60,411

So November Knob-head activities have come to a close.  It was satisfying to vomit out the required number of words for NaNoWriMo before realising that at least another 30K will be needed to finish the first draft and have the story make some form of sense. Of course, this was the whole intention - get us procrastinators committed for a month and then, if/when we hit fifty thou', we'll be in for the long haul. Clever thinking.

Milly sat at my feet the entire time acting as mute inspiration, delivery man sniffer and wet-nosed break time alarm clock. She's been recited to, sung at and even had her opinion sought on alternative paragraph endings and descriptions.  I'm pleased to report that her work has been outstanding and she's quite simply the best Personal Assistant a writer could wish for (excepting the fragrant farts, of course. Then again, she could rightfully direct the same complaint back at me).

The 60,000 words were completed at a time when Sapphire's stomach issues had not only re-emerged but also joined forces with her 'plumbing at the front'.  No-one likes placing their feet into stirrups and having a man approach with a cotton bud and what looks like an oversized creme brulee gas torch but when you're thirteen years old, tired, sick and scared it gets beyond funny. "So Mum, how's your day going so far," she said quietly, trying her best to get her mind off things. "Can you hold my hand please?"  At least two days off school per week has become the norm but we thank modern technology, school website log ins and mates with mobiles for keeping her up to date with assignments and still in sight of good grades.

However with lingering illness, puberty, fluctuating friendships and a truck-load of pre-report card homework to do, she's been forced into the first row seat riding the rollercoaster of grumpiness, apologies, resentment, frustration, amusement, challenges, stomach aches, affection, anger, sulkiness and gratitude.  Love Chunks and I sometimes want to hand our own tickets back to the booth at different times but, together, we're a pretty formidable - and empathetic - force.

My endlessly busted Achilles is minor in comparison but still makes my invisible tail droop at not being able to do my favourite form of exercise combined with sweaty singing and idea generating.  As my stupid old woman muscle heals at snail-on-a-glacier pace, the treadmill has done a sterling job of getting bed sheets and towels dry, being so close to the window and radiator. Shame about the dog hairs and dust bunnies forming on the belt though.

Seeing some butt-numbing numbers flash up on the scales at a friend's place was an unpleasant reminder that an alternative form of exercise needed to be sought.  At forty four and with new (and desperately unwanted) age spots arriving on my face every week, swimming was the most obvious choice despite snow approaching and me already with several old winter layers to be removed.  Three times a week has since seen me reluctantly trudge in the freezing wind half a kilometre downhill to the pool, get undressed in a semi-open change room where male workers wander through at will and plonk myself into water that is far colder than you'd expect a heated pool to be.

It is here, whilst splashing up and down the lanes - right side here in Switzerland, by the way, not the left - that chapter ideas emerge, chlorinated and vibrant, ready for use. Hindsight flowers behind foggy goggles and offers decent alternatives in my reactions to Sapphire's tribulations; and Love Chunks' face appears on the bottom of the pool, smiling kindly at me.

It is also here that I discover rage.  Rage is new to me, as I'm the, 'Oh let the guy in, it's just another three seconds of our lives' forgiving old soul when it comes to cars.  Beeping horns are also alien to me and as long as I get that obligatory 'thank you' wave, life behind the wheel is calm and uneventful.  The swimming lane provides a direct contradiction.

Unlike pools in Australia that are usually marked, 'Slow,' 'Medium' and 'Fast' with about two lanes for each speed, Geneva has just two lanes. One is marked with a green tortoise and the other with a red hare; a rather cute solution for swimmers with potentially little or no understanding of French.  I'm egotistical enough to select the Hare lane as years of running have given me an endurance level that allows me to swim laps without stopping. Fat old girls can float, y'see. I was never particularly fast in Oz but always consistent, yet here in Switzerland, I'm a female Ian Thorpe without the fashion or the flipper feet.  I leave middle aged Canadian blokes and skinny French ladies in my wake, lapping them over and over again.  No rage yet, just overheated pride and vanity.

Lapping is fine, as long as there are six or less people in the Hare lane.  When there is more, and some clod decides to wind down by doing the backstroke or the breast stroke, my irritation awakes.  No-one, apart from Olympic athletes, can swim the back or breast stroke faster than freestyle which means that they no longer belong in the Hare Lane and should duck under the barrier and do their barely-floating version of a hungover frog in the Tortoise Lane.  Irritation rises to anger when I have to overtake the hairy-backed old guy lazily attempting back stroke and have his overly long fingernails scrape my sides whilst doing so.

Rage finally appears when I've overtaken the third bloody breast stroking bozo and we touch the end of the lane at the same time and he doesn't take one single second to notice that I've thrashed the water to foam whilst making up three quarters of a lap and want to take off in front of him.  No, this non-submersible turd ends up kicking me in the face as I try to get around him and not smack into the blind backstroker coming from the opposite direction.

The only thing stopping me from strangling these inconsiderate imbeciles with the cords of their speedos or pulling back goggle straps a metre before letting it sting their faces is the counting.

Numbers. Order. Routine.

I dare not waste too much mental energy on these public pool pinheads or I'll risk forgetting how many laps I've swum.  Fourteen, Fourteen, Fourteen, is the chant until I reach the end. Fifteen, fifteen, fifte ----- oh for pharksake why does he think that swimming with a foam peanut between his knees means he'll be quick enough for the fast lane ---- bugger. Was it fifteen or thirteen...?  If in doubt, don't cheat. Thirteen, thirteen, thirteen, thir----- maybe I'll swim over the TOP of that stupid back stroking bonehead instead of around her....

When forty is finally counted, I hoik my dripping bulk out via the pool steps and do my best to saunter back to the change rooms, walking in slo-mo for coolness but really to avoid slipping on the tiles.  When I'm safely in the unlockable, saloon door individual cubicle, I slump down on the wet bench seat in exhaustion.

Three loads of washing to drape around the house, two specialist appointments to arrange for Sapphire, winter tyres to put on the car, a thrice-postponed lunch date and then, the writing.  Love Chunks' face appears in front of me again as I find the hill back home rather hard going.

Milly greets me at the door, full of joy as usual and as we go downstairs for a walk, my smile returns.

I'm so lucky to be here and will do my damnedest to make the most of it.

Bear right

In Australia, we only ever owned second-hand cars.

In 1989, I had a 1971 model. Love Chunks had a 1976 model in 1985 until we sold it for a mere $50 in 1994.

We bypassed the 1980s models entirely and in 1999 bought a still sweet-smelling ex-government station wagon from 1996, loving it and driving it until handing it over to Sean for a mere six hundred bucks in May last year.

It was Switzerland that finally saw us in a new car in 2011. Power windows, blue tooth whatcha-ma-callit sockets and an electric sun roof. Two sets of tyres that require changing around for summer and winter and a free windscreen ice-scraper given to us by the bank who loaned us half the money.

Partnering this swanky purchase was a much cheaper one, but one that has proved its value a hundred-fold. Ken, our GPS.

He's called 'Ken' because the Australian male voice file available for free download was called Ken and this personification of the little black rectangle that fits snugly into my handbag has remained. "Where's Ken?" we'll all ask, before leaving the apartment. "Is Ken powered up?"

On the road, he takes a few minutes to clear his head as being turned on in an underground car park is akin to screaming in space. Nobody can see, hear or find him. Back on ground level and in the natural light, he regains his footing. Sometimes he scares me when he first starts talking and I fumble for the volume button. Maybe Ken Mark II could clear his throat or crack his knuckles before commencing?

"Bear right," he says calmly, giving me plenty of notice to:
a) look into the rear vision mirror;
b) remember to check my left hand side and not my right before changing lanes; and
c) not to panic about being unable to read the teeny weeny street signs that are never large or on poles but stuck, oh-so-discreetly, onto the corners of buildings themselves.

"In two hundred metres, take the third right at the roundabout," he advises, allowing me to take note of my pleasant surroundings - oh look, the cows are still wearing their bells and are munching away on wild flowers right next to the international airport runway - and grope around for the sun roof switch.

Love Chunks has long suffered from my lack of direction, inability to read maps and predictable failure to identify turn-offs in time. Despite these (very valid) concerns, he also worries that Ken now makes my life too easy; that I'll never learn how to read a map without turning it in the direction we're travelling or guesstimate my way home by looking at the Alps, the slope of the streets towards the water or where the sun sets.

He's correct, of course, but I've driven further and more frequently because of Ken's patient assistance. He speaks English and avoids Sapphire's ridicule by not ever bothering to pronounce the French names of towns, streets or suburbs. Why should he when a "You have reached your destination" does the job?

Ken doesn't sigh, panic or get angry if we're hooning down the motorway in the wrong lane and missed the lakeside exit. Instead he pauses for a moment to gather his thoughts (and new satellite bearings) before either suggesting that I "turn around where possible" or he thoughtfully creates another route entirely.

"Shoosh," I'll say over the conversation in the car. "Ken just gave a direction and I couldn't hear it." He takes precedence over everything else occurring inside the vehicle including fart jokes and gossip.

On longer journeys, if there are no roundabouts, corners or turns, he stays silent. This is when it can get unsettling. I'm hoping that Ken Mark II or III is also programmed to add some words of encouragement such as, "You're doing well, keep it up," or "This is the right way, don't fret, pet," which would go a long way to making the journey a pleasanter one.

Even a few "I like what you've done to your hair today," or "Have you lost weight?" type of endearments wouldn't go astray but for now, Ken dearest, I truly love your work.

Judged by John Martins

It's funny how being a mother to a twelve year old child leads to a lot of reminiscing and 'that reminds me of the time' conversations. These then lead, later on, to deeper ponderings and analyses of events long since past and dealt with.

As we were about to get into the car for the school run this morning, Sapphire said, "You're the same age as Madonna, aren't you Mum?"

Despite being unshowered, wearing polar fleece, tracksuit pants, ugg boots and holding Milly's lead and my Wellington boots, I stopped short in horror.

"NO NO NO NO NO NO NO Sapphire! She is TEN YEARS older than me."

Sapphire ignored my offended stance and waited patiently for me to open the doors. "Oh yeah, that's right. It's Kylie Minogue who's your age."

It was difficult to stay huffy at her when the rear vision mirror showed a new age spot on my left temple and two cornflake boogers in my eyes.

"Mum?"

"Mmmmmmm?" Reversing out is difficult, not just because I automatically crane my neck to look the wrong way. Space is challengingly tight, and other residents like to roar around the corner in their posher and much larger vehicles.

"Do you like Madonna?"

When we'd made it out onto the street where I now feel confident enough to drive on the wrong side of the road and hold an animated conversation, I had a think about this. "Well, she's had a very long career and her facelift treatments are one of the better ones out there but I do wish she'd perhaps try singing about something a little less twenty-something oriented. She's had two marriage breakdowns, got four children and lived a full life, so surely she could try wearing pants, singing about adult issues and pose with her legs crossed for a change."

"But looks matter, don't they Mum?"

Don't they indeed.

My daughter is beautiful. Truly beautiful, but she doesn't believe me and walks hunched up in anxiety and self consciousness across the tarmac to the school yard. She fails to see the appreciative glances that get thrown her way when we're out and about, and worries that she's not 'flat and thin' like the not-yet-developed, a full-year-younger, gymnastic queens of her class.

When she got home from school, we shared a diet coke on the balcony and I took her back to the summer of 1987. It had been buried and forgotten in my mind until reawakening, unwanted but timely, today.



Second year uni had finished and I was not looking forward to going back home to my fifth summer of cutting apricots whilst standing on a cement floor under a boiling hot corrugated iron fruit packing shed to earn money for the year ahead.

John Martin's - South Australia's most beloved department store - were advertising. They were looking for university students to work right up until the post-Christmas sales. No experience necessary. They wanted intelligence, hard work and the willingness to provide unceasingly friendly customer service. My best uni buddy Joanne and I decided to apply together. Neither of us had ever worked anywhere not involving fresh produce or small children. She grew up on a riverland orchard where picking grapes and oranges helped earn her pocket money and, apart from apricot cutting, I could only add babysitting to my slim resume.

We filled out the form and sat outside a dingy, fake wood-panelled room with plastic chairs for our turn to be briefly interviewed. Both of us got five minutes to answer a couple of short questions. Four hours later we walked back to college and went in search of a late dinner in the kitchen.

Jo was offered a job in the Manchester department the following day. I was rejected.

A week later, the local newspaper featured a small article revealing that the HR manager of John Martin's had been recorded admitting that there was an unwritten policy of selecting only good looking uni students for holiday work. I spent the night in bed curled up, sobbing.

I never told Jo about the article and she held that job beyond the post-Christmas sales, working Thursday nights and Saturday mornings for the next six years as she successfully completed her honours and PhD. She worked hard and deserved every dollar she got.

But yes, looks matter.

"But I think you're beautiful, Mum."

This, from a fresh faced, blue eyed angel, who can't see even a glimpse of it in herself. Instead of denying it as I'd normally do, I just hugged her and said, "Thanks love. So are you."

"And guess what - John Martin's is no longer in business."

That brand new vomit smell

On Saturday morning, usually a day for sleeping in, Sapphire woke up early and excitedly. "It's today, isn't it?"

Love Chunks was smiling, the glint in his baby blues reflecting the emotions of his daughter.

I felt nauseaus and my Rexona, at 8am, was already letting me down.

In the fog and drizzle we took the numbers 14 and 17 trams past Plain Palais to the Peugeot dealership, paperwork in hand.

"Voila!" Marco whipped off a satin blue sheet covering our car. Our brand new car.

To all you European dwellers, I guess a Peugeot is what a Holden is to us Australians - no big deal. But to these particular Australians, it is an enormously huge deal.

Firstly, neither Love Chunks or myself - separately and together - have ever owned a brand new car. He and I both had cars from the early seventies during the 1980s and bought a nineties car that lasted all through the 2000s. We were both of the view that new was a waste of money, that you blew a couple of grand the second you drove it off the lot and, most of all, we simply couldn't afford one. Here though, with a UN-tax free deal and a good loan rate, we decided to live on the edge and go for it.

Secondly, the Peugeot is a manual, like most vehicles seem to be here. I learned how to drive on a manual (in 1985, or 'were TVs in just black and white then' according to my daughter's concept of ancient history) and my cars Rodney the 1971 Renault and Sucked Crunchie the 1973 burnt orange volvo were both manual drives. However during most of the nineties and all of the noughties I enjoyed the restful, no-use-for-the-left-hand carefree slackness of an automatic. Namely, Maggie the Magna, recently sold in May for the princely sum of $600.

Thirdly, it's a left hand drive designed to be driven on the utterly weirdly wrong - sorry, right - side of the road.

Fourthly, we don't have one of those fandangled Tom-Tom sat nav dooflanger thingies; merely LC's insistence that I direct us back home "but not through the city" using his iPad.

Five minutes later, we were stuck in the city; the wipers turning on every time LC turned a corner and my body slip-sliding around on the vinyl seats due to an unpalatable combination of sweat, anxiety and panic.

By the time we arrived home, Mr Migraine had set up residence behind my left eyeball and with an audible sigh of relief LC backed the car into our designated parking spot in the basement.

Sapphire had been uncharacteristically quiet during the unintendedly lengthy journey home but now decided it was the right moment to pipe up with, "Well, why don't we just leave it down here and just sit in it every now and then?"

I was all for it and spent the rest of the afternoon in bed, clutching at my head.

However today we were up early again. Geneva is quite literally dead on a Sunday with the original concept of the Sabbath taken very, very seriously. No clinking of glass bottles in the public recycling depots; no washing machines to be turned on in apartment blocks and no active gardening to be undertaken. In fact, technically all of those activities are illegal on a Sunday.

Unless church dominates your plans it seems as though you're expected to stay inside wearing felt slippers communicating only via sign language and mime for the entire day.

"It's the perfect time to get used to driving," LC decided.

Quite wisely, as it turned out. Very little traffic, drizzly weather that might have put some casual drivers off and us in no hurry to be any specific place at any specific time.

We drove around the entire boundary of Lac Leman - Switzerland, France and back again, with stops for coffee at a boulangerie and lunch at a tiny Port near Evian. The only actual Evian water tasted by any of us was in the puddles that Milly drank from as we walked.

"It drives so smoothly," LC observed.

"It's like you've always driven on the right hand side of the road, Dad," Sapphire said with genuine admiration.

"Wanna have a go, Kath?"

"NO no no no no no I'm not ready yet the car is too new, too shiny, too pretty, too dangerous I'll get us lost or put a big dent in it besides it's getting dark out and my head is still sore and No no no no no no no...."

"It's only two thirty-----"

"NO!"

Maybe tomorrow, on my own, I'll take it for an Old Lady Spin around the car park. Maybe.

Snappy September - Day Ten - The VW Gulf

I have no idea what happens under the bonnet but do pay attention to cars. Makes, models and styles are unconsciously noted and the 'Drive' section is avidly read with the ratings out of five automatically filed away in the part of my mind where stuff like answers to Spicks and Specks questions, Hollywood gossip circa 2004 and those destined-to-be-useful third year Roman Art and Archaeology essays are stored.

Two makes of cars seem to stand out in terms of the vehicle that might suit we three when our ageing magna dies and our bank account grows - the Nissan Dualis (larger and cheaper) and the VW Golf.

Despite being half the size of the Dualis and requiring Milly to sit in a passenger seat, the VW is around $45,000 retail. Sheesh! And yet it's clearly the 'must have' car for my fellow Flemington residents with one in every three cars parked out the front of single-fronted, fully renovated Victorian cottages with original wood-burning fireplaces, polished floor boards, potential OSP via the ROW from the historic cobbled alleyways; hosting a Golf rarely older than a 2005 model. So the likelihood is that most owners paid full price or very close to full price for their teeny German cars.

And yes, I'm more than a bit jealous, considering we have this:















And yet, overshadowing us all, are four huge housing commission blocks that are twenty floors high and house thousands of people who for various reasons are unable to afford private housing or rentals and are grateful for the two train lines and two tram routes that border our compact suburb.

It particularly spins my kidneys to discover that there are two Porsche Cayennes within a block of my house; so close that, on a good day, I could boot a footy to either of them.




(This aint one of 'em, but I hate the idea of a psychologist thinking that a Porsche Cayenne in their staff car park is a good idea when pursuing a career helping people with their problems)





One belongs to one of the most beautiful houses in Wellington Street, 'the' top spot in Flemington. They have an automatic double garage that backs out into Church Street. Daddy drives the brand new Mercedes Kompressor to whatever Master of the Universe/Old School Tie job he's got in the city and Mummy pops the kiddies into the Cayenne to pootle them far out of Flemington to a private school that requires the pampered little mites to don hats and blazers and never look out of their tinted windows at the poor pillocks walking to the local educational facility.

I tend to fly into a rage any time I see a Mum and kids doing a school run in a Toorak tractor and both Love Chunks and Sapphire know well enough to leave the room when that insultingly stupid advertisement for the Mazda 9 comes on, featuring a vapid mother lolling back in her padded seat listening to 'Heaven' by the Eurogliders (crap in the eighties, even worse now) as she proudly inhales the farts of her own smug self satisfaction and ponders briefly whether she'll bother to unlock the doors and let her kids in....Aarrrrrgh! Even the advertisers know that virtually nobody is buying these petrol guzzling ugly beasts to take anywhere off road....!

Why do they choose to live here? I've rather pointedly left a few 'Join the Flemington Litter Ninjas' flyers in their letter box (situated next to their electronic intercom, heat sensor and surveilance camera) but have had no response. Perhaps they just don't notice the litter at the back of their garages in their haste to whisk themselves out of the area every day?

And then, if the standard model Toyota or Mazda or Nissan 4WD Nit-Wit isn't good enough, you can buy a Porsche Cayenne just to rub it in to everyone else that you have so much money you actually don't know what to do with it.

I swear I'm getting thisclose to buying a bow and arrow that, when, let go, shoots out a sticker missile that unfurls in mid flight, only to accurately splat itself to the back window of the offending vehicle and thus display this message:
I am a selfish and ugly person who has too much money and should have bought a much cheaper car and donated the rest to charity.

Just the spot














In between obsessive litter ninja-ing, paid article research and writing, chocolate reviewing (Easter is my favourite time of year), running, worrying about Sapphire (things are better, but 'Worry' is permanently on my Position Description), saving the garden one bucket of old shower water at a time and babysitting, the strangest reminiscences pop up.

It was 1978 and I was nine-and-a-half years old, wearing hand-me-down jeans and a bright red skivvy that I kept tugging away from my neck to ease the choking sensation an old top one-size-too-small was inflicting on me.

We were returning from a week camping in the Flinders Ranges.














Mum and Dad had just purchased their dream car (well Dad's at least) - a Toyota Landcruiser; a big hulking truck-like vehicle coloured not unlike a giant metal Cadbury Top Deck block. Dad had welded his own roof-rack complete with a side ladder painted a shiny black enamel and a huge bull bar that could raze houses to the ground, let alone any stray roadkill.

The result of an inheritance, the financial windfall also allowed us to move from our old boy scout tent accommodating only three with the two leftovers shivering in home-made sleeping bags (two blankets stitched together by Mum) on the front bench seats of the EH holden to a brand new mission-brown tent. This canvas luxury item had an inner lining that created two separate bedrooms and space to stand up in whilst pulling on your jeans and shoes. There was even a window made from clear plastic that was revealed when the zip was pulled and we all had inflatable mattresses and shiny blue sleeping bags.

Sleeping bags' range of temperature control puzzled me then and continues to puzzle me now. It always seemed like I was drenched in sweat at night time, but would wake up early in the morning with chattering teeth and icy feet and the scary 'Aaaagh!' reaction before realising that the bag had twisted and the hood was now covering my face.















Transport and sleep weren't the only things under consideration during our trip. Mum's domestic needs were also taken care of. In addition to the card tables and folding chairs was a bright orange double gas burning stove (that would always blow out) and hand-held toasting forks (again made by Dad, this time without a welder but just some strong hands and several wire coat hangers).

Unfortunately, camping food in the 1970s was basic at best. The only milk available was the powdered version that Mum spooned into an old mayonnaise jar and shook vigorously. This was then poured all over our bowls of meusli that we'd reluctantly receive in white enamel bowls. I used to fancy that I could still taste a hint of mayo during breakfast but it was difficult to tell with the nuts and bolts posing as 'healthy and sustaining cereal' and what was known as 'milk' but tasted like warm curdled vomit.

Lunch - after a hearty walk, of course - tended to be toasted sandwiches if we were at the fire or, for a change, fresh cheese and tomato sandwiches, with bread that by day three had started to dry and curl up at the edges and required considerable jaw strength to chew through. Apples, carrot sticks and Yo-Yo biscuits (the boring ones from Arnotts, not the home made variety) completed the meal.

Dinner - again, after a hearty walk or a play in the creek bed trying to catch yabbies or hop across the stones - was to fill us up, not to entertain or enlighten our taste buds. It would again feature toast or potatoes wrapped in foil and cooked in the coals and usually baked beans, chicken noodle soup from a packet or barbecued sausages.

Despite all this, the food actually tasted delicious. There's nothing like a piece of toast that you've held over the fire yourself using a slightly dusty stick and dropped into the ash at least once. Or a sausage, blackened and taut on the outside and pink and icky on the inside, dipped into the baked beans and eaten in the dark. Or when Dad showed us how to make damper for the first time and we were each given big warm chunks slathered in butter and jam.

However, a week of this dust-covered diet and using a toilet that meant walking off into the bush with a spade and a few squares of toilet paper (and, invariably, returning with fragrantly splattered ankles and hands not washed all that thoroughly on the edges of the creek) meant that eventually my digestive system started to react.

It was our last day and Dad was intent on driving home with as few stops as possible. He and Mum were always very strict about making sure that we all 'went' before he set off and no other trips were to be tolerated unless the car needed more petrol.

My bowels weren't prepared to fit into this tight timeframe.

I leaned forward and tapped him on his shoulder. "Dad, can you please stop so that I can go to the toilet?"
"Nope."

Dad was never someone you back-chatted or argued with. He was a high school teacher and spent most of his waking hours dealing with sulky teenage cheek, and 'grizzling' at home was never tolerated. I knew all this, but the churning sensation below my belly button meant that another tentative shoulder tap was needed.

"Um, Dad, I went before we left and I really need---"
"I said NO!" His hands were gripping the steering wheel in the classic 10am and 2pm position and there was no room for negotiation. Or stopping.

As we all discover when we have our first attack of diarrhoea, it doesn't slow down or wait for any man, however strict.

To my horror, my personal plumbing went into overdrive and I, well, erupted.

The stinking orange sludge exploded over the back of my jeans onto the car seat and flowed, lava-like, over to my horrified younger brother. Some of the satanic sludge was splattered onto the circular stereo speaker in the door (these were the very latest and greatest thing in car cassette sound systems) and.....

........ the piece de resistance

...... was noticing, amongst the stench, screaming and horror

...... a tiny mustard-like blob that had settled like a topaz jewel on the back of my father's neck.

My memory becomes hazy at this stage, no doubt the result of a wise decision by my sub-conscious to repress it but we did of course stop; mercifully near a flowing creek. Somehow Mum managed to sloosh the worst of it off the seat, door and my brother and bury most of my clothes so that I made the rest of the trip back home entirely nude and wrapped in the picnic blanket. Robert and David sat so far away from me that Robert had the perfect imprint of the clean speaker on his upper thigh and David ostentatiously gripped his nose tight shut. I sobbed and shivered.

What I do remember very clearly is that I never told them about the spot on Dad's neck.

It still makes me smile.

I love you, Dad!

Frickety Frackety Froo

Sapphire has Whooping Cough.

We found this out a month ago after being told by a doctor with all the warmth of an Eastern Bloc passport controller that she only had a 'wet chest'. On our second visit to the multi-medi-mega-clinic another cranky quack with the bedside manner of a cool person enduring our company whilst looking behind us for someone cooler to treat just announced that it was merely the Hundred Day Cough and she'd be right as rain.

Yeah, as in the kind of rain that drums down ceaselessly from December to March, washing away all topsoil, roof tiles, small cars and cement garden statues in its path. Decent Doctor Number Three actually took an interest in properly examining a pale and exhausted ten year old kid who clutched her head and sides every time a thirty-second coughing fit commenced and ordered a blood test. This revealed that it was (is) Whooping Cough.

Four rounds of antibiotics and a visit to an Allergy Specialist later, Sapphire has now caught a cold and the sort-of-sedated Whooping Cough Wanker has decided that it's no longer okay to just attack her spasmodically and eventually fade away. No, now it's time to make her decide between blowing her nose, breathing, sleeping or breaking out into a red-faced, sweaty ball of agony when WCW forces her to endure a gasping round of coughs so violent it makes the room ring.

After two days of fresh misery, we knew it was time to take her back to Decent Doctor.

Here's where I admit something to you, dear reader. No, not the black dog or the fact that I blow my nose in the shower. It's that I don't like driving in Melbourne.

Even in our little local neck of the woods, lying in the shadows of the Big Yellow Cheese stick and Jeff's Red Hair at the City Link entrance, it is busy, incessant, fast and confusing. Our main thoroughfare, Racecourse Road, is, unfortunately, not full of race horses these days. It has four lanes - two each way - and two tram lines running through the middle of it. Trucks, vans, cars and bikes travel on their way to the city from Ballarat, Sunshine and Geelong and the sound is deafening. Sapphire's doctor works on this road.

Safeway supermarket is there too. I decided to leave our car in their park so that if we needed to get anything for the chemist after the doctor's appointment, we'd be right there. Plus, it would mean that any need to find a spot down a side-street large enough for me to glide into (the last time I parallel parked successfully was my driving test in 1985) like Greyhound bus would not result in us finding a spot roughly further away than our own home.

I drive this way at least once a week to do the grocery shopping and dread it every time. It’s always a bugger to get in there because it is a right turn on the very site of two tram stops and an adjoining intersection that has been marked KEEP CLEAR. No matter how I approach this turn, I get angrily beeped if I take time to stop and turn right safely or get flicked The Finger if I pull out onto the tram lines and try to squeeze through just as the light clicks to red.

Yesterday, as I was turning (on a green light, with a merciful break in the traffic from the opposite direction) I noticed that there was a tram at the stop, still collecting passengers. It's general knowledge/courtesy that you must give way to trams, so I tried to reverse back. Unfortunately there was a car right behind me with no space to move and several more behind that one. All I could do was stop. My nose was over one line.

I expected a few angry 'ding ding dings' from the tram driver before he'd let me turn in front of him, but instead he started driving, taking the right front bit of my car with him.

The painfully slow screeching sound ended and I drove into the carpark, tram passengers all open-mouthed and shoppers idly entertained by the latest bingle.

Pulling the handbreak on and yanking the key out allowed the sobbing to start as my hands wildly groped around for the phone and a hankie. I slowly got out of my seat and Sapphire - the sick one, the ten year old old child - rushed around to comfort me.

She peered around the front. "It's not bad at all Mum, honestly."
I couldn't look, but kept crying, waiting for Love Chunks to answer the phone. "Breathe Mum. Breathe." Her hands were so soft and her eyes so big and blue.

The tram driver came over, still dramatically shaking his head and muttering. Part of it was a performance for his passengers, part of it might have been shock. Then he saw me up close, blubbing on about trying to take my daughter to her medical appointment for whooping cough.... He ended up giving me a hug and some comforting pats on the shoulder before we swapped details. Some onlookers brushed the hair out of Sapphire's eyes. "You poor thing. Get better soon, okay?"

Sapphire was utterly brilliant; it was she who was the mature and calm one, despite feeling sick. I still couldn't look at the car and figured that it might as well sit there whilst we saw the doctor.

The second round of Whooping Cough blood test results weren't back yet as they had to be sent to an Infectious Diseases place for more analysis. The doctor found that Sapph had a temperature and needed to have a couple more days at home taking it easy. "At this rate I'll be up to season five of Friends," she grinned. "Oh Mum, don't cry."

The expense, the inconvenience, the shame, the stupidity! LC had got on his bike, left work and met us in the car park as Sapph and I sat on the kerb waiting near a stinking wheelie bin. "Hey Mum it must be bad if I can smell it," she said giggling, "because my nose doesn't work right now. Maybe someone did a sh--- sorry 'a poo' in it?"

LC was so kind, so reassuring and could see how stupid I felt about it. This made me cry even more. After wrestling with the bit of the bumper that was dragging on the ground, he drove the car home and I wheeled his bike back with Sapphire, who insisted on joining me. "Hey Mum, none of us were hurt, or anybody else and our car is already old. It doesn't matter. And look - they've finally painted the haunted house over there!"

Her chatter was incessant and forced me to reply. So funny and so wise.

As LC rang around for quotes to get the front fixed, Sapphire and I lay on her bed and she talked about the friendship woes she was having. "She's changing, Mum and I don't like how all she wants to do is be with the cool kids. She used to say how silly they all were and now she runs away from me and tries to be like Alyssa."

"You're changing too, love. You're seeing that being cool isn't what it's cracked up to be and you're wanting to go in a completely different direction. Both of you are growing and changing."

"But I want my old friend back," she said quietly. It was her time to cry now. "I want my old friend that I could tell everything to and ask her for advice. I don't want the new one."

"I know and I also know that it's not easy to see who else is out there and what things they like. But you will. There are people there who don't know you yet because you've been joined at the hip with your friend and haven't allowed anyone else in. Now it's time to do that. And trust me, they'll want to get to know you."

"Thanks Mum. You've been really helpful. You're my friend too."

Dammit it was my time to cry. Again.

Show us yer map of Tassie














I'm baaack but still suffering a slight speech impediment due to my lips, tongue, throat and palate being continually burned, blistered and shredded into unflattering flaps of peeling skin giving the inside of my mouth a slightly moist and creepy diorama featuring stalactites of weeping flesh fringes due to the molten temperatures of the coffee served in Tasmania.

After a week with the family in South Australia, we three Locketts drove the bum-numbingly boring trip back to Melbourne ("Oh look, it's the Big Koala! And yes, it still looks like a pile of koala droppings and isn't it disturbing that the entrance to the gift shop is via its crotch?") and hopped on the Spirit of Tasmania ferry the following day, thus ensuring another bum-numbingly boring trip to another state.

In fact, despite the 'entertainment' on offer during our 'cruise', Mr Migraine decided to pay me his first visit of 2010 and because we ferry virgins didn't push pensioners down the stairs in the rush to snaggle some decent seats and were left to while away nine hours sitting beside the squeaking door that desperate smokers forgot to close; treating us to passing farts, stray fumes, lashing winds and new hairstyles. If the door did close - again to an agonisingly loud shriek - the wind continued to blast in via the gap in the window that thoughtfully included sea spray spat via the drooping pollyfilla directly into my eyes.

Add the 'Best of Stevie Wonder' being inexplicably and evilly piped through some tinny mono speakers in every part of the boat, toilet doors that would shake into the locked position due to the lurching of the seas thus fooling me into waiting and hopping fifteen minutes longer before I twigged that no-one was in there and the joys of an machine-excreted nescafe with added cardboard flavour and it was a long trip indeed.

I did, however, have the foresight the night before to predict (accurately, as it turned out) that the food available to purchase might not be particularly appealing - especially when wedged in between decades-old lavender fudge, devil tea-towels and the worst example of photoshopping I'd ever seen, featuring two headed people and animals on postcards optimistically and greedily priced at $2.50 apiece.

Love Chunks surveyed the snacks - dried fruit, meusli bars, chocolate and pretzels and then said, "I've got myself some Lucky Nuts." Bless him; he's not usually one to brag about such things but it gave us several minutes of double entendres and some sober explanations afterwards to Sapphire which at least got my mind off Mr Wonder wailing, "....and it's much toooo late to cry...." That's his opinion.




















Then, after the nine hours had finally ended and we were yawning in our cars, another hour was wasted: "Would the owner of the Nissan Microbe on level 3 please come and collect their vehicle to enable the rest of the garage to leave," said the loud speaker, mercifully quelling Stevie Wonder for a wee moment.

Another four cars were called in the following hour. To this day I have no idea what would cause anyone to want to dawdle getting into their car after nine hours on a ferry....

As for our fortnight in Tasmania, I learned a few things.

Firstly, their love of quirky signs:








































Secondly, that Love Chunks is irrepressibly perky on holidays and had us up at 6.30am most days in order to catch a ferry, do a river cruise, get on the road to the next location, see some animals before they became road kill and generally wanting to fully carpe his diem.

Thirdly, Tasmanians, as mentioned first up, love their coffees searingly, hellishly HOT. Love Chunks and I actually developed some empathy for the US woman who infamously sued Maccas a decade ago for being burned by their coffee. Tasmanian stuff needed to be purchased, bleary-eyed soon after LC's 6.30am start, and carefully left alone until it was ready to be drunk at morning tea time.

At Deloraine we stopped off for a wee (I estimate that fifty percent of my time is spent on holidays looking for toilets), some bakery goodies and a coffee. Sapph and I wandered off to the ablutions block which was made out of convict-hewn bricks from a demolished building, had a chat and a pleasant amble through the gardens before dawdling into the bakery. Love Chunks greeted me more effusively than normal.

Turns out he didn't have his wallet on him, so he was waiting there with two coffees, two sausage rolls (his and Sapph's) and a custard tart (mine) and chatting up Maureen behind the counter ("Hey Kath, I showed her my Lucky Nuts") until I coughed up the readies.

By this stage we knew that the coffee - already causing our palms to throb with rapidly painful heat despite the insulated cups - wasn't ready to drink and thus busied ourselves sitting outside in the sunshine eating our selected versions of naughty pastries. Dusting the crumbs off, we three headed towards our car, parked right in front of the bakery.

Poor Sapphire had a coughing fit and promptly vomited up her entire sausage roll. After checking that she was OK (she always is - she's been a 'better out than in' girl her entire life), we clambered in. My coffee sat between my legs as I plugged in my seatbelt and somehow, as I turned around to hand some water to Sapphire, it tipped........ straight into my map of Tassie.

AAAAARGH I shrieked, causing more coffee to scald that most delicate of regions as I frantically wriggled about (hindsight reveals that this merely created more coverage for burning rather than a quick escape), grabbed Sapph's water and doused myself before leaping out of the car, still screaming. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Maureen's worried face, deciding to stay inside and perhaps stick a 'back in ten minutes' sign on the locked door in case we decided to bother her again.

It hurt. No blisters thank God, but a hot throbbing that - usually welcome in that area on other more erotic and private occasions - wasn't pleasant. I wet myself with more water, unzipped my fly, took off my belt and slid my jeans down to Plumber's Crack level and said, "Keep driving, LC." He did, eventually, after his hooting, mocking laughter subsided. He, at least, got to enjoy drinking his coffee (an hour later) whilst mine had soaked into my knickers, under-butt beach towel and - most irritatingly - up my bike rack, causing the 'ol seat cheeks to have to be unsealed via steam, baby wipes and a fair bit of swearing later on.

My Fourth observation is that road kill rules. We'd barely got off the ferry before several beautiful, fluttering butterflies had smooshed themselves on our windscreen and a galah flew straight into our front grille before being flattened into a feathery pancake by the car behind us. The road itself resembled the underside of a block of almond chocolate with lumps of Tasmanian devils, pademelon wallabies, rats, blackbirds, rabbits and possums. For every animal we saw alive, there were 50 spread like pate on the bitumen.

The fifth observation was a pleasant surprise. It is South Australia's own Farmers Union Iced Coffee that rules the corner shops here, not Melbourne's mediocre Big M. It'd be easier and cheaper to ship Big M over, but Tasmanians clearly know quality (at least in flavoured milk drinks) when they see it.

Finally, it was clear that after a week inhaling every fattening, sugary, cholesterolly and bad for me food in Victor Harbor followed by a fortnight of fudge, chips-with-everything, cheap chocolate, roadhouse pasties and no running whatsoever that photos do NOT lie. Elmo, when worn by me, has a set of cheeks that only a squirrel storing nuts for the winter possesses. Back to the treadmill.

Ain't got nothing but love, babe.....

....EIGHT DAYS A WEEK!

If you've ever been on the road for a long drive or five, you'll understand the importance of having some music to listen to.

Add to this the individual tastes of seventeen other passengers whose ages range from ten to seventy and things can get interesting. Geoff, our fearless, camel-lovin' tour leader passed around his iPod for us to select a song each for an 'on the go' soundtrack and the resultant sounds that accompanied the rainbow desert landscape of Central Australia were a strange mix indeed. Think the Beatles, Kaiser Chiefs, Black Eyed Peas, Midnight Oil, Mozart, Abba, Moby, David Gray and Red Hot Chili Peppers just for the first session.

By the fifth day my notebook was being used more to write down songs to search out myself to download than to record any decent diary details. However, I learned a lot of things on this trip; none of which were mentioned in the brochure:

Being warm is far more important than being stylish. However, I did take off my beanie when a camera was around because it makes me look as though a big blue donger is growing out of my scone. If I was wearing my head torch as well, I might as well have been a walking advert for circumcision.

Apples and meusli bars taste like MasterChef manna from heaven when you're roughing it and have just done a seven kilometre hike through rock and rubble. Almost-frozen champagne also tastes delicious even when it's 4C, windy and dark and you're standing in front of Uluru and the Olgas (Kata Tjutu).

Carrot cake (with the lusciously, cholesterol-ly, cream cheese icing) featured in my dreams. Every single night. Not chocolate - why?

Dutch, Canadian and German backpackers use musk lifesavers as a dare in drinking games. It's apparently a rite of passage to buy a pack and see who can keep it in their mouth the longest before gagging. First one to spit it out has to skol their drink. "I thought they were mini urinal cakes," said Reinier.

Large milkshakes enjoyed at a road stop soon turn into intestinal cottage cheese when enduring a bone-shaking 2 hour drive on an unsealed track.

I actually have bum bones. After days of sitting on rocks, dirt and swags, they made their presence felt.

It is easy to horrify Italian kindergarten teachers. Making innocent conversation as we did the dishes, I said, "So, your husband tells me that you two first met at a nightclub?"

"No! no no no no no!" Her eyes were wider than the plates she was stacking. Her husband and translator, Alain, wandered over to ascertain the cause of her distress. They chatted rapidly in Italian.

He smiled. "She thinks you meant a Strip club."

Ah.

Some things at Uluru are more shocking than the price of coffee and souvenirs in the gift shop. One bloke stood behind his open car door, pulled down his trousers and sprayed his Kyber Pass and Dangle Twang with deodorant before hitching up his pants and going to work on his armpits. Most passersby were spared this scene but I unfortunately was approaching from the rear.

We had a competition one night around the campfire to see which of us had the best porn name (first pet you had + first street you lived on). Penny won with Pussy View. Lord knows what she thought of our bawdy hoots of laughter because she revealed to us the next day that she's studying to be a Uniting Church minister.

Robbie, our guide from the Oak Valley Aboriginal community says he likes to eat Witchety grubs raw and at the base of the bush they live in, "but my grandies turn up their noses. They take 'em back to nanna to cook."

Hygiene standards become incredibly lax. By Day Five I was wiping a knife smeared with homous onto my dusty jeans, then using it to cut up some chicken; wiping it again on my legs before cutting up some tomatoes and giving it a final swipe across my upper thigh. There. Nice and clean and put straight back into the cutlery box.

And I finally found the perfect place to fart without detection or disapproval by offering to hold the balloon strings as it filled up with hot air.

Best holiday ever.

The perils of packing

“Have you seen my head-strap torch?”

Er no, not recently.

“While I’m out getting the gas and the hot-cross buns, can you pack all of our clothes so they fit in one bag?”

I’ll try, but please remember that we have a nine year old child who, over three days, is likely to fall down a hill; slip and do the splits in puddles; dribble baked beans, melted marshmallow and curry down her top and sit on a plate of buttered hot cross buns. As for me, I need my ugg boots and tracksuit if I’m to find any kind of warmth in an ancient sleeping bag with nothing but a layer of parachute material between me and the night air and our parkas seem to be about as bulky as Kirstie Alley clad in a King-sized continental quilt. There are hot showers at the site, so I would like to be able to take a towel, wash my bound-to-be-filthy-from-living-in-the-outdoors-body and then have the luxury of stepping into clean underwear afterwards. But sure, I’ll try and dehydrate everything into a silver vaccum pack the size of a cuppa soup sachet and we’ll see how it goes.

“Bloody Bunnings, K-Mart and Rays’ Tent City don’t have any gas cylinders left, said they forgot to order in extras for Easter!”

Oh, you’re back already? Never mind, defrosted bolognese will be a new kind of holiday challenge, and it’ll free a bit of space in the back of the station wagon. Or couldn’t biscuits and cheese be considered a meal? Why are you frowning? Don’t walk away from me – I’m just trying to be helpful – this is meant to be FUN, isn’t it?

“The Sherrin just has to come.”

Fair enough, but we also have to fit in our tent, three sleeping bags, three folding chairs, two card tables, an esky, five shopping bags of food, four plastic tubs filled with our cooking and eating gear, tarpaulins, our clothes, water containers, pillows, blankets, blow-up mattresses, the blow-up mattress blower thingy that connects to the car cigarette lighter, stove-top coffee percolator, beanies, toasting forks, dishwashing bucket, cameras, bathroom bags, torches, gaslight, bottles of wine and this massive bag of choc bunnies that I somehow have to hide from the three other families of kids who are still believers…… oh but can we perhaps lose the bocce balls?

“But we’ve got heaps of space in the back seat.”

Yeah but Sapphire needs to sit somewhere and you know her tendency to projectile vomit if she doesn’t have a view out of both windows and the dashboard air vent blowing directly into her face. The car still pongs of reconstituted chup-a-chup, egg sandwich and apple slices from last time. And remember when the lid of the esky flew off and chipped her tooth?

“Fine, but why are you taking your iPod and laptop when we’re going to an unpowered camping ground?”

Because I spent several dog years downloading our entire CD collection onto my iPod only to earn a premanently painful crick in my neck and don’t want to have to do it all over again if someone sneaks in and nicks it and the same goes for the computer. I’ve saved far too many LOLcat pictures on there to feel exhausted at even contemplating trying to find them all again, plus there's all my book chapters and several important drafts I’m still working on that will just make me shrivel up and cry in a corner if I ever had to write them over again and I know it’s negative to assume that just because we’re living in a gritty inner-city suburb that we’re automatically going to get robbed but I just don’t want to risk---

“Alright, alright, bring 'em. Are we all ready to go?”

Yep. Oh hang on – have to just go and put Milly on my lap until we get to the dog boarding kennel….. please don’t lick, poochy – what the hell have you been EATING? Satan’s arse would smell better than you! (turning head to the back): Sorry Sapphire, I shouldn’t have sworn like that. Have you been to the loo – good. Let’s go then!

“Hey! How come we’re heading towards the West Gate Bridge and not Caroline Springs?”

Er, sorry, I was busy looking at the pretty sights – was I supposed to have the Melways open? Okay okay, keep your hair on – the 1996 version didn’t have the new road for the dog boarding kennel so how is it going to have the new overpass that only opened last week on it?

Four hours of driving and two hours of unpacking and setting up later:

“Kath, isn’t it great to get away from it all?”

Just slosh a bit more port into my cup and rip the wrapper off that Lindt block resting on the esky there. Ta.