A (Very) Short Career in Politics: Pt 2

Hmmm...serious bit of bad soap opera, leaving you hanging like that - I didn't plan it that way! That's no way to treat my 17 remaining patient and dedicated subscribers; "Love youse all!" as a particularly articulate (not) Aussie boxer is wont to say. (With particular linky love to my dear Cecily, who was egging me on to finish almost before I'd stopped typing...LOL)

So, the phone call.

The party leader is a very nice bloke. We have enjoyed getting to know each other, and kicking around ideas the last few weeks. He sounded distinctly uncomfortable as he told me that certain members of the party, all from one community group, felt that they would be "better represented" on council by another candidate (from their group) who had only just decided he was willing to have a shot at it.

As background to that, this group has been working particularly hard together over nearly two years to represent their village (mine, as it happens) in the fight against a particularly odious development proposed for it (Hardie Holdings - will mean something to the Aussies amongst you). They felt that this candidate had more experience, in this issue, in reading the associated reports and EIR's and DPs and LEPs (Environmental Impact Reports/Development Proposals/Local Environmental Plans) etc...and he did.

(But that is not all Council is about. And I'm a pretty fast learner, for a blonde. But I digress...)

Plus, this group discussed it amongst themselves, without raising it at the party meetings. It only came out in a private conversation with the party leader, the day after our last meeting, which lead to his phone call. So much for increased transparency and honesty, the bedrock of our campaign for council!

My initial feelings were of anger and defiance. I told him I was not prepared to just quietly back down and wanted to think about it. He was really supportive, very disappointed too at the way this issue had been raised, but able to see both points of view - we both have particular strengths as candidates, and either would make a good running partner from his point of view. Also, and importantly, the community groups form the support team for this little local party - any bad feelings or dissent risks undermining the whole team. We agreed that, unless either one of us was prepared to back down, we should put the #2 slot to a secret ballot of the party at the next meeting as the fairest way to decide. Since we were all about to go away on holiday, that was nearly 2 weeks away.

The next 24 hours was quite interesting. What had been a little head cold suddenly decided to become laryngitis - with so much to think about and talk about, suddenly I couldn't talk at all! It was great. Everything had come to a screaming halt - and as soon as I realised this, I started to look at why, and to wonder what the message was for me.

That's when I realised how much I was putting on the line if I actually got on Council - my life, and most especially, the wee man's life.

We've been through a lot in the last couple of years, and particularly the last 6 months. I have been very conscious of a certain amount of anger he has felt towards me, as the one he perceives as the instigator of the breakup of his family unit. I understand that, and want to be able to work with him to help him heal those feelings. And I realised that my Council dream would take me further away from him, and give him more reason to be angry at me...and that was the last thing I wanted.

So, a couple of days later, when I had something of a voice I called the party leader back and told him to drop me...waaay down the ticket, where I had no chance of making it onto council. I am still going to run, to support the party and make a group voting ticket possible, and because I believe in what they are trying to achieve, and because it will be a valuable learning experience. There's no sour grapes - I'm still a bit peeved and disappointed at the way the local group handled the matter, but I'm a big girl, and I know politics is always a dirty game...even this close to home.

All the more reason for me to run in 4 years time, when the wee man is much older, and I'm a little wiser, and backed by people I can trust and who can trust me...

A (Very) Short Career in Politics

*Insert copious and effusive apologies for long absence of regular blogging - include butt-kicking etc. Repeat as required.*

Yes, I know...it's been a while. And it wouldn't surprise me if I'm sitting here talking to myself by now - anyone who has had the patience to hang in there waiting to see if I was ever going to show up again needs to facilitate a workshop in patience skills so I can enrol...!

It has been a busy time for me, with the usual committee-related activities spiced with the beginning of the lead-up to the Council elections in September, culminating in the school holidays over the last 2 weeks.

Last week, though, things briefly came to a grinding halt as the combination of a phone call and a (thankfully brief!) bout of laryngitis gave me a couple of quiet days to look carefully at my life and the choices I was making.

A bit over a month ago, mutual acquaintances had put me in touch with a present councillor who was not running again, but was interested in supporting local candidates who were interested in supporting the issues and community groups he had been putting so much energy into. I went along to a meeting and by the end was thrilled that we all seemed to coming from the same place, were fielding a party supported by many local community groups, with values of transparency and community consultation, and the group had offered me number 2 on the ticket. (In the scheme of things, this gave me a reasonably good chance of getting on council - the #1 on a well-supported group ticket usually gets in, and the #2 has perhaps more than a 50% chance of also getting in, depending on preferences.)

We continued to have fortnightly meetings, and shared emails with ideas and layouts for brochures, flyers and manifestos. Together with the leader of the party and the current councillor, I went to several public community meetings throughout the area to hear the issues that galvanised them, and to show support for the difficulties they were facing with the present council. I was flat out, enthused and inspired. The wee man went away for 2 WHOLE WEEKS with his father to visit his father's family, and despite missing him like a constant dull ache, I was really too busy to mope.

Then the phone call, and my full stop...

The call was from the leader of the party.

And now I have to run - stay tuned, I'll be back soon to update you on what happened next.... xxx

Weekly Winners, Sunday Meme

Oh dear - I am not quite the loyal correspondent, am I? Can I show you some more pretty pictures, for lovely Lotus' photo meme (Sarcastic Mom), and beg your forgiveness another day?

Life is good, full and busy. The election campaign is about to begin in earnest - more on that another day.

Here's looking at us:





The wee man likes a hearty breakfast, inside and out.




My beautiful Miss Mahlia, perfecting her studio poses.




The wee man is showing a keen interest in photography, too.




My little imps




On our way to our playgroup Teddy Bear's Picnic




Boy's eye view...







We do have fun with this parachute...and so does my camera.




Have to say I was rather proud of this trifle I made for the picnic - it tasted as good as it looked!

Weekly Winners, Sunday Meme AND the Big 100!

Well, well, well...here I am at Post 100. No deep introspection here. Some colour and light, a little peek at my world this week.

Visit Lotus at Sarcastic Mom if you like photographs - she amazes me on a weekly basis with her original perspectives (and wicked wit), and she hosts this fine photo meme.






We did each other's make-up - guess who is not getting a call-back...?




All action at the playdough table...





Artist at work.





From this, I could make...





Scarface Claw





My zygocactus blooms, signalling winter.





...and its translucent beauty at sunset sends my shutter finger crazy...

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

Forget the calendar. Yesterday, it was Autumn; today, it is winter. Those antarctic south-westerlies have swept in, cutting through layers of clothing and whispering seductively in my ear of crackling fires and steaming crockpots . The sky may have been snapping blue today; the sub-tropics are beautifully deceptive. Stand in the shade, or leave a piece of skin exposed for the winds to lick, and you'll remember, alright.

None of which has anything to do with the pictures on offer. The flowers are from Mother's Day (including the lovely pot of lavender the little man helped me pick), the boy and the fur-pants are my regular shutter-fodder, and the little green guy was literally a "shot in the dark" - a shape, dimly seen on the step last night, who submitted to me taking a dozen shots of him (I couldn't see him well enough to focus on him, and didn't want to scare him off with a bigger light or torch).

Pop on over to Sarcastic Mom afterwards, and see what the lovely Lotus and the other shutter-bug bloggers have highlighted from their week.






A week later, and these jonquils still grace my door and scent my room.





I love lavender







This fig tree, in the middle of a charming rural village, looks like something out of Tolkien. These trees start as vines, which engulf their support tree, to leave eerie hollows and sinuous curves.





A rare moment of doubt?





"It might look silly, but it's comfortable, okay...?"








I've got my eye on you.




(Funnily enough, after all the shots I took trying to "properly" capture his image, it is this off-centre view I like the best.)

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.