anyresemblance

Friday night I took the girls and Miss S's friend to see Hidalgo. I have nothing to say on the subject except I thought Viggo Mortenson looked exceptionally weedy and unattractive. They, of course, loved it. Apparently, it's a horse thing. Saturday was hectic - laundry, house cleaning, horse riding, basketball. I didn't draw breath all day and felt very grumpy that I had not achieved much around the house. I went to dinner on Saturday night for a friend's birthday. It was beautifully cooked food - a salad of rocket, walnuts and brie; slow roast lamb with juniper berries (this divine so I got the recipe from the hostess); a peach tart tatine. I was tired though and not really up for an evening out. After a day of racing around I would have preferred time alone. I realise that I prefer my own company - and I especially enjoy time in the evenings when my children are asleep and I can have a quiet time while knowing they are close by and safe. The nicest thing was to get home at 11 and discover that Mary, my babysitter, had tidied up after the children and emptied the dishwasher. A wonderful girl. Today didn't have much space in it either. I returned the car borrowed from a friend since my own car was returned from repair on Friday. It was a complicated arrangement but ended with us having lunch with the father of my children in Bungendore. It was pleasant and I know the children really enjoyed us being together in front of some other friends. I don't want to set the wrong expectations for the children but it was an effortless thing to do. All in all a very unrestful weekend. The only good thing is the clocks went back last night and I get an extra hour of sleep and it's lighter in the morning again. Of course, dark at 6pm is not nice. It's been so hot these past few days though it's hard to feel the advance of winter. I'm planning to go to the beach for Easter and if the weather holds will get one last swim in.

Skippy

Miss I was in the shower and I was assisting with hair washing when Miss S came rushing in to tell us there was a kangaroo in the garden. We all rushed out, Miss I, dripping shampoo and water and sure enough a small kangaroo bounced up the front path, across into the neighbour's garden, across the road to the school and off into the middle distance. The cats were huddled on the trampoline looking horrified at the indignity of having that creature invade their territory. There are lots of them in this suburb - they like the great expanses of lawn at the Royal Canberra Golf Club and the shady trees of Government House - but they don't usually venture into the gardens. It made us all happy to have seen it, though. Their movement and speed is still so thrilling to me. Today I went to the car wash twice. My friend, P, is a very orderly person but lately a small baby, working full time, commuting to work and a partner who is in S Africa about half the time has caused some glitches in her routine. Her car had a huge splatter of bird shit on the bonnet and I knew it was stressing her out so I offered to take her car to the car wash while she rushed from meeting to meeting. I bought a large flat white from the Cornucopia bakery and made a few phone calls then drove back to the office. In the afternoon, I went again to take the car she has lent me for the past few weeks while my car has been off the road. The boys in the car wash looked puzzled at my return in a different car. This time, I browsed in a couple of shops and bought some birthday presents for various people. 30 minutes well spent in lieu of lunch.

Food memories

Ok. I know he's gay, but I so want Thom from Queer Eye to be my boyfriend. I mean, in last night's episode he walked into an empty Ikea. How does he have the power to make that happen? Have you ever seen an Ikea car park with less than a hundred cars? And everything in stock? Even in my single days in North London, the Ikea on the North Circular Road represented everything stressful in shopping. There's no Ikea in Canberra so last year I made a trip to Sydney with my girlfriend as she wanted to stock up on nursery furniture. Crowds, no stock, insane purchasing system (get a ticket from one desk, take it to another desk and then drive to other depot 5 minutes away to collect). I filled in a complaint form but it made no difference - blah, blah, we endeavour to ensure that stock is available but popular items, blah, blah. Yesterday I knitted the umbilical hat from Stitch'n'Bitch for a friend's baby. This after having accidentally knitted a mobius band on Saturday night. The father of my children is a frustrated mathematician so they are obsessed with mobius bands. In grade 4, Miss S gave her class speech on "My favourite.... Greek Mathematician" and is obsessed with Sophie Germain. Note this does not extend to any particular genius in maths but makes for interesting trivia. I'm working on my links and adding the food writers that I turn to most. This cook was writing about making naan from Madhur Jaffrey and I was remembering that I learnt to cook from her Eastern Vegetarian Food and Claudia Roden's Book of Middle Eastern food when I lived in Libya. I had become a vegetarian on arrival since I was too squeamish to eviscerate a chicken. Despite the Libyan supermarkets only selling out of date Russian tuna and bottles of harissa, my friend, Rose and I found nearly everything we needed to cook out of these books equipped only with 2 hot plates. Some Algerian Berber friends taught us to char grill vegetables over a flame to make salat mechouia. An Egyptian man with a Glaswegian wife taught me how to make falafel though he insisted only Israelis used chickpeas and that "ful" were the correct beans with lots of dill so they were bright green inside. The Polish people on the floor below had a still which they fed with tinned tomato paste. Most of the time the lack of alcohol was ok but I recall one week in February when we had no electricity for 5 days and it poured with rain - by day three we were knocking on the door of the Polish engineers prepared to flirt with men with bad teeth for a stiff drink. A bloke from Belfast showed us how to brew our own beer with was less temperamental and less risky.

Hot Air

It's the balloon festival in Canberra. Local police are reporting a spate of minor traffic accidents as distracted motorists goggle at the sky. My house is near the lake so we see lots of them taking off and landing. Yesterday morning as I hung out laundry I counted 31 in the sky. Our favourite was the one like Van Gogh's head but there are many others. This morning I went to a meeting over at the National Library opposite the space they are all taking off from and the coffee shop was full of balloonists. They seemed like really fun people. I wonder what the qualifications are? A colleague at work has taken a redundancy package. She's been there as long as me and I realised it was not a bad payout. This heartened me enormously. Especially since I had completely miscalculated by commission payout for last year and got many zeros less than I had been hoping for. Last night we watched School of Rock on dvd. It was just as fun second time around though I'm not sure Miss I needs any more help in "sticking it to the man". Having said that she seems to be getting on really well with her teacher who praised her for having strong opinions. That's my girl. I picked the children up from after-school care, they got McDonalds and then we came home. I raked up 5 wheelbarrows of leaves - from my "nettle" tree which the cockatoos love. They strip the branches and crack open the little seeds. Miss I came and asked if she could clean out the little fountain as the stones at the bottom were all slimey, then Miss S asked if she could wash down the garden furniture. Then they hosed it down and played with the water. With the advent of autumn our water restrictions have been reduced and it's nice to give the garden some water though my lawn has long since disappeared. I think having grass is a luxury in Australia. It's a long weekend here and it feels good to get ahead with home and garden. Tonight we watched an episode of Charmed on video. There was some squabbling between the girls at bedtime. As I tucked them in, Miss S recounted the injustices done to her by her younger sister. "And, I hate her" she finished. "Well, I love you both" said I. "Mummy" she said loftily, "that's an opinion, not a fact". "You can't tell me my feelings are opinions" I countered. "Does "mummy's feelings" have an apostrophe" she asked, distracted from the debate at hand. I'm so happy to have a daughter who wants to debate grammar at bedtime...

Home is best

Back from Singapore overnight and I'm exhausted. More on the trip below but I slept so badly while I was away especially the last night in the hotel. I had just dropped off when my daughter phoned by mobile phone at 5am not realising the time difference. I'd used my frequent flyer points to upgrade to business (we have a reasonably parsimonious travel policy at work which means anything less than 8 hours is economy travel) and right after take off I put on the eye mask, reclined my chair, declined drinks, movies and food and slept the whole way to Sydney. Since I had to go into the office that kept me going till 4 then I just went home. The house seemed really unkempt after 5 days empty so I hoovered, polished and did 3 loads of laundry. I wrote a shopping list and cooked a dinner of mashed potatoes, broccoli and steak which the girls ate with relish. The helped with polishing furniture and lighting scented candles around the house to get rid of the musty smell. I've become quite obsessive about thread count so I changed my sheets as well and am looking forward to a bath and bed. This weekend I have to get the porch and the garden in order.

Life as we live it

I saw the peridontist yesterday. Gum disease but treatable. At a price. A large price. I'm not sure the limit on dental coverage on my medical insurance but this sure exceeds it. On the good side, I can claim anything over $2000 in medical expenses on my tax return so I'll be waiting on that coming back to me. To reward myself for my week of car and teeth trauma I took myself off to my favourite clothes shop and spent an hour trying on stuff with the very nice and honest owner offering full and frank advice on what suited. I ended up buying a shirt from this designer. There is heaps of interesting stuff coming out of New Zealand these days. Last night we watched a video of a Charmed epsiode, read and snuggled on the sofa - a perfect evening. Today was good. I had a fearful headache when I woke up - legacy of my car accident, I've decided since I've had headaches since then - but two neurofen had it under control. I cleaned the house which made me feel good. The girls washed the floor in the kitchen which was a bit soapy but fun for them. I removed the head of a dead marsupial mouse from the hallway - gift from our tortoiseshell cat. I took Miss S horse riding but Miss I and I sat in the shade of the barn and read our books since it was too hot and horse dusty to watch the lesson in the indoor arena. Then we came home and I made lunch. While I was doing that Tony from next door arrived with tomatoes just picked from his garden so we sliced those and ate them with salt and olive oil. Yummy. Miss S had basketball for the first time in a couple of weeks since the stadium has been too hot to let the kids play safely. The lack of practice showed but her team did well. She's not a talented athlete but she is a good team player which is way more important to me. Tonight we had dinner at the local malaysian restaurant. I had the best hot rock salted calamari. Miss S had lamb with black pepper and snow peas and Miss I had steamed rice and one piece of calamari. I used to think calamari was like chewing rubber bands but then I realised that it was a tricky thing to cook - not something I've ever tried domestically but I love to eat in restaurants.

Crash

There goes my peaceful Sunday. I was sitting at a red light when I heard the screeching of brakes behind me - too late as I was shunted into the car in front. My head flipped back but hit the head restraint and all the glass in my back window shattered. Fortunately we were right outside a church where people ran out to check no-one was hurt and get the cars off the road. The cops came reasonably quickly, breathalysed us all and took statements. The young girl who drove into the back of me sobbed like her life was over. She was probably only 17 and the first thing she did on getting out of the car was to call her mum. The driver in front of me had only just moved here, was driving her friend's new car and looked desolate. I felt like I had to mother them all. The insurance company have proved efficient - so far - and my car gets checked over tomorrow but I reckon there are many $$$ of damage - new back wing, new front bumper, etc... Still, it could have been worse, no one seems injured and thank goodness the children weren't in the car. I had completed the tedious task of buying a new dishwasher but had not completed the equally tedious grocery shopping but I'm glad of the excuse. Now I have to phone my children's father and ask if I can borrow his car for the week. I hate to be beholden but sometimes you just have to do it.

My bloody valentine

Or the fact that for the first time in 14 years I didn't get one? I'll cease snivelling and feeling sorry for myself. The weekend was so hot. On Saturday afternoon, the temperature reached 41. Basketball was cancelled, thank goodness, so I didn't have to worry about children expiring from the heat even though I had packed ice and a water spray to cool them down. I had 4 girls in the house on Saturday night with 2 names between them. They enchanted me by playing endless games of Uno in reasonably good spirits despite the h.e.a.t. On Sunday we went to the movies along with half the town to enjoy the air-conditioning. We saw Big Fish and we liked it a lot. It had a lot of the magical fantastical stuff common to Tim Burton movies but in a way I found charming instead of annoying. Yes, it's sentimental but it's very human as well and Albert Finney is great. Is it my age or a perversion that I find Albert Finney sexier than Billy Crudup? My neighbour presented me with a huge box of peaches and plums yesterday. YES, I have been accepted as a neighbour worthy of their bounty. Yippee. Now I have my eyes on their tomatoes. However, since I am away for the next few days I was in a fever of making peach chutney and poaching peaches in syrup last night. The plums are quite hard so I think they will last till the weekend. I got my advice via this preserving guru . I am in awe of her industry. We're off to Melbourne tomorrow to meet up with my sister. She's on her bi-annual visit to Australia to visit her daughter in Perth but we're meeting up in Melbourne. I'm taking the girls out of school for a few days and we're on a road trip. More from me later.

Too darn hot

8 hours in the car yesterday. 36 degrees. Accident on the M5. Friday afternoon Sydney exodus. Need I say more? I did finish knitting the big girl's hat and I'll post a photo when I get round to it. 37 degrees today. We spent the morning searching for a rain jacket. This is on the list for school camp. Despite the fact that they are more likely to suffer sun stroke than damp it was on the list and Miss S insisted we had to get it. Then we went to the riding stables. Hot, dusty and a zillion flies. Then we went home for lunch and then later we went to basketball. It must have been 30 in the basketball hall. All the kids were red faced. I kept refilling her water bottle so she could just tip it over herself. Her team won. When we got in the car after basketball the outside temperature gauge read 44. When we got home I made croquettas de galena, a simple chicken and bechemal croquette then coated in breadcrumbs and fried, from this. Miss S thought they were too creamy, but Miss I ate them with relish. I was just glad that they had tried something new. The cats are flopping around trying to find a patch of shade. There's something that looks suspiciously like a dead rat under the trampoline but I haven't got the energy to crawl in and retrieve it yet. The cockatoos are ripping branches off the big tree in the back - I think it's called a nettle tree - and bestrewing the leaves all over the garden. Did I mention that I was hot? Can you believe that 200,000 people have complained about the nipple and only 100 phoned the tv station when John Lydon said cunt on British tv?

Wardrobe malfunction

First day back at school today. We, of course, had spent up pretty at Officeworks on the back to school stationery and I had been seduced by the label maker so have become completely anal on labelling spice jars as well as every moving pencil and notebook. This year the list included a roll of paper towel for the first time but dropped off the ream of A4 paper. My older daughter tells me her ream of paper from 2 years ago is still in the classroom leading me to surmise that the school's inventory control could do with some improvement. The whole class allocation ritual was fraught with tension. Imagine the whole of primary school plus assorted parents milling around a space the size of a small bathroom trying to find which class the children were in this year. I muttered to another parent that I could think of 10 better ways of doing this off the top of my head. I fear I was overheard by the headmistress who excels at mediocrity. I swear she has a perm like my primary school headmistress and that same shrill tone. Oh, please, someone take the microphone off Pascal (names changed to protect the innocent). This man is unintelligible in normal conversation and when you give him the screechy, whining PA system it's like trying to work out which train you're trying to get on in the Gard du Nord. I am assured by other parents that he is notorious in the french speaking community for making no sense in english or french, so how he is supposed to issue instructions to excitable 8 year olds is beyond me. Still, my older daughter is happy with both her teachers. My younger daughter is reserving judgement but at least has not yet declared a moratorium on school. I was feeling a bit anxious that the new top I was wearing was rather low cut for work. Since my sister was diagnosed with breast cancer I've been conscious of being glad that my breasts are healthy and a bit less straight laced about showing them off (not quite a la Janet Jackson but for goodness sake, what's all the fuss about? they're only breasts). I shared the lift up with a colleague who has gone through a sex change in the last year. I cringe every time I'm in contact with her since her dress sense is so appalling. Today's choice was a tight leopard skin top with a pair of beige velvet hot pants. Seeing this made me realise that nothing I wore to the office could be considered inappropriate. By some wicked alignment of the stars this was the first really busy work day I've had this year. The good news was that the company announced a new policy of 12 weeks paid parental leave for the primary parent. Now this might not seem so hot to anyone working in the EU - and with my first child I had 26 weeks paid leave - but it's pretty good for private sector Australia. If Latham wants to win the women's vote, I'd argue that he needs to look at women's health, paid maternity leave and affordable, accessible child care as priorities. My experience has been that child care options are way better here than in the UK but maternity leave is crap. There wasn't really any bad news. I enjoyed what I was doing for the first time in weeks. I've been looking at how we might use some research around disease control and some fascinating stuff on using mathematical modelling to predict epidemics. I went to one meeting which was productive and worthwhile. I had 3 useful conversations which moved work forward. I made a decision not to bid for something which we probably would not have won for a dept which might not exist for long and felt good at not wasting any more time on them. I wrote a funding proposal and got some useful feedback on the likelihood of us getting some research money. I talked to a colleague about her fabulous new amethyst and pearl ear-rings from here. She is my mentor in one of my work areas but more importantly she has the most fabulous jewellery collection. She has a great eye for colour and when I get my insurance money (I was burgaled in November and had all my jewellery - including wedding ring and engagement ring - stolen) I'm taking her shopping with me.