To use the already-tired vocabulary favoured by football commentators

......what a year it has been!

Mistakes were made, arguments were held, travel was undertaken and spare cash spent, but as I sit back in the dusty spare room (currently holding a weeks’ worth of washing, two un-renovated 1950s armchairs and paperwork covered in Milly’s fur), some lessons have been learned.  Allow me to share my collected twelve months' worth of wisdom with you, dear reader.

Geographic location is everything. So is desperation.

I scored a terrific gig at – not sure if they should be mentioned or if rhyming words should be used, so we’ll play it safe – 'Bureauvision.'  I had dropped in my CV a month earlier and the lady who received it looked about as interested as a Kardashian not in front of a camera, but I only live one kilometre away.  Four weeks later, when the dust had settled on some redundancies and an additional staffer was forcibly ejected for completely misunderstanding what ‘work’ meant, I was called in.  Yes, I could be there by lunchtime; I could be there right now if they liked

Cheapness is seized.

With the car not even warm after the 1km drive, they asked for my hourly rate.  Not one for thinking quickly on my feet, I blurted out the one I use as an English tutor. This was accepted before I’d fully closed my mouth, so it was easy to figure out that a Swiss street sweeper with special needs rakes in more (and most of that from the gutters in the nightclub district).  Even so, I bet they didn't have as much fun as I did trying to publicise, coordinate and report on an awards ceremony that featured drunk Belgian comedians (yes, they do exist. Belgian comedians I mean, not drunks), a stage hogging Dutch host, a scene-stealing Aussie producer, Freddy Mercury fans, a modern interpretative dance routine during dessert and a huffy royal wrangler.  The gig is mine for this year too!

First impressions are usually right.  Second ones just confirm the first.

Lyon in France was visited again and still failed to give me the ‘oh wow’ reaction that everyone else seems to get.  Lingering smell of stale piss that seeps into your own clothes and lingers for a week? Check.  A run-down riverfront that is praised to the skies online but was a dusty obstacle course of bottles and beggars?  Check.   Overrated ‘gusto’ restaurants with 2074 price lists and 1974 decor? Check.  

Swiss cows aren’t happy; they’re deaf!

Those enormous bells that your least favourite Aunt brings you back from her big bus tour around Europe? Usually festooned with vomit-swirls of hand-painted edelweiss and alps?  Switzerland’s beloved bovines really do wear those brass bongers around their necks.  Even when casually standing in a field and doing nothing other than flicking away summer flies and considering which charming native flower to chew on next, the sound is a cacophonous chorus that renders ramblers strolling by temporarily deaf, let alone the poor creatures themselves.

Here’s proof:

Life is full of pricks.

In my case, it was time to try another method to persuade Mr Migraine to favour me less: acupuncture.  My GP referred me to his own acupuncturist; a German guy on the wrong side of town: next door to the soup kitchen and the car park entrance favoured by pick pockets counting their loot from the Plain Palais flea market.  My nerves were hidden by my immaturity: the doctor’s initials were PP.  Doctor PeePee... tee hee.  After sitting down and asking about my symptoms, how often, how long and where, I was asked to strip down to my knickers so that he could place his pins in parts of my body that included....  To be honest, I forgot where he stuck them; the tiny sensation of them being inserted was immediately forgotten and it was only when I sneezed and felt some wobble on my forehead and shoulders that I remembered.

Don't save your nice undies for date night.

My weekly sessions with Dr PeePee (see above) were making a significant difference.  Three weeks into a six-week schedule had shown only one sign of Mr Migraine and he was surprisingly easy to send packing.  In a now-familiar routine, I stripped off, lay on the bed and received my various pricks before being placed under a foil space blanket to keep warm.  Dr PeePee left the room and I decided to use the time to remember how to meditate..... WOO WOO WOO!

I sat up in shock; pins catching on the blanket and the ones on my ears pinching my hair. WOO WOO WOO!  The alarms were sounding all over the city.  Had it finally happened?  Was today the day that the rest of the warring world decided that Switzerland had been neutral for far too long and it was high time that they were forced to use their bomb shelters? 

WOO WOO WOO!  And here I was, alone, in nothing but knickers, studded with pins....!  

“Dr PeePee...?  DR PEEPEE????”   Sliding off the table with a partly-stuck on silver blanket and pins that waggled as I walked uncertainly towards the door to call out ‘Dr PeePee’ for the third time was not particularly comfortable, especially when some were at the top of my ankle that folded in a bit with each tentative step. “Dr PeePee...?!”

“It’s okay Madam Lockett,” he said, eventually squeaking up the passage in blue Crocs.  “Today is the day when all of the alarms have to be tested in Geneva.  It’s the law.”

My sigh of relief caused a pin in my neck to fall out.  “In that case, wouldn’t today would be the ideal time to bomb Geneva, as nobody would think it was anything except a drill, would they?”

Dr PeePee smiled.  “Well it’s a good thing that your clothes are within arm’s reach then, isn’t it?”

You can teach an old dog new tricks.

Steph’s friend Anne is a pharmacist by trade, but a dog trainer by passion.  As with alarm testing and cow bells, they take it very seriously here in Switzerland.  She was required to video lessons she’d undertaken with various dogs and needed to run a class with a young dog and an old dog.  Harley, at two, fulfilled the first criterion and Milly, at ten, amply provided the old. 

The aim was to get both dogs to walk left and round around four orange traffic cones, sticking closely to the sides of their owners and then sitting down at each end.  Harley was eager and up for it and walked alongside Steph willingly, but decided that manoeuvring through the cones was a waste of his time. 

Milly, on the other hand, followed my every move, left and right, onwards and upwards, sitting proudly on her backside (always careful to protect her arthritic back legs) at the end.  The same result was achieved over and over again, encouraging idle fantasies of Milly-n-me putting Pudsey and her human chick Ashleigh firmly into second place and snatching the half-million UK pound prize from under their noses.....  “Milly, you’re a natural at this,” Anne said, walking towards us, hands in her bum bag.  “Although if she eats any more of my treats her stomach’s in danger of dragging along the ground.

Hmmm, an old dog learning new tricks.  Could this old dog, in her forty sixth year, train for a marathon; her own stomach trailing dangerously close to the ground after years of Lindt inhalation?

Procrasto-exhaustion

Yep, this 'break' from blogging has been the longest I've taken in seven years and 945 posts.


It was due to a combination of house guests, international travel without crossing any oceans, hostessing, tour guiding, thirteen year old-wrangling, achilles heel hurting, paid writing, travel planning, crap food eating, dishwasher unpacking and a hell of a lot of time waiting on train station platforms.


And what have I learnt during this time away from the blogosphere?

1) Owning a dog gives me instant knowledge of all geographical locations within a 20km radius and earns me new friends and impromptu conversation wherever we go.

To prove this finding, I'll give you just one example. As I walked with Sapphire and my parents to the UN - and discovered that it was on the day where not a single flag was up (annual washing day perhaps?) - I'd no sooner given a stricken intern some directions to the Number 15 tram stop than it was time for the obligatory pose. Everyone who stays at Chateau Lockett must stand in front of the UN flags. Or bare poles, in my parents' case.



"Is she friendly," they asked.

"Of course Sapphire is," I responded, slightly offended. "We've had our moments of course, but she's a good old stick mostly."

"No the DOG. Can we pat her?"




"Absolutely."



2) The only people you'll see in Europe wearing broad-brimmed hats and sunscreen are Aussies.

'Stretched Leather side saddle' seems to be the look that most Europeans prefer, whether it be sprayed on and pongy or grilled in over hours, days and years of rotisserating on a beach towel.  I'd be interested in finding out their skin cancer statistics when there's a spare moment.

3) Fondue is a legitimate meal.

Each and every visitor and house guest has been treated to fondue ala Lockett. Scorchingly hot bubbly cheese and stale bread is speared on long prongs and is best eaten outside on the balcony for Milly to hoover up the debris. Simple, perfect and delicious. Sort of like Love Chunks. Even in this beanie, worn on the day his beloved Crows narrowly lost to Hawthorn in the preliminary final. Results were texted to him on top of the Matterhorn, with Kate writing, 'Get to a TV now!'

4) Restricting your daily fluid intake inversely increases the need to locate and use a public toilet.

The state of such necessary facilities have left a lot to be desired during our recent travels. Despite now perfecting my squatting and impromptu cleaning skills with a stolen breakfast serviette, if a loo block is spotted, I invariably end up saying, "Don't look a gift toilet in the mouth," and use it immediately, even if my bladder is not yet calling for it. 

Alas, I've also discovered the hard way that the 'anticipatory whizz' doesn't factor into the bladder's future storage capacity or prevent an uncomfortable walk less than half an hour later when your mother says, "I don't care how lovely this market square is, if we don't find a toilet soon, I'm going to change the colour of the water in that fountain." 

5) If you smoke in France, you can make a cup of coffee last for two hours.

Unfortunately - no, not really, it's very fortunate - none of us suck on ciggies, so we can't make an overpriced and small hit of caffeine last for as long as it takes to nonchalantly smoke twenty cigarettes over a stone cold espresso cup. It'd be interesting to see the stats on lung cancer as well....... Instead, my father lacks any sort of capacity to sip a beverage no matter how hot it is and chugs it down and usually eats his croissant in a single mouthful, so our butts barely touch the seats before the waiter whips our cups away and we're back out on the streets again. 

6) Undies dry out really well when hung from cupboard handles.

We Reads (that is, me and my parents) love a good batch of hand washed clothes in an already-cluttered hotel room. Jocks on (door) knobs, t-shirts hung from the thief-proof coat hangers to drip on flattened plastic bags carefully set out on the carpet below as well as damp socks on window sills means that a small cabin bag is sufficient for a fortnight on the railway system instead of having to drag a 23 kilogram behemoth whose left wheel was popped off by a cobblestone in Nice.

7) Germans don't age very well.

Now I'm aware that this statement comes from someone so aged that even a coffee, followed by a hot shower and intense moisturising does not erase the pillow folds from her face, but the middle-aged Deutschlander is a sight to behold. Still, there must be a 'best before' switch that God flicks over at, say, age forty. The previously blonde, nubile and slim German male and female then get to see the shocking results of two or three decades of worth of stealing sunbeds at dawn, scoffing down various fat-filled offal products and cheeses and bingeing in beer gardens. When the switch is activated, the faces turn to dour scone dough, the butts widen to double-door entry only and hairs sprout where once only dewy beauty lingered. Trust me.

8) It's what's NOT said that's important. 

Is it lying if an important fact is omitted?  For example, Neuschwanstein Castle. We'd booked a hot, more-like-fifth-class second class train that saw Love Chunks hoon ahead to push aside a dozen old ladies and thrust his foot out of the carriage door in order to 'reserve' some seats that didn't have gum on them or be situated in the 'Bikes Only' section.  

Enduring a crowded and sweaty ride from Munich, we told ourselves that the discomfort would all be worth it to lay our beadies on the famed, Cinderella-like vision plonked amongst the stunning German hill tops.  From the information we'd gleaned from many sources, I anticipated seeing this:

...but instead was presented with this:

....which made us all firstly stop in shock; then laugh uproariously before being shocked again at the thousands of tourists swarming around us who were still happy to take photographs. Me included I s'pose. It would have perhaps changed our day trip plans if - oh, I don't know - the website, ticket seller, train station or tourist office had told us that the ENTIRE CASTLE would be covered by scaffolding and gauze....!??  AND that horse and carts took lazy farts up the hill and I'd invariably put my sandalled feet into a freshly-dropped frisbee of moist manure.

Same goes for the famed interior of Lyon basilica.  Not manure, but Lord knows what the poor tour guide was telling her group in Russian when the entire interior was hidden behind the world's largest Meccano set.

.......Or the cable car trip up the mountain to Saleve for the breathtaking view of Lac Leman, Geneva and the French hills beyond.  We'd booked the posh restaurant on top of the peak for 7pm and arrived at the bottom to discover that the cable car's last run for the day was 6pm.  If we'd been any earlier we'd have caught the last ride, enjoyed a terrific panoroma and meal and then been stuck up the top until the telepherique cranked up again on Sunday morning.

As it was, as we trooped back down to the bus stop we phoned the restaurant to cancel our booking and explained why.  "Didn't anybodeeee tell you zzat zee cable car was not running?" 

No they didn't, buddy.

9) Items presented over and over and over in souvenir shops are rarely seen in the real world.

Take Edelweiss.  Switzerland's national (and protected, which should have given me a hint) flower.  It is to be found on key rings, the fabric bands that hold cow bells, place mats, coffee cups, earrings, hand soap, snow domes, stickers, pencils, gingerbread, fondue pots and army bags but I've yet to see one in the wild.

Berne bears.  Three live ones are currently living a peaceful life by the river's edge and all were imported from Russia.

Lac Leman 'filets de perche,' found in every restaurant in the Geneva, Vaud, Valais and Haute-Savoie.  It has been revealed that over ninety percent are caught in Norway, and snap frozen before being sent to Geneva for deep frying and charging CHF 44 a plate.

10) Never underestimate the power of IKEA.

When extra guests arrive, there is nowhere else that sells pillows, sheets and serviettes cheaper.   On a rainy day with cobwebs in the wallet it's also the place to get the afore-mentioned 'filets de perche' and chips for CHF 4 francs and a bottomless glass of diet coke complete with the endless entertainment of watching other patrons eat, fight about furniture selections and accidentally spritz mayonnaise instead of topping onto their soft serves.  Mum and Dad loved the place.

And so, it is now time to drape more wet sheets over doors, towels over the outdoor chairs and muster up a skerrick of interest in collating the documents for our long overdue Australian tax returns.

Then again, I could just have a little rest before reading other blogs, making a coffee and patting my dog....

Buttons, Beaches and Ham

I've been off-line for a fortnight which is the Hundred Year War-duration in blogging terms yet strangely enough I didn't miss it.

Sometimes my fingers absent-mindedly typed out something on Mum's Christmas tablecloth but Dad's computer - newly available in broadband - wasn't tempting me.

It must Location blended with varying amounts of Hard Work and Self-Designated Break Times that lure me back. We'd arrived home in Flemington last night and it was only after hanging out two loads of washing, doing a workout and weeding the front and back gardens that I found myself back in the study. Officially it was to find the Christmas decorations box to start de-bauble-ing the house but somehow the monitor switched itself on and I was instantly hooked.

It got me thinking, however. Not about the things that most people enjoy (such as blogging or reading blogs, or you wouldn't be here; or chocolate, sleep-ins and hugs) but things that everyone else seems to like except me.

Such as buttons. Like circus clowns and Nicolas Cage, they've always given me the creeps.

I honestly don't know why, but my earliest memories are of intensely disliking any knitted jumper (or cardigan) that featured buttons and avoiding them where possible ever since. Yes I have button jeans and shirts and jackets but they're always very discreet and never ever the feature of the garment.

This is a dislike I've kept a secret and barely acknowledged myself but it rose up again like a burp with bile in it when my mother dragged out a plastic crate full of the infernal items. She was sorting through them to sell for her local gigantic garage sale fundraiser, putting pairs, fours and sixes onto white cards as sets. A worthy intention yet I could barely make eye contact with her or finish a conversation when the card table in the good room was covered in buttons. The maddeningly torturous click-click-click of them as they touched each other meant that it was time to head out for a walk so that the sight, sound and idea of them were far away.



















Even including this photograph makes me feel a bit squeamish. Buttons scream 'Cardigan' as well as 'Old Fashioned', 'Cranky Nanna', 'Nerdy' and 'U-u-u-u-u-ugly'. There's no fairness in these reactions, but they're how I do respond when buttons enter my psyche (which isn't very often).

Driving, on the other hand, is a necessary evil. Life in Flemington usually means that I can walk or tram my way to the city and back and the 'ol magna only gets a trot when it's time for the weekly grocery shop or to see friends who selfishly live outside our postcode. Then I can grit my teeth, stay extra alert and keep my hands at ten-to-two on the wheel.

Having family in South Australia means that the Big Drive occurs at Christmas and usually one other time throughout the year. 650 km of boredom, ceaseless engine noise and arse-sweating onto greasy old pie and pasty crumbs does not a relaxing day out make. Admittedly Love Chunks drives most of it only requiring me to drive the middle third when he needs a wee, a read of the paper and to fiddle about trying to find the best local ABC to hear the cricket.

As he relaxes I feel my neck and jaw tighten as I nervously flick my eyes from side to rear-vision mirrors, wondering if the tailgating Toyota Landcruiser behind me will just get it over with already and pass or if the meandering Mazda in front will eventually decide if they want to stick to 70 or 110km for the next hour.

It probably doesn't help that our car - now looking like a toothless old lady with a back hubcap missing - contains a dog, a rabbit, heaps of presents, several suitcases, three human beings and is decorated on the outside by ten thousand fluttering dead and dying locusts.

If truth be told, I'd be happy to live a well-off Manhattan lifestyle of 'Taxi....!' if money and location permitted.

Driving often involves arriving at a beachy destination. Beaches and me rarely gel unless near-drowning, blistery sunburn and a sand-filled crotch are considered positives. Swimming isn't any better: once I've waded in and got over the shock of the water hitting my girly parts first and then my boobs second I somehow scrape my pathetically-soft feet on the rocks, have sea weed wrap itself suggestively and determinedly around my waist and blink away salty tears of agony when I dip my head in and get my eyes wet. And that's all before I scream, "Something just touched my leg!" and thrash the water to white foam in my haste to get the hell out.

Sitting out is worse. Unless I bring a tent thingy, there's no shade anywhere and a rashie, wide-brimmed hat and Factor 30 merely slows the inevitable roasting of my fluorescent skin to a barely discernible sizzle. When the afternoon breeze springs up it enables the sand to coat my Anti-Cancer Council-coated extremities but not before scouring them raw. Woe betide if I forget to shake out my towel before wiping my face on it......




















Here's my older brother Rob being a ham whilst carving the ham on Christmas Day. Like fully-intact prawns, boiled pumpkin and pate, I can not stand ham. Flaccid, pink, salty - not unlike myself after a 'fun' day at the beach.

Everyone else at the Christmas Day table - and for the rest of the week - goes nuts for the stuff, somehow finding room to cram it onto their plates next to Dad's weber-roasted chicken (that's worth a plate load all on its own), turkey roll, fresh prawns (de-headed and no poo pipes), gravy and vegetables. Why? Who wants a clammy slab of raw-looking jelly rubber on the nicest day of the year...? I know I know - you all do.

Staying at my parents meant that I didn't have access to the Age newspaper and couldn't fathom why the Adelaide Advertiser has to feature a colour photograph of every single reporter for every single story (here's Eliza Northington, Lifestyle Reporter. Lifestyle reporter? Do we really need to know what she looks like?) and would therefore watch the ABC news if I remembered.

It's summer time now, so politicians and spokespeople are outside more and when the great outdoors are involved, so are the blowflies. One's buzzing around the room as I tap this out and will be allowed to live in peace but if it dares lands on my face then my hands are a blurred frenzy of distracted dance moves and waving until it buggers off again.

To see someone speak to the camera with a fly crawling on their face makes me feel ever so slightly nauseus. When it is idly walking around the tear duct and then wanders, buzz buzz buzzing down towards the edge of the mouth and then up to the nostril I'm sickenly hypnotised..........

Someone told me that it is a big 'no no' to brush away a fly during an interview because it distracts the viewer from the message but I instead sit there in disgust and a tiny bit of agony thinking 'Get it off get it off get it off get it off get it off get it off get it off get it off get it off get it off get it off get it off get it off get it off----- oh thank god we're onto sport now. Wonder what the fly guy was talking about?'

Yellow Dog Day

Relax, dear reader. It's not the Black Dog gone horribly wrong or colour blind but an adoption drive for homeless dogs in shelters all around Australia.

Milly and myself were tracked down in the blogosphere with the former cited as a good example of a 'lost dog' being adopted by a family for a second - and much better - stage of life.

We found Milly six years ago at the Sandy Creek Dog Sanctuary and she was the first dog I saw. It was love at first sight for both of us. I've written before about how Love Chunks said, "Steady on Kath, don't go for the first one you see, take a look at them all," and I dutifully did, but we ended back in front of Milly's kennel.

Thirty minutes and eighty bucks later, she was sitting in the back of our station wagon, tail wagging and eyes sparkling as we drove home. Love Chunks looked me, grinning and brimming with joy, and said to the back of the car, "Milly, you've won the lotto."

Six years later and my little orange best friend means the world to me. Walking to meet Sapphire after school, snoozing in her beanbag under my desk as I write, leaning against me when I'm sad or sick, assisting the Litter Ninjas by thoughtfully eating the squashed hamburgers, dropped Red Rooster bones and dribbled thickshakes and showing me how a good body shake and flap of the ears helps release tension and get over things.

The enthusiastic welcomes and the love she gives makes me feel like a ruler and rock star every single time.

By visiting the Pedigree (there's some irony in the name for you) Adoption Drive website, you can search for and adopt a dog, make donations to help homeless dogs and buy merchandise. Alternatively, you can buy your own dog a can or two of Pedigree dog food and they'll donate a portion of the proceeds to renowned rescue organisation PetRescure.

It's me that won the lotto.

And Milly is now asking Sapphire to stop using flash photography so that she can get on with the more pressing business of rolling over for a tummy rub and a quick snuffle under the dining table before settling in front of the telly with her beloved pack.