Cricket song

The cricket song is reverberating in my ears now, as the last of the light fades. It's funny - moments after stepping out of the car this weekend, my brother's girlfriend was asking me what all the noise was, and it took a moment's pause and a re-tuning of my mental filters before I realized she was referring to the crickets. And yes, they ARE loud.

In our own everyday environment, we become used to certain sounds, smells, sights. In my world, much of the light and colour and sound comes from my little boy. He was long-ago nicknamed "the EveryReady Kid" (a nod to a battery advertisement) for his astonishing energy and ability to be "on", and on the go, from the moment he opens his eyes till the moment his eyes (and mouth) finally close.

Right now, for all the incredible reverberations of the crickets and the murmur of the TV in the background, my house is quiet. It's not unusual for him not to be here - he spends every second weekend with his father, and has been doing 4 days a week at preschool this year. Yet, somehow, when his father picked him up for their Christmas holiday in Northern Queensland, something stilled inside my house, and within me. This will be the first time my little man sees Christmas in without me, and me without him.

Sadness is probably not the right word for the feeling I'm experiencing. Fairness demands that I recognize that his father has already been through this last year, when I took the wee man to my mother's for Christmas, and I'm nothing if not fair.

Part of me is actually quite exultant at the unique pleasure of a quiet, stress-free, totally-mine-to-do-as-I-please Christmas week. I've an invite to a street party on Christmas Eve, which I'm looking forward to, but apart from a last bit of shopping and groceries tomorrow I plan to make like a hermit, and immerse myself in writing and developing the various projects I am setting up for the New Year. (More on that in the near future...look, I'm even going to have time to blog!)

Yet, as well as fair I'm also honest, and it's true that not being able to watch my baby's face light up as he realizes that, once again, the magic of Christmas has touched his world and the jolly fellow in the red suit has heeded his dreams is going to be worthy of the odd tearful moment.

But don't feel sorry for me. Think about all the things I'm going to get done! After all, it's so quiet....

Weekly Winners Sunday Meme- Can I play catch-ups?

Let's not talk about how long it's been since I've stumped up for Weekly Winners - indulge me, by ooh-ing and aah-ing at the gorgeous Aussie Christmas the wee man and I shared with my family up on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland. It was warm, fun, relaxed and a wonderful antidote to the tainted memories of past Christmases.

And say "Hi" to the gorgeous Lotus (Sarcastic Mom), whose fabulous institution is the Weekly Winners. Give her a big hug while you're there - just because...




The wee man adored doing workouts with his Uncle J







The self-titled Saucepan Man (How many readers of the Magic Faraway Tree here?)




Gorgeous beach afternoons, each of us to our own passions: me, with my camera; the wee man, sand and water; my mum, her yoga; Rusty, socialising...


























Christmas Eve...






And then it was Christmas Day...














...back to the beach...





...before home for the Christmas BBQ. These 2 just as fascinated with fire as last year!

So where was I when I wasn't here...?

Truth to tell, it was real life that mostly got in the way. With the lead-up to the election (no, not THAT one...my local government election), plus the other things I like to involve myself in, plus everyday life with the wee man, I would flop gratefully on the couch at the end of the day, happy for some mindless TV or a little Sudoku...anything that allowed 90% of my brain to drift.

(And, it must be said, I found dial-up so intensely annoying and resented the huge amount of time spent waiting for pages to load that I often found it a real dis-incentive to turning on the computer to read or write blogs.)

However, there was another distraction, another seductive little time-waster, which won a lot of my on-line attention for a while...and it's all my family's fault!

That's right - if I hadn't gone to my aunt's wonderful wedding back in July, and had such a fantastic time catching up with my cousins etc (plus the new members of the family we inherited through the wedding), I wouldn't have made all those rash promises about catching up through Facebook!

Yes - I'm a bit of a late-comer, I know. I had a very minimalist presence on Facebook previously - just a bare-bones profile, as it was a place I used to stay in touch with one girlfriend who lived in England. Then my brothers found me there, and kept sending me all these silly applications (which piled up, 'cos I had no idea I could just hit 'Ignore'). I'd contemplated wiping my profile, sure I had far better things to do with my time...and then I went to the wedding, and suddenly discovered the real strength of Facebook, when it comes to keeping in touch with people you love.

All of a sudden, my family and I (and then my network in general, as I expanded to include many of my playgroup and preschool circle) were able to exchange photos with all with one click of a button, share happenings, children's triumphs, illnesses and worries almost immediately. Indeed, we often tune into the nuances in one another's status report, sharing a sense of supportedness and involvement that the sporadic phone calls and emails we previously exchanged couldn't come near to.

As any regular readers of my blog will know, I am a big advocate for community, and through Facebook, I found another level of community which transcended time and distance and, since it involved family, became very special. Things have quietened down from the first heady flush of connectivity, but Facebook is now a valuable tool in my daily routine, and I use it regularly to weave tighter the threads of family and friendship.

PS. Guess what was one of the first things I did when I moved into this house? Yep! Got me some of that broadband PDQ!!!

PPS. Guess who was the cutest of a very cute bunch of under-age wedding attendants at my aunt's wedding?

Contrary to popular opinion...

...I have not been abducted by aliens.

For some reason, which I have been unable to specifically formulate but instead have been idly examining in the privacy of my own head, I have drifted away from the habit of blogging and immersion in the blogging world.

There's some superficial explanations, like how immensely frustrating I found it being back on dialup this year, and how much that limited my enjoyment of the Net in general, and blogging (both writing and reading) particularly. And how caught I became in real-time activities like the campaign and preschool etc.

Ultimately, I think that blogging and the blogging world gave me a much-needed sanctuary, an escape, when so much of my life was going shit-side-up. Now, as things in my life are taking shape in ways which are generally pleasing and satisfying and sometimes just plain time-consuming, I have lost the habit of blogging as the need that it filled (to be heard, to be understood) has fallen away. I'm happy (mostly). It's on a level almost below sensing, like a sub-sonic hum - it has replaced the hum of misery which was there before. People tell me I look happy, whatever that means.

I might have forgotten blogging for a while, but I haven't forgotten the amazing people I have met while blogging, and I have been thinking of you and occasionally dropping in quietly on a few of you when I can. (Trish, Tiff, you two are particularly in my thoughts...you have had a VERY tough year, and I am still here cheering you on, awed by your courage and humour as ever. Cec and JCK - catching up real soon!)

For those of you who have been crazy kind enough to hang in there waiting for me to bob up again, here's a quick summary of the last couple of months:

The Election

- I ran for Council after all, but only on the bottom of the ticket to support the group and our leader who, I am thrilled to say, got on to Council. And what a Council!

We have a lady Mayor, Jenny Dowell, who I had the immense pleasure of getting to know a little through the campaign - she is a person of courage and grace and integrity, which has been incredibly tested as she was diagnosed with breast cancer 3 days after winning the election! She is having a mastectomy on Tuesday, and fully intends to be at the first official meeting of council the week after. The community at large is sending her a massive amount of goodwill, love and support, shocked that she faces this crisis so soon after her triumphant win, but I'm sure that she is winning even more supporters by her honesty and dignity in sharing this terrible time with us, and Breast Cancer Awareness Month has got itself its new best advocate.

We have a Green female Deputy Mayor, Vanessa Ekins, and we have a great mix of progressive and fairly young councillors making up the majority of the council, with only 3 of the original dominating conservative "Six-pack" voting bloc remaining. Clearly, the community has spoken out for change, and I am really happy to have been part of the process. I wanted to make a change in our council, and see a better representation of women, and I helped achieve that without having to be a part of it myself...

...This time. I have had some feedback from some of the wonderful people I worked with in this campaign, to the effect that I have "...a shining future in local government" if I want it. The group who worked behind the scenes to support our party (including some of those who supported the claim of the other local candidate) are keen to work with me, and him, and others, to continue to support our man on council, and make long-term plans for the next elections, four years hence. Looks like my career in politics isn't over yet.



We Moved

- The wee man and I have moved on from one-room living, and now have more than enough room to swing a cat (and she loves it!) In fact, we have a lovely little 3 bedroom house with a jungle of a garden, and our darling dog Rusty was returned by the wee man's dad when we moved, so we are a very happy little family.

We have our own rooms ( I can't tell you how grateful I am not to take 2 steps and then trip on Thomas the Tank Engine or Alfie or Harvey or whoever the hell little metal engine was sticking into my instep...?!), the wee man is sleeping through the night (most nights) in his OWN room in his OWN bed, and I am experiencing that amazing phenomenon where you shut your eyes and then you open them again and it's morning...wtf? It's only been nearly 5 years. (Humble apologies to anyone not currently experiencing this phenomenon - I'm not boasting...oh, okay...maybe a little bit.)

It's been wonderful to get all my things out of storage after nearly nine months, and while a few boxes have been shoved into cupboards unopened, generally the place is looking and feeling like Home. (I can't wait till next weekend when various members of my family will be arriving to help celebrate my birthday, and will get to see it.)
















I Had a Haircut

- More importantly, a haircut I LOVE! In fact, it's six weeks this week since it was cut and I am itching to go back for a trim, but my newly-discovered treasure of a hairdresser has had the gall to be off sick this week...lol!




And So Has The Wee Man

- Photos to follow...I haven't even seen it yet!?! He's away this long weekend with his Dad, and they rang me on the Friday to tell me he had been to the barber and he now had "little hair"! (Don't worry - this was a previously discussed decision. In fact, I had promised the wee man he could cut it as soon as the weather warmed up, but I drew the line at the Number One with the clippers that his father was itching to do!)


So...as I said, Life is generally good. Not perfect, nor necessarily easy, but good. Satisfying. Promising. And sometimes, laugh-out-loud great...

Preparing to leave the harbour

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."
-- Mark Twain

This week, Past, Present and Future collided. The Past - memories of my father turning up unexpectedly at the very first Australia's Biggest Morning Tea (an annual Cancer Council fund-raiser) I hosted. He was in the city on the way to an appointment with an oncology specialist, and dropped by to see me. He was startled to discover my sunny little flat filled with lovely young women, many of whom he knew from different aspects of my life, sipping aromatic teas and sharing scrumptious cakes for him and others like him, fighting cancer. He shared tea and cake with us, laughed and chatted, before continuing on to his appointment.

The doctor told him to go home and prepare to die. He obeyed, dead 13 weeks later.

I remembered all this, and told the tale, as I watched my Present run around the playground, bearing my father's name, while we sipped tea and shared scrumptious cakes at the Preschool this week. I was hosting another Australia's Biggest Morning Tea (in the Afternoon) - for him, and others like him, lost to cancer.

And as I contemplate my Future, a couple of days after my first pre-election information seminar, I'm sure my dad is egging me on. My learning curve is becoming a "learning perpendicular" (as Jan Strom described it so eloquently at the seminar), and I see the bemused expressions on some faces as I try to describe why I feel compelled to run despite all the negative preconceptions many of us share about local councils and the role of councillors, but I've come away from that seminar feeling really good about what I'm doing.

Dad would understand (even while he may have his own, private reservations); it's time to sail away from the safe harbour, catch the trade winds and explore some new horizons.

After all, this is the only life I have.

Weekly Winners, Sunday Meme

Happy Mother's Day, to mothers everywhere, and especially all you special mothers who patiently wait for my spasmodic postings!

I hope you had a wonderful day with your loved ones. I did - the little man and his dad picked me up and took me to our local Sunday market, the wee feller on a mission to get me to choose something. (He arrived with a fistful of jonquils, which are perfuming the room as I write this...heavenly!) He helped me pick out a gorgeous lavender plant, and some herbs to pot which he assisted me with later in the day. We spoke to some of our other favourite mothers, and enjoyed the fresh autumn day together. He had decorated a little box with "jewels" at preschool (helped me eat the chocolates inside, too), and drew me a card that is recognizably a person (me!) cooking a chocolate cake (for him!). It's lovely that he's now old enough for this day to begin to mean something for both of us, though I'm looking forward to a few years' time, when I get the whole breakfast-in-bed shebang!?. Why else am I teaching him to cook?


The camera lay idle most of the week. My good deed this week was to run over to the garage with it to take photos of the sweet old pup who had been struck by a car (luckily, not seriously), and was tied up there while the hunt was on for his owners. I came home and made some "Lost Dog" posters on the 'puter to put up at the shop and PO. His owners saw them, and collected him gratefully the next day. Don't we love a happy ending?!




(Remember, check out the lovely Sarcastic Mom and the other Weekly Winners. I'm sure they've taken plenty more photos than I have this week.)



Never found out his name, but he was the sweetest-natured boy...






Parachute games at playgroup






Making cuteness a high artform...(and I promise this photo was not staged)

Weekly Winners, Sunday Meme

I have a bit of a back-log, so forgive me if this page takes forever to load. My mother's 60th birthday spent with family, the wonderful Fun Day we held this week on National Playgroup Day, and my ever-photogenic wee man and wee cat have provided much shutter fodder and happy memories.

For a glimpse of what's happening in other parts of the world, visit Lotus's blog (Sarcastic Mom), the lovely sponsor of this meme. Give her a hug on the way through - she's hurting right now, and we love her.





Looking rather like a koala...Miss Mahlia FurPants...




...who has the sweetest feet...





...and was in the wars last week - attacked a week after her op by a neighbour's cat, she has a bald patch and stitches on BOTH flanks now.






The birthday card we made for Nanna Mama








The wee man and Nan (his great-grandmother)





A quiet time with a movie after the big drive to Nanna's





Birthday girl





The wee man, me and Pop





The object of his affections





Primitive instincts...boy with fire





Unky J, in party mode





Beautiful party people





Playing with Unky J





Breakfast with Unky B





Musing on the night before...?






Welcome to our Fun Day





I'm not having fun





Oh, what a beautiful day!





My beret looks better on him





Wednesday's magnificent sunset










Ending as I began...with my furry baby.