CHTHONIC

testing

2011-06-26T11:58:00.002+10:00

I may start to blog again if I can get the hang of this new notebook

Asylum Seekers in detention in Australia

2010-10-31T09:33:00.000+10:00

From the Asylum Seekers Resource Centre in Melbourne. Some of the myths about detainees:

MYTH 21: Asylum seekers are illegal immigrants

FACT 21:

There is no such thing as an illegal asylum seeker. Australia is a signatory to the Refugee Conv...ention of 1951

which means that a person is able to seek asylum in Australia by boat or plane, with documents or undocumented. They

are breaking no laws under the Refugee Convention of 1951.

MYTH 22: Asylum seekers don't need to come all the way to Australia, they could stop in another country along

the way.

Fact 22:

• There is no queue or processing system for asylum seekers to come from Afghanistan or Iraq.

• There is no requirement under the Refugee Convention for a person to seek refuge in their first country of arrival.

• For asylum seekers who make it to Indonesia from the Middle East, the available countries who are signatories to

the Refugee Convention and accept refugees is very limited. Indonesia is not a signatory. From Indonesia to

Australia only Cambodia is a signatory.

updates

2010-10-29T12:44:00.000+10:00

Winter has passed, summer heat looms like a big thick blanket at the bottom of the bed. I married Anthony, my second son went to and returned from 2 months in Italy, my baby has been making a strong recovery from the ravages of Coeliac Disease, my third son is reading and talking ten to the dozen (what does that expression come from?), my number 1 son turns 16 today.
I'm still in one piece. I go to a gym, so does Anthony, but not together, swinging our towels. No.
I'm hating being size 14/16 and will try by removing all sugar, well as much as possible , from my diet and stopping the wine habit, oh and maybe the butter and cream in coffee habit.
I don't like sweet stuff, but it's all the hidden sugars. yes I'm being influenced by a book I picked up last week at the ABC shop, called Sweet Poison -< that there's a link.

What else? My hard drive is stuffed, it's being re formatted, I will lose everything and have to start again. IT is so unreliable. I have also been rather, ahem, active on FB.

Tired again

2010-07-05T16:41:00.000+10:00

Awake since 3am with a wretched cough, despite high potency echinacea.

Saw the dietician at the hospital today about Llewy and Coeliac Disease. I am doing all the right things but have to be more vigilant about bread crumbs and cross contamination.

Bought Giulio a steamer wet suit so he can go in the surf through winter .

Spoke to Laurence last night. He is going to Venice for a few days and staying with a friend of my ex's there. Only 2 weeks till he's back.I urged them to visit Burano, not Murano the glass making island but another island with fantastically coloured houses. Torcello is another island worth seeing for its cathedral with hell and brimstone visions in fresco. Both only 20 minute ferry rides from Venice central. Torcello is also very old world, you can imagine Venice as it was 300 years ago with vast wetlands and run down farm houses.

So tired. Need to exercise to get energy back.

Plan for tonight: tomato and coconut milk soup, apple cider, finish Henry IV Part 1 (re reading this HSC Shakespeare play, love it). Hope Llewy goes to bed early and wakes fewer than 4 times to be breast fed.. Car service tomorrow.

Happier now

2010-06-29T15:05:00.000+10:00

Most recent

2010-06-20T12:18:00.001+10:00

Having been insanely tired the last few days and put it down to Llewy still waking for breast feeds any number of times a night and sometimes taking ages to get back to sleep (the down side of co-sleeping), however I have just found out that St John's Work aka hypericum, can cause fatigue. Yippee, double the fun.

Still will persevere with it because I want my serotonin depletion to level out and things are so much easier to manage once you know their cause I think. I do dislike a mystery.

Llewy continues to thrive and grow without gluten glueing up his intestinal villi.

Anthony is excited about his up coming party and his band's charity musicarama for charity next weekend.

I'm not especially excited about anything, but I'm hoping to get over that.

I have finished reading through 40 back issues of New Scientist and am now starting on 50 back copies of The Bulletin and Newsweek (library rejects all).

I have just watched the entire series of The Tudors, which I enjoyed very much, despite its soap opera take on it all, I liked its historical detail.

In 2 weeks I'll be teaching Korean English teachers how to teach English "our way", they will be here for a month and I'm giving classes on pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary. I enjoy that sort of thing, daunting though it can be with the grammar pedants; being one myself though, I'm in my element.

Spoke to Laurence two night sago, he back form 2.5 weeks on the Isola del Giglio where he explored castles, snorkelled with sea urchins and ran free and wild in Campese, the village on the far side of the island; this despite his ability to count to 10 in Italian and little else!
http://foto.tuttomaremma.com/images/isola-del-giglio/isola%20del%20giglio%20-%20campese2.jpg

Recent happenings

2010-06-12T16:33:00.000+10:00

Mother, nearly 92, decided to get a computer, so we did, then came the hassle of ISP, decided on a USB modem, first didn't work because it wasn't tuned to Windows 7, the second was a DoDo, which is always a mistake because they are constantly "experiencing outages" as they delicately put it. After countless hours waiting for activation, my mother decided it was all too much trouble and she'd return it,( read I'd return it). So in all I have spent about 15 hours this week faffing about for no outcome.

She only wanted it to check emails any way, which she can do here, or at the library.
Sigh.

On the up side, Llewy has got so much better since being gluten free, he has grown both vertically and in volume, his cheeks are rosy, he is more vocal and active and happy.
I don't find gluten free living hard at all, although you can't buy anything takeaway other than bananas for snacks when out.
Caterers don't have a clue, by and large. You say gluten free and they offer you a pie. There's gluten hidden in so much these days and then there's the issue of cross contamination. A minefield.

It is cold, 8 degrees this morning, dawn comes late and getting out the door to work with 3 children to package and deliver means I've been anxious and run down. I have started St John's Wort and am doing zumba classes to restore my neural equilibrium and it's working. I love the zumba and I'm not bad, having had the Latin dance thing in my middle distant past.

My Laurence, my nearly 11 year old is still in Italy and I miss him. They've been out of contact for 3 weeks while they've travelled about to the Isola del Giglio and other places; I can't wait to speak to him, hopefully tomorrow night. Just one more month and he's back, just in time for:

My wedding. Yes on the 17th July, at home, low key, celebrant, no rings, not rose petals, not hand binding or released doves or wedding clothes, just the event itself, simple and unbeknownst to anyone yet. 'Cept here .

To be followed by Anthony's 40th birthday party with a band and a ton of people. For whom we are getting a caterer! I barely cope with a barbeque for friends.

Brisbane children's hospital

2010-05-19T19:43:00.001+10:00

Well we rose at 4am and after hot showers and coffee (brrrr, winter is here), we snaffled Llewy up in warm clothes, bundled him in the car and drove off to Brissy, he was great for three quarters then started wailing and holding out his arms for me, it was awful but we made it in time.

Then the waiting - him desperate for food, drink, mostly breast feed and agonised over why I was there with boobs but not putting out.
Eventually he was taken into the theatre and gassed into sleep and endoscoped.
Result - positive Coeliac.

No complaints - the woman after me had a brain damaged baby - brain damaged for life- stuck at 3 months old brain for all his time.- having a gastric tube fitted to his tummy.

Llewy was famished afterwards and wolfed down a chicken leg and then at home some gluten free cereal and a bowl of rice and mashed potato.

He's still wide awake chewing on gluten free bloody bread that I actually just baked and watching Wiggles and I'm just fading like the proverbial flower, though I'm not so flower like these days. Tired ? tired. TIRED.

Dear sweet little boy, what a trooper.

Music and the brain

2010-05-15T08:47:00.001+10:00

I am reading the latest Oliver Sacks book ATM called Musicophilia, and there's a lot about how the area in the brain for music awareness is in a quite different place to that of language. I won't go into any detail, suffice to say Gabriel my five yr old was trying to say 'Dorothy' (the dionosaur) and was having trouble - 'Do'er - Dotha - Dora- ", then as an aide-memoires, he sang a quick riff of the Wiggles song Dorothy the Dinosaur and captured the pronunciation that way.

I love how the brain works.
This is in fact a very complementary book to read after The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge.

And wOOt! I added working links!

Endoscopy and biop on Wednesday

2010-05-14T22:04:00.001+10:00

For my little one. I'm glad it's soon and thanks to the comment here who pointed out the dif between wheat allergy and the autoimmune status of coeliac.

He has to be fasted before and his appointment is at 6am for an 8.30 -am op and let me shout it : HURRAY FOR EXTENDED BREASTFEEDING as I am allowed to breastfeed him as late as 4am, so hopefully he will sleep in the car on the way to Brisbane and then we can distract him until it's time.
At least it'll all be over soon.

I've been giving him pasta and so far he hasn't reacted. Wouldn't it be awesome if he didn't have it? Although I am thinking a wheat free diet might be a healthy thing to do anyway. Bread really is such a processed food. Not that I don't love it.

Donna my friend , come here and tell me there's a naturopathic way to help him!

Aldi had a day long sale of gluten free products yesterday so I have a shelf full of gluten free pancake mix, bread mix, gravy mix, falafel mix .

Coeliac Disease

2010-05-12T14:09:00.001+10:00

My little boy has been diagnosed with it.

For 4 weeks he has been sick, vomiting on average once a day. I went to 4 doctors, all of whom said it was a virus and would pass (as he had no temp).

Last Friday, after another vomit, I despaired, he was as limp as a rag doll and all his bones were showing.
I took him again to another doctor and she phoned a a paed for an opinion - and was told that he should be admitted to hospital immediately. Luckily that paed does both private and public consultations so we (who have no PHI) were admitted as public patients.
I say we because of course I stayed with him in hospital.

He was put on an IV drip to re hydrate him for 15 hours (ouch- the sight of an intubated baby is so heart wrenching).

We were there for 3 nights over the Mother's Day weekend. The fluids improved him and the blood tests came back positive for coeliac.
He is now waiting for a date for an endoscope/biopsy in Brisbane.

It could be worse - no drugs, just a change of diet. This week I have been busying informing myself on all things coeliac and buying up on gluten free foods.

I also want the whole family to be tested.

The disease can lead to so many severe maladies later in life, such as bowel cancer, lymphoma, nerve damage and auto immune issues such as lupus. It's good that it's been caught early, but now begins the navigation through childhood wheat, rye and barley and oats free. Trickier than it sounds.

On the Saturday night in hospital I despaired and wept, my eldest son had a broken collar bone from a skateboard out of control accident, which missed piercing his lung by a fraction, my mother had moved out, my 10 year old off to Italy for 2 months. I felt un anchored and bereft and scared, cradling my littlest boy who was trying to smile at me though I was adrift on misery.

I picked up and so has he. He hasn't had gluten for 3 days ago and already his appetite has increased and he has only had one vomit but caused I think by my over enthusiasm in giving him 'fattening up' foods that were too rich.
Unfortunately I have to reintroduce gluten prior to the endoscopy.

I don't want to; I just want to get on with making him healthy. Why does he even need it, given that it is most likely only going to prove what is pretty obvious and has already had a positive blood result. It just seems to be the done thing, the given path.I don't know. I mean if it came back negative then what? What else could it be?

youngest and oldest

2010-05-02T04:51:00.001+10:00

At Harley Park, another lovely Gold Coast autumn day and we went to see the daily feeding of the pelicans.

Mother gone

2010-04-26T20:22:00.000+10:00

Well my mother has moved out, she is nearly 92, she has moved out to her own place, sort of, it's the granny flat attached to her 87 year old sister's house. We helped her move today.

It was hard as she moved because we weren't getting on. She has lived with me for 15 years, since she was widowed and my first son was born. The house does feel a bit emptier.

I needed to take control of my own household without her judgement and over seeing. I was tired of asking her not to buy lollies and plastic toys for the boys, of her unspoken, though often spoken criticism, as she "knew best".
.

We needed our own space; is that awful at 91? Is she lonely tonight - bereft of her 4 grandsons? rejected by her only daughter ?
I wasn't rejecting HER - I was deciding that we were poisoning the relationship with acrimony and vitriol.

I love her; I hope we will get on better now for the remaining years.

A and L

2010-04-20T04:46:00.000+10:00

So much more refreshing than a G and T

Snow White and the

2010-04-17T21:13:00.003+10:00

"seven very small men was my favourite book as a child", said the Chinese student I examined today. LOL.

From birth to now

2010-04-15T12:51:00.000+10:00

Same hammock chair, slightly faded; same boy, rather grown. 3 weeks at top, 3 months at left, 20 months at right.

Easter Egg Hunt

2010-04-15T12:50:00.000+10:00

These were the phto clues I made for the boys on Easter Sunday. They were all closeups of objects and places around the house and garden where I had planted eggs.
Last year I did a rhyming cryptic verse.

They loved it and struggled a bit but found them all. I over did it a bit, as I left one egg for each boy which meant 20 eggs each.

The French Exchange is over

2010-04-15T12:45:00.002+10:00

For the last 20 days a little French 14 year old boy has been staying with us. I say little because he was a mere sliver of a lad with a pale elongated face but none of the gravitas of an El Greco. He looked 11, he acted 12, he barely spoke and when he did it was usually to say "oh no", when offered a trip to the beach, some salad,a bike ride, a movie, a banana.
He would close his bedroom door and read the moment we returned from anywhere. For breakfast he ate Milo on cornflakes with milk heated in the microwave - every single morning - he said that's all he ate at home.

On the positive side he was no trouble and gave my sons a chance to witness hospitality 24 hours a day. They were all lovely to him and I think he went away happy.
We made an effort - the main activities were a trip to Brisbane to the Gallery of Modern Art, then a swim at Southbank and a walk through the market and a ride on the giant Ferris wheel, a few beach trips to swim in the surf,out to dinner, a mountain hike, movies, 2 picnics, bike rides, Currumbin animal sanctuary, Byron Bay and a great Easter Sunday with an egg hunt using photographic clues.
He left this morning happy.

ETA: and will return not so happy (20/4/10) - they are all stranded in Australia because of the Icelandic volcano haze over Europe, so after a sojourn in Sydney and wrestles with the French Embassy, Qantas and insurance, they return here to ride it out. Poor things.

Editing this to add that LOL - said boy had borrowed my eldest's lap top and .... da dad da dah - downloaded porn, world of warcraft and converted the whole system to French! Oh so innocent! Grrr!

Why I couldn't go through with it

2010-04-11T13:22:00.001+10:00

I hated the training in the pool - see other post.
I don't like boats or deep water or salty water or sand or water in my eyes.
I look fat and my swimming costume halter neck cuts into my neck
I don't like being patronised by a 26 year old diver trainer who called me "Chook" at the training session.
I don't want to be with a bunch of perky Bond university students for 4 hours and have one of them as my dive "buddy".
I hate the word Buddy.

I am 40 something, I no longer need to test my limits or prove myself. I like my comfort zone. I would sky dive, but not deep sea dive, I would toboggan but not ski, I would eat lobster but not scallops or sea urchin. In my 20s I lived by the maxim "Everything Now and Try everything once"; I'm over that, I tried a lot.

I'm sick of people telling me how great it is and how much I'll love it, if I just overcome my fear. I'm not afraid, - I don't like it.
If I hear the expressions "Feel the fear and do it anyway" or "Doing what you fear makes you stronger", I'll put a hole in the wall. If I feel fear then I don't want to do it. Full stop. It won't make me stronger, it'll piss me off.

It's like being forced to go to church for salvation when you are a committed atheist.

I love the underwater world, I just don't want to be among it in a tight rubber suit with goggles, a gagging thing in my mouth, my ears popping and my eyes sore from salt.

Just pass me a snorkel and some shallow water.

I know I've missed out on something magical and amazing. I don't mind. I can live with that.
I'm sure canyoning is incredible too but there's no way on earth I'm going down a narrow crevice underground.

On the downside, I 've blown $500 of A's hard earned money. I'm an ingrate, I'm a chicken.

After I'd driven within 1 km of the dive centre this morning, I was in a vale of tears. I turned around and drove 26 km back home then went into a fug of depression and slept for 5 hours.

This will pass. 2010 the great scuba diving gift debacle.

Plastic

2010-04-08T19:31:00.001+10:00

Too much of it, vapourise all the plastic in the country and everything would collapse; looking around me - plastic computer, desk, diary, pen, mouse, calculator, laundry basket, hanging Ikea basket, folder, printer, CD playr, tube of face cream, Blu-tack, nylon microfleece blanket, nappy wipes, cloth nappies (MCNs) etc etc.

You can no longer eliminate plastic from your life in the way you can meat or gluten or TV. It is ubiquitous and part of the weft and the other thing of our daily social fabric. How insidious. How appalling.

I can use my stainless steel water bottle and lunch pails, wrap my children's lunches in waxed paper (wax is petroleum based too) and only use hemp and bamboo fabrics and flooring but there's no way I can substitute everything that plastic is involved in.

Yet its manufacture and use is a huge part of the problem of oil and global warming. It makes driving my car a bit less and turning off the lights and switching to solar seem trivial. The big one is plastic manufacture. Almost everything in OfficeWorks and Ikea for example is plastic based, tupperware, footware (even vegan non leather wearers are culpable here, though I've been told that leather tanning is pretty evil and polluting too), supermarkets - all would collapse in a tangly heap if the plastic products were vapourised.

Hmm. What to do?

Scuba diving

2010-04-04T15:17:00.001+10:00

I did the first day of training last Wednesday and it was awful. I wept. I wanted to run out of the room crying "I can't do this".

It was one to one training and I got through all the theory - most of it just logical, common sense stuff except for the awful maths bit reading the charts for time under water + depth + recovery time+ 2nd dive equations, where I went blank and felt so dumb. They don't even use those charts anymore to calculate, it's computerised, but it's still a requirement of the PADI training.

Then the dreaded wetsuit and claustrophobia set in, I hate tight sticky clothing that I can't peel off easily; it was all I could do not to scream.
Then the heavy as lead tank on my back that has left me with strained shoulders. Then the pool and breathing the dry filtered air through the regulator mask, that had me almost asthmatic and panicky.

I got through it, I swam into the icy depths of Currumbin Olympic pool and observed lap swimmers from below, dead ants and hair .
Finally I had to swim 200 metres to prove that I could and when the instructor went to the toilets I cheated and doubled back half way because I was exhausted, and I was only doing breaststroke! I figured I wasn't going back for more so it didn't matter.

I left that place cursing it and muttering and in shock, and then found the most amazing op shop where I salved my wounded psyche with clothes, kitchenalia, sheet music and toys for the children.

The next two dives are in the open ocean and I'm so scared but I feel I should go - I hate it, but it's an opportunity that I will never take again.

Llewelyn

2010-04-03T10:29:00.000+10:00

baa baa blacksheep

Arrogant Lord of Darkness

2010-04-03T10:27:00.000+10:00

Speak not, for my eyes and ears are sealed to your pleas.Go hither from my temple.
Gabriel after his first school disco in his black satin cape.
He was very disappointed that he didn't get a party bag at the end of it

Ed Kuepper at GOMA

2010-03-26T21:49:00.000+10:00

That's Gallery of Modern Art to you. Coupla weeks ago with a gang of friends in Brisbane. I love his music, I have listened to it almost daily for nigh on 24 years and it always sounds fresh.
I told him as much the time before I saw him live at the Sound Lounge in Currumbin (great venue), but he just looked embarrassed, or was it taciturn?

My ex makes himself at home

2010-03-26T21:42:00.001+10:00

on our deck, as indeed he does weekly. Glad as I am that the bygones are bygones, it's a bit hard for Anth to tolerate his makinghimselfathomeness. He doesn't take the boys out, just hangs out. His clapped out lime green combi has no passenger seat belts.
Nothing like an Italian man to make himself comfortable. Good for the boys..good for the boys...good for the boys.. (gritted teeth).
Is it bad that I'm publishing this? It's not like more than 10 people occasionally look at it. But if you do C - grazia tanto, tantissimo, fai una bella figura, adirattura! (sp?)

Latest op shop score:

2010-03-26T21:32:00.000+10:00

Bedspread. Is it not glorious and exultant? Even when messy it's a textile sculpture. $7 at Lifeline.

Thomas books

2010-03-26T21:30:00.000+10:00

WooT! Gold Coast Arts Centre were tossing out this greeting card rack. I scored it. Perfect for Gabe's room for all his Thomas the Tank Engine books.

Playgroup today

2010-03-26T21:26:00.000+10:00

Annual picnic day in the park. Stinking hot and humid, no parking, miles away, walked through the bird park, infinite number of ibis poos and sticky yellow native figs clung to my sandals and the pram wheels. Evil hot sun, no breeze, no sun shades over the playground. Dumb glitter and paddle pop stick craft goings on, Shetland pony rides.
I love my children, I wish it we were in autumnal Melbourne though.

Scuba diving

2010-03-24T13:35:00.000+10:00

I passed the diving medical. eek. I half hoped I wouldn't; I mentioned my asthma and lack of fitness and short sightedness, but apparently I'm fine and have great force of breath at 85%, which is above average.

So next Wednesday I do the training and then the following Sunday they take me out in a boat.
I'm just going to look tragic in a wet suit, I hope they don't take any photos of me.

Roller Derby!!

2010-03-20T20:23:00.000+10:00

Anthony's band is playing as an accompaniment to a big tournament tonight. I hardly know anything of it but it seems the latest fad for grrrrirls.

When I dropped him off there were lots of tattooed, mohawked fish net stockinged chicks about. Kewl!
Too funny. And it must be great fun too. I like rollerskating (not blading), maybe I should get in on the action! But it's full on and quite aggressive.

Today I examined for IELTS. One of the essays I marked finished with "In concussion..." LOL.

In England

2010-03-18T12:54:00.000+10:00

Have I blogged this already? It's a beautiful photo anyway. I think it was soon after my father had died in 1965. The cat is Putzi. The hammock is in a garden in Carshalton, Surrey where my mother went to stay with friends after my father had died and she had sold the restaurant.

My mother and me

2010-03-18T12:52:00.000+10:00

I think this may have been at the Newport Arms Beer garden hotel in Sydney. I was about 4 .

2010-03-18T12:49:00.000+10:00

2010-03-18T12:17:00.000+10:00

Mother, 2009

2010-03-18T12:14:00.000+10:00

Hard times

2010-03-18T12:12:00.001+10:00

Just had a rotten couple of days. I keep losing my temper and weeping. I went to my doctor (who was wearing the most wondrous spotty crepe high necked frock with puffy long sleeves that buttoned at the wrist and which had bought in an op shop in Tasmania, she told me).

She said - exercise, do yoga and take Omega 3. Yeah, like I have time, but with this official prescription I came home armed and legged to Anth who immediately said OK twice a week and once at weekends, off you go, on yer bike. Have to find a yoga class too.
I know I'm not depressed, I love my life, but I thought maybe the mood swings were hormonal, gosh knows I must be getting close to being peri menopausal.

Also have a paper for iron and thyroid blood test.

I kind of know I've let myself go exercise wise, I do none - that's pretty clear.And I'm two sizes too large for all the lovely clothes I've hung on to for years, all my vintage frocks and cute t shirts and black trousers.

I really have to get it together.

Sadly too, my mother has decided to move out. She has lived with us for 15 years, but we are clashing too frequently and making each other miserable and making bad vibes in the house.
She wants to help all the time and I like to do everything myself. She insists on trying to help any way and that's where it crosses the line into interference in my eyes and I become irate and she feels rejected and it's all a mess.

She is 92 by the way.
Let me go and find some photos of her.

She is moving in with her sister anyway, who has a self contained flat in her house on the other side of town. So it's quite a good arrangement; I couldn't bear her to move into a retirement home, she is so not into bowls, bingo and Frank Sinatra.

Playsuit

2010-03-10T14:30:00.000+10:00

Vintage playsuit

2010-03-10T14:26:00.000+10:00

As modelled by Llewy

Oh Llewelyn

2010-03-10T14:23:00.000+10:00

I love you so much. I love your fruity smell, your lovely blond locks, your pugnaciousness, your curly ears, the way you swing your arms so you march rather than walk, the way you told me in your pre verbal way how the food was hot by handing it back to me and blowing at it, the way you rest your head on my left shoulder every time I pick you up. You are the perfect last of my babies.

Not MY GuineaPigs

2010-03-10T12:14:00.000+10:00

Fabric

2010-03-10T12:13:00.000+10:00

see below for explanation

The Day of the Dead

2010-03-10T12:12:00.000+10:00

Fabric!!

2010-03-10T12:11:00.000+10:00

I just bought two pieces of this outrageous fabric. I love it so much, I had to have it even though I can't sew.
I thought I might hand stitch it onto a black or red skirt as a feature panel.

The Mexican Day of the Dead has always made me laugh with its crazy merry skeletons.

Also bought another piece with 50s kitchy household appliances on it.

Birthday Party at my Grandma's

2010-03-07T13:43:00.001+10:00

Circa 1970? Not sure.That's me at the end with Tanya on the left and Annette next to her I think. They are lovely now but they tried to make me eat dog poo back then. They promised they'd give me $100. They locked me under the house with the spiders.. Can you see the Chinamen on the sideboard in the background on the right? Probably not.They were all dispersed when she died and I now collect them whenever I come across one in an op shop or antique fair.

On board the Oriana 1966

2010-03-07T12:53:00.000+10:00

That's me in front aged 20 months on board for sail to Australia after my father died and my mother sold up the restaurant in Devon and packed her bags to return to family. Gosh I look like Llewy.

Interestingly Anthony also sailed on the Oriana in the early 70s when it had been demoted from passenger ship to cruise ship.

Pony Clubbing, UK 1972

2010-03-07T12:34:00.000+10:00

Back to Blighty, I became the archetypal pony mad girl who devoured boarding school books and eventually went to one in darkest north Wales.

Wistful 1960s little girl pose

2010-03-07T12:32:00.000+10:00

Look at the birdy! In New Guinea in 1969/70.
We managed the Wau Hotel for a year. I played with all the children in the native (aka New Guinean staff) compound out the back of the hotel. I witnessed toad soup, mouths full of red betel nut and chickens plunged live into metal drums of boiling water. I bought an icy icecream cone each week for 5cents from the travelling local version of Mr Whippy.I had a pet bat and a cockatoo that said "Cocky Kai-kai", which means 'food' in pidgin.

Killer Kawolski

2010-03-07T12:27:00.000+10:00

Scary huh? See post below, When we were 2.

A Gay Soiree

2010-03-07T12:24:00.000+10:00

My mother and quintet of gay pals in London in the late 1950s. Chin Chin!Bottoms up!!

When we were 2

2010-03-07T12:20:00.001+10:00

Taken from a slide, this is me in a tub at the back of the terrace in Surrey Hills, where we briefly lived before moving to a hotel in Kings Cross (which my step dad managed) and where (in the hotel) I shared a lift ride with Killer Kawolski, the famous wrestler (well my step dad was impressed to have him as a guest).

My little boys

2010-02-27T21:59:00.000+10:00

Perfection, but this sort of shot precedes what usually ends in a too exuberant squeeze by the one on the right around the neck of the one on the left. Photos lie, but they can give us sweet false memories.

The cut

2010-02-27T21:54:00.000+10:00

Giulio on his journey to mohawk.See next entry.

Mohawk Baby

2010-02-27T09:10:00.000+10:00

My darling 15 yr old decided he wanted a mohawk last Sunday. He got it and looked amazing with his strong features. He lost his nerve though and shaved it down to a number 2 before he went to school.
I love him so much. He is so smart and wise and funny and maturing so well. He is infinitely gentle and loving towards the little brothers and tries hard with Laurence who can be trying.

Yantra Mat

2010-02-27T08:40:00.001+10:00

I bought myself one of these this week, it's hundreds of sharp plastic spikes that cover all the bases of acupressure in your back. It feels like nails, just like those old Indian fakirs on beds of nails that we used to gawp at in Encyclopedia Brittanica as children.

It hurts and burns but also feels amazing; perhaps you release endorphins. It's meant to relieve back problems, improve your sleep, increase energy etc etc.

I love it.

It's my birthday today and A gave me a PADI scuba diving course and I'm pretty scared- I've been saying I've wanted to do it for ages, but I don't know that I'm quite ready. Mum gave me a digital video cam. So rather good.
I had vegemite on seed toast with lashings of butter and a coffee in bed. We are having friends over for a bbq later. It's a sunny, almost autumnal subtropical day here in Carrara and I'm happy.

A playing

2010-02-19T16:50:00.000+10:00

This was a summer festival, a long hot afternoon, so nice.

Anthony

2010-02-19T16:49:00.000+10:00

At one of his last gigs with his band.

Llewelyn and today

2010-02-19T16:09:00.001+10:00

Went to our Steiner playgroup today up in the hills and it was lovely, we made bread and did some craft work making felt turtles which are going to be incorporated into a story next week. Mine is pretty awful - it looks like a brown termite mound on a patch of grass. Don't care.

Got some guinea pigs at the weekend, Gabriel isn't the slightest bit interested in them (only 1 now, as one died suddenly) so I don't think we will keep them, they aren't exactly interactive creatures and are never really tamed. I also get the most intense allergic reaction to them if I touch them, which makes it hard, my eyes swell almost shut.
The chooks and the cats will do. I wish we were allowed rabbits in Qld, they are wonderful creatures and I'm not allergic to them at all for some reason - the bugs that live in their fur maybe different?

The weather is now late summer and quite blustery and freash which is such a relief after all the long, roasting 80% humidity days.

Tomorrow Laurence takes a scholarship exam for Somerset College; the scholarship is only 75% tuition so we couldn't afford to send him anyway, even if he were to be successful, as the fees are something like $12000 a year, however he wants to see how he goes in the testing.

I've just finished a wonderful book called Day after Night by Anita Diamant, about female Jewish refugees in Israel after WWII

Quote:oh it won't copy and paste, never mind. I'm not sure what to read next, I should start re-reading all my books, some I've had for 25 years and why keep them if not to re read? My mother is also a source of books, she gave me the one I've just mentioned.As I get through 2 or 3 a week it is hard to keep a good supply up.

I've also been watching the entire series of House with Hugh Laurie. It's really very good. I was given it by chance in a bulk lot of CDs that I requested on freecycle, as I intend to make a mural with them.

Oh joy

2010-02-18T17:56:00.002+10:00

Pay rise! And another 12 month contract. What a relief. Since the visa change with certain trades being taken off the "good for a working visa" list, we were worried that our student numbers would go down, but obversely (or some word like that) the student numbers for higher academic subjects has increased, and since i teach English for Academic Purposes, my classes are guaranteed. Relieforama!

A is working like a demon, coming home muddy and with tales to tell each day, but we are getting ahead and everyone is fed and we go happily to bed and all well read and not yet dead and so on.

My Family

2010-02-17T16:49:00.002+10:00

by Gabriel. We appear to be a family of golf clubs.

Speaking of art, I went with my students, to the most fabulous exhibition of contemporary art at the Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane yesterday.The title My Family is a link.
It is the Asian Pacific Triennale and is a day's worth of wandering around music, installations, electronica, sculpture, children's activities, painting, sketching, multi media, even translocations ( a Chinese worker's cottage circa 1950, complete with original millstone and stove).

One section is all from North Korea; one of my Korean students walked with me and pointed out how every painting had a Communist Party insignia or propaganda slogan in it somewhere: it must be a requirement. They were all very like the paintings of Maoist China - glorious, rosy cheeked happy workers, when the reality is they are starved and desperately poor.

The tree house with apartment

2010-02-17T16:43:00.000+10:00

Finally found a use for this lame cubby that's been mouldering in a corner - a perfect fit.
The rungs are far enough apart that Llewy won't be able to venture up them for a few years.

The secret Gold Coast

2010-02-13T19:03:00.000+10:00

Far far away (30 minutes) from the strip malls and sweaty beaches.
Spring water pools meet sub tropical rainforest

secret gold coast continued

2010-02-13T19:01:00.000+10:00

Gabriel starts school

2010-02-05T14:56:00.000+10:00

Little preppy, up at 5 and dressed in his new uniform, had to wait 3 hours before we could go. He loves it.He is such a darling boy.

Giulio starts year 10

2010-02-05T14:55:00.000+10:00

His final years as a child. I am so proud of him. he's starting at a selective health sciences school and doing the IB (international baccalaureate)

New bathroom

2010-02-05T14:53:00.001+10:00

Only partially completed here, but you get the idea. The feature tiles I got from a recycling shop years back and have kept waiting for inspiration on how to use them.
We now have a floor to ceiling glass screen around the shower.
Cost us a bomb, but not too bad, around $6000. The old one was literally falling to pieces, tiles were cracked off, the cabinet was dropping weetbix like chunks of particle board. It was awful, you wouldn't have wished it on a squat.

Treehouse

2010-02-05T14:49:00.000+10:00

Came home from work a week or so ago and A had built this awesome treehouse for Gabriel, it still needs a roof and maybe a pole to slide down, dunno, but I love how obviously put together out of bits and pieces it looks, which it is.

llewy

2010-02-05T14:47:00.000+10:00

Llewy at south Stradbroke

Bracken forests

2010-02-05T14:46:00.000+10:00

at south strad

Wallaby

2010-02-05T14:44:00.000+10:00

While riding my bike at South Stradbroke

Lilipilli

2010-02-05T14:43:00.000+10:00

South Stradbroke island, dawn

2010-02-05T14:40:00.000+10:00

Couran Cove

2010-02-05T14:38:00.000+10:00

We had a 5 day holiday there this January. We stayed in an eco cabin, not the resort; the resort was nothing special but the facilities were great. It was amazing to wake up to the sound of birds and cicadas and no cars at all, as there are none on the island, just the odd golf buggy and a guest train.
We rode our bikes all through the forest paths and to the beach. I took this photo at 6am one morning. I was the only one on the beach apart fromt he lifeguard in his lookout.

New Year 2010

2010-01-01T09:41:00.000+10:00

We had such fun last night, next door was having a party, so there were sounds of merriment and laughter, which gave our little family a soundtrack as we ate a big pot of pasta on the deck, then I turned up the Belle and Sebastian and danced with my baby and 5 yr old, drinking wine and laughing so much, dancing like a maniac.

Everyone was happy. Unfortunately I couldn't stay awake beyond 8, as I tend to wake at 4am these days at first light, so I crashed with Llewy and dreamed that I was in a field and found a tunnel which led to an underground abandoned city, then an announcer from ABC classic FM came in and told me it was a city from 1000s of years ago that had been part of a civilisation just like the 20/21 century one, but it had declined and returned to nature.

Very Alice in Wonderland but rather nice.

So a new day and year and the birds are singing, the chooks are chooking and Gabrtiel burst a balloon filled with water all over my new armchair. Ah.

Wonder Boys

2009-12-30T11:50:00.000+10:00

I love them so much, they are fine and wise and happy and kind.

The cucumber

2009-12-30T11:43:00.000+10:00

Anthony has lovingly tended our vegetable garden and was rewarded with this. I suppose the cucumber grew and came to a wall so did a u-turn.
We ate it anyway.

Anthony and Gabriel are back

2009-12-29T17:09:00.001+10:00

They've been in Sydney for a week for xmas with the ILs and extended family.

It was nice to have a quiet house but it's awesome to have A playing Weezer from his shed and Gabe is bouncing on the trampoline singing along to Everybody Get Dangerous.

Gabriel brings the house alive - he is annoying and noisy and attention seeking but he shoots blue fire and twinkly lights everywhere he goes.

And Anthony is all warmth and smiles and hugs. Gosh I'm lucky.

Great gift from ILs too, Audrey Niffenegger's latest book, Her Fearful Symmetry.

And we all still have a lovely whole week together, more really - I have to work next Mon and Tues but then we sail to South Stradbroke island on Weds for 4 nights, staying in an ecocabin, which I presume means it's solar powered and tank watered, not sure.
Gosh I hope the weather clears - it's been raining torrentially for 5 days. Everything is sodden.
Ilike the rain, but when I wake at 3am and all isawash, I feel a visceral, primal fear, it's strange.

The curse is broken!

2009-12-26T15:45:00.000+10:00

Xmas is over! I feel great. All that black smoke and muttering of the last week has cleared and silenced. I have energy and humour.

What is it about xmas that causes a gritty black twister through the core of me? I don't have any trauma associated with it, in fact I had conventional round the tree with the family and gifts and plum puddings and crackers and all that, as a child.

I suppose I really resent having the expectation on me to be a part of a celebration that I don't find attractive or enjoyable. It is meaningless to me. People say 'oh just make it a family day' or 'an excuse for a party'. But I do the former often, all year round and the latter screws me a up a bit too much.

My parents were actors, restaurateurs, hoteliers and caterers at different times, yet I now abhor that false bonhomie. I like simplicity and quiet and quality, not fussy food, manic carols and plastic geegaw decorations and toys.

I don't get excited much in a breathy way.

Sorry, just trying to think this one out.

Anyway, it's over.

The optimist

2009-12-25T17:38:00.000+10:00

This is the box that my 10 yr old painted for me.
It could also be a symbol of release and positivity that I long for but am too fraught to open up.

My mind today, a portrait

2009-12-25T17:37:00.000+10:00

This is the painting that my 15 yr old made for me.
I think it accurately represents my feelings about xmas.

xmas day 2009

2009-12-25T08:16:00.000+10:00

Is not a happy time for me, I keep getting rolling waves of sadness through my body. Is this looming depression? Do I need SSRIs?
I haven't felt like this for years.
I have a pain under my right ribs, where my liver is. Do I have cancer? I'm so afraid. I don't want to lose my health , my life, not see my children grow up; what if I have to go to hospital - how would A. cope? how could I breast feed Llewy?

I must become healthy and strong and fit again, I'm awful. I I I - I'm so self-centred, it's always me, I, My, Mine.

I'm reading the TrueBlood series of books as escapism from my own morbid thoughts.It's very entertaining in a light and frivolous way. I'm also trying to cast away clutter. I have hung onto about 50 cassettes for years now but today, most of them will go to Freecycle.
I actually bought a USB cassette player to try to convert stuff to MP3 files but when I ran the software I found it to be so bloody complicated that only a sound engineer could have fathomed it, so I returned it to the shop.

Anthony gave me for xmas a set of CDs of Nick Cave reading his latest novel and a dvd of The Smiths. Not sure if I want to keep them, I love them both as performers but I have so much Smiths already and I think that as a writer of prose, Nick Cave should stick to music.

Mother gave me a kettle and 2 books that I don't like the look of.
Darling Laurence painted a wooden box in swirling rainbow colours and Giulio gave me a painting (done by him) of a very moody landscape with a black tree full of strange objects, rather like my state of mind actually.

Trainwreck

2009-12-22T15:22:00.000+10:00

What happens when 5 five years olds sample a fairly icky cake.

what the garden gave us

2009-12-22T15:19:00.000+10:00

We are drowning in a bumper crop of massive cucumbers, chillis and 3 eggs a day. Hard to combine

The party itself

2009-12-22T15:17:00.003+10:00

So it all went well, games were played, the pool was swum in in, lollies were eaten.

I had created a great party playlist in iTunes but the damned thing wouldn't transfer to my iPod, so I had to make do with what was on shuffle and quickly flick forward when Heroin by The Velvet Underground came on. As it was, the catchiest tune I could find for Pass the Parcel was The Ramones doing I Wanna Be Sedated.

. Then it started pouring , the rain come down between the house and the deck, thank to a blocked gutter and it created a wall of water, rather like installation art in fact,and even though we were under shelter, the cake having been sampled, every one left and in the drama of the downpour I forgot to give out the high maintenance party bags, so I now have a dozen of the things. I actually drove well out of my way to deliver them the next day; I doubt they were much appreciated anyway.

The reaction

2009-12-22T15:16:00.000+10:00

Gabriel was very impressed

Now it's Gabriel's party

2009-12-19T15:40:00.000+10:00

Tomorrow and I have an aching back from shopping and making stuff.

Party bags are brown paper lunch bags with scribble on them (Gabe's) containing an apple slice biscuit,a little box of sultanas, a whistle, a glow stick, a roll of fizzwizz, a self inking xmas stamper (20cents each from Lifeline) and a pair of funky sunglasses in pink or yellow with black frames (also from Lifeline $2 each).
I was trying to minimise the junk food and plastic.
Games are pass the parcel, sack race, marshmallow on spoon race and a pinata.

Other events are swimming in the pool.

I laboriously made a train cake after watching a youtube on how to. My version is definitely the poor cousin. I will upload photos later.

I still have to prepare garlic bread and hummous dip for the adults.

I get so stressed by these events, but it's worth it to give the children good memories.

Humidity is high and my hair is plastered to my neck.

On the plus siude, while I was in Lifeline I scored an old fashioned enamel bread bin, a big one, white and blue and quite worn, with "bread" stencilled on the side, which it may never hold again but serves to remind us that in the old days, bread wasn't sliced and rectangular.

I also want to make a fish mural from old CDs. I need to collect a few dozen more before I can start, but having asked on Freecycle, I have already been offered over 60. Some might even be listrenable, as bonus.

So after I recover from my birthday preparations today, I still have to get the boys to blow up umpteen balloons and the inflatable sea monsters for the pool for the 5 yr olds to frolic on.

And what for dinner tonight? In my freezer are baby octupuses (are they babies or just a type of octopi, like blue rings, which are tiny. I wonder if they are edible when cooked or would they be like fugu?

Llewy is fractious and clinging to me constantly. He is also using any part of my body as a teether and sinks his 9 teeth into neat little circles on me, making me howl and causing him to guffaw.

As an alternative he whacks me, sometimes freezing in mid blow to gauge my reaction.

I really don't know how to stop him, since any reaction is a good reaction to him and it's a little hard not to react.

Anthony is finally on holidays for weeks, we sail to South Stradbroke island to stay in an eco cabin for a pitifully brief 4 nights..

Giulio, my 15 year old is so fine and gallant however he has taken to dousing himself in Lynx aftershave and blow drying his hair 4 times a day and can be rather sullen and argumentative too.
But if that's as bad as the peak of adolescence get, then bring it on.

Must go baby needs another breastfeed, sigh.

Tired

2009-12-11T21:14:00.000+10:00

Took Gabriel to his first ever party at a "chippy shop", aka fast food outlet. He screamed and ranted before because it was a predominantly girly fairy party, then of course loved it.
Llewy, who came along for the ride, was in awe of the plastic tunnels and straws in drinks.

I don't take my children to these places except as quick cheap summer ice cream drive throughs,I'm snobby like that; so it was all a bit much.

Fearfully hot

2009-12-09T13:58:00.000+10:00

Yet I am engrossed in the torturedcold heart of Ian McEwan's novel Atonement. So well written and so much historical detail of the daily ordinary things, which I love.
I haven't read him for years; The Cement Garden made me queasy and I shunned his books until this one.
Have yet to see the film made of it.

I am also luxuriating in my leave - 3 weeks of paid leave and the children are in childcare, so much time, so much wasted online!

Am also trying to book 4 nights in an eco-cabin at the Couran Cove resort on South Stradbroke island for January.It's expensive - over $1000 for the 4 of us, not including food, but we haven't had a holiday since I was 6 months pregnant with Llewy.

And - llewy is walking - he is now 15 months old and is enjoying life from a whole new perspective - bi ped.

Steiner playgroup

2009-11-27T13:07:00.001+10:00

Went to a lovely Steiner based playgroup this morning. Garden play, story, singing, fruit, kneading bread dough, inside craft then singing, outside play, then eating the freshly baked bread.
It was cool to be with mothers who were passionate and opinionated about healthy diets and art.

But we are all a bit sunburnt and I didn't like the horse flys (it was up in the bushy hills).

The title is a link

the roof of the new deck

2009-10-23T14:28:00.000+10:00

Ain't it grand?

New Deck

2009-10-23T14:27:00.000+10:00

This was built in just6 days - it massive ( 6.6metres X 3.6 metres)and overlooks our garden. It's not only a whole new room, it has improved the adjacent rooms by cooling them down (as we get strong afternoon sun).

I now need a day bed!

astro turf hot pink nappy

2009-10-23T13:36:00.000+10:00

As worn by Llewy on a hot spring day on our just built enormous deck.
Bought from a fellow (sister?) EBer (essentialbaby.com.au).
Love the nappy!

2009-10-18T12:17:00.001+10:00

Gypsy pegs

2009-10-18T12:17:00.000+10:00

Gabrielisms

2009-10-18T11:38:00.005+10:00

"I'm just a little boy living in Gabriel Land"
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"I love you"
(Me): Thank you darling, I love you too"

"No, mummy, I'm not talking to you, I'm talking to my heart"
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"I want to go on the sea horse" (the see-saw)
**********************************************

"I'm going to eat vegetables when I'm 39"

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"You're so lovely mummy, you should be in the circus"

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"If you were a little girl and I was a daddy, I wouldn't make you walk so much"

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"I pig your pardon?"

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DP turned 39

2009-08-28T14:15:00.000+10:00

And I gifted him a day's horse riding through the hinterland. He loved it, but for Paddy, blind in one eye, his horse, who kicked and bit the other horses.

2009-08-28T14:13:00.000+10:00

Kazzam! Run rabbit run.

fur poncho

2009-08-28T12:06:00.000+10:00

As modelled by Gabriel. A recent op shop score - $28, light warm , pom-pomed and very ugly!

Nottinghill festival

2009-08-28T11:03:00.000+10:00

That's me in the bckground - floral dress.

Thighs

2009-05-19T20:10:00.000+10:00

A testament to the beauty of a baby's lovely fat legs

skating

2009-05-19T20:07:00.001+10:00

laurence 2nd from left, Giulio in front. Would like to say that's me on the left but I don't have such big hips :)