Wardrobes of the Warped

Dear old Shazza Bone once said - at the height of her so-called fame in Basic Excrement: "I have a vagina and I have a MENSA membership -and no-one wants to hear my opinion." Or something like that.

She is probably still correct on both counts because not only do most of us want her to keep her mouth shut, we're all pretty relieved that we're not subjected to any open crotch shots either.

And yet she's now 'forgetting' to slip on a bra before she lunches at that tiny little hideaway that no papparazzi has ever heard of, The Ivy. In a see-through top, with breasts eerily perky for a 48 year old. I bet MENSA are so proud of her current strategies for maintaining whatever's left of her 'acting career' and/or public interest. At the very least she could have stuck two AIDS ribbons on her nipples!


Speaking of 'acting, apparently that's what A Night At the Hilton is pictured here trying to do.

Yep, every boy's favourite Do-Her Doona is living on the edge and starring in a film that's the envy of the two C/Kates - Blanchett and Winslet - 'The Hottie and the Nottie'.

Word has it that Sir Ian McKellen lost the major supporting role to Robert DeNiro, and that was only because he insisted on re-writing parts of the original Shakespearean text, and Scorcese didn't end up directing the film because Steven Spielberg falsely told him that Ivory Merchant had won the gig and were going to shoot the tale with a 19thC, genteel focus.

Naomi Rumble has obviously thrown one too many telephones at the help again and they've taken revenge by cutting out chunks of her dress.

And there's nothing she can say about it, because they stuck superglue in her lipgloss tube as well.


Is this the real Madonna or a wax statue of Mads in her latest reincarnation - the psycho tranny nanny?

Part Mary Poppins, part Erotica and more than part stretched, injected, inflated and oily - not unlike a pole dancer on a rare visit home to her in-bred relatives, trying to convince them that she's a school teacher who helps the blind and the needy. Or the seedy....





Dear old Gwen's never been one for the natural look, has she? There's something creepy about a new mother with such a tight white hair do, cartoon-lined eyes and slashed red clown lipstick.

She's all tarted up for a night doing fellatio favours at the local bus-stop and yet her poor child's trussed up like a retarded tea cosy.

This kind of child abuse must be reported!


Shitney Beers, however, takes motherly dressing down to its most extreme level and has either remembered that she has two young sons (even though both are technically too small to be subjected to a McDonald's happy meal) or is going to take out her gum, stick it on the dashboard and inhale them both herself.


I feel as though I should know who this Jay Mohr guy is - the creepy agent from Jerry Maguire and a love interest for Jennifer Aniston in the oscar-worthy flick Picture Perfect?

Anyhoo, it's the human xylophone he's holding hands with who is scaring me. Her chest rivals that of Kate Bosworth's or, if browner, could be a stunt-double for any Somalian woman trying to breastfeed a baby at the refugee camp.

Jay mate buddy old chap, she doesn't need clothes, she needs chips, chocolate, meat, milk, and lard - NOW.

MK lovey, sweetie, darling, snufflepuff - if you don't want your photograph taken, either:

a) don't go out at all and instead get your help to bring in everything; or
b) return that goat skin rug back to my father's circa 1976 billiard room right now and give my Mum back her gold vinyl clutch that I borrowed for my first Blue Light Disco in 1982;
c) dress as though you're mature and not a mental OR be honest and tell us all why the walking ugg boot look is the one you're going for

Cha Cha Cha....
My mind is so used to wasting itself on idle or downright bizarre and completely pointless thoughts. Thoughts that benefit absolutely nobody, including myself, yet still spring up through the grey matter and keep me amused.

I'm an insomniac by trade, and my usual nocturnal imaginings include:
John Cusack, Jude Law, Love Chunks (not necessarily in that order); what I'd do if we won lotto; how I'd renovate the house; movies I would like to have starred in; and what parts of my body would I most like to sculpt down to a size 10 and why (so far only my earlobes escape the treatment).

If they're not pathetically banal enough, here's one that I regularly indulge in. It's almost too shameful to write about it, but I sometimes work out What I'd Eat If I Were On A Deserted Island (reasonably normal so far), If I Could Only Choose Foods That Start With One Letter Of the Alphabet. This is absolutely true. The saddest thing is, I've actually chosen a letter and felt very comfortable about it. The letter is C.

When the red cordial and smarties run out in the 'Lost' scriptwriters office, they can write this into their increasingly confusing storyline. Jack, Sawyer or Locke has to go back into the hatch and decide what foods the castaways get to eat, but only starting with the same letter. Geez, that'd stretch out the show for at least a few more episodes...!

But back to the glorious letter C. Firstly, it contains my three most favourite foods, all starting with CH - Chocolate. Cheese. Chips.




.... and let's not forget cherries, chicken, champagne, Chinese, chardonnay, cheesecake, chickpeas, chives, chop suey, chowder, chutney and chestnuts...!

It is then my mind runs out of 'ch' foods and goes for the Big C - caesar salad, cabbage (raw, not boiled into a grey, stinking, slimy cowpat), cake, cabernet sauvignon, cannelloni, calamari (or squid, to those who are more earthy), capers, capsicum, caramel, cardamon, cinnamon, carrots, cashews, celery, cereal, cider, citrus fruits, clams, club sandwiches (stretching it a bit), coconuts (hopefully fairly plentiful on a tropical island, unless I'm shunted out to the Orkneys), cocoa and cocktails. Yum, yuuuuu-huuummm!

I'm sure that there are more foods, but it's home time now and time to do something with chicken, capsicum. chives, chili, cabbage and cashews. Or maybe just dial a Chinese home delivery instead..... Or chuck up in disgust: if only this mind of mine could be put to some GOOD use!

Poxy old Pituitary Prolactinoma


Way waaaay back in 1995, when Alanis Morrisette was being boringly blasted everywhere and we all thought that Joey from 'Friends' was cute, I was diagnosed with a 'macro-adenoma', also known as a Pituitary Prolactinoma (or Poo Poo for short).

It wasn't cancerous, but was a jaffa-sized (as in the Australian 1cm diameter inedible chocolate balls used to throw at annoying people in the cinema, not a real orange) little planet with a mind of its own feeding off my mind.

Luckily for me, the specialists soon stopped talking about yanking it out via my nose and were relieved to see that it shrunk itself to the size of a single grain of rice. My nostrils were no longer in danger of being raped and pillaged and the magic medical pills were received as gratefully by me as Sharon Shone with a positive movie review. As my regular specialist put it, "Look, you'll never be normal (which explains all my blogs pretty well), but you're about as normal as its ever going to get for you."

Despite this tantalisingly close proximity to normalcy, one of the specialties of this arsehole of an adenoma is its production of prolactin. As in breast milk. Yep, if we were living in 1807 instead of 2007 I could be making myself a rather handy living being the village wet nurse. Or idiot, but at least a few babies' lives might have been saved if my restless rack was restoring them.

Back to today. The tumour may be rice-sized, but Poo Poo still makes an effort to keep the breast milk production up. So yes, I have the enviable capacity to be able to politely lean over and offer to whiten your cup of tea during a meeting if you need me to (although no-one, yet, has been brave enough to ask). All it would take would be a quick lift up of the top, an armpit-fart type of motion and voila - white tea! During a karate class when we're required to hold our closed fists in front of our faces and our elbows up against our chests, my 'ol mammaries often leak in protest. Thank god our karate pajamas are white and the hall is hot because it just looks like I'm extremely sweaty.

Bountiful boobery aside, Poo Poo also sets itself up as the nerve centre for all things annoying (apart from reality TV talent shows and Kylie Minogue songs that is). Poo Poo will contact my old enemy, Mr Migraine, on a regular basis to come out of his lair and do his version of Riverdance in barbed wire stilettos behind my eyeballs or send Technicolour Yawn Man down into my stomach to force-fill up my sick bucket. If Poo Poo isn't on the ball, it will send someone less drastic but still bloody annoying to remind me of its existence: Acne Zit Man, for example, or Sleepless S**t Ball.

In the past few months however, Poo Poo has been pressing the buttons on the control panel with more regularity and these physical aches and pains have increased and got worse in their duration and intensity. Sure enough, my last blood test showed that my prolactin level had mysteriously shot up higher than a Goody Goody's hand during an algebra class.

It was time to be referred back to a specialist. That was in October last year and I've had to wait until mid-February for him to be available to see me. Since then, Love Chunks has endured tears, tantrums, anxiety, crankiness, wakefulness (due directly to my insomnia and overt turnings over and sheet-stealing), an increase in sick bed time (thanks, Mr Migraine) and having to shoulder our childcare responsibilities on his own. He hasn't complained once about it and keeps assuring me not to feel guilty about my 'down time'.

What I do worry most about is how Sapphire sees me: am I a sick and grumpy Mummy who spends a lot of time in bed and not with her? Yesterday, I nervously tapped on her bedroom door to ask her. "You're my funny Mummy," she said. "You do interesting things with me, you love me and make me laugh."

What about me being in bed, feeling sick all the time lately? "Oh, that's when Daddy and I eat chips or buy our lunch from Subway and watch movies like 'Star Wars', so we just have our own fun."

Good. I'm now feeling as relieved as my nostrils once did way back in 1995.

Trifling Tomato Tussles

Jack Herbert Read was born in 1913 and lived a thoroughly decent life. He died exactly one year ago aged ninety two and it seems to me that the world now has a tiny gap in it where it was previously filled with the soul of a genuine noble man.

That man was my grandfather and he still remains a huge positive influence in my own life. If I could have possibly inherited at least 2% of his generosity, intellect and spirit I'll consider myself extremely lucky.

In the last couple of years of his life, his physical frailty far outweighed any deterioration of his mind. On occasion he would get a bit irritable which, for Jack, was akin to Dubya making sense - very rare indeed.

After a lifetime of growing his own vegetables, fruit and tending a beautiful garden it was a real wrench for him to give all of that up for the sake of his health when he moved into an aged care facility.

However it didn't take the staff long to notice just how green his thumbs were. On his daily walks to the post box and back (he was a big believer in regular, written letters to his children each week) he would invariably end up pilfering a few cuttings from plants that he had admired on the way.

Many of these prospered in little styrofoam cups the staff 'found' for him, filled up with dirt and put on a daggy old formica table in the retirement village's courtyard. His success rate was high and he gave those to my mother to sell at her local church fund-raiser.

After a few months of this, Jack sought more. His green thumbs were still green, despite the rest of his body being far less so. A half wine barrel was found, and he patiently planted a few tomato seeds left over from one of his salad sandwich lunches. Before long it was a seedling, then a plant and then an eight foot high 'tree' that was a feature article in the local newspaper.

This tomato tree was heavily laden with the most red, juicy, flavoursome and organic tomatoes. It was admired by all residents who a) were still able walk to the side courtyard;
b) still possessed the mental capacity to recognise a real tomato when they saw one; and
c) still had an appetite.

When these red beauties were perfectly ripe, Grandpa gave the kitchen staff as many of them as he could spare. They were either enjoyed immediately, without adornment like a ripe peach by staff and residents alike or made it into many of the kitchen's meals.

The legend of the tomato tree grew, and its fruits benefited everyone. Everyone, that is, except Dulcie, from Room 27. He and Dulcie were at war, and he did not believe that she deserved any of the spoils over which he had successfully laboured.

Dulcie was as deaf as a Council Complaints Service Counter Operator, yet liked to watch her television and listen to 78s and 33s on her record player. Naturally, she was not the only one in the retirement home with this disability, and all rooms were appropriately built with solid brick walls and sound-proofed doors. Despite these measures, Dulcie insisted on leaving her door open at all times and liked to immerse herself in her aural entertainments way past bedtime (ie 7pm for some folk or 11pm for my grandpa).

After a few nights of Benny Hinn's Ministries at top volume or the Ray Conniff Singers' on steady rotation, Grandpa thought it necessary to have a quiet word with the head of nursing. Could Dulcie keep her door shut so that he and the others could enjoy a peaceful night's sleep?

Dulcie did not take the intervention at all well, the nurse reported later. She had apparently rubbed her hands through her grey stubbly beard, harrumphed a bit and yelled (thinking she was actually replying in a soft voice), "But I WANT the door open - I don't want to be shut in!" When reminded by the head nurse about how her nocturnal noises were disturbing the others, she retorted, "But you can HARDLY HEAR IT," and, predictably, the suggestion of an earlier bed time went down about as well as a hedgehog through a paper straw.

A few more nights of sleepless suffering later, Grandpa tried again. "You can tell that JACK READ that I'm NOT going to shut my door or BE QUIET! He has that stupid clock that bongs like Big Ben every quarter of an hour, so why should I have to KEEP MY NOISE DOWN?"

Suitably chastened, Grandpa swaddled his clock, a wedding gift from the 1930s, in a woollen blanket to dull the chimes. It would have felt completely strange to him if he had been forced to live in the retirement home without his trusty mantel timepiece. He also decided to visit Dulcie and see if he could talk some sense and consideration into her. Details become sketchy at this point, but I suspect that Grandpa's comment, "I'm not giving her one single crummy tomato unless I get to fling it at her," meant that she might have told him to go and find a romantic interlude at another location.

Their feud notwithstanding and despite her deafness, Dulcie had already heard about Jack's famous tomatoes and seen some on proud display in many plates and fruit bowls in her friends' rooms. Her mouth was watering, and not just because she drooled intermittently when she slept. She made it known to the night nurse that she too would like a tomato or three, but Grandpa was adamant that she could "go jump in the lake." This shocked us all; his entire family of children, grand children and great grand children. How could dear old Jack, the personification of a decent, kindly, Christian man, broad-minded to the end, be so cranky and so, well, non-Jack like?

The night nurse again asked Jack for a tomato that she could pass on to Dulcie. "She knows what she has to in order to get one - just shut her door," he replied firmly. No doubt the nurse was in agreement and was not enjoying being the intermediary between two nitpicky ninety-somethings.

It all worked out well in the end. Dulcie didn't shut her door but got herself a fancy new-fangled set of TV and record player-friendly head-phones and Grandpa shared his tomatoes with her. Via the nurse, of course.

God I miss him.

Sad Steps Back Into Times We'd Rather Forget

Tara Tara Tara (sounds like a D-grade sixties movie title doesn't it).

Back in 1987, I tried my damnedest to get my blonde cobwebby strands to be as full and as 'big' as this and probably also had a pair of gold dangly earrings with pearls on the ends. But that was 20 years ago and it is NOT YET TIME to re-introduce the look. It is doubtful that the time will ever arrive again.


Vince Vaughan, not unlike Tara x 3 above, first got noticed in a minor movie (American Pie for her, Swingers for him) and both were seen as fresh-faced, perky little creatures who looked as though they'd gone for an enthusiastic half-marathon training session and then inhaled a pot of espresso.

Whilst Tx3 has gradually turned into a droopy-boobed booze hound, VV has just turned into a hound. Where he was once thin and fit, he's now puffy, bloated and with under-eye bags large enough for his ex, Jennifer, to hide her excess luggage and thus avoid paying the fee.....

Shitney Beers is pictured here complete with greasy hair, tatty slut nails and, at night - wearing sunglasses bigger than my own arse cheeks.

Tara's hairstyle is not dissimilar to Brit-Brit's taste in eyewear. We clueless chicks wore our big hair with white-framed sunnies in 1984 as we collectively sighed over C.Thomas Howell and Ralph Macchio in Tiger Beat magazine, sure that they'd go on to win Oscars and earn their own star on the boulevard. Add the obligatory white stilettos, pastel pinks and acid wash jeans and hey presto, we were apeing Corey Hart who proclaimed "I Wear My Sunglasses At Night" for some inexplicable reason. Shitney - these stupid sunglasses should NEVER be worn again.

Perhaps I'll be kind and add a clause: they should never be worn by anyone with an IQ above room temperature, so maybe the Shitster is exempt this time.

Matthew McBongo-Boy is back down here in Oz to film, or fish, or simply look as Australian as he possibly can during the peak of our summer.

That's right folks: Aussie men aren't the most stylish of breeds and remembering to wear thongs (on their feet, not their vertical smiles) is considered very polite. Their idea of foreplay tends to be 'Are ya awake, darl?' Welcome to our wondrous land, Oh Bongo Bollocks!

'School house Outhouse....salt pork and molasses is all that you get in jail.....at Nutbuuuuush, yeah Nutbush.....I'm talking about Nutbush City Limits....' (If you don't know what the above lyrics are about, ask your Mums).

There is a sad theme running through this week's mockery of the moneyed morons - time travel. Unless you're Doctor Who, it this 1979 disco look is not advised. Even Halle Berry can't pull off this too bronzed, too short, too wrinkly number. Why she is standing with her legs crossed is another oddity - has the elastic gone from her knickers and she's afraid of baring a Britney?

Please Angelina - stop your international jet-setting, save-the-worlding and child-collecting for a while and instead feed yourself.

No-one should have veins in their arms that are larger than garden hoses - even Ghandi would be aghast at these. They are working overtime trying to pump the blood into your dinghy lips and now require meat, cheese, chips, chocolate, bacon butties.... NOW!

Sarah Jessica Parker seems nice enough, but calling her perfume 'Lovely' is stretching things a bit.

Whilst there are many fashionistas who are still regretting the demise of Sex and the City, I don't. I just didn't ever understand why SJP wearing stubbie shorts and white stilettos was considered high end fashion; and there was always a fifty percent chance that she'd look like a horse with a wart problem than a so-called glamorous single New Yorker.

This outfit reminds me of the devil's version of the white one from Saturday Night Fever. It may work at Christmas parties, but this just drowns out her bony old frame and reminds me of a up-ended fuschia after an out-of-control garden party.

One of my homemade cards.....





It was too hard for my 'summer brain' to think of something along the lines of G-strings, so I borrowed an Orson Welles quote.

At least it partly excuses him for 'Citizen Kane'

Love Chunks has a couple of big ones!

Check out this recent picture taken of my better half's Old Fellas. They are, he tells me proudly as he hitches up his belt in a macho stance, about as healthy as anyone's bad boys could be. His specialist too, was so impressed that he printed out the scans and emailed them to LC at home and yes, even in this medium his 'ol Cuddle Nuts are rather pretty, aren't they? In fact, it was these two Orbs of Utopia that attracted me in the first place - who was I to turn away from two such beautiful - and indeed pleasurable - Ecstasy Berries? Despite being a rather shy and moral gal (thirteen years ago, at least), I couldn't get my eyes, hands, lips off them and he was left in no doubt how I felt about him. We met on my very first day at uni during Orientation week (= get drunk, jump into the Torrens, feel sick, stagger back to college and miss the introductory lectures Week). His room at the college was directly across the passage from mine, and he happened to be heading to a lecture at the same time. I was immediately struck at how nice he was - politely making conversation with a 'fresher' who was, in her own mind, immensely relieved that she now wouldn't get lost on the 500 metre journey from North Adelaide, to, er, Adelaide. I also noticed his two Blue Boys: it was well known that he had a girlfriend staying at another college, and I too was in a very serious relationship with a guy from my highschool who was also staying at the college. Notwithstanding my faithfulness, it was hard to stop thinking jealousy of how much his main squeeze would be enjoying having priveleged access to his Pretty Pebbles.... Seven years later, we met again. This time he was in the role of friend of my brother and meteorologist, and I was plump and penniless after spending two years in London. As a coincidence, we had both enrolled in the Graduate Diploma of Education (secondary). For me, it was a year's grace to think about what I really wanted to be when I grew up; for him it was a year's unpaid leave granted by the weather bureau to try his hand at teaching mathematics to a class of unruly fourteen year olds (they no doubt thought that if he could survive that, he'd do extremely well doing daily chart presentations to the crinkly old cardigans at the bureau). He readily moved into our scruffy student household of five in Beulah Park and fully participated in the highs and lows of sharing a loungeroom, the fornightly rent frighteners, crappy furniture, dodgy plumbing and coughing up $25 into the kitty (a yellow 1960s tupperware container on top of the fridge) for meals featuring 'three star mince', seafood extender, Black And Gold Brand Baked Beans and fresh octopus with beaks and eyes left in. They weren't the only challenges for him in the month ahead. During his cycle down Magill road to uni each morning, a P-plater girlie mowed him down in her cortina as she myopically did a left turn, mangling her door and Love Chunk's shoulders in the process. He later peeled off his top to show us housemates his rather gothic black and purple bruising but I secretly only had eyes for his marvellous Male Moons. As we all know, when you share a house with people, it is impossible to be on your best behaviour all of the time. In spite of this major rule of life, Love Chunks just got better and better in my opinion. It is difficult to pinpoint exactly when LC was The One, but certainly the time I came home early on Saturday night to find him scrubbing out the shower recess and giving me a tantalising glimpse of his Passion Peas found my stomach with a pounding heartbeat of its own and a desire to step right in with the Jif and give him a hand... My feelings were reciprocated two days later when, after shyly drinking five cups of tea together, he asked me out. Yes, yes, I could have asked him out instead, but it was nice to let the anticipation draw itself out further and for me to imagine the complete heaven of having an entire evening with just him and his Wanton Walnuts all to myself. Today, after nearly fourteen years of together-hood, I still derive a great deal of enjoyment, pleasure and delight in perving at his Round Raisins... Hell, they've even been mentioned in the wedding anniversary and birthday cards he's received from me. Even better, Sapphire has inherited them too: now I get to gaze into two pairs of the most beautiful, limpid and sparkling blue eyes ever seen for the rest of my fortunate life.

Sartorial Suckers

It's very disappointing that my semi-regular snort at the celebrities features the same overpaid, under-talented, poorly-guided but well-paid mental pygmies over and over and over again. *Sigh* - so here she is again - Shitney Beers. Apparently she's now in a 'Rocky place' (meaning enforced rehab, plastic surgery and/or ECT hypnosis: You have two children, remember? Underpants are for wearing, OK? Never forget - Paris is Syphilis in Sequins and not to be trusted!) Fingers crossed that when she remembers her sons and it's time for them to get a tutor, she joins their classes.

Speaking of Syphilis (as per above), here is Ho-toes Hilton with some other venereal wart in my own country, Australia *~shudder~*.

Allegedly she was paid a small fortune (similar to her annual VD specialists' bills) to launch a new beer called 'Blonde Beer.' What is even more cringe-inducing is that she then got to choose some local blonde bimbo to 'personify the beer' (and presumably, Ho-toes) after she got bored with our gorgeous nation and left five minutes later.

At least she didn't surprise us folk down under with reading bi-focals, a turtle-neck or sensible slacks. Here we see her usual stupid sunglasses, 5-thread count's worth of clothing, inappropriate beach sand shoes and a bag shinier and bigger than her own vagina after a big night out.


I've said this before, but it's worth noting again: has Shazza ever had a bona-fide movie 'hit' since revealing her map-of-Tassie in the excremental 'Basic Instinct' that was released before the Boer War?

As with Shitney, she must vaguely realise that she has a couple of kids duct-taped to some chairs at home somewhere, yet still manages to find the time to get her surgeon to tighten the screw hidden in the back of her head to maintain that pointy-faced, Madonna-Alien look before her next outing.

......Unless I'm horribly mistaken and she's instead on her way to find some fresh ink and quills to finish off that daring little 1890s manuscript 'Crouching Camera Man, Hidden Expressway'


It remains a complete mystery to a 1980s/rock lovin' gal like myself as to why Cameron is interested in a weedy little pipsqueak school boy who makes Michael Jackson look like a white-washed 50 Cent gangsta.

This cardigan dress, however, is much more puzzling. Did Drew knit it for her and Cam therefore feels compelled to wear it as a sign of true friendship? Is there a wino short of an army blanket at the local shelter, or is she actively researching her upcoming role as the World War One hospital supply cupboard?

Hmmm. Tara Wee-ed may now have a new set of udders to swing with, but her stomach still looks pretty weird with an evil grin all of its own.

Although it's always nice to see a 'celebrity' (any grade, any claim to fame) with cellulite, it does seem a rather odd choice of clothing to wear if she is in fact off hiking with water and sneakers....

Messica seems about to trip over on her Jimmy's in this pick and looks a tad meatier than usual. More Anna Nicole-Smith than Kate Moss, if you know what I mean....

.... tucked into the entire bucket instead of licking the underside of the diet coke lid, if you get my drift...

.... no longer has cobwebs up her butt, if you prefer......

... whereas this woman (creature? Neptunian?) Cerene Nylon needs to have her chin filed back so that it no longer gets in the way of her mouth and a darned good inhalation of the buffet table.

Then, after her collar bones no longer resemble drumsticks, we can sit her down and issue a very strongly-worded lecture warning re the dangers of venturing out in public wearing nothing but half a kitchen net curtain, two ballet head-bands and Shitney Beer's choice of underwear.

2007 looks likely to be a year of huge surprises, shocks and challenges and the thought of Celine's deflated-balloon-like boobs popping out or getting a flash of the inverted triangle is far too much to bear.....

Uneasy Rider

Amongst Sapphire's many Christmas presents was a pair of roller blades. Most of her seven year old mates have them, and she had been subtlely hinting to us all 2006 that she'd also like to own a pair. Her tactics have included hand-written 'Please Can I have Roller Blades for Christmas' notes left in my handbag and dramatic sighs followed by, "It must be nice to learn how to roller blade, mustn't it Mum?"

Being the caring and responsible parents that we are, Love Chunks and I made sure that the gift also included knee protectors, elbow pads and wrist guards plus the caveat of having to wear her bike helmet at all times. We escorted her to the school's empty basketball court so that she could hang on to the edge of the fence whilst trying out her new wheels.

As all kids under the age of, say, thirty tend to do, she easily got into the balance and rhythm of the blades and was confidently rolling around the edges unaided by fence or parental arm by the third lap. At the same time, LC and I were confident enough to not feel nauseous with worry each time she said, "Whoah".

Several days later, we were staying with my folks at Victor Harbor and I said one of the stupidest things so far for 2007. "Hey Sapphire," my brainwaves vomited out into an audible sentence, "I used to do this when I was a kid. We called it roller skating then and I loved it."

*Sigh*, fools never learn, do they? Love Chunks immediately chipped in with, "Well why don't you also get yourself a pair and have a go with Sapphire?" Er thanks husband dear. Perhaps you should put your sunglasses on to disguise that evil twinkle in your big blue eyes.
"Yeah, why don't you Mum? It'll be great!"

Dogadoo, Grandma and Sapph went walking with me as I reluctantly visited the town's four surf'n'sport'n'skateboard stores, blushing as I asked if they had a size seven pair of adult roller skates - oops, sorry blades or whatever the newfangled thingamajigs were called these days. Shop four had a pair, in my size and they fit rather well. Certainly better than the black coal miner rental boots from 1979 that always resulted in two fist-sized blisters on the back of each heel and ringing ears from hearing 'My Sharona' on wonky cassette tape being played for two hours straight.

The following morning it was time to try the scary things out. My elbows were securely wrapped in black pads, my hands and wrists were clad in what looked like kick-boxing equipment and all circulation below my knees had ceased after squeezing the knee protectors on. At least the constant buzz of pain might keep my mind off the fear of falling, I reasoned.

Love Chunks drove us over to a nice, flat and smooth section of the town's bike path. Sapphire started rolling off, confidently and gracefully, calling "Come on Mum" over her shoulder to encourage me. Nervously I stepped from the security of the gutter onto the path and ----- whammo!---- did an instant wheel-led half-somersault that resulted in the planting of my sweating face into the bark chips on the other side.

Determinedly ignoring Sapph's and LC's laughter, I tried again. For the first time in my entire life, I was glad that I had been given a huge, sticky-out arse as it proved to be excellent ballast whilst I arthritically bent over and quakingly moved another step. No fall this time and at least 30 centimetres travelled. The third step was a roll this time, so was the fourth, fifth, sixth......
"Whoo Hoo, MillyMoo - it's all coming back to ya" yelled out Love Chunks from the relative safety of the park bench.

"Mum! Mum move over to the left - some bikes and a pram are coming along!"
Lordy lordy - my grey matter somehow remembered that a pigeon-toed pose was the best way to slow down, but couldn't follow through with what I had to do in order to stop. Besides, the brake dooflangers were now only on my back right shoe and not the huge rubber cheezels that were screwed on the front of the hire shoes in the days of 'Video Killed the Radio Star' and 'Turning Japanese'. Hence, it came as no surprise to land on my well-padded backside and smile politely as the father patronisingly commented on 'What a nice Mum you are to try something with your daughter.'

His wife, on the other hand, merely looked at me with a 'get past her quick' expression on her face, as though I was some kind of lunatic who'd start talking to her or drooling on the baby. Never mind - at least Sapphire and LC were being entertained by my efforts.

More 45-degree angled-rolls occurred, and suddenly my arms starting swaying out either side of their own volition. It was coming back to me - perhaps it was time to see if I still had it in me to try a wee circle ---- whammo!---- another instant wheel-led half-somersault that again rather rammed my face rather unbecomingly into the bark chips on the other side. "Good on yer Mum," Sapphire called from several kilometres away, or so it seemed. "Aren't ya glad you've got your guards on?"

Yes indeed. Keep trying, keep trying, remember you're more padded up than an inflatable sumo suit at the fun fair, keep trying..... An elderly lady walked past me with her poodle straining at it's leash to try and nip my feet. Then, shame of shame - she stopped and slow-clapped me as I went past. That wasn't the worst of it - clearly she thought I was a 'special and brave' kind of person who was successfully learning how to live and play on my own in the big scary world. "Good effort, dear. It's lovely to see you enjoying yourself so much."

It was too much effort to lift my bulging eyes from the safety of the footpath to meet her eyes and explain to her that I was a happily married, tertiary educated and gainfully employed mother, because the blades hit a loose patch of gravel and flung me into the gutter. Perhaps she had the right impression after all.