Christmas Past

Christmas is as good as over for another year. Once again, I cooked Nigella's fantastic turkey. Here it is in the nappy bucket (well cleaned and never actually used for soaking grotty nappies), soaking amongst oranges, onions, cloves, peppercorns, maple syrup, mustard seeds, cinnamon sticks and other fragrant things. Unfortunately, I forgot to photograph it after it had been roasted. You will have to imagine it coming out of the oven, it's skin basted to a gorgeous rich brown courtesy of more maple syrup and butter. I love roasting the turkey this way. I love the process of soaking it in the bucket and adding all the gorgeous spices (and ice, lots of ice - unlike Nigella, I am not preparing for Christmas in a cold climate). And the best part is that it produces a wonderful, moist turkey. Just as she said it would.

We have done all things Santa this Christmas, except sitting on his knee. Mr M has never been willing to do that. But Mr M did write a letter (okay, I wrote it, he dictated it) and received a reply. We went to visit Santa's house in the North Pole (aka Weetangera). We listened to the Wiggles sing Santa's Rockin' every night for a week and we are still listening to it. We left out supper for Santa and the reindeer and they must have really loved it because they left only crumbs. And since Christmas Day, Mr M has asked when Santa will be coming again ... every single day. Sometimes more than once. We only have a year to wait.

First of the Season

Look what we found in the garden on Saturday. Mr M is so excited he is telling everyone he sees about 'the raspberry tree in our backyard'. We have since doubled our harvest. The canes have taken over the corner of the garden beneath a climbing rose and the Satsuma plum tree. They are laden with the promise of fruit to come - which we will probably eat one by one as each ripens. No wonder raspberries are expensive to buy.

Happy Feet

We have been to the coast. Not, I should add, for the last month. Just for the last weekend. We drove down the Clyde on Saturday evening. I had packed hurriedly in the morning before spending the afternoon at work. I was quite proud of how efficiently I had packed, quickly pulling t-shirts and swimmers out of drawers and off shelves. Remembering essentials such as the mobile phone chargers and the medication. Convincing Mr M to pack his own bag of toys, books and essential dvds. Yes, the packing was easy.

But when we arrived at the house at the bay, I kicked off the 'work shoes' and went looking for my black leather thongs. Alas, I had packed two completely different shoes: one a slip-on sandal, the other with a fully enclosed toe. The only good thing about them was that there was a right foot and left foot. Mr M thought it was very funny, Mum having odd shoes to wear.

So on Sunday morning we went to Kmart and I spent the grand sum of $3 on these lovely blue thongs (actually, it was more than $3 because I was convinced that a four-year-old's life wouldn't be complete if he didn't own a pair of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle shoes).

I can't remember the last time I owned a pair of rubber thongs. I've been thinking about it on and off since Sunday morning. I do recall owning a pair of 'slaps' (I think that's what they were called). They were like thongs but had a cane insole and the straps were made of stuffed velour sausages. I think I thought rubber thongs were a bit uncool, a bit unsophisticated. And 30 years ago, they were available only in pretty ugly colours. So I stopped wearing them and resorted to happy shoes and various flip-flops since.

I have been entranced, though, by my pair of little blue thongs. Looking at my feet with their flash of aqua makes me feel cheerful. They are such a change from my normal black footwear. They are frivolous and summery and lazy. And they look like the sea on a warm November morning.

I Know It's Spring When ...

The washing line is full of white shirts. In winter, I wear black. Lots of black. I have black tops, black cardies, little black jumpers, a black coat, a black dress, black pants, black skirts. And I won't even start on the black shoes. But when the weather warms up, the palette shifts to white. Lots of white. I currently own four white linen shirts and a couple of white cotton ones too. It's not just me. J's wardrobe also shifts, with more white shirts appearing, although there is still a lot of blue.

So it is officially spring when I can wash a full load of white shirts - as I did on Saturday for the first time in months.

This week, I rediscovered an old 'friend'. Claire Robertson has revived her gorgeous blog, Loobylu. Loobylu was the first blog I read. I think it was in 2003 that it was mentioned in a newspaper's IT pages. I decided to find out what this thing called blogging was and, thanks to Loobylu, I was hooked. Before I knew it, Claire and her family felt like old friends and I was lurking compulsively.

I was a little disappointed, then, when Claire decided early last year to have a break from blogging. Although I don't know how she managed to keep Loobylu and her blog of ideas for parents and kids, Kiddley, going with two small children (I'm finding it hard enough keeping one small blog going with one small child nipping at my elbows). But this week I discovered Claire is back and Looblylu is looking fresh and new. Welcome back, Claire.

Fleeting Art

On the last day of winter, it rained. And rained. And rained. And washed away the chalk art decorating our driveway. But before it disappeared, I photographed it with the mobile phone camera. Not great quality but it gives you an idea of what you might have seen 10 days ago.

A fairy by Alice.

My elephant - with additions by Mr M.

Family portrait ... by Alice also.

We have begun to fill the driveway with new chalk art. So far, we have had 10 days without rain. We'll have to see how much ground we can cover this time.

Weekend Inspirations

I wish I could claim these exquisite morsels as my own. They are from The Crabapple Bakery Cupcake Cookbook by Jennifer Graham. The book was published by Penguin in 2007 and you can see a little more of it if you follow the link. It's a book I have browsed a number of times in bookshops because it is delightful to look at. There is something about page after page of gorgeously decorated cupcakes that makes me smile. So when I spotted it on the shelves at Academic Remainders yesterday - at roughly half the RRP - I decided it was time to stop browsing and take it home. It is a 'feel-good' book if ever I read one and it doesn't really matter if I never make a single cupcake. I can dream.

The dream, though, appears not to have lasted long for The Crabapple Bakery. According to the book, the story begins like this:

Jennifer Graham started out making cupcakes to display on the range of old-fashioned cake stands she was selling at craft markets around Victoria, in a bid to encourage customers to buy her wares. After only a couple of weeks the customers were not coming to buy her cake stands but to buy her beautiful cupcakes.

Sound like a fairytale? Success followed success and Jennifer and her family opened a shop in a 'village'. After three years, they opened a factory, became a company in 2006 and opened a retail store in the Prahran Market. And why wouldn't they when their cupcakes look so cute?

But when I logged on this morning to look at the website and see how business was faring, I encountered a dose of harsh reality. The Crabapple Bakery is no more. It seems the receivers were brought in and, from what I could gather from the various comments I followed, the company was sold earlier this year and the doors were closed.

I now suspect that this little book that I find so uplifting is something of an embarrassment to its publishers. But it shouldn't be. Despite the sad ending of the Crabapple Bakery, the book is a joy to look at and read. And it still brings a smile to my face - although the joy is tempered by the fairytale's sad ending.

Hibernating

It's been two weeks since I posted! Shame on me. But I have to confess that winter has got the better of all my good intentions. On such chilly nights as we have been experiencing lately in Canberra, it's much more appealing to snuggle under the covers with a good book than it is to sit in the coldest part of the house staring at the laptop screen and wondering what to write. And blogging has been even less tempting when I know I could be in bed with a small boy snoring beside me (well, it's more like gentle snorts really) and heating the bed like a furnace. Tonight, at 9 pm, it's already icy and Mr M is in bed in his summer Buzz Lightyear pjs. Can you believe it? I even heard myself saying in my most 'motherly' voice: "If you must wear summer pjs, don't let me hear you complain about freezing."

I have, though, enjoyed a couple of really good books in my absence. I read Murray Bail's new novel, The Pages, which is a terrific, although somewhat slim, book. It doesn't matter that it's a slim book but I so wanted it to keep going for just a little bit longer. I have such fond memories of reading his previous novel Eucalyptus, that it doesn't feel like 10 years since it was released. In that book, I think he created a modern Australian fable. Reading The Pages I was alert to every single reference to eucalypts - and there were quite a few - while being thoroughly absorbed in the story of wanna be philosopher Wesley Antill. I enjoyed Bail's digs at psychotherapy. For a slim book, this is enormously wide-ranging, both in its geography, its timespan, and its ideas. When I reached the end, I felt I had only just begun to get my head around all the ideas Bail is exploring.

A less intellectually demanding but no less engaging book was The Last Chinese Chef by Nicole Mones. I gave this to Alice at Christmas having been intrigued by reading the first couple of pages in a bookshop. The Australian edition is also very pretty to look at. What a great read it turned out to be. A bit of romance, a bit of intrigue, a lot of China and brimming with the most amazing food. Now I am inspired to try Eight Treasure Dongpo Pork or perhaps Beggar's Chicken should I ever find them on a restaurant menu. I romped through through the book over the space of a few days, reading late into the night and early in the morning only to reach the end too soon. Ah well, I have ordered Mones' two earlier books from the local library so I can satsify my craving. But although both are set in China, I don't think either is about food.

Creativity

In the past couple of months, we have reached that stage in a small boy's life where we have to 'make things'. For many months painting and play-doh satisfied the making urge but, although Mr M is now painting figures (see his first effort above - and, of course, it's a portrait of The Wiggles), we seem to spend our weekends 'making things'. Last weekend I was called on to make a 'Batman helicopter'. We have also made cars and boats for Mr M to sit in, computers so he can play 'Libraries' ('What book would you like today? Let me check ... you're in luck!'), his first book and special beds so he can have 'a rest'.

This phase is a challenge because I have never been 'crafty'. Except for doing a bit of knitting, I don't experience the urge to do craft. I don't make softies or scrapbook or sew. And I haven't yet organised myself a 'really useful box', although I am often inspired to get one after watching an episode of Playschool. But it's amazing what you can create with a few yellow straws and a toilet roll or two. Aluminium foil comes in handy too. And I know I'm going to get better at it, because I have years of making ahead of me. I've been warned by friends - I won't be able to get away with a school project about volcanoes that doesn't include building a model of one.

Sometimes, though, a boy is left to his own devices. This is most likely to be when his mum is just crafted out. And that's when the creativity really begins. Here is Mr M's first 'installation', a creative stacking of toys in the kitchen that took hours to get just right. All those toys have been placed very deliberately in the 'sculpture' simply to create a thing of beauty (in someone's eyes at least). And if you look very carefully, the final object to be placed was a small boy himself.

I Must Be Dreaming

One of my favourite Canberra houses has been listed for sale over the past couple of weeks. Here it is: 2 Macquarie Street, Barton. It's an old house and this photo suggests it's not particularly beautiful. But it is a house I've long had a soft-spot for and often contemplated living in.

Once upon a time, about 20 years ago, friends of mine rented this house. This was in the days before it had been renovated. I remember it being quite a dark house but, even then, it was a dark house with good bones. If you visit the real estate agent's website (which is where the photos come from) you'll see what I mean. Fantastic floorboards. Original doors and windows. A fireplace. A window seat in one of the bedrooms. It was also a great party house - and my friends threw lots of great parties, and gatherings that became great parties. The house seemed to bend graciously to accommodate people squashed into its hallway and sitting rooms. A friendly house.

I hadn't thought much about this house until I noticed the 'for sale' sign when I was walking back to work from a dental appointment in Manuka. I couldn't resist peering through the gate to discover that the old garage has been turned into a glorious studio. The agent was there showing someone through and I had to struggle against knocking on the front door and begging to be allowed to visit. Thank goodness for websites - back at work I was able to take a virtual peek. But by then I had dreamt the house into being my dream house. It is across the road from an excellent public school. A couple of blocks from a great park. A short easy walk to the cafes of both Manuka and Kingston. I could walk to work. Mr M could walk to school. J could walk to the weekend markets. We would save so much money by not having to drive to all the places we now drive to. Whatever the price, the house was, obviously, a bargain and perfect for us.

Of course, there were disadvantages. The house doesn't have a garage. J and I would only argue over possession of the studio (see below), despite the house also having a study that opens onto a courtyard. Oh, and, oops, yes, the price tag was over $1 million.

So we haven't bought 2 Macquarie Street. Someone else has (although I've noticed it is under offer for less than $1 million). And it will, I'm sure, be many years before it is on the market again. But I've had a lovely time recalling what it was like to visit friends and sit in their living room talking and eating and drinking. And dreaming of what might have been if I'd had a spare million.

Winter Garden

This is one corner of our winter garden - taken early this afternoon. And here is another corner of our winter garden - taken at the same time. What you are looking at is a bed of rocket. It is unstoppable and, because we can't keep up with the eating, it is now going to seed. Which isn't a bad thing if it generates more beds of rocket like this one.

This Week's Blessings

Our family has grown this week - by two. Not twins but two little boys born on opposite sides of the world, and on the same day Canberra-time.

In 1976, we had two babies born into the family. My brother and his first wife gave birth to their third child, a boy, in March. In November, my eldest sister gave birth to her third child, a girl. These were my third nephew and my third niece. I was nine years old and already had some notoriety for being an aunt at an age when my friends were more likely to be welcoming new brothers or sisters than nieces and nephews. I remember Tony being born in a hospital on the north coast of New South Wales and leaving school early in the day to drive the couple of hours from Sydney to see him. I don't have as clear a memory of Linda's birth eight months later - although it is possible I was also able to leave school early in the day to visit my new niece.

Some 32 years later, Tony is a father for the first time. His wife, Lisa, gave birth to Bailey in Canberra in the early evening of Wednesday. A few hours later, we heard that Linda had given birth to Rowyn in Canada. Rowyn is Linda's third child, her first boy. And although the birth dates are different due to international date lines, the closeness of the births reminded me that I have always thought of Tony and Linda as being linked in some way. Probably this is because, until they were born, my nieces and nephews arrived annually - 1971 Vanessa; 1972 Donna; 1973 Geoffrey; 1974 Gary. Tony and Linda upset the pattern and shared a birth year.

Bailey and Rowyn are continuing another pattern too. Since Jack was born nearly eight years ago, all the babies born on 'my side' of the family have been boys.* And there have now been seven of them. Until Jack's birth, my nieces and nephews were evenly divided, my great-nieces and great-nephews more of a mix.

Happy birthday, Bailey and Rowyn.

* Families being the complicated things they are, this statement may not be correct. Gary has, I think, two children but for reasons known only to him, I haven't had an opportunity to meet them. Nor has anyone else in the extended family. Gary, Garoldo, GET IN TOUCH!

"Every Day is a Blessing"

Jane and Glenn McGrath on ABC's Enough Rope in 2004

I have been deeply saddened by the news of the death of Jane McGrath on Sunday. Surprisingly so. I didn't know Jane. I don't know her family. I only knew of her through her appearance on ABC's Enough Rope and through the many magazine stories I read last year as I went through my own treatment for breast cancer. She was a constant presence in the magazines and, perhaps, a more realistic 'role model' for breast cancer patients than Kylie or Belinda Emmet.

The news of Jane's death has made me think of many things. It has plunged me back into the maelstrom of my own tussle with cancer. Most days, these days, I can almost forget that 12 months ago I was down a breast, hairless, and in the middle of chemo. Most days, despite the breast form and the short hair and the daily tablet, life is 'back to normal'. Jane's death is a reminder that cancer is a serious opponent and that once it has entered your life, you are never quite free of it. Even if you are one of the lucky ones who only have to battle it once.

Jane McGrath used her experience and her "celebrity" for good. The McGrath Foundation aims to fund breast care nurses in hospitals across Australia. In the ACT, we are lucky to have three breast care nurses funded by the ACT Government. I cannot sing their praises enough. My breast care nurse was and continues to be a tremendous resource. It was Bethel who lead J and I through the medical maze that you enter with a diagnosis of cancer. She explained procedures. She gently raised the possibility of a mastectomy, preparing us for the surgeon's recommendations. She showed me photos of mastectomies and breast reconstructions so that I wouldn't be completely horrified by what had happened to my body after surgery. And more than 12 months down the track, she is still only a phone call away, answering my questions, providing referrals, and advice, and an ear. Everyone who is diagnosed with breast cancer should have access to a Bethel ... and the McGrath Foundation is a very practical recognition of this.

Mostly, though, I have been thinking about Glenn McGrath's tribute to his wife. I've been thinking of their children, James and Holly, facing the rest of their lives with only memories of their mother. I've been thinking about Glenn's comment that he never took for granted his life with Jane, that "every day is a blessing". Every day is a blessing ... even when work is frustrating and a small boy is insisting on doing things in his own way, in his own time. Every day is a blessing and we should celebrate each one with a smile, a laugh, and the joy of being alive.

On the Table

I can't claim this photo as my own. It comes from a new magazine I discovered recently, Mindfood (incidentally, it was this magazine that provided the recipe for last weekend's citrus delicious). This weekend, though, Mr M and I attempted to create our own version of Apple Cake with (or in our cast without) Apple Wafers. We enjoy baking together and I'm trying to let us become more adventurous with our shared cooking. When we decide to bake a cake, Mr M runs to the bathroom and chooses a towel to spread out on the kitchen floor. Then he finds the big red mixing bowl in the cupboard and the silver measuring cups and is ready to go. He is slowly mastering the art of stirring so all the flour is blended in, has nearly got his head around the idea of taking turns with the stirring, and has conquered the art of the taste test. Sad to say, though, that on this occasion the apple cake looked better than it tasted. Mr M wasn't impressed at all - he took a couple of bites and returned to playing. Nor has he asked for another slice since.

Have you heard of Michael Pollan? It seems to me that he is everywhere at the moment. On the radio, on blogs, in the gardening pages and book pages of the weekend newspapers. He has just published a book called In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto, which opens with the following seven words:

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

From the little I have read and heard, his central premise seems to be that you shouldn't eat anything that wasn't available to your grandmother to eat. This rules out diet soft drinks and "fast food". It also rules out the breakfast cereal that is my daily staple and most of the things that come in packets and cans. But I'm intrigued by the thesis and by the number of times his name has come up in the past fortnight so I suspect I shall be buying his book soon. I'll keep you posted.

I'm Late, I'm Late ... Again

On Sunday I had all sorts of ideas about what this week's post might be. Can't recall a single one tonight; can't even recall why I didn't post on Sunday. What excuse did I have? Most likely I decided that watching Persuasion on ABC1 was far more important than turning on the computer. (I did try to watch it with an open mind but, really, it wasn't a patch on the Amanda Root/Ciarin Hinds version. Anne spent too much time staring into the lens of the camera and, much as I adore Rupert Penry-Jones in Spooks, he is simply too handsome to be Captain Wentworth.)

At midweek, the household is weary. Mr M appears to have 'slap face'. He did have a cold over the long weekend and this evening came home from playschool with a bright red right cheek. My internet search has found results that lurch from informing me it's terribly contagious and hangs around for months, to the more comforting announcement that by the time the red rash appears, the worst is over. This is why you shouldn't rely too much on the Internet to diagnose illness. For a little while following my diagnosis last year, I tried to research my disease and possible treatments on the web. It seemed to be the thing to do if you wanted to take control of your treatment and be what we called, in the days when I worked in consumer affairs, an 'informed consumer'. It was hellish. Invariably, I found myself hot on the trail of a possible treatment (usually of a 'natural' variety) only to discover an hour later that I was caught up in loony-land and being asked to pay not insignificant dollars for a 'cure'. In the end, I stuck to the most mainstream websites I could find and relied on the medical profession for advice. At times, this felt like a cop-out, as if I was abdicating responsibility for my own recovery. Most of the time, though, I believed that relying on the Internet was the surest way to madness. Now how did I get on to this?

It hasn't been all colds and weariness this week, though. Mr M has a new 'big boy' carseat, which he has taken to with enthusiasm. I did think he was going to cling to his old seat and refuse change but he has adapted to his new booster and H-harness willingly. I have a new mobile phone - with a camera - although I still can't work out how to email photos. A phonecall to the provider's helpline is required. Once I have that sorted, though, I'll be able to add photos more easily to 52 Sundays. And we went on a small bookshop crawl on Sunday on which I found two treasures - this one on the work of Margaret Atwood and this one which I had been thinking about buying on ebay for a much higher price than I paid in Fyshwick!

A Week in Dot Points

• Tuesday: worked.
• Wednesday: worked.
• Thursday: worked a very long day due to corporate function held at 6pm.
• Friday: worked ... with the assistance of a couple of skim cappucinos.
• Saturday: took the little one to watch his cousins play footy. On the north-western edge of Canberra. Not a house in view, just large green playing fields (despite the drought) and scrubby paddocks on the other side of the carpark. The under-8s playing footy were vigorous, enthusiastic scraps of energy - except when they were distracted by their new mouthguards or the play moved too far away from them and they were free to watch the clouds or kick tufts of grass. Made a delicious citrus delicious for dinner - why have I assumed that you can only use lemons? The combination of oranges and lemons was uplifting.
• Sunday: slept through the middle of the day, thanks to the thoughtfulness of the two boys. Even the littlest one kept his attempts at playing Superman to the non-bedroom end of the house. This meant I had the energy to stay awake and watch Emma on ABC1. Hmmm, it wasn't inspired but it was a pleasant enough reminder of why I love the book. Did Mr Knightley have to look so ghastly, though? And why was Emma lit so that she looked like she had a moustache? Obviously, I wasn't fully engaged or I wouldn't have noticed these things.
• Monday: swimming lessons. We have started again this term after having to abort last year's attempt due to my illness. This year, we are trying a company that uses the term 'tots' in its name. This has caused some problems because Mr M insists he is not a baby and doesn't need to learn to swim with babies. He has, however, almost mastered the art of floating and can't stop smiling when he is in the water with his teacher. I can't stop smiling because at this swim school I don't have to be in the water with him. Although the pool is small and other classes are going on in various parts of it, I can have a little swim of my own, on my own.

Scumble, Punkel, Swiggle

... a brush with paint on it can ... tip, touch, mark, float, flick, slope, slide, plunge, swirl, swish, smash, streak, hint, damage, swipe, scumble, hurt, rupture, gash, sweep, push, sliver, punkel, quicken, quiver, rip, burrow, stab, splat, block, shorten, bang, expand, alter, caress, hit, split, hide, destroy, point, cuff, tremble, tickle, spit, encourage, nudge, aim, tug, glaze, soak, heighten, lighten, sponge, swiggle, wipe, doodle, darken, arrange, wreck, shift, alter, shine, change, cut, thicken, renew, turn ,clean, explode, widen, whip, complete, open, finish, preclude, overlook, deny, sparkle, fatten, polish, tighten, sharpen, exact, thin, blur, veil, cease, stop, fidget, clears, bombard, repeat, strike, shiver, hurry, stagger, set, replace, make, pull, grip, join, break, soften, stroke, part, push, gash, hurry, jolt, jibe, rush, wash, allow, score ... Small wonder that not too many paint!
Brett Whiteley, 1983

Reproduced from Brett Whiteley Studio (Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2007).

Nothing online captures the beauty of this book - full of gorgeous images of Whiteley at work and details of his studio (piles of artbooks, collections of Japanese paint brushes, postcards and scribbles stuck on white walls). But you can enjoy a virtual visit to the studio and see if it challenges you to create.

Reading Lists

I was going to write today about swimming lessons and washing machines breaking down and having to be replaced. Then I discovered this meme on both Ampersand Duck and Pavlov's Cat. I just couldn't resist putting myself to the test. Here are the rules of the meme as provided by Ampersand Duck:

Apparently these are the 106 books most often listed as 'unfinished' on LibraryThing. The rules are that you bold the ones you've read all the way to the end, underline the ones you read for "school" [I presume uni is included in this], and asterisk the ones you started but didn't finish.

I'm adding italic for those I've re-read.

I have followed Ampersand Duck's directions and here is my list. The bolding is a bit hard to read on screen so I've made my 'read all the way to the end' books a bit bigger.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi : a novel
The Name of the Rose*
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses*
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey*
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
The [A] Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Iliad*
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway*
Great Expectations*
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King*
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible*
1984
Angels & Demons
Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility*
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist*
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes : a memoir
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves*
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White Teeth*
Treasure Island
David Copperfield

Apart from being great fun to do, a list such as this raises some interesting questions. What is it about these books that makes us buy them and then not finish reading them? Why is Jane Austen so prevalent in the list? Where is D.H. Lawrence? I read quite a bit of him at uni under sufferance and never want to read him again. I've tried to read Kangaroo a couple of times since, on the basis that it is probably the one Lawrence I should read, but have failed miserably. Why the top 106 and not the top 100? And why do we keep books that we haven't been able to finish reading? Why not donate them to the next Lifeline Bookfair?

Once upon a time I finished every book I began (with the exception of Charles Dickins - I've tried to read Great Expectations and Oliver Twist so many times). These days I am far more ruthless. I do try to give every book a good chance but if the reading is an effort, instead of a joy ... well, life's too short and there are too many books waiting to be read.

Now, with Mr M asleep, I'm going to go and read a book that isn't about Spot, Thomas, Bob or the Wiggles.

Catching Up

I worked all weekend. Which isn't as bad as it sounds. We ran a marvellous conference about memoir and autobiography and it was exciting watching the panel sessions that we'd imagined take shape. I don't think there was a single poor paper and there were many outstanding ones. Nevertheless, I am now exhausted. I didn't think I was but the weariness has crept up on me. Last night I was asleep early with Mr M and tonight I'm already in my pjs and contemplating bed.

The prospect of bed is very tempting as, although I'd read a great deal in preparation for the conference, I added to the book pile beside the bed with some new purchases:

• A Certain Maritime Incident: The Sinking of SIEV X by Tony Kevin (because I really should know more about this horrific incident in recent history)
• The Little Red Writing Book by Mark Tredinnick (because I'm a sucker for writing books)
• Australia's Quarter Acre by Peter Timms (I can think of at least two family members who would be interested in this one), and
• Living Politics by Margaret Reynolds (she spoke so inspirationally about the need to get women involved in public life).

It will be a while before I read these though. I'm going to indulge in some non-work reading. A feast of chick lit. I prepared for it last week when I discovered two novels by Katie Fforde in a second-hand shop we visit semi-regularly. The shop is tucked down an alleyway in Fyshwick, opposite a building supplies storehouse that specialises in recycled materials. The books are light entertainment, romantic comedies set amongst English hedgerows and canals. All the kitchens have Agas (my dream stove) and all the women are fiercely independent. I'm going to indulge in the reader's equivalent of Days of Our Lives for a while. Relaxation for the mind.

TV's Night of Nights

It's Logies night. Both boys are asleep so I've snuck out to the loungeroom to watch a little bit of the Logies. This is a fairly meaningless thing to do because these days I watch very little television. True, I was a committed viewer of Robin Hood (which ended last Sunday night - and how dare they kill off Marion?). But I gave up on East of Everything after episode 2 and I'm hoping that Underbelly will soon be available from the dvd shop otherwise I'll never see it. As for all those soapie regulars - Neighbours, Home and Away, Macleod's Daughters, Sea Patrol - some I've never seen and some I haven't watched for years and years and years.

I have discovered, however, that it's the fiftieth year of the Logies and they are doing quite a bit of 'memory lane' stuff. This at least means that there are some faces I recognise. And John Clarke is being inducted into the Hall of Fame as I type. A worthy recipient. Hamish and Andy are doing the green room interviews. And Adam Hills has made me smile. But who is Lincoln Lewis?

Once upon a time, I would have known most of the nominees in all the categories, except the ones about sport and maybe current affairs. I wouldn't have missed the Logies anymore than I'd have missed the Oscars and I'd watch it from beginning to end. This would be despite the fact that there wouldn't have been a single Australian actor staring down from my bedroom walls. That space was reserved for the 'teen idol' stars of The Hardy Boys, Eight is Enough and the like. I'd probably have bought TV Week the morning after to look again at the frocks and read the behind-the-scenes stories.

Now, though, I'm old, or older. I've become a serious viewer of the ABC. I don't have time in my hectic life to make the kind of commitment series television requires. I have never watched an episode of Grey's Anatomy. I saw part episodes of Ugly Betty but couldn't keep up. And not having access to satellite television, I have a sneaking suspicion that the really interesting Australian programming is happening elsewhere.

Still, love them or hate them, the Logies has provided some memorable moments. Will Susie Eleman ever live down the bald head? And who will ever forget Bert Newton calling Mohammed Ali 'nigger'? Even if we only saw it replayed twenty years later.

I'm Late, I'm Late

I think I have well and truly missed this week's deadline. And the only thing I can blame is 'Winter'. Since Sunday evening it has been bitterly cold at night in Canberra. We have finally turned on the heater. The hot water bottles have been taken out of the cupboard and are being used consistently. The car windscreen has been covered in a thin film of ice in the morning. Now, when Mr M asks 'Is it winter?', I have begun to say 'yes', instead of trying to explain what autumn is. And the result of all this is that I have been far more tempted to stay in bed with Mr M when I lie down with him to help him go to sleep (and probably that is something all the books tell you not to do - but it works), than I have been to get up again and spend a chilly hour in front of the computer.

Tonight, though, I have decided to put my middle-of-the-night wakefulness to use. Instead of lying in bed in the warmth, I'm up and at it. I have written my to-do list for tomorrow's/today's working day. I have folded the washing (the thing I really hate about winter is how difficult it can be to get the washing dry but I'm not going to give in and buy a clothes dryer. Not having one is the small thing I do to help the environment). I have sent an email I meant to send at 8pm. And I'm finally sitting down to blog. When I do go back to bed, which should be soon, I'll be doing so with a terrific sense of achievement.

Isn't it amazing what you can get done when the household sleeps?

PS If you are interested in the experience of the 2020 Summit, Alison Croggan has written a terrific piece about being a member of the 'Creatives' and posted it on Sarsaparilla. It's a great insider's view of the day. I'm sure the 2020 Summit was an event full of faults and a huge question remains as to what will happen to all the ideas, but I do think the summit was a very bold, very big idea itself and at the least it has signposted that the times are changing. (Maybe that's 2am optimism creeping in. Perhaps the times aren't changing, they are simply being dressed up in new clothes. I'm still hoping, though, that the Emperor won't be discovered wandering around in 'his all-together'.)

Father and Son

Amongst my favourite photos of the wee man is an ad hoc series taken with his dad. The first was taken when Mr M was only three months old. We were at the beach. The day was very grey. The sea was the colour of lead. But in the photo, taken in the days before we had a digital camera, there is J standing up to his knees in the water with a tiny, behatted boy peering over his shoulder.

This is the second in the series. It was taken on a visit to Adelaide on Father's Day 2006. We had just bought the hat Mr M is wearing as a Father's Day gift for J. I don't know who was proudest: Mr M to be wearing the hat or J to have a son who wanted to wear it.


And here is the third in the series. I took it last weekend at the Toy and Rail Museum in Leura in the Blue Mountains. The two boys are watching a pair of electric trains run around a little track. They are both entranced.

I think I'll keep taking photos of the two of them when they aren't looking. We'll see how long the hand-holding and arm slung casually around a shoulder lasts. And we'll see how long it takes for the wee man to tower over his dad.

Party Time

Every morning, Mr M asks 'Is it my birthday today?' He is, it seems, very keen to cease being three-and-a-bit and to celebrate being four. After months without any birthday parties to go to, April, then, is quite a challenge for a young man who is counting the days until he is a birthday boy again.

Here he is celebrating our friend Leo's second birthday in Yass a week ago (thanks to Leo's Uncle Sam for the photo). Leo missed out on his first birthday party - he was ill with chicken pox. But his mum and dad made up for it with a wonderful pirate party. Golden pirate coins were scattered on the ground for the treasure hunt. A treasure chest was discovered hiding beneath a tree, filled with pirate booty for the young pirates, including pirate eye patches and silky sashes. The pirate flag could be raised and lowered and raised and lowered and raised and ... by even the smallest of deck hands. And there was a park with the most enormous slippery slide! Pirate dreams were made of this.

This week we have celebrated a birthday closer to home. Mr M insisted on being the chief parcel unwrapper but has since graciously wrapped up all his Wiggle dolls and given them to me as gifts. And he's decided that really what I need most is a Shrek birthday cake (we might have to wait for the weekend for that).

At the end of the day, I thanked him for his gift and for being such a good boy on my birthday. His reply? 'It's my pleasure.' I guess he's learning something after all.

Footy Fever

Those of you who know us will be bemused by this week's title. We are not thought of as a 'sporty' family*. But today Mr M enjoyed his first session of 'footy training'. It wasn't planned. It was completely unexpected. But, boy, did he have a good time (and go to sleep without any trouble).

It came about because today was our day for collecting Jack and Charlie after school. And it was their first day of footy. After school we went to J and C's house to get ready for footy. (Aussie Rules, that is.) And at 4.30pm we all went down to the oval to kick a football around before training began. As the whistle blew and the coaches called the kids together, Mr M and I began to prepare to depart ... but then he was invited to stay and there was no hesitation, he wanted to train with the Under 8s.

For the next hour, as the evening got chillier and chillier, Mr M played 'Octupus' (a great game of tips I've never played before), practised kicking and passing and (this is what he did best of all) sitting on the ball listening to the coaches. He LOVED it. It's fair to say that his ball skills aren't very good. He has suffered from my illness last year by missing out on a lot of outdoor activity and so we are behind on gross motor skills. So it was pretty exciting to watch him enjoying training so much and getting a little bit better at throwing and catching a ball.

We now have to make a decision about whether to let him keep going. There's no pressure. He can go to training and not worry about things like playing games. And the timing is perfect being on a Monday evening when I'm not working. I guess we'll just wait and see how much he talks about it and asks to go again. And I'm loving the healthy exhaustion that meant he was deeply asleep by 8.15pm.

* What really makes someone 'sporty'? Do you just have to be devoted to a particular team - even if all you do is watch games? I hadn't really thought about sportiness until tonight. I'd gone along with the line that we weren't sporty. When I think back over my life, though, I've often been deeply interested in 'sport'. Frequently, it was disguised as dance. But there have been quite long periods of running, tennis lessons, aerobics and yoga classes, swimming. What I have never been is interested in 'team sports' - although even as I've typed that I've remembered that I've happily watched an awful lot of cricket and basketball over the years, and English football too. I guess 'sporty' is just another generalisation that hinders more than it helps us understand people.

Sunday Night Television

I fear I'm about to become a Sunday night television junkie. I'm already completely addicted to Robin Hood. Now I think I might be hooked on East of Everything. Did you watch it? What did you think?

Robin Hood is deliciously old-fashioned - even if it does have a much-discussed 'modern sensibility'. But it reminds me of the television I used to watch. Self-contained episodes. Gorgeous boys. A feisty woman (or, in this case, two). This was in the days before the mini-series and reality television. It's the formula that worked for shows like Eight is Enough, Valley of the Giants, The Hardy Boys. Even The Flying Doctors. And then there was Magnum PI. Ah, it takes me back. And let's face it: the men in Robin Hood are all gorgeous. Even the wicked ones.

East of Everything has some similar elements. Good-looking men, for one. A couple of feisty women. Plus it would seem to be well-written and the location is blissfully and beautifully Australian. The first episode wasn't at all creaky. Oh, okay, yes, the plot does seem a bit contrived. I mean, three months to re-open the resort that hasn't had a booking for years? Where will the two brothers find the money for that? But unlike the almost-dreadful Emerald Falls which was on last weekend, East of Everything has a lot of appeal. I'm already intrigued. I do want to know what will happen to Lizzie and Bev in particular. Their stories seem to hint at some originality, even if Art feels like the kind of television character we've met before.

So don't ask me to do anything on a Sunday night for the next few weeks. I have a date with the tv set. It makes such a change from watching the only other highlights of my tv week: The Collectors and Stuff (yes, there is a theme there). Oh, and ABC Kids. I love ABC Kids. Children's television is so much more imaginative than the adult stuff. But don't get me started.

Dallying at the National

It has become our habit to spend Easter at the National Folk Festival. Mr M attended his first when he was barely six months old. This year was his fourth festival and it made taking a tiny baby look easy-peasy. After four days (and three seasons - we froze on Friday, sweltered on Sunday, and were rained on today), we are all exhausted and I'm convinced a leash is a very good thing.

Unlike previous years when we'd find some good music, find a chair and sit and listen for the best part of an hour, this year we struggled to listen to any music at all. Partly, this was due to Mr M who just couldn't or wouldn't sit still. Each time we entered a venue, he'd ask if The Wiggles or Hi-5 were going to be there. As the answer was always 'no', he was always disappointed. So, we managed to hear:

• three songs by the Dujks
• one song by the haBiBis
• most of a concert by slide guitarist Richard Steele
• maybe three songs by George Jackson and Davydd McDonald
• two pieces by the Griffyn Ensemble
• three pieces by Jim Conway's Big Wheel
• one and a half songs by Mr Fibby
• three, maybe three and a half songs by Trouble in the Kitchen.

Not a huge amount of music spread over four days. We did, however, do lots of 'kiddy' things. We queued for face painting (once), for balloons (twice). We sat on asphalt and watched street theatre. We chased a pair of 'ducks' around the festival on at least two occasions. We bought hot dogs, strawberry ice-cream, and donuts (not simultaneously). We sat on the asphalt again to watch Irish drumming workshops. We played marbles in the kid's tent. We watched the Morris dancers more than once. Mr M loved the Morris dancers - although when asked whether he liked the dancing or the music best, he said it was the music he loved. And we watched a fantastic, traditional Punch and Judy show.

We also 'lost' Mr M at least twice (hence the attraction of the leash) and lost forever his current favourite hat. So we spent quite a bit of time visiting lost property, which entailed going up and down stairs. And we spent quite a bit more time going to the toilet (a slow process at the best of times because someone likes to take off all his clothes).

Still, the thing I like best about the folk festival is the sense of community it generates. And although this year we ran foul of the folk Nazis (one of whom complained about Mr M playing with the game pieces left on tables for people to play with in one of the venues) and crossed swords with the chair Nazis (one of whom really did need SEVEN chairs, not one of which was sat on in the 20 minutes J was waiting), we met some lovely people. Sharing tables, we chatted to Max, one of the founders of the Gympie Muster, and his wife. We also met two blokes from Sydney, who didn't object at all when Mr M helped himself to their prawn chips. And we ran into many people that we rarely see these days (as well as many that we do see) and so enjoyed lots of brief, catch-up conversations.

And now Easter is over and we still haven't reached the end of March. Happy Easter.

Anniversaries

Today, it is 12 months since I had surgery.

Tomorrow, it will be five years since Louis died.

And Tuesday will be Louis's fifth birthday.

The Week in Lists

Three Things I've Bought This Week

1. Shampoo and conditioner. The first I've had to buy since before my hair fell out. I guess J and Mr M don't use a great deal of either. In fact, Mr M is completely averse to shampoo at the moment so we do the best we can in the bathtub.
2. Mr M's winter wardrobe. Last week, Mr M put his knee through his 'best' jeans. And then I discovered he'd worn through the soles of his lace-up shoes. Time to go shopping. In one morning we managed to buy two long-sleeved Wiggles t-shirts, a pair of black jeans, a pair of navy cargo pants, and a new pair of lace-up shoes (in size 10). And all of these items were on special. If only shopping for my winter wardrobe was as easy.
3. Hermione Lee's biography of Edith Wharton. It has been selling for $75.00 in hardback. Today, I found it in Clouston & Hall's for $24.95 - in hardback. I'm buying it mostly for the biographer - her biography of Virginia Woolf was simply stunning.

Three Things I've Done This Week

1. Been to a wedding. I can't remember the last wedding I went to! On Friday afternoon, at 5pm, one of the girls from work married her partner at the National Botanical Gardens. The wedding was to take place on the Brittle Gum Lawns but ... it rained. Drizzle began at at 4.45pm, became a light shower as the bride arrived at 5pm, gave way to heavy rain during the vows. We huddled under the verandahs and permanent umbrellas of the cafe, trying to stay dry and enjoy the ceremony. And then the skies cleared and the party began. Those of us who worked with the bride enjoyed champagne and blew bubbles and departed as the bridal party and family members entered the cafe for the evening's reception.
2. Been to a party. My brother is turning 60 this week so the family gathered last night to celebrate. Four generations of us. Three of his four sisters were there. All five of his children and all four and a bit grandchildren. We spent the evening eating (of course), playing cricket and lego with four small boys, and having the kind of shorthand conversations that only families or friends of longstanding can have with each other. Ones where all the back story is already known.
3. Took my nephews to school and picked them up at the end of the day. A hint of the future, Mr M and I had fun doing the school run and taking the boys to afternoon tea at the 'blue shops', as Mr M calls them.

Three Things I've Read This Week

1. Addition by Toni Jordan. A debut novel that has received tremendous press, it's about Grace who counts obsessively. I wanted to enjoy it, I really did. But I'm not entirely comfortable with the way a serious condition was portrayed in a novel being sold as intelligent 'chick lit'. I can imagine the film, though, starring Toni Collette.
2. The Pocoyo books. We have four Pocoyo books, based on the television series and all with 'flaps' to lift. Mr M loves them and can almost 'read' them himself now. I love them because they don't have a lot of words and, at the end of a long day, you can read them quickly and easily.
3. Heat magazine. The current issue is called 'Luminous Gerberas'. Gorgeous. It took me a while to track it down but I was keen to as one of the creators of a blog I read regularly, Stephanie Trigg from Humanities Researcher, had an essay published in it. The essay was terrific - and so is the journal. It's full of interesting reading.

Pat-a-Cake, Pat-a-Cake

This is a not-so-great photo of the Wiggles cake Mr M and I made to 'celebrate' his return to playschool after our holidays. Well, really it was a bribe to get him to go. Mr M loves to bake. He loves putting the ingredients into a bowl, doing a bit of stirring with the smallest spoon he can find, and then using the biggest spoon he can find to conduct a taste test. He's also very concerned with the kinds of cakes we make - Wiggles' cakes are popular and often requested. So, too, are Bob cakes, Thomas cakes and Spiderman cakes. These requests have created some challenges - then I realised that all I had to do was put a picture of the Wiggles, Bob, Thomas or Spiderman and that would satisfy our director of cakes. He's quite explicit about what colour the icing should be too. The cake above was originally going to have purple/Jeff icing, then the request was changed to blue/Anthony icing. I was very relieved when the final request was for white icing.

I have been doing quite a bit of baking lately. This week alone I have baked Nigella Lawson's blueberry muffins (which have to be one of the world's most forgiving recipes), banana and chocolate cakes for a work afternoon tea, and Vicki's wickedly delicious chocolate slice (it's incredibly easy to make but incredibly difficult to resist). Partly it's the result of having been on leave and having a bit more time to potter in the kitchen but also I just love to bake.

I blame Sheridan Jobbins who, when she was eight-years-old, made a television show called Cooking with Sheri. That was in 1967, the year I was born. So I must have been watching re-runs when I was three, four or five. Her cookbook, my copy of which is still on Mum's bookshelves, was published in 1970. I remember baking simple things like scones from that cookbook while pretending I was filming my own cooking show. Sheri was probably the first 'celebrity tv chef' and, until 2006, she held the record for being the world's youngest television host (this is according to Wikipedia. I suspect Bindi Irwin stole her crown).

It was baking that precipitated my cookbook collection. I wasn't really into buying cookbooks until I discovered How To Be a Domestic Goddess and Nigella's style has influenced the kinds of cookbooks I buy. I'm not particularly interested in those that just list ingredients (although I do have two of Donna Hay's books that follow that style). But I am a sucker for those that include a bit of narrative - I've been known to sit up late into the night just reading Nigella. You've got to love a woman who writes about baking like this:

The trouble with much modern cooking is not that the food it produces isn’t good, but that the mood it induces in the cook is one of skin-of-the-teeth efficiency, all briskness and little pleasure. Sometimes that's the best we can manage, but at other times we don’t want to feel like a post-modern, post-feminist, overstretched woman but, rather, a domestic goddess, trailing nutmeggy fumes of baking pie in our languorous wake.

(From How To Be a Domestic Goddess)

Back to Work

Life has begun to return to whatever 'normal' is in our household. Mr M went back to playschool on Wednesday and Thursday, and now begins each day by announcing 'I am not going to school today'. It was orientation week at the university and so the demands of students are beginning to refocus J's mind.

I returned to work on Thursday and Friday to attend a training course. It's easy to be cynical about these things - and resentful because how will the office cope if you are away for two days - but it was a surprisingly useful course. Okay, we all know how to delegate and how to build teams. And we all admit we don't do either of these things as well as we might. But over the two days I had the opportunity to meet people I have never ever seen in seven years in my current place of employment. Not only that, we had the opportunity to get to know each other and work together. Now that was worth going to the course for. The course was called 'Leading From Any Position' and it was a useful reminder to stop grumbling about what you think can't be done and start doing what can be done. It brought to mind a saying I learned (I think) at another course: the only thing you can change is yourself.

The other big achievement for the week (and this is really big) is that I cleaned the bathroom. The sad thing about this is that I can tell you the last two times I cleaned the bathroom and that's not because they occurred in the last month. In the last 12 months I have cleaned the bathroom three times - on Wednesday, in October before I returned to work, and on 15 March before I had surgery. The October cleaning was particularly memorable because I broke a tile in the shower, finally knocked the vanity's wobbly leg right off, and broke a moneybox. I love a clean bathroom but cleaning it is one of the most depressing things I can do. The bathroom is old and the shelves are too full of trinkets and the cleaning process seems to emphasise all it's faults. I dream of the day when it is completely renovated.And I will keep dreaming. But at least, for the moment, I have a clean bathroom, some sense of achievement, and a renewed commitment to cleaning it again ... in less than four months.

Good Intentions

I had intended to write a long post about joining the crowds on the lawns of Parliament House for last week's National Apology to the Stolen Generations. But my evenings have been the victims of Mr M's disrupted sleep patterns. Some nights, bedtime is pushed back because he has succumbed to an afternoon sleep. Other nights, like tonight, bedtime is pushed back because he has developed a range of strategies to avoid closing his eyes. They include choosing at least six bedtime stories; asking for stories to be told after the light is turned out (Goldilocks and the Three Bears is a current favourite); organising four Wiggles dolls and Buzz and Woody so they can sleep on the bed too; changing beds (it's easier to look out the window from my bed); deciding he simply has to get out of bed, go outside and look at the moon and the stars; getting up to check on whatever it is Daddy is doing; asking for Daddy to lie down with us on the bed; asking for the ukelele to play him to sleep.

Now, a week after the event, my thoughts and comments seem a bit superfluous. So much has already been written and said and I still haven't managed to get my photos (which aren't great but give you a general idea) off the camera. Maybe tomorrow. I've decided that I really can't surpass Stephanie Trigg's summary of the day on Humanities Researcher. She might have experienced the Apology from Melbourne but it sounds as if her experience of the day was very close to mine in Canberra. And Ampersand Duck has some great photos of her experience of the day. There were so many ways to experience the day. Vicki's class was one of many that stopped lessons to watch the live broadcast. She wrote:

It was amazing to watch it with children who were so in tune to what it
was all about. The discussions after were so heart felt. One boy
broke down later on he was so relieved.

This image that was published in the Sydney Morning Herald has become one of my favourites from the day. It was taken by Andrew Taylor. It demonstrates that the day heralded the beginning of reconciliation on a number of levels. What do you think they all talked about as they sat in a row waiting for the Parliamentary Sitting to commence? What a pity Mr Howard wasn't able or didn't feel able to join them.

The day has given me a lot to think about. The importance of saying 'sorry' to enable other changes to take place. The terrible, often dishonest ways in which children were taken from their families. The way governments and churches and individuals let those children down, promising a better life but leaving a significant number of them to suffer mistreatment, neglect and abuse. But two issues have dominated my mind. The first is leadership. It seems to me at this moment (I'm reserving the right to change my mind) that Mr Howard's approach to leadership was very parental. He knew what was best for the country and heaven help anyone who tried to disagree. Perhaps it was the kind of leadership we needed for a while, only time will tell. Mr Rudd, in contrast, seems to understand the importance of the symbolic gesture, of the possibility that leadership offers to encourage people to do better and be better than they thought possible. It is uplifting - and that was the mood of the day.

The other issue that I've been wrestling with came, I think, out of Dr Nelson's speech. I'll have to check Hansard but he said something along the lines of good intentions having unintended consequences. If ever there is a lesson we should learn from the experience of the Stolen Generation, this is it. Whatever the intentions behind the policy of removal, the consequences for many were ghastly. Perhaps we should give all government policy an 'unintended consequences' test. What will be the unintended consequences of the current Intervention in the Northern Territory? What will be the unintended consequences of the war in Iraq?

We ended this momentous week with another short trip to the coast. Mr M finally made it back into the sea - although it took three days of playing near the rockpools, playing in the rockpools and filling castle moats with sea water to get him there. The weather was exquisite, the sea was a beautiful turquoise and we saw three dolphins chasing waves across the bay.

Coasting

This week we have enjoyed a few days on the south coast, despite rather dreary weather. We drove down the Clyde on Tuesday in the rain, stopping as we now always do at Pooh Corner. When we drove down the Clyde before Christmas, Pooh Corner was a mess. The little cave had been trashed and was littered with empty bottles, a dumped computer, the toys a mess. I took this photo on that visit - it's the least distressing. There are various stories about how Pooh Corner came to be. One is that the cave stored explosives during World War II. Another is that the first Pooh was left there by the classmates of a little girl who died in a road accident. The net is remarkably lacking in information.

The good news is that, on this visit, Pooh was sitting in his cave with Tigger and other friends enjoying a jar of honey (yes, a real jar of honey). He had obviously given the cave a springclean, removing all the bottles and offering the computer to charity.

We are lucky - J's parents still have their house a couple of beaches south of Bateman's Bay and so we have all the amenities of home and a sea view. It takes about 3 minutes to walk down the hill, shed the towels and bucket and spade and be in the water. And then takes about 6 minutes to walk back up the hill (it's very steep, especially when you are three-years-old) to hose the sand off feet and hit the warm showers.

Mr M has been visiting the south coast on and off since he was three-months-old. Oddly enough, the weather on that occasion wasn't dissimilar to the weather this week. On this visit, Mr M wasn't feeling very brave, declaring the beach 'too beachy'. And it was. The weather and water were grey. The tides were very high. The sand was covered in seaweed. So somewhat surprisingly, because in the past he has loved jumping waves, Mr M decided he wouldn't even dabble a toe in the water but sat well back on the sand building sandcastles and making sand cakes. I must admit that I found the beach 'too beachy' too, my new scar making me a little hesitant about fully submerging. I was very glad, given Mr M's mood, that we hadn't invested a lot of money going somewhere tropical.

We did, though, have a very relaxed time. Mr M decided to reacquaint himself with the afternoon sleep (on Wednesday he slept for three hours!) thus allowing his parents the luxury of an afternoon sleep themselves or reading time. The days slipped into a slow routine - breakfast, beach, a visit to J's mother at the nursing home, lunch somewhere pleasant, Mr M falling asleep on the drive home, a quiet afternoon, the beach again, dinner. We ate fish and chips too many times - but it's hard to resist sitting at the Boathouse at the Bay or in a park near a beach - and the boys discovered great milkshakes at the Mogo Fudge and Ice Creamery, where Mr M conveniently left his hat on Friday, necessitating a third visit yesterday before we drove home to Canberra.

Home again and we are continuing the quiet, relaxed mood of our holidays. Mr M is watching Toy Story. J is reading on the bed. The washing has been washed, dried, folded and put away. A cake is in the oven and it's fish for dinner.

The Last Week of the First Month

I'm trying to do too many things at once this evening. On the DVD player is the Shakespeare Retold episode, Macbeth, starring James McAvoy and Keeley Hawkes. Unlike the retellings of Much Ado About Nothing and The Taming of the Shrew, which I loved, this new Macbeth isn't holding my attention (although turning the three witches into three garbage men was quite inspired). I've been browsing the internet instead. Very addictive and a complete timewaster. Suddenly 90 minutes have disappeared with little or nothing to show for it.

This week just passed, the last week of January, has been dominated by medical matters. On Thursday, my portacath was removed (it's the little port that was popped into my chest just below my collarbone to make giving me chemo easier - and it did make having chemo easier. I didn't have to suffer any of that horrid searching for veins that many people have to go through). Having it removed turned out to be pretty easy. My favourite anaesthetist was with me, knocked me out and brought me round without any ill effects. I took painkillers on Friday and had my last hit on Saturday night. Of course, I still have to remind Mr M that I have a sore chest when he jumps a bit too exuberantly. And I will have a scar but it will be a very thin, neat one - not the big clunky thing that was there previously.

I had thought that the removal of the portacath might bring a sense of completion (I'm not going to use that terrible word closure) to last year's experiences. I'm still waiting. Instead, my eyes have just lifted to the next goal on the horizon - my first post-surgery mammogram in March. After that, there will be the next checkup and then the next and before I know it years will have gone by. In the meantime, I have most of February off work, finally taking the rec leave I was intending to take last April, before I became ill. No trip to Shanghai because of last week's surgery but I hope we will get some nice days at the beach.

Five Things

I've been a bit pressed for time this week and last night gave the evening over to some work I'd brought home with me. So I'm going to cheat and give you a list of five things we have done in recent times. Here it is.

1. J took Mr M for a boat ride on Lake Burley Griffin. This has been a long-held ambition of Mr M's and because they were the only two passengers on Thursday afternoon, Mr M was even allowed to sit at the driver's wheel for a photo. I don't know if this is the boat they went on but it was probably similar. After all, we don't have that many boats on Lake Burley Griffin.
2. After the boat ride and after picking me up from work, we had a picnic at The Castle in Commonwealth Park. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, The Castle is a kids' playground in the style of a ... castle. It has been in the Park forever. I remember it being there when I was a teenager and that is over 20 years ago. It has recently been improved with that awfully smelly, supposedly soft playground carpet. The improvements haven't addressed the main issue as I see it, which is that if you wanted to climb up high and jump, you still can and you'd probably still hurt yourself badly in the jumping. Mr M isn't into jumping, however. But he loves climbing through The Castle's tunnels.
3. On Friday, a concert of J's music was performed at the National Gallery at lunchtime. Just a small but interested group of people. It was wonderful, however, to hear music in the gallery spaces and especially that that music was J's.
4. Swimming. We've been back to the pool this weekend after a break of a few weeks. Yesterday, J, Mr M and I went to the indoor pool in Belconnen. It's great when we all go together because it means I can actually swim some laps. Yesterday I managed eight (woohoo!), a recent record. This morning, Mr M and I joined the cousins at the Big Splash outdoor pool. Swimming outdoors is a novelty for us and I was a bit paranoid about the sun. But Mr M and his cousins had a fantastic time, gradually getting braver and braver and bolder and bolder at sliding down some of the less daunting slides. And we didn't get sunburnt.
5. Movies. I've been very lucky and been to see two adult movies recently. About a fortnight ago, I saw Atonement and this evening J and I went to see Sweeney Todd. Very different films, although both exquisitely designed and shot. Atonement will make you want to read Ian McEwan's novel, or re-read it. In some scenes, the film was incredibly close to my memory of the book; other bits I just couldn't recall. And it is certainly worth waiting for Vanessa Redgrave's gorgeous cameo right at the film's end. Sweeney Todd is an exuberant, bloody recreation of Stephen Sondheim's musical - and for that alone I love it. There is much to enjoy, including performances by Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter. Both are recommended. But a warning - if you see Sweeney Todd, it will be a while before you can eat a meat pie again.

Rain and Photography

On Friday night, we went to bed with the pitter-patter of rain on the roof. On Saturday morning, we woke up to the rain again. Bliss. It's damp and chilly and the washing won't dry but I don't mind a bit. I also couldn't resist posting this photo of Mr M. It is one of a series I think of as the 'Singing in the Rain' sequence. The evening we took the photos, there wasn't much rain at all. Just a light shower. But the Teletubbies raincoat was a new purchase from the op shop and it had to be worn. Yesterday, despite heavy showers and water rushing along the gutters, the raincoat stayed inside. We did, however, get some use out of the Thomas the Tank Engine umbrella. We have all the accessories - it's the weather that has been the problem.

Photographs have been a recurring theme this week. The one above was the first Mr M has taken on the digital camera that I have actually had printed. It would be close to his first photo. He took it at the National Museum in November. He loves the Museum and often visits with J. In fact, they popped in on Thursday, after playschool and on the way to pick me up from work. At the moment, the big attraction is the small Wiggles display in the Eternity gallery. It features a purple Jeff Wiggle shirt, a very desirable object in Mr M's eyes. He can stand for a very long time in front of that display.

At work, I have been looking at photos by Charles Bayliss (1850 - 1897). I was familiar with his images of Jenolan Caves and the Blue Mountains but had never seen his images of Sydney in the 1880s. These, for me, were like looking at a city in a foreign land. There is nothing about the city in Bayliss's images that I recognise and yet I would argue that I 'know' Sydney. Nor is it as if I can see another city in the images either. This is not a place that could be mistaken for London or even Melbourne at the same period. I'm intrigued - any reading I have ever done that encompasses the period these images were taken hasn't prepared me for how the city actually appeared. And take a look at this image of Balmain. Remember, these shots were taken only 120 - 130 years ago.

Coincidentally, a friend emailed me some pix this week of her grandparents. One is of her great-grandmother with her three daughters, a formal family grouping. The other, of her grandfather, has him dressed in a suit in the foreground but in the background is a small group of workmen, completely out of focus. It's taken in a garden at what appears to be the back of a house. Reflecting on the photos, she wrote "I find the images to be eerie windows back in time".

I like that. I like the idea that a photo lets us slip back through time to another place, to fall through the rabbit hole of our histories. But these are "eerie windows", so what you see may not be exactly what it appears to be.

I'm wondering what Mr M's great-grandchildren will think of his feet.

Have a terrific week and thanks to all of you who have left comments. I'm still working out how I go about responding to them. It's very exciting to know folk are reading.

Milestones

It has been a big week for Mr M. Back to playschool on Wednesday, he enjoyed his last two days as a playschool toddler. Next week, he'll be joining the junior preschoolers in another room. Fortunately, one of his favourite teachers will be with him, as will a number of his pals. But the prospect of moving has caused him some anxiety. We tried to allay it by baking a 'farewell' cake for him to take in on Thursday. Of course, it couldn't be just any cake. It had to be a 'Thomas the Tank Engine' cake! This caused me some anxiety. I had white icing, store-bought red icing to pipe with (having never piped icing before) and a Thomas sticker squirrelled out of a sticker book given to Mr M at Christmas. The result was, I thought, truly horrible but when Mr M saw it on Thursday morning, he declared it 'perfect'. If only he was always that easy to please.

Last night, he had his first sleepover. Completely unplanned but perhaps that was the best way. We were invited to dinner at his cousins' and had a lovely evening sitting under the pergola in the rain (what relief it was after the heat of the last few days - the thing I love most about a Canberra summer, I think, is that it comes to an end) talking with family. Amy and Ruby did a wonderful job of babysitting before dinner, encouraging the littlies to 'be a fruit'. Mr M chose his favourite, watermelon. Then he decided he'd like to stay the night. So he did - although I suspect he might almost have been sent home, as he partied on until 11. That, though, meant he slept through the night and was quite determined he was sleeping over again tonight.

But tonight we have decided to try for another milestone. Mr M is having his first night without a nappy! It's been a long time since he's had a wet nappy at night so, with the heat giving him a heat rash, he decided he'd like to try going without. Fingers crossed I'm not changing sheets at 3am.

J took this photo of the back garden in early spring. If you stand in the same spot now, it is impossible to see the shed. The peach tree is heavy with rusty peaches and I've discovered the ease of making peach granita (this recipe isn't the one I used but it gives you the idea) and the joy of eating it in the heat of summer. The boughs of the Japanese plum are dragging with the weight of the fruit and the nectarine (whose fruit never seems to ripen before the birds get it) is now entwined with the grapevine. Tonight we ate the first plums from the tree behind the shed. This means that soon it will be time to try to make plum jam or plum sauce. Which probably means that the hottest day of summer is still ahead of us.