A short tale about Mice, Men and Sheds

 A few weeks ago, I went to visit the folks.

It was a long weekend (again - we had 3 in a row - you start to expect it.)

I had most carefully curated my world that I felt I could safely travel to the countryside and see Mum and Dad.

Dad and I got to share a little project.

Their cat, as a mouser, is all class.  Currently he is spoiled for choice - the area is having a mouse plague.  Luckily, there are none to be found in their house - but I think it is because the cat is running a racket.

You see, they stay off his turf and he only shows signs of one or two a day, and he does it rather brashly and unabashedly.  My mother has always had a ritualistic cat.  This one is just like the rest, but with it turned up to 11.

Dad and I cleared the challenges in his shed back down to slightly more organised challenges in his shed.

While doing so, well hidden signs - and the witnessing of many of the scurrying rodents - I surmised that this was where the cat kept his compliant colony.

I saw video of such rodential activity in a near-to-them town's shop during the week.  One does not appreciate the magnitude of the word "plague" until one sees it first hand.

I suppose that is a bit like a pandemic.  Much nicer in the books than in real life, really.

But the shed is amazing now.  We know where the important photos are (still in boxes, but we can locate them), where the not so important documents from 30-50 years ago are and where the "start working our way through the ones at this end" boxes are.  We even know what shelves he would like to be looking at should he ever have a decent rainy day to look at shelves and sort stuff out.

I remember as a kid - the rare occasions when there was no chance of going out to work, your Dad would go down to the shed and be sorting.

Buckets of this and barrows holding that would start to accumulate outside the door - but under the edge of the roof and so out of the rain - and you would be sent down from the house at regular intervals to advise of food opportunities or to "help" for a bit (and looking back, to give Mum a moment to herself, which was otherwise impossible on such rain days).

Down there, you would be given stories of how this gizmo came into being or the bloke who once gave him some good advice or what that could be used for if and if he just chucked it away, guaranteed the next day he would need it.  Guaranteed.

Anyway, so we had fun.

When young, we would discover new pathways and buckets of treasure that were worth saving from the dump.  we found snake-skins.  We found new toys.

We got filthy dirty.  We had fun.

Rivulets of rainwater would flow from the inadequately plumbed gutters and open sides and we would become engineers and create elaborate civilisations along their paths.

 It rained on the day that I helped Dad too.

Only it wasn't like that.  It was a scud to keep us on our toes.  Instead of building dams and glades, I was building brickwork of boxes and blowing away the debris.

We found some corker photos.  Boxes with history and mystery and incredulity and "What?"

We had fun.

Did any one else grow up with shed rituals?

When you can't find them for looking...

Lost.

My husband has lost a pair of glasses of late.

I often wonder what its like, being able to lose a pair of glasses.

As one whose vision is not only enhanced but made sense of with the occultation of some mighty weird lenses, this blithe disregard of the whereabouts of such an essential piece of equipment is - well, as fuzzy a concept as my eyesight should that misfortune ever come to me.

He thinks it might have happened on the weekend.  No, the one before - it was after that Friday anyway.

Just before "this bloddy thing" hit back in March, my deteriorating ability to read combined with separate pairs of not-quite ideal glasses was upgraded - at a premium - to one pair of multi-faceted light-sensitivity-tinted you-beaut glasses.

My eyesight does not come into that category that fits neatly into any sort of specials that Optometrists and health funds delight in - used to delight in.  It is the sort that requires ADDITIONAL cost to ensure that it doesn't end up so heavy it will fall off your face.

Apparently.

I had a run in with the poor girl who was my first attempt at making a transaction.

I have a type at Optometrist Dispensers.  Well, I would like to have a type.  The type I would like is one that would tell me exactly which one would suit me at the most inexpensive price and this is how the ordering process should occur - as opposed to the type that is actually attracted to me - the boss you about, take you for a fool, employ industry slang and jargon to bamboozle and then jump you with the bill.

I am sure that the poor young thing was just as jangled as I given the circumstances of the almost hushed atmosphere of mid-March pre-covid.

(Ah, remember then?  Hand sanitizers and food shortages and gob-smacked at Italy, France, the UK and Spain,)

She made one move - said one thing, the wrong thing, the wrong way and I was a jangling ball of anxiety about the impending requirement of being grown up enough to navigate Health Funds, Diarising, Budgeting, Fashion and Fast Lunch-Breaks.  Like a young horse I bolted and cowarded out with an "Can I take a Quote Away and Think About It?".

I have parked in a different spot at the shopping centre since then.  I don't like to walk past in case she might pounce.

He thinks that he may have left them in a shop.  Don't know which shop or why.  On a shelf somewhere.  Imagine being able to navigate life without them.

But I don't want the operation.  I have no problem with other people doing what they like with their eyes, but there are moments when I don't mind being unfocused.

That and I don't want someone sticking a knife into my eye.

Every time I see a pair of his glasses lying around the house, I tell him.  I say "oh, honey, I saw a pair of your glasses on the bench/in the bathroom/in Paris' room/downstairs" and he says "which ones?"

He's so funny.  As if I could tell them apart.  They all look like men's glasses to me.  His eyesight is such that Optometrists not only offer him deals, they GIVE HIM glasses with no gap! 

Me, the pair before the last lot, I got hoodwinked by a modern edgy Optical Dispenser who managed to give me a quote for nearly a grand for two pairs because I had been lulled by the possibility of sunglasses (imagine, sunglasses - I have NEVER had a pair of sunglasses that I could see clearly through without contacts, and they are a pain in the butt - well the eyeball, but whatever) before she got to the "oh, we don't do that deal for your prescription, you need to pay an ADDITIONAL cost to ensure that it doesn't end up so heavy it will fall off your face."  Like a very grey mare I shied and cowarded out with an "Can I take it Away and Think About It?".

"Oh, thats the pair that I keep for the garden" he tells me when I find yet another pair in another spot.  Or maybe they are the same pair that he just keeps rehiding on me to send me crazy.

The pair before that, the older, respectable matronly Optical Dispenser not only talked me down from the fact that the glasses were giving me instant migraines whenever I wore them, she made me endure another week of hell because she thought it was because I wasn't wearing them enough and I should just battle through before calling in the learned one.

The next week she allowed me into the inner sanctum.  "Oh" the Optometrist said - giggle - "we've put the prism in upside-down.  These would have been of no help whatsoever - leave them with me for a few days." as he ushered me out the door.

But she was in wait for my leaving, because she bamboozled me with being grown up and navigate Health Funds, Diarising, Budgeting, Fashion and a Lunch-Break to be terminated with a return to the world's worst workplace.

She tricked me by offering the possibility of sunglasses and had led me well down the path and turned with the  "oh, we don't do that deal for your prescription, you need to pay an ADDITIONAL cost to ensure that it doesn't end up so heavy it will fall off your face."  Like a startled foal I started and got the guts to "Cancel what the Witch Suggested" (aided by the dire state of our finances a the time - my embarrassment has made me pay for far more stupid things in the past).

"No," he said, when I held aloft a pair found secreted on a cluttered horizontal space "those ones only have one eye."

I wonder if there are many pairs of one-eyed glasses hidden around the world in the houses of those who only require a half-view?

Anyhoo...  do you get Optometrist Anxiety too?

I always feel like I am going to fail the test that I have been called in to sit for.

They ask such dumb questions.

Did you Dux? Or, the Tale of the Red Chair...

Based on my own personal anecdata, (early 80s Year 7) Dux was definitely based on teacher preference.

I went to a TINY school that received most teachers based on demerit .

On the rare occasion that we lured a good one, they were looking for us, and we them.  When you live in a small community, the worth of a good schoolteacher is valued.

However, we had form.  Apparently the town was mentioned in State Parliament in the 1950s for the local walkout by families in reaction to such indifferent teachers.

Thommo came to the school when I was in Year 6.  In my year, there were 5 students.  There was (using our Charlie's Angels names) Sabrina, Kelly, Bosley, Kris and Jill .  In the year above us, there was one girl, in the year below, one girl.  There were 20 students in the whole school - counting the pre-schooler.
The first year Thommo was there (and every year prior to that for at least 30 years) there was no dux.

The second year - mine and Thommo's final year - Thommo decided he would create a Dux award.

Now, all 5 of us had been together for 7 years of schooling.  We KNEW our order of academic progress -  Sabrina, Kelly, Bosley, Kris and Jill - every single time. 

Thommo had brought with him from the city a few quaint beliefs.

An abhorrence of Queensland, the bush and its people - which did make things a tad uncomfortable.

A desire to teach such savages Australian Rules Football (or aerial ping-pong as we locally referred to it) - he was deep in Polocrosse, Campdrafting and Rugby League territory.

Motorcycling for fun.  Yeah.  In a community that valued topsoil because where it wasn't that, it was granite and angular, and by the way it HURT a lot if your horse dropped you - but at least that bugger would walk home.  You had to PUSH a motorcycle.

And Thommo held a rigid belief in intellectual superiority of males.  How ridiculous!!!  We all knew THAT was BS.  We had all grown up with our mothers being the brains and our fathers being the instruments of each farming enterprise.  Some of our fathers didn't even know how to talk to kids, let alone crack a book or think about numbers.  That was what mothers were great at.  That and organising stuff.  Thommo didn't think so.

So Thommo's parting shot to a community that had not been warm to his presence for that and so many more transgressions was the installation of the Dux award.  I think perhaps to cement his posterity in the region.

Thommo awarded the Dux to Bosley.

We all cheered for Bosley, of course - he was a good bloke and we had all grown up together.

But we were (in order) Sabrina, Kelly, Bosley, Kris and Jill.

The eyeroll of parents and students alike caused seismic sensation at the school.

Our parting shot to Thommo was a gift-wrapped Red Chair.

The Red Chair had been the Little Room's birthday chair prior to Thommo's arrival.  On the day when you got to celebrate YOUR day, you got to be a special person for the day in The Red Chair.  You got to choose activities, Mrs Hockey baked you a cake and let you help wash up.  It was pretty special.

Thommo made it a pretty special chair too.  Thommo installed this chair on the upstairs verandah outside of his office.

"The Red Chair"

Anyone who was the first to rise Thommo's ire on any morning (and every morning) would get detention upon The Red Chair.

I must admit, whether consciously or subconsciously, it seems that I volunteered myself most days for this pleasure.

I did not take Thommo's views silently, not with a mother like mine.

So  our parting shot to Thommo was a gift-wrapped Red Chair.  We solemnly presented his special piece of furniture for him to take to the next poor school he had been demoted to.

We figured the kids of Coen may need it.

Boiled Lollies

Firstly, a trigger warning.  I know that just because I did not have a horrible experience does not in any way lesson the reality and impact that this could have.

When I was young, one of the best things in the world to do was to go for a drive with Dad.  Generally he would take one or two of us at least when he went to check the waters and turn on a motor and do those little weekend jobs that could take you to many wonderful places and do many wonderful things.

Fish dead parrots out of tanks at the middle yards.

Pull up a wire or two across a creek crossing.

Try and get a bull back through to his paddock on foot - or drafted by land rover.

And sometimes (if we were lucky) go over to the neighbours.

We had a few neighbours, but the best fun of all was when we would go to Oakey, and see Keiran and Lilian - and Wayne and Judy and Jeni and Willem and Fammo and the many and varied nefarious animals and people that lived there from time to time - they had a caravan and a relatively fluid work-force.  Looking back, they seemed to be a half-way house for all sorts of interesting background stories - and knowing more of their stories the older I get (or guess at), this is possibly true.

Anyway, one of the characters was Tom, an old (probably in hindsight around my age now) bachelor who was uncomfortable with polite society - but loved to see kids smile.

He had a way of making kids smile - he had this big bag of tropical fruit lollies that had the picture of the fruit on - in garish colours against the wrapper's waxen white - that were magical.  They were hard and sickly sweet but after you sucked on them long enough, sharp cracks in the shell would appear and an explosion of chemical flavour purported to be reflective of the fruit depicted. 

He would whisper you to one side of the gathering and say what a beautiful smile you had and he would give you a handful of these sweets and enjoy that moment.

And that was it.

He was not the only purveyor of sweets - old Mrs Higgins gave apron warmed minties, the Murrays always came through with super-sweet home-made cordial - given our only chocolate and sugar consumption came in the form of Christmas and Easter, these all featured on the highlights reel.

I remember feeling uncomfortable when the "men offering children boiled sweets" became public knowledge when I was a bit older - and I was saddened that forevermore, that experience would be tarnished by the fact that, in other people's worlds, that wasn't it.

The Parisian Boulevardes of my childhood... (part whatever)

I remember that I was about 8 years old.  Old enough to know what I wanted to do and what I wanted to wear.

Young enough that my mother still thought that she could tell me what to do.

She could.

I was eight.

It was the Seventies.

Whatever Women's Rights may be, Mothers Rights ruled supreme, with their wooden spoon sceptres and their castles their homes.

So when she told me what to do - which was to take this tablet, this bright red, shiny and very round tablet, and to ingest it after my breakfast, but before going to school - I took the tablet.

"It says that it is chewable," she offered, as she proffered the orb.

It lied.

It was neither chewable nor swallowable.  Forces external to my body rejected it, all moisture was sucked from my mouth and the red shell cracked and mixed with whatever chemistry was left.

--

That being said, she had allowed me to choose my clothing.  She was a fair and smart mother for making such a compromise.

I had just ONE item in my wardrobe that I really felt said it was authentically ME when I was that age.

It was so cool.

It was a white t-shirt with silhoettes of buildings with a few bright trees in the foreground, and a lamp-post and the words "Paris" across to one side.

So me.

Not so cool that I looked wannabe - it was a little bit too twee for the part of the Seventies I inhabited, with Countdown just getting going with more live music and stuff that Molly Meldrum told us was the "next big things" - but I digress.

She allowed me to choose my clothing, which was my Paris t-shirt and a pair of shorts.  I can't even remember which shorts.

--
But yes, in return, I took the tablet.

I put it into my mouth - and the subsequent projection was in the form of foam.

I could not stop blubbering the foam out as I looked in panic at my mother. The foam was red.
Really, really red.

And it was like there was a fountain within my mouth flowing down the front of my shirt.

My beautiful shirt.

My mother's eyes and mine met.

Me begging her to make this not happen - and her pity for me and regret at being the purveyor of such a curse.

--
It was not the last time she would ever make me throw up in the name of medicine.

It was the last time that I ever saw my Paris t-shirt.

--
Do you want to know the worst bit?

The worst bit was - the tablet was for worms.  The worms that she thought maybe I had, because I was always on the toilet.

The reason that I was always on the toilet was that I was addicted to reading.  It is possible that I had just discovered several years worth of National Geographic - or a good Betty and Veronica - and was slacking off from whatever tasks and chores my parents would allot me if they caught sight of me.

And so I would sit on the pot and read.
--
And now, I am the mother of a similarly afflicted child CALLED Paris.

And for two nights in a row earlier this week, she has "had to go to the toilet" for extended periods after bedtime, because she has got a book.

Not necessarily a good one.  Just any one.

Then yesterday, she got some new technology.  A cereal company was running a promotion over the school holidays, where if you pestered your grand/parent/s enough to get THREE of their SPECIALLY MARKED packs, you could apply online and get a FITNESS TRACKER.

And to put the cherry on top, her stodgy parents ACCEDED TO HER WISHES.

And, as promised, within three weeks she received a BRIGHT RED FITNESS TRACKER.

It is awesome - although I have a feeling it may have its limitations.

She thinks it is AWESOME and will accessorize her school uniform and be AUTHENTICALLY her.

Yes, she is eight, why do you ask?
--
This morning, she was up at half past dark, because she had a book to read.

And she had her new fitness tracker.

And by a quarter-to she-is-usually-being-dragged-out-of-bed-at-this-time, she has "already done 547 steps, Mum".

We then did a scientific experiment.  I got her to walk five steps away and five steps back.  "Now how much" I asked her.

"573" she replied, downcast.

"It'll be good for your maths, then," I joked with her.

She was not amused.

She then spent the next five minutes, on the bog, shaking her arm, occasionally yelling out numbers.
--
Perhaps she has worms?

 We will never truly know what the Paris t-shirt looked like, but one thing is for sure - it didn't look much like this at all...

Please Shut the GATE

When I was a kid, there was a sign - white, with blue writing - metal -affixed to our back gate.

"Please Shut the GATE".

---

Did you have a back gate when you were a kid?

All the important people in our life came through the back gate.

It was the way to the shed and the yards, the clothesline and the car shed.

People of no importance - the postman or other grown ups - may have occasionally breached the front gate, with it crepe myrtle forest, or more often the side gate near the patio and the tv-antenna tower, but the really important people - Dad, Jock, Grandpa, Tex, Mum, us kids - all used the back gate.

---

The sign had thin cursive script for the first three words - "Please Shut the" and then gone wild with a block 3-D effect capitalised .

I remember sitting on the laundry roof when I was a kid - there was a really cool way that even a little unco kid like me could access the laundry roof - I was sitting up there and staring at this sign. I might have been about four or five at the time?

Anyway, I think Mum had caught me on the roof and made me get down and I spent a bit of time hanging out in front of that gate having a disagreement about the relative justice - or indeed injustice - being given in banning a child from being able to see the world from a height - and I must have used the sign to focus on as I had to listen to her go on about danger and plummets and blah blah blah blah blah...

I KNEW what the sign said, because it was one of those little things that people would read out aloud as they passed the threshold - but there was a moment in time when it suddenly became clear to me that this word - GATE - equated to the actual sounds of the word that they said.

I was BLOWN AWAY.

How cool it was, I thought, that someone had worked out that certain shapes represented sounds - and I was suddenly absolutely VORACIOUS in seeking more words to masticate and savour.

Nothing was safe from me. Weet-bix packs were awesome, with information not only on the OUTSIDE of the box but on the cards too. I read ingredients on jars and every billboard between our home and my Grandma's.

That is how I read books. I can read books with plot and little padding, but I wallow in a good word-puddle.

 The sign is no longer there - that gate is no longer there, I am no longer there, the laundry roof is no longer there, Mum is no longer there - all that is there now is the bottom of the back stairs.

That - and this blog post.

The Sliver Tinsel Chritsmas Tree - or how my mother stole Christmas...

I do most humbly wish to beg your pardon for bringing the Yule traditions into this November offering - you who know me know that this is not my style.

I have long been known for my "Bah! Humbug!" attitude especially towards breaking the December 1 release date, but I remembered a yarn and it appears I am mellowing in  my dotage (well, it feels like it some days - I was putting this lethargy at the altar of "old mother young child (nyah, nyah we told you so)" but apparently "gestated-lactated-menstruated anemia*" gets to podium.  So nyah nyah back, some old mother young child combos apparently don't feel as exhausted as I)...

* I keep going to say amnesia - but I know its not - and then I laugh because that would indeed be amnesia

So yeah, really mellowing in my dotage.  

Anyhoo, I remembered the tale of the Silver Tinsel Christmas Tree and thought perhaps it should be written down.

We don't have Christmas tree memories that include warm cocoa and tree lots and the smell of pine oils. 

Ours instead are of mysterious boxes in the top corner of the office cupboard that were unearthed annually, the contents of which shone in festive delight in the the corner of the living room...

The first ever yuletide tradition that is in my memory is the Silver Tinsel Christmas Tree made of the fore-mentioned tinsel glued to wires that clicked into the trunk of steel.  It was a thing of beauty and engineering splendour - for a few years.  And then, sadly, it was no longer a thing of beauty and splendour - and it was the first item of importance that I ever recall the end of.** 

** Perhaps this was because most other items of importance that were attempted at ending were rescued by weekly missions I took to our dump.  

My mother was very canny in how she ended the reign of the Silver Tinsel Christmas Tree.

We were going down to the Sunshine Coast for the Christmas holidays.  Markets must have been up or the dollar good or something, but we were going down to the promise of the beach, the cricket, and rellos crammed into every spare space for a whole week!

My mum must have been feeling excessively wealthy, because she proposed that rather than do our usual tree, she would decadently lash out and get us a DIFFERENT tree for the holidays.  Maybe even - a REAL tree.
 

Two things.  

Firstly - perhaps it wasn't a part of your culture or background, but packing the Christmas Tree to put up at the end of your journey is not just a real thing for some people - but it JUST WAS.  

Remember how packed the car used to get going away on the holidays?  

Full Summer.  Pre-air-conditioned cars.  Packed to the roof-racks.  Knees around your ears and holding half the presents.  Now add in a few boxes for the tree and baubels.  It happened.

---

And secondly - there is a GOOD REASON why Australians - or more specifically, Queenslanders - choose to eschew real trees.

ReasonS.  Millions of the little buggers that parch and plummet as soon as you have exchanged money for the tree.  

And I can assure you, the smell of old, dry, flammable pine needles mixed with 35 degree day in a Queensland summer is not necessarily a fragrance that evokes positive flashbacks - and it may be why so many of us drink.

But yes.  My mother.  The tree.  

I have worked out NOW, forty years later, that she was prising our yearning off the Silver Tinsel Christmas Tree and attempting to pre-campaign a double-bluff to advantage her choice for the replacement - a more traditional green plastic tree that took up less acreage or cubic volume and required less vacuuming - than whatever yahoo concoction that may connect with my father's eye and was brought into the familial equation.

Well played, Mother.  Well played.

So - what was your first memory of such chicanery? 

Pedalled furiously but didn't podium

Here is what I did (didn't even get a photo, let alone a video - oh well)

---

Good evening ladies and gentlemen.  Are we having a good time?

Shall we limber up with a little audience interaction – a getting to know you better session.

Hands up, everybody here, who procrastinates?

Take your time…

Okay – all of you who are passive aggressive, keep your hands down by your sides and mutter “get stuffed” under your breath.

Those of you who are cyclists, please raise a hand.  Both hands?  No hands?  That would be right, frigging show offs!

It’s good to see cyclists with senses of humour. 

I mean, statistically there have to be some cyclists with funny bones...

I hold nothing against cyclists – well, not since they took out intervention orders. 

Please don’t get me wrong – its not that I have an overwhelming dislike of all humans who partake of the riding of such beasties.

However, I do have an irrational reaction to cycle related matters.  I have had therapy, but the nightmares do continue.

It is a recurring theme of my life is the connection of bicycle related misadventures and the moments of despair.

Take, for example, the REAL reason that I am in your fair city on this specific weekend - is because I had to go to a dentist.

 

“Hey”, I hear you think (because that is my particular superpower) “where does an approaching middle-aged – don’t fool yourself darling – biddy get off associating the final chapters of her dontic disaster ride with a lifestyle of wide smiles and the up/down thrust of the pedalators of this world?”

You are rather floral with your thought processes, I must say, and I do not appreciate the dig at my age!

It goes a little something like this…

Once upon a time, when I (and the world) was young, I had a bicycling milestone and a grandfather with pony promises arriving – or due to arrive - on the same day.

How frigging exciting is that to a seven-year-old girl?

The whole bike without trainer-wheels concept was cracked with years of tears and slavish endeavour.

Grandpa was set to arrive in his Golden Chrysler Valiant sedan at some point during the afternoon.

Knowing the way that Grandpa drove, it was bound to be later rather than sooner – but hope and pony promises had my insides doing somersaults.

My anticipation of showing Grandpa the newfound ability to truly bi-cycle across the gravel was bound to ensure that the oft-promised pony – his stated bribe for any feat - would materialise out of the boot.

All afternoon, I alternated peering up the road for plumes of dust - and practicing my perculiar combination of balance, beat, bounce and blessings from a merciful god to achieve the upright glide of a seasoned professional.

Right on dusk, a ray of sun glinted off a distant windscreen and gave cheer…

I ran for my bike.  Grandpa tooted the horn and the Golden Golden Chrysler Valiant glid towards the back gate.

I hopped on my bike and started my short journey to greet him.  

Grandpa got out of the car.  He and the rest of the family looked toward me.  

I sped up.  Now was the moment.  Now was the moment.  Now was the moment.

My foot slipped from a pedal – I hit some loose gravel – I forgot how to brake – the bike steered to the left –the wheel hit a rut - I sailed forward over the handlebars – the road came up to meet me – and connected with a tooth.

I am not saying it is the fault of the bike.  By extrapolation, it is not the fault of all of those good men and women who pedal across the country that I have had every profession with a dontic term in their names in my oral orifice at some point - nor can they  be blamed for the therapy required to get here tonight.

But they are such good targets. 

And I still hold hope for that pony.

Mum's Magic

When I was a kid, my mother was magical.  She kept her secret potions in her red make-up case.  She also had a treasure-trove of vitamins, tonics, powders and pills (and had the skills to use them) in the tupperware container in the kitchen.

Did everyone's mother have a make-up case?  They were hard and quite three-dimensional and were often placed beneath the Mum's feet in the car on trips, or regally towards the left of Mum's dressing-table.  If you were a very, very good girl, you got to go into Mum's Room and gaze upon the wonders that were in her make-up case.

It was always "Mum's Room" in my experience. Occasionally, if he had somehow kindled a feeling of warmth and regard, you might refer to it as "Mum and Dad's Room" but you and he both knew it was a concession of love.  There was, indeed, "Dad's Side of the Bed" and "Dad's Drawers" (upon which lived folded handkerchief's, a notebook, loose change, the other watch and mystery objects), "Dad's Toilet" was a luxury we all aspired to and "Dad's Chair" (a beauty that still exists in our living room, thirty-five years after its fortuitous entry into our lives through a one dollar raffle ticket from the Eidsvold Sport's Day), but there was a definite leaning toward the "Mum owns everything in the house because" philosophy in my childhood.

But I digress.  (and Dad did have does have quite a land claim on some of my childhood memories)

Mum used Oil of Ulan.  It was beautiful.  It smelt so luxurious and the little dab we were allowed on our fingers were so smooth and rubbed in to such a soft dream of nothing on your skin.  But you must never, never, never, never, never go in to Mum's room without being allowed to.

The living room used to be right next to Mum's Room.  The house was an original design, the sort of warren that exists from the family home emerging from an outstation heritage.  One where unexpected doors offered entry into rooms that geographically should not adjoin.  I didn't know, during my childhood, that there were homes out there that didn't have this feature.  Our home did, as did the majority of our neighbours.  Cupboards that were secret passages to other rooms did exist.  Laundry chutes were of the seventies child's secret dreams, and when they were discovered, always coveted.

The doorway between these two rooms, in my memory, were double doors with square panes of that gorgeous rough glass that worked so well behind paper with decent crayon action.  It is possible that my siblings may have attempted such feats without the paper.

These doors were permanently open - however the doorway ensured privacy with a curtain of green beads - circles and rectangles and diamonds and spheres.  We were NOT ALLOWED to tug on them or race through them but these ILLICIT ACTS were so tempting - especially when you had siblings who were fun to laugh with and make noise with and play with.

Mum's Dressing Table was heavenly.  It had little drawers and boxes with treasures beyond imagination.  If ever anything was needed in any part of the house, no matter how obscure, and the finder asked "Mu-um, do you know where the (insert obscure object here) is?" the answer would more often than not be "have you tried the dressing-table?" - and so often, by magic, this was indeed the hiding place of the object required.

When I was a Girl

Reading a message board elsewhere, I realised how interested I was in how everyone grew up - what some people got to take as "normal" and what was deemed "exotic".

When I was a girl:

We had a party line phone - our number was 4S which meant that if there were three short rings, the call was for us - and if you wanted to make a call, you would pick up the phone and say "working?" before you rang - if it wasn't for anyone on our line, we had to call the operator and get connected.

Our school still had thunderboxes - septic toilets came to the school when I was about year 3, prior to that we had to walk to up near the oval, sit on a wooden seat above a pit and bucket, sprinkle sawdust on any business that was done and George would empty it every week - when a teacher went a bit mad one Arbour Day and they planted over 20 new trees, one of the science experiments was that the pre-fertilisation treatment for a few of the trees was courtesy of such - and those trees did grow a treat!

The toilet that we had at home was downstairs - it was known as "the library" as it was on the subscription list for the Readers Digest.  There was a gas bottle kept outside of it with a patch of black paint on it - I gave myself nightmares for years after a poignant episode of "Whodunnit" where a pirate's patch was integral, as I imagined it to be a pirate.  I had NFI what a pirate actually was.

We had meat with every meal - meat was cheap for us, as we lived on a cattle property (and corned beef was far more regular than ham).  Vegetables were a little harder to come by.  When Mum first moved up there, she was flat out finding potatoes or onions locally.  While pumpkin were truly plentiful (Dad would always throw a few seeds into the ashes of any burned trees), other fresh commodities were scarce.  Mum did try to make a vegetable patch, but kangaroos and rabbits fared far better than we did.  I thought peas were either tinned or surprise.  I thought mushrooms naturally were wrinkled. 

Television was a choice of 2 channels (zero with bad weather) and I didn't see Sesame Street in colour until I was about 6 - I was shocked at how yellow Big Bird was.  These days, with digital and the weather we are having, most nights I have a choice of 2 channels (as NITV is still picture NITV, sound SBS so not an option)

If you were blessed enough to be have been bestowed with a camera, generally you bought a 100 film (unless you were a bit fancy) and really conserved your pictures as even though you had heard rumours of 26 photos being achieved on a 24 roll, all too often they were busted as myths with doubled pictures or blurred results.  Once you had finished a film, it was sent off (with a price tag of 24.95) to be returned a week or so hence full of surprises and disappointments.

It would take us a full day of driving to get to Brisbane - and visit one Grandmother.  We used to play "White Horse" with the billboards and number plates we zoomed past -it was preferable to be on the drivers side during the first part of the trip, as cars whizzing by were your best bet - but passenger's side nearer to the city, as the billboards offered riches.  When we saw the "Supa-Maid" ad on the side of a shop, we knew we would see Grandma in only a few minutes and that she would be down by her little blue fence waving once she saw us at the top of the street.

The other Grandma lived in a house that had an upstairs bathroom AND the old bathroom still in existence under the tankstand.  It was always a gamble, chosing which one to use, as the frogs lived in the downstairs one (but the temperature regulation had been ironed out) but the upstairs one you had to put the hot tap on until it was scalding and then add cold a tiny turn of the tap at a time - because it would go to freezing if you went too far.  She also had a matching set of fluffy yellow accoutrements for her toilet (in the new bathroom) that I thought was so soft!

So - what was it like when you were a girl (or boy)?

There is no HOT like the hot of a 1970s school day

NO heatwave is ever quite like the hot that was experienced when we were kids.

There are heatwaves going on all around Australia at the moment.  Bush Babe of Oz* has actually just blogged some Heatwave Fire Tips and has an awesome giveaway over at her blog today.

I won't kybosh your chances (although I will comment with a disclaimer), as I have already won - I was inspired to share with you a typical school day.

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It matters not which year it was.  Somewhere between 1975 (because that is when I started primary school) and 1981 (because that is when I finished primary school), I would say.

It was definitely October, November, February or March - September is always a bit of a "oh, I will think about getting hot" month, but never sustains.  April can surprise, but prefers to shock with previews of Winter.

While it MAY have been December or January, back in the day when I was a girl, we had 3 term school years and decent Christmas holidays, which meant that these months were reserved for mustering.


School days, when I was a girl, consisted of getting persuaded to rise at a "reasonable hour" - in my childhood home, a reasonable hour was prior to 7am (otherwise, apparently, you missed the best part of the day).

If the HARRUMPH of Dad's cough as he went past on his way to the pool at 5am didn't wake you; if the SPLASH of Dad diving in to the pool didn't wake you; or the HARRUMPH of Dad coming back didn't wake you - then I can assure you, the wet washer applied to your face by said Dad at whatever o'clock he though was reasonable definitely did the trick.

We had to be ready and out the door by 1/4 to 8 anyway, as we had a 1km cycle to get to "The Bike Box".  That was a doddle for my older sister and my younger brother.  Me - well, my - ahem - creative thought patterns - meant that the dawdle could drag me away from my main goal, and the fact that I was the world's most distracted (and possibly slow) cyclist meant that I never did learn how to k-r-r-r-t-h-p over the halfway mark grid while still astride - and so encouragement (my ears tended to get distracted at times - I will call it encouragement) was required by my siblings for me to reach the bike box and stow the bike before the school bus came past.  There was more than one occasion where, indeed, we did miss the school bus - the good news was, it doubled back 5 minutes later and we could catch it from the OTHER side of the road, but the OTHER side of the road didn't have seating arrangements (i.e. stumps).

For the next hour, the bus would meander around various corrugated-gravel, bulldust and pitted bitumen roads, collecting our classmates and accounts of what was on tele last night.  There were occasional interruptions of the bus driver enquiring if we could possibly keep it down back there (and threats of teaching us what a horsebite was if we didn't).

Our school was a two-teacher school - high set, weatherboard, painted Dick and Dora on the little room's windows, rainwater tanks, Arbour day tree planting strategies, the most awesome playground that evolved from a P&C working bee one year, thunderboxes, ants nests, tennis courts and a parade ground.  Atmospheric control was through windows and ceiling fans.

Generally, we had a half hour before the bell rang where we put our bags on the racks and ran around playing.

One year, the hill on the other side of the town where the school was situation had a bushfire.  We were never in any danger, but we could see where the flames were, where they had been - the smoke was constant - not thick, just present - and the breeze was either non-existant or flame-heated and spiralling around you.

Then there was parade - all standing tall and proud, the older girls whistling the national anthem on the recorders as the boys took turns raising the flag.

When Mr McC - the best teacher ever - was in charge, we then would do a lap or two of the school grounds at whatever pace we could muster.  It was measured at 1.9km - I rarely did more than the mandatory one.  In answer to a gauntlet being put down one day, Mr McC and another student did 8 laps - and several of them were almost sprinted.

However, school days must go on - two hours of attention and learning, before a short break, another two hours of attention and learning and then a longer break (and softball training), and then the interminable hour and a half of a-t-t-e-n-z-z-z-z-zzzzzzz - huh?

Yeah, that last bit of the day really was wasted.  It was always about ten degrees hotter.  The sun shone across the wide veranda into the classroom door directly into every child's eyes.  The flies were more pestilent.  The fans were louder.  The heat shimmered across the playground and the second hand on the clock seemed to take a leaf and go slower and slower and s-l-o-w-e-r...

Finally 3.30 would come and we would all scream out of the classrooms (well, actually, we didn't scream - 2 teacher school, only 20 odd kids so those 2 teachers would know exactly who was screaming - and they KNEW our parents, and our parents would respond if reports of screaming were made) to line up for the bus.  So that it wasn't the same kids picking the best seats every day, the teachers would get us to line up in a different way every day.  Alphabetical - by first name, by last name, by middle name, by property name, age, birthdate, height, hair colour - they did it all - and we marched IN ORDER across to the bus.

The hour ride home was the reverse of the one in - and so as school mates hopped off, we took advantage of more seat space and window openings.

In those days, everyone wore shorts to school.  In those days, shorts were short.  In those days, seatbelts weren't fitted or compulsory, so you could slide along the seats.  In those days, seats were vinyl.  So if the bus, say, had been parked in a hot place, say, and you put your butt straight down onto the vinyl without the bracing of face muscles first (I don't know why it worked, but it did), you often took two or three good goes to descend.  Hot, hot, hot, sweaty vinyl.

We were lucky.  We could dream of the pool at home and how good it would feel when we got there. In those days, Mum hadn't yet started the battle of chlorination and filtering that would make the pool what it is these days - in those days, you skimmed the weed from the top, hope the toad numbers were low and try not to touch the bottom slime - but it was far cooler than the bus!

However - an hour.  Pitted bitumen roads.  Bye interesting television recalls.  Bulldust.  Bye fresh air through windows.  Corrugated gravel roads.  G-g-g-o-o-d-b-b-y-e classmates.

And then the cycle home.  I was the bane of my siblings existence.  "Hurry" they would barrack.  On I would shakily clamber.  Off they would go.

They would speed down to the grid - thk-thk-thk-thk they would zoom across the corrugations.  Not me.  Ka-thunk ka-thunk ka-thunk is what each bump is like at my speed - I had tested their theories of going faster out, and had ended up in a crumpled mess and so was sticking to what I knew best.

"Come on" they would entice from the halfway grid.  K-r-r-r-t-h-p and away they would go again.  Ka-thunk ka-thunk ka-thunk - dismount, hold bike by side and step-by-step I would start to walk it over the grid.

For those of you who are not quite sure of what a grid is (or think you know but want clarification) it is a dozen or so lengths of railway line welded in parallel and placed on the road (across a ditch) at a fenceline - designed to dissuade animals from thinking that the road leading out of the paddock is a thoroughfare for them AND allow mechanised vehicles easy access without the need to get out, open a gate, get in, drive through, get out, shut the gate, get in and drive on (or alternately take a child with you everywhere to save you several steps).

Please note 2 parts of that description.  "lengths of railway line" - which means metal - baked in the sun for upwards of 10 hours by this point in time.  "across a ditch" - which means unmowed long grass, ideal for all sort of critters to rustle in.

Now, I am not saying I am a wuss, but my - ahem - creative thought patterns would breathe life into many a monster in that long grass, and no matter how brave I talked myself up to be, that first step often would seem to inspire a hiss from unseen places.

"Come on" they would yell at me from the top of the hill, knowing that if they got home and left me there, odds are they would be sent back to see "what was keeping Jeanie so long" before they would be allowed to enter the pool, so they conserved energy and encouraged me loudly.

Their words of support did often spur me on, but added to the fear of the dangers beneath the grid, there was also the dangers of the grid itself - especially to an unshod child.  (Yes, I know mum did ensure we had shoes when we LEFT home, but no-one wore shoes at our school.)

Eventually (no doubt after a fierce rock-paper-scissors competition) one or both of my siblings would come back to the halfway grid and ensure that I survived relatively unscathed before I got a "come on" (in a possibly less upbeat tone) - k-r-r-r-t-h-p and away they would go again.

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* Just one disclaimer - Bush Babe of Oz was one of those siblings.  She was the nice one.

Amphibian Ambivalence

Say hello to the most common threats to showering without stress when I was a child - the green tree Queensland bathroom frog.

I know there are many out there who know not of what I speak, but if you ever lived in or visited a home before 1983 in regional Queensland you will nod your head and say "ah yes" with a little flutter of repressed panic in your voice.

1983 is the year that bathroom renovation hit the regional register, I believe.

Oh, I am not saying we were all hicks, but prior to 1983 while bathtub may have moved into the main building there was always the shower for the workmen down on the cement block where the laundry was, where the plumbing was "adequate" (if adequate is expanded to include drains being hollowed grooves in the concrete or a pipe from the wall) - and where the walls/doors/windows did not offer full protection from the green tree Queensland bathroom frog.

Now, it is the case that the true fear of my childhood wasn't ever the frogs, it was the frogs jumping on me - or towards me, at least. I once had a few of these friends as my "pets" so it wasn't really about the frog - my fear was definitely restricted to the bathroom when I was vulnerable and naked.

There is one other vulnerable moment in a young girl's life that can also be affected by the green tree Queensland bathroom frog and that is on the throne. As they have a proclivity towards sneaking in to these furnishings, there is a look to Queensland loos that I haven't seen often elsewhere. Often there is a requirement to remove the lid of the tank - and there seems to be such an oftenness to this that it just darned well gets left off.

Fast forward a millenia thirty years and in the modern age, there are some improvements on the Queensland bathroom - and some very obvious traps for young players.

Take for example the ensuite to a bedroom infrequently used, and my adventures within on the evening before I write this epistle.

Now, to do this experiment at home, first you must have someone use the ensuite earlier in the day, ensuring that the light is left on to attract insects, and the door both into the ensuite and out to the garden surrounded balcony are left open.

When I first went in to put my things in for my shower, I had certain expectations. I mean, at the family bathroom, there were three very fat green tree Queensland bathroom frogs having a feast on the outside of the closed windows, so when I saw the light on I knew the odds were good to excellent of a few creatures in the room, so it was with a certain amount of relief that I counted one on the window sill and one on the floor in the ensuite. Two - I have two eyes, so I could keep one on each I figured.

The good news with the green tree Queensland bathroom frog is it will imitate a statue if you have your eye on it, see?

Having an urge to use the other facilities on offer, I moved towards the toilet - and three more heads popped up from the tank. That increased the degree of difficulty, I can tell you.

Then when I switched on the shower, they began to call to each other - to the one in the upper corner of the ceiling, the one behind the towel rail, the one on the side of the dirty clothes basket - but thankfully, none in the enclosed shower stall.

In I went, closed the doors and breathed a sigh of relief - at least I was safe from their jumps - until I noticed movement at the top of the gap the sliding door left when it was closed - and as much as I enjoy looking at the bottom end of a frog statue while showering, I am sure both the frog and I breathed again with relief when I abluted with full speed and escaped!

It could have been worse. Sometimes other things follow the frogs into dwellings... (please note how nice I am not finding an image of the green tree snake?)

What is the scariest bathroom experience (short of remembering The Shining) for you?

Chrissy Hols!!!!

Yes indeed, 'Salina has entered that no man's land that is neither grade 4 nor grade 5 and out in front of her stretches 6 weeks of play, imagination, horses, pools, travel, presents - oh and the interminable tidying of the room.

I know in other parts of the world it can get a wee bit chill around this time of the year, but for me and my whole childhood, Christmas equals heat and the holidays equals lots of hot and dusty work punctuated by cold watermelons and swims at the end of the day.

My father is exactly the same age older than I as I am to 'Salina, so it seems that much easier to understand my parents at certain times in my childhood now.

As a result, telling V the story of "going away for Christmas" to the Sunshine Coast during the year when we (hugely mistakenly) had a sedan, I now get swung around to another view of the trip and see the planning and promise that my parents put into this delight.

It still doesn't explain the need for all three children to lose 100% of our legroom and live with the fear of the balanced bundles on the back ledge, but it does put a bit of shading in that whole "don't give us your bellyaching" looks they gave us while we whined.

As the few months prior to Christmas is when all the baby calves hit the ground, Christmas is the ideal time to innoculate and brand the little darlings. Of course, I am sure it doesn't hurt that school holidays happen to coincide and the free labour force is utilised fully.

If ever we whinged about waking early every day of our holidays, Dad would say "best part of the day" and we would splash into the pool for our wakeup.

If ever we complained about callouses and tired muscles and saddling up again during our 13 hour days, Dad would say "people pay to do this" and so our muscles would relax into the gait of the horse and our hands would knit the reins as we rode through the hills with mobs of the most cute babies in our care.

But there were a few years where Mum and Dad actually organised for us to have a REAL Christmas holiday. One that involved NOT BEING AT HOME. One where we would be near the beach and seafood and seeing our parents outside their natural habitats.

The preparations would take a full day of packing - presents, clothes, eskies, artificial tree - and the morning of set off was always a frenzy of Dad packing the car with Mum supervising closely.

With a station wagon, which was generally our car of choice, this packing can be 80% achieved in the rear section (to the ceiling - who needs rear view) with some thought to placing 6 lower legs across the back seat between the detrius. With a sedan, there was a vast difference in the amount of thought involved in stealing this (and any other space) for the bags and boxes and "stuff".

Now, if we were say visiting the town only 50km away, it would probably have been bearable - but said coastal holiday at the time took place at the Sunshine Coast - nowadays possible to traverse in 4 hours (if my brother in law is driving) but then it took a full day and a few dodgy roads.

Add to that three children but only two window seats. As the older wiser members of the trio, generally we girls would nab them, but the downside to that strategy was little brother's ability to sleep the moment the car moved, and in lieu of a door to slump against would use a sister - we took turns throwing his hugely dense pumpkin from side to side.

In those days, there were no namby-pamby DVD players to enthrall the younger generation, so my mother would alternate her Val Doonican with music of our choice (from her selection) and we would all holler along to Charley Pride, Tom T. Hall, Olivia Newton-John and Slim Dusty. See a pattern?

We would play games - I spy, White Horse, shopping list, working out time and distance left to travel and taking turns making up fitting tall stories for creek and river names.

I was renowned for being able to "hold on until Brisbane" as I had a thing about going to the toilet at the servos, but there were generally a few stops along the way.

Ban Ban Springs, where my grandmother always filled her thermos on her journey as it was so pure and clear (not any more), Nanango where the park next to the service station had lots of shade and room to run around, Blackbutt where the local version of Yeti has been formed into a towering wooden sculpture, the Big Orange, the Big Cow, the Big Pineapple - all passing markers to our final destination.

We knew we were nearly there when the speed levels dropped. In those days, a two-lane road twisted and turned for many miles before reaching the ocean, and our noses would scent it far before we saw the blue.

The first job on arrival was taking the explosion of goods from the car to the holiday flat and fighting for the "best bed". Mum would open the sliding doors and windows and we would throw our belonging around searching for togs and water toys.

Dad would then walk us down to the water a few blocks away while Mum got "peace". I know now that "peace" would have been fairly packed with activity and how blissful it would be to complete such in relative quiet.

When we got home, Mum would have tidied up, done a grocery shop and assembled dinner - and then we would put up the tree and put our pressies under. (In Australia, 9 times out of 10 it is an artificial tree - or in our case, 10 times out of 10. Not big on rotting vegetation chopped down to disinitigrate in the living room, and given it is high summer that is the guaranteed process)

Then we would ask the big questions - How would Santa know how to find us? What time could we wake them in the morning? What were we going to eat? When would we be able to go for a swim?

After we were tumbled into bed, we children would chatter on (in increasingly hushed tones) our plans for filling the hours before we could wake the parents, generally involving creating a breakfast feast and turning little brother into that year's thematic Santa) until the sound of the distant waves would send us off.

Christmas itself I never really remember - sort of like all those times you are having such a great time being drunk as a young adult - you KNOW you are having a good time but all the stimuli overloads and crashes.

Christmas night when we were away always meant being taken to some relatives who we hardly saw as often as every 4 years and sent to play with the kids while the parents ate and drank with the other adults.

But Boxing Day was always a tradition - swim first, then feast, then cricket on the telly (while you played with your toys) then snacks, then cricket on the telly (while you napped) then a swim, then cricket on the telly (while you helped pack up and tidy) then toasted sandwiches and early bed.

It always seemed the holidays were that short, and the next day was the trip home again - as there was always mustering to be done, calves to brand, cows to dip, watermelon to eat and the pool needing a stir.