Summer Days

This week Melbourne's Spring weather is teasing us with a taste of Summer. We are told to expect three days of 25+ degrees Celsius. Summer is flirting with us, reminding us of our love of warm weather, clear blue skies and balmy nights.

While there are normally a few days that are too hot, almost oppressive, an Australian Summer is a special thing. Summer to me means beaches, holidays, Christmas, tennis (yay for the Australian Open!) and a general happiness.

But this summer I am a little apprehensive. A few things are on my mind regarding this Summer. The first is keeping my little girl cool, and protecting her from sunburn. But really I guess what is really causing my reservations about Summer this year is bushfires. The horror and devastation that occurred on February 7 2009 is still all too vivid in my mind.

My family who lived in Kinglake - one of the worst hit areas - are still recovering emotionally. All of them experienced some level of post traumatic stress disorder. They have all relocated and found new homes in other areas, too traumatised to return to the town they had called home for almost 30 years. I will never forget where I was when I got the call from my mother. My Aunt had called her screaming, they had lost the house and were trying to escape. . .then the phone cut out. Nobody was able to contact her or her husband for 12 hours. We didn't know if she had made it out. Miraculously she did, but sadly many others didn't.

Here is what is left of her house:





My father had made it to a sports oval where many others sheltered for days. He lost his home too. The fire came within 2km's of the oval that was supposed to be safe. Embers rained down on them throughout the night. Now just the smell of smoke triggers the horrific memories of bushfire survivors. And there will be bushfires. I hope and pray they will not reach the catastrophic levels that the Black Saturday bushfires did, but bushfires are a fact of life in an Australian summer. In fact officially, bushfire season started several weeks ago.

This is Kinglake one week after the fires:



So when the hot dry winds from the desert blow across from Adelaide and reach Melbourne, sending temperatures soaring this summer - as they inevitably will, I will be a little anxious. Anxious and concerned for those in high fire danger areas, anxious for the survivors, who will re-live the trauma all over again, and anxious about friends who have a holiday home surrounded by bush.

For information regarding Victorian Bushfires please got to:

http://www.cfa.vic.gov.au/index.htm

The ABC have compiled an excellent report about Black Saturday:

http://www.abc.net.au/innovation/blacksaturday/#/stories/mosaic

The Stork Has Arrived

I'm sitting here, sipping my honey and lemon hot drink, and listening to the sounds of my daughter sleeping.

Today we are down to her last clean/dry outfit. Who knew so much liquid could come out of such a tiny person with such regularity!? And the wet weather is not helping....I have loads of washing hanging up all around the house, under heating vents waiting to dry.

And it's alarming how quickly I have found myself in conversations that once made my eyes glaze over. For example; the pram chats. Apparently mums are all about the prams. I have only been out about 4 times with my pram and have already been stopped and questioned several times about it. What brand is it? Where did I get it from? Am I happy with it? Was it expensive? What did I like about it? Is that the ones all the celebrities use? The last question was asked while I was trying to put bubs in the car seat, and I barely remember what I said to her!

Also, when you get pregnant all the women you know who have been pregnant want to bond with you about the experience of pregnancy and .....nobody ever really does that before you get pregnant. So it's the same when you have the baby. All the women who have been through labour want the details and tell you about theirs.....some of this info might have been helpful before labour!? But maybe they don't want to scare you?!

So I am in two minds about how much to divulge to my non-mummy friends. Do I tell them the truth when they ask questions, or water it down so they arn't put off? I think that's the issue. Despite the fact that morning sickness is horrible and that labour bloody hurts, being on the other side of it now means I have more perspective. I wouldn't want to be responsible for scaring someone off having a baby, when I know how much joy and love they bring, and how everything else fades away.

Ute Gate!!????

Enough with 'Gates'. Seriously. I think all the journalists in the Canberra press gallery are bored.

The term comes from the US political scandal involving President Nixon; Watergate, eventually leading to his resignation and apparently changing US politics forever. Watergate was an office complex that was the scene of much of the scandal.

Since that time, journalists have taken a liking to adding 'gate' to any old minor political scuffle. 'Ute Gate' is a prime example of this. Perhaps we should take pity on the journalists in Canberra. Australian politics is a generally mundane affair, and something most Aussie's show a healthy apathy for.

Not like those US journalists, with their glamorous Presidents and all the pomp and ceremony that go's with US politics - they have plenty to write about. And take politics in the UK. Lots to write about there, what with all those tawdry sex scandals and until recently, controversial wives.

So perhaps Aussie journalists are a little gate happy, but I feel for them. I understand. What else do they have to write about? Rudd's use of Australian slang? Hardly news worthy; he grew up in Queensland and his name is Kevin. It's a given he's going to have some bogan in him.

Shopping and Refugees

Recently, while out purchasing essential baby items - such as a cot - before the stork arrives, I stumbled across the Maribyrnong Immigration Detention Facility. Large and important looking signs alerted me to this fact as I was driving along looking for the baby superstore I intended to visit.

I knew that it was in the area somewhere, but had never seen it. I pulled over to have a better look, and saw - in stark contrast to the signage at the front - several very run down, old, depressing looking buildings, much like the commission flats we see around Melbourne.

I was struck by the detention centres close proximity to one of Melbourne's largest shopping centres: Highpoint. In fact it would be a mere two blocks.

Highpoint displays the opulence and affluence we in the developed world have come to take for granted. Upon entering the shopping centre customers are transported from reality into an alternate universe where every comfort is met. The temperature is always perfect, the light is bright as if it were a lovely summer day, and palm trees line the main thoroughfares.

Highpoint exists as a temple of consumerism and capitalism, feeding our need to define ourselves by what we buy rather than what we do. This point was not lost on me as I wandered around the ludicrously large baby store that contained every possible style and design of the items I was looking for.

Across the road people are detained for trying to access the very lifestyle I am participating in. The governments website for the Maribyrnong Immigration Detention Facility claims that most of the detainees held there have overstayed their visa's or have been denied entry to the country. However it made me think about asylum seekers and refugees who have more genuine and urgent reasons for entering our country illegally.

I still have not been able to reconcile the two extreme realities that the detention centre and my shopping experience represent...

Prodigal Blogger

Enthusiastic Hack has been quite prolific in his writings recently, and is feeling the pressure to satisfy his loyal and adoring fan base. While I on the other hand have been busy growing his baby.

As such, due to various circumstances beyond my control (read: incessant nausea) the only things I have to really write about are the most amusing places I have lost my breakfast/lunch/dinner.

I think the best one was in the manicured box hedges outside my chiropractor's. The elderly couple walking past at the time didn't seem to find it amusing though, by the looks on their faces.

Especially fun too are the condescending comments from other women about morning sickness. Such as , "Oh you musn't be eating a cracker before you get out of bed" Yeah like a cracker is gonna help me. Most of these are just amusing but occasionally you get the odd person who seems to be trying to upset me, by trivialising my experience or dismissing it all together. In these cases, depending on my mood, I either want to hit them, or go and cry somewhere quietly by myself. Yesterday I did the latter.

But, before you start feeling sorry for me, I must add that I was at a Tupperware party - which should be renamed 'Tupper Torture' and a persons behaviour cannot be judged when obviously under such duress.

I almost always find myself having an outer body experience at such 'parties'. I feel like I am stuck in an alternate universe where people pretend to care about PLASTIC. At least I tell myself this. Because the alternative - that people actually do care about that stuff - is too much for me to bare. And the hardest part is pretending to act like I care about it also. It's almost like I have to shrink my personality down to practically nothing, and nod and smile while pretending to be interested in the banal conversation I have found myself in, all the while feeling like I want to scream. It's suffocating.

The thing is, if I were to actually be myself and contribute to such conversations in a genuine manner, I am sure, in fact I know, that my thoughts/opinions/general banter would be far to confronting or alien for those present. Then there would be an awkward moment, and then I wouldn't be able to talk to them anymore. So I stick with the 'plaster a vague look on my face and don't say much at all' strategy. Then I come home and decompress, ie: rant.

So I have been to two of these Tupperware parties in recent weeks, and been the dutiful cousin/friend. But I think I have reached my threshold. No longer will I expose myself to inane discussions about the best sized fridgemate for broccoli to be stored in. NO! I am taking a stand!