I have always considered myself a lover of animals. I feel qualms of conscience when I eat a lamb roast, but not because I have been directly involved in the actual deed of it’s bloody demise, but because I deliberatly dull my conscience to distance myself from the ethics of eating animals. I actually like animals. I like pigs, but I love bacon. I saw a tee shirt lately which read “I love animals, they taste great”. Now I love a chilli chickpea pattie and I don’t mind a lentil burger, but sometimes meat is just what you need. Now I will veer sideways onto dogs.

I like dogs, except for their obsession with barking coupled with the often trance like oblivian of their owners who cannot hear the deep, gutteral roar of their dog, or if the pooch is small, it’s shreiking, nerve rending crescendo of stacato barks which shiver down my spine and lodge in my brain making me feel frayed and fragile. I love it when the owners say “he doesn’t bark” even as the beast is showing me his tonsils as he belts out a jazz inspired rendition of the ‘woof woof’ song. I think they (the owners) have a self imposed convenient type of temporary deafness. I like cats because they are silent. Even as I write this on this sunny verandah, the silence is shattered by the annoying barking of the dog next door. If dogs could have their bark removed and wore nappies then perhaps they would be of some use.

I am allergic to noise. I know I am. I need to choose the noise I listen too. I don’t like imposed noise. Roaring motor bikes, lawn mowers, leaf blowers, chainsaws, screaming children and country and western music. We live in a world where noise can assault and frazzle the calmest of souls. But lets get back to the rooster. I am house sitting a small dog in Bellingen and the owner threw in a few chooks as well. I like chooks and find their clucking quite restful. However, one of the chooks looked bigger then the other, it had a bushier feather tail. He had an arrogant gleam in his beady eye. I realised it was a bloke chook, aka a rooster. I managed to lure them into their cage for the night, realising that there were six of them lunging at the food bowl. The instructions told me there were five. Never mind, must be a friend coming for a sleep over. Hope they don’t mind sharing their toothbrushes.

This morning as I lay in the land of deep slumber, catching up from a busy week and enjoying the bliss of the countryside quiet, I heard a cockadoodledoo sound outside my window. Pilllow over my head, I tried to sleep, but no, the wretch would not give up. He went on and on at intervals until I felt like a jangled wreck and wobbled out to meet the dawn.

I thought about roosters. Like some men, they have a limited use. They are needed to fertilise the eggs so small fluffy chickens can be born. But, I thought nastily, what use are they the rest of the time? Centuries ago our ancestors who rose at dawn to till the soil used them as alarm clocks. I have an alarm clock thank you very much. So, I open up the debate. Apart from one occasional use, what use is a rooster? Sure he looks really handsome with his glossy black feathers and smart red combe. He struts like a Rugby player out to ‘pull’ on a Saturday night. But dig deeper, and not much seems to happen in his small pea sized brain. But, alas it is not up to me to upset the balance of nature or to discuss the ramifications of post feminisim with a bunch of chooks, so I did the next best thing. After wandering down the street for a coffee to jolt me awake, I bought some ear plugs. Looking forward to a sleep in tomorrow. I hope.

I want to stay in quaint and well appointed B & Bs with my own bathroom and bed. I want the host’s cat to befriend me and snuggle with me on my lavender scented quilt. I want to wake up in a softly sunfiltered bedroom to poached eggs on sourdough with perfect centres which are neither hard nor runny, just perfect. I want a skinny latte with a perfect crema. I want to pack my expensive but subtley trendy leather bag with the day’s provisions of notebooks and pens for taking notes. I want to wander into tiny but exclusive boutiques between literary offerings to look at and perhaps purchase the odd bauble or two. I want to consult my mini netbook to check that my stocks and shares are performing to plan and that my real estate portfolio is doing well.

I want to sit in the front row and open my newly purchased and signed volume and sniff the clean white pages. I want to get high on the smell of the ink. I want to drink in the words of the writers themselves, and  possibly absorb their commitment to their craft through my skin. Perhaps if I  sit close enough, I will learn the art of discipline which enables them to create their offspring with such verve and panache. I want to be the one who is approached by a publisher and asked if I could perhaps allow them to read my manuscripts. I want a weekly column where I can earn a princely sum just for writing down the words with which I describe and engage with my planet and the issues of the  people on it.

I want to drive off in my BMW which has no rattles and has real leather seats and plan my next literary jaunt to the hallowed world of the writer’s festival while the GPS sorts out my route. I want to debrief  to my cat while I polish my bob and answer my correspondence (none of which will be bills) whilst sipping a good red and nibbling on goats cheese. I want to fire up my Apple Mac (not my Dell) and see the words pour out in such a way that I am hailed as  the new Kate Atkinson. But, alas…

Instead I drive home in my rattley car, make peace with the cat, do my washing and have toast and vegemite for tea. I play computer games instead of writing a scintilating short story  and watch Midsommer Murders instead of writing my own thriller. I snuggle up with a good book after putting out my clothes for work in the morning. I set the alarm for six am. They said that if you write one page a day, in a year you would have 360 pages. In other words a book. Ahh, but will it be a good one? would you all promise to buy it?

I’ve pulled the sucker up, tucked in my 57 year old boobs and pulled in my tum. There is nothing I can do about the bulge of thigh and bum which is escaping the leg area. More tugging, more pulling. I thought black was slimming. They lied. As for my tuck shop lady arms. I could weep. All those upright rows at the gym have made the top of them look like Madonna’s but underneath they ripple like the surf at my local beach.

Turn this way, then that. Hmmm. take off glasses, yes looks better blurred. Maybe if I tie a sarong and drop it at the water’s edge and then dash into the water without looking around. Why does my skin look so yellow? do I have jaundice, no its those dammed lights.

Ok, back view – ugh, quick back to front view. Not much better. Fake tan might help, but I always look like an escapee from a carrot farm – no matter how much pre-tan exfoliating it still settles into the craters and sticks to any dark blemish on my skin, therefore screaming to the world “She doesn’t know how to put on fake tan!!!” What a failure.

Already tired of all the requirements of being a full time beauty devotee, I have pretty much given up and minimalised the whole routine. I am not going to start getting sprayed with a fake tan hose any time soon…And OMG, what is that shadow, oops need to mow the lawn and clip the edges if you women get my meaning. Oh the bloody tyranny of womanhood. Think those Victorian women had the right idea with neck to knee cossies.

Shall I buy it? There is 30% off today, perhaps it will do. I am meeting my little sis in Sydney next week for a weeks R&R which will involve some close contact with the hotel pool and spa. Hmm, perhaps we can go in after dark.

I walk to the counter with the size 14 pair under my arm. I live near one of the most beautiful beach areas in the world. In a few weeks I won’t give a damm and will be diving into those beautiful blue waves having hopefully forgotten the trauma of swimsuit shopping in spring.

But like so many things, scones have changed. They have taken on a daring new persona. They have morphed from simplicity into a complex amalgam of flavours. You can have Mocha mud cake scones, Passionfruit and white chocolate scones, Berry and white chocolate scones, Mocha and chocolate scones, Spinach and fetta scones and mercifully, plain and date scones. Now I don’t dislike these scones. In fact I have taste tested most of them. I enjoyed this process and the white chocolate and passionfruit one came out as a clear winner. But is it still classed as a scone? If one is literally minded, it probably is not.  Is it perhaps a tea cake? Like so many things, the scone is now up to date and keeping up with the gastronomic Joneses. With the advent of shows like ‘Masterchef’, budding foodies can waft around the supermarket with recipe cards which take their humble lamb chops, vegies and mash up to a new level. Scones have obviously followed this trend.

When did it begin? Well the scone revolution emerged when a certain Queensland politician’s wife called Flo created the pumpkin scone. Possibly the best achievement of their combined careers. Then there was the cheese scone, warm with melted cheese and butter. Yum.  Add some chives – even better. I made those for my kids in the 1990s. Great with a yummy vegetable soup.

But back to these modern creations. The melted white chocolate which has baked onto the baking tray combined with the taste and crunch of passionfruit is truly blissful. I can’t even wait till I get home and the front seat of the car is awash with crumbs. It is 1.70 well spent. I try to convince myself it is a carb and a protein unit with a bit of fat thrown in. Hopefully it can be counted as my lunch, but only one leaves me hungry for more.

Like many good things, food follows fashion. Once apon a time there was only white bread. I used to pick it up from the corner shop for mum. It came in a loaf which had two ends to it. I would split it in half and scoop out the yummy soft white centre where it had been joined. For some obscure reason we called it the ‘kiss’ and my sisters would yell to mum, “Karen’s stolen the kiss again!” Ah, memories. It is where my love of calming carbohydrates was born.  But I digress. Bread has also undergone a huge culture shift, with numerous varieties available for every occassion. And for once I celebrate this diversity of our carbohydrate culture.

Bleach, and I mean the nasty smelling chemical evil loaded with toxins including chlorine, bought to you on a supermarket shelf in a brightly coloured plastic bottle and thus readily availble to all. Bleach, yes, the bleach you swish around your loo, the one that does remove mould from your shower and yes – the one that removes stains from whites. That bleach.

Now I know, like everything we eat, breathe, put on our bodies, wear, live in and on, drive and do is toxic. I have learned this information reluctantly, and most recently while working for a Naturopath. Basically – we are riddled with toxins and they are making us ill. As well as making me ill, the knowledge of how toxic our world is also makes me feel ill. Stressed with the overwhelming evidence of how what we eat, wear, sniff etc is bad for us, I have put most of it in the too hard basket and would rather just have one pill from the doctor to fix everything that is wrong for me.

Now, instead of throwing the baby out completly with that insidious, toxic bathwater, I have tried white vinegar and baking soda to clean. And, yes it does clean. After a lot of scrubbing and leaving your bathroom tiles covered with a fine residue of white powder which makes it look like a cocaine fiend or a talculm powder afficianado has had a manic binge and left the evidence there for you to find.

So I resort to bleach. The only trouble is that I do it in a cleaning frenzy when the urge strikes. Often I am wearing my best clothes, and thinking that I am really only going to get the bleach on the shower wall. But something peculiar happens. Unseen by the naked eye, there seems to be a subversive spatter spray pattern occur. One that adheres immediately to any fabric in the vicinity. If the fabric is dark, of course the tell tale white spots will be there forever. No disguising with a colour matched texta will do the trick. Alas, I have tried and failed.

So, the shower is clean. Not a speck of mould remains. I think I have got away with it unscathed. But no, next time I am hanging my favorite blue shirt on the line – there it is. A finely etched spatter of white – right in the front where it is most visible. If I decide to wear it anyway, people look at me with sympathy in their eyes. Shes a bleach addict they think, and she doesn’t even have the brains to hide the evidence.

So what is the answer? I have found it. I strip off till I am totally naked. I remove all fabric from the bathroom, even fabric that is metres away. It is not a pretty sight. A naked rump sunny side up scrubbing away with a bucket, bottle and brush. There is a manic gleam as I breathe the toxic fumes. Die mould I spit as I scrub with all my might.

Then I bring in the hose through the window and flush it all away into the poor unsuspecting drainage system. There it floats away with all the other neighbourhood toxins to flow into the sea and damage another marine species. Then I have a shower and wash myself in more chemicals, rub on chemicals in a lotion to keep my epidermis supple and then go and have a cup of green tea. (actually coffee, which also has toxins)

Yes, I am an environmental disaster. As we all are. I would like to be a warrior for the environment, but I am just too darned tired. I do my best. If I had money, yes I would buy organic produce, buy wild salmon and drive a green car. I would buy unbleached clothes and drink water from a filtered system. I would spend hundreds a month detoxifying my system and I would wear that earnest glow which emanates from those who put the environment first. How do they do it, and where do they find the energy? Also, how do they managed to do it on a low income? I would love to know.

My love of bleach has been a late addition to my life. In 1989 when in my forties I was having a second skirmish with being a teenager (read mid life crisis) the only ‘Bleach’ I cared about was the brilliant album by Nirvana, one of the best grunge bands of that era. Alas, Kurt Cobain is dead, and by his own hand. Of course he was not obsessed with cleaning the shower. In fact, this information it totally unrelated to this blog, I just thought I would put it in anyway – to inform and entertain.

And this really truly is a photo of me

Aloe vera or bamboo madam?

I recently found myself working once again after a three month lull. I managed to score two jobs which more or less combine into one full time job. One of the more joyful offshoots of this event is that I now have a wage packet which I can live on. To celebrate I shouted myself a pile of new knickers.
Now knickers (or undies) are one of life’s necessities. I find my knicker drawer often reflects my life. If it is full of dejected, faded, sagging lycra and unravelling elastic, then you can assume I just haven’t had the dosh to splurge on nice new undies. And, as life often imitates art (or is it the other way around Oscar Wilde?) my life is often dejected, faded, sagging and unravelled in a parallel universe. In other words, my undies go out in sympathy and become a living, or perhaps a dying metaphor for my life as it is currently.
As I started my new job and one day found one bum cheek escaping the confines of the undy, I decided then and there that the time had come to splurge when the pay packet arrived. But alas, undie lovers – how do you choose what to buy. Also, what is the singular of ‘undies’? Is it undy? If not, I am now coining the word. I am a fan of the cotton bikini brief. It is a good compromise. It means I am not quite old, but I am no spring chicken either. If I get run over, they will not make headlines. Big granny knickers remind me of the terrors of approaching old age. Boy legs make me look like a sumo wrestler and the back view of me in a thong could remind the uncharitably minded of a wizened peach with string loosely dividing the orbs. Ugh. The only people who look sexy in a thong are strippers – and I think perhaps that they aren’t really sexy – just comodifying sex. Men who say women look sexy in a thong have never worn one. It is just plain uncomfortable. Some lingering comment long ago about dental floss…ugh…don’t go there.
Anyway. I am in Target amongst the rows of undy heaven. Mariah Carey is warbling over the muzak intercom. I am busy trying to tune her and the overly loud toddlers out. Then I spot them. They are no longer called plain cotton undies. They are now in ‘Aloe vera’ or ‘Bamboo’ fabric. Being the literally minded soul I am I see me wearing a knicker with green aloe vera spikes protruding from my gusset or worse – bamboo shoots like a form of awful underwear torture. Is this a new form of pain to endure in the world of underwear? Is it going to be reminiscent of being stabbed in the bosom with an underwire escapee before it jams itself into the inner workings of your washing machine? Are these organic undies going to be clammy or prickly like the nasty nylon ones? But no, the light comes on. Its the fabric – sort of organic and nice for you, so nice for your body. If you were hungry you could warm them up and serve then on a bed of soba noodles with wasabi sauce.

I am now proud to hang my undies on the line. They can line up on the outside of the line fit for public view. They no longer need to skulk away hiding in dejected little bundles behind the socks. They reside in three neat piles of skin tone, white and black – all with a matching bra. Ahh, now my life is complete. I can pass undy scrutiny along with the best.

If you can bother trawling through previous posts, you will remember that I was badly affected by the floods that ravaged parts of Northern NSW in April this year. After a sojourn at a friend’s house for five months, my cat and I returned to my little flat here in the Boambee Valley. It is nearly unreconisable from the vision of dated axminster and Fantastic furniture items that it once was. Now it is repainted, recarpeted, retiled and yes – renewed. Its had a facelift, and now it is dressed up to charm with beautiful furniture courtesy of my insurance company and the Freedom Furniture catalogue. My telly is up to date, the huge sound system I wrote about earlier is installed and occasionally I give the neighbours a blast of my ecelectic taste in music.
It was music that sparked this post.

Ten years ago I was emerging from my second skirmish with adolescence. I had returned to NZ after my marriage ended and had enjoyed a seven year stint of catching up on all of the sex, drugs and rock and roll that I had not had the chance to explore during my adolescence.  (being ‘born again’ at 18 and married at 20 put the kybosh on that). I suppose it was my mid life crisis, but I did have a lot of fun being a 43 year old teenager. One of my discoveries was music. It was not the music one would expect a the 43 year old woman to enjoy, but the beginnings of a flirtation with bands like Tool and Korn. It was also around the time of the grunge era and I fell in love with the Seattle sounds of Nirvana and Soundgarden. And I liked it loud. My neighbour in the next flat in the old converted Victorian mansion was my age. She liked Barry Manilow and Neil Sedaka.  They were singers who made me want to vomit, or at perhaps slash my wrists. She was stymied by the sight of this middle aged mutton dressed as semi spring lamb woman head banging to some amplified sounds probably more fitting to a teenage boy’s bedroom. We seldoms spoke at the comunal clothesline.

That was then, this is now. Most of my musical travesties have gone to new homes via Ebay. However, I have a lingering fondness for Radiohead, Massive Attack, Basement Jaxx and more. Add in Groove Amarda, Faithless and more. Listening to them took me back to my second teenage hood.

Then, when I hit my fifties, and back in the loving bosom of my family here in Australia I found that I was enjoying classical music more. But, I had never appreciated or understood jazz. Then I had an ephiphany. At the ripe old age of 56 I found myself listening to singer Melody Gardot. It was jazz like I had never heard it. It was a revelation. Her voice is raw yet subtle, with nuances of heart felt life experience in every note.

So. Does that mean I am grown up now? Can I say goodbye to Tool, a band I saw live 12 years ago in the Christchurch town hall?
Or, is it ok to admit that I have just broadened my taste? When I finally got the monstrous sound system wired up in my tiny pad the first CD I played was ‘Blister in the sun’ by the Violent Femmes. This was closely followed by Talking Heads ‘Burnin down the house’ (not an invitation to be taken literally as having the house ‘flooded’ was enough of a negative experience to put me off being accosted by rogue elements) I played them loud with my sub woofer ( not a dog I discovered) blaring to let the neighbours know that if they can use chainsaws at 6am, then I can add my own version of sonic hell.

Point is, I guess I have finally matured. I wear flat shoes because they are comfortable and natural fabrics because they are also comfortable. I am tired of makeup that melts in the 39 degree heat and push up overwired bras that make you feel like your mamaries are ensconced in chicken wire. I am just me. A complex middle aged woman with eclectic music tastes and a flash pad filled with mod cons and Freedom furniture in a flood prone area.

So, does this mean I am grown up now? Will I start reading the Financial Review and join the local bowls club? Will I let my hair go gray and will I start saying “now when I was young… “to any poor soul who will listen? No, I don’t think I am really quite grown up and probably never will be, thank God. I like being the quirky, complicated self absorbed person I am, so if my changing musical tastes are any indication, it just means that I am merely broadening my horizons.

And, the muscial ephiphany will NEVER include country and western music. It makes my flesh crawl with revulsion.

I walk fast. I always have. Even when overweight I could propel my poundage forward at amazing speed. I was often surprised that more pounds did not shake loose from my frame and lie there distraught with issues of abandonment in the gutter. Those lucky enough to walk beside me often comment about how fast I walk (between puffs and gasps and little spurts which resemble a slow jog to keep up). I learnt it all from the Ada Dawson School of Walking I tell them.

Who is this Ada Dawson, they ask? (when they have got their breath back). She was my mother I tell them. She was even in a hurry to die. I spend a lot of my middle life realising that I am very much like her. I often have to take stock and tell myself that I don’t have to speed through everything. I can relax and smell the roses. Even this morning when out for a brisk walk with a stop at a coffee shop for a skinny latte and a perusal of the morning paper, I realised that I accomplished the coffee drinking and paper reading in ten minutes flat. And then I felt like I was dawdling.

Why do I rush? And where am I rushing too? What is the hurry, and will getting there fast make any difference to my life in general? I envy those folk who can drape themselves on couches for long periods of time or doze in armchairs in the afternoon. Instead, I am racked with guilt that I am wasting time. I remember my mother when she used to rush to places. She often wore cheap plastic soled shoes which would slide out from under her and leave her sitting on her backside in the middle of the footpath. I, a surly teenager would not acknowledge her as she was just ‘so’ embarrassing. I would not help her up. My father would often tell her to slow down. But she just couldn’t. And so she didn’t.

When she grew old, she hated the enforced curtailment of her walking freedom. The Ada Dawson School of Walking left it’s indelible genetic residue in her daughters. My sister and I both walk very quickly indeed. In fact, when on a city street and within sniffing distance of a good coffee shop, we almost build up a head of steam as we forge our way forward. My father used to say that Mum was like Bodacia in her chariot. I have a mental picture of mum in a crimplene frock, white hat, handbag and shoes with metal spears emanating from her shins and the pram as she pushed her way through crowded city streets – surprised and tardy shoppers examining their bloodied legs in amazement as this paragon of pace moved at the speed of greased lightening.

I am sad now when I think of Mum. She died nearly two years ago, and yes, she was even in a hurry to die. It took too long, she thought, this lying around in a hospital bed looking at a sea of concerned faces gazing back at her. “How long is this going to take?” she would question me crossly. I would think to myself that it wasn’t quite as easy as booking a trip on a plane. It was only as she slipped into that late afternoon dusk of nearly dying that she finally relaxed. As she slowly relinquished her hold on life the strain and tension left her body. And so, the founding member of the Ada Dawson School of Walking left this world.

I remembered her this morning as I sped along the pavement in my bouncy Asics gel shoes. Her technique and her tenacious stride. The poetry of economical movement as her elbows sawed through the air. I met my daughter for a coffee (well it was for my birthday) and I realised that her stride reminded me of my mother. I smiled as I thought of mum on a cloud in heaven having done her early morning circuit. I think she would have smiled too.

I have been thinking a lot about the ephemeral nature of happiness. Peace and happiness are close friends. We cannot know happiness without knowing sadness. Life is full of contrasts. Happiness is that almost elusive event that sneaks up and takes you unawares. You cannot manufacture it, sniff it, bottle it or drink it. Sadly many have tried and failed. However, again I digress. Yes, I am living in the limbo of Peggy’s beautiful house. My friend Peggy has had me living here in her spare bedroom for weeks now until my old place is ready once again. For weeks I have enjoyed amazing meals, a hot fire and the beautiful surroundings of trees and a small stream running through it. Visits from birds and animals are a bonus of this limbo. I call it limbo because I am still living out of boxes and bags. I feel content and unsettled at the same time. Like I am on holiday but I still have to go to work. A paradox, some would say.

I have started to receive some cheques from the insurance company so have begun to choose furniture and appliances. Some would love this chance to start again. I must confess that I feel overwhelmed. It is only a small granny flat. How can I get it wrong? A cheque to spend at ‘Freedom Furniture’? What colours? What theme? my daughter suggested that this time I should go for something streamlined without so much clutter. Clutter? I thought it was a fine example of an ‘eclectic mix?’ Anyway – I have always admired Geraldine’s interior design in the ‘Vicar of Dibley’ – yet I hanker for Asian minimalist, city chic or Nantucket beach side.

How did this post go from limbo to home decor? Just an example of the complex way my mind works. But I quess i am unique. I had better rouse myself from my stupor here gazing out at autumn leaves falling into a stream and go and gaze at some catalogues.