It ain't ketchup for an Aussie, it's TOMATO SAUCE

Bev at Sunday Stealing provides the questions and we bloggers provide the answers, as correctly and as honestly as we can.

1. Do you put ketchup on hot dogs?

This Australian has never really enjoyed hotdogs much as seeing their very pale pink 'meat' sit in a transparent warmer in tepid second hand steam never looked very appetising.  Not that the cheapest Australian sausage could claim to be any more nutritious, but when they're cooked on a BBQ until their skin turns carcinogenically black and they're placed diagonally across a slice of white bread with TOMATO sauce slathered on, they are heaven in your hand.

2. How many TVs in your house?

Two.  A ten year old one we bought when we first moved to Switzerland and it fits neatly into the bookshelf.  The second one we bought two months ago after fully embracing French Lockdown Fatigue and the need (want?) to watch stuff in bed.

3. Do you put salt on watermelon?

What...?  NO?  Why on earth would you do that?

4. Can you swim?

Yes. Most Aussie kids learned in backyard pools, being thrown into the river on holidays or in their first years of primary school.  Pools are considered fun places for belly-flops, backflips, dive bombs etc, so when I first attended the Kincorth Academy Swimming Club (indoors, of course) and made my entry via a rather impressive bomber jump, I was met with shocked silence.  Swimming club was for swimming. Serious laps.

Back in Australia we were lucky enough to have neighbours with in-ground swimming pools who were always kind enough to invite us to come over.  Many of my dinners were viewed through a chroninated fog as I adored swimming underwater with my eyes open.  The photo here is from 1979 and I'm standing next to our family's version of a pool.  A metal frame and tarpaulin number filled with water straight out of the Murray River.

And yes, that was the colour of our bathwater as well.  No wonder I looked so tanned as a child!

5. Are your parents still alive?

Yes.  Mum turned eighty in September and of course there was no way I was allowed to fly back to Australia to see her, and my Dad turned eighty last weekend.  Dad was sporting an impressive black eye and stitches due his latest round of skin cancer removals and Mum was thrilled to discover that she'd made the grand final team for bowls that week.  Even at eighty, competition in sport is madly fierce.

Whilst their life in South Australia seems incredibly free and easy with Covid only making its presence felt via a few hand sanitisers in shops, we expats are still being told by the embassy to NOT travel home. The new Covid variants are being brought in by overseas visitors, so Facetime will have to do until, when, 2022?

6. First car?

It was 1989 and I paid $1600 for a 1971 poo brown Renault 16TS.  This would be regarded as ancient if you'd purchased an eighteen year old car here in Europe, but with rust being a minor problem, a lot of Aussies will happily drive cars until at least their twentieth year.  Plus, cars are inordinately expensive compared to the average salary.  My Rodney the Renault only did 80km maximum but the freedom of having my own little brown bomb to get around Adelaide was exhilarating.  No matter how many better cars you have since, it's the exciting freedom and buzz of your very first car that never gets repeated.

7. Surgeries?

Adenoids when I was five, but the memories are fuzzy.  My brothers were in hospital at the same time so it must have been a nice three day break for my parents.  I don't remember any pain or discomfort but do recall the fascination of the individually wrapped gold pats of butter and jams on my tray for breakfast.  I saved some to take home!

Hysterectomy two years ago.  With a reproductive system the gynaecologist described as 'healthy as a twenty year old's,' heavy periods and no menopause anywhere near my fifty two year old horizon, it was suggested I lose around half a kilogram and get the unhelpfully active uterus whipped out. I didn't fancy being the mother a baby at seventy or the village's first ninety year old wet nurse. Even after the operation, I am not menopausal.  The ovaries are still in there and create a monthly hormonal festival of their own.  I get moody, a weird red rash around my neck like an angry dog collar, a lovely selection of pimples and a good wallop of PMS.  I'm saving money not buying tampons I guess.

8. What do you drink in the morning?

A glass of water and then a delicious cup of bean to-brew coffee made by myself, or if he's up earlier, Dean.  Our DeLonghi grinds the beans and has a milk steamer attachment and is unarguably the best way to unfold our faces and think about the day ahead.  A hot beverage is a good way to force you to sit relatively still for a few minutes.  A modern day meditation if you will.

I have a second coffee after my long lunchtime walk with Felix but the rest of the day is water.  Love the stuff.  Wine if it's the weekend, but usually each room has a glass of water in it that I've half drunk or forgotten about.

9. Can you do 100 push ups?

On my knees, crying and moaning, I'd say a very quiet and qualified 'yes' but I have never, even at my youngest and fittest, ever been able to manage ONE from my toes.  Thus far, this shameful lack of athleticism has affected my life in no way whatosever.

10. Can you change a tire?

Embarrassingly no.  I've always been with someone who can and it has never (runs out to touch the ficus tree hoping that it counts as 'wood') happened while I've been driving on my own.  

11. Tattoos?

Three.  The first one was done around twelve years ago, a small blue rose on my hip.  Blue is my favourite colour and happens to be the colour of Dean and our daughter's eyes.  Roses are my favourite flower.  

The second one is a tiny semi-colon on my inner ankle.  The semi-colon has become a symbol for depression sufferers who acknowledge their difficulties but are determined to press on.  In a written sentence, the semicolon symbolizes the continuation of a sentence and a change of direction rather than an ending.  He felt suicidal; she talked him down.  The semi-colon lets you understand that life, even if it starts negatively in a sentence, can go on to better things.

The third is three blue roses on my left wrist.  Three is my favourite number and my family (of humans) is three.  Blue is my favourite colour, rose is still my favourite flower.  It feels as though I take my favourite boy and favourite girl with me where I go.

12. Do you wear sunglasses?

You betcha.  As a migraine sufferer, they're essential.  Even now that I'm on the wonder drug Emgality and my migraines have amazingly reduced from fourteen to one per month, the bright light can either bring a migraine on or just make it difficult to see and focus.  It's like the world has become too loud and demanding.  I've even got prescription lenses in them so that I can still read and see ahead in the distance.

13. Do you have a phobia?

Probably spiders. The big hairy huntsmen spiders were regularly visitors inside our house in Murray Bridge.  They never seemed to be afraid of anything and if you lunged at them with a broom handle, they'd be just as likely to jump straight for your face.  If you parked your car under a shady tree, spiders would sometimes move house to your car.  I once pulled down my sun visor to see a hand-sized spider spread across the visor about five centimetres away from my face.  I swerved left, with no sanity or concern for passing traffic and leapt out of the car.  I couldn't climb back in until a kindly gentlemen used his thong (flip flop, NOT g-string) to fling it out of the car for me.

One of the joys of living in Europe is that big hairy spiders don't seem to take up residence in apartments.  The biggest insect we see up here are lost bumble bees.  Instead of a scream, they get a 'good onya little fella' in congratulations for making it up two storeys.

14. Do you have a nickname? 

My maiden name was Read so sometimes it was Kathy Read as in 'Kathy read a book.'  Or 'Chopper' as the infamous of hitman Mark 'Chopper' Read began to spread. My parents called me Bubbles because I had a spherical face as a baby and there was a podgy football player at the time who was called Bubbles.  And, of course, Kath-URINE by my younger brother, who, even know, just shortens it to 'urine' when he sees me.

Bubbles and Chopper Read all in one!

15. Are you a picky eater?

Yes and no.  Yes in that there are certain foods that I really don't like, so much so that I can physically gag if presented with them.  These include pumpkin, sweet potato, offal.  Picky too in that I will actively avoid anything that I had too much of as a child. My mother was not a good or enthusiastic cook, so fried lamb chops were on the menu at least four days a week.  I don't care how tender the cut or the wondrously creatively method used by the chef, I won't order them.

Oh and never believe a French waiter in Bretagne when he says that unfortunately now is not the right season for mussels (moules) but bulots are the perfect alternative. They are bloody well not.  Rubberized salted snails who, like wads of bubble gum, refused to be properly chewed and swallowed. To try to be fair, I painfully gnawed my way through three before giving up.  Our daughter lasted for two and Dean managed four.  Bulots = the bullshit of the sea.

All the holiday needed was 'yackety sax' on repeat

Bev from Sunday Stealing regularly poses a list of questions that exhausted bloggers can use as a spring board for reminiscing, opining or just pausing to have a bit of a think.

1. What is the farthest you have ever traveled?

Being an Aussie, if you ventured further than New Zealand or Bali you were already considered an intrepid traveler.  Adelaide, South Australia to Aberdeen, Scotland might have been the furthest, if specifically counting kilometres.  It was also my first flight as an excited twelve year old in December 1980. In those days you could press the 'summon flight attendant' button and they would actually arrive. I wore that thing out - and the hostie - and overdosed on fanta, peanuts and toblerones. This resulted in my mother holding my hair out of my face as I puked it all back up during our stopover in Bahrain.

2. Who did you date while in high school?

Only at the very end of my final year.  I kissed a boy during a drama camp a couple of years earlier. We each wrote each other one awkward letter but I used this as 'my boyfriend who lives in Clare' excuse for at least another year to avoid the embarrassment of being rejected by any more closely located males.

By year twelve, I was ready to risk things and Sean and I went as partners to our senior ball.  We dated for nearly three years, so for a first boyfriend he was a pretty decent pick.

3. What is one of the worst trips you've ever taken? What went wrong?

Oh lordy....... Egypt for Christmas in 1991.  Leonie and I were young Aussies in London and thought that a fortnight in Egypt flying via Romanian airlines would be a marvelous idea.  We were stranded for twenty four hours in the post-communism, still-inept Bucharest airport which appeared to be a shed sitting on a sheet of ice.  Blocked toilets, no heating, staff who pulled down the blinds over the 'help desk' if we dared approach and only 'toblerone' (there seems to be a theme here) and Romanian champagne to eat if you had some cash.  Most of us deciding that getting drunk on dodgy fizz was the way to cope.

Egypt wasn't much better.  We wore wedding rings and said that our husbands were still in London, dressed very modestly and covered our hair.  This did not deter the ardor or bravado of the local gentlemen and our tour of the interior of the Cheops pyramid involved me trying to reach around to slap the face of the paid tour guide who was pinching my arse.  We emerged into the daylight only to be propositioned by a fourteen year old boy and having to make a run for it after our camel ride turned ugly. Most of the trip seemed to pass by in a haze of being the female extras in a never-ending Benny Hill skit.

4. How do you like to spend a lazy day?

Lockdown has made those lazy day options a year-long one here in France.  Making and drinking good coffee. Cuddling and walking Felix.  Cuddling but not walking my husband Dean.  Kneading bread dough.  Clicking onto the third episode of a Netflix series that you already have a good feeling about. Reading a good book. Facetiming with my daughter.

5. How old were you when you found out that JFK had been assassinated? How did it affect you?

Before my time and very rarely mentioned in my rural South Australian upbringing.  The price of petrol, getting a new Woolworths complex and trying not to wet my pants when the Murray River Bunyip roared at me were our bigger concerns.

This guy was scary!

6. Who has been one of the most important people in your life?

My paternal grandfather, John H Read.  He died at ninety three and remained kind, thoughtful, open-minded and generous right up to the last second. His humour, energy and legendary sweet tooth will never be forgotten.  He once said of my cricket mad, reading-averse brother, "I was going to give you a book but you've already got one."

My grandfather in the 1930s

7. What is one trait you would most like to improve in yourself?

Eliminating envy. Most people might write something like having more self control over food, booze or other vices or perhaps procrastinate less and I readily identify with both of those yearnings.  Envy or plain old jealousy, sadly, has been a really ugly aspect of my psyche that's easy to stir up. Sometimes it's a struggle to take a breath and apply empathy and congratulations before the nasty pin pricks of 'why can't it be me...' eat up my insides.  How I wish it wasn't so.

8. Did you date someone in college?

The bloke I met in my last year of high school mentioned above.  After that ended, my remaining year had some dalliances but nothing resembling a 'relationship.'

9. What was your dream car?

Do you really want to ask this question and get this fifty something old bag ready for a rant?

Firstly, it was anything that worked, because for most of us, our first car is an old bomb we're thrilled to own because it's ours and gives us freedom.  For me that was a 1971 Renault in 1989.

After that, it was marriage, and a child and several interstate moves.  Cars are shockingly expensive in Australia, so we never ever bought one brand new.  Drops in value the second you drive it off the lot, and so forth.  In Switzerland, aged in our mid-forties, Dean and I bought our first brand new car and were pleasantly surprised at how little it cost compared to what it would be priced in Oz.  However, that 'brand new' car is now considered ancient here as it turns ten years old.  We'll keep driving this hardy little Peugeot 207 for as long as we can.

10. Did you have a family member you wish you'd gotten to know better?

My maternal grandparents.  They died a year apart when I was eight and nine years old. My memories of them are all good ones, but fleeting. Peppermints, tomato plants, watching ABC news, being tucked into WW2 trestle beds extra tightly, which I loved.

11. Tell me about your greatest gardening success.

My mother, who has the gift of a green thumb.  Years ago, on a long drive from Melbourne to Adelaide, we were playing 'guess who.'  It was Dean's turn to pose a question to then-four year old daughter. "Who is wrinkled and is good with plants?"

She had only seen the movie ET the night before and that was the answer she was supposed to give, but 'GRANDMA!' was the name she triumphantly shouted out.

Unfortunately, my mother did not pass on any of her gardening skills to me. I can't even keep supermarket basil alive.   

12. What was your Dad like when you were a child?

He was brilliant. Loving, funny, interested in everything, kind, quirky, intelligent. I tried to do him justice here - https://kathlockett.medium.com/a-love-letter-to-my-eighty-year-old-dad-decd2157ccc0

13. What is the best job you've ever had?

Don't think I've found it yet.  Freelance writing is good on a personal level but it's dishonest to say that when Dean has the 'real' day job that is reliable, gives satisfactory perks and pays the bills.  

14. What are your favorite songs?

This varies from mood to mood, day to day.  The Gary Jules version of 'Mad World' literally stops me in my tracks every single time I hear it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHtcliIvnHI

15. If you could choose any talents to have, what would they be?

The ability to make people laugh; give them some immediate joy but without hurting anyone else to do it. Who doesn't want a good, uncomplicated belly laugh with a friend?