Away, Away

We are down south. The Surfer is participating in the Gracetown Grommets which commemorates the anniversary of the Gracetown Tragedy. His coach is not going to be there at this comp. This is probably because the coach's father was one of the nine people killed that day.

It's always very heartbreaking to roll up at Huzza's and read the memorial. You simply cannot go there without thinking about the cliff tragedy.

It's cold and rainy down in Margaret River at the moment. It's just like going back to winter. But it's lovely to put the pot belly on and drink a red wine or two.

And I feel great about being alive. I am even loving the rain.

It's been great to get away for a few days as well. It was a week of death and funeral and horrible stuff in Perth. HM's friend, (who was also The Surfer's cousin on his mother's side) passed away and all the old cronies came out of the woodwork to count how many of them had passed away. LOTS. Many of them by bad life choices. I think this is why HM makes the most of everyday.  Also think it's why he doesn't see some of those old cronies much. It must be hard to sit there and watch your friends waste their life.

So get out there and enjoy every day. I'm about to go and visit a couple of wineries I feel ... as soon as the boys get back from surfing ... ho hum. Might be going for a walk with Barnstormer instead.

Hope you're doing something good today.
xx

The perils of living with a sniffer dog

Back from Dongers. Nothing like glorious sunshine to really lift the mood. I didn't even feel melancholy on returning home. It's all good.

Had a splendid time EXCEPT I made an initial, monumental, a what-the-hell-were-you-thinking-type faux pas while doing my last minute packing. This horrid error involved the packing of not one, but two bottles of nail polish--as you do when you are going away to a small, sleepy country town to hang on the beach with tomboyish hardcore surfer mums who put "hey" on the end of every sentence.

What do horses eat, hay?

I'm very good at joining in these conversations.

Now I should mention at this point that HM has a nose like a sniffer dog. He can smell a cigarette being lit over a kilometre away. If there is a fire in Fremantle, he can smell it. If someone burnt some eggs in Armadale, he knows about it. If someone is spraying toxic fertiliser in Yanchep, he winds the windows up. Already, there are rules in place at home to accommodate his sensitive olfactory problem. I am not allowed to put nail polish on inside the house. I am not allowed to use fish sauce in ANYTHING. I am not allowed to use Mr Sheen. I happily abide by these rules and The Surfer has to be ultra careful with his daily teenage angst-ridden application of Lynx.

So as we embarked on our road trip, HM enquired as to whether I had been painting my nails. I said of course. YES, the toenails got a pre-holiday coating outside in the backyard as pre-arranged (see house rules above). Nose was turned up at this comment. We got to the end of the freeway and HM could not stand the smell any longer. I was questioned on the contents of my bag. DID YOU PACK NAIL POLISH IN YOUR BAG? Why, of course I did. Who doesn't when they are going to Dongara?

No one else could smell a thing and the little people were concerned at the kerfuffle.

A few minutes later, in a complete olfactorial meltdown HM had to pull over at a servo and I was asked to check the contents of my toilet bag (which naturally was packed as deep inside the boot as one can get) for a leakage. Sure enough, one bottle HAD smashed but the damage was thankfully contained. I removed the offending bottle and wiped away drips--in the process getting a smudge or two of nail polish on fingers. Oh, calamity.


The ever so faint whiff of nail polish to mere mortals is of course a foul, toxic, pungent stench to HM, as bad as if someone had made him swim and breathe in the stuff. He could not think straight. It was all he could talk about and the entire trip there was RUINED by this acrid stink. Even my homemade gourmet salad rolls tasted of nail polish--for him.

When we finally got to our destination, HM scrambled out of the car like he had been locked inside the toilet cubicle on an aeroplane with a vomiting skunk. The offending toilet bag was not allowed in the chalet and was condemned to hang from a tree to "air out". {HM really wanted it buried but I reminded him it was a birthday present.}

All of the five sets of clothes HM has packed (for a trip which will see him wear the exact same clothes he drove up there in everyday) were hung out and aired in various parts of the chalet. It looked like a Chinese laundry.

But at least my toenails looked flash on the beach, hey!

Insane Jane with Barnstormer

Travelling north

Tomorrow we are heading off to Dongara to attend the third State Surfing rounds (actually held at Geraldton). I may have already mentioned the anticipation in this earlier post.

Hammerhead and Barnstormer are SOOOO excited and have been counting down sleeps for a week now. They have even packed their little suitcases for the first time. They have packed them full to the brim by themselves and lined them up at the front door. I was making dinner while all of this packing was going on and have only just checked the contents now that they are tucked up in bed. I have been pleasantly surprised to find that Barnstormer has remembered to pack her hairbrush, which is very odd as she rarely wants to use it at the moment.

Hammerhead's suitcase has his pillow pet crammed inside it with a new storybook (from Nanny) and his pyjama pants. He is clearly only focused on packing for the moment--bedtime.

Have pillow pet, will travel.

Barnstormer's case has eight pairs of knickers, an array of short and long sleeved tops, jeans, a bottle of bubble making solution (!), five random pencils and three different sets of pyjamas.

I have come down with a cold. It crept up on me this morning and is worse than the man flu I've been dealing with for the last month. It is a ruddy, great, big, horrid, blocked up-type cold that requires me to walk around constantly looking for tissues and working out if we have any suitable medication that has not expired. The sinus tablets I washed down with a glass of red at dinner time have done absolutely NOTHING.

HM also informed me that The Surfer "smashed up" his board this afternoon. Yes, two days before the big event. This is like Cadel Evans getting a puncture in LeTour and having no one to fix it. OK, I know Cadel probably has ten bikes stacked up on some Mini Cooper's roof just behind him, waiting hungrily for him to get a puncture so this is not a fair comparison as alas, The Surfer does not have this luxury at the moment. And there is no way a ding can be repaired in this timeframe, not even via the DIY backyard job, considering we are leaving tomorrow. What to do?

I could have sworn they were talking about a POXY repair kit.

For the record, "smashed up" will mean a tiny, seemingly insignificant indent somewhere on the board. It may even involve the need for a magnifying glass. Worse, it may mean he has to use a crappy older board. I don't know if I am a drama queen or not but when HM said "smashed up" I was at least expecting the board to be in two pieces. I know not the bounds of a surfer's sorrow.

Anyway, I am far, far more concerned about The Surfer or HM being eaten by a shark. But I dare not mention it ... it's the elephant in the room.

On a more positive note, I'm extremely looking forward to a getaway as it's been some time. I'm especially hanging out for more of this glorious sunshine. Have had an up and down week but am good now. One of those weeks where little things annoy me and I can fly into a rage at any given moment, usually over something that I wouldn't even care about at another time. But there's no point dwelling on it. It would be nice to know why because the very next day I won't understand why I felt like that.

What I do know, however, is that giving up coffee and wine didn't change anything in that respect. Which is somewhat of a relief ... imagine if you gave up coffee and wine and then EVERYTHING [as in mentally] was much, much better. And, even worse, you and every single person around you, felt that you should never drink coffee or plonk ever again !! I can honestly say that I didn't feel any better for it (other than experiencing some  'I'm purer than thou' feelings) and I know for a fact that HM missed sitting down for our glass of vino together while the fence jumper shows are on.


I had no trouble giving it all away but am now most content to have one long mac in the morning and a vino here and there. Not every night mind, but definitely one on a Friday.

Also, I must confess that despite having the best intentions, I still haven't packed my bag in advance.  I did, however, purchase a pair of thick three-quarter black leggings to wear under my skirts. As one friend has already mentioned to me, this is the closest I will ever come to wearing trackies.

Also, a number of peeps have mentioned that they cannot work out how to comment below. If you click on the link that says X number of gorgeous people have commented then you should be given the opp to do this. You can be completely anonymous. xx

Fun for the whole family

Ok, first of all I believe there is NO SUCH THING in the entire world that can be described as 'fun for the whole family'. Whenever I see that advertised I know that someone is going to miss out. At this point I believe it's usually me. All of our holidays as a family (and I use the term holiday loosely) have involved (for me) more work than I would normally have to do at home. I know it won't always be this way, but while they are little that's the way it is.

We have a weekender coming up as we must travel to a surf break between Geraldton (Gero) and Dongara (Dongers) in a few weeks. It's part of the Surf Tour that The Surfer has been doing for two years now. It sees us make several trips down south and further north each year, sometimes three weekends in a row. Although I look forward to these missions as a break in routine, I am always reminded of previous trips and how much 'mum work' is involved. The boys usually have an eat-sleep-surf mentality on these trips.

Mum work: There is the packing and this usually starts two days beforehand. It's not just clothes and toiletries for five people, it's toys, books, nappies, dvds, (yes we need a moment's peace here and there), food, linen, towels, wet weather gear, beach gear (yes even in July) and first aid. There is always some minor injury. ALWAYS.

I pack every item of clothing the little people own. Even then I still need to do a hand wash somewhere. I usually pack my own bag in the last five minutes I have spare, and even though I think I am packing all the right things, I am horrified when we arrive at our destination with absolutely nothing appropriate to wear. Why don't I own a tracksuit? What makes me think that four Alannah Hill skirts will be required on a trip to Gero? Why don't I learn from previous trips that this method of packing does not work?

The car trip starts off well. The 'are we nearly there's?' usually take about 30 minutes to kick in. Despite the healthy fruit snacks I cut up we always end up eating crappy, oversalted chips from some servo stuck in 1979. Barnstormer will always nod off which sounds like a good thing but in the long run, isn't. Hammerhead will not participate in the enforced toilet stop but will then desperately need to go within five minutes of starting the car again, which can make HM get just a bit shirty. HM may also get a little vocal on the drive, particularly if we get stuck behind a convoy of grey nomads and their caravans. This is highly likely on the Gero trip. Many of his 'shed' words are used and the kids see this as an opportunity to join in. The shed words are then used in many more situations for the duration of the trip.

If we are staying at a friend's or relative's abode, I take photos of every room before anyone else is allowed inside, to ensure that when we leave it will look exactly the same. I am meticulous about this.

In a couple of weeks we head to Dongara where we have a lovely beachfront cabin. I am really looking forward to this and think I will be the most relaxed I have ever been on these surf missions. The clean-up is minimal so it should be fun. And hopefully the weather will be nice. Anyway, I'm going to pack my bag well in advance this time and make sure that I have appropriate clothing.

So now, tell me about your family trip. Make me feel normal.