O thanks

Hello Possums. Its raining cats and dogs here. I’m at our beach house and my kids and friends have just been for a swim in wild windy and cold conditions, with their wetsuits on of course. My girlfriend Ita went in with our kids while I donned the raincoat and elected to watch. I know you eventually warm up in a wet suit but that first cold rush takes a bit of grit to get over. It was nice on the beach in the wind. I took photos of the crazy swimmers and didn’t care that the rain was gradually soaking into my cords. They only lasted for twenty minutes in the freezing water. Ita and her kids ran back to their place for showers. My kids are now warming up by the fire. Kathleen is making toasted cheese sandwiches for herself and her sisters using an old jaffle iron.

Its lovely down here. We all relax and unwind. In this unencumbered time I tend to think and reflect; find the inspiration to write, put pieces of life’s puzzle together or find a new way to look at my research data. Lately among other things I have been trying to come to terms with the craziness that is my mid life crisis. I think I’m finally beginning to find my bearings.

My latest thoughts rest on a thankyou note to a person who I will never thank face to face (or in any format for that matter, probably). You can’t thank people for lessons you have learnt from them when it really doesn’t have anything to do with their intentional actions. I will probably never see him again face to face. But what he has given me is a new perspective on myself.

For a little while we were just two people. I was not a mother. I was not a wife. I was not an older women. I was just a person, me. Its refreshing to be treated this way. Its heart breaking too – but worth it. I’m changing and learning about what I want. I’m happier for it; feeling more solid. So thanks.

Hey get with it!

Hello Possums. You know I really don’t think of myself as a fad follower. I don’t give a toss about name brands and all that superficial stuff. But I noticed recently that I appear to be slap bang in the middle of a fad. Not a clothing fad, but a lifestyle or food and beverage fad.

For me it started at bookclub a few years ago. My book club operates like this: We meet in the lounge of a nice hotel to discuss our current book. Then we vote on which book to read next. Each of us bring a book for the group to vote on and we give a little synopsis of why we chose it. A few years ago Vicki brought in the second book in the series No.1 Ladies Detective Agency because she’d read the first and loved it. So, I read the second book first, loved it and read the rest of the series as they came out. I recommended it to all of my friends.

Last summer I was discussing the character Precious with one of these friends. Precious has a ritual of making bush tea and the author describes this with heart and humour. I confessed to my own enjoyment of having a pot of tea on the go.

You know you can get red bush tea in some supermarkets, but you can’t find it all the time. Its called rooibos tea. Its great, and its also caffine free! my friend informed me. We went across to her place and she made me a cup.

Well, Possums, I’ve been drinking rooibos tea since then and have only been able to find it at select supermarkets. I’ve been making cups of it for my friends. My friend Kelly liked it so much that I was buying her a box of it every now and then because she couldn’t get it near her place. One day Kelly arrived with a box of tea for me.

They’re stocking red bush tea at my supermarket now, she announced happily. Here, this is for you, she said handing me the box of tea she’d bought.

What is it? It was the same brand as my red bush tea.

Green red bush tea! We both laughed.

Thanks I said, as I put the kettle on.

But yesterday I found three brands of rooibos tea in the local Coles down here at the beach! There were even packs of one hundred tea bags! Which indicates to me that some serious red bush tea drinking is going on! Rooibos has caught on. Get with it.

Things are changing at the show

Well Possums, its Melbourne Show time again. Ever since the girls were little we have gone along. I used to have to unload from the car a pram or a double pram packed with food, nappies and extra clothing (as you do), and a baby or toddler or two. We used to spend ages in the animal nursery and as far as rides went, the merry-go-round was exciting enough – I even had to hop on with them, balance the littlies on a horse or reassure the ones who were scared. The show bags used to be Princess, Fairy or My Little Pony. At least one girl would end up wearing wings by the end of the day. Face painting used to be a highlight. Not any more…

We skip the animal nursery because its always crowded and just tour around the ordinary animal pavilions. We were particularly impressed with the new cow pavilion today. We also love the alpacas because my eldest daughter, Kathleen, announced a year or two ago that she was saving up her pocket money to buy a pet alpaca. (This could be interesting, although I don’t have to start worrying yet. She has a long way to go, and maybe she’ll be over it by then). Oh well, in the alpaca stand I found a cute little hat for myself made of alpacca wool. Its soft, made in a beret style and when I tried it on the girls gave it the thumbs up.

 

 

The kids went on one ride this year. Luckily they are old enough now to go on them without being accompanied by an adult! Too scary for me.

I nologer pack food. We buy it there. The kids had subway sandwiches and I had yabby fritata from the Malden Yabby Farm – delicious.

 

 

This year the Beany Kids show bags were the main event. They’re the yellow ones slung over their shoulders. Prior to going to the show, Kathleen had been trying to convince me to let her buy the Beany Kid Master bear, a collectors item that was sold out at our shops but which she found on eBay for one hundred dollars. But there it was in the show bag with another bear for only $25 dollars.

One thing that hasn’t changed is the eating of fairy floss. However this year they had different flavours. Have you ever tried the bubble gum flavour? I don’t know what it is about it (the sugar fix or the artificial colouring), but it gave me a head rush!

As I was driving home I reflected that the girls were excellent company. Its nolonger an organisational feat to take them anywhere and their conversation always makes me laugh. We had fun.

 

 

 

 

Bodies in the bush

Possums can you picture this: two women, two compasses, two maps, one route plan, one baby, one baby back pack, the Australian bush, two kangaroos, six hours of walking, breast feeding, menstruation, perfect navigation, one thousand points.

Rather incongruous, isn’t it? When you think of endurance sports like rogaining, you usually don’t factor in womens bodies. It occurred to me that my friend Meg and I were rogaining in the Australian bush on a perfect sunny day in gorgeous open terrain on our own apart from the occasional other rogainer and a pair of bounding kangaroos in defiance of our bodies.

Meg’s body: Meg carried her baby in a back pack. Her body labored with his extra weight. I offered to carry him for awhile, but she said she was right. We stopped twice in the six hours for about twenty minutes at a time so she could breast feed her baby. When he was due for a feed out on the course, we found a clearing and sat down on our packs. I played with her son while she set herself up. She sat cross-legged opposite me and I passed him to her. Her baby suckled happily upon her breasts while I plotted our next stage and shared chocolate with her.

It brought back memories for me, having fed four babies all those years ago. I used to marvel that my body was so functional. It was able to give birth and produce milk. My breasts ached and leaked with it. It was fascinating. I loved it.

We chatted intermittently about whatever came to mind.

Feeding really turns me on, she said casually. Often in the morning I have baby suckling on one side of the bed and hubby lying on the other side. When I finish, I usually wake him up – poor thing! We laughed. I agreed with her. Feeding is sensual.

And my body: typically (considering I have already confessed that the hub and I had an almighty blue two days before) my period arrived that day. It arrived with a vengeance – a heavy, heavy flow of thick red blood. This also fascinates me. Some of my friends call it the curse. They hate it, but I quite like it. I don’t know how I’ll feel when I hit menopause and don’t have blood anymore. I won’t miss the tension beforehand, but the blood is interesting and strangely comforting. I couldn’t keep my condition from Meg. We had to factor this in too.

After the race we fed our bodies at the hash house. The hash house is the catering tent at the check-in point of the rogaine. Its set up in a clearing in the bush large enough for everyone to park and camp. There’s also an admin tent, port-a-lous and a large fire that we can sit around. Its like an instant community in the middle of nowhere.

I ate two serves of beef stew and fruit salad. We played with her baby and chatted to a group of other women while we listened to the results of the rogaine. We had scored enough points to come third in one of our eligible sections.

Meg was tired and I drove us into Melbourne. When we swapped drivers we noticed the stiffness in our legs and we laughed. I felt it mainly in the hip flexes and I had a slight calf cramp in bed that night.

The next day I felt great! I’m looking forward to getting back to twelve hour events and so is Meg. But she has recently returned to work and can’t bear to be separated from her son on the weekends. She wants his little body close to hers, and I understand.

Just when you think you have to let go

 

You gotta live

You gotta love

You gotta feel something

You gotta worry

But its so hard

Its really hard

Sometimes I feel like going down.

 

Hello Possums. I love this Beatles song. I tried to find a clip of it on Youtube for you, but without success. The thing that makes the song is John Lennon’s emotion through his voice. What an artist!

The truth is I have been worrying a bit lately. Relationship with the hub was heading for the skids. That was before the night before yesterday, and the morning after that. [It's actually the morning of Saturday 22nd here in Melbourne, and I am waiting for Meg to pick me up for our rogaine].

The hub and I, we both have our faults. We had identified areas for improvement, but for one stubborn reason or another things hadn’t changed. I was beginning to despair that they never would. And that was not a happy place to be in. The night before yesterday it all blew up. I suggested we make an appointment with our lawyer. I was imagining moving into our inner city apartment when our tenant’s lease was up or house hunting.

But the morning after that everything went arse about in a good way. Can an old dog learn new tricks? Something clicked in his head. He spoke to me in ways that he has never done before. He went cold turkey on the alcohol last night and instead of drowning his stress in oblivion he sat and thought for hours. When he came to bed he spoke to me again in the most open way he has been able to manage for years.

And the morning after the night before yesterday, he made love to me like heaven.

Old dogs can learn new tricks it seems.

 

 

The Team is Back (sort of).

Hello Possums. Have you ever been rogaining? Its a sport where you navigate through bushland to pick up check points. Its like orienteering, except you choose your own route, its an endurance event and it runs into the night time. My rogaining partner Meg and I are competing in our first rogaine together since she gave birth to her first child. Her baby is now one and he is joining us in his baby back-pack for his first rogaine too.

Meg and I make a mean team. We walk, unlike some of the other competitive teams who run, but our navigation is pretty hot, we have excellent route selection strategies and we often make good time in the night sections. We used to enter to win. We used to eat on the run. We used to walk until we almost dropped.

Our usual competitive practice might have to soften a bit this time I think.

I wonder if we should stick a baby-on-board sign on her back pack?

Something to try at home

Hello Possums. As you know, education is one of my passions and I currently work as a science educator. I have a new gig starting next term in a primary school here in Melbourne. Working with the classroom teachers, I’ll teach a series of science lessons to every grade in the school. This is intended as professional development for the teachers and also as a fun learning experience for the kids.

I’ve just come from a planning meeting with one group of teachers, who were very enthusiastic about my involvement. That they could engage in such lively discussion with me today, instead of giving in to end of term fatigue, is a credit to them.

I have lots of equipment to order before next term. Prior to leaving I fossicked around in their science storage area amongst forgotten tubs filled with equipment for programs that were running one or two curriculum changes ago. Just on curriculum change, I have a friend who cynically thinks that frequent curriculum change brought about by the government is a plot to occupy teachers to the extent that they have no energy left to become activists (of any kind).

Any way, I found some useful stuff. I have boxes of bulbs and batteries etcetera to sort through and my clothes are now covered in dust.

I love teaching science to primary school kids. They become so excited when they get the chance to explore things. Actually adults do too. Here is something for you to try at home:  Get a wire coat hanger and tie a piece of string or wool to it so that the string can easily pass over your head and the coat hanger can hang down in front of you like this:

Plug the string into your ears and bang the coat hanger on a solid object by swinging it. The sound travels to your ears through the string and the result is remarkable!

Sally’s Spider Specialists

Here is a seven year old child’s take on an advertising campaign. Not only has she designed the advertisement, she invented the company:

A translation: Sally’s Spider Specialists. We use a specialists trick by putting glue on your floor to stick them! You call us we kill them! $900 per spider! Wow! I’m stuck!

Romeo and Juliet

Possums, I’m going to tell you a secret. Shhh. I have a crush on someone. Worse than that – I seem to going from crush to crush. I just get over one and think, well at last I can act my age, only to find myself day-dreaming in crushland all over again.

The last time I felt like this was when I was 14 probably, before my first real boyfriend when I had a crush on Leif Garrett. (Actually, you’d better keep that to yourself too – a crush on Leif Garrett is something to be very ashamed of, rather like having a crush on one of the Idol stars these days).

So why is this? I would prefer to have more control over my thoughts and feelings. I’m 43 for goodness sake! I used to have a very sensible attitude to all of this stuff.

I’m looking back now to about eight years ago when a friend of mine went through a very weird stage. She and I had had our first children at the same time. She had two girls, but I went on to have four. Her children started to become more independent from her whilst my younger children were still babies. It was around this time that she went through a phase. The symptoms were:

1. starting a workout regime with a personal trainer and getting back into shape.

2. tanning in solariums, having facials and putting lemon juice on her hair in the sun for that natural bleached blonde look.

3. updating her wardrobe.

4. becoming fixated on the movie Romeo and Juliet with Leonardo de Caprio. Whilst it was showing in cinemas, she went to see it four times (by herself).

5. she started talking about how sad it was that we would never experience young love ever again, but that our daughters would one day.

6. she started talking more about sex.

7. she started partying harder.

8. her conversation topics became very riskee. For example when out to dinner with girlfriends she brought up the topic of second husbands. She said, If we ever remarry its sure to be to someone who’s already been married. We have to face that fact. So who out of everyone’s husbands we know could you imagine yourself with?

At the time I didn’t understand her. I remember telling her that it was great that our daughters would have their turn, that we’d had ours and that basically that’s the way it should be and that life was good. And feeling very uncomfortable with her riskee conversation.

I have lost touch with this friend. I have raised my four daughters and they are becoming more independent… I am branching out into other things and its as though I have rediscovered part of myself that has been dormant for years. I want to tell her, Hey mate I get it now, I get it! Lets party.

Or perhaps I should ask her, Hey mate, did you find a cure?

Holiday Highlights 3: Rude Food (and food in general).

Hello Possums. Traveling in Italy and France recently for the first time was truly a gastronomic experience: from a cooking lesson with two Tuscan chefs from Kitchen chez nous, to dishes served to us at restaurants, to cooking for ourselves using fresh local produce.

The Tuscan chefs visited our villa near Florence to teach us to cook a four course meal of Italian classics. The menu for our cooking lesson was stuffed zucchini flowers, home made spinach ravioli in a sage and butter sauce, peposo and panacotta with peach sauce:

The zucchini flowers were stuffed with buffalo mozzarella and anchovy, and fried in a light beer batter. The beer batter drew the oil away from the flowers and complemented their texture by adding crunch. The kids and adults adored them.

The pasta for the ravioli was made with strong durum wheat flour and required half an hour of constant kneading before going through the pasta machine. But the result melted in your mouth – heaven on a stick! Here I am with our finished ravioli taking a break whilst the peposo simmers along on the stove in the background. The peposo recipe called for a cup of red wine and, because it was quite a tasty Chianti, of course we got stuck into it too. Here is the Peposo Recipe (as promised to Charlotte):

700g muscle of veal taken from the shin bone (or if you prefer to use beef, go for stewing steak or beef osso bucco)

7 cloves garlic

3 tins peeled tomatoes, the Italian brand CIRIO or similar was recommended (or 400g peeled fresh tomatoes)

1 onion

1 carrot

1 stalk celery

1 glass red wine

extra virgin olive oil

2-3 tablespoons black pepper

salt

~

Saute finely chopped onions, carrots, celery, galic cloves with olive oil in a deep thick bottomed saucepan. Add the meat cut into large cubes. When meat is sealed add pepper and the tomatoes. Cook medium temperature for 10 minutes. Add the red wine. Season with salt. Cover it and allow to simmer slowly for about two hours over a low heat.

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At the end of our 2 week stay in Tuscany we went to a local restaurant that was walking distance from our villa. There was no menu. Instead the chef asked us to choose our meals from verbally recounted dishes of the day. There was a choice of four different entrees and the only choice for the main course was the type of meat, which was served with set accompaniments. I chose pigeon for my main course and was served a meal that had us in hysterics:

Well I made the choice to be adventurous, and ended up with food that has to be described as rude!

In the south of France we ate duck every day because it was always on the menu. My favorite dish was Margaret e Canard, the most delicious example of which I found at a lovely cliffside restaurant looking across to Rocamadour:

Here’s the view of Rocamadour from the restaurant:

And here’s a view of inside the restaurant:

Rosie and Emma in the foreground so that we could discretely take a pic of the pooch under the table behind – in a restaurant! What the…?