Rummage

Bloody Cold

I was burrowed so deep in a tangle of patchwork blankets and bizarre early morning dreams that I missed the alarm. Then it took me a good ten mins to psyche myself up to take my clothes off and then another ten to throw myself out of the boiling hot shower to kit up. Today I seem to be wearing three layers of clothing on my legs and four on my chest. Le sigh.

Each autumn I congratulate myself that I am now a true Canberran and at the first frost I know it ain't so. As I write I am watching the sunlight refracting off the patches of silver on the grass - a kaleidoscope of colour.
Cold but beautiful.

Je t'aime Maman

Mother's Day is not the happiest day for everyone out there. Your mother might do you your head in, she may not be with you anymore, maybe you're trying for kids without success.

It can be tricky. So I don't want you to think I am thrusting my handmade A4 paper briefcase with pipe cleaner handles in your face. Just want to say I hope you have a good day whatever your circumstances are and if you are a mum I hope you got a cup of tea in bed. You totally deserve it.
All my love. Xx

Little black lozenge you were awesome

Well little Jett's been written off and today has been an official Day of Mourning except for when I bought a super pair of boots, I am so shallow. We're going to look at a zippy little car tomorrow that involves stripes and 6 speeds so the grieving period was brief but meaningful.
There has been much secret mothers day activity in the house that had me locked in the bedroom for some time. I suspect there has been a raid on my fabric stash so it will be something that I have to wear (oh god).
In other news I am obsessed with that show 'Friday Night Lights' thanks to that Kootoyoo hipster - cant link to her on this software but you already know who she is so hop on over. Xx

Crash

Had a car crash today. Me with my wee girlies in the back. Feeling wobbley now but thankful that no one was hurt. It was a young guy driving like a bat out of hell, colliding with the passenger side. I've never been a driver in an accident before and hope I never am again - it all happened so incredibly quickly but I remember fighting to keep the car on the road and the heart-stopping scream from my smallest in the back. When the car came to a standstill I got them out and they were FINE. Not a scratch not a bruise and I could have kissed the ground we stood on with relief - I would have embraced that young driver like a long-lost relative knowing that they were safe. It's moments like these that you know you would slice open one of your own major arteries if it would mean you could protect children. Total weirdness, there I was walking away from a car accident like I had won a million bucks.

And everyone was awesome, I know in the past I have written about how I have learnt to rely on the kindness of strangers. This occasion was no different. People came out of nowhere to help. A lovely guy stayed with me to help with the girls, someone else came over offering food and drinks. Several people stayed to be witnesses. The police were fab and the poor young guy who ran into us was totally shaken up but lovely as well. Just when you might feel like you're losing your faith in humanity people turn around and show you how incredibly decent and kind they can be. Love that. Love you too lovely reader.

It's all too herbal now so must go and pass out with a glass of wine on the lounge. xxx

Byron - the Rummage Guide (but in this one we only get as far as Wooli)

When we camp it's usually out in a windy paddock somewhere with facilities that include a thunderbox pit toilet and a rusty tap. I quite like the dodgeyness of it all, the space, the free-ranging small child movement. So it was with trepidation that we booked a week at Clarkes Beach in Byron Bay.

To give you some background things were a bit pear-shaped from the start, we drove through the night about 11-12 hours from Canberra. I distinguished myself by shifting from 5th to 2nd gear and vice versa when the spirit moved me and I sang Bruce Springsteen loudly whilst driving to keep myself awake - this drove the French mental and tempers were a tad frayed as we traversed the Pacific Highway. All this fell away though when we hit Coffs Harbour, I was born there and the sights and smells - those crazy neon hibiscus flowers, the not-so-big Big Banana made me feel like I was coming home. Anyway, I digress, this is a very rough guide to Byron from Canberra and back.

Bluebottles - Woolgoolga

Wooli - if you are driving like bats out of hell through the night & small children have just woken up and hooked into their 'arewethereyets', stop at Woolgoolga. There's a wee cafe called Bluebottles (cnr Beach and Wharf Sts) near the caravan park that doesn't have much going for it in the looks department but it serves lovely big breakfasts and the people are gold. You know how most people in a caf ask you how you are going but don't give a shit? These people genuinely want to know. If you need to take marauding children to the bathroom for seventeen thousand hours, the lady in the cafe will nod sympathetically and wait till you get back to place the shortest of short blacks in front of you. I could have kissed her.   

Up Next - when we stopped fighting and hung out in Bangalow with the Herbals.

In Country Sleep

In Country Sleep

I

Never and never, my girl riding far and near
In the land of the hearthstone tales, and spelled asleep,
Fear or believe that the wolf in the sheepwhite hood
Loping and bleating roughly and blithely shall leap,
My dear, my dear,
Out of a lair in the flocked leaves in the dew dipped year
To eat your heart in the house in the rosy wood

Dylan Thomas

Emergency

We spent some quality time in the emergency department waiting room last night at Calvary Hospital in Canberra. Five and a half hours to be exact and I'm pretty fucking cranky about it.

My five year old had the classic childhood accident, slipping and falling on her chin, splitting it to the bone. I was out getting some groceries at the time and came back to Apocalypse Now. The French (bless him) has a different approach to me in these situations and was administering first aid in shouty, theatrical gesticulations guaranteed to make any small person think she is dying. Before I could get her out the door I had to guarantee that we would see the resident plastic surgeon# (wtf?) and report back every ten minutes on progress. By the time this little girl-child was in the car she was shaking with shock and had deerintheheadlight eyes, certain of imminent death. So all the way to the hospital I sang every nursery rhyme that came to my head, one hand on the wheel, the other hand hold a wad of bandage to her chin.

When we arrived at emergency, the staff were everything that you would expect of them. Professional, highly trained, calm, assertive but also from the number of people in the waiting room, outrageously understaffed. We chose a strategic seat close to the front desk, not knowing that this would be our home for the next five and half hours. We read books and played eye spy and had drugs adminstered to numb the pain until E fell asleep on my lap. I spent the next three hours motionless watching the fascinating human condition as it presented itself in that small hot waiting room and slowly but surely became very bloody pissed off. NOT with the staff, they were to a man (and woman) wonderful. It was the fucked up nature of the system that allows very small children and elderly people to sit  in pain for hours and hours waiting to be attended to that incensed me.  For myself I can understand the wait, I've lived in a number of countries where waiting is like a national pastime. Healthy young adults can get in line, I'm good with that. Very young children and elderly people have the right and I would say our society has the moral obligation to ensure that their needs are attended to promptly and effectively.

As it stands E's needs were met if not promptly, certainly effectively by a young registrar who was profuse in his apologies. She will have the classic rites of passage chin scar to remember the occasion. My question now is when will we as a society get our collective shit together and effectively fund our public health system? Afterall what can be more important than meeting the needs of some of the most vulnerable members of our community?

# Sidenote: The French's demand re a plastic surgeon sounded ludicrous to me at the time but I realise that it demostrates a clear difference in the investment in health services between Australia and France. In most public hospitals in France children are triaged and attended to very quickly and it would not be considered laughable to expect a plastic surgeon to be on hand to suture a split chin.

Folk

Spent some time at the National Folk Festival today. If you have never been before I can highly recommend it. Canberra puts on amazing weather at this time of year and today she didn't disappoint. So swing by, non-Canberrans you don't know what you're missing.

Saw lotsa lotsa bands. DIDN'T see the Yearlings (dammit, Leah!). Saw a crazy young Balkan band called the Woo Hoo Collection and danced through the whole set. Saw a guy playing old Steve Earle covers at the Stockyard while eating damper dripping in maple syrup.

Probably the best though was the highly anticipated face-off between circus performers and morris dancers in the Majestic. This ran as a kind of reality tv game show pitting the buff physiques of the circus guys against the, um, colourful hankys and knee bells of the morris dancers. Hilarious.

The circus won but really you've got to hand it to those morris dancers. Those guys must be seriously in touch with their masculine & feminine sides wearing raffia hats with woven ribbons and flowers, not to mention again the knee bells (?) and large hankerchiefs. They have either oodles of self-confidance or are in desperate need of a shag to sort them out. Do tell if you have any experience with these matters, I'd be most interested.

PS Thanks for your kind words about the band, I've had a bit of interest re drumming. We can't afford that bloke from Melb with the blond tips, so we're still looking if you're keen. xx

I'm With the Band

There's no real way of saying this without sounding like a complete nob. So here goes, I'm in a band. It wasn't something I was planning on doing, hell, if you had suggested it to me six months ago I would have laughed in your face.

It went like this, I was mucking around with a friend who couldn't remember the tune of a song. I sang it for him and we laughed and then he asked me if I wanted to join his band and then I REALLY laughed and told him to piss off and other similar endearing comments. He persisted and I found myself saying yes to a rehearsal. And then I got VERY nervous, which I do a bit. I had little sings in the shower and in the car and the garden when no one was around except a weirded out whippet. The good thing was that this friend of mine has similar taste in music to me so I liked some of the tracks he asked me to practice and could sing them with my heart in the song.

Then I went to the first rehearsal and downed three glasses of wine very bloody quickly while we sat outside on the verhandah (did I mention we rehearse in a yurt, FFS!, how herbal can you get) shooting the breeze. After that I was away with the fairies and could have sung in front of a hardcore crowd of hecklers without blinking an eyelash.

That first night we played for four hours solid, playing around with tracks that worked and tracks that dive-bombed. And people, it was amazing. I don't mean we (or I) was amazing, it was just the feeling of being completely and totally in to what I was doing, no thinking about crap from the day or other stuff. 100 per cent focus, undivided attention and lotsa energy and emotion. It is as much about the other people in the band and the vibe as it is about the music, they are laid back, hilarious, no bullshit. When we have a break for a drink and a fag there is sometimes this companionable silence, sometimes we argue about music, sometimes someone will put an album on and there is a reverential silence.

We've got a playlist coming together and we are in need of a drummer before we start gigging but we are going to fricking DO IT. Not for anyone else but for ourselves. Because it feels right.

PS Did I mention that we need a drummer? Please apply within. xxxx

Music

Someone asked me recently to write a post for them about a song of my choice and the story or memory association that comes with it. I listen to a lot of music and the challenge of narrowing it to one finite track and putting into words the story that accompanies it has been incredibly difficult. Why I am complicating this for myself I am not sure, although I am pretty good at making almost anything complicated.

There are thousands of songs and thousands of stories that come with them. Not just stories either, they are snatches of colour and scents and the  way the light was making long shadows across a wall, the taste of the wine in my throat. All these things come together for me in listening to music. My love of soul and blues comes from watching my Dad as little girl and his ability to lose himself in it. There's a lot of John Lee Hooker that brings immediately to mind the strong scent of wood and engine oil that Dad always carried about him. 

And then there is the music I can't listen to anymore because it makes me go back to particular moments, music that makes me turn around and leave a room because I can't let that story unfold in my mind. This happened to me recently in a supermarket when over the fuzzy PA a song started to play that made me abandon my trolley right there in the midst of busy shoppers and walk out the door. Self-preservation.

So the search continues for something that I can share.

PS I thought I would share these photos with you of the hot air balloons we saw recently. I had to be dragged kicking and screaming to this event but was instantly smitten by the muted 1950's colours of the balloons. 

Hope you have a gorgeous weekend, wherever you are. xx