party days

A rather gargantuan party-ish weekend has caught up with me and I am slicing into my rather massive haystack of sick leave. Last week was busy to the hilt preparing for S’s 50th, amongst all the usual stuff. Since I felt responsible for convincing her of the absolute necessity of celebrating such a hefty milestone – how could the person who, in her fabulous youth, started the Eumundi markets and sailed to India with an international fugitive, let her 50th pass without a bit of a knees-up? – I offered to help out with the food. Thus ensued wads of shopping, cooking, dishwashing and organising by both K and I. Buckets of sand were brought from Tallebudgera to bed tealight candles in brown paper bags. Chairs were carted and fairy lights strung. I made a mega pesto pasta salad from scratch. Plus my first ever quiche and samosas. (Thanks to my long-standing recipe recalcitrance – and the freezer gods – visitors to the 'Hill will be plied with samosa filling for months to come...)

The day before the party, R and J (who I hadn’t properly caught up with for AGES) came over for dinner on the deck. Mainly so they could finally meet K… and both parties be satisfied that my besties/squeeze were not just a psychological dependency I dreamed up. The girls drank a yummy red and talked about the boys. The boys drank German beer. And talked about beer. There was chicken, salad, cous cous. And sticky date pudding. Mmm. Oh. And the day before that was S's actual birthday, so we went to Sakura, the local Japanese, for amazing sushi, tempura and sake. Parteeee!

Since she had friends coming from both ends of the east coast and every hippy haven in between, I thought it would be lovely if S had photos from the evening as a keepsake. Here are some of the more experimental results… and a rather cute look at what happens when two alco-mo-hol-happy dreamers play with a camera :)

brunswick by bus

On the weekend K and I took Alice the bus for a slow spin down the coast. After some months parked by the Tallebudgera Creek, she needed a run. K found a place on Google Maps called Wooyung which begged the question: a seemingly undeveloped stretch of coast between Pottsville and Brunswick Heads. It was my first time travelling in Alice... and I discovered it is akin to being crowned parade royalty - people look, wave and cheer at you, so naturally it's polite to wave back. (All my secret Moomba fantasies now realised!) We discovered why Wooyung is undeveloped: stagnant creek, mosquitoes and pallid drenchings of end-of-the-worldness. There were no powered sites for us in Wooyung, making the short run to Brunswick a no-brainer. There we found a lovely little nook at the end of the caravan park, right by the Cruising Yacht Association, where honeydew smells filled the air. After executing our entry strategy (parking a bus is kind of like mooring a boat, though thankfully a lot less stressful), we went for a walk to ogle boats. I then proceeded to sate my crazy summer food and beverage cravings (Coopers Greens and potato chips followed by lamb and rosemary sausages and salad… mmm!)

In the morning we discovered Alice had not quite enough grunt left in her batteries to get us away by check-out. So we dutily informed the 12-yo at the desk that we unfortunately couldn’t go anywhere for a few hours, put Alice on charge and took coffees and breakfast-bowls to some rocks by the river and read the paper in the sun. Bliss! Then it was off to the beach for a spell of lolling and swimming.

Accompanied (as has been increasingly the case over recent beachy weekends) by a small boy-pack kicking a footy. This strange phenomenon has seen small groups of not-quite-teenage boys assemble beside us on the beach and engage in a bit of biff - kicking footies, wrestling, etc. K thinks it’s me. Pffff! I reckon they have a sixth dog-like sense and can smell the crazy love gremlins.

We headed back to Alice for a late alfresco lunch of cold sausages and sourdough with leftover tomato-capsicum salsa. Yum! And in a move sure to please the elder Relic, I took out a fully-paid, life-time membership of the Cold Sausage Fan Club.

Bellies full, K gave Alice a turn and she was back in action, putting paid to fantasies of calling work Monday morning to report ourselves "stuck at the beach". Back at Tallebudgera (after people at bus stops on the Gold Coast Highway tried to hail us - apparently this is usual), we did a sweep of Australia on Google Maps, pegging out regions on a big old road-tripping dream across the country. Which was fortuitously followed by the happy Monday discovery that by next March, I will have racked up about six months leave at half pay.

How many ways can a desk-hound say ‘Wooooo!’?

rose coloured things

Spring is early. Dresses and skirts are out. Along with an unusual compulsion to wear pink.

Jasmine is blooming, spilling over fence-lines and filling walks to work with summery thoughts of barbecues and bare feet. Tallebudgera weekends are salt air and sunshine, walking and swimming, sunset beers on the beach. S has bent to my nudging and is going to (try to) teach me to surf. I'll help make food for her 50th celebration. The calendar is filling: a quick jaunt to Sydney to see Ben Folds at the Opera House, a weekend in a tent at Straddie.

Possibility is rife and expectant. The future is being dreamed...

The coast road. The desert. A swag and a campfire. Fishing gear and a fistful of stars. An adventure ending in a little plot of land. A deli-café? And a dog, a wood-shop and a bus. Ooh and maybe a boat!

Dreams... fluid, shimmering and unknown.

the love shambles

I have spent the past month hanging out with the most lovely boy in the world.

It has been a wonderful and very surreal month of kayaking, ocean swimming, firefly enchanted forests, beautiful language, riverside lolling and mysterious worm holes that make whole evenings disappear in a love-hazed puff. Seems though the gremlins are a-lurking... wreaking a series of injuries and acute befuddlement upon us. Let me recount the woes…

We went walking at Springbrook and K sconed himself on a tree branch (he is tall and it was dark), leaving a nice red welt on his noggin. I (horrifyingly) gave him a very nasty burn with a hot water bottle. And then (repenting?) got a little too close to the oven while making pizzas and scorched a finger. Early on in the piece, I broke out with a dreaded cold sore… and, despite utmost care and restraint, almost gave it to him... eek! I have lost two pieces of treasured jewellery in his presence (an earring that belonged to my Nana and a ring from Fes). The other week he lost my glasses in Alice the bus (his home on wheels) and was so guilt-laden/worried about me driving in the dark without my 'eyes' that he drove me home from Alice’s digs at Tallebudgera. To Bris-vegas. And nearly killed us both when his foot got stuck on the accelerator (or a water bottle rolled under the brake... we were both a little too traumatised to be sure which) and we nearly ploughed across a median strip and through an intersection at about sixty clicks. (We pulled the bus apart at least three times looking for the specs. He toyed with the idea of applying an angle grinder to a small hole near the wheel arch that may have swallowed them. The glasses turned up a week later INSIDE an ugg boot. Of course.)

Gadgetry is also awry: my TV had a hissy fit, the laptop is exhibiting terminal early warning signs and supermarket conveyor belts simply stop functioning in my presence (after I have loaded my shopping onto them, naturally). We also aroused a few neighbourly eyebrows after he locked his keys in Barry (the Landcruiser) at my place and we attempted to break in with a coat-hanger. In the dark. Oh. And this week my watch stopped working. Which may explain those mysterious time-stealing worm holes.

And. I have also inexplicably become an overnight ditz at work, muddling up all over the shop. Whilst being inducted to the secret squirrel world of the Queensland Cabinet.

Anyway, this week has been clear of funny stuff. Am hoping we've seen the back of the gremlins. ;)

hand-washing

nine months

Mind-boggling, but that’s how long I’ve been back in Bris-vegas. And back at desk. The novelty of home and routine and staying put has dulled. I am so reintegrated (re-educated?) I talk about my former cultural alienation like it belonged to someone else. Winter has stolen daylight from my home. It’s too dark and cold to nurture plantlife mid-week and weekends always disappear under the weight of bare necessities… laundry, coffee, papers, food and a lazy snatch of sunshine. Despite a little busy spell – a couple of writing assignments, theatre engagements, kayaking jaunts and dinners out – the past month has yet managed to dissolve in a blur of yoga-guilt, neglected plants and half-started library books. And I’ve been a carefree squirrel, merrily piffing acorns up the wall. So have been feeling grudgingly distracted from goal. But trying still to take it all in and enjoy the ride. The lazy susan of life has been spinning at a breakneck pace. And it has launched a small parcel of spectacular my way. But given recent efforts at Speaking Too Soon, I'm gonna wait a few more spins before spilling the goods.

an unbecoming gloat

Phew! I won a stay of execution. I am not going back to the communications perch anytime before Christmas. And possibly not even after. Or ever [dreamily].

I snagged the recently-referred to temporary policy role (my second). Actually [enlarged ego warning…] I ACED the field of seasoned policy practitioners. WOOO! Though I must qualify that by adding that selection was based on a written task given to shortlisted candidates. And I’m sure I would not have scored so highly had I been required to talk. But still. There I was, floundering in my little pond of self-doubt, thinking I didn’t have the goods to make it in the social policy realm because I lacked the somewhat critical requirement for content expertise. Which is kind of stupid logic really, because exactly how much expertise could I have expected to amass in my two-and-a-half months at a policy desk. So. I’m sticking this feather in my cap and flouncing down the catwalk with it! The coolest thing about this is that I have done the previously unthinkable – a sideways (and slightly upwards) transition into a whole new field of work.

[winged cherubs with trumpets appear]

Not counting the cooking on boats stuff. Or the writing for interesting publications stuff. And not nearly as cool as either of the above but a) salaried, b) ongoing and c) potentially interesting and worthy enough to hold my attention and let me derive some sense of meaning and purpose while I keep on squirrelling acorns.

I started the new new job – in the same wider policy team but a different branch – last week. And I am locking the jury out, despite their door-battering attempts to make some rash (read unfavourable) judgements about the new environs. Unbecoming it may be, but I have time yet for a little more swooning around with this feather. Tra-la…