A daily routine begins to form

I have a natural aversion to routines, but deep down they have a way of balancing the equilibrium of our mostly hectic life. I waver from being a rebellious fan of spontaneity to closet craving a structured routine determined by the clock.

The clock in its new home .. the kitchen. 

At WG, Animals are determining that a routine shapes me, not by a clock but by the hours of daylight, and I must say I am starting to enjoy it.

It's light(ish) here at 4.30am, although the official sunrise is not until 5am (or 5:03am according to the ABC weather - I always love their unwavering optimism "The sun will rise at 5:03am ..."). Tom Dog tiptoes into my bedroom at first light, he shoves his wet, cold nose into my warm blankets and the minute I acknowledge him, two black and white paws launch onto the sheets for excessive pats. When I say enough, he click, clicks on the wooden floor, around the other side of the bed to sniff and poke the princess dog, Minty. She is less of a morning person than I, greeting him with a growl. He eventually flops down on the rug beside my bed, with a melodramatic, teenage sigh and goes back to sleep until 5:30.

I get up, dress, and head on out to let the girls out of their house. I have them locked up at night for the moment, just until I can trust their yard to be fox proof. Tom races to the chook pen whilst I am still putting on my shoes, sniffing about for any night time intruders scent. I can hear the girls all clucking and telling me off for taking so long to release them. Once I open the door, four bossy black hens coming racing out, down the step and into the yard. Poor Daphne, the lone Light Sussex, comes out last, keeping well out of the way of the matriarch Daisy.

The first view that greets me in the morning on the way to the girls

Back to the house to feed Tom Dog, the princess will sleep in for another 30 minutes. He is eating and I make my coffee and empty the dishwasher. We sit on the veranda and enjoy the 'quiet' of the early morning. I say quiet, but what I really mean is the quiet of nature. Magpies with demanding offspring, Mudlarks, Ring Neck Parrots, Red Tail and Carneby Cockies, Galahs, ducks, Rosella's, Wattle Birds ... as my mum says, it sounds like a bird park!

Almost to the bottom of my coffee cup, and there is the short, sharp yap of her majesty. She is blind and old but certainly not quiet and easily forgotten. I carry her to breakfast, and while she eats, I make my bed and put on a load of washing. Its all about multitasking.  She is finished her breaky so we head back out to the garden for her morning constitutional and my chance to potter about while I watch her. 

I am enjoying the watering for now, seeing new seeds sprout, new leaves unfurl, flowers opening. The girls watch me for any sign I might have food, or even better I might open the gate and let them free. They get a few hours each evening, to minimise their enthusiastic harvesting of anything green.

There is always a job to do, or a walk out to the paddocks, or up the drive. I can not think of a better way to start my day. Even sleeping in holds no appeal, not when there is so much to do, so much to smile about.

By 8am, I am ready for the second cup of coffee, a bowl of muesli and a chance to read or write. I like the writing mornings, words and ideas hit me while I water, or potter, and I can't wait to get them down.

If this is routine, then I am liking it very much.

Laundry with a View

I'm just a suburban hen...

... I know the heading is a bit corny and probably the young ones won't know what it means at all. It's a play on words of a song from 1978, a Perth boy called Dave Warner who had a mild hit - "I'm just a suburban boy".  Nothing at all to do with chooks and everything to do with my strange mind.

Anyway, here are my much coveted, long anticipated girls - Daisy and Mabel. They are Australorps, bred by my 10 year old nephew. Tommy (the Border Collie) is self appointed minder. He takes his job very seriously. I get two eggs most days and the girls are very chatty and friendly. If you call me, and I don't answer, you can be pretty sure I am sitting down with the girls.

Tom thinks working hens with the 'eye' works like it does on sheep - it doesn't!

They love their greens

They are trying to find a way to get to all that green stuff!

Daisy in the front

My first egg in the egg basket my Dad made me (after I showed it to him on Pinterest!)

Mabel, in front and Daisy behind. I had just turned over some soil and they loved it.

My daily gift from the girls .. their yolks are so big and dark yellow - makes perfect poached eggs.

My Secret River - Wisemans Ferry

My Dad, Mum, dog Cindy and me.  I LOVE this picture - taken on my river abt. 1968

Sometimes, a book comes into your life that opens up a vein and lets you bleed your past and hidden memories for a while. Such a book has come into my life, and yet, I resisted reading it for a long time as I had a preconceived idea that it was a book that would preach at me.  Funny how our minds work.  I  'eased' into reading The Secret River by Kate Grenville by first reading the book she wrote about writing it.  Called Searching for the Secret River, Grenville created an inspiring book for writers - the how and why and where - of writing a novel.

Standing in a book shop, reading the first paragraph of Searching for the Secret River I caught my breathe at the last two words...

In the puritan Australia of my childhood, you could only get a drink on a Sunday if you were a 'bona fide traveller',  That meant you had to have travelled fifty miles or more. Around Sydney a ring of townships at exactly the fifty-mile mark filled with cheerful people every Sunday. One of them was a little place called Wiseman's Ferry. 
(Grenville, Kate. Searching for the Secret River. Melbourne (2006)

Will become one of my top 5 books for sure.

Wiseman's Ferry is the place I have always called home. Its a strange notion, as I only spent about three years of my life there, yet it holds the strongest memories and yearnings in me.  Helen Garner wrote about this notion too, in her short story Writing Home in the book, The Feel of Steel, ... "Whats home supposed to be, anyway?"  Only one other time did I feel like I was coming home, and that's when I flew over the checkered fields of England for the first time and wept with an emotion I did not understand - I truly felt like I was now home, yet I have never lived there and was born in Australia.

I have lived in Western Australia for 86% of my life, yet it still, does not feel like my home. In my heart, I am still a Sydney-Sider. All the significant things in my life have happened to me in WA - meeting my best friend, my husband, owning a horse, having my children. Just shows how powerful our early memories are.

I devoured Searching for the Secret River in a day, and I could not get to its big sister quick enough.  Now three quarters the way through The Secret River, I have slowed down and am savoring it slowly, like a good drop of port on a cool night.  I don't want to leave the place, its my childhood place,   where all my memories come from, its my home. When Grenville wrote of the tides and colour of the river, I am taken to times when we crossed the ferry and I stood on the edge and watched this majestic river. When she talks of the flats and the cliffs and ridges, I am taken back to long walks, exploring the bush behind our house, playing on those flats, swimming in the river, my dad crossing all the way to the other side to steal a watermelon and the wonder that such a heavy thing can float. I recall my Mum milking a cow in a field and the sight of my river one side and the cliffs the other, the thick grass and flat cow-pats, the old farmhouse that I still yearn for. I am not at all religious but there is a derelict church on the side of a hill that I always said I wanted to get married in. I have so many warm and golden memories of this place - my grandfather and boats, my catholic friend and her many brothers and sisters, the smell of rain in summer, the thrill of playing in a cave, moss on rocks, getting purple while sitting in the mulberry tree on  the river, crabs in the mud, dead animals floating during a flood, the whip birds, poplar trees, winding roads, my baby brother, my happy parents, my tiny school of 17 kids.

The Ferry that takes you to Settlers Road and my home.  I can still hear the chug, chug and the sound when the ramp scrapes up the bank.

The house my Dad (and Mum) built as it looks today - note the rock wall.

My Brother, Cindy and I with Dads rock wall in progress behind us.  The mountains all around still feel familiar to me.

I have a lot more to say and show about this place, some good writing fodder.  

Is there a place you call 'home'?  Why?

Searching For The Secret River

An Easter Escape

I will write more about our weekend away, but for now, these pictures will tell 1000 stories.

Our rig - Navara, Trailer Camper, Motorbike and Kayak. Cunderdin WA  

Outside the (closed for Good Friday) No3 Pumping Station Museum at Cunderdin

What you do on camping trips

What we go out here for!

Camp - and boys getting a lesson in wood chopping

More Trees 

Even more trees

Minty - even she likes camping - its the camera she hates!

...and more trees ...

We actually wore Tommy out - ever so briefly

Having fun at the dam.

Having fun on the motorbike - view from the dam

Over 100 year old aquaduct

Karalee Dam

For a 14 year old, blind dog, she still has fun - she went swimming too! Tommy follows her about and looks after her.

Sun setting on a fun day - these boys will sleep well tonight

Slow cooked lamb on a real open fire - we had this for Saturday night - with a bottle of red, under a full moon and a trillion stars.  Beats any 5 star hotel!

Argh Monday

Wish I was where the little geriatric dog was.  It's 9.20am Monday morning and she is still in bed!  I served up her breakfast 2 hours ago, but she does not want to get up.  Worried, I went in and patted her, she is fine, stretched out, licks my hand, wants her tummy rubbed.  Is perky and alert, just wants a sleep in. Fair enough.  She is, after all, retired.

PS: She HATES the camera.  It clicks and beeps and even though she is blind, she just knows I am taking her photo.  That's why we never get a photo of her looking anything but worried!

Dogs, cats and interuptions

Cat : "That dogs just a suckhole"

It used to be my kids that would stop me working/reading/crafting/being quiet.  Now its the three amigo's - Tommy the border collie, Minty the Maltese poodle and Tyler the mongrel cat.  I swear they get together and plan this out..

I sit down to write.  It's morning, I have an hour to write before I have to start work.  I have fed all three of them.  I have a coffee.  Mr K is still asleep, the neighbours are quiet.  

And it starts.  Cat starts to meow, loudly like he wants to be fed (I am sure he has developed Alzheimer's).  He comes into my office, jumps on my desk and proceeds to walk across my papers, books, keyboard, behind the monitor.  Me telling him off and his backchat just cause Tommy to rush to my office window, jump up on the window sill, scratch his paws down the fly screen and yip.  

Now I am telling off both the cat and Tommy.  They both think they are self appointed police animals and tell each other off as well.  This starts up the geriatric old girl Minty.  She starts yapping and running about in circles.

My once peaceful, quiet morning is now a cacophony of meow, yap and yip with the occasional well timed bark from the baritone.  This is the point I give up, go outside with them all following and bestow attention.

Just like I used to do when my kids were little and I was studying and they wanted my attention.  

Do I have to wait until the animals leave home until I get my own quiet time, free of interruptions?  Or by then will Mr K be retired and wanting me to find his glasses or make him lunch?

I have 4 blog posts, ones that need to be written carefully and thought about, to finish, and every day this performance goes on!! 

"I tell you, its all lies - silly human, I have been in bed the whole time"

"Don't make me get off the lounge to tell you lot off!"

"I am the good boy, yes I am!"

My kind of day

It's overcast and wintry and cool today.  It looks like rain.  There is a mild breeze.   It feels like a winters day. A little wintry holiday in the middle of a hell summer.  All the plants in my garden are smiling, the birds are more chirpy, the dog and cat are curled up on the carpet and not sprawled out panting on the tiles.  I can look outside and feel content, just for this small day of reprisal.  

Yes.  Today I am happy.

Bloody smoke detectors!

Was woken both yesterday morning and this morning by our smoke detector going off at precisely 5am.  Yesterday, the ear piercing (and now I know that's a real state, my ears were ringing) sound made both me and the little old lady dog jump out of bed.  Not good for her, she is old and blind and arthritic, and not good for me as I am just unfit and not nimble anymore.  Poor little girl, she hates high pitched noises, so there she sat shivering and shaking while I tried to find my dressing gown.

Of course by the time I did (find my dressing gown), and opened the bedroom door, the alarm had stopped.  Did a quick check for smoke, of course nothing.  The detector is hard wired into the ceiling but has a back-up battery that obviously needed changing - so like a very loud baby it let me know.

Mr K?  My knight, the man of the house, my protector?  He was sound asleep - the sleep of the dead!  So really great device this - it goes off when it shouldn't, and doesn't wake half the occupants in the house.

Mr K did redeem himself however and went down the shops to buy a new battery (and a spare one for next time).  He fitted it and all was well.

Except ... it went off AGAIN this morning.  Same bat time, same bat channel!  Same two people (well one people and one fury wanna be people) who were dragged out of slumber by the bells of smoke detectors.  I got the step ladder, climbed up to the wicked little white dome and pressed my finger in hard to its little button.  The noise stopped - but I was now rendered deaf. 

What?  Deaf I said.

Guess who was again sound sleep?

If it goes off tomorrow morning I am ripping it down from the ceiling, taking the plaster with it if I have to, and dumping it on Mr-sleeping-ugly-K - that ought to wake him.

and off we go!

It's the morning of the great camping weekend.  I wish I could say I was excited and looking forward to it, but I am not.  I am anxious and full of dread.  But that's completely normal for me.  I do love to camp, and once I get there it will be fine ... but for now ... there is coffee and xanax!!

The dogs are certainly not full of dread and the only anxiety is that they might get left behind.

They are like cats on a hot tin roof - except they are dogs... boom boom!

How they have added the dots just goes to show how smart they are. 

• The trailer camper is still in the same place its stored in.  It hasn't been pulled out yet.  We have been over to it and checked a few things, filled the water tank etc, but really to a dog, it should look like it always does.
• The 4WD is still full of farm tools.  Not camping chairs and eskys
• There is however a strange ute in our driveway, full of tarps etc, but if the dog could work out what that's for and get excited then he is smart enough to run for PM
• Ok, the big esky is out of the shed and on the front veranda - maybe a giveaway but we could just be having a party at home
• We went out shopping late last night and bought bottles of water and beer.  They too are on the veranda and could be a clue

I don't buy that these things are enough for the border collie to be running around the house, looking in every window to see what we are doing, running to the door of the 4WD and asking to be let in, the little old girl has got out of bed early this morning and is all perky and excited.

I am so glad we are taking them away with us, the looks of disappointment on their little faces would be too much to bear!

 

 

The cat gets the best deal - a whole weekend with no pesky dogs and no bossy humans to tell him where he can and can't sleep.  That's 3 beds, 10 couches and 12 chairs to choose from.  That's five star camping!

Things I learnt this week

I am succumbing to routine in my blog!  I normally just like to free form with blog subjects, but in an effort to self-discipline here is my inaugural weekly blog subject, to happen every Friday morning.  Actually its just for me this post, to remind me about the lessons I learnt during the week and to not forget them and therefore not repeat if they are bad, or to repeat them if they are good.

Things I learnt this week

1. If you leave the dog poo on the bathroom floor where the little old girl had an accident and think you will clean that up later, then not only will you have to clean up that little mess, but you will also need to clean the rest of the floors where someone trod in said poo and walked it all over the house.  I think my grandma would call that 'A stitch in time saves nine'  I call it 'Pick up dog poo before you need to wash the entire freakin floor'
2. Thinking about going on a diet, and actually doing it, are poles apart.  Just thinking away calories doesn't work.  In fact, it makes you want to eat more - the more I thought about it the more cakes I ate.  I am giving up thinking about it and seeing if that makes me eat less.
3. Taking a full Xanax due to an anxiety attack makes me sleep a whole 12 hours non-stop.  Wish I could say I felt better for a full nights sleep, but I can't - speak that is.  I feel like my brain was replaced with a bit wad of cotton wool.  Maybe it was, done by aliens - I sure as hell had some freaky dreams.
4. Opening a block of cooking chocolate that you found hunted down in the pantry, and telling yourself that you will 'take just one piece' is a blatant lie.
5. The beautiful smell of my jasmine out in full flower still can not overpower the smell of the neighbours recent application of dynamic lifter.  Why do bad smells always overpower good ones?  Why doesn't the comic book universe apply to gardening?

What things did you learn this week?

For a funny look at lesson #1 ... check this out

The best vege garden in suburbia

That's what I have always wanted.  And it still, to this day, it eludes me.  I am thinking of running off to live with Hugh Fearnley-Wittingstall - here ...

River Cottage in Dorset UK

Then I could have chooks!

We built the house we currently live in 11 years ago.  It's smack bang in the middle of other houses, and although we have the beautiful Swan River only metres away, it's still suburbia.  To make my position worse, we live on a battle axe block next to, and I mean right next to, the train line.  We have neighbours on every side, including the front.  Now I know this is perfectly normal, and in fact we are lucky as the house at the back of us is on an acre of land and has huge, bushy gardens, but its still suburbia.  And I am still a country girl.

When I sit out the front yard I hear every word and movement of 2 neighbours.  If I sit out the side I can hear the side neighbour flush his toilet.  Really, the only place it is remotely peaceful is the side where the trains are ... and that's only for 15 minutes between trains!  I long, and yearn for my country retreat.  But in the meantime I try and have a little farm here.  Well sort of.

We can't have chickens because:

• Every square cm of the yard is being used or is paved/concreted
• I want to free range them and they will poo on the doormats (even when we had 26 acres and I let the girls out, they would still come and poo on the doormats - what's with that?)
• We have a border collie that will round them up 24hrs a day
• There just isn't the room!
• The neighbours on the side where we could squeeze a chicken pen have their entertaining area there and she is terrified that chooks will bring snakes.

OK, so no chickens, surely I can have a vege patch?

• The only spaces available are also walkways - and racing tracks for the dog
• I tried once to have a patch and it got run over by the dog, the cat used it as a loo, the dog thought that's a good idea and also used it as a loo, the couch came in and took over - fertilised by cat/dog manure.
• I asked Mr K if we could dig up our lawn and put in raised garden beds - apparently that was an affront to every red blooded Aussie male - to mess with his lawn
• For the past 5 years I have grown vege in pots - lots and lots of pots.  It cost me a fortune in pots, potting mix, Thrive and water.  Each tomato (although yummy) cost us $57! (approx!)
• I begged Mr K again to build me a raised bed, one I could keep pets off, grass out of and large enough not to dry out.  The colourbond sheets and timber are still sitting on the ground, no doubt now home to a family of dugites.
• I NEED to grow things in real soil and worm castings and sheep poo.  It's like breathing to me.

So I found this place and am going to order some raised beds and have them delivered and then the cat, dog, couch, Mr K and dugites can all go get nicked. 

I take out a mortgage today to pay for them!  Cost of tomatoes has just gone up to $90 each.

A very nice thing happened to me today...

... and I have been itching to write about it all day.  Itching I tell you!

Except I couldn't.  Tell you that is.  Well I could if I really wanted to, but it would have been a rushed and slapdash job and we all know about my perfectionism meets all-or-nothing tendencies.

I wanted to make sure this post reflected how I really felt, not some warmed up left over words thrown onto the page as a makeshift meal.

But.

I had work to do.  You know that damn four letter word?  And yes, I know I work for myself. At home. So if anyone could skive off work to play in Blog Land it is me.  Words and sentences kept popping into my head during the day - as I waited for my teabag in a cup of hot water to do its thing, as I held the door open for the old, blind, dog to go outside (she takes AGES!), as I stood in a shower that went hot and cold as I had stupidly put the washing machine on before I showered.

On my desk sat two fat folders - one says 'To Process' and the other 'To Action'.  I had to do both today - process AND action.  But finally, at 4:33PM in cloudy Perth I have finished.  Except now I have 30 minutes before its cat/dog feeding time.  They have already started to descend on me - the cat is on my desk, walking over the keyboard, sticking his head into my empty coffee cup.  Old Blind dog is on her mat beside me, with an ear cocked for the sounds of dinner being served, and the young and impetuous border collie is sitting up on the cane chair looking into my office window, nose pressed against the flyscreen and yapping at a decibel that only working dogs can manage. 

So here it is.  My Thank You post.

To Jacana,  a blog I follow and have loved for her warmth and humanity, thank you for your post about my Journey to Contentment today.  I don't know how you managed to capture me on a day when the sun struggled to shine, but seeing your post, about me, was all that I needed to change my bad day into a very happy one indeed.  After reading all that you do for others - I should not be surprised by your kindness.

So thank you, thank you so very much.  This post is for you.

Cat and Dog - My First Reader

This is the cat in the dogs bed

Bad Cat!

 
This is the dog, on the floor, near the cat in the dogs bed

Poor Dog!


This is the cat on the keyboard

Bad Cat!

 
This is the cat on the guests bed

Bad Cat!

This is the cat on my chair

Bad Cat!


Where should that bad cat sleep?

In the cat's bed - that's where!

Bad Cat!

The End.