Sisterhood

In thinking over the past week which has been quite a stressful one for me with Scully's problems, I felt so grateful for having a sister who is always a rock of strength and support whenever life gets a bit difficult for me. I haven't written anything previously about my dear sister, Rosemary but I would like her to know she is loved and very precious to me.

We are different in many ways, however I like to think those differences complement each other. We also share many traits, in particular our devotion to animals, especially our precious dogs. Rosemary and her husband Len have three, all of which are thoroughly doted on. Of course as fanatical pet lovers, she and I have both had our share of heartbreaking times, when a beloved pet gets ill or passes on and it is at these times that because we understand so well the grief that this entails, we are able to support each other.

Rosemary is brilliant at this. Last week when Scully got sick, she came to visit all the way from Murray Bridge just to see if I was ok as well as phoning and emailing regularly to check on things. There's not a lot of tangible things one can do to help when life's downs come along, but just to know there's someone you can talk to about anything is wonderful. God knows I've moaned and whinged to her endlessly over the years but she never complains, never judges and is just there to lend an understanding ear, whatever the problem. Things were different when we were kids of course and as we shared a bedroom familiarity bred not only contempt but some raging rows from memory. But that's all part of the family experience and it certainly hasn't marred our relationship as adults.

I look forward to us growing into old ladies together grumbling about the indignities of age and infirmity, the intransigence of men and children, the frustrations of work and trying to make ends meet, the parlous state of the world and where will it all end and so on. It's really good to know that whatever befalls me, there's someone who'll always be in my corner, backing me all the way. Thanks to you dear sister.

A little girl in trouble

My little dog Scully has had some very worrying health problems just recently. She has suffered several convulsive attacks, which although fortunately short lived are alarming and distressing, both to her and to me. She has been thoroughly examined by the vet and had a full set of blood tests done. There don't at this stage appear to be any specific causes for the seizures and she doesn't have any other symptoms. One possibility is a brain tumour or similar neurological problem, but until further investigations are done, if they prove necessary, we won't know. In between these episodes she has been perfectly well, and as far as can be seen, her normal self. Her normal self is a sweet, quiet and serene natured little dog, so the thought of anything serious being wrong with her fills me with dread. At the moment we just have to wait and see if further problems occur, and take whatever action is recommended then.

Scully is 12 years old, so not in the first flush of youth and health problems therefore don't come as a surprise. But whenever they come with a loved pet, they are never welcome. One desperately wants to spare them pain and suffering of any kind, and to protect them at whatever cost, but it's such a difficult experience. Although inevitable, it's virtually impossible to prepare oneself to deal philosophically with the concept of their illness, incapacity and eventual death.

Fergus is worried about her too and senses something is wrong I think. He's giving her a comforting kiss in the above picture.

I am hoping this doesn't mean I'm going to lose her just yet, but if I do I must just hope to deal with it in the best way possible, for her sake and for mine. In the meantime she is getting lots of hugs and love to make sure she knows she is a special girl.

Decision Time

As someone who is always rushing into a discussion saying "life is short", "seize the day", "you can't take it with you" and so on ad nauseum, I have been strangely reluctant to follow my own advice. However after a week that began with a severe, verging on terminal,case of Monday-itis, which hadn't really improved by Friday, I have decided to do something about the ho-hum nature of my current existence. No, I'm not going to jump off a tall building or run away with a dashing stranger (I wish), I am simply going to go on an overseas trip. Not until next year, so I have about a year and a bit to save up, which for me will be the greatest challenge. However I can be fiercely self-disciplined when I want to, and heaven knows I have enough clothes, shoes, books, cosmetics, household trinkets gadgets and sundry paraphernalia to last me if I live another hundred years, so I should be able to tighten my belt quite a number of notches and not feel the strain.

Having wanted to travel to Ireland all my life to see the land of my ancestors (my great grandparents were Irish) I am booking a tour of England, Scotland and Ireland in August next year with an organisation that I am reliably informed is very good and specialises in tours for small groups of single people. And no it's not a match making agency - if it's anything like most similar ventures, it's bound to be overloaded with women in any case, but that's not the point.

In order to give myself an inspirational goal and set myself on the road to rigid frugality, I am letting myself get all excited about this now, even though it's some way off. And being the ultimate eager beaver for learning all about things I will no doubt be poring over books, photos, experiences of other travellers and whatever else I can find to make myself as well informed although hopefully not boringly so, as possible.

And the way time whizzes away these days, it won't be all that long before you can all wish me bon voyage. Only problem is it might be a bit difficult to smuggle a couple of small hairy and noisy dogs along in the suitcase!

Ecology can be a health hazard

There I was yesterday staggering to support the weight of my vibrantly hued ecologically aware cloth shopping bags filled to the brim with the fruits of the supermarket, when two things happened.

First, I remembered when long ago at the very beginning of the enviro-bag revolution, I used to scoff at the greenies who would turn up at the supermarket each week religiously spurning the plastic bags offered to them and producing from the voluminous folds of their rather "aged hippie" weekend attire, their precious green bags. For some reason, perhaps my fondness for sticking a pin in the pompous and politically correct, this species of shopper always seemed to me to be inordinately hairy as well as decidedly unattractive. But now, I thought, here am I humbled at last, albeit through the coercion of the law, laden with my own greenie bags. So I sent off a mental apology to those vanguard greenies, so unfairly maligned.

Second, I put my back out. Thanks to the improved tensile strength of the new enviro bags, the checkout attendants have it seems embarked on an experiment to see just how much they can stuff into one bag. Or perhaps they are just being thoughtful and saving their customers the expense of buying two bags when one will do. Anyway while the quantity of bags is less, the weight of them is now such that even Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime would be challenged to lift one. Of course I could tell just from grappling to get them, newly packed, into the trolley, let alone from the trolley into the boot of the car, then from the boot into the house, then up onto the kitchen counter, that they were far too heavy for me to lift. However, rather like the aforementioned Arnold, I saw this as a challenge. Having been getting into the weights at the gym with more enthusiasm than sense, I thought "how hard can it be?" I quickly found out as an ominous click presaged a spasm of pain that I know from experience will drag on for some days.

Sensibly, what I should do from now on is ask politely at the checkout for them to only fill the bags halfway. However rather like having to ask someone to give you a hand crossing the road, that risks having them think of me as weak, or getting on in years and of course that would never do. Far better to strain and heave, with dignity intact, and then spend the rest of the weekend limping around the house bent over like a crone.

Regardless though of whether common sense or ego wins out in my case, the enviro bags are a jolly good idea and I'm all for them. Especially when you realise how destructive the old plastic bags have been. Not only do they clog our drains and waterways, they are serial killers of our marine creatures. And unlike me, they don't break down.

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all us mothers, grandmothers, stepmothers, mothers-in-law or whatever other title we bear that entitles us to be specially acknowledged today.

Today has evolved in an interesting way. Originally it was "Mid Lent Sunday" or "Refreshment Sunday" (because the rules for Lent were relaxed to commemorate the biblical story, the "Feeding of the Five Thousand"). Pity the poor mother that confronted that task. Another theory is that it evolved from a day about 400 years ago when people ritually visited their closest big (or "Mother") church. The big church, or cathedral was considered to be the mother of all churches in an area. Hence the term "big mother" perhaps? The congregation so gathered at the big mother were said to have gone "a mothering".

In Britain servant boys and girls were allowed only one day a year to visit their families, which was usually Mothering Sunday and were often allowed to take a cake or some other gift from the household home for their mothers. They also usually collected flowers from the fields to take home to Mum. No roadside stalls in those days.

Mother's Day was also termed "Simnel Sunday" after the cake of that name - a fruit cake decorated with marzipan. Hence Robert Herrick's poem of 1648:

"I'll to thee a Simnell bring

'Gainst thou go'st a mothering,

So that, when she blesseth thee,

Half that blessing thou'lt give to me".

Being a mother is indeed a blessing, albeit often a mixed one. Our children hold within their hands the power to bestow on us inexpressible delight, pride and joy, on the one hand and on the other unfathomable hurt, frustration and disappointment, seemingly at whim. As Anne Lamott writes in her book "Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life" in talking about her small son; one day he would look at her quite seriously, take her face in his little hands and tell her he loved her, only to become within a few hours the most unendurable little monster.

No other relationship so enslaves us from the first instant of our mutual existence until the last breath, but no other relationship holds within it the potential to teach us so much. We finally come to understand the agonies to which we subjected our own parents, we discover an amazing capacity within ourselves for self-sacrifice and selflessness and we come to appreciate the meaning of all those painful life lessons we had to learn ourselves in trying to re-interpret them for our children.

Mother's Day doesn't make it all worthwhile, because we already know it is, but it is an opportunity to recognise the role we play in each other's lives and how important we are to each other. So mothers, enjoy!

Happy birthday Nina!

My dear friend Nina turned 60 on Saturday, not that you would ever think so from looking at her! Always the soul of elegance, she looked even more gorgeous than usual! We had a wonderful celebration to mark the occasion - not just a great night out, but a great weekend as Nina's lovely daughter Melisha (in the photo below) decided her mother deserved a very special event and arranged a cruise on Sydney Harbour. A small group of close friends and family who come from all over and among whom I was lucky enough to be included, were therefore invited to get ourselves over to Sydney for the weekend where accommodation was arranged for us at a hotel right on fabulous Darling Harbour and join in what turned out to be a fantastic and memorable two days with Nina and her husband Peter (the hunky one with the beard!). The cruise was quite a night as it turned out and as the rain came down we ate, drank, talked, laughed and enjoyed each other's company like a little group of marooned sailors in a leaky boat! As well as making it a birthday which I'm sure Nina will never forget, it was a great experience for her friends and family members, many of whom had not met before in person, to finally do so and understand why they are people who are so dear to Nina. Her three children, Melisha, Aaron and Mark are all very different, but delightful and special in their own unique ways. Nina I know was very touched by all the thought, effort and generosity Melisha devoted to making her 60th such a unique and enormously enjoyable event for everyone who was there. Peter, Nina's gorgeous husband, very generously contributed also and it's clear to see from the photograph how much he enjoyed himself.

Happy birthday dear Nina and I look forward to celebrating the next special one. We both decided waiting until our 70ths for the next big one is too long, and a half decade big celebration is the way to go, so in my case there's a little less time to wait for that, but it will be definitely one to remember, like this one was for Nina!

Lest we Forget

The scale of the homage this country pays to its men and women who served in times of war is deservedly huge and seems to grow with each successive Anzac Day commemoration. It is a very public tribute, but made up of millions of personal stories. There would probably be few Australian families who do not have a link in some way to a relative who served in one or another of our wars, in particular the First and Second World Wars which involved by far the greater proportion of young men and women. It is a collective message of gratitude and respect that the nation offers on this day, but simultaneously an opportunity for individuals to honour and remember grandfathers, fathers, uncles, and other distant or close relatives who fought not just for their country, but for us, their descendants.

In my case I remember first my grandfather who fought in the horrors of the trenches in France in the First World War. I don't remember him well as I was still a child when he died, but I'm told he suffered from shell shock, so he returned with his body intact but his mind and spirit unalterably changed.

My father, a quiet self effacing man in person but a towering presence in my life, served in the Australian Army in the Second World War from July 1940 to January 1947. He was a Staff Sergeant in the 2nd 48th Australian Infantry Battalion, Australia's most highly decorated unit of the Second World War. The battalion trained at Woodside in South Australia and then sailed to the Middle East. They fought memorably at Tobruk, then in El Alamein, returning to help staunch the onslaught of the Japanese in New Guinea where they battled in the mud of the infamous Kokoda Trail. They later served in the jungles of Morotai, Borneo and Tarakan, before being disbanded following the Japanese surrender in 1945.

My father saw action therefore in conditions of searing heat, desert, tropical jungles, mountains and God knows what other hostile and unforgiving terrain. As a result, being a fair skinned man, he bore a permanent legacy from this time, which was skin damage, ultimately manifesting in a melanoma which killed him, but not until the ripe old age of 92, so he was nothing if not tough.

He never spoke much about the war, despite our curious questions as children, provoked occasionally by coming across faded and tattered old photographs of skinny young men in khaki, usually laughing and looking like they were having a jolly good time. Opportunities for laughs were probably all too few, but the camaraderie that existed in the Australian troops was legendary and the fierce loyalty these old soldiers sustained towards their mates all through their subsequent lives is testament to that. Several of them, although clearly frail and weakened by age and illness, were there at my Dad's funeral and moving as the playing of "The Last Post" was to us, I can only imagine the memories it must have stirred in them.

In looking through some old photographs recently, I came across this one of my Dad as a young soldier in his uniform. I suspect it was one he sent to my mother, as they became engaged and were married while he was still on active service. On the back in his distinctive handwriting, which never varied throughout his life, he has written"This is me (underlined). Not at my best but near enough."

He is a serious looking young man, wide, guileless blue eyes in an open freckled face. Above all, he looks vulnerable - so young, so boyish but obviously so steadfast in his determination to live up to what he sees as his duty - to do his best for his beloved country, his mates, his family, his sweetheart, and his as yet unborn children. We, his children, are middle aged now and he and most of his comrades are gone, but we bear an unpayable debt of gratitude to him and all the others like him.

Let's not ever allow the memory of war to be glorified in any way, because there is no glory in killing. Let us always remember though, those who fought and suffered and died that we might have a chance of living in peace.