Tag Archives: bath

Baby Boot Camp

by . Posted on
19 Jan

Start as we mean to go on!  We are all back at work this week and since that means Ged leaves at the crack of dawn and is gone til 5 or 6pm, I am resolved that Benjamin and I have to get into a routine so we can  survive the days.  So we normally have a 5ish am feed and then go back to sleep.  Ged gets up at 6 and leaves us in bed snoring.  We both have a squirm when he leaves but I shush Ben back to sleep and hope for a good snooze then we get up at about 8am.  Singing, playing, bath and boobie and then Benjamin goes to bed in his bed, in his room for (hopefully) two hours so I can sit at the computer and get some work done.  Then he wakes up and we have some more singing and hugging and then I have a shower while he watches from his bouncer (lucky boy!) and then tummy time, lunch time and back to bed for the boy (sometimes happily, sometimes not!) and I go back to the computer and the phone for an hour and then normally he is up again so we let him have a good kick on the sofa while I race around trying to clean the house and then we are both clock watching until Ged gets home and I get to catch up on the backlog of work or chores and go for a walk . . . me and phee time

So far, so good.  It’s like baby boot camp here – we live and breathe by the clock.  Until Saturday when Ged took over . . . I did explain the principles of the new regime but obviously wasn’t clear enough on the details – Ben and Ged had a lovely day together – no routine, no rests, no rhythm at all!  So Mamma Minute had a battle on her hands on Sunday.  I bought Ged a gorgeous Seiko watch for Christmas so he could keep track of all the different times in our lives (bed time, booby time, bath time, nap time etc) – well actually Kevin Rudd did – the government gave each child in Australia $1,000.00 as part of the economic stimulus package.  (We were supposed to spend it so I did!!)  and I have my trusty surfy lilac watch on all the time, along with my ‘Milk Band’ – the perfect Mummy’s Little Helper for those of us suffering from complete brainlessness (unfortunately not fully automatic – needs input!) – it tells me which boob first at what time – amazing, invaluable, essential!!
So the days are more organised although we have some battles royal over bed time and then by the time Ged gets home we can both be overtired, over emotional, and over wrought.  But we will both be better at it with practice (please God!)

The Man from Ellenborough River

by . Posted on
22 Jul
There is light at the end of the tunnel!  Team solar turned up on Monday with the new hot water system. They dashed my hopes about hot water on Monday when they didn’t get the install finished but by Tuesday night I was luxuriating in a deep, hot bath (still green!).  Oh well, since the latest beauty fad for fashionistas in London is Nightingale poo face packs, I am sure that my green river water bath is actually very youthifying – although maybe not judging by the wrinkles my skin had acquired by the time I finally left my warm, wet paradise.

I still seem to be either shopping for renovation essentials or back in the Telstra vortex as I return their little wireless widget and while away the hours as they try and dream up new solutions for me.  Got a new lawnmower that is green, sturdy, fearless and invincible.  It’s true blue, dinky di – it’s a Victa and I have a feeling we are going to get along!

Went to see one of my neighbours who has a sawmill.  He has recently retired but agreed to cut the timber for the big beams and kitchen, laundry and bathroom surfaces for me.  He seems nice but boasts about how much water he uses to clean his teeth!  It is a sad fact that rural Australians who live on water and have unlimited access to it, waste it more than most!   They don’t have rainwater tanks, they don’t keep it, cherish it, store it, they just use it in the same way that city folk do . . . bizarre!

And the farm has come into its own this week with the arrival of 75 calfs to grow fat on the land.  Which brings me to George.  What a character!  George is 70 odd, he was ‘rared’ here (as the locals say).  He owned all this land – thousands of acres and George has sold it off bit by bit.  He’s a wiry, strong, lined and thin lipped Man from Snowy River type.  His Akubra is ancient, his RM’s battered and bruised and his horse’s bridle is more baling twine than leather.  He wields a chainsaw like a virtuoso violinist makes music with his bow.  His blue eyes can be steely or twinkle with humour.  He tells me he got in deep trouble with the drink and that’s when he found God and began to make sense of it all with the bible.  He’s a Seventh Day Adventist so he doesn’t drink or smoke or sin and he’s a vegetarian so we have something in common!  I tell him all my dreams for the place and he think them through.  He has his own clear picture in his head of what the land should be like and though he wouldnt even begin to know what I mean, his work is done with perfect zen.  The cattle are his and the deal is that he swaps the farm work for the agistment.  He’s a crafty old bugger – we always talked about 40 head and he turns up with 75 and a good story about how he always meant 40 mothers and calfs, so 75 little heifers is the same thing in principle . . . !!

Cold Comfort in the Country

by . Posted on
16 Jul
Nothing’s working!!  The mower had to go back because it was a wuss (as we say in Australia) a wimp and a limp excuse for a machine.  The phone felled itself for some unknown reason and even the washing machine is, literally, on the blink – it keeps shorting out.  And the gas hot water system that I had always had a funny feeling didn’t work, managed four whole days before it gasped its last and left me freezing, frustrated and floundering in the dark ages, boiling pans of water on the stove in order to shiver in 3 inches of lukewarm green river water in a cast iron bath!

I have lost my sense of humour completely!

And the builder turns up but what is he DOING under the house while I shiver in my single bed in this building site with big gaps in the floor where the cold winter winds whistle through?  Can’t he see that I don’t CARE about the bloody piers, I care about my own comfort and making a home that I can live, rather than camp in!

To add to my frustration I seem to have spent most of the week in the Telstra vortex – on hold ad nauseam while I battle valiantly to get some sort of broadband solution.  Lots of promises from call centre land, but they’ve probably never been out of Mumbai, and certainly never experienced the strange and scary Orwellian world of telecommunications in regional Australia.  I have become part of ‘the one percent’.  John Howard always talks about broadband solutons for 99% of the Australian population.  I’m the rest!

This week’s brave new frontier is wireless broadband.  Sounds good the way they talk the talk, but when it comes to walking the walk it transpires that it isn’t Mac compatible.  Back to the drawing board and the stove to keep boiling the water . . . .