Tooth Fairy

Paris lost another tooth tonight.  The whole tooth fairy business seems to go in waves, and we have been caught somewhat offguard by this third round.  Just when I think I nearly have a handle on this whole motherhood gig, another sideways kneecapping.  Darned Imposter Syndrome!

The new job is going wonderfully well.  Still pinching myself.

There is one downside of my job, however, is the very dry but daily awareness that there are people out there having less than stellar things going on in their lives.

But then, there are diamonds and there are stones everywhere, it seems.

Paris' week, however, has had its fantastic moments - and those in the not so fantastic realm.

She told me tonight about some of the things that may be connected to her bad dreams in the last few nights.

She feels so deeply sometimes.

(Hey, she is now 9 - there are still some things that she feels shallowly or not at all.

This is one of the "fantastic" things she has brought home from school this week -



)

The currency in TF land has had its highs and lows over the years (sometimes fuelled by the guilt of tardiness)

And the cover has been blown for longer than she has been alive.

The tooth that fell out tonight was a pretty interesting one.  Whether through natural wear of the movement of position that braces and headgear have wrought, it wasn't as smooth, or indeed as molarish as one would have expected.  And I hope that she will be chuffed that TF recognised this.  And I hope that she knows that TF is on her side toon.

The Day (I) Went South... OR How to buy the world's most expensive bra (Part Three)

"But...the BRA Jeanie!!!! The BRA!!!!" lamented Debby (quite rightly)

Yes, indeed, I did eventually get to the emporium of shopping splendours (getting there from here and then here).

Big Smoke is a little city with BIG pretensions.  You can walk into the city centre across bridges that span the river, you can marvel at the prolificity of electric scooters (yes, I know - I thought I had just made it up too!), you can gasp at the ever developing high-rise - and then you can get SMACKED in the face by commerce.

One of the oldest cash extraction businesses in the Queen Street Mall is Myer - it is heroically battling against the threat of online shopping by producing up to four glossy catalogs of specials at any one time, and from the aggressive spray pitch of the perfumiers on entry through the snooty disdain of the purveyors of purses to the racks and racks of back-racking stilettos, it is all about getting the whole merchandising experience.

Readers, I am weak - not for spending, but for oxygen in such environments, and after a mad dash through the three levels of shopping opportunities I was heartily glad of the friendly face of the escalator usher who gave me the stack and suggested I peruse them elsewhere and come back with a plan of attack.

Luckily one of the great leaps forward in the last 30 years has been the proximity of food courts to shopping experiences, and there was a stall that offered Miso Soup (a way of life lifeline when fasting) and a hidden nook where I could look at a green (of the plant kind) wall and pretend I wasn't in the middle of chaos.

The first glossy brochure offered lifestyles, and with a starting price about 6 times the figure of my voucher it was readily discarded.

The second was offered food preparation wonders -and even with up to 40% off, I would have had to eat the brochure to get any benefit.

The third was beauty products, and if there is one thing that I a frugal on, its self-care.  I think that there was next to no overlap between my willingness to part with currency and their willingness to part with product in that equation.

The fourth did offer the line that their were specials galore to be had in the cash and frippery carrying department.

From the title of this (and the last two) episodes, we know I was in the market for lingerie, but my need for a handbag and/or wallet is up there vying hard too.  The last three handbags I have received have been from Queen Jeanie next door, as apparently I am completely incapable of looking at a handbag and thinking "that looks nice" - something that relatives of hers are really good at, so she always has an over-(to her mind)abundance.  I also have issues with the feelings of wallets that cost more than they are ever going to be required to carry, so the possibility of their being a choice that MIGHT offer something in my range AND marked down enough that I don't have to consider its sensitivities was a possibility.

I also regarded the map and contemplated exit routes so if I were overwhelmed again, I could get out of Dodge.

Plan of attack formed, I re-entered the domain at the door closest too the bag section - and I perused and did the maths of 20% off this or 33% off that for a good twenty minutes before I admitted 100% defeat.  The good news is that the attendants for this area had done their maths much quicker and worked out I was not a valid customer and didn't bother to harass me.

Luckily it was only escalator ride and a hard left to the bra section after that and the escalator usher gave me reassurance on my way.

I have to thank the deity of the bra section that a young assistant was on that day who, seeing my look of confusion and threat of tears, took me in hand.

Remember the dragon who was your first ever bra fitter who insisted on snapping the elastic and reefing the support straps?

Apparently someone has taught a new generation of persuaders.  She was kind and considerate.  She didn't AUDIBLY gasp when she saw my "good" bra (although she couldn't stop the shudder) and she sized up my requirements and inability to spend big.

She knew from my demeanour that my threshold was one, so she bought me one bra to try - and it fit, and it jiggled into place (following her directions - did you know the jiggle forward, slide sides in, jiggle up routine?  I learned).

She worked out a discount that I could apply for that would bring my bra purchase under the gift card budget - and did not demur when I suggested that the remainder all go towards the charity of choice they are forced to beg for at transaction time.

And there it was.  My free bra.  Only costing me a whole day and several hundred dollars, but the best darned thing of the whole experience.

The Day (I) Went South... OR How to buy the world's most expensive bra (Part Two)

So where was I?  Oh yes, finally on the train.  (Pre-train saga here)

As I said, there were good moments.  One good moment was realising that the movie playing on the tiny screens on the ceiling was one that I had heard via audiobook earlier in the year, so I got to enjoy that.

Got to big smoke - remember this line - "I am talking printed out instructions on the THREE buses that would be required to get me from the train station to the hospital within the timeframe of WHEN THE TRAIN WAS DUE TO ARRIVE and WHEN THE APPOINTMENT WAS SET FOR.  We are talking a time gap of 65 minutes.  The three bus option would have taken forty-eight minutes - slower, admittedly, than the thirty-seven minute two bus combination that required a 758m WALK at the end of it."

I had worked out that I could sprint down the main thoroughfare, catch a bus 2 minutes after the train arrived, swap buses at a bus station 5 minutes away, swap buses a third time at another bus station and then walk 150m to get to where my specialist appointment was with 10 minutes to spare.

I had not factored in the rebuild that they were doing at the station at the other end.

Luckily a work colleague mentioned that it might be less stress to just grab a cab ('Salina's Dad and uncles were cabbies, and too many friends were in that industry for me ever to consider Uber) and, as the train station was undergoing this massive renovation, it was a good 5 minutes wandering through work zones with no signage before I found where the "courtesy bus" to the bus station (and luckily, where a cab could find me).

Another bright-side of my day was the cabbie, who had just dropped his kids at school, who had lived in the street of the hospital, who had lived in Big Smoke for 10 years and loved it and who was a very pleasant companion for the drive.  His family had been recently visited by cancer - his little sister was undergoing treatment "back home" and had lost a large percentage of her bodyweight but "praise god" looked to be recovering.  He only got to see his family every two years, when he went back to visit.  He was very fortunate to be able to help his family so much by being over here.  I can understand that.

I finally found the specialist rooms - through a multi-level carpark with lifts that had constuction zone plastic and hand-written signs as "the floors above were still being built".  Big Smoke is evidently a work in progress.

The specialist appointment was a bust.  Basically got told that they couldn't test me for anything unless I spent a fortune and here are the ways that I could spend that fortune.  Relatives who HAD been previously diagnosed with cancer could spend a lower fortune to find out, and here is how that news would impact descendents at a lower fortune again - and with a codicil of a possible fortune in insurance repercussions.  Pay the girls a small fortune on the way out.

Ugh.

Yep.

Ugh.

Lose 40% of the weekly income, hand over another sizeable percentage to be told - nothing.  Nada.  Zip.  Zilch.  Less than expletive deleted zero...

Thoroughly deflated, I realised I had HOURS to get back to the train station to ride it home in the afternoon.  But I really wasn't up to enjoying the delights of Big Smoke. 

For a start, I had very little money on me, and Big Smoke does appreciate money.

Secondly, I was on a fast day - so no eating my feelings!

I found a bus stop to wait for the "every 10 minutes" courtesy bus to take me to a bus station.  For the first 10 minutes I waited patiently.  The next 10 perhaps less patiently.  Then I thought "this is an opportunity to contact sister-outlaw" who lives in Big Smoke but I wasn't sure I would be able to catch up with.  So I rang her.  8 minutes into our phone call, the bus came - and the driver was very pointed in how rude I was to be on the phone - unfortunately for him, I had run out of spare expletive-deleteds to give about this situation, because I considered this phone call to be therapeutic.

Big Smoke continued to give.  Twelve years ago I wrote of leafblowers - I am still of the same mindset.  The bus station had one being wielded by a master in the martial art of screwing with your serenity, and he actually managed to corral all would be commuters to the very end of the platform with his officious blowering.  He was so good at it, I think he must have been working on some sort of bonus system.

This led to me diving on the first available bus towards the city.  The bus was standing room only - and with my backpack my standing room was facing the wrong way.  I got a good view of the cement walls of the bus way and then freeway, with a framing of very dour faces all barreling into the heartless centre of Big Smoke.

Readers, it broke me.  I had to escape - the first stop that bus made was the stop that I got off, because I knew that I was very brittle and it wouldn't take much to plunge me into the pit of despair at that point.

I needed caffiene.

I needed care.

I needed kindness.

Instead, I found a public art gallery, which had a coffee shop, quiet space and a chance to just be for a while.

Once loins were girded and caffiene levels topped up, I ventured out again with A PLAN.  I had four more hours in Big Smoke and one voucher - and I was going to go into the Shopping Emporium and  REDEEM...

The Day (I) Went South... OR How to buy the world's most expensive free bra (Part One)

Hello May.

So nice to see you.

May always seems to come upon me by surprise.  Generally by the end of April you do realise that the year is rushing by at the rate of knots, but there are so many Public Holidays and Birthdays and such to trip you up, then WHAT HO May is already a week gone by and the delayed reaction is definitely one of surprise.

There was a fleeting moment in time, months ago now it seems, that I was told I had a referral to a doctor who would possibly assist in the fore-knowledge on odds of dodging breast cancer bullets and would I travel to the Big Smoke to undertake this journey.

I thought Wow We Could Make that a Long Weekend completely ignoring the fact that funds would be required and school and work juggling would be requirements.  It was set for a Friday, which was a double-bonus because (a) it was adjacent to a weekend, and (b) my work on a Friday is of a permanent nature which means that I could still be paid for the time I would have to take out to travel to an appointment over 400km (250 miles) from where I reside.

But (erased long paragraph because) and so it was half-relief and half-curveball when I was told the appointment was going to be on a TUESDAY at a hospital off the rails (trains, that it) rather than a FRIDAY.  This was doubly-nowhere near as economically viable, because (a) Tuesday is not within spitting distance of a weekend, and (b) my Tuesday work is casual, and therefore a day away is a day without pay - and given the number of public holidays of late, a 20% hit to the income stream is another heart attack.

To add salt to wound, a girlfriend from Big Smoke sent me a message that she would be visiting ON THE MAY LONG WEEKEND.

Do you know what that means?

THAT MEANS that (a) Tuesday has suddenly become weekend's neighbour, and (b) ANOTHER freaking day without pay for the week, which means we are 40% down the tubes on the week...

And the economic benefit of going a day early with my mate back down to Big Smoke was negated, as the savings from cashing in one of my train tickets was more than wiped out by the taxi fare to get home from the station - as well as (more stuff deleted here) which means there would be no joy in me going early for most of us.

Thus, my day on Tuesday past began rather early.

I had decided, as my trip to Big Smoke were not stressful enough, to incorporate a fast day into the equation.  (I am doing 5:2.  Its not a diet, its a lifestyle change.  Don't drink the Kool Aid - unless its an NFD...)  My figuring was I didn't want to spend any more money that absolutely necessary, and history has decreed that hasty decisions made in Food Courts (and other purveyors of convenient refreshments) in Big Smoke wreaks havoc with my intestinal fortitude.

So my early Tuesday began with Black Coffee and being so darned organised I made myself proud.

I had the backpack packed with smart stuff:

• A warm wrap that is as good as a blanket - I chose the green one, the warmest green one that rolls up pretty tight and is comfy.  I am old, I choose comfy especially when we are talking rather early autumnal mornings - I really give little fig about my fashion critics who have arisen before dawn.
• A gorgeous little red pillow, embroidered with a butterfly, the words "Sweet Dreams are Made of These" and impregnated with hugs.
• My folder of bits of paper pertaining to my appointment.  How freaking organised am I talking?  I am talking printed out instructions on the THREE buses that would be required to get me from the train station to the hospital within the timeframe of WHEN THE TRAIN WAS DUE TO ARRIVE and WHEN THE APPOINTMENT WAS SET FOR.  We are talking a time gap of 65 minutes.  The three bus option would have taken forty-eight minutes - slower, admittedly, than the thirty-seven minute two bus combination that required a 758m WALK at the end of it.
• A folder with worky stuff and a few job opportunities that may be pertinent.  I had hours to kill.  I should tailor the CV in my spare time.  (See above note about stressful enough incorporation)
• Two magazines - a lifestyle magazine and a cooking magazine.  Because what better time to read food porn than on a fast day well away from your own kitchen.
• A book.  Not the book that I am currently reading - I am currently reading "The King's Curse" by Phillippa (either too many ls or ps) Gregory.  Fantastic, but about 20kg (44lbs) and 2 inches thick - the backpack was getting full.  And Heavy.
  No a book chosen on the merit of "its thinner than most of the others", "it isn't important enough if I decide to ditch it" and "well, its in the pile of I-haven't-got-around-to-reading-after-discovery-in-an-op-shop and so it had to happen at some point anyway" - and it delivered everything that it promised.  Disappointment.  But more on that later.
• Wallet with emergency $50, card bought for public transport in Big Smoke, gift card given to me for my recent birthday by Queen Jeanie for a store in Big Smoke, lip gloss, emery board, tissues, tweezers (how organised?) and room for the mobile phone.

You will notice that I do not have "cord from phone charger on the chance that you need to charge your phone and there is an option on your trainseat armrest" on that list - something that I was to go on to regret.

And you will also notice that "glasses case with other pair of glasses" in there either.  That was my first clue that Tuesday was going to be one of THOSE days.

That moved my drive to town from "leisurely pre-dawn cruise to the station" to "oh darn, I hope this hasn't made me late for the train panic" mode.  The radio in the car wouldn't work properly, I had noticed that the phone had already dropped 4% just by being unplugged from the charger for 3/4 of an hour and so didn't plug in my audio book.

Thus, I ended up finding the ABC pre-dawn radio host interviewing an expert in the life and times of Julius Caesar.  That was the first glimmer of joy that was to also be a feature of my day.  Yin and Yang baby. The car that pulled up next to me also had the same radio show playing. 

"I wonder" I asked him "how many of us hopping on this train are newly learned in Roman history?"

I have learned the trick of knowing whether or not you have a good seat on the train to Big Smoke.  If it is divisible by 4 evenly.  It means a window seat.  It means on the side not pierced by sunrise - and sunrise on the train is not as beautiful as one in a location of your own -choosing.  Sunrise on the train seems always to be on a rather glary vista of fields and crops.  Divisible-by 4 seats get to look out over trees and creeks dapped with the sunlight peeking through the train.

(To be continued)

(might even be back with photos)

Featuring formaldehyde, flowers, fifty, feminine curvitude, festivities and ...

Twas the day after birthdays
And all through the house
Is the creak of old bones and ...

Hello there.  I said to V that I should go and write and he said go ahead, eat chocolate, drink that drink you bought - you know, formaldehyde.

I looked at him quizzically, mentioned the return of the diet and what the heck was he talking about.

You know, he said, the fancy bottle you bought yourself.

Ah yes.  Spurred on by the information that both the bottle-oh in the shopping centre and the one near the pub would be closing and there would be no local bottle-oh in Paradise for over a week - and the double whammy of that information coming with MAJOR DISCOUNTS attached, and even though this girl NEVER goes above a $12 bottle of wine when making her bi-monthly purchase, persuaded her that she could pre-emptively celebrate her upcoming milestone with a bottle of that stuff in the unusual bottle that Queen Jeanie Next Door found in the back of HER cupboard a year or so ago and we had shared at the end of many a shared meal over the last few years - and maybe she might even get a glass or two with Queen Jeanie Next Door - so yes, I dropped above my monthly alcohol budget for an unusual bottle of - well, not formaldehyde but instead Frangelico.

But I am not imbibing tonight - as my valiant and very virtuous last few months of regulation of food has managed to achieve 33% of my required weight loss (I am currently in the category of "you are a bad parent because you are unfit and unhealthy and setting a bad example" and am hoping to achieve that tiny point of balance of "good enough" (before I topple over into the "you are bad mother because you are showing self-body hate and setting a bad example")) well and truly went to pot when I had a "what the heck, its Easter and then my birthday" hiatus - and took less than 5 days to put 20% of that loss back on in the shape of Ferrero Rochers, cinnamon scrolls, hot cross buns, hot curries, hunting eggs and Frangelico.

In fact, I was going to not indulge at all today, but as I had not been at work on my actual birthday yesterday, today was the one day of the week that I would be working at my Monday-Wednesday job this week - and as a work colleague has his birthday tomorrow, and so he and another brought in home-cooked delights to share in a morning tea with me.  And therefore impossible to say no to, because COME ON - caramel slice?  The most divine butter cookies with perfectly roasted almonds ornamenting their perfect centres?

Oh but I was so stoic....

I plugged into my phone app my intake and it advised that the homemade caramel slice (we are talking award quality) would be 200 of my allowance.  And the butter cookie would set me back 165.  Shhhh - I didn't mention the roasted almond.

However, I am the sort of admin officer who can overlook the roasted almond and wear the non-conformance.

I have to.  There are some levels of bureaucracy that boggle the mind.

So yes, yesterday I turned 50.  I noticed the distinct lack of chimes in local cathedrals at the moment of the passing of my 40s.

When I turned 21, I returned to work from my first ever holiday from my first ever full-time job, I went back ON MY BIRTHDAY - it was a Monday, so my flatmate took me out to a little place near the Cross called  Evies (I think?) that specialised in something or other - veal or schnitzel or - something flat and meaty anyway.  It was special.  Despite how wonderful that was, I vowed that this would not happen ever again.

It seemed that I always had a holiday on my birthday.  When I was very young, it was because the local show was always on the weekend near my birthday.  My world celebrated (other stuff, but still) my birthday.

Because of the proximity of my birthday to a fixed Public Holiday, I could often swing a very long weekend with a judicious taking of leave when I grew up a little.

Thursday 23 April 1992 was such a day.  I took advantage of this by dressing in an outfit of my choosing (my beloved grandma OUTDID herself that birthday with a knitted jumper with bobbles decorating the embroidered scene of OH MY GODFATHER WHAT SELF-RESPECTING YOUNG ADULT WOULD DELIBERATELY CHOOSE TO WEAR (perhaps one with great taste and a very heightened sense of self-confidence) and a flared, tiered skirt of chocolate brown with blue and yellow primitive painted daisies) and cleaned the Koi pond, this being of two-fold benefit - being able to honestly answer my darling grandmother's query of the timing of the first wearing of the birthday outfit AND to ensure that the world's most OVERBEARING landlady didn't have anything to complain about in regards to the special Koi clause in our lease.

But I got over that, in time.  The need to have any sort of money coming in when you are a casual worker (and the majority of my 30 odd years of being in paid employment have been as a casual) and there is a public holiday or two lurking kyboshed the whole "never happen again" vow.

I was umming and ahhing over whether to take the day off (it being the first day that my child went BACK to school for the new term, and LOGICALLY I would be closer to the good mother needle of perfection were I to take a day off in the ACTUAL holidays) when I got the goodish mother chance card - Paris was STUDENT OF THE WEEK to be presented ON MY BIRTHDAY.

 Hooray - just what a girl wants for her birthday - JUSTIFICATION!!!

Because I am a fair-skinned girl who grew up in Central Queensland, one of the facts of life to face is that you need to have constant skin checks - because all of those "burned to peeling" moments in your childhood (despite your mother telling you OVER AND OVER again to put on the Factor 15+) may lead to those BCC (or SCC - still don't know the difference) discovery moments - and I got one of them last week (when I was still in my 40s)...

And so, when I made the appointment for them to "deal with the margin" they offered me the option of 11:15 on my birthday...

Ah well, I had the double down on the JUSTIFICATION but it somehow didn't taste so sweet - almost as virtuous though.

So my day looked fairly laid back - try to be a decent mother, chill, get a bit hacked out of me, chill, watch my child get her Student of the Week award, go to her piano lesson and go out to dinner with Queen Jeanie, and her Princess and the Princess's consort.


But birthdays are never just like that, are they?

There was the lead up to the event, with full knowledge that on the morning of my birthday I would receive a Hawkins - as well as full knowledge that the secret daughter and daddy business behind closed doors the night before (and absolving them of washing up duties) involved the Hawkins being disguised (my every year joke is that I am giving a pony or a record player - Paris amused me by declaring that it was a Castle).

There were the phone calls from blood relatives - apparently there are families in the world where telephone calls before mid-morning are frowned upon, I come from one where 7 is polite - and had the full bingo card of immediate family members before 8.

There was the gentle unwrapping of the Hawkins - I am from Camp Try-To-Save-The-Beautiful-Paper-by-Peeling-Sticky-Tape (my husband is from the What-The-Heck-Are-You-Doing-Woman mob) and the obligatory recipe book "with International Recipes".

The main reason for the Hawkins is I LOVE took cook curry - and there are just some recipes that I know would benefit from following the way the locals do it, and as the Hawkins is (apparently) the BEST (or maybe MOST SOLD) in INDIA that would be the way.

The International Recipe cookbook does have a Curry section, but you can tell that it is a half-hearted attempt to appease their booming audience of the 1960s - expats and aspirants.  Complete with appealing 1960s food photography, where it is slightly dark, moist and unadorned with herbs.

We contemplated whether it would be worth trying to make a Canary Pudding just to see what the heck it really is, and are easily amused by the concept of Puree du Barry.  (Although I am prepared to lie and say I am vegan should I ever be called upon to put braised sheeps tongue into the Hawkins)

All too soon it was time to cajole Paris into going to school - first day of school is never as bad, surprisingly (well, except for the first ever first day) but there can be some quicksand on the road to leaving the house.

When I got home, I got inspired - I have to go through my very, very, very full folder of recipes and cull.  I do like a project on my special day.  I started to go through them.

Next thing, there was a knock at the door - and a very large bunch of sunflowers walked through the door.

My sister and my nephew had got up at crack-of-dawn-O'Clock to drive over to surprise me for my birthday - and been very, very sneaky about it, apparently!

We ate beautiful mushrooms and drank coffee by the ocean and talked and laughed - it was wonderful.  A two-hour holiday.

All too soon, I had an appointment to keep and they have an auto-shop or two to visit (nephew is newly licensed).

The doctor is your young hip type.  The type that wear body hugging clothes and aftershave and elastisides boots (and never twig that their - face it - middle-aged frumpy patient is JUDGING HIM on his not polishing them).  The type that is so NICE but NEVER QUITE GET your sense of humour.  The type that is about old enough to be your child and you are unsure if they speak the same generational language.  Do doctors have to study social history?  Does he even KNOW who Johnny Diesel was?

He has a young hip nurse, too - one that I joke with about my phone dinging a few messages before I have a chance to mute it and that doesn't even notice when I am asked to repeat my birth date (because if there is a moment you would choose to send a fraud in would be when you are to have a malignant spot on your arm cut out - and the surest way of finding you would would be the KNOWN FACT that frauds who are likely to lose body bits in the exchange OFTEN can't MEMORISE one SIMPLE DATE...).

So 25 minutes after the doors open moment, in walks Dr Cool.  He is so cool, he is left-handed as he draws a little target for himself on my arm...

He has placed is phone on a shelf, and it is playing quite possibly the worst soft-rock modern music that I have ever heard.  It isn't quite street and it isn't very country, its got a wishywashy beat and lyrics that sort of don't scan and don't have meaning but seem to almost mean something so you are sucked into trying to work out what-the-actual - that you don't really notice that he has now put dart-lines around his target.

When I made a few dressmaking quips (yes, they do exist, and I expect people to get them when I utter them) and he gave me that sort of pitying-half-smile that I have inside my own mind at his scuffed RMs.

He then put in lots and lots of local anesthetic - or so it seemed - and the "do you feel this" accompanying every jab could have doubled for the sounds coming out of the device.

Unfortunately I did not outdo V in his arm scar length, with only 8 stitches to pull me back together.

It seemed only minutes from getting home from that before I had to turn around to watch Paris get her award (well, there was a whole rest of the primary school parade built around it, of course, but that was the main reason) and go into town to celebrate and have piano lessons, try to catch up with said sister and nephew, go to the Club with QJ et al...

It was quite restful going back to work, really.

I missed February - did you?

I just deleted a whole post of woe is me and just want to say so long, sucker.  You shan't be missed.

Its a brand new year - or a twisted tale of ringing it in, bringing it on - and o-rings...

Welcome to 2019.  I have plans for 2019.

Well, the short-term plans are for the first week of 2019 - sort of an extension of the plans I had for the last week of 2018 with added urgency because I go back to work on the 7th.

To misquote The Princess Bride (because who doesn't), I have got my 50th to plan, my house to re-arrange, my life to renovate, and Guilder to frame for it. I’m swamped!

Life, however, has a way of inserting itself into great plans, doesn't it?

The front room looks reasonable - a few large bags of op shop donations and far clearer than it has been for years - well, except for the large family heirloom sideboard that needs to find another family member to look after it.

Paris' room looks emptier - it had an enforced clean-out a few weeks ago due to misalignment of priorities and a standoff over a 10 minute clean.

We shan't look into most of the other rooms just yet - still on the list.

But the big ticket item for today - the living room - looks amazing - all walls are now primed and ready for some colour.

That was where we had aimed to be today, but as I said, life and insertion...

You see, we have amazing water pressure in our kitchen.  We have already replaced all washers at least 3 times in recent memory, and the hardware has been replaced also.

One of our long-term plans is to move the kitchen into the living room area so that it is more open plan and the room it is in can become a sitting room come office space - so the whole "we have to overhaul the plumbing" courtesy of the blessing of high water pressure has been one of those jobs that are in the "can we please put it off until the planets align" basket.

Unfortunately, it seems Aquarius was rising and had a hangover today, because the current fix for the  musical "ping ping ping" of dripping taps (holding your mouth right, turning the right tap off hard while adjusting the left tap and giving the spout a bit of a tweak) decided it was no longer going to work at lunchtime.

Lunchtime, when we were about to celebrate a morning well spent with paintbrush and roller, lunchtime, when we had an afternoon of bathing in the ocean and resting on our laurels to contemplate - lunch time, when all hell broke loose.

It is possible I exaggerate when I say "all hell" - although V can colour the air with epistles when dealing with plumbing issues that do touch upon such themes.

One minute, he was rinsing the brush for storage overnight and the next, opera to the tune of gushing water was ringing forth.

It is New Year's Day - I only have two children to ransom, and neither would possibly raise me enough for an emergency plumber on a public holiday.

V is handy enough to try things once, so the water was turned off and 3/4 of the fixtures removed from the existing kitchen wall to determine the depth of the damage.

V is smart enough (ish) to know that when you try to remove the last fixture and all of the tubing behind moves with it, it is possibly best to stop and just swear at it a bit more.

We are blessed - it is Summer, we have an ocean and sea-side showering facilities.  We are also blessed with neighbours and friends whom we can cadge showers and laundry options from when we get to that point.

But we did have to suffer this evening with doing a camping wash up in a pan, and Paris learned how to brush her teeth with a cup of water as her rinsing and spitting option.

And we now have to look down the barrel of getting a plumber at a reasonable rate asap.

2019 - you have been an adventure so far.

So - Happy New Year!!  How has the New Year been treating you?