Three Hundred Metres

Sapphire's won 'Pupil of the week' at school but I don't have time, technically on my day 'off' to go, with three articles due.

She's not fazed though, as every kid gets an award eventually. Some are for 'trying hard to listen in class' whilst hers happens to be for 'outstanding homework and attention to detail.'

I'm writing this as my body cools down from our early morning exercise - she running ahead of me, blonde hair bobbing, long legs striding - me trying hard not to look like Kel Knight as I powerwalk fruitlessly behind, reminding myself that there's only two weeks left before I'm able to start jogging alongside her.

On the kitchen table are about a dozen hand-woven orange bracelets that she made yesterday in readiness to wear and hand out to her friends for Harmony Day today. She had spied some bright crepe paper that a chocolatier had used to wrap their wares in to post to me; cut it carefully into strips, twisted it for strength and plaited them. Her self-taught skill and creativity frequently leaves me amazed.

So yesterday morning, LC and I sat with her at the breakfast table and tried to have the talk.

The talk.

Not about sex or periods or why kissing the dog is going to exacerbate her allergies and that answering back isn't always the best option when we're rushing off to school and she's left her viola at home; it was the talk about high school.

For the past couple of years I've spent hours at the school 300 metres up our street. Picking up litter, sweeping up broken beer bottles, walking Milly, seeing Sapphire scooter effortlessly around like a maniac on the cement and bitumen.

I've told her about how frustrated I am that the school is overlooked by so many families who live in the area, despite only being 29 metres from the primary school that everyone flocks to. How some kids have to leave home at 7.00am to catch two trains to the private schools their parents pay $25,000 a year for.

How we love our community, want her to make friends near her home, be part of things and not be hygienically sealed against other income levels, cultures or family situations.

Three hundred metres away, the school that she could walk to within 30 seconds of the bell ringing is ranked 515 out of 528 for VCE results. The numbers of students who did VCE in 2010 only numbered thirty with a median score of 22.

Two kilometres to the north east, PP high is ranked 97/528 and got a median VCE score of 32 with 161 students participating. The same distance away to our south east UH is ranked 59/528 with a medican score of 33 and 336 students. Quite a difference, you'd have to say.

Sapphire is a smart kid. Very smart. She's currently doing year eight level maths (which she hates) and last year her NAPLAN results showed that her reading, writing and English skills were at year nine level. She was in year five.

How can I not ask whether sending Sapphire three hundred metres away was going to offer her the same opportunities as the other two schools?

"You're a snob," she hissed through tears yesterday. "You keep saying that it's important to be local and that we should support things here, but you don't really. Isn't it good enough for you?"

"Actually, I wonder if a school with that performance and with so few kids is good enough for anyone, not just you." There. I finally said it.

The chat deteriorated in sulks (her), pleading (me) and sharp words (LC). Sapphire ended up in her bedroom with the door firmly shut against us and the thought of high school in any shape or form. "She's afraid," LC said. "She was used to the idea of 300 metres away, is familiar with the grounds and now we're changing things. The thought of starting high school is scary enough."

He's right of course.

And it is frightening for us, too. Both the 2km schools are out of our 'zone' and she'd have to sit an exam of sorts to be in consideration for some form of accelerated learning program to attend either one of them. I was stupid enough to ask, "Would you do your best if you sat such a test?" and she refused to answer. Coffee soured and churned in my gut.

Could we afford to move? Financially or morally?

Do I want her to walk 300 metres so that I can brag at dinner parties on what a wonderful leftie parent I am but have her end up with few subject choices or the risk of not being stimulated enough? Do I want her to see us 'cheat' the system as we rent in a different area and marinate in hypocrisy? Do I want her to feel undue pressure to sit tests so that she can escape the poorly performing school and ignore it as she walks past towards the tram stop?

All I know is that I want the decision made by someone else.

Post-migraine Plugger without a Pumpkin = My own natural Halloween costume

Mr Migraine paid me his usual, all-too-regular visit; waking me up at 6am with a king hit to the head and a total loss of my morning. It's left me feeling groggy and hungover (but without the fun of the night before unfortunately) and, as such, in a good mood for a rant.

We blokes and sheilas here in Australia don't celebrate Halloween. Never have, and - if I had my way - never will.

Admittedly, thanks to a force-fed diet of Yank sitcoms from Bewitched, Happy Days, Family Ties, Home Improvement and Friends, most of us can name more US presidents than we can our own Prime Ministers (me included. No, not as a Prime Minister, but one of the telly-tards).

As such, we know rather a lot about Halloween and the tradition of little kids wandering around the neighbourhood trick-or-treating. Bless their sweet hearts: it's all fun when the candy is good, but if some psycho inserts razor blades or wipes the lollies on his arse an hour before handing them out then I'm sure some kiddies will regret not trying a 'trick' instead of the 'treat' they received.

We also know about Thanksgiving, and most of us are under the impression that Americans will virtually risk their savings, relationships, sanity and lives in order to make it home for turkey (surely the worst roast 'bird' in the civilised world) and some kind of pumpkin pie thing that doesn't sound too appetising to me. It seems to be more revered than Christmas which, as someone who is rather fond of presents I don't have to buy, wrap or pay for - seems rather odd.

Until a couple of years ago, our proudly Australian doorstep had never been darkened by any you-beaut ankle-biters asking us for free sweets or threatening to play a 'trick' on us. This has been a great relief considering that we may not yet have gone shopping that week or were on diets and could only offer them sun-dried mango slices or cucumber that wastarting to turn slimy at the bottom of the vege crisper.

Not so last year - about a dozen of the little beggars hammered away on the door and I was too taken aback to reply with 'Eat S**t and Die You Bastards,' but instead muttered something about seeing what we had and ventured out with the flavoured Chup-a-chups from old party bags in flavours that my daughter Sapphire clearly didn't enjoy. There the piss-weakly-clad mites stood, accompanied by their parents, who, being around my age, wouldn't have ever participated in such an American event during their own childhoods. The bloody nerve....

Sadly, my own daughter Sapphire was indoctrinated into the suckiest culture of them all as well, having been invited to a Halloween Party by one of her school mates last year. She went as 'Zelda the Zombie' courtesy of some bargain $2 eye liner and black lipstick that expertly complemented the white and red face paint I still had from my ill-fated (and tragic) efforts at face-painting at the kindy fete some years earlier.

I also took her to K-Mart and willingly shelled out cash to buy an oversized black t-shirt and shorts that we ripped up into shreds to support the concept of just having clambered out of a five year old gravesite. *Sigh*, who was I to pour my cynical lemon juice on her innocent anticipation? Yes, she even persuaded me to buy a few extra bags of lolly pops, fruit tingles and redskins for her fellow Halloweenie horrors who knocked on our door.

At her friend Simone's party tonight, she's settled for a witch's get up - much easier to do with my left-over 1990s-era black dresses and last year's make up not touched since, well, last year. I too have bought more blue-tongued zombie chews, Wizz Fizzers and sherbies in sad acceptance of our doorbell being frequently rung tonight.

Perhaps I should accept this newish trend as one which is overdue. No, not our celebration of everything American but that we've had our Guy Fawkes' Fireworks Night banned for nearly thirty years now, and desperately need a pointless, celebratory replacement. The subsequent declaration of 'Fireworks Night' as being illegal was thanks to scores of stupid Aussie bogans and boganelles who were drunk on Summerwine and Southwark tinnies and ended up blasting off their faces and fingertips as they flung Catherine Wheels and Roman Candles into the middle of their BBQ salad table or inside the rocking Sandman of their best mate.

At least Halloween is less dangerous - in a life-threatening sense, if not a calorific one.

Supercilious Self Righteousness


There I was yesterday, at Coles Supermarket in Firle, shopping list in my hand and eagerly checking out the blueberries and strawberries. They looked great, were in abundance and most importantly, were on special.

After grabbing my share (punnets of blueys can be frozen - yee hah - that's the kind of excitement I'm into these days), I finished wandering through the vege section which peters out into the bakery and deli areas.

Idly eyeing off the Cherry Bakewells, pink iced donuts and peanut butter cookies, I was full of internal self congratulation when I elected not to put any of them in my trolley and reached for the wholemeal pitta, multigrain sliced and crumpets instead.

Next to me, a woman as wide as she was tall was chatting happily to her husband as she eagerly seized a 12-pack of day-old cinnamon donuts, marked down in black texta to $1. "I can have these you know, because I've been good all week and eating my Weight Watchers stuff, and I've designated Fridays as my sugar days."

Her husband, taller but no less wide, considered this logic for a moment. He stopped pushing the trolley towards the onions and potatoes and looked at her face; so happy with her badness bargain. "Um, but won't you undo a lot of your hard work if you eat that?"

It was then that her inner Nigel Tufnel came through. "But this speaker goes up to eleven," she said. Actually she didn't say that. What she did say was, "But for six days I've been really good, so today I can eat whatever I want."

He remained puzzled but unsure how to tackle this. Perhaps more than one thought was swirling inside his head at that moment - Do I discourage her efforts so far; Will she share those sugary buggers with me; Isn't she now talking about those cheese-n-bacon scrolls over there; Perhaps she's right- one out of seven isn't such a bad risk after all. In the end, he took the packet from her, and placed it gently on top of the four 2-litre bottles of coke that were already in their trolley.

I smiled at them vaguely, to let them know I might have heard some of their discussion but wasn't judging them for it in any way and wheeled on towards the tinned tomatoes.

My smugness at my own trolley's contents stayed with me, increasing exponentially as I noted that I'd finally remembered to bring in the green shopping bags and had already been for a run that morning and eaten an orange. I was David St Hubbins - not quite as dim as Nigel and at least trying to develop a new stage show (Stone 'enge) and try hard.

That is, until I got home, put the fresh stuff in the fridge and remembered, in the third-to-last aisle just before the dairy but after the dry dog food - that I'd snatched up these little beauties:

....because they were on special. It was then I realised that I was but two stone and ten years away from having the exact same conversation - albeit in the confectionery aisle and not the bakery section - with Love Chunks. Or the doctor monitoring my glucose and cholesterol levels.

Bludgeoning 'Bespoke' Beyond Bearableness

Welcome, dear perspicacious cognoscenti !













.......Or, to put it more simply: Howdy to you acutely perceptive and informed people who have a great appreciation for my daily bloggings.

If only everything that was written (or spoken about, especially during some movie review shows on TV) was this easy to understand.

First thing in the morning, when my darling daughter has 'Lilo and Stitch' blasting away on the DVD, Love Chunks is clattering around in the kitchen and my face has yet to unfold from its slumber; I am struggling to read the four-inch-high headlines on the front page, let alone attempting to decipher what Congruent, Exiguous or Pusilanimous mean.

If I could be bothered at that time of the morning (7am on a Sunday, usually) to stagger to the bookshelf and open up the Macquarie, I'd discover that they mean - in order of mention: agreeing; scanty or meagre; and cowardly. I believe that it is rather too quixotic of some of those poncy reviewers and columnists to assume that us tired parents in the 'burbs have the energy to expand our brains to that level of thinking.

Quixotic, by the way, is rather appropriate. It translates as having an unrealistically optimistic approach to life. Kind of like those over-paid, over-publicised quasi-famous columnists who are only in the paper because they married - or divorced - well or got invited to a D-lister's shotgun nuptuals. Oh dear, I'm starting to catch on to this trend, aren't I - somehow quasi found it's way in there; and it was either that or 'psuedo' which seems to be going out of fashion as quickly as the foodies' once-hallowed nouvelle cuisine, followed by fusion, and Pacific Rim.

Pastiche was another one favoured by critics; especially loved by those funny old fighting farts Margaret and David from the movie show. Whilst it means a work of art (ie movie) that mixes styles and materials, we ourselves would normally walk out of a cinema and comment something like: "Geez he doesn't half want to be Quentin Tarantino, does he?"

Ubiquitous has been an 'in' word for a few years now. Angelina Jolie is ubiquitous, or everywhere, right now. In the gossip magazines, shagging Brad, adopting kiddies, squeezing out some twins, attending movie premieres in designer dresses, visiting world hot spots and getting herself tattooed in third world countries. Paris Hilton, Miley Cyrus and Lyndsey Lohan unfortunately represent the zeitgeist of 2008. Yes, that means they symbolise the spirit or attitude of our times. To be an orange magic-tanned, blonded bag of bones wearing silver dental floss is what, in 2008, is considered newsworthy and worth paying for.

Being ulotrichous, on the other hand, is not. Curly hair these days needs to be straightened. Nicole Kidman, the poor old piece of long white chalk, has to iron her hair flat to ensure that her appearance continues to give us onlookers the frisson of delight we expect and for her reviews to be efficacious.

Now normally I'm fairly obdurate, or hard-hearted when it comes to celebrities and the pampered and cossetted world in which they find themselves. However, annoying words are not merely saved for movie reviews, but also for the - gulp - work environment. All through 2004 I had the word 'milieu' shoved down my throat. I guess the consultant that my then-employer had paid megabucks for thought that saying 'group' or 'setting' was not as glamorous as dragging out a French word and we were meant to be bowled over by her brainy brilliance. Sadly for her, it provoked an invidious reaction by myself and my colleagues - we hated it and hated her. Her beyond-even-the-bad-buzzwords approach to selling her ideas led me to cacchinate (laugh loudly) at the most inappropriate moments, making it extremely obvious the dissimilitude between us. If only she'd bothered to summarise her findings in plain english instead of announcing that she was about to adumbrate her recommendations. It was not without a small amount of pleasure to notice that, later, when I looked up 'adumbrate' in the dictionary, the word 'dumb' was smack-bang in the middle of it.

Still, what does the consultant care? She leads a peripatetic existence travelling from one project and company to another, so she's cashed her princely pay cheque and is long gone before the excrement hits the cooling device. All I can wish for her is that she catches pertussis (whooping cough) and has to sleep with a stertorous (heavy snorer) partner every night. The last thing we need is for jargon-spouting suckheads like her to achieve total hegemony over our working lives.
As for you, dear reader, I hope that my heuristic intentions have helped you learn something - big words don't necessarily mean big brain, or big points to make. We little people have to stick to our guns - We think, therefore we Are. That's good enough for me.

Day Twenty - Appreciative August

Da Book

If Love Chunks, Sapphire, Mum, Dad, Bloggers and Chocolate have made the list, then I have to get out my horn to blow it about writing 'Work/Life Balance for Dummies.'

The book was originally offered to Bulldog but she turned it down when she realised that the advance wasn't going to allow her to retire in high style and would require a fair amount of research, paraphrasing, distilling down into bite-sized chunks and written in a way that was the opposite of academiwank.

Through having big ears, the ability to beg incessantly and win her over by explaining that if I wrote the book it could be a product of her research coven and something that she could promote as benefiting the wider community and thus gain much more exposure for her own good work and large brain, she was supportive.

Wiley, the publishers, weren't so supportive at first of having the book written by a pleb instead of a professor. I was required to develop a detailed proposal and set out each chapter with sub headings, sub-sub headings and insert boxes that would clearly reveal each and every idea and thought process in every section. In addition, they wanted two draft chapters in their entirety for them to mull over and decide if I had the chops for the job. Even then, the Aussie office weren't sure and sent it off to the Mother Ship - United States - for the final decision. After a month, the green flag was up. I was allowed to do it.

But not at work. No preparation, reading or writing was allowed to be done at during daylight hours because my job - working for Bulldog - was apparently so vital and consumed every moment of my time (when I was scanning istock for photographs to use in our publication materials, learning how to write up our webpages, deciphering financials, buying teabags and sourcing furniture for the office). No printing of documents - even if I was already going to be printing one out for her and needed only press '2' instead of '1' in the 'number of copies' button - was allowed, nor any budget to buy books, toner or paper. And yet fifty percent of the book's royalties were to go straight to Bulldog - sorry, the research coven.

Knowing that this was all unreasonable, I was so thrilled that Bulldog at least in principle supported the idea of my writing a book that gave work/life balance issues and solutions to the masses that I ignored it all, and bided my time until the advance arrived that enabled me to write the book at home for an agreed period of three months.

By writing, of course I meant reading: the latest academic findings, studies, general self-help books, websites, articles, newspaper articles. And interviewing - parents, singles, professionals, part timers, academics, writers, HR professionals, teachers, award-winning employers. Then came the actual writing - 153,000 words, distilled eventually down to a mere 100,000. I used to set my watch timer and book out chunks in my calendar to make sure that I wrote at least two chapters a week. Three months for the entire project was a timeframe set tighter than Madonna's eyelids, but I made it.

This was all done with coffees, massages, meals and support from Love Chunks. A family block of chocolate every day, inhaled a row at a time, gaining a kilo in my arse every week for the thirteen weeks spent welded to my swivel chair. Casual acceptance by Sapphire, "Yeah, Mum's writing a book about balancing life and work and says she gets to do it by not having to wear anything fancier than Crocs. Milly loves it because she gets to sleep inside on her beanbag all day." Any work/life balance of my own was less achievable than a Paris Hilton PhD but I was - and still am - so grateful to have the opportunity to write. a. book.

As some of you already know, returning back to work with Bulldog and her new sidekick Skeletor wasn't the fun-filled joyride shown previously in the tour brochures and I left the coven, never to return again. Changing from twenty years of tertiary study and sensible office jobs to a laptop at home and my own ABN number was at first a bit frightening but then gradually exciting and freeing. Opportunities have arisen and I've had time to seek some more out, but that's for another blog......

In January the book was released to about as much fanfare as any of the Dummies books are. Kind of like some gentle applause by a mime artist wearing felt gloves. Again it really didn't matter because I am so appreciative that I can now write 'author' or 'writer' in the 'occupation' box and can wander into my nearest bookshop, sidle past the 'Self Help/Psychology' shelf, wink at the lone copy of my book sitting there with its black and yellow spine and feel a little glow of satisfaction inside. Then, I leave the store empty handed and hang around in the nearest bus shelter ready to earn extra cash turning tricks for bored commuters.

The book's predicted to sell about 4,000 copies here in Australia and a few more than that when it comes out in the United Kingdom early next year. Not enough for me to buy that brand new Volvo or take Love Chunks and Sapphire to the Bahamas just yet, but more than enough to provide me with some amazing opportunites to do things other than order stationery, format documents and deal with a bloated ego masquerading as a champion of the worker.

I've still got some lingering betrayal, resentment and genuine shock at the unfairness of 'the big bad Bulldog system' to work through, but it seems like a nice little piece of karma when I consider that Bulldog has written three books and they haven't sold what my humble tome is predicted to, even if they're added altogether.

.... and I know that because I used to open her royalty statements and order the 100 copies that she'd buy of the book herself. Karma indeed.

Day Five - Appreciative August

Saying "No"

On face value, it may seem as though I've wasted a large portion of the last two months for nothing, but for me it's been a good experience. On Friday, after trying to write two lengthy and detailed draft chapters and a proposal for a new book idea, I decided to say "No."

Too many print outs, half-hearted self-editings, re-writes, enhancing the premise, finding more case studies and dry statistics, re-examining my examples and modifying the messages was leaving me drained and distinctly unexcited about the time and energy it was taking.

So I said no. "No" as in, "I'm not enjoying this. It doesn't really enthuse or interest me and my heart's not in it." I was writing it for the wrong reasons - because the topic was a lofty one not discussed at length before; the subject matter would hopefully touch upon a few raw nerves of readers I particularly wanted to annoy; the siren song of the dollar signs (potentially) on offer by the publisher was particularly alluring and - being brutally honest here - I thought it would give me a bit more attention.

The relief I now feel at saying, "No thanks" is bigger than my arse was after twelve weeks of sitting down, eating a family block of chocolate each day at the keyboard with little exposure to sunlight or exercise whilst writing the first book. As for the attention issue, I'm getting enough of it by finally just being myself and not by the exhausting and pointless process of trying to convince people I don't care about that there is indeed a brain of sorts lurking beneath my chubbo-cheeky exterior.

Saying 'No' is part of the advice given to readers in 'Work/Life Balance for Dummies' as a way of freeing up time for better and more important issues, having more control in what happens in work and home time and even enjoying the thrill in surprising people who automatically assume that the answer will always be "Yes, of course I'll do that for you." How nice it is to be finally taking my own advice.

"Yeah, the school fete day is going to be great, but no, I won't be able to be part of the fundraising committee this year." Why - because I've done it for four years in a row and my time from 9am to 3pm this year is to be spent trying to cram in all the research, writing, photography, ideas development, reviews and radio opportunities I can.

"No, I'm not going to accept being unfairly insulted and instead keep reminding myself to 'not take it personally' - instead I'll cease contact with you and wait for an apology which is what I deserve." Geez it felt so good to be able to say that after being such a good, understanding and tolerant girl all my sensible life.

"No, I don't want to go to that function next week..... Why?.....Because I don't feel like it and would rather stay home." After uttering this one, I honestly thought a friendship was over, but it wasn't. They liked hearing the truth and in the end they too decided that life was too short to go out to an event on a freezing cold weeknight out of duty (how much handmade jewellery at born yesterday prices does a girl need anyway?).

And my current favourite: "No, I'm not working on that one anymore. I'm going to start the book that's closer to my heart and is one that I'm genuinely itching to write." The book that makes me sit up in bed at 3am to jot down an unforgettable line or makes me laugh when I'm on the treadmill, the toilet or poring over the newspaper.

Oh don't ever forsake the classic "No, I think the floors can cope without being vacuumed for another week. Let's go out for lunch instead. " This is an essential for us all.

Try saying it; you'll like it.

Fattypuff Schmattypuff

Diets Stink. That's what it says on my t-shirt, bought from 'White Trash Palace' online a couple of years ago.

Even though I heartily agree with the statement, I realise that I'm still on a diet.

After finishing the book at the end of last year, followed by several months of 'Yeah I'll eat that, I deserve it, my stomach could so with some more work/life balance', I eventually blew the dust bunnies from the bathroom scales hidden under the bed.

Somehow, on the 1st of January, the little red needle came up with a number that was far larger than I'd been used to. At least in my non-pregnant state. I felt ill and then ashamed at the memory of everything I'd shovelled down my throat in sheer abandon since working from home in June 2007 and reaching a peak of piggyness over the silly season break. It was 'Book Fat' and it wasn't pretty.

It was with great shame that I realised too that running six kilometres every second day did not keep the fat cells at bay. Instead, I was revelling in the moral superiority of having just gone for a run, and rewarding myself with a post-breakfast snickers/frog cake/wagon wheel/custard tart/six rows of Lindt. After all, thirty minutes of high impact exercise would certainly burn up the leftover carrot cake I'd have with lunch, the mid-afternoon choccy chew and the after-dinner M&M munch fest wouldn't it?

In Kath Land, it would be OK and also be a confirmed source of fibre, vitamin C and scientifically proven to improve my intelligence. In reality, unfortunately, it was not OK. That is, not unless I liked looking like an albino acorn and didn't mind my upper arms jiggling ten minutes after I'd waved my family goodbye.

Sucking in my stomach all day wasn't an option either, not when my daughter Sapphire remarked, "Mum, are you pregnant?" So much for thinking I'd breathed in my bellybutton up against my spine then.

The final nail in this cake lover's coffin were shop windows. Have you ever had that happy feeling when you're out? You know - you feel great, you've got a nice outfit on, you think you look pretty good until...... until you happen to see your reflection in a shop window. 'Is that what I look like out in public? Are those thighs really mine?' Any happiness you may have felt before the unwanted viewing then disappears quicker than a full fat frappucino in Britney Spears' crack hands.

What happened next was not that I joined a gym or hunted out raw vegetables and vegan meals, oh no. Instead, I dejectedly found the closest coffee shop and ordered a 'skinny' cappuccino and a custard tart, fretting about my reflection and inwardly cursing every little skinny bitch under 60 that walked by. 'Huh, she's only that size because she's so obviously a four pack a day lady,' or 'You need an arse for those jeans love', and 'Yeah right, why don't you breathe out and let your gut flop over your jeans, you fat fake.'

Despite the big butt and bitterness, I have been more 'careful' about what I shove in my mouth this year. I was pretty strict in the early stages, and Love Chunks could see that I was feeling rather miserable, and he said, "I'm sure it won't force the needle too far on the wrong side of the scales if you have a few squares of chocolate with me in front of the movie."

It was Nestle's Club Dark roasted almond, and I sucked my six squares as though I'd misplaced my dentures and didn't have the energy to get into my zimmer frame to find them. They had to last at least the length of the movie (2 hours 10 minutes) so even the damn nuts were sucked into oblivion.

The second breaking point was at the shopping centre. After cashing in a $20 book voucher at Dymocks (which of course cost me another $56 because bookshops are only second to cake shops in terms of irresistability), the lure of the bakery nearby was far stronger than my willpower. "One Farmers Union Feel Good Iced Coffee and, ummm, a slice of that berry cheesecake over there," I pointed with my hand shaking in greedy anticipation. Ordering it felt so naughty, so wrong. 'Do not ruin it by sitting here trying to calculate how many grams of fat are in each slice', I told myself. 'This is your treat. You deserve this. Why, I don't know, but you do - you deserve this!'

A couple of hours later, my errands were done: I'd posted Sapphire's entry to the Kangaroo Club Colouring In Competition; picked up Milly's arthritis-curing fish oil and Skipper's bunny pellets, collected the toe-nail sized clippers on order from the chemist; bought some milk and found some face cream for less than $7. It was crunch time - did I dare step on the scales for a weekly weigh-in when -

a) I'd hadn't just got out of the shower but was fully clothed;

b) it was over three hours since I'd been to the loo;
c) my legs were unshaved;

d) my nose unblown; and

e) it had been a fortnight since cutting my nails?

'Yes, it is time Blubberbuns, especially seeing as you inhaled that cheesecake so willfully this morning,' I told myself harshly. Stepping on ever-so-gently, my eyes were squeezed shut and for some inexplicable reason I was sucking my stomach in. What did the red needle say? One kilogram less than last week - yee hah! Woo hoo! Maybe I could celebrate by breaking open that triple pack of Lindt Excellence 70% blocks and.....

And I did. My 'diet' since then has consisted of eating whatever - and how much - chocolate I want. The difference is that everything that else that gets inhaled must be of nutritional value. Also, I exercise more - 3 x weekly runs on the treadmill at 8km a pop (in 41 mins, 23 seconds) followed by a stress-relieving punching session on the leather tonsil bag that hangs from the ceiling hook and the one that looks like an enormous saveloy and weighs about as much as Kyle Sandilands. Add two karate lessons and two powerwalks (8km at a speed of 7.2km per hour with hand weights) and I'm trimming down, firming up and still able to enjoy my second favourite oral activity.

Sure, Sapphire predicts that soon all of my waking hours will need to be spent on the treadmill (and possibly some mid-REM stomach crunches in bed as well) to cope with my increasing cocoa addiction, but it's worth it. Life's too short to say 'no' to a row or seven of poo-brown heaven and reject it for a dried apricot instead.

Hating with Honesty Part II

An aspect of our culture that really busts my blisters is when we all think we have to like something just because everybody else seems to like it. I've developed a list of things I personally can't stand (aka known as the original 'Hating with Honesty' post) despite the rest of the world seemingly loving them to bits, and feel that it's time to add a second column.

Fashion. Speaking from the wisdom of being two decades older than the female market that most of the ridiculous styles of clothing is aimed at, I can also say that I'm relieved that I no longer feel the pressure to be 'in' or have the interest to be 'in'. Even today, on our way home after Yum Cha in the city, we popped into 'Trims' on Pulteney Street. The store is an Adelaide institution and you could always find a $15 pair of Levis next to some blundstone boots from the 1960s hidden behind the later models of thermal underwear.

Not any more. Levis are $149 *after* applying the 30% discount displayed all over the store and are in miniscule sizes or the unfortunate styles of 'low rise flares' or 'ultra skinny leg'. Not to mention witnessing the evil greediness of seeing decades-old converse sneakers priced at $89 -Trims, how could you?

Dr Who. Sorry Brit-nerds, I just don't get why this show has endured for so long. Lots of children were terrorised by the scary masks of various bad guys or the daleks but even at the age of seven, when Jon Pertwee was busy running around in his velour dinner jacket and frilled shirt, I could see the dodgy special effects and pathetic sets and felt contempt more than fright. Wobbly sets, ill-fitting rubber suits and monsters made of spray-painted loo plungers and egg cartons make it too hard to get into whatever ridiculous space-age, inter-dimensional delusion we were supposed to be involving ourselves in.

The latest doctor is the insane snake-like son from one of the Harry Potter movies and appears to be playing the role on intravenous doses of Red Bull and espresso. Any credulity is snapped further than a worn out bungee cord when a facelifted Kylie Minogue appears as the guest girlie and kisses him - could her forehead be stretched any tighter? Her eyebrows are in danger of meeting up at the back of her neck.

French manicured finger nails
















These obviously fake, square nails with the white bits painted on are usually worn by chicky babes a bit on the chubbo end of the spectrum. As with their tiger-striped hair highlights or lined lips, they seem to think that having tombstones on the ends of their fingers will detract attention away from the size of their arses.

Perhaps they're right, but they still look hideous. They also tell the onlooker that their owner does sweet FA work with her hands - those babies ain't fit for gardening, washing, chopping veges, scrubbing floors, painting or scrubbing pots and pans. Maybe that's why their arses are so large. Do the French really have nails like these? If so, I thought that French women never got fat?

Shuttered houses











These external roll-a-blinds seem to be favoured by home owners who want security and already own properties that lean towards the ugly side. Protection and privacy from what I'm not completely sure - sunshine and views, maybe? Let's face it - if a burglar wants to break in and steal your stuff, he (or she) will be able enter your home by more ways than just the windows. Plus, having them shuttered means that they'll be able to rifle through your belongings at their leisure without being noticed by passersby.

The place I've photographed here is in my neighbourhood and seems to be permanently closed to the world outside, resembling a face without any eyes. Not having the windows visible removes all traces of the house's character (what little it does have). Ugly, pointless and inadvertently dangerous. Not unlike Barry Hall.

Clearasil - it annoys the living crap out of me that, at age 39 and a half, I've recently had to buy a tube of the skin-coloured stuff to combat the colony of dots that have appeared on my neck. Unfortunately, it still pongs as badly as it did in 1983 and lingers long after the t-shirt or pillow has been washed.

When our daughter Sapphire reaches the puberty/zit infestation/interest-in-having-sex stage of her young life, I'll be encouraging her to slather her face in this gunk under the pretense of having pimple-free skin - the stench will hopefully keep any potential de-flowerers at bay. Along with Love Chunks' headlock-of-death and 24/7 chaperoning system of course.

Batman movies. Sling these into the reject bin next to the Dr Who episodes. Why the movies are made to be so dark and serious when he's a comic book character wearing a tight suit with a face-obscuring black balaklava/mask ensemble based on a BAT is beyond me. How the hell did he manage to sew that on his granny's singer hidden at the back of the bat cave?

I find these oh-so-dark films unintentionally hilarious - Michael Keaton's camp pout had me sniggering and at one stage I wanted to know just why Gotham City didn't seem to know of the existence of fluoro tubes or decent over-head lighting (same with the couple in X-files: why use a torch to investigate a crime or UFO-scene when you can flick a switch, or better still, wait until daylight?)

Claire Hooper



















I'll say it first - she's way younger and a damn sight prettier than I was, or ever will be. However her 'humour', especially when I was first 'introduced' to it by Paul McDermott on ABC's 'The Sideshow' was obviously so subtle and subliminal that I didn't even notice that its presence (is she his niece?). Granted, she's improved a wee bit on 'Good News Week' but somehow she seems to think that she's cute and this will therefore add 99% more hilarity to her act. Not for me it doesn't. It just makes me want to smack her smug horsey face and send her to Woolies to be their cheerful, free ranging 'price check' girl.

That Ryan Shelton guy from Rove


This tool should marry Claire so that he can be the bloke who sprays the lettuces in the fruit-and-vege section. I'm sure he's a perfectly nice chap to have a coffee with, or to collect up all the stray shopping trolleys and put them back in the special parking bays nearer to the shop's entrance.

Like young Claire, he obviously thinks he's funny, but surrounding himself with Rove and Hamish shows him up to be about as amusing as a dead kitten at a christening.

His little 'how to' segments on the show are painfully, get-a-brazilian-wax-in-slo-mo weak. Piss weak. If he's the future of funnydom in Australia, then let's bring in some of those hilarious Belgians, Uzsbechishtanis and Norwegians instead.

Justin Timberlake



















All I want to say to Mr Timberlake is, "No, you're NOT bringing sexy back. Quite the opposite in fact."

Sexy is NOT a high-pitched, pasty-faced Michael-Jackson wannabe wearing a vest with blue jeans. If it was, the world's librarians would all be dating supermodels and promoting their own line of cardigans and pocket pen holders.

Frickin' FM radio stations - there are two reasons:

1) Deciding to stick with 'classic' songs but selecting only twenty of them to play ad-infinitem for the next two decades. There's only so much Barnesy, Farnesy, Rolling Stones, Bon Jovi, Guns-n-Roses, John Mellencamp and Cold Chisel one can endure, and that was back in 1989. Nor, when they advertise a 'back to the eighties lunchtime mix' do I want to hear the same "ten songs that'll take you back". I swear that SAFM play 'Don't you forget about me,' 'Always something there to remind me,' 'What I like about you' and 'Let's Dance' as often as anything on the mushroom record label dating from 1980 to 1987.

2) Not bothering to tell us the name of the song or the artist/band who made it. We seem to get our 'fifty minutes of music without ads' peppered with the DJ reminding us that we're getting our 'fifty minutes of music without ads' between each and every song, but if a song pops up that sounds good - a rarity for me these days - I'd like to know what it was. But that's information they'd be giving away for free, isn't it? They want to me SMS them for the song info or visit their website in order to be bombarded with more advertising whilst searching for the playlist. What they've forgotten is that, unlike the 15 year olds who can watch 'Rage' on Friday night and Saturday morning without having to turn it off before their nine year old daughter sees it and learns that being famous means wearing a string-bikini and writhing suggestively over a gansta rapper - we have more disposable income and are likely to buy an album rather than a song download.

Actually, I have a third reason - 3) employing semi-retarded, no-talent, ex-reality tv 'stars' as zany breakfast show hosts. Why bother with wit, talent and the ability to think quickly on your feet if you can have someone who snogged a transvestite in the pool at the Big Brother compound or who was once the eyebrow plucker to a Hollywood star?

Whew. I think I'll go and have a GnT and a lie down now......

Crumbs!

Blogger ‘Gigglewick’ has discovered that it’s no longer In/Hip/Trendy/Cool to refer to other human beings as ‘dudes’ any more.















I’m relieved, actually. A few months back, Sapphire was playing with a few of her friends after school in the playground. They love to linger in the grounds then because the bigger kids have escaped and they are free to enjoy the equipment, run around screaming and giggling and just have heaps of fun without looking nervously over their shoulders for an older child mocking them for being ‘babyish’.

As the bored and rather cold parent perched on a sticky, windswept bench seat on the edge, it was time for me to go home. “Come on dudes, let’s go home.”

They froze in their tracks, with expressions ranging from disbelief, shock and disappointment on their faces.

“What.... did..... you..... say....?” Sapphire whispered fiercely.
“Er ‘dudes’. As in the group of you. It’s time to go home.” My voice sounded weak and shrill even to my ears.

“Mum,” Sapphire approached, rolling her eyes and preparing herself for one of her usual ‘Why can’t you be sensible like the other Mums around here’ kind of lectures.
“Mum we are girls, we are not dudes. Dudes are boys, or blokes. Or even guys, fellas, men or lads. We however...” she glanced at her nodding friends, who had also edged in closer, “..are NOT...” her lip curled in distaste, ".....dudes....”

Instead, what Sapphire appreciates are the words I use that are really old fashioned. Most of these are from my grandparents and are so quaint and unusual for kids that they actually stop, listen and admire.

When I was blissfully growing up in Murray Bridge in the 1970s and mid 1980s, I never once heard my mother swear. Lord knows she had many reasons to, mostly due to us three kids. Our hobbies tended to be whining, teasing and fighting each other.

If it wasn't for my brothers, I would not have known how to defend myself from school-yard bullies with well-placed and timely henpecks, dead legs and chinese burns. At home, we regularly flung ourselves furiously at each other: so often that Mum would continue chopping at the vegetables, saying vaguely into the ether, "You should stop that, or somebody might get hurt...."

Her strict methodist upbringing continued to work its magic on her and she avoided the easy temptation to let us know just what dreadful little sh**s we really were.

It is only now, being a mother of just one child myself, that I can truly admire her self control. On one fine Saturday after the end of the movie matinee on the telly, David decided that hammering the brick and cement water tank-stand wasn't fulfilling enough and proceeded to smash through the glass in our front door. He may have been small for his age and prone to regular asthma attacks that rendered him allergic to housework and chores, but boy did he run fast when Mum flew out of the house armed with a wooden spoon. Round and round the silver birch tree they went, Dave's eyes nearly popping out of their little sockets with terror and Mum getting angrier and angrier and struggling to keep yelling and hold her breath.

What expletives was she uttering during this burst of free exercise?

"Come here you....B-L-E-S-S-E-D LITTLE CHILD" over and over.

For many years, I thought 'blessed' was akin to Bloody F***ing Satan Spawn until I finally paid attention in Sunday School and realised it was something that Jesus - and our Minister - used in a nice way.

Like farting in the car on long trips and blaming them on whichever one of us kids was sleeping at the time, my mother had ways of saying very naughty things without ever uttering anything that was officially a curse word. "Ooooh Bunnies" was another frequently used word, normally when she had to unpick some sewing or her little cakes didn't turn out.

Following her example, I adopted the word, "Bucko", from Richie Cunningham in 'Happy Days', saying stuff to Robert like, "If you don't stop bragging, Bucko, I'm going to hit you over the head with the Monopoly bank." For some reason, Mum took exception to this, and rushed over to scold me. The act of thwacking Rob over the scone with a hard plastic container that left him crying and paper money fluttering all around the room didn't seem to bother her.

Even our toilet training and subsequent referrals to the subject of ablutions were kept pristine, language wise, if also rather peculiar. My folks swear (boom boom) that these were the words invented by Robert when he was not quite two, and were then used by the family from then on to avoid the very disgusting Wee and Poo words. Are you ready for them - Wettings for wees and Dirties for poos. There are times when I regress and have accidentally said them out loud to my own daughter.

If any of us children ever swore, we showed no loyalty to each other at all, instead rushing to dob to Mum. Until the age of six, the worst swear word in the world that my sheltered little mind could summon up was Stink Pot. I used to lie under my stripey bedsheets and utter it out loud to myself like a mantra, feeling thrillingly sinful.

In desperation, we often resorted to giggling over the potential sounds of innocent words as curses. Orange pith was the source of a great deal of cheap merriment for me. "Hey Dave, can you take the pith off," knowing that he had no real reason to get me into trouble. "Why don't you go jump off the poop deck," another favourite. The delicious word, 'buttocks' was a delight - it was very early abbreviated to "Shift your tocks, turkey."

Mum was still easy to run a few not-so-polite phrases over due to her own ignorance. It was only when she announced that "These broad peans taste poxy" in front of Dad that she realised it was not particularly wise to incorporate her children's words as her own.

You see Dad was a high school teacher and there was no buzzword or disrespectful saying that he wasn't already aware of. There were no Shut Ups, Hells, Damns or even a Rack Off. I guess he'd heard enough of that crap (see what I did there?) all day at school and didn't need the 'aural pollution' (his words) at home.

There was one phrase that, in hindsight, was pretty rude, but was allowed to used with gay abandon in our home. My grandmother, a very strict Methodist, non-drinking, church stalwart and always-refined lady, used to say, "Stop fiddle arseing around and get back to work..." Fiddle Arseing? How can that be better than Bugger Off, Bum or Stink Pot?

It remains a mystery to this day. I'm relieved to advise you that my folks have relaxed their language standards a great deal. Sometimes disturbingly so. It still takes quite some getting used to when I hear my mum say indignantly, "That driver is right up my bloody arse," when she's behind the wheel of her commodore, battling the huge 3 car traffic jam down the main street of Victor Harbor. The profanity just doesn't go with the coral red lippy, matching string of beads, silk shirt and rockport loafers.

Perhaps that's a good thing: that at the age of 67 she's capable of shocking her daughter instead of the other way 'round.

Releasing some pent-up emotions


















It's funny how some negative emotions and events I thought were vastly 'over' and dealt with as some of life's harder lessons learnt can easily return and give me a big bite in the arse when I'm least expecting it.

Take today for instance. After taking Sapphire to tennis coaching and doing my share of the weekend drudgery (changing the beds, washing, drying, folding, ironing), I decided to sort out some of my held onto crap and give the spare room (or My Orifice, during weekday school hours). My ability to maintain an orderly lifestyle is not unlike a framed tapestry: it looks quite nice on the front because all the loose threads, knots and mistakes are hidden in the back under the cardboard lining. Ditto with my liberal use of bookshelves, folders, filing cabinets and plastic storage containers - hermetically-sealed chaos.

The first few steps are always fun because it is obvious what needs to go:

• The official CSIRO diet book and Aussie Women's Women Fat and Calorie Counter - straight into the Salvos donation box because I hadn't even bothered to open either of them - after all, why get depressed when you're going to eat what you want anyway?


• A Filofax black leather business card holder - a useless corporate gift that I'd feel like an utter wanna-be Git if I'd ever used it to store my mates' cards in;


• Melways 'Great Melbourne' Map book 1996 - why had we held onto this for so long?


• Fifteen cassette tapes - I've either got them on CD (also outdated) or can download em and we don't actually have anything to play them on anymore except inside our ancient Mitsubishi;


• Rollerblades - a misguided gift to myself for Christmas, 2006. Not even one per cent of the fun I remembered having on my roller skates back in 1979;


• The Labor Market Ate My Babies, by Barbara Pocock (2006) - this was flung out like a burning hot frisbee, with the rapid fire strength and anger of a hundred Roided-out shot putters.
  

I threw out of my hand-written notes, photocopied articles, booklets, website downloads and drafts relating to 'Work/Life Balance for Dummies'. It's all referenced or saved on disc and data stick and I hardly felt as though I was going to re-read the ABS reports on working families from 2004 again. My tax returns from 1990 to 1998 also got the flick - surely if the ATO had a problem with me during those years I'd have heard from them by now.

And yet when it came to my medical records from 1995, I couldn't. There were MRIs, cat-scans, blood tests and written reports about my pituitary prolactinoma; a non-cancerous brain tumour that had created a life for itself at the base of my brain, directly behind my eyes. About the size of a fruchoc it had started squashing my optic nerves giving me migraines, blurred vision and an unwanted and fruitful supply of breast-milk. It had cleverly fooled my body into thinking I'd just given birth and needed not to release any eggs on a monthly basis but instead go on full time duty as the neighbourhood wet nurse.

Of course, once it was finally diagnosed and dealt with, the tumour shrank to a grain of rice but, sadly, I could still lean over a meeting table and offer to whiten your tea if push came to shove but it's a small price to pay for not eventually going blind and insane with the pain. So, the medical mess stayed.

Same with my baby diary. Written when I was pregnant with Sapphire, I'd tentatively titled it 'Up the Duff' and posted my masterpiece off to get professionally edited only to drive home from the Post Office and hear Kaz friggin' Cooke being interviewed about her baby info book (done with her usual wit and cute cartoons) called, yes, 'Up the Duff'. *sigh* Nope, can't. do. it. The diary will have to stay, if only to bring out to scare the living crap out of Sapphire if she chooses to become sexually active too early.

By this stage, my fingers were grey with the dust that only old paperwork can produce and my bones were aching from kneeling on the floor, re-reading my tragic journals from 1988 where, at the ripe old age of twenty, I wondered if I'd ever find a bloke to love and envied the girls who didn't need to spend a hundred bucks getting their hair spiral permed. Or in 1992, when I was dating a Kiwi at the bank I worked at in London whose idea of a romantic night out was to get rat-faced at the Railway Bell pub in New Barnet and hope I'd have enough strength to bodily lift him onto the train carriage. Or perusing the photos taken at Love Chunks' and my wedding in 1995 - just before my tumour was diagnosed. I can see how sick I was, and the sheer terror that a migraine would come and ruin the day. If anything, photos of me since then have shown me to be much healthier and happier. Gotta keep 'em though, if only to brag that the material used for my outfit only cost twelve bucks.



















Finally we got to the paperwork from 2007 - year of the Bullying Bulldog and her evil henchwoman, Turdkey. I'd kept all of their incriminating memos, emails and meeting minutes and somehow earned a bitter victory after many months of intimidating, lying and envy. I couldn't help myself: I read through them all and felt again the gut-wrenching feelings of 'why me', and the despair and betrayal I'd felt. Tears were threatening to erupt and, once allowed, I knew it was going to be impossible to stop.

Karma Kath, Karma, I kept telling myself, yet I still boiled with anger over the ability of an 'esteemed and respected academic' to treat a lowlier person so badly and escape only with a few raised eyebrows in the vice-chancellors' office.




















Taking a deep breath, I surveyed the reading material on my desk. It perhaps signifies that my next 'serious' book will be based on some of my own experiences and also those of other women I've spoken to.

And if that doesn't get off the ground, I'll focus on my first humorous novel, tentatively titled 'Stink Pot'.



















Sapphire reckons I should start working on 'Stink Pot' after I regaled her with a few tales.

I reckon she's right.

Nature but wrapped in clingfilm please

I’m a hypocrite in so many ways, but today I’ll just focus on the food and recycling side of things for reasons of brevity and to keep my self-worth on a relatively even keel.

I’d like to be more committed to buying, living and working towards a more chemical-free, recycled and natural style of living, I really would, but the reality of such a lifestyle occasionally reveals itself to me and I flee in terror and revulsion. There still is a place in our world for slices of cheese wrapped in plastic, mentos mints and Farmers Union Feel Good iced coffee, I'm sure of it.

Love Chunks’ father, Rob, has lived for the past ten years in a shearing shed about 20km out of the riverside town of Morgan. His companions have mostly consisted of a flock of chickens, 70 randy goats and a grown sheep called Malcolm who thinks he is a goat. Rob doesn’t venture into Adelaide very often and when he does it tends to be when we’re all out at work, school or an outing. We’ll then return home to find several bottles of home-brewed stout on the back door mat next to a frozen goat leg wrapped in newspaper and our muddy running shoes filled up to their tongues with eggs. Don’t get me wrong: these are all great offerings and we enjoy them with gusto.

However the other day Rob popped in with a dozen eggs that he’d collected from his chooks just hours earlier before his 30-something Kingswood wheezed its way from Morgan to our suburb. Before he opened the lid, he said apologetically, “Now you don’t have to accept these if you don’t want to.”

“Of course we want them – we love your eggs – they’re so big; the yolks are so yellow and they’re absolutely de-----." I was unable to complete the sentence as I clapped my horrified snot-green eyes on the eggs – all of them were overly-besmirched in chook shit, feathers and dust.

Rob sensed my dismay. “Sweet heart all you have to do is crack ‘em real carefully so that the gunk doesn’t end up in your meal. Or,” he added hopefully, “….just make sure that you don’t eat them raw in case the poo germs win the war.”

“Oh, OK, thanks,” I said weakly.

Rob said he had a few errands to run before and he was gone before I could say "How about staying for dinner? Roast goat, frittata and stout?" Milly the dog was most disappointed at his departure – she had only just finished sniffing his boots which looked even messier than the eggs and had the added bonus of pungent goat and sheep odour affixed to them. The eggs were plonked into a sink full of water before his car had finished pulling out of the driveway and the water immediately turned a murky khaki green colour. It was almost as if the chooks had decided to squeeze out a mighty big crap and an egg slipped out as well in a kind of karmic added bonus.

Don’t worry dear reader, I donned sturdy rubber gloves to scrub off the debris and then threw away said gloves and sponge and then disinfected the sink whilst the hopefully-clean eggs were drying on the dish rack. I now just need to gear myself up for making an egg and spinach frittata for tonight’s main course – perhaps a couple of Bombay Sapphire/Mothers' Helpers-and-tonic beforehand will help. Only to participate in a social pre-dinner tipple, you understand, and to perhaps loosen my muscles up for karate class afterwards....

All this ridiculous faffing about, yet I keep intending on buying all of my fruit and veg from an organic shop. They may look a little less glamorous than those under the automatic water-spray and fluorescent lighting at Coles, but they taste great. Trouble is, they cost a helluva lot more, and whilst we're currently on one salary and the 'if you squint hard enough into the distance towards 2010 you might see a royalty cheque arriving' sniff of an income from my fledgling writing efforts. As such, every buck has to be thought about before being handed over (I can already hear Love Chunks' derisive laughter as I type this - he knows I have about as much control over my purse as Pamela Anderson does with marriage licenses).

Organic meats are also on the list but my squeamishness means that I’ll buy them only if they’re so far removed from their origins that they do end up under the fluorescent lighting of the Cole’s meat fridges; shrink wrapped and presented in pleasingly hygienic CFC-free trays. Perhaps I can be forgiven this hypocrisy due to having to attend a primary school excursion to the Murray Bridge Meat works in 1976. For some reason, the educational powers-that-were deemed it appropriate to send the year ones, twos and threes there to see cows ‘run up a race’, get shot through the head by a bolt-gun, skinned, boned and sliced with the resultant body parts working their blood-dripping way through the factory to have pieces designated as chops, steak, roasting legs, sausages and BBQ packs. The wet blood smell of the meat was overpowering and I learned the hard way that ‘running up a race’ for a cow wasn’t going to end up with applause or a blue ribbon.

Murray Bridge at that time was also not privy to the requirements of reducing pollution. On a still summer’s evening (which was pretty often), the noxious smell of the factory rendering the left over animal fats lay over the town like a boy scout’s itchy grey blanket – so powerful you could almost taste it as you lay in bed, sleepless and agonized. Despite all this, I still eat meat! I did try to be a vegetarian a few times, but the smells of grilled bacon or the thought of no longer having access to mince-filled spaghetti Bolognese or a good roast chicken ala Love Chunks seemed too miserable to contemplate.

Instead I’ve been determined to waste a microscopic amount of mental energy wondering about the original source or subsequent processes done to the product that finds itself in my supermarket trolley and in my stomach. Apricot cutting (as discussed in my blog of: www.blurbfromtheburbs.blogspot.com/2005/09/she-works-hard-for-money.html) was another unfortunate opportunity to view the treatment of well, yes apricots, in a stark and brutal light. They arrived in the shed still dewy, soft and plump and left with their arses sliced in half, choked in sulphur and abandoned to bake mercilessly in the sun until they looked like miniature Donatella Versaces. And that wasn’t all – the ones that were too overripe and sloppy to cut were either scraped off the floor or slapped down onto trays and bound for some so-called health bar companies who added the orange gloop their bars and spreads.

Unlike my meat experience, to this day I can’t abide eating or smelling anything that has apricot in it as an ingredient. I’d like to say that I can assuage my guilt and hypocrisy by recycling all of our household waste, but I can’t say that. I do the tins, bottles, plastics, paper and cardboard, but honestly couldn't ever be shagged setting up a smelly, sticky little bin for vege peelings, tea bags and fruit cores. Thank god we now have three chooks of our own that eat that stuff up (Hermoine, Luna and Ginny. A great trio of layers. Boom boom).

Every November I attempt to pay my penance by collecting ten boxes of soil, seeds and tubes from ‘Trees for Life’ to plant and tend the botanic babies for six months until the farmers they’re destined for come and collect them for planting. The difficulty for me is in how to reconcile these conflicting sides of me.

As William Hazlitt once said, "The only vice which cannot be forgiven is hypocrisy. The repentance of a hypocrite is itself hypocrisy." Yeah, nice one Billy boy. Good on yer - especially coming from a moral figure like you who founded a church and then left your second wife for a career in journalism….!!