I delight: Our house

To offset the previous rant I feel I should now cover a few positives.  It is a lovely quiet still night and I can hear waves crashing, which I love.  Coming up over the next few posts are a few more things I delight in.

First up is our house.  Apparently the summer that finished yesterday was the second hottest on record for this part of the world, and the hottest summer for 34 years.  But the thing is, compared to our first summer here - which was a complete nightmare and drove me quite mad - this one didn't feel so bad.  That is probably partly due to us taking the advice of locals and "lowering our expectations" of what is achieveable here in summer;  I have given up all hope of doing normal things like gardening or trying to use walking or cycling as forms of transportation during the height of summer.

But a larger part of it has to do with the fact that the house we bought and now live in is a squillion times more comfortable than the design-crime we were renting last summer.  Plus our utility bills at this house are tiny.  The irony is that this house is much older than the one we were renting and cost us significantly less to buy than that would have cost us.

This is no fluke. After the heat of last summer drove me mad I decided to take action.  We chose this particular house after doing a lot of research and reading.  Our house choice and renovations have achieved what we'd hoped thanks to the amazing resource that is The Sustainable Mandurah Home, the excellent sustainable housing collection held by Mandurah Libraries and the inspiring and informative content of Green magazine and Sanctuary magazine.  While reading for pleasure is undoubtedly a wonderful thing, reading to learn is still my all-time favourite.

We still have plenty more improvements planned for our house (the kitchen still needs a major overhaul and the outside is no oil painting - and for me, buying an ugly house was a very hard decision to make), but I am happy to report that despite another stinking hot summer, this year none of us went mad.

And while the angles are different, here is an idea of what the place looked like when we bought it.

I can't quite believe I bought that! No wonder my daughter thought I really had gone mad.

I despair: Telstra

WARNING: Rant follows

Some years ago I lived in another country and there I had a home telephone line.  I never thought much about it.  I just paid the bill every month and whenever I wanted to phone someone I just got on the blower and phoned them.  Simple.  I had my home internet service with the same provider.  The only time I ever heard from them was one snowy day when my children had been stuck indoors for an entire school holidays and had used up our internet allocation for the month.  Then someone from my internet service provider phoned me to suggest we move to a different plan as that would be better value.  Nice.

Then I moved to Australia and somehow fell through a telecommunications crack in time that now sees me with the sort of home phone service that my mother wouldn't have stood for back when I was a girl.  These days I spend a considerable amount of my time and energy just trying to keep phone and internet services connected to our house.  Those of you who have done away with a home phone line may think that just going mobile might be a better option.  But alas, I live in Falcon WA, which despite being in one of the fastest growing cities in Australia, has extremely poor mobile coverage.  Neither my home mobile (Telstra) or my work mobile (Telstra) work at my house. 

So yet again today I did not have the day I had planned to have because of Telstra.  Today for the third time this year, I went to use the phone only to find it completely dead.  On the past two occasions (this year, this rant would be far too long if I catalogued all the various problems we have had with Telstra since moving to Australia) it took several days to get the problem fixed.  The last time was only two weeks ago.  For two days our phone was dead.  Then Telstra cheerfully phoned me at work to say that the problem was fixed.  Next thing we discover that all our calls were being transferred through to the home phone of a woman who lives in Mittagong, NSW.  I chatted to her several times while we were trying to get Telstra to fix the problem.  In the end she told me that I was probably being too nice and needed to get grumpier with Telstra.  So I faked another case of early onset grumpy old woman syndrome and suddenly it got fixed.

Today I spent the day at home with a seriously ill child, no home phone and no mobile reception.  When I finally ran down the road to report the fault Telstra's response was that hopefully someone would get back to me within 3 working days.  I said "Er, not good enough" before my mobile lost reception and cut out.  Later when I rang to follow-up I was told "They needed to get a part in" as if I was calling from Antarctica!  So to all of you desperately trying to phone through with birthday wishes for my son or with exciting party invitations for me (mwah ha ha), I have absolutely no idea when we will next be able to chat. Sigh.

The thing is, Telstra and their gob-smackingly poor service have worn me down.  I despair that because of the numerous times I have had to deal with them over the past 18 months, with problem after problem after problem, that now I really do have early onset grumpy old woman syndrome. (I think it has even altered my looks.  That's me above, what do you think? ) Their inability to deliver such a seemingly simple service as a home telephone line beggars belief and has left me desperately seeking an alternative.  The problem is that everyone I've mentioned this to reckons that the alternatives are just as hopeless.  Double sigh.

A big project in Australia at the moment is the National Broadband Network.  Politicians bang on about it constantly as if somehow building a fatter pipe is going to change the world.  Well good luck to them, but given my experience of Australian telecommunications, that seems like attempting to make a souffle when you haven't even mastered boiling eggs.

To all those people who write to me about whether they should move here (and who I always have great difficulty replying to), you have been warned.

Summer holiday at our beach house

This summer we didn't go away for a summer holiday.  This was partly to do with the fact that I had just started a new job and had to work part-time right through the school holidays, and partly to do with the fact that we already live at a summer holiday destination.

Truckloads of people come here for their summer holidays; many mornings we would wake to find a seemingly abandoned beach house in our street suddenly populated with boats, vehicles and holidaymakers. Shade sails went up, patio furniture went out, shutters were opened, barbeques were cranked up.

As my household relaxed into holiday mode suddenly our house felt like a beach house too.  Days were spent waking late and hiding indoors from the heat.  Sustenance came from homemade cold tea punch, iceblocks from the freezer and GYO meals. Our soundtrack featured the pounding of the sea, tinny cricket commentary from a neighbour's radio, the faint whir of the ceiling fan and favourite music. Occasionally an adult would brave the outdoors to water our new garden, being wary of the initial stream of scalding hot hose water.  Then we'd retreat back indoors to cool air and lukewarm water from the cold tap. Hours slipped by as we read, played board games and read some more.  My housemates developed and cured various computer-game addictions.  I had no hope of getting near the computer to write.

By late afternoon, when the sun had lost its harshness, we would venture out for slow walks and sunset swims.

If you head west from our house, you will soon find this in the path.   (Don't be fooled.  There is no naked lesbian pool party. That arrow actually points into a snake-filled reserve which ends with sharp crumbling limestone cliffs which drop away into the ocean.)

Stick to the path, walk on a few more minutes and you will come to this sign.  (Sadly the only snakes we have seen here were squashed on the road.)

Then you will arrive at this gorgeous stretch of coast. 

We don't know if this patch has an official name but a well-named friend who lives a street over from us has named it Harvey's Bay. It is perfect for exploring rock pools when the tide is out and swimming when the tide is in.

Head slightly north of our house past this letterbox, which always makes me think of all the wonderful people I know in Christchurch,

and you get to this craggy coastline.  Perfect for fishing, walking and sightseeing.

Head east from our house past this sign

and you quickly reach the Peel Inlet.

Perfect for walking, kayaking, crabbing and boating.

Head south from our house past this sign, which always makes me smile,

and you soon arrive at our favourite part of Mandurah's beautiful 52km coastline: fabulous Falcon Bay.  It is always popular with the locals but in peak holiday season it gets packed.

It is perfect for boogie boarding or surfing when the surf is up or swimming out to the pontoon when it is calm.  It is perfect for shaking off workday crapola at any time, but even so I'd still arrive home from work too written-out to fancy writing more.

Some days we would venture slightly further afield to one of Mandurah's other beaches: Madora Bay, San Remo, Silver Sands, Town Beach, Doddies, Blue Bay, Calypso or Avalon.  Then we would all agree that while those beaches are lovely too, we still love Falcon Bay the most. 

In the evenings we prepared simple fridge-to-plate dinners and sipped icy-cold cider.  We'd throw the windows open and let the welcome sea-breeze in. Sweep the sandy lino and hang out the wet togs. Rinse off under a cold shower despite having plentiful scorching hot solar-heated water. Put the sofabed down, the spare mattress out and welcome a sleepover guest. I'd end the day too tuckered-out to write properly.

So head to bed to read to a soundtrack of the faint drone of a distant road, revs of courting motorbike frogs, laughter from a neighbourhood party and the flapping of gauzy linen curtains.  Finish one book. Pick up the next one from the pile. Read until the wee small hours.

Do the same again the next day and the next day and the next. No packing and unpacking.  No marathon drives.  No beach house rental costs. Just a perfect summer holiday at our very own beach house.

Come ride with me

Today for the first time in eight weeks, I am at home alone.  I've been compiling an update to stick on here.  However I love this little taste of what one member of our household has been up to so much that it needs its own outing.

Click below and go for a ride around Perth's Cultural Precinct in some mighty fine company.  The children and I just happened to up in Perth as well that day.  We enjoyed watching the smiling faces of various participants then suddenly there was someone we knew taking part.

MOBILE MOMENTS sets out across the Perth Cultural Centre for a new series of Film Portraitures for the PROXIMITY Festival, presented by The Blue Room Theatre Summer Nights as a part of Fringe World 29 Jan - 19 Feb 2012  www.proximityfestival.com

Most of the time I really like Perth, but sometimes I just love it.

Merry Christmas

I have just spent the morning on the floor playing with Lego with the children.  They are building an enormous Hogwarts-like castle.  I built a reindeer with three trailers; the children rolled their eyes.

Now the rest of my family are down at the beach having a swim to work off the bucketload of chocolates we've chomped through this morning.  When they get back we'll cook prawns and crack open the bubbly. 

All very Australian, except that when I went out into our garden to pick some flowers for the table, look what was in best form. Yes that is pohutukawa. Have to admit it makes me a teeny bit homesick. 

Merry Christmas everyone.

Hellidays, horrordays and holidays

Soon after having our first child, my partner and I realised that there was a word missing from the English language.  The missing word is one that means going on holiday with small children.  The word "holiday" used to mean relaxation, spontaneity, carefree meals out at odd times of the day, big days out or complete slothdom, but after a few nightmarish holidays with our children, we reluctantly ditched all hopes of achieving these things. 

Instead we coined the word "Helliday".  Our numerous epic missions travelling overseas or to the other end of the country to visit our families usually involved horrendous road trips or horrific flights, mountains of paraphernalia, upset routines, sleepless nights, "child-friendly" holiday homes on a cliff-edges, far too many trips in ambulances and masses of puke - oh, the puke. (The most memorable one was by my daughter all over the dapper Government Minister sitting next to us on a domestic flight - who was an absolute gentleman about it.)  More often than not we would arrive home from Hellidays broke, exhausted, with a houseload of nits and swearing to never do it again.

Though thankfully as the children grew so did the the fun to hell ratio of "holidays".  There still wasn't a lot relaxation involved, but with older children we enjoyed the freedom to go to interesting places and have amazing adventures. While mostly great fun, these holidays were still very hard work and still had far too many unpleasantly dramatic times.  There were more hours spent in emergency departments in wet swimsuits, a small fortune spent replacing EpiPens, mystery rashes, a heck of a lot of puke and quite a few memorable-for-the-wrong-reasons moments. (The winner is the day my son's leg and my arm ended up raw and bloodied after a nasty encounter with a little-boy's-leg-sized gap and the sharp metal edges of Melbourne's Webb Bridge.) We had definitely moved on from Hellidays, but relaxing on a beach on an island while alternating between swimming and powering through a stack of novels was still just a tantalisingly unachievable dream. We decided we were now in the era of "Horrordays".

But then something miraculous happened.  One morning while on holiday in the beautiful seaside village of Moeraki, I awoke to ... silence.  Hmmm, I thought and picked up my book.  An hour later and the house was still quiet.  Convinced that the children had been stolen from their beds in the night, I sneaked a peek through their door only to find them both tucked up in their beds ... reading.  Yes! Yes! Yes!  That holiday was the first really restful holiday we had had since having children.  We had finally re-entered the world of real holidays.

But often the most restful holidays are the ones we have at home, simply filling the days with day trips or muckingaround at home.  I have had the great joy and privilege of spending many of my children's school holidays with them like this, while my partner carried on working.

But now I am working three days a week and my partner and I are tag-teaming the childcare throughout the school holidays. Already I'm missing that lovely carefree "what shall we do today?" feeling, though I won't begrudge my partner it as he is a decade overdue for some of that joy.  He and our children will no doubt have a wonderful time together because there are plenty of fabulous outings to go on here.  One of the very best day trips around these parts is one that only costs peanuts (ahhh, don't mention peanuts!) and that my partner hasn't been on yet: a visit to Penguin Island.

Penguin Island is just off the coast of Rockingham which is the next city up the coast from Mandurah.  Rockingham has a reputation for being the bogan capital of Australia but a) I live in Mandurah and you know what they say about people in glass houses and b) you don't have to look too hard to find plenty of far more interesting aspects to Rockingham than that.
 

Penguin Island is accessed by a 5 minute ferry ride.  (Some people walk there along the submerged sand bar my advice is "Don't even think about it". Every year people get caught out by changing weather and the fact that there is only one low tide a day here... and almost every year some of those people die. I reckon our lives are worth the small price of the ferry ride.) 

On this spectacular little island you can visit the Penguin Discovery Centre, see some rescued penguins get fed and learn all about them;

swim; snorkel; walk right around the island; see other penguins in the wild (depending upon the time of the year you go);

see all sorts of other wildlife; relax in the shade and read your book; admire the gorgeous views; have a picnic.  When my children and I went we did all of the above, had one of our very best days since moving here and probably annoyed my partner to bits by raving about it for weeks afterwards.

On the day my partner and children go there I'll try not to get too jealous as I'm sat slaving away in my office.  I'll just remind myself that if ever I want to enjoy all my favourite things about being on holiday packed into one perfect day, then I too can simply spend a day at Penguin Island. The only thing is that our children are now such great company that it just wouldn't feel like a holiday if I went without them.

The emperor's new clothes

About 2 months ago I became the owner of an iPad. I don't want to seem ungrateful because it was a gift and it is actually quite useful.

But here goes anyway. When it comes to typing and editing text I find myself forever saying "oh, give me strength". The lack of a delete key and arrow keys is driving me completely spare. iGadget devotees would just glibly say "you'll get used to it!" to which I would say "yup, just like I'd get used to eating fettuccine with a teaspoon if I didn't know any better".

I have been thinking a lot about books and stories lately due to my new job; I know half the world is in love with iPads but the story that pops into my mind when I think about them is The Emperor's New Clothes.

Must go to bed now as I am very tired becuse it took me 25 tries to log in to Blogger (the iPad doesn't remember my 163 Interwebland passwords for me), it has taken me two hours to work out that Blogger doesn't work properly on iPads and then to read a truckload full of conflicting online advice about how best to rectify that situation Typing this gripe then fixing all the typos has taken me a very very very very very very very long time. (I am currently collecting quotes for a project at work. One of my favourites so far is "No I'm not dyslexic. I just use an iPad.")

So tomorrow I'll boot all the Minecraft and Grepolis addicts off our great galumphing household PC and within seconds I'll bash out the post I had hoped to swiftly despatch tonight from the comfort of the couch. Maybe I'll even be able to attach one of the several thousand superbly unflattering photos I have managed to take on the iPad ... of my chins.