Pavers and Things that go BUMP!

Just before this last amount of rain set in, I managed to do one of those jobs that you keep meaning to do but just put off.

I was given a huge pile of pavers to pave my stud pen with and just hadn't gotten around to doing it. I knew I had two girls coming to stay soon and figured it had to be done. So, I bought some sand and raked out the pen. Aiden was busy throwing a spectacular tantrum (I'm NOT cleaning my room and YOU can't make me...yes, I can't make you but I CAN make you stay IN your room til you do!) so Caitie and Conor buckled down and helped me. It was another example of having lovely kids helping out to make a chore go quicker. At the end of the hour it took we had run out of paver but had enough room left to put two lovely grass plants in for the cats to play hide and seek amongst. Tick another job off the list!

and then down came the rain and it rained and it rained and it rained and it rained and are you starting to see a pattern here?

And I want to share another quick story about the kids before I go back to sulking about the rain.

We had about a half hour when the rain stopped so we took Nell, the stafford, to an area down from us where she can go offlead and we could look at the flood water from a safe distance. The kids were around five meters from me and slightly behind me when I noticed movement around a meter or two in front of me. It was a young brown snake.

Brown snakes are deadly. And this one was only small, around a meter long, but still deadly. I froze and called, "Stop, SNAKE" and every single one of my three kids froze in their tracks. Caitie fell apart and kept whimpering, "Mummy. mummy, mummy" but she didn't move. Nell was coming toward me, directly in line with the snake when I dropped one hand, spun on my heel and gave her another hand signal and she ran around to my right, missing where the snake was (gotta love agility hand signals!)

We then quietly turned and walked away. I was so proud that my three kids froze and did exactly what I had taught them to do. We live in an area where snakes are common enough and this one was awfully close. It had right of way and we left it to go where it needed to go without any hysterics on our behalf. Well done guys!

Four Seasons

I love the changing of the seasons, especially where I live. Living sub-Tropical means that the subtleties of the weather are less pronounced and you need to be in tune with your area to know and understand when seasons end and change.

This year Summer has been a long time coming. We have had squally, windy, rainy days that are just not seen where I live. Its almost Melbourne like! Summer here is days of oppressive heat and humidity where it feels like you are swimming upright. The sun blasts out of a windless sky and sucks the moisture out of your skin. Nothing moves and the cicada's singing in the trees make a strident melody with the mournful moaning of the crows. Summer is school holidays and Christmas, stonefruit and mangoes. Watermelons eaten on freshly mown lawns, with your knees around your ears and spitting seeds at your siblings. Summer is hot but it is broken by a crescendo of sound and lighting that puts any NYE celebration to shame. The storms that roll in are like a Latin Lovers quarrel, vibrant and noisy and shortlived. The world holds its breath as the rain heavy clouds roll in. Then the earth breathes out and the storm hits and lashes with fury. Rain is big drops or massive hail.

Summer nights are either sauna hot, with the mosquitos singing in the dark or spent watching your husband sleep, listening to the rain on the tin roof and seeing him lit up as the lightning races across the sky and the thunder booms into the still air. Ozone is the smell of summer. Frogs making melodies in the pond amongst the raindrops are one of the sounds of summer.

Autumn reminds of a baby with the hiccups. Days of blazing heat at first with a slight catch in the wind. Searingly hot summer breezes soften and relax. The air has a crispness to it that catches you unawares and, before you know it, you are wearing a dressing gown in the mornings and the dog is cold at night. After the endless wringing heat of summer, the world again breathes out, in soft morning puffs of cool air. In my garden Autumn is heralded by the swelling flower buds of the Grevilleas and the Banksias. The birds begin to lengthen their visits as the flowers start to appear. Around the pond it becomes strangely silent as the frogs start to huddle in for a crisply cool winter.

Winter is a time of balmy days and cold nights. Long walks on freezing cold beaches or in the rain followed by hot chocolate with marshmallows and bubble baths afterward. Children with cold noses and sparkling eyes. Slippers and seven cats in the bed at night. My garden has burst into a glorious riot of colour as Lady Queensland puts on her finest for the winter dance. Flowers are heavy with nectar and the bees drone quietly in the soft winter sunshine. While Summer is a season of water, Winter is dry and you can feel it in your bones. Skin is itchy and static is clingy as the August winds sweep in drying everything out and making people cranky. Jumpers stick to your skin and kids spend time shocking everyone with the static electricity from their shoes. The days are too short and the nights never seem long enough. Flannelette sheets make winter a welcome snuggling time.

And then its Spring. It creeps in quietly, one day at a time. The breeze is no longer crisp but warm and welcoming, surrounding you and caressing your skin. The world begins to wake up and stretch but this time with a huge indrawn breath. Early storms march across the horizon and waken the frogs. Night time is busiest with the dok-doks and trills never seeming to end. The soft and sensual introduction to spring never last long and its only a matter of days before the sun is blazing down and we are wondering where winter went.

This years Seasonal Salsa has changed. We have had days and days of never ending rain followed by weak sunshine. Our total has been a week at most of sunshine and heat. And strangely enough, I miss it. I miss that expectation of a good summer storm, of the smell of lightning as it cracks open the sky and lands in the nearby parks. I miss the almight roars as it tears across the horizon. I miss it but I know that it will be back. When the earth breathes in again.

Cindy

Summer.....

Summer is here, finally and I forgot how truly awful it can be where we live. I am NOT a morning person and, since the kids are on holidays and we own our own business and we're on a weeks holiday, I tend to sleep in. Then when I get up it is already hot, hot, hot!

The unending humidity drains the strength out of you and makes you irritable. Team it with weeks of rain and you have a devastating mix of washing to do, mud, mosquitoes and high humidity. We also have a whole heap of yard work to do which just kills you in this heat. We tend to do what we have to do before 10am and then retire inside to catch up on indoor chores. The kids are I then have a lunchbreak around 12-2 or 3 where we watch a movie, play a game, read or just have quiet time. After 3 its cool enough in our backyard to go out and do some of the endless lopping and raking that a large sized yard offers up.

Today, I tackled the litter pile. We breed cats and cats have to poop and pee somewhere and we are lucky enough to use an all natural wood based product that breaks down and recycles really well. Problem is we have native trees that don't like a high acid soil. Hence the litter pile. It was fenced in on all sides by a corrugated tin fence but that fence had fallen down somewhat and it was teamed with my childrens inability to throw the litter waste into the center of the pile. Said pile had escaped and had worked its way UNDER my washing line. It irritated me no end and I finally had the chance to put it to rights. Before anyone goes all faint and carries on, it was like broken down woodshavings not actual poop. Poop was removed beforehand.

Anyway, I had started to shovel and cart it into the mud soaked chookpen (which is a whole other issue) and was met by Caitie who asked what I was doing. When I told her, she grabbed another shovel and started to help. I could have fallen over! Then, down came Conor....who grabbed another shovel and started to help....this was getting freaky. Finally Aiden came down and was handed a shovel by Caitlin and he jumped in to help as well. At this point toes were being close to being chopped off by four shovels going at once, so I proposed a Conga line.

There we were, Caitie- shovel, dump, back of the line, Aiden-shovel, dump, back of the line, Conor-shovel, dump, back of the line and finally Mummy-shovel, dump, back of the line. I kept the kids motivated by cheering them on and praising the size of the shovelfulls we had to get. It took about half an hour, if that, of solid work and my fence was restored on all four sides, we had had a run in with a legless lizard, numerous spiders and we all had fun!

Tomorrow, I have to do the same sort of thing with the used mulch in my stud cat pen as we have some Layyyydies coming to visit my boy. Lets see if I can get the Conga line started with the promise of iceblocks????

The Eyes of a Child...the Soul of a Killer

Q has been rehomed. He was fantastic at what he did, he was an awesome working dog. He heeled perfectly and was fast learning everything there was to know about agility. He was my dream dog when it came to performance...and a nightmare with our beloved cats.

Something had to give and it gave with a bang. I had to think of my family as a whole and the right my cats had to live safely in that family. Q was a killer when it came to a cat being outside. Our cats were not allowed to be outside but I have three children and accidents happen, doors don't close and gates are locked before they are shut, leaving them open.

I have found a great home for my boy. He is living on two acres with no cats and no birds. He has a teenage family to play with, young adults who are responsible and respectful and he will live happily, I know this. It doesn't make it any easier but, as I said, its not fair on my family to expect them to live in fear.

Cin

All the Pretty Horses

After being a parent to a twelve year old girl, I have come to the conclusion that its like breaking a horse in.

You need to focus on the rules and expectations to start with, learning the correct way to do things and correct expectations on behaviour. You can't just gallop through life headfirst and pray you don't hit something. Start by taking quiet steps into the world, stretch your legs after you have stretched your mind and it will all come together.

Caitie is at the stage where we are galloping into puberty and its like trying to hold onto a galloping horse. You need all of your skill to pull those reigns in tight, and then let them slip a bit, pull them in tight and let them slip a bit. At her age there is more tight than slip. Occasionally, we will let the reins go fully and she can have a glorious gallop through freedom from responsibility but we always come back and tighten them up again.

Tony is hopeless at this little game. He wants to keep those reigns tight at all times, directing her constantly through her life, correcting her and pulling her back into line but if you don't relax the reins, how will you know if the lesson is learnt???

With her father, Caitie is in constant battle with him, pulling at those reins and seeing how much give they have. She is literally chaffing at the bit to try and get away with as much as possible. With me, the reins aren't as tight and she gets away with that little bit more. Sometimes she runs with the bit and I have to haul her back in but its not a regular occurence.

I see some of her classmates who haven't got the same respect for their parents that our children do. Twelve year old girls turning up at school wearing more makeup than their mothers do. Thick eyeliner, short skirts and attitudes up the bazooka. It will make for an intersting dynamic next year as Caitie heads for the Teenager Target.

I know Caitie is not as mature as her classmates and I can only hope that my Pretty Pony can handle herself amongst all the Pretty Horses.

Cin

Tea Time

There is a company which has just recently perfected a kettle which makes the perfect cup of tea. My thought was, "Does it also bring the wisdom with it?"

In my house I have a huge old camping kettle. It's enamel and has seen its share of triumphs and tragedies in its day. It came to us through a garage sale and is big and brown and full of personality. It holds around twenty cups of water which is enough for a really long D & M session.

To me, a cup of tea is not just about what you are drinking, whether its green, red, black, oolong, herbal or chai. It's the making of the tea, the process. Our kettle goes on the stove. You have a good fifteen minutes to air your problems or share your joys while waiting for the beast to boil. It doesn't whistle to interupt the conversation, there are no beeps or burrrrs to tell you its time to brew, just a soft, steady stream of steam.

Then there is the making of the tea. Me? White with two and leave the teabag in. Herbal it has to be peppermint, a tea that Aiden really likes as well, two sugars there too. Tony has his medium strong, white with two, Caitie and Conor tend to like weak and milky with one. And give it time to brew. An extra few minutes to think of the right thing to say or offer the right words of sympathy.

A cuppa is all about change as well. As I said before, I like herbal and prefer it to normal black tea. If I drink black tea, it has to be English Breakfast, unless I have a cold and then Earl Grey clears the sinuses. I have recently discovered Rooibos and like it with a dash of vanilla. My dad used to drink his tea white with two, always white with two. Then he and my mum seperated, divorced and he met my lovely stepmum. Now its black with one, she thinks he needs to be healthier. I find that sad, someone dictating your brew.

Tea holds memories, like no other liquid can. My kids all had a cuppa tea in their bottle when they were starting to wean . My day usually starts with my husband handing me my brew, it kick starts my day. Piping hot tea off an open fire was how we always had it when camping as a kid....and then there was that Monday, 9 years ago, in September.

I had changed to a tea called Invigorate, a succelent blend of mint and lemongrass, vanilla and thistle. Aiden was just over one, it had been an awful year for us, I had been diagnosed with Cancer and we had bravely fought and won that battle. On this Monday, I had my tea out on the back stairs and I remember thinking what a beautiful Spring day it was, so very quiet. It never occurred to me that it was too quiet.

I went in to turn on the tv as we normally did and I wondered why they were playing a drama movie at that time of the morning... at that point the first plane flew into the twin towers and our world changed forever. I will never forget that cup of tea, as long as I live.

Tea brings happiness, that hot cup taken while having your makeup done on your wedding day, or anticipation, sipping while waiting to hear news of a new baby. It gives solace when there are no words and also gives those of us who don't know how to grieve something to do. We make the tea, we follow the ritual, we give our offering and the recipient knows that that humble cup holds more than tea, it holds the feelings "I know, I understand, I will be here for you." It builds bridges and creates bonds, it makes a philosopher of us all.

And may it never grow cold....

Cin

How did I get to this????

Ok, I know I've been a little maudlin lately but I had to share something that confuses me.

I was bullied in High School...not just picked on but seriously bullied, I am talking about hit, spat on, had dead reptiles thrown at me, abused and denigrated. I know my tormentors don't remember the hell they put me threw when I consider the amount of them who want to friend me on Facebook. I sit here and think "You called me a useless whore, a bitch, a slut and every other name under the sun. You hurt me physically, emotionally and mentally and NOW you want to be my friend?" Unlike High School I can now choose to delete you from my life!

Thats not what confuses me though. Like most people who had a traumatic upbringing of sorts, I have quite low self esteem. Most people who meet me don't know this, all they see is the quirky, funny woman I have become. However, put me in a room with ten strangers and I will be scratching my nails to the quick trying to get out!

What I don't understand is why so many people seem to like me? And no, before you ask, this isn't my way of asking everyone to come out of the woodwork and sign my blog, telling me how great I am...though that would be nice! Its more a case of meeting people for the first time and having them decide they really like me. I'm not used to it. AND I've been out of high school for many, many years. (twenty but who's counting).

We went to a garage sale the other day and it happened to be around the corner from me and I felt, like I usually do, that I was never going to see these people again so I was my usual weird self. Husband then chose to drop in again on the way to work and the wife mentioned she would love to have a couple of glasses of wine with me just because she loved my sense of humour! I am not used to having that affect on people! I have another friend who is younger than me and sees me as a mother figure...she told me this.

I am not used to being liked and respected, its weird...I'm just me, crazy, quirky, funny, round me!

Cin