The fifty year old family secret

My mother made it clear in so many ways that she loved her children, but she could also be rather blunt. “All three of you were funny looking babies,” she said, one Christmas, when we’d all eaten our fill and were encouraging Dad to get the ‘best of’ family slides out. 

Photographs, especially colour photographs, were very expensive — up to 79c each in 1976 which, considering you never knew if the photos were going to be in focus, not have heads cut off or the flash cube fail to pop and result in a unrevealing black square, was a risky fee to pay. Slides were much cheaper and usually involved a night where Dad would set up the projector and the white screen and we’d sit through our grandparents’ latest holiday overseas, or our own, which was usually camping nearby. People used to groan about the boredom of slide nights, but I loved them. In hindsight, my father and grandfather both deserve a genuine thank you for editing their selections to present to family and friends and for providing pretty entertaining commentary. We were indeed the lucky ones.

Despite this, if you ever find really old boxes of slides inherited from your grandparents, take the time to check ’em out. 

Look at this absolute pearler taken by my grandfather in 1967. My nanna is the one wearing a snazzy black and white flowery frock and cardi, holding a big white handbag while one of her friends SITS ON Stonehenge with her pet corgi. People behind them are mingling as though at an outdoor wedding! This is one that gets even better than ever with age.

When we’d all helped with clearing the table and doing the dishes, Dad had the projector set up. Mum’s pronouncement proved correct when, years after we three children had all partnered up and were spending Christmas with my folks, my dad decided to find all the original baby slides and thus prove that none of us were oil paintings.

Mum was brutally correct — I wasn’t a beautiful baby and this was the most attractive slide I could find

I was called ‘Bubbles’ because of my round face and because a South Aussie football player had the same name and it’s probably no coincidence that I’m blowing one in this slide. My face continued to hold that round shape as I grew:

I was years ahead of Boris Johnson in the hairstyle stakes

One slide or photo I seem to have lost is of me, topless (oooh errrr), at age three, standing uncertainly by the back door next to my less than one year-old brother David, ensconced in one of those space-walker things that I believe are now terribly dangerous and frowned upon. But hey, it was 1971.

Mum had left the kitchen for a few moments and textas (a brand name of Australian permanent markers that resembled black cigars) were tantalisingly scattered over the table. I’m not sure what signs or cards she was making, but clearly the need for the bathroom beckoned. Seizing my moment, I backed my baby brother’s luna-module into a corner and covered his face in a rainbow selection of thick, bright texta stripes. I remember him not protesting at all and the smell of the textas as I rather gently drew each line smelled rather nice.  David ended up looking like a test pattern.
 
I don’t remember being punished for it; and years later Mum told me that she and Dad had to go and have a good laugh out in the shed first. I know — keeping a straight face when trying to tell your kid off is one of the hardest responsibilities to take seriously. It put me in mind of my own three year old daughter tugging at the skirt of the lady standing next to me at the yoghurt fridge in the supermarket and informing her that ‘My mummy has brown hairs on her front bottom.’ There’s no dignity to be regained or lessons to be learned from that. 

As for me, still topless in January 1971, Mum and Dad actually used the camera that had photo film in it — not Dad’s slide taker — and took a few photos, later labelling them ‘Katherine’s Art, 1971.’
 
Poor little David’s Jackson Pollock-like face stayed like that for weeks — texta was a bugger to remove. Apparently he was quite the topic of discussion at church the following Sunday.

But now we were in the 2010s, sitting in Mum and Dad’s retirement house in Victor Harbour, having a good laugh at the memories seen on the screen when Mum revealed a long held family secret. Not the weird looks of her babies — that was common knowledge and just recently proved again— but a much more grave and shameful one. 

She and my father had put one of us children into a harness. 

A harness. You still see occasionally a poor toddler strapped and buckled in one today, as if they were a dog that needed controlling, but it’s a very rare sight and never gets a ‘thumbs up’ from either fellow parents passing by and only stricken looks of ‘should we call child services’ from the childless. The public humiliation for the poor entrapped innocent little creature far outweighs the worry and exhaustion of the parent in my view. Secure them with a belt in a pram or put them on the father’s shoulders!

After much badgering and asking ‘who who who,’ my father sighed and lowered his head before looking up at me and whispering, ‘It was you.’

ME.

My beloved parents had made me wear a HARNESS.

My husband, brothers and sisters-in-law roared with laughter. 

But I was the baby — weird looking or not - that they always said was the best sleeper, the calm one, the angel to look after. Teachers in kindergarten and first year of primary school said I was a bit ‘dreamy’ and needed to stop singing out loud to myself when doing my maths problems. Oldest brother R was the angry first born and young David was the screamer. Look at the little guy:

Oh wow, a screaming new baby brother.

Yep, he’s still screaming. This is the only family photo of the five of us for at least two years because David cried all the bloody time.

In fact, David wailed at such an incessant volume that my parents took him back to some kind of hospital facility that accepted problematic newborns. My knowledge of this is non-existent, but the guess is that the staff wore ear plugs 24/7 to feed, change, bath and cuddle the babies and save their hearing. And in doing so, they provided a life-saving service for the parents to gain a tiny bit of respite and avoid losing their minds or ending up in prison for infanticide. Mum and Dad still don’t make light of it, even fifty years later. They did not know how to stop him from screaming or get him to feed properly or to sleep and they both felt desperately worried at what they might do out of frustration and despair if left alone with him. Mum’s unsubtle truth is revealed again when she said “we were planning on having four children, but then David came along.”

The two week break seemed to have worked. The little bugger is still with us and now has a fabulous family of his own, lovely wife, a fulfilling job and is fit enough to win rowing championships with blokes thirty years younger. He’s truly a good egg.

My older brother was significantly moodier and nastier. With a two year age advantage, I didn’t exist when he was a baby but as a small child I quickly discovered that he had tougher punches and much more damaging insults. He was extremely competitive at all sports and games and could be a very sore loser. I tended to keep out of his way.

My memories are of singing and dancing to ABBA, ripping 20 cents off trusting little David by promising I’d be his slave for the day and then dashing off after half an hour, ignoring his fading protests and finding a good spot to read. Often I’d be in the middle of a book while my brothers were playing legos and wrestling around me. I read all of my mother’s 1940s editions of Enid Blytons and anything in my parents bookshelves that weren’t too ‘Amityville Horror’ or ‘Roots’-ish for my childish sensitivities.

But it was ME they chose to put into a harness. “You had a crazy look in your eye,” Mum said, wiping away tears of laughter.

“Once you learned to walk, you had chubby little legs, but they were a decoy because you’d dash across the road or across the car park or into a building faster than your physique hinted at. We couldn’t trust you for a second.”

“You were wildly unpredictable,” Dad said. “We had no idea where you’d go or what you’d end up doing.”

Despite this, there are no slides or photos of me in the harness. Then again, why would you keep photographic evidence of such a heinous decision? 

These days, I’m extremely predictable. I once said to my husband Dean, “Oh, I can read you like a book” and he shot back with “And I can read you like a factsheet.” 

I shall love my parents regardless and am realising that the crumbling realities of time and age are working rather well on reducing the speed of my chubby legs and the danger of my ‘crazy eyes' which are pretty useless without my glasses.

*** This story was first published on Medium - https://kathlockett.medium.com/a-family-secret-revealed-fifty-years-later-a1259ac37dee 

The most painful four letter word

I read somewhere the other day, but forget where and I’m going to blame that on ‘covid brain’ because the article did mention that it can affect your memory and ability to recall words, recent memories and prevent distracting yourself from….where was I?

Ah yes, anxiety. The article mentioned that the now-passed first year anniversary of Covid-19 cases, deaths, lockdowns, restrictions, confusions, delays, contradictions, isolation, vaccination shortages and despair has created, in even the most cheerful of us, a constant buzzing level of anxiety.

Now in our fourth lockdown, or third, if you only count them when schools actually close, France too is restricting arrivals and departures. A lunch invite from friends in Geneva, about three kilometres drive away, has to be refused because we are not allowed over the border without an essential reason.

Yesterday, I was on the Covid Conveyance (or Geneva’s F bus if you prefer specifics), with my French Government phone form explaining who I was, where and when I was born, my official home address and why my trip to Geneva was worthy of being allowed in. My monthly migraine vaccine that is self-injected into my leg is only available in Switzerland. It has to be ordered and paid for before the chemist will give it to me because it is expensive and has to be refrigerated. This necessitates a second trip on the Covid Conveyance the following day to pick it up.

The socially-distanced line at the chemist was out the door and almost into the booze and cigarette counter of the Coop supermarket opposite. Of course we all used the hand sanitizer, wore masks and kept the required distance from each other.

The bus home is different. The F bus to Ferney isn’t frequent, and even at the first stop, which is the train station, it is full. We all play a fun game of waiting to see just who will be the brave idiot to press the ‘open passenger’ door button on the outside and earn the extra risk of picking up Covid, but then forget about viral spread when we’re all packed in together, touching thighs or reaching for the ‘next stop’ button or hanging onto the overhead poles.

Anxiety is, of course, a constant, and scrolling through Facebook and seeing happy Aussie mates enjoying Easter camping weekends, BBQs, dinner parties and attend weddings, instead of envy I feel…. anxious. As a country, they’ve taken Covid-19 extremely seriously and international borders are not only closed, but state ones are too when a case or two is detected.

We fellow Aussies in Europe are not allowed to return home even if we wanted to. Government orders for at least the remainder of 2021. No departures from, or returns to, the land downunder unless there’s a hugely important reason. Even a death would be problematic because after enduring the fortnight of quarantine in a government-sanctioned hotel and paying the associated bill, the funeral would have been over.

Once back home, off the F bus and the injection done, it was time, as always to take Felix out for his ‘pre-dinner’ walk. Of the several we do together each day, this is the most difficult one because he’s hungry and tends to get a little bit tetchy with humans or other canine passersby and is disinclined to listen to my commands.

As it happened, backing out a poo just as we arrived in the small park at the end of our street was his first priority. This is rare, as he usually likes to partake in a wide variety of peeing, sniffing, eating grass, investigating sweet wrappers and searching for horse manure before backing one out. A kind of excremental full stop if you will. It’s a small but well-frequented park and could not be left there for sanitary or polite reasons.

It was windy and freezing. In this lockdown, our town is large enough at 10,000+ residents that a mask must be worn any and every time you are outside the home, even if dog walking. Sports cyclists and runners are spared this requirement; presumably their huffing and puffing as they sweatily pass you must not be as infectious.

I didn’t have my mask on. I had been about to put it on but had been busy putting on my beanie and gloves because it was -2C and even my teeth felt the breeze blowing through them and Felix surged ahead, dragging me behind him and unable to remove my glasses to get the straps of the mask on fast enough.

But lo, Felix backed out a crap that could quite easily have been a contender for the second barge to block the Suez Canal if we’d been so located. Pleased with his produce, he was then very keen to keep on moving away from it and as fast as possible. Therefore my left hand was clutching tightly onto his lead to prevent him from trotting into the traffic, my gloves were off and shoved tightly between my teeth and my right hand was trying to unpeel the doggy doo bag as it blew angrily in the breeze doing its best to thwart my attempts.

Success in opening the bag eventually occurred. I then had to bend over with my legs spread far enough apart to fit the barge of my dog’s bowels into the bag without risking lowering my face too close to the ground in case my dangling gloves touched the godawful log.

From an apartment directly across the road, an old woman flung open her shutters and yelled out “Mettez votre masque, madame!” But whilst I was in my rather unladylike position she was berating my not-inconsiderately-sized yoga panted arse for not wearing a mask because at her angle, that’s all she could see.

Eventually, the bag was filled, carefully tied and placed in the bin. Gloves placed back on, and Felix pulled in much closer. Then I put my mask on, but in turning around to show her this from where she’d admonished me, it was disappointing to see that her shutters were already closed.

I started to cry. This didn’t stop me from taking Felix for his normal walk as the breeze was cruel enough to bring tears to anyone’s eyes, so if anyone saw me, they’d attribute it to walking into the face of the wind like any other dedicated dog walker.

All four kilometres I let the tears fall and plop onto the neck of my parka, making it even colder as the wind tore at it. I knew that the tears weren’t about the mask, or even the lingering anxiety discussed by the forgotten article or the envy of Aussies having fun during their Easter break.

It was about an email from my father. Every year he and Mum went caravanning with a group of Victor Harbor and Murray Bridge friends they’d known for decades; a tradition tracing back to the 1970s. I’d called before they usually left, but their answering machine was on, so left them a couple of voicemails wishing them Happy Easter and another one a day after they usually came home. I then emailed them a photo of my husband Dean and Felix watching the football. The two of them looked so cute on the sofa.

Dad emailed me this reply:
Home from Robe. Dave and Sonia* (my younger brother and his wife) booked a house from Friday to today with your nephews Matt and Jack coming down on Sunday (in Jack’s car). We also had the company of R and WC.
R and WC are here for a few days (Saturday?). It’ll be difficult to ring with R&WC here, so will contact you after they leave.
Lots of love,
Mum and Dad xoxoxoxoxoxo

He won’t know that this hurt me. He probably would not have been aware that Dean, Felix and I were spending Easter on our own. Lockdown here means a 7pm curfew, preferably no socialising in the home, no more than six people standing outside at a safe distance together and no socialising with friends 3km across the border whatsoever.

He won’t know that I wrote about R and WC here or that her email to me, from nearly eight years ago, I can almost recite by heart:

Subject title: Final letter to the Locket

Hi Kath,

You have not done anything to hurt me. The plain truth is: You to me, is like pumpkin to you. I have tried for 12 years to like you.

I do not agree with 99% of your decision, do not approve of your behaviour. We do not share the same taste in everything (even chocolate, you love creme eggs which is the only chocolate I will not eat), don’t share the same outlook. I do not enjoy our time together.

My motto is: Life is too short to pretend to like someone or to waste time in doing things I do not enjoy. So, I do not see the point of continuing our relationship.

Simple fact is you are struck off my friend/family list. I made my decision and announced it to your parents, your brother and his wife and your brother R. I did not ask them to do the same because I neither need approval nor support from anyone for my action.

Yes, I am selfish, arrogant, intolerant, ungracious; so, it is no loss to you then for me not to contact you any further.

Yes, I could do the ‘normal’ thing, just simply make up excuses and avoid future contact (e.g. too much work to go to Victor Harbor during Xmas, feeling unwell to go for dinner etc). However, I respect your parents too much to lie to them and they will see through it anyway.

That is the thing — you haven’t done anything specifically wrong to me. So, there is no wrong to correct, and no side to take for your parents. I don’t wish to have any further discussion, your email will remain blocked.

Analogy: you don’t have to justify to people why don’t you eat pumpkin, so I don’t have to justify to anyone why don’t I associate with Locketts.

You have a great life, I know you will.
Sincerely,
WC

He won’t remember that email, even though I forwarded it to him at the time, because he’s since hinted that this ‘disagreement you have with each other’ is one he believes is conducted on equal terms – or perhaps he wishes it was - yet he’s also suggested that it would be best sorted out if I made the first move. It seems particularly difficult to make the first move towards a reconciliation when WC admitted that 'You have not done anything to hurt me. The plain truth is: You to me, is like pumpkin to you. I have tried for 12 years to like you....you haven’t done anything specifically wrong to me...'

I did not — and would not — write an email like that to a family member. Blood relative or in-law.

But I cried as Felix sniffed the rapidly yellowing canola crops, because this paragraph sprang into my mind:

“I made my decision and announced it to your parents, your brother and his wife and your brother R. I did not ask them to do the same because I neither need approval nor support from anyone for my action.”

All this time I had been stupid enough to not realize that my whole family had been told of her decision to rub me (and therefore also my husband and daughter) out of her and my older brother’s life before she told me. They all knew. My father and mother have since told me that R and WC refuse to give them the reason why they shut us out of their lives, but apparently, that’s OK. After all, they all still get together and have fun with R and WC who seem to have avoided any awkward questions, recriminations or judgements and live as happily and as carefree as ever.

My whole family knew. I wasn’t angry about them all holidaying together, but the numbing endlessness of lockdown here in France on our own and the fact that dad would prefer it if I didn’t call or make my presence known for a week or so because it might be ‘difficult’ for them hurt. It hurt like hell.

Hurt is such a small, inconsequential word for the impact it makes. Hurt is associated with pain but is not a strong enough description. I felt hurt by being demeaned by WC, by being written off by her for no reason or and for being considered too worthless to deserve an explanation.  I hurt because it felt as though my family regarded ‘staying out of it’ as being ‘fair’ when in reality it left me alone. I hurt because my family were not able to understand any of my hurt beyond making sure I didn’t make things awkward for them. Hurt is pain. Physical and mental pain. This hurt has been working its way through me for nearly eight years now.

The world outside today, when I was with Felix, seemed too bright, too cold, too noisy, too busy with other walkers, dogs, cyclists and cars. I wanted to double over again — not to pick up poo this time — but to lie on the ground and keep crying.

I cried on Dean’s shoulder when I got home and cried again during my pre-dinner walk with Felix today. I’m crying as I write this. Anxiety I can handle; but hurt….. fucking hurts.

* originally published on Medium - https://kathlockett.medium.com/a-four-letter-word-thats-not-rude-but-has-a-huge-capacity-to-inflict-pain-20ad4fddcab0

If you like making love at midnight

There's a few topics swirling around in my mind, but this THIRD French lockdown - not the partial two we've had where kids were still going to school but a real 'WE REALLY MEAN IT THIS TIME' lockdown after a year of never being completely free from any form of lockdown but this has resulted in the writing thoughts trying to emerge coherently out of my brain and onto the screen being about as successful as an egg staying whole when dropped on the kitchen floor.

Thus, to keep the brain (or at least one segment of it) distracted, here's my quick Q and A via the questions provided by blogger goddess Bev at Sunday Stealing  

1. What’s your favorite kind of cake?

Homemade.  Hummingbird - a jazzier carrot cake that essentially has crushed pineapple in it but still has that cream cheese icing that is God's own cloud nine lining.

2. What’s your favorite cocktail?

A GnT is a regular and faithful standby, but a) if they're affordable, b) I'm on holiday; and c) in the mood, I do love a Pina Colada or pretty well anything with fruit, multi-coloured layers of god-knows-what liqueurs and a paper umbrella in it.  A tacky party in a large glass, if you will.  Otherwise, champers or prosecco with Aperol is beautiful in summer.

3. If you are alone for the evening, what do you fix yourself for dinner?

Firstly, I'd be hoping for leftovers.  Easy!

If none were to be found and no 'just heat and eat' options available, I'd probably do an egg on toast or make a very basic spaghetti with herbs and veges stirred through it.

Then again, in the pre-Covid days when Dean sometimes had to travel, 'dinner' has been a bag of corn chips or a block of chocolate followed by an orange or berries.  That's one of my sad little lies I tell myself - the fruit cancels out the kitkat!

4. What make was your first car?

A 1971 poo brown Renault 16TS bought in 1989.  Referred to fondly - and rather optimistically - as 'the flying turd' as it was rarely able to go faster than 80km per hour, even downhill.

5. What is your height?

I honestly keep forgetting. I think I'm five foot seven, but growing up in a decimal country, that might be around 167cm?  Reasonably tall for a woman.

6. What was your least favorite toy as a child?

Barbie dolls. Dolls in general, actually.  What were you supposed to do with them after taking their clothes off and putting them back on again? Barbie's stupid little shoes kept falling off, she couldn't stand up on her own and did NOT fit into the lego, mechano, or wooden block cities I'd help build with my brothers.

What am I supposed to do with her?

7. What’s your favorite cartoon character?

Daffy Duck.  I liked the little white ring pattern around his neck and how he'd rush off and yell WOO HOO! every time he was excited.

8. What’s your dream car?

This is going to sound strange but I'm some kind of savant with a completely useless skill that enables me to tell what make a car is more easily than most people. I don't know why because I have no mechanical interest or watch the Grand Prix or dream of driving anything fancy, but I can spot a car and guess correctly that, 'yup, that's a Skoda,' or 'there's a mazda.'

As for my own dream car, just a comfortable and reliable one would be fine.  Oh and one that can be easily located in a crowded car park when you're overloaded and stressed.  If I see someone in a Porsche or Bentley I never feel envy, I just think 'too much money' or 'show off.'

9. What’s your favorite pizza topping?

Let's start with the obvious, first: tomato base and cheese.  Then add slices of chorizo, chunks of freshly cut PINEAPPLE, a drizzle of BBQ sauce and more cheese.  This is MY favourite pizza and no further correspondence on the matter will be entered into.

10. What’s your favorite sports team?

As a South Australian, I'll say 'The Adelaide Crows' Australian Rules Football team.  My husband follows them avidly and pays to watch the games from here in France.  Put it this way: I never manage to sit through an entire match but I'm happy if/when Dean tells me they won.

11. What’s your favorite TV show?

Frasier, Seinfeld, Parks and Recreation, Better Call Saul, The Ozarks and anything on British TV that features a panel of comedians talking about current events.

12. What is your favorite ice cream?

I'm not a big ice-cream eater at home and we rarely have it in the freezer, but there's something about a day out or being on holiday and I'm the first one at the freezer window, selecting my (usually three - OINK) flavours and opting for them to be put in a cup instead of a cone.  Dark chocolate, rum and raisin, mango, caramel anything, pineapple...... anything but strawberry which is always a disappointment.

13. What is your favorite song?

This is impossible to answer because it depends on how you're feeling at the time, how old you where when you first heard it and what where you going through at the time.....  But hey, if you're talking about the common song to buzz around inside my head when going on long walks with Felix (note I said 'most common,' NOT 'favourite') it seems to be the theme to Bob the Builder.  Suggestions on how to eliminate this unwanted ear worm are most welcome.

14. What’s your least favorite chore?

Vacuuming.  Hate it. HATE it.  HATE IT!  With a dog in the house, it is never clean even after you've used all your poxy attachments, bent double chasing dust bunnies under the sofa or affixed the brush thingy used for dusting or the biggest sucky do-dad for the rugs..... when the chamber is emptied, it always resembles the torso of the dog.  It's an exhausting and futile task that is never allowed to be enjoyed as completed for a moment because as soon as you put the vacuum away, you notice the shreds of chew toy on the living room mat you didn't see earlier; the flour dust by the pantry door and, with a happy flap of his ears, a brand new dusting of Felix fur.

15. What was your first job?

At school - babysitting. Money to exhaust the kids, put 'em to bed and get paid to do your homework and eat their chocolate biscuits.

At uni - apricot cutting. Very hot and hard work standing on a cement floor under a tin shed slicing apricots in half and placing them on trays to be dried in the sun.  Local radio 5MU on ALL DAY with a collection of possibly only 25 records.  Even now if Billy Joel's 'Uptown Girl' is heard I am instantly transported to stench of warm apricot juice stinging my cut fingers, the appearance of my first varicose vein and the fear of finding a huntsman spider amongst the fruit boxes...

After uni - ANZ bank.  Boy was I a bad choice.  They originally selected me to join their HR team but when I arrived I was placed in the 'graduate program' for future bank managers and urged to study accounting part time.  If I had wanted to study accounting, I would have a done it instead of history and english! The depression of being relatively low paid but having to pay the non-student rate for everything plus having to buy the corporate uniform (overpriced Maggie Tabberer navy blue and grey blazers and skirts) and having to man the tellers at lunchtime all sucked butt.  I lasted two years before quitting and heading to the UK on a two-year under-27-years-of-age work visa.

Depression in Dijon

This past weekend, we took the Friday off to try and see a different set of four walls and to walk a different set of streets. We are currently in our third version of the Covid-19 lockdown in France and working from home with the supermarket 400 metres up the street and masks now mandatory everywhere we venture outside. Our world had become unbearably small.

Dijon is a world heritage listed medieval town that has been around since the stone age. It has since hosted the Romans, the Dukes of Burgundy for centuries (11th to the 15thC) , survived an invasion by the Swiss in 1513, remained physically unscathed by the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 and was overtaken by Nazi Germany in 1940.

It is the capital of the Burgundy region, the most revered place for wine making in France. There is a route you can drive called ‘Les Routes des Grands Crus’ where eight of the world’s top ten wines are produced. Dijon itself is UNESCO heritage listed not just because of its extraordinarily well-preserved medieval buildings, but because it forms part of the unique climatic conditions for Burgundy wines.

We have been to Burgundy before and sampled a LOT of its wine in nearby Beaune. Not the eight mentioned above, of course, but ones much much cheaper and less of a tragedy for slightly sozzled cyclists such as ourselves to put into our backpacks, wobble into the bushes, land on our backs and smash the recent purchases.

Typical building found in the old town

We had tried to visit Dijon a few times previously, but accommodation seemed to be rarer than deodorant in a crowded Genevan bus. A better idea would be to go the week before Easter before families start their spring break. A break, this year which will not include the desirable locations where the super strict lockdowns are in force. Northern France (Normandy, Brittany, Champagne), Paris and its surrounds, Provence and most of the southern Riviera such as Nice and Marseilles are forbidden to visit unless for documented and essential reasons.

Our home in Ferney is within the Ain department adjoining Switzerland and while we are not in total lockdown we are under ‘en vigilance renforcee’ (enhanced vigilance). ****We are subject to the national curfew of 7pm (recently raised from 6pm due to daylight saving) to 6am and must wear masks everywhere now. That includes when outside alone, even when walking the dog with no-one in sight. In no part of France are bars, cafes or restaurants allowed to serve seated customers inside or outside.(**** We are, as is all of France, in total lockdown since writing this piece. No travel outside of your department and none more than 10km from your home address for anything other than essential reasons. Schools closed for four weeks.)

The anniversary of the Covid-19 catastrophe has been marked everywhere but we wanted to see a different set of four walls. Our research showed that Dijon is considered a safer department than ours but under the same strict rules. On a positive note, Dijon remains extremely proud of their culinary culture and we were informed that restaurateurs and cafes were able to take orders ‘at the door’ of their establishments as long as we cleared the hell away and didn’t hang around outside in groups of more than six people. Their famous indoor Saturday market was still open, albeit with a strict mask mandate and a man stood at the door counting people entering inside the building to keep crowding to a minimum.

Alright then, we thought, we will wander the lovely streets, buy food from the market, and use the kitchenette in our room. Our dog Felix was with us too, of course. It would be a surprise change of scenery for our endlessly-curious Spanish rescue and if walking around sniffing new pee spots was all that was on offer, we were certain that he’d love it.

This is where the risk of sounding like a whining, first world white woman who deserves a slap across the face and a ‘get over it’ ala Cher in ‘Moonstruck’ begins. And I would not blame you.

Sometimes, The Big D (get used to this, I use it to try and take the power away from the power of ‘depression’) and reality do, in fact, go hand in hand. This is particularly relevant during the endless Covid-19 anxieties, mandates and living in a country that has suffered nearly 100,000 deaths and 4.5 million cases with overrun hospitals, clinics and testing centres. The Big D finds it even funnier that the vaccination process is proceeding with confusion, disagreements about shipping some to other EU and non-EU countries and carrying out the jabs of their own citizens at a glacial pace.

The Big D had been loitering, a too little closely, next to me for a few days, despite years of knowing how to fend him off or prepare for his next attack. I felt apprehensive as we drove to Dijon despite Felix sleeping peacefully in the back. This was an improvement on his last car trip as he vomited up his breakfast during our ill-fated Sunday drive to the Jura that was too crowded with French people desperate to walk on snow that the roads were jammed for kilometres with cars parked on the edge of the narrow roads and people huddled too close together for any semblance of social distancing. Hopefully, we were better prepared this time, although after checking what booking.com described as ‘kitchen facilities,’ I also worried that a hotplate, microwave and bar fridge might dampen the enthusiasm of Dean, a rather talented home chef.

We had just managed to find the recommended parking outside of the old town which was quite a distance from our apartment. We dragged a distracted Felix and our luggage across cobbles into the old town to get our key from the main hotel and climb the dizzyingly narrow steps to our separate apartment just as the curfew hit.The room was amazing, part of a 15thC converted glass making factory right in the heart of the old town. La Choutte (the owl) street was around the corner, and the brochures told us to rub it with your left arm for luck, which we did. Gargoyles, palaces, stunning facades everywhere you looked. UNESCO know their stuff.

We accepted that Uber Eats was the only option for the first night and had bought along our own bottle of wine and food for Felix; all seemed good.

Can we get out of here now?

Felix did not agree. We had discovered during a trip to Grenoble (in between lockdown one and two) that he became distressed when we were not at home. Were we getting rid of him? What happened to the routine he so enjoyed and relied on? Where were the parks and fields? In Grenoble he did not pee for three days and could barely be controlled in his harness. He wanted to lead us, but didn’t know where, creating a constant traffic and tripping hazard.

In Dijon there were far less people, so we felt better about how he would conduct himself on a social level. There were much emptier public squares but little greenery to speak of. This place was so spotless you could eat — if you found somewhere open — your authentic French dejeuner straight off the cobblestones. There was a tiny park at the end of our street, but it was tightly fenced off because they were fixing the water soakage problem of the fountain. Dean luckily noticed that some of the park’s greenery around the back had grown beyond the fencing and, after twenty-four hours of extreme discomfort, Felix eventually gave up and did what he needed to do there.

But nowhere else. Outside, as we accepted the empty squares where dozens of outdoor cafes and restaurants had shut their doors and saw the stacked-up chairs against the windows inside, Felix was truly rattled. This was not Ferney. There was not a blade of grass anywhere. He would lunge in agitation at every innocuous passer-by and sure as hell was not going to stop pulling on his lead to let us stop and idly peer into a Covid-19 closed shop or museum entrance. As such, the planned peaceful walks in a new location with Felix were not a success.

The market was open and was magnificent cultural and visual feast for hungry eyes. We took turns going in to look around as the other stood outside near an empty shop-front, trying to get Felix to stop barking, sit and stay calm. Dean bought some freshly roasted pork that came with beans and roasted potatoes, and a bunch of bright green asparagus for good measure. On a stall outside, I couldn’t resist the new season raspberries and cherries. The non-Burgundian wine came from Carrefour ‘city’ supermarket. Dean dashed in to grab some while Felix waited outside and gained unwanted attention. Felix is a handsome young dog and people were interested in him, but he was most definitely NOT in the mood for pats, questions, lingering or waiting. Several times he looked at the sliding doors to Carrefour and howled. Dean’s temporary absence was his last straw.

Back at the apartment we breathed a sigh of relief. I took Felix to the back of the closed-off park where he reluctantly emptied himself before straining against his leash to be taken back to the apartment.

The meal — cooked via microwave and the one saucepan provided — was delicious. The block of chocolate that was included in Dean’s purchase of supermarket wine was also. We draped the couch and bed with Felix’s blankets and he curled up between us as we drank and watched TV.

There’s always wine. Supermarket wine was our saviour.

 

The next two days were the same as the first. Felix only toileting at the back of the closed off park at the end of the street and hanging on in agony for the rest of the day. No wine tasting for us as those shops were closed. No restaurants serving from their doors as we’d assumed.

For Dean, a break from home is the food. Trying the famous local dishes; reading the ‘plats de jour’ menus of every restaurant he walks by, sitting at a table in a little town square with a church at one end, ancient, gnarled trees providing shade and historical buildings and restaurants providing the energy life to watch as he enjoyed his meal and wine. He knew that these past enjoyments were not going to be available, but still thought that some local restaurants might be part of Uber Eats. Not the authentic or good ones, unfortunately.

Pastries and coffees could be purchased from the door in specifically spaced queues at boulangeries, but because no gatherings of more than six people were allowed, all seating options had been specifically removed from the town. Self-consciously standing around drinking a coffee because no alcohol can be sold or then consumed in the streets during this third lockdown with nowhere to sit and take in the sights and having one arm yanked as Felix continuously wanted to run to anywhere but here was not the relaxing getaway we had hoped for.

The Big D loved all of this. He loved that the winding narrow stairs leading down from our apartment gave me a fit of vertigo every time I took Felix out for his night-time pee that took so long as he agonised on how or where or even if he should do it. The Big D was gleeful about the gourmet shops that sold Dijon specialties such as cassis, gingerbread and local mustards were closed as they were not ‘essential’ businesses. He hooted at the shuttered wine speciality shops who still had signs advertising ‘wine tastings’ but that sunshine and time had loosened the sticky tape of those posters and they were rolling up in age and obscurity.

Never one to remain laser focused on just one victim, the Big D loved that Dean had a bout of hay fever that made it difficult to breathe and had a good chuckle at his suspicion that the ‘pet friendly’ apartment had recently hosted a clowder of cats. Night three of Uber delivery inside a room with a window that offered a cold breeze but no view and a kitchen that considered one saucepan and a plastic spoon the key utensils for cooking a meal as Dean coughed and wheezed continuously kept The Big D’s amused. Because we booked online, the hotel receptionist told us they could not refund us if we left early. I cried.

We had just wanted a break. We love it here in Ferney Voltaire, but Dean works from home and, apart from using his computer to look at Facebook and the footy instead of work, there is no difference between weekdays and weekends. I know the walking tracks here like the back of my hand and now that we must wear masks outside ALL THE TIME, I feel guilty taking Felix out on the less-used paths without a mask and quickly shove one on if I see someone coming.

But when everything is closed and the most fun you have is going back to your room, putting on the news and comforting Felix as he wedged himself between us on the sofa, we might as well have been home.

Corona is not going away any time soon here in France. We just heard that Italy is forcing quarantine on all EU countries who want to enter; a new rule that adds to the restrictions or quarantines already in place for non-EU countries. We celebrated our daughter’s 21st birthday over Facetime last year and can’t visit her at university in Edinburgh without an essential reason and even then, we must undergo a ten-day quarantine at our expense.

Both of my parents recently turned eighty and seeing their disjointed but happy faces in Victor Harbor over Facetime hurt like hell. A funeral was ‘attended’ by video link up.

We drove back to Ferney yesterday, stopping only to let Felix leave a piece of himself on the service station grassy area and to get some petrol. Unlocking the door and walking back into our small apartment, I cried again. It had a balcony. A good supermarket and, most importantly, amazing walking tracks through forests and farmland for Felix.

The Big D had me and he knew it. I felt like a loser for suggesting the trip and sorry that Dean was suffering such painful allergic reactions to the hotel room and struggling to rustle up a holiday ‘gourmet’ dinner from whatever the mini market around the corner had to offer. Wi-Fi had been one bar strength at best which limited entertainment options and all three of us had been miserable.

Dear Aussie mates and family on Facebook and all other forms of news and social media. You’ve done yourselves proud. You’re right to stop any of us expats from returning, or anyone else for that matter. You have kept cases and deaths down to levels that are cited by the BBC, CNN and France 24 news constantly. We accept that we will not be celebrating in person with either mum or dad on their 81st birthdays and our daughter’s 22nd birthday, in May, will be celebrated online also. The disorganized, complex and infuriatingly slow pace of testing, tracing and the availability of any brand of vaccines here in France and Europe as a whole has been shocking. The Big D has had one hell of a fun year.

This morning Felix and I did one of our regular walks through the countryside that’s about 500 metres from our door. He found several sticks, did at least a dozen pees, got harassed by bumble bees, sniffed the bottoms of several of his fellow chums and, for my part, I remained alert enough to steer him away from the fresh horse manure that he enjoys as a bonus snack when he can find it.

So even if you Aussies get the vaccine, before or after us Frenchies, please keep acting as if you haven’t. You are still spreaders. Don’t get any crazy ideas about traveling to Europe. Instead, keep the Europe of your dreams in your mind’s eye for now to sustain you and your bank balance because the reality is what the Big D is bent double cackling about right now.

Stay in Oz, keep anyone else trying to come in away from Oz and be grateful you live in houses with gardens, cities and towns with generous public gardens or units with green courtyards. The Big D will go away — I have learned through years of practice and acceptance that he always does — but knowing that we are all trying our best and that here, grateful that our little apartment is the best and nicest place to be, reduces his power to nothing stronger than the stray fly that found its way up to our second-floor. We tried to change our scenery and found that we could not. We cannot change this right now.

The Europe of your imagination does not exist anymore. It will do, but not yet.

Happy to be back home

Cooking, Schmooking

 via Bev at Sunday Stealing

1.  How often do you make food and eat it?

If coffee counts, then twice a day.  Toast for my husband and myself in the morning and the bread has at least been made by my own hands. One of the very few lockdown skills learned.

2.  Do you consider toasting bread, preparing instant noodles, or boiling an egg to be cooking? Why or why not?

Can't see why not. If some sort of heat has been applied to a food instead of merely just opening a packet and eating the contents 'as is', then yes, that's cooking.

3.  What’s your favorite dish to make?

As a main course - spaghetti bolognese. It's the ultimate comfort food and I could eat it at least twice a week and be content.  There's loads of other more exciting and posher foods too, but, at a pinch, if spaghetti bolognese is what's for dinner, I'm always smiling.  AND always wearing two paper-roll napkins down my front to catch the sauce I splatter everywhere when slurping up the spaghetti.  It's a particularly attractive look for Dean, he tells me.

Desserts - baked cheesecakes, tiramisu, ANZAC biscuits, choc chip cookies, pavlova, Eton mess, carrot cake.... We don't eat desserts on an average day, so it's fun to bake something deliciously sweet for a dinner party (hello, I'm in France on the third lockdown - what are dinner parties, again?) or special occasion.

4.  Cooking or baking: what’s more fun? What’s more difficult?

Baking is the most fun because it's an activity that you can do when you're in the mood for it and, unlike what is depicted on TV shows, there's no urgent rush for it.  Think of a rainy afternoon, your favourite music on and baking something that's not very healthy but very fun to eat.  The difficulty is in getting the measurements and baking time correct, but that's a minor issue.

Cooking a sensible evening meal is extremely un-fun. My mother would agree.  On a budget in the 1970s with a husband and three growing kids to feed, lamb chops were then the cheapest meat and we had them done via the electric frypan at least four nights a week accompanied by the predictable boiled peas and carrots and mashed potato.  Her other standby was 'stew.'  She wasn't one to sex things up by calling it a 'casserole' or 'surprise.'

I'd like to think that I'm a bit more adventurous, but really that's only due to several decades of increased and expansive culinary trends, availability of more interesting ingredients and the joy of 'one pot' meals.  If I can do a pasta, curry, soup or stir fry in one pot and slop it into a bowl, then that's my work done.  Creativity in the kitchen is something lacking in me.  Looking in the fridge never provides an inspiration other than to take a bite out of the cheese.  Cooking is much more difficult as it has to be done every. damn. night. and somehow be nutritious, interesting and appealing.  The level of gratitude I have for my scientific husband to express his creative skills in cooking extraordinary dinners nearly every night can not be overestimated.

5.  Who did most of the cooking in your house when you were growing up?

Mum. She was a housewife in the 70s but even as a child it was obvious that she would have liked to have spent the necessary time on meals doing something else.  She was (is) a brilliant gardener, singer, sewer, charity participant and is always willing to help others.  As her children found partners, she'd gladly say, 'My kitchen is your kitchen.  Go for it!'

6.  How have you learned the cooking skills that you have?

Not via Home Economics at school or due to natural curiosity, that's for sure.  Necessity after leaving home, then watching Dean.  I've maybe gained 2% of his abilities but none of his enthusiasm.

7.   Have you ever taken a cooking course? If so, what did you learn? If not, would you like to do one? What would you like to learn?

Nope.  I did a bar and waiting course to land a summer job during uni, but a gift voucher for a cooking class would be my idea of an evil joke.  Breadmaking during lockdown is different because it's so simple and kneading it yourself is a sort of soothing 'being in the moment' meditative gesture.  The smell of it baking is also utterly wonderful.  Sometimes I've fantasised about being rich enough to take Dean to a crumbling old castle in Tuscany to learn from an Italian chef, but even he has not taken this idle idea into consideration.  

8.   Have you tried cooking food from another culture? What did you prepare? How was it?

Depends on what you mean by 'another culture' because the recipes I've followed have been by English peeps like Jamie or Nigella or old Women's Weekly cut outs.  These would all be slightly anglicised so that we can get our hands on the ingredients.  Dean has been impressed with the naan breads I made, but, again, I had to thank Mr Oliver's online recipe for that!

9.   Is it cost-effective to do your own cooking? Can you save money by cooking?

Of course! Ingredients and the time taken to cook your own meals is a far cheaper than eating out. However, I don't want to put down anyone who orders more than their fair share of Uber Eats.  My Italian neighbour lives on his own and in his third lockdown, the Uber driver is appearing more often at our front gate.  Claudio told me that it just got tiring and depressing having to cook lunch and dinner day after day, for one person for so long.  Despite having an extended curfew of 7pm (it was 6pm but daylight saving has been taken into account), from tomorrow we are no longer permitted to order food deliveries after 10pm.  That will most definitely reduce the sound of scooters on the street below at midnight!

10.  Would you rather do the cooking or do the washing up afterwards?

Wash up. Every time.  My personal OCD involves constantly putting away vegetable peelings straight into the bin, stacking the dishwasher, soaking pots and wiping down counters; tidying up on the go. Sometimes I put the chopping board or knife in the dishwasher and Dean has to say 'Hey! I'm still using that!' He's been lovingly honest about telling me to stay OUT of the kitchen until the meal is served and only then I can enter and work my OCD magic.  With the incredible meals he makes, this arrangement is perfect.

11.  Do you use recipes to cook? If so, where do you get the best recipes? Do you get them from friends, family, online, or from cookbooks?

I think all Aussies had the famous Women's Weekly cookbook which every person who left home usually got given as a particularly useful present.  I don't have many cookbooks, but do have plastic folders of recipes handwritten by friends or family, printed off the 'net or ripped out of magazines.  The ones that are actually slotted into a separate plastic insert are the holiest of holies because they're the ones that I use and can rely on.

12.  Have you ever tried to prepare some food and just totally ruined it? What happened?

Oh, there's so little time.....  I once nearly broke my flatmate's blender by smooshing raw carrot, onion, tomatoes and celery and then heated up the muck in the microwave until it was boiling.  That it tasted like garden dirt helped me learn that patience and long cooking is key.

Trying out a traybake for American-style macaroni cheese resulted in an unedifying claggy mess that sucked the saliva out of your mouth after the first bite.  Even the dog refused it. Would have made a handy cement for a garden wall though.

Easter hot cross buns in last year's lockdown.  The mixture was supposed to be 'sticky' after the first leavening, but it still seemed too wet and I added more flour.  The results were not dissimilar to office 'stress balls' but studded with a few sad sultanas.  If thrown from our balcony they could have seriously hurt somebody.

13. Do you prefer cooking at home or eating out at a restaurant? Why?

Home. Because it's Dean's cooking.  He doesn't follow recipes, but when we do eat out (again, 'eat out' what's that again?) he takes note of what he's enjoying and then tries it his own way at home. Even in Italy, the pasta dishes we tasted were no better than his. His roasts are spectacular, curries fragrant and varied and when our vegetarian daughter is home his standards of cooking almost seem to improve. His eggplant parmigiana makes me drool just typing about it.

Also, restaurants (places I dimly remember) mean that you can't be yourself, often have to shout to be overheard by the music and can sometimes feel like the lady at the tiny table wedged in next to yours is closer to you than your partner seated opposite you.  The wine list prices are also out of control, especially if you know what they cost at the supermarket.  Plus, it means I have to dress up, which is a pain.

14. Is cooking a social activity for you? Do you like to do it with other people, or do your prefer to do it alone?

Nope.  Not social, not fun, just a chore.   Unless I'm baking, which I do prefer to do alone with music of my choice that is out of earshot (and therefore ridicule) of anyone else in the house.

15. Do you have a lot of cooking equipment? How often do you use it all? Do you have any pieces of equipment that you rarely ever use?

Not as much as you’d think, considering Dean’s talents.  Our apartment is not large, so every appliance has to be really worth it in order to take up precious space.  We have a bamix-style stick blender, coffee machine, kettle, sandwich press and handheld beaters.  All are well used.  Utensils are mainly from IKEA or Swiss supermarkets and do us just fine.

Items such as slow cookers, rice cookers or juicers seem like they’d quickly end up in the storage unit right next to the raclette machine bought on a whim a few years ago.

I'll sign off by 'gifting' you this picture below.  Source unable to be found, but it seems to be from the time when setting anything in jello was the grooviest of party foods, baby. I can truly swear that even my mother ignored this trend, as have I.

What to do when there’s a drunk on the bus

We are all aware that we have the prehistoric remnants of a ‘lizard brain,’ the leftover survival instinct that shifts into ‘fight or flight’ mode when we find ourselves in danger.

I wonder if the last couple of millennia have also added ‘ignore’ and ‘freeze’ to our survival toolkits as well.

Here’s how my little lizard brain tried to deal with a drunk on the bus:

Crying over Q and As

Some interesting questions from Bev at Sunday Stealing but I'm feeling recalcitrant and might do it on another day of the week.  So it's Tuesday and boy-oh-boy, what seemed like a fun Q and A has become quite emotional for me.

1. An unforgettable day in my life.

When my daughter was born.  She started sending me rather strong signals of her intentions to enter the world at a dinner party on Friday night.  It was all rather exciting and I was happy to share it with the other four guests.  Our prenatal classes had informed us that early contractions are NOT like in the movies, with water gushing and being rushed into Emergency two minutes later, but to stay calm and time them.  These were only occurring every twenty minutes or so.

At home that night though, I couldn't sleep and sat up buffered by every ornamental pillow we'd normally toss off the bed when we climbed into it.  I wrote down the time and duration of each contraction and by Saturday morning, they were every ten minutes.  I still knew to stay calm as our teacher had told us that hospitals sent many excited new parents back home until the contractions were every five minutes.

I tried to stand up against our mantelpiece and look nonchalant as Dean sold our tiny little Suzuki to a local florist, not wanting her to know that a) I was having contractions and b) they hurt like hell.

By 8pm Saturday evening, they were five minutes apart. The Melbourne Women's and Children's hospital was still located in Carlton then and a stone's throw from Lygon Street - the busiest street for bars, restaurants and shops in Melbourne.  Dean drove around the block several times trying to find a parking spot. 

Eventually we saw one, but so did another car - I wound down the window of our 'brand new' ex-government Mitsubishi station wagon we'd bought the week earlier in preparation for parenthood, and asked them if, because I was in labour, if we could take the spot.  They kindly agreed and instant karma was bestowed on them as the spot in front of ours also became vacant.

Once in hospital, the contractions were stronger but I wasn't dilated enough.  To avoid all the rather icky stuff, it is best to summarise the experience as having had three different marvelous midwives help us through it before ending their respective shifts. Epidurals, vomiting from bearing down so much and seeing poor Dean's exhausted, sleeping face smooshed up against the steel grey side of the bedside drawer.  By lunchtime, our baby's heart rate was starting to fade and I then started living a Hollywood movie scene when they rushed me into surgery, Dean wearing what looked like a shower cap and tears in his eyes and he ran alongside us.  Our daughter finally emerged via forceps and me numbed from the waist down in case a Caesarean was needed, at 2.15pm on Sunday afternoon.

She was blue, but rapidly turned pink, with a thin coating of strawberry blonde hair.  We'd made a human being!  I was also selfishly glad that I was still too numb to be moved because the infamous tar-like meconium poop she produced was left to be seen and dealt with by poor Dean.

That was 23rd May 1999.  A week overdue, so if you're into astrology, our expected Taurus became a Gemini.

  

2. My favorite snacks

Chocolate.  In my chocolate reviewing days, I was into dark chocolate, but after a decade in Switzerland, it's milk chocolate mostly.  Not the particularly posh stuff either.  Lindt never lets me down, nor the number that appears on my bathroom scales.  However, nothing chocolate 'flavoured' because that's always a very poor substitute and a disappointment, especially chocolate milk, cake or ice-cream.  

3. My biggest fashion accessory

My gold bangles (three) and perfume.  I've adored bangles (plastic, metal, silver, fake gold, real gold) even as a child and my parents gave me a gold one in 1990 and Dean gave me two others in 2005 which was our tenth wedding anniversary.  I don't take 'em off any more after one once broke, so I'm an automatic candidate for an airport security pat-down.

Perfume.  Unbrushed hair and teeth, baggy tracksuit pants, old running t-shirt and stained parka are my 'go to' clothes during this never-ending French lockdown, yet I still give myself a spritz.  My lifetime favorite is the original Chloe that I've used for over 30 years.  It's hard to find and I don't like the newer versions, so Tiffany, good old White Musk from the Body Shop, Yardley's Violet, Chanel No 19, 4077 Cologne and a few of the Burberry's are also in use.  Chloe is for the bestest of best days.

4. My biggest celebrity crush

C. Thomas Howell.  Ponyboy in The Outsiders.  That adorable face....!  I spent a lot of my hard-earned babysitting money to buy imported UK teen mags like 'Tiger Beat' in order to find posters of him.  He didn't reach the fame or cinematic heights of most of his Outsiders costars but that face.....

5. One hobby I would like to learn

I would have said 'learn French' but my old brain is always working in English. I can't help but automatically read every label, street sign and, to his great annoyance, Dean's iPad when he's sitting next to me.  I love alliteration and thinking up things to write about, so when I did try to learn French my brain just....turned itself off.  I know that you must give things a good hard try and nothing comes easy and you live in France and you're lacking confidence and, and, and.....  If it could be 'magicked' into my brain I'd be thrilled.  

Maybe a drama class for oldies?  A fantasy would be to occasionally get to play an unglamorous but rude old lady who couldn't care less about what swear words she gets to say at shocked youngers.  That seems like fun.

6. My OCD habits

Harrison Ford was a carpenter by trade and he once mentioned in an interview that he can't help straightening books or magazines on coffee tables so that they're in a straight line with the edges of the table.  I do that too.  Even before 'happy birthday' hand washing timings of Covid-19, my hands resembled scaly claws due to the dozens and dozens of times I wipe down the kitchen counter, sink top, table, coffee making machine, spills etc.  The worst decision I've made was deciding on a stainless steel splashback for the stove top and sink because the calcium-rich water here shows up every single drop and I seem to spend every single moment wiping them off.

7. If I could eat one last meal

Dean cooks an amazing spiced coated chicken schnitzel that he serves with twice cooked roasted potatoes, onions, carrots and garlic. The soft roasted garlic oozes out of the skin and doesn't give you the dreaded 'ten feet distance away from me, please' breath afterwards.  Add steamed broccoli and fresh asparagus and sweet corn.  Dessert could be a good baked cheesecake or carrot cake struggling under the weight of the cream cheese icing.  Add a generous handful of fresh raspberries.  Moet to wash it all down with.

8. Working on my fitness

Both of my achilles and both of my (I don't want to say 'bone spurs' because I don't want to have ANYTHING IN COMMON with Donald Trump ever) plantar fasciitis thingies have finally ended my running.  Even with a treadmill on a much slower speed and planned shorter distances, these flare up and I spend more time off recovering than doing any actual running.  The treadmill is a good place to drape bed sheets to dry though.

I have a fitness DVD by Jillian Michael called the 'Thirty Day Shred' that I could probably recite word for word, but after the end of Lockdown One, I lost interest.  My thighs sighed with relief.

During Lockdown Two, we adopted Felix.  As a four year old dog, he's got the body of an athlete in his prime and, as an apartment dweller with a balcony for a garden, he needs and deserves long walks and the opportunity to explore and have a deep think for several seconds before deciding to pee on the wild chives in front of him.  This has been a genuine gift for me.  No, not the obsessive excrement eating or raging barks at elderly folk, but the distances we end up walking each day.  I'm not seeing any amazing weight loss but, unlike Felix, no-one controls what I get in my food bowl per day, so that's on me.

9. What I spend money on

Apart from the mortgage, utilities, credit card and groceries?  Wool for the scarves I've been knitting as a LGBTQI fundraiser.  You can see some of them here at  https://www.etsy.com/au/shop/EverythingWoolBeOk.  

For some reason it's stuck in AUD prices which makes postage estimates from France (especially during Covid) almost impossible.  I've had better luck selling them privately.  I can't knit anything fancy or know how to follow a pattern but the repetitive nature of knitting is comforting and helps stop me from picking at my fingernails quite so often. Elmo's been an enthusiastic model, but as soon as I use up my last batch of wool I'm going to donate them to the French Federation - https://federation-lgbt.org/

10. My favorite recipe

No single one, as I'm not an enthusiastic cook, which means that sensible things like evening meals I have boring 'go tos' like spaghetti bolognese, various soups, various stir-fries and quiche. That's why Dean is the chef in our house: he enjoys it and is particularly good at it.  Favourite recipes for me always involve sweets.  That said, I'm still baking our lockdown bread because I like the hands-on habit of it and the process involved.  But being asked to 'bring dessert' which means make a white chocolate and blueberry cheesecake, tiramisu, pavlova or carrot cake means a happy Saturday afternoon in the kitchen listening to ABBA as I bake.

11. The best part of each season

I'll apply my European view on these, as the seasons are much more distinctive from each other than where I came from.

Summer - fields of sunflowers, outdoor drinking, long hours of daylight

Autumn - the beautiful changes of the leaves.  Cooler nights which are better for sleeping.  Seeing cute little pumpkins sitting on ancient stone door steps and fences as decorations.

Winter - Snow skiing (if not shut down due to Covid as it has been this past season), seeing robins hop along the path ahead of where Felix and I are walking, Christmas decorations and traditions making more sense in the cold weather.

Spring - the violets, daffodils and snowdrops that have somehow survived the winter and emerge into the still not-very-reliable sunshine.  Blossoms.  Felix trotting on green grass dotted with tiny white daisies. Being able to sit out on our balcony again.

12. A life lesson I’ve learned

There's always a tiny grain of truth in stereotypes.  They can be over-generalised and sometimes cruel, but they expose a commonality that a lot of us recognise.  None of us want to be BE a stereotype, but we can sure recognise them.

13. My inspiration to blog

I did it pretty regularly as a way to recover from a full-on breakdown in 2005, before stopping in 2013. My daughter was then a teenager and it didn't seem right to mention her at that time of her life as it was her own.  Plus, my older brother's wife emailed me to say that she'd always disliked me; didn't know why but had decided to therefore cut me, my husband and then thirteen year old child out of her life forever.  Up until then she had been a regular reader and commenter on the blog and I figured that she didn't deserve to see what I was thinking or getting up to if she was OK with making my daughter cry every birthday when she realised each time that her aunt (and uncle) had completely written her out of their lives for no reason that has ever been explained to her, me or the rest of my family.  

My daughter is grown up now; at university in Edinburgh and I'm trying to see if I can write stuff that isn't just relying on what a silly mummy I am.  Therefore, starting up again has been a bit slow and painful. I'm not sure who still reads blogs as about 99% of my old links have disappeared and tiktok just doesn't seem to be the right option for creaky old me.  I didn't know if I had anything worth sharing or saying - I still don't know - but I feel somehow, as though I want something of me put somewhere. If nothing else, having stuff to think about does help with my depression, self confidence and wondering just how and where I fit. 

14. What’s inside my closet?

Pretty boring clothes, to be honest.  Maybe two dresses, but the rest are shirts, t-shirts and jackets. As a teen/early twenty something, I was very much into fashion, but for me it was out of anxiety.  I didn't have the movie star looks of my mother and it was my friend Jo the guys flocked to, not me.  Fashion felt like a teeny tiny way to at least look the part.  After doing the two-year working holiday stint in London, it was travel, rent and cider that was more important to me.  These days, I just want my clothing choices to ensure that no-one runs away from me screaming.

15. Let me brag a minute.

You've got me on a down day, unfortunately.  I have so much to be thankful for, but when the 'Big D' (my sad attempt at nullifying the effects of depression by giving it a disrespectful nickname) kicks in, it can seem like I'm dragging one foot behind the other, stretching my facial muscles to adequately resemble the socially acceptable expression and keep it up until bedtime.  The good thing is that these days or weeks don't last forever.  It has taken me a lot of time, mistakes and incredible personal pain to finally understand that.  

So, maybe my 'brag' is that yes, I have depression.  And yes, it does define me - how can it not?  It is a part of me and sometimes wields a much larger and more exhaustive control over me than I'd like.  Other days I'm only dimly aware of it, but am never in doubt of its existence or that it's lurking there, always waiting and watching.  Maybe the best advice I can give myself - and lord knows I try to - is to say what I'd say to anyone I loved who was suffering.  

"What would you tell your friend?" They'd invariably come up with some pretty decent responses and I'd say, "well, if it's good enough for your friend, it's good enough for you."  Perhaps that advice is something to brag about.