we don't have them anymore. But above are our quails -- you can see three adults (two grey and one brown) and three babies (both grey) if you look carefully. The brown male got away while I was at Philip Island -- that was the Gadget Man's fault -- actually most of our escapees are due to the Gadget Man! The quails are quite amazing because they emerge from their eggs with feathers and running around, though with the awkwardness at first of new foals, but quite unlike canaries, which are featherless, have their eyes closed and just sit there and cheep for food.

And seeing as I had my head in the aviary and the zoom on to get close to the birds, below is one of our canaries too! None of the birds are particularly tame, so they don't let anyone too close. This year we've only had one baby canary survive. Their were plenty of eggs, but the finches kept rolling them out of the nests.

Forgot to take a photo of the pigeon -- it must've been in hiding in the foliage -- but it's only a temporary resident while its wing heals.

Crisis after crisis

Earlier this year we had the solar heating on our pool fixed. Then our pool broke. Today, someone came to pressure-test the pool pipes. (Man, these pools drain a lot of money!) No major leakage, so next we need a structural test. This is before anything is fixed.

Last week our hot water service blew up. We did want to go solar, because it's more environmentally friendly, but the 5 k price tag put us off. Well, put us out of the running, really. You can get a rebate, but it was still beyond us.

Our washing machine is dying. One wash now takes two hours, and requires manual intervention a couple of times at least per load.

And today our fence blew down. Did we do something to offend someone upstairs? lol. It does seem one thing after another at the moment. Last year it was our fridge, just after buying a new computer...

Yeah, these things happen to the best of us, and it would be nice if the daily living bills: car insurance, rego, hot water, gas etc could just take a rest, but they never do. I suppose now I know what I'm working for... But wouldn't it be nice to actually save some money?

Yeah, I shouldn't whinge. It's just life, right? Grist to the writing mill.

Roadtrip

Last Friday, two of my colleagues and I did the inaugural PWE (Prof Writing and Editing) roadtrip to Castlemaine to buy soap. When I told my husband I was going on a two-hour drive to buy soap, he looked at me as if I'd gone slightly loony. Well, perhaps not slightly!

My boss had been talking about this divine soap for ages, and the three of us (her included) talked about putting in a big mail order, but then it was going to be too big, and in any case we thought it might be fun to all go together. And it was!

We talked work all the way up, of course, and had a bit of a singalong to "O Fortuna" on the way back. Well, there were some actions and stuff from one of us, but the rest of us didn't sing! And we bought soap. Oh, and books, but that goes without saying. Every country town has to have a bookshop, yes?

The soap shop was ... wow! So many colours and fragrances. And unfortunately so much sneezing on my part! Didn't stop me from buying though, and above is my haul -- minus one soap I gave to my mother, but it was one I had accidentally doubled up on. My one regret is that I couldn't get the vibrant blue-and-purple one I'd been given as a prezzie last birthday. Oh, but I lie: there is one other regret, and it's a writerly thing. As two of us sat outside the shop while the third member finalised her purchases, I couldn't help thinking about how much writing time I'd given up -- even though I was enjoying the trip. There's always that tinge of guilt -- the what-if-I'd-stayed-at-home-and... But that just shows that the writing (or in this case editing) is going well!

Now, I have them (back in the bag) sitting next to my novel on the kitchen table, and periodically I pause my work to have a smell of one or two or three of them. Seriously, I am in love with soap. My other fetishes are towels and coloured paper (stationery in general, really), but now I have added soap to the list. Oh, and books are on that list too, of course, but that goes without saying!

Five fave things

Hmm, Claire has tagged me, so here's my response:

Five favourite snacks:
(i) chocolate
(ii) chocolate
(iii) chocolate -- can you guess where this's going? Oh, okay:
(ii) chips, preferably chicken flavoured, or sour cream and chives or chili flavoured
(iii) Twisties -- must be cheese flavoured. Hate the chicken ones. Otherwise, love Cheezels too.
(iv) corn chips -- must be cheese flavoured, or tangy cheese. Nice with guacomale, sour cream and hot taco sauce.
(v) cake -- preferably chocolate.

Hmm, I can see a serious problem here. Here's some others that I do enjoy:

(i) grapes
(ii) bananas
(iii) oranges
(iv) cantaloupe
(v) apples -- if tart and crisp

Five favourite quotes:

(i) Today is a good day to die. (Hmm, now I'm quoting Klingons. That is a worry.)
(ii) You only fail if you quit.
(iii) If you shoot for the moon and fail, at least you'll end up in the stars.
(iv) May the force be with you. Well, I could have said: "General Kenobi, years ago my father served you in the clone wars ..." Or quoted the whole movie, really.
(v) I am Locutus, a borg. Resistence is futile. Your life, as it has been, is over. From this time forward, you will service ... us.

Five things I love about my current job:

(i) I get to think about and talk about writing. When I'm doing research, it's about writing. Writing, writing, writing -- how could I not love my job?
(ii) If I muck something up, someone doesn't die. (Yeah, a legacy from my old medical laboratory scientist days, not that I killed anyone, but I did almost burn down the lab! And I can't tell you how many sleepless nights I had worrying about a grainy crossmatch (a check that blood is compatible). And I don't now get called in in the middle of the night.)
(iii) I get to work with people, rather than bits of people. I am a people person, and I enjoy interacting with the students. Really. I love it.
(iv) The team I work with -- man, are those girls dynamos! And fantastic to work with. Can't say that often enough.
(v) I feel like I'm making a difference -- that I'm helping my students realise their dreams, and that's an amazing feeling.

Five places I'd like to live:

(i) in the world of my novel. Hmm, would I really want to? All that violence? But the horses ... the horses ... And my protagonist ... So, yes, the city of Plinth.
(ii) Somewhere that's both rural and coastal -- on an estuary.
(iii) Jerusalem -- my favourite city in the whole world. At least to visit. An amazing city, so rich in history and in culture. The most extraordinary place I've ever visited.
(iv) London. Okay, I've lived in London and thought it sucked, but it would flag a return to my travelling days -- when London is not so much home but home-base.
(v) The Greek Islands -- Santorini, particularly, because how can anyone go past Santorini.
(vi) The moon. Am I joking? Of course not. Luna Base. Low grav, all of that. The view of Earth rising ...
(vii) Carcassonne -- beautiful medieval city, a chance to sharpen my very poor French.
(viii) Delft -- my father's homeland, one that is part of me (though he is from Druten, near Nijmegan, and my aunts are in Arnhem and Wijchen). Time to absorb the canals, the lifestyle, and research the time-travelling novel I'd like to set there.

Oh, did I say five? Clearly I'm mathematically challenged!

Five fave current TV shows:

This is difficult because I'm not sure I'm currently watching five, but here goes:

(i) The Sarah Connor chronicles -- nothing like a bit of SF in the mix, and I am enjoying this one. (And waiting eagerly for Battlestar Galactica -- as one of the few fans of both the old AND the new series -- and Dr Who (and Torchwood))
(ii) Grey's Anatomy -- love that McDreamy ...
(iii) Desperate Housewives -- I AM Susan. Well, Susan crossed with Lynette. (Ha ha, in looking for Lynette's name because I couldn't remember it I did a quiz to find out which one I am, and I'm ... Susan!)
(iv) Dirty Sexy Money -- my new guilty pleasure, which I only started because Nate from "Six Feet Under" was in it -- and didn't that show have the best ending EVER?
(v) Toss up between two shows that I'm watching on an occasional basis: The Biggest Loser and Medium. Like 'em both.

I tag whoever wants to run with it!

No chaos to report

What? I hear you say. What?

Yes, that's right: things are quiet in our household this weekend. As they were last weekend, only I wasn't around to know about it. (And so here are the obligatory photos of my weekend away.) So what is the trick? I hear you say. Well, the mothers and fathers of you.

Easy. Get rid of one kid.

Last week it was Sir Talkalot. His was actually an extended stay because he went to school camp Tuesday, came home Thursday and then, the same night, went to scout camp for four days. This week it's Princess Sleepyhead's turn. She's on a training camp for her World Challenge expedition at the end of the year.

I love camps. The house is peaceful. No-one is shouting, "You're a bastard" or "You're a bitch". I don't have to admonish a shouted "Fuck you" with a "You can't. That's incest!". (And don't they hate it when I say that!) There are no fists thumping into flesh, no sly pinches, or hip-and-shoulders. Honestly, I think I'm training them to be AFL recruits. I guess it's lucky it's not rugby! Anyway, peace and quiet means I can work on stuff for school and, even better, on my novel!

Away for four days

What I love is how I can't go away for four days without all kinds of chaos reigning in my absence.

#1 The Gadget Man gets pruning
It's one of the great inevitablilities in life that if I go away the Gadget Man will do one of two things: prune or move all the furniture about. The Gadget Man is not Mr Greenfingers. If he were, he might be called Mr Greenfingers instead of the Gadget Man. But he's not. One time he came into the house to get me to come out and admire the great pruning job he had done. I came out. I looked around. I said, "Where's the plant?" It had gone from being two metres across to a stick poking out of the ground. I'm not joking. He said it would recover. It didn't.

This time our neighbour, Mr Brickaday (not my name for him) came over, scratched his head and pointed at the tree the Gadget Man was pruning, and said, "Thirty years to grow and thirty minutes to destroy." Yes, indeed. I think I love Mr Brickaday.

#2 Let there be a disaster
This time it was the hot water service blowing up. I thought it might be the washing machine since it definitely is on its last legs, but no the hot water service was the one. Now, I did say to the Gadget Man all week that I was worried about it because I could smell gas, and he kept assuring me that was just the nearby factories, and I kept assuring him it was not, that I could only smell gas around the hot water service. Guess I won that one, right? And I wasn't the one who had to live with cold showers. Ah, the joys of staying at home.

#3 Let there be another disaster -- one involving pets
So the poor lonely male quail has been alone a long time -- calling and calling for a mate. Finally, he gets his wish, has his mates for a few weeks and what does the GM do? Lets the male out of the aviary by accident, and he's such a panicky, flighty bird that he's immediately away. Gone. For good. Now all the GM had to do was figure out how to tell Sir Talkalot who was away on scout camp.

Ah, yes, the joys...

Those poor girls/teachers

You know, when a school plans out a two-week bike ride they take everything into consideration, including traffic and the weather. Who would've predicted such a prolonged heatwave so late in the season?

Princess Sleepyhead came home from school a few days ago with her report on the bike ride: six girls in hospital. Heat stroke/exhaustion, I think, and the poor PE teacher is having to ride non-stop, no doubt to keep the teams going. I'm not sure whether the plan was for him to do this or not, originally.

Those poor girls. And being six short likely means everyone else has to do more. Those poor teachers -- not just for the stress of having to keep it all going, but for feeling perhaps some measure (unwarranted) of guilt, and dealing with the worry of should they or shouldn't they go on. I hope the parents of the girls will all be forgiving! And now I'm not feeling quite so bad about PS not being allowed to go -- not that I would wish this on any of them. I hope the weather brings them some relief in their second week on the road.

The trials and tribulations of Princess Sleepyhead

Poor old Princess Sleepyhead -- she feels the world is against her. And in truth, I'm left feeling the betrayer, the one who has done what she always said she wouldn't.

Wind back the clock twenty years (or thereabouts). I am studying at RMIT, doing my science degree, and my friend Rose tells me how she wanted to become an exchange student, and her parents said yes. But then she was accepted into the program, and her parents said no, and that they'd only agreed to let her go because they thought she wouldn't be accepted. And when she told me how devastated she was, I sympathised and said I'd wanted to be an exchange student too, but my parents hadn't let me apply. I had never seen how this could be a plus until I considered how upsetting her parents' refusal must have been. I vowed I would never do that to my children. And I can't think that I have. Until now. Now I have become Rose's parents: I have done the terrible turnaround.

My turnaround centres on her school's fundraising bike-ride from Adelaide to Melbourne. It's a team relay, with girls riding legs of a certain length, depending on their fitness level. Originally, PS asked me about this last year, and because she's already going to Vietnam at the end of this year, and missing a substantial amount of school, we said no. If she were up with her school work and endeavoured to catch up on missed classes, things would be different, but we have to plot around the realities of her life -- the life she has made for herself.

So, the girls all started their training over the holidays, but not PS because she wasn't going. All's good so far. But then she nagged and nagged, and we said no. But then she dragged me into the school to talk to the PE teacher, who I suspect could sell ice to an eskimo. He was very persuasive -- almost had me wanting to go, and considering how I hate cycling...

I outlined my concerns: her being behind at school and missing two more weeks, her refusal to catch up on missed classes, her bad back, and he talked about how they could help her with school work while she was away, and how sometimes experiences like this instill kids with new confidence that affects the way they face the challenges in life, and how this could be the most fantastic experience and was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I imagined two weeks without the siblings trying to scratch each other's eyes out: peace!

The Gadget Man had said that I should go to the meeting with the teacher, and that he would support whatever I decided: the final decision was mine. And so I listened to the PE teacher and relented. (Note to parents: be consistent in what you say. We've all heard it a thousand times, and know there are good reasons for it, but sometimes that relenting is just so seductive. Don't go there.)

So I went home and told the Gadget Man that she was going, and he looked at me aghast and asked what I had done.

I said, "You said the final decision was mine."

He said, "Yes, but you were supposed to say no."

There's a lesson there on communication, but I don't think many husbands read this blog so I'm not going there today.

So, PS was happy. The following Wednesday (two days hence) was training after school. I dropped in to pick up her bag.

"I feel sick," she said. "I don't think I should go."

"I think you'd better," I said. "They'll think you don't want to go."

"But I might throw up," she said. So I spoke to the teacher, and he said she should go but could sit out if she felt she had to. She went. She rode. She fell off. Twice. But she did ride, at least.

Then they had Beep (fitness) tests at school. She missed the first one because she decided she had to go to the toilet in the middle of it. I told her she should have held on and completed it. Then she had a vocal ensemble meeting -- the first -- and as we'd just signed her up for singing lessons, conditional to her joining the vocal ensemble, I said she should go. I also suggested she see the PE teacher first, in case that was going to be problematic. Instead, she sent a message with a friend, and needless to say the message didn't get passed along, though none of us knew this for a while.

So, a few days later, they had a meeting after school. PS didn't go because she had piano lessons, but her dad went and one of the other teachers collared him, saying she had concerns about PS going. Her concerns were: PS's back (not just for the riding but for the sleeping on the ground), that she's always late for school (true) and as they have 7 am starts were worried about her not being ready in time (and she didn't know the half of it -- this kid takes two minutes (really) to put on two socks), also that she's not a team player (she hadn't turned up to meetings like that one (PS said she had attended others) or to her Beep tests, that she didn't seem too keen as evidenced by her not wanting to attend the training. The Gadget Man said we'd discuss it at home.

We decided, in the end, that it wasn't fair to let her take someone else's spot when she did seem half-arsed about it. She was devastated, but as my brother said, when I phoned him, she was saying one thing but all her actions were saying something else. For example, I asked her to give me a commitment to say she would endeavour to catch up on her missed work, and she refused to do that. So I rang the other PE teacher, and I think he was quite relieved, even though he'd been the one who had talked me into it in the first place. He said, "Look, if it goes well, it could be a terrific experience for her, but if it goes badly it could be terrible for her." And I did say in her defence that she wasn't a quitter. She would give 100%, and she would. I've seen her run cross-countries and, exhausted, slogging the way home, never pausing, just running like a knackered old workhorse fit only for the knackers! She passed many a girl who'd given up or who'd dropped to a walk. Not her. She just kept going. But this time there was going to be no going on.

So, here I am, feeling like my friend's mother and wishing I'd never said yes in the first place. Or that I'd never turned around and said no. I'm not sure which. Oh, well, no-one said bringing up kids was easy!

My silly, chaotic family

So, today, I have to take Sir Talkalot into school with his model of a motte and bailey castle. It's too big for him to get on the bus, especially as he has to take his violin, his laptop and his sports gear... So he has those all packed. And I tell him we have to leave at 8 a.m. because I need to be in at work early because the parking has just gone nutty this year (yes, thanks, facilities or whoever you are who have marked all the overflow parking areas as no-standing zones). I tell Princess Sleepyhead that she won't be able to get a lift today because we're going early. Her school is easy walking distance. 8.20 am Sir Talkalot finally tells me he's ready. There has been the appearance of the crazy harridan woman (i.e. me) in the meantime. What is so hard to understand in the must-be-ready phrase?

So, by this time PS is just about ready and begs a lift. She brushes her golden tresses (read birdsnest) in the car. We pull over at the kerb, and I scream at her to get out because I have to go and she's not moving, but she nonchalantly continues brushing. I'm gritting my teeth now. Any harder and my jaw will ache. She leaps out, and ST and I sail away, if not happily, at least away. We get caught at the train line, end up behind a slowwww truck, but at least the traffic is good. The traffic going the other way is horrendous.

I drop him at school, and he picks up his violin, his laptop, his project and... Not his bag.

His sister has taken his bag. With his art assignment. (He gets a demerit for this, and the teacher says she doesn't want to hear any more excuses, which is a bit harsh as it's his first late assignment for her.) He also loses marks on his oral presentation in another subject because his cue cards are in his bag -- he loses marks for not having them, and for his presentation being too short. (He later realises he left out two paragraphs, but as the whole thing was in his bag, I suppose he did well to remember what he did.) And could have been in trouble as he didn't have his sports uniform, which meant he had to sit out of his interschool sports.

And then to top it all off, I got lost in the extended car park. Don't ask. That's just too much information!

Brother update

Thanks for all of those who have put comments on my blog. I'm happy to report that he's doing really well. I think the time has almost come when there can be some serious teasing about how he could fit a tumour the size of a tennis ball in there without any serious (scratch that) -- without any side effects whatsoever...

He's going to be at home for a little while yet, recuperating. I might just see if I can get myself up there for a visit soon!

Brother update

All is going well. Temperature normal now. Apparently, he's never allowed to dive into a swimming pool again, and has to wear a helmet if he skis or plays golf in the next twelve months.

But so far all is well...

Second operation

Well, my brother had his second op yesterday -- an acrylic plate inserted in his head. For days, there has been nothing but stitched-up skin and a bit of hair between his brain and the world. Scary stuff. I'd hate him to fall over or bang his head! If I were a doctor I'd be keeping him in bandages, or, better yet, donning a helmet.

So far all is well, though tonight he is running a slight temperature. His biggest risk at the moment is infection -- if he develops one they have to open him up again. I imagine they've got him on a pretty tough antibiotic regime. My mum and dad have gone up to Sydney to see him, and Mum was freaked out by the size of the cast of the piece of skull that had to be replaced. Main thing though is that they've got it all, and that so far the ops have gone well. Now, if we can just keep those bacteria at bay...

Valentine's day: our day of giving thanks

My brother had a brain tumour removed today -- a tumour the size of a tennis ball. Fortunately for him, it was benign -- a meningioma, but it had invaded the meninges. Benign brain tumours can kill -- just because the space within the skull is limited. So the question becomes: how could he have such a big tumour and be asymptomatic. No headaches. Nothing. How lucky was he.

None of us worried about it. A specialist had told him years ago that he had a bone abnormality -- his forehead seemed to have changed shape, gotten bigger. And it had. Recent scans showed the skull there to be 2 cm thick, whereas elsewhere it was 0.8 cm. No one queried anything else much, and it was only by chance that he went to a plastic surgeon to have droopy eyelids lifted so he could see, and the plastic surgeon refused to do anything till he'd had it all checked out.

Now comes the waiting game. Part of his skull has been ferried interstate so a replica can be made of it, and put in his head. The biggest risk now is infection.

So, he's lying now in hospital, being woken every half hour. I imagine his progress will be slow and painful -- at the moment he's doped up with morphine. But as long as he does improve, everything will be fine.

It's hard being so remote to it. He's interstate. Times like this we need to be geographically closer. I'd like to go in tomorrow and see him, but I can't. Can't contemplate the trip up because classes start next week, and I'm not on top of things.

We do need to give thanks that they found it now. And now we're left scratching our own heads about how no-one, not one of us, was worried enough about his lump to insist of further investigation. Was it because our grandma had a strange lump on her head? (Maybe she had a tumour too.) Was it the lack of concern by the doctors? Was it just our need to believe that everything was okay? That old head-in-the-sand attitude never helped anyone. I'm just glad he got to it when he did -- before there was any damage. The consequences could have been horrific. And now I'll pray for the bugs to stay away, and for his op next week to be just as successful.

Sorry day

For the first time in a long time, I felt, today, as though we might have a government with courage and integrity. Today is the day Kevin Rudd said sorry. I'm sorry too. Sorry for all the past injustices. Sorry that it went on so long, that it's taken so long. I'm sorry there has been so much exploitation, and I hope today can bring a new healing, a new start.

Let me add my voice to the many thousands: I'm sorry.

So fast, so fragile

Warning -- if you are at all squeamish about animals, do not read on!

We lost a finch the other day. Like all stories in this house, it's not a simple one, and requires telling -- maybe just because I need to tell it.

On Thursday, I was changing the water in the aviary, when a blur went past my head. Now, to put this in perspective, our aviary is quite large -- over two metres tall in parts, three metres long and a metre deep. I've never kept birds before and don't really like the idea of it, but at least they can fly about in this. We had no intention of getting birds in the first place, but caught a couple of canaries soon after we moved into the house, and have gone on from there. Last year, we lost half our thirteen canaries, when The Gadget Man accidentally left the cage door open. I managed to recapture one who was trying to return by opening the door for it, and it went very happily in.

At the end of last year, we bought four finches to keep the canaries company. We now have about 40 (and are back up to 11 canaries); the finches fly in a flock. They sit in the vines at the top of the cage, whereas the canaries have colonised the middle of the cage, and fly about as individuals. The finches roll the canary eggs out of their nests. And pecked a mouse to death -- or so my children said. So, to lose a finch was not that heartbreaking a deal, especially when considering how to handle the population explosion. So, yes, it wasn't a big deal except that for two days she tried to get back into the cage. She tried desperately.

Because she was so desperate, I tried to recapture her and let her back in, but our finches are a lot wilder than the canaries. I can go up to the canaries in the cage and talk to them; if I get too close they may or may not fly off. But the finches panic every time I go near them. (As does the one lone quail at the bottom of the cage, but he's getting better gradually.)

As we were having dinner on Friday night, out on the deck, we saw why the finch was so desperate: she was a baby, and her parents were feeding her through the wire of the cage. So Gadget Man, being inventive and practical, rigged up a trap: he took our old, small birdcage and lifted the top off on one side, so it seemed hinged, propped it open, put some seed in the bottom, and rigged up a great long string so that we could tug the whole lot shut. Then we waited. Gadget Man got tired of this, so I took over. Eventually, the little bird fluttered in, and when she was two-thirds down the bottom, I tugged the string. The cage lid fell; the bird rocketed up -- and there was a flurry of feathers.

Success! Inwardly, I exalted. I had caught her, and would be able to return her to her mother.

The exultation lasted all of a split second, because the bird plummeted down and lay still on the bottom of the cage. Sir Talkalot reckoned he saw the cage lid hit the bird's neck and bounce up again. Although I was watching, I didn't capture the scene in such fine detail. In any case, it seemed that I had employed a very blunt version of Mme Guillotine, and had broken the bird's neck.

I was devastated. My good turn, my kindness had become a cruelness (though not as cruel as condemning her to death by starvation -- at least it was quick). Perhaps she didn't break her neck -- birds are prone to heart attacks as well -- but in any case she was dead, and I was left wishing I'd waited that fraction of a second longer, that I'd left the string-pulling to Gadget Man, anything, any little change that would have seen a different outcome.