Um, hello

There's just not a lot I can talk about in public at the moment.   But we're plugging away - Hayden's applying for jobs with all his might, and I'm making coffees each day like you wouldn't believe.

I have found a bit of time to get back in the garden, though.  After months away from it during our monster Wet Season, I've recently discovered that not all our plants are completely dead.  Some have gone.  A couple have thrived on all that water, but most are just looking a bit straggly and stressed.   But the thing about caring for plants is that if you get their situation right -  just enough water, just enough sun - they do grow beautifully, all on their own.  Sometimes it takes a while to find that right position, but once you do you can rely on them - they usually come good.

What happened THIS week

We have had to do a fair bit of adjusting recently, and this week I got to do just a little bit more.  This week I changed employers.  I didn't change jobs, rather my job changed around me.  Of course the first rule of blogging is: don't talk about work.  But work is all I've been doing recently, so talk about it I will.

For the last couple of weeks I've been working full time at the coffee shop, not out of a conscious choice so much as out of my panicked reaction to our current circumstances combined with the shop owner's need to cover all the shifts.  He's come to be part friend/part boss over the past two years, and he said it would really help him out if I could bump up my shifts from two days a week to five.  Just for a while.  Me, I'm not usually able to refuse a request for help.  And I was happy to do it because I loved his coffee shop; it was the first place we went in Townsville where we really felt at home and happy to just hang out.  I really wanted the place to survive, and to do well.  The boss said that a new staff member would join us soon.  He said maybe next week.  Then he said maybe the week after that.

Well.  On Thursday my co-worker and I got the news that our boss was no longer our boss, and that another bigger and much more professional outfit had taken over our tiny coffee operation.  They told us that they were keen to 'minimise any disruption' and that it would really help them out if we would stay on in our jobs.  In that moment it sounded like an OK idea, so I agreed.

But after two days under this new arrangement, my head is still spinning.  It's the same job - the same coffee, the same regulars with the same orders, the same mini-conversation over and over again throughout the day.  But the background noise is completely different.  I'm no longer working to help a friend out, doing everything I can to build our base of happy customers and to keep the whole thing afloat.  For him I worked super-hard, because if his business went under we would lose one of the mainstays of our life in Townsville.  If you are not a coffee drinker, you might wonder how a single coffee shop could have that much bearing on a life.  But just imagine we're in Casablanca.  This coffee shop was our Rick's.  So now we're still in Rick's Cafe, but it's been taken over by his greasy competitor from the Blue Parrot.  Ugh.

It's just a job to me now.   

Valentine's Day Lunch

Obviously ~ to have love, life, food and shelter is to be lucky.  Especially now; especially in Australia.

But I know that I am really lucky.  

Today, for Valentines Day, Hayden recreated our legendary first picnic together: Summer 2004, Moonlight Cinema, Melbourne botanical gardens.  As he spread the picnic blanket with wine and food he'd spent the day preparing, Hayden asked me: "You're not vegetarian are you?" And I could see all the trouble he'd gone to and answered: (gulp) "... no, of course not."  And it wasn't a lie; from that point on I really was an omnivore.   Today's menu is one of my favourites:  roast chicken stuffed with semi-dried tomatoes, rocket leaves and cous cous salad.  This time, though, it was an indoor picnic as the ground outside is still completely wet and muddy.

Obviously ~ there are ups and downs.  Things happen to us, and other things fail to happen, and the circumstances test us.  We might just now, Hayden and I, be getting a sense of all the things that can happen during a marriage, and how it will last and bounce back and carry on, always growing stronger.  

I'm wishing you a happy Valentine, too.

40 Days and Nights

The newspaper tells us that this has been going on for forty days and nights, but I don't know if that's true.

I can't remember how long it has been raining or what it was like before - all I know is that some time ago things changed: the sun disappeared. the air cooled. Hayden stopped going to work every day and I started. He's been writing letters and emailing, applying, working full time at finding a job. Meanwhile I am making coffees all day long, and in my dreams at night I'm still making coffees. Two nights ago Lily jumped up by my side of the bed and asked me for a medium mocha. That was plain ridiculous; she knows she can't have chocolate.

Wherever you are in Australia - the cool part drowning in puddles or the hot part dry and fireswept - I hope you're going OK. We are. We're plodding along through our new muddy puddles. We are going OK.

We'll be fine.

So how are you?  I mean really?

We, I mean Hayden and I, we're fine.  We really are.  But I won't lie to you: we're not completely fine.

Until recently, the world's financial troubles were merely theory to us.  Due to, well, due mainly to apathy and procrastination, we didn't have much invested and we didn't lose much when the stock market went down.  We always said we'd invest ... later.  I actually felt pretty smug and safe cos we'd just chucked all our money in the bank.  And it was fine.

But we watched the news.  We had a feeling that things were going to change, and there were rumours going around at Hayden's work.  We thought they might announce some big changes on January 21 - the day of Obama's inauguration.   The company could prepare itself, knowing there would be a lot of attention on the goings on in Washington.  They could be pretty sure they would be the second story on the news that night.

So, last Wednesday, January 21, Hayden was called to a meeting.   The company announced their changes, and Hayden lost his job along with 102 of his colleagues.  In the same cut, our friends in Perth lost their jobs too when a whole mine was closed.  

But we'll be fine.  We'll be fine.  I keep saying it like a mantra, to myself mostly.  We'll have four or five months (longer if we're thrifty) in which to re-settle ourselves ... But we can't imagine where that might be.  In the meantime, Hayden's settling into a new routine and he's taken over my sewing table for his temporary home office.  And it is nice having him home with me during the day.

Rainy Days

Once again, the rain has come to Townsville.  This is a good and a bad thing.

The downside is that we've had so much rain that it's started coming inside.  It wells up through little cracks between the walls and the floor, just at the most inconvenient spots.  One spot, under my desk, was just where I kept the old cardboard box filled with little scraps of paper on which were written ideas for blogs and stories, lists of goals and dreams and half-formed characters.  I was going to use all of those one day.  The other spot was just where I stored the backup machine for my computer.   Thank you, rainwater.  Spot on as always.

But I love the cosiness of rainy days at home.  Sitting, staring at the water coming down.  Daydreaming of times past in distant rainy cities.  Hanging out with my Christmas presents.  I got an amazing haul of presents this year - didn't you?  My sister gave us the jigsaw puzzle in the photo, which Lily and I have been working on for a couple of days.  I got a beautiful grey handmade shoulder bag from Kirsten.  A special writing pen from Hayden, and a new coffee cup with a lid for keeping the coffee warmer for longer as it sits at my bedside.  And so many other beautiful things.  

My parents gave me a voucher for their favourite independent bookshop in Brisbane.  A book voucher is highly prized in my family; we're agreed that choosing the book is at least half the fun.  Last Friday Hayden and I stopped in and found that it's a factual, learned sort of bookshop with beautiful books on design, gardening, foreign languages and all sorts of academical stuff.  And it's also got the best little section on writing.   I chose this book, Bird by Bird, and I highly recommend it to anyone who's looking for some gentle, funny and helpful advice on writing.  Whether or not you take it is, of course, up to you.

The wedding of Paul and Millicent

Paul and Millicent were married atop a hill in northern New South Wales.  

(Hayden took all these photos.)

In a nice twist on the usual ceremony, the whole crowd got to pronounce them husband and wife, and we all yelled together "You may now kiss the bride!"

Later there was feasting and dancing, and quite a lot of drinking.  

(I mention the drinking only because my biggest contribution to the day was to assist my parents bottling twelve dozen long-neck beers, which many of the guys carried around and drank from as if they were stubbies).   

It was grand.

Hanging Patchwork

I showed you this 'dappled shade' patchwork before, when I first made it as a picnic blanket.   I originally thought of it as a present for my brother Paul and his fiancee Millicent, who are getting married this Saturday down in the cool ranges of northern New South Wales.  Like ours was, their wedding will be a full-weekend affair - the best for family weddings I reckon - but unlike ours it sounds like theirs will double as a mini music festival.  I can't wait!

My inspiration for the patchwork was a backyard picnic we had at their place when we visited last July.  We got the family together with a bottle of champagne to toast Paul's brand new self-designed-self-built chook house.  Paul was pretty chuffed with his new structure and he hoped to enter it into an architectural competition as a small free-standing building.  He is not shy of big ideas, my brother.

After that, I wanted to contribute something to their future backyard entertaining and I thought a new picnic blanket would do the trick.  I wanted to recreate the setting -  their cosy, wooden, plant-filled house in Dutton Park.  Sort of old and dark and pleasantly connected with the leafy close surrounding trees, with back stairs down to a classic inner-city Brisbane backyard - long and grassy and stretching away downhill.   I wanted to include a little of the muck of the chook house and the view we had from the backyard up into the earthy, undeveloped space under their house (Brisbane folk know what I'm talking about).  There are brighter greens there too, mainly for Millicent who I think is going to add a dash of dramatic style to our family.

But do you know where you DON'T need a patch of dappled shade?  Sitting in your shady back yard under a beautiful tree.  That first bunch of photos I took told me that.  Where you most want to be reminded of dappled shade is in your bright white lounge room in the middle of a Townsville summer.   Our window faces east, and on the hottest mornings through the hottest months it lets in the most disgustingly harsh bright light, and heat that sets our place to bake for the rest of the day.  A while ago I covered it with the 'dappled shade' blanket, and it does the trick completely.  (Yes, perhaps wooden shutters outside would also work well, but so far our landlord is saying No to that.)  Now the blanket's a fixture and I can't imagine taking it down before the weather turns nice again in April.  Sorry guys.  

But don't worry, we did get you another wedding present.

Happy New Year!

I am starting off this fresh new year in a cleaning and organising frenzy.   I have already worked out my new year's resolution - I just make one and keep it each year, I don't piss around with lists of impossible tasks - and I might share it here later.

In the meantime, I hope you had a fun new year's eve, and I wish you all the best for 2009.  Thanks for clicking on my blog this year!

xx

Naomi

Looking Nothing At All Like Christmas

You know, hot Christmas is beginning to be a problem.  And I think it's getting worse.

Each year I add more crafty blogs to my link list, and each year I get new ideas from them for Christmas preparation - the cooking, gifts you make rather than buy, and of course the decorations for your home.  I love all that stuff and I come away feeling full of inspiration, but I find that I have nowhere to direct it.  These Christmas-crafty people seem mostly to live in the northern hemisphere, where they make hearty meals and big fruit cakes, cosy soft decorations and generally create warmth and bright to banish the cold and dark outside.

We in Townsville get more than enough warmth and bright from the sun each day, and what we need most of all is to not manufacture any more of it.  This causes a problem with the Christmas decorations.   Our shops, of course, go nuts with the tinsel and the songs about sleigh bells, and there's enough of an ick factor there - hot and flustered car parking, shops overrun with bogans and really too many bodgy tattoos on display - to put me off entirely.  (The other day I had to get Hayden to drive us home from the pool a different way, avoiding the Christmas Carols in the park, because I couldn't look at another insufficiently-dressed inked-up person - man or woman - climbing down from the family 4WD.)  When I get home, I need to be cool and calm.  Instantly.

I did manage a bit of Christmas crafting in the end.  I really liked this idea from Posy Gets Cosy for a quilted table runner ~ quilted, of course, to hold groaning platters of hot roasted meats and big casserole dishes of vegetables.  But instead of using warm Christmassy red and green, I stuck to coolish blues and pistachio.  And I quilted it only very lightly - more to stop condensation rings than scorch marks on the table.  

So, OK, it doesn't look very Christmassy.  Don't think of hot roast turkey.  Think of the cool and delicious glass of golden sauvignon blanc I'm enjoying right now because my Christmas decorating is done.  

Hair Disaster

I'm so irritated right now.

I was at the hairdresser's, right, which is in the middle of one of those disgustingly large shopping malls.  I'd just sat down in front of the mirror and was leafing through an old copy of Australian Hair, they hadn't put the black cape around me or anything, when an alarm starts going off and we're instructed to evacuate the building.  Hmph.  The hairdressers promptly close their front door and usher all us customers out through the back into the carpark.  The comical part was how they kept cutting hair all the while, and finished off a couple of cuts while we were standing around waiting in the sun.  The less funny part was how everyone - the hairdressers naturally, all the other customers and Christmas shoppers and staff of other shops, everyone except me - all lit up a cigarette at exactly the same time.  I'm sure even the children were smoking while we were all standing there squinting and sweating.  It was disgusting. 

 

I really wanted my hair cut, and I really didn't want to hike back to my car which was of course parked on the other side of the mall.  But how long could I put up with that second hand smoke?  No-one was offering to do my hair out there, but I waited and waited until finally the chief hairdresser told all the other hairdressers that they could go home.  As we were standing in their staff carpark, they all just hopped into their tiny cars and sped off out of there.  Ugh.  I was left to begin my circumnavigation of the enormous building, and I got crankier and crankier with each hot step.  I could feel my skin burning in the sun.  I tried to take a short-cut through the covered part of the carpark but I was told by an official that that was forbidden.  It was a bomb threat, and it had to be taken seriously.

I'm home now, but I'm still cranky.  If I ever find out who phoned in that bomb threat, well, I'm going to ...well, I don't know.  But I'll think of something.

Flying Home

Don't you love the little guys on these placemats?  I found them in our 'special things' cupboard, and I believe they once belonged to Hayden's Grandma.  They're different birds of New Zealand including, of course, the kiwi (that's the New Zealand Little Spotted Kiwi in the middle there).  This year it's Hayden's turn to have Christmas at home, and we'll be flying to New Zealand - just for a week - on December 23.   I wonder if there will be space on the Christmas table for them?

I am a bit sad to be missing Christmas in Brisbane with my half of the family, but I have to say that Christmas in New Zealand is pretty good too.  For one thing, it's often cool enough to enjoy a big warm lunch on Christmas day.  And for another thing, well, our last Christmas trip there did turn out to be really, really good.    

Ipod Pocket

Recently I made this little felt pocket to keep my ipod safe while it's languishing in the bottom of my handbag.  It gets pretty knocked about in there when I'm rummaging around for my keys/phone/money/lipgloss/a pen.   Now I know that my ipod is the soft and furry thing in there, it's also much quicker to grab when I need it. 

I highly recommend such a thing for anyone who's still wrestling with three devices in their bag instead of one. 

Hayden/Santa, you know what I'm talking about.

Rise and Shine

Ahh today I'm feeling fresher and better.  Yesterday, Wednesday, was hard and hot and slow.  The day started badly because I wanted to sleep in but I knew I had to get up.  Wednesday is the day the yard guy comes to cut the grass, and though he seems a nice friendly fellow, and though he does an excellent job with our yard, he doesn't have the common courtesy to pretend he can't see us through the window while he's out there working and we're standing in the kitchen in our skimpy summer jammies.  So Wednesdays, whatever else happens, I'm up and dressed by 6:30am or embarrassment ensues.  (The worst is when I think I've got time to skip out to the washing line to collect some clothes to wear ... but I meet him coming in through our front gate on my way back inside.  He always wants to stop and chat.  Either he can't sense my embarrassment or he maliciously enjoys prolonging it.)

Last week at aquarobics I heard about a Townsville court case from a couple of years ago, in which a man was arrested for indecent exposure while inside his own home.  His nakedness was espied through the window by a passing pedestrian.  If I was that pedestrian, I would be careful about what kind of feud I started.  It might come back and bite me on the arse.

Big Workload

My in-tray is completely overflowing.  Remember how small and manageable my workload used to be?

I'm not getting very much of anything done today.  I've been sleeping poorly recently and that makes me super-cranky during the day and leaves me with a very low frustration-threshold.   It's enough to make me want to toddle down to the video shop and get a movie that Hayden wouldn't ever want to see, watch it at home with the aircon on full bore, my feet up on the coffee table and a bowl of ice-cream on my lap.

Come to think of it, it would be a complete waste of the day NOT to do that.

Seeya later.

Love Friday: The Rain

The humidity has broken.  I do not know if that is the correct term for it, but last night the rain thundered down for hours and this morning the world is wet and dripping.

The fat glossy drops hang on the end of the bottle-brush's leaves, just outside our kitchen window.  I'm standing at the sink, looking out into the grey and green and feeling quite cosy inside.   My Ella Jenkins CD is on.

But what to do next?  I noticed the other day that Lindcraft has opened up a shop in Townsville.  Maybe today's the day I go and check it out?

Welcome Baby Isabelle!

Congratulations Ben and Tanzi on the arrival of 

beautiful baby Isabelle.

We'll be over to New Zealand soon to meet you!

Bright and Breezy

Ah! Can you feel that cool breeze coming off the water? It was lovely to feel it this morning after a weekend so hot and humid I thought I would be pickled.   

On Saturday night we went to Hayden's work Christmas party.  The theme was 'Tropical Paradise', and they definitely got the tropical part right.  It was an extremely sultry night, and you'd sweat just standing still holding a drink.  But very fun indeed - definitely the best one we've been to so far.  At past work functions we've been sat in tables of ten through a groaning three-course meal before being dragged onto the dancefloor.  (I hate being asked to dance by Hayden's work colleagues.  Especially on a full stomach.  So awkward.)  

But this time it was a real grown-ups party with waiters and drinks trays, a wild range of hors d'oeuvres and a serve-yourself oyster bar.  There were live bands, fire-twirlers and a mini casino where I won quite a bit of money playing poker.  It was fake money of course.  But still.   

Love the Couch

It's sweltering.   And we're feeling it.  Especially those of us with fluffy tummies.  Couch season has begun.

I'm looking forward to the weekend, but I can only see two reasons to get up off the couch:  Saturday night it's Hayden's work Christmas party (I know, already), and Sunday morning I'm going to be out on the river in a kayak, counting triathletes as they go round the swim course.  That should be refreshing.

I'm wishing you a cool breeze this weekend, 

whatever you're doing.

Spending

I don't know much about money, but I reckon Kevin Rudd's onto something: when you're feeling broke, one of the best things you can do is spend a little.  It eases the pressure beautifully, you feel heaps better, and then you're able to tackle your money problems in good spirits.

Flipping through a magazine yesterday, I saw an idea for spreading around a little extra cash:  through these people, Kiva.org, you can invest a small amount of money directly to someone in need of a bit of capital to help their small business - be it sewing clothes, milking cows or growing bananas.  What is only a small amount of money in Australia, as little as $25, can mean a lot to someone in one of the poorer countries of the world.

I just wanted to let you know about it.  I'm not trying to be preachy.  One of my least favourite sensations is the mix of 10% guilt / 90% irritability I feel when I encounter advertising which tries to guilt-trip me into donating money.  It's not that I don't think those poor little kids with the big swollen bellies deserve help - I just don't want to be made to feel bad about it.  I hate those depressing voice-overs and the mournful music they play while they describe the worst cases of poverty.  I don't want to be rung up during my dinner - how do they even know what time we're going to eat? - and I always look away from those sad round eyes peering out from my Saturday paper.  I used to think I must be naturally misanthropic, but what I have found is that when left to my own devices I do feel compelled to help other people.  I want to be inspired, not guilt-tripped, into helping.  I find it's much easier to do it in my own time.

Around this end of the year I usually like to make a small donation on behalf of Hayden and myself, especially when I feel like we've been lucky, or when I'm grateful that someone has taken a chance on one of us - and that has happened quite a bit this year.   It feels like the right thing to do, to pass that chance on to someone else.