It’s the simple things

‘Goodness, ThirdCat,’ people have said of late, ‘you seem happier these days. The spring has returned to your step, the sparkle to your eye, the glow to your skin…what is the secret of such lightness of being?’

‘Oh,’ I say breezily because I have recently been to the dentist and am not afraid of haliotosis, ‘I’ve just made a few simple modifications to my home. Simple things, but they’ve made life much more comfortable.’

‘So you’ve fixed that top drawer, the one with the cutlery and other useful things so that the whole front panel of the drawer no longers comes off in your hand every third day or so forcing you to use language you’d rather your children hadn’t become quite so fluent in,’ they say.

‘Well,’ I reply because it would be rude to ignore them, ‘that would make a great difference to my general sense of well-being, but no, that drawer remains only temporarily repaired.’

‘Oh,’ they say because they are as interested in the intricacies of my life as I am in theirs, ‘so you’ve ripped out that floating floor because while the name floating floor sounds so ethereal, in actual fact, when things such as metal marbles are dropped on them, as they very often are in a house with two young boys, the sound is enough to snap synapses three houses away.’

‘Oh, no, nothing quite so life-changing as that,’ I say.

‘Ah,’ they say, ‘so you’ve ducked into the hardware shop, that one you walk past every second day, to buy another small roll of felt, and you’ve fixed the felt to the bottom of the kitchen chairs so that they no longer scrape against the floating floor in that way which has grown from irritating to something approaching the sound of fingernails down a blackboard.’

‘Well, no, in fact, yet another of the chair legs has just lost its felt.’

And by the time they get to there, the new chopping board – the one with enough space to fit all of the slices of the bread and the block of cheese while I make the sandwiches – doesn’t seem to have made that much difference to my life at all.

But luckily, most people are too polite to say goodness me, ThirdCat, you’re not looking quite as good as you were.

lost and found


lost and foundOriginally uploaded by adelaide writer.

‘Did you pick the necklace up from the windowsill?’

Unfortunately, he didn’t ask until we were back in our own loungeroom, half a continent away from said windowsill. When I woke up the next morning – still not sure whether ‘housekeeping’ had found it, because by the time I rang they’d ‘gone for the day’ – I had that dreadful feeling you have when you know there is something you wish were different and as soon as you wake up a little bit more you’ll remember what it was.

I’ve had this – not sure what to call it, necklace? chain? – for a long time now. Seven years, or maybe eight. It is one of the loveliest pieces of jewellery the mister has ever given to me. Maybe the loveliest. It came from a significant place and he gave it to me at what I thought was a significant time.

So when I realised I’d left it behind I was all those things you would expect me to be.

I wasn’t really cross with myself for taking it on our trip. I wear all my precious things whenever I want to. I nearly lost my nanna’s wedding and engagement rings forever, because I involved myself in an elaborate hiding game and still believed that my memory was infallible (which it more or less is, but not quite). My mum gave them to me for my twenty-first birthday and they were the last significant birthday gift she gave me before she died, so they were pretty precious. But I did get a bit stupid about them. In the six months they were missing, I learnt a lot about having precious things to wear. Cherish them, but enjoy them too, and never believe that if anything happens to them you won’t survive.

Anyway, I found the rings. And here, only three phonecalls, two weeks and $7.60 COD later, my necklace is back.

Smiles all round. Except for the little boy whose flu has become an ear infection. The Goddess help us if this family is ever called on in our country’s neediest hour. He will be no stoic soldier and I’m no Florence Nightingale.

tracks in the sand


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Originally uploaded by adelaide writer.

According to my wise friend, the ends of old decades are much harder than the beginning of new ones. ‘When you’re 40,’ she said, ‘it’s a celebration and everyone tells you how good you look.’

Only two more years.

This, by the way, is a photo I took on my birthday when we walked along a beach where no one else had left their footprints that day and my littlest boy drew tracks in the sand, my eldest boy bounced, and everyone poked their fingers into anenomes.

So really, you have to wonder where is all this ‘what have I got to show for my life’ coming from?

Maybe it’s because there was no cake.

Sunday night after living with a flu-like virus in the house for one and a half weeks

‘So,’ Adelaide said, because there was a commercial break in Grey’s Anatomy and it was awfully silent with the mute button on, ‘which do you reckon is more wrong? Danii Minogue judging a talent quest…’

‘Yes, that’s pretty wrong,’ the mister said adjusting the cushion so that it rested more firmly in the small of his back.

‘Or,’ Adelaide continued, ‘the cultural references in the dingo enclosure of that theme park we visited last week…’

She flashed him a photo to refresh his memory:

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‘Yes, even I with a mind which does not search everything I see for allegory, metaphor or symbolism found that immediately disturbing…’ he said. Then sniffed.

‘Or…’ she continued, but then stopped as she gave yet another shallow, but irritating cough, ‘that ad* in today’s classifieds which ends A great place to start your life sentence‘?

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The mister’s bloodshot eyes looked into hers.

‘Couldn’t you just ask me whether I’d prefer green tea or jasmine?’ he asked. Then sneezed. Then pulled another tissue out of the box. And she marvelled, as she had often had cause to do, that despite its larger proportions, his nose, once blown, never went quite as red as hers.

*short explanation for those of you not from round here this event will be held in the old Gaol a place I must blog for you in more detail.

At the risk of sounding a teensy bit like Dick Smith…

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Partly because of parental influence and partly because I really do get wittier the more I talk, I sometimes repeat stories.

‘Yes, ThirdCat,’ friends who arrived on these shores from far lands would say, ‘you did once mention that Bush Biscuits were the second best foodstuff ever to be manufactured and I think you’re probably right that Australian society has suffered since they were discontinued by Arnotts. If only we had arrived in those heady times when tertiary education was free and the greatest arguments were between those who liked their Bush Biscuits plain and those who liked them smothered in Vegemite. Now, perhaps you could tell us again about that time you set your kitchen on fire.’ And they would settle back into their chairs and smile then laugh then roar. My friends are good that way.

And then, at the end of last year, Bush Biscuits returned, packaged in fours rather than eights, and – as with all childhood memories – slightly smaller than you might have thought – but tasting the same.

‘Oh,’ those friend(s) said, ‘ThirdCat you were right. Bush Biscuits are brilliant.’ And they are. Though they are not the healthy option children are taught about in schools these days they are filling, cheap and do not go soggy. And, unlike apples, you can hide them at the back of the cupboard thus ensuring that you have not run out by Friday.

I had thought that Bush Biscuits were an Australian-all-over institution, but it seems I was not right (and that’s something I’m only going to say once). Blog-cruising the other day, I was surprised by Lucy Tartan’s surprise at the Bush Biscuit. It seems that like Fritz, Woodroofe’s lemonade and the State Bank, Bush Biscuits were South Australian.

The future of Bush Biscuits is uncertain, and these days they are manufactured in Papua New Guinea.

This post is not brought to you by SA Great, or KG it just sounds that way.

remedy for a jellyfish sting

Obviously, this advice is of a general nature only and you should seek advice from a medical professional or lifeguard…the man in the general store may be sympathetic and helpful, but he is not a medical professional. And he does have a commercial interest in moving these packets of slightly over-priced peas.

Bit of a shambles…

that million penguins experiment. And I’m probably one of its more generous observers.

But in other news, I screwed my courage to the sticking post, registered for raw comedy and last night won my heat. I then enjoyed a most excellent glass of wine as well as the opportunity to gaze upon this man again (and yes, the curl of his lashes more than compensates for the odd twist to his smile) then sensibly came home to enjoy a cup of tea and late night conversation with my babysitting dad rather than staying out and starting on the mango daquiris.