Assorted August

Fixit has manflu. I think he's had it extra badly because he's been laid off, that crash you get at the end of a long run of tension. I've tried to put up with it, and suggested Vicks Vaporub and steaming, and delivered cups of tea and hot dinners, but we're now up to Day 15 and I think someone needs to come and get him.  Maybe a Department of Human Services Intervention Unit? Because he and his sick-man noises have been around me pretty much ALL THE TIME (not going to work anymore, see) and I'm about to harm him. His mega-decibel cough, painful snoring and various disgusting snot related noises have made me so uptight that my chiropractor said there were tensed and locked muscles from the base of my neck, all up through my jaw and right to the top of my head. Enough is enough. The Top Of My Head is Tense. It's been much worse for me than for him.

Lots of Cherub doings at the moment: He had his first ever athletics carnival and came home with a 4th place ribbon in the Triple Jump. I tell my kids that Triple Jump is the one to work at, because they have dance experience and can master a step-hop-jump (or whatever the correct action is) without getting fouled, which lots of boys can't. Play to your strengths.



He also had a couple of school dress-up days. There was Dress As a Mad Scientist for Science Week, so we revamped the Graeme Garden from the Goodies outfit; the best Loony Scientist Ever.

 

Then there was the Bookweek Parade. It's all about Hobbitses for Cherub. Last year he was Bilbo Baggins, this year he was Frodo, and asked me to make him a new cloak. Ta-da! Green Frodo cloak with hood and cross-over tie in front.

 

He looks quite a lot like Frodo, I think.



I love that he still likes a dress-up. On his birthday list, he's requested a Superman Costume. We used to have one and gave it away to a smaller friend, so now I need to rustle something up. As if I don't have anything else to do. In his own quiet way Climber has also been dabbling in dress-ups. He has been very interested in soccer videos, particularly relating to the World Cup, and for many nights was wearing white shirt and shorts to bed because that's what David Beckham wore when he curved in an incredible free kick in an England World Cup Match. Then the other night he'd changed to all green because he was being an Ireland International. Pyjamas, pfft, who needs them?



Cherub has been reading his way through the 5 Rowan of Rin books. I read these to the boys when Climber was Cherub's age (Climber loved them) but Cherub does not really remember this. Another avid reader in his class got interested and borrows the books when Cherub finishes them, which lends a bit of competition to the reading endeavours and meant I woke up one morning to see this. Generally speaking I'd expect to see him playing lego before breakfast.



We bought our first ever brand new fridge with a Family Allowance refund. It is very ace having a new fridge, that seals, and doesn't frost up, and has plenty of room, and all its shelves and doors and bits. We've always had hand-me-downs before. The fridge inspector gave it an A+.



On our shiny new fridge is a magnet war. The boys place magnets on photos of each other. Every so often we'll notice that a different boy is covered up. Makes me laugh.

 

Climber gave up technology for The Forty Hour Famine, which was his high school's philanthropic project for the year 7s. He raised $320 for World Vision. He was back on the technology pretty much straight afterwards but gave it up chererfully and with pride for the duration. I was very proud of him.

 

Fixit is doing lots of fixitty projects, and putting in a few resumes to industry people. His shed is getting organised within an inch of its life. I think, like the husband of a friend of mine who was also recently retrenched, he might be enjoying unemployment a little too much. Coffees, walking, crosswords, shed-play. Interestingly though, he had a get-together on Friday with the other guys who got laid off, and they're all missing being able to talk technical talk. Seems I'm not the only partner whose eyes glaze over.


Kitty!

We've been to see Horrible Histories, Hot Shoe Shuffle and Stomp! at the theatre recently. What cultured boys. Another tap show coming up next week called Bang! Crash! Tap! It is nice to take the kids to shows, I hope they grow up to be people who go out to enjoy and support the arts.

 
 
I cracked a tap plate on my trusty purple tap shoes. The store I bought them from replaced the plates free of charge. Cracking a tap plate is pretty rare I think, but I guess I work my shoes quite hard.



Today is the last day of winter, and the sun is shining. And Fixit is getting better. Slowly. And noisily.

 

Stomp Girl

On Sunday, our whole family went to see Stomp! at the Comedy Theatre.



Stomp! is my favourite show in the world, so it was wonderful to share it with my kids, and of course they thought it was great.  It is great, it's a great show. I first saw it in 1992 and I fell in love with it. When I watched it, I felt absolutely exhilarated and inspired and elated.  I just wanted to be in that show. I wanted to sweep the brooms and bang the bins and stomp my feet. I still do. When I saw an audition notice the following year looking for Melbourne performers to be part of an expanded 'Large Scale' Stomp, I was beside myself with excitement and took myself along. 

I still remember getting the phone call telling me I'd won a spot. The call came through to me at Charmaine's Icecream where I was working, and when the lady said I was in, I felt higher and happier than I'd ever felt. It was the biggest thrill. And when I hung up I turned around to see my two co-workers - one of whom was Mister Fixit - watching me with puzzled smiles, wondering what the news was that had just visibly and audibly made my day. We hadn't started going out at that stage because I was still with the moody English boy. I really like that Fixit was part of that special day, I can still, in my mind's eye, see him smiling at me while I dropped back on to the bench in happiness.



We local performers were in the brooms routine at the start and the bins routine at the end, plus either the plastic bag routine or the tea-towels, and a few oddments involving stage clearing. I must have seen a version of the tea-towels in 1992, because I remember being absolutely determined to be chosen for that one. It involved swinging knotted tea-towels onto 40-gallon drums that had water on top, and I was chosen to perform it. I can't actually remember how they picked people for this, but I suspect I had my hand up first and highest. It was gloriously good fun to do, comic and rhythmic and wet.



I became so fit doing that show, and I had the best arm muscles of my life from all the drumming. We worked incredibly hard at rehearsals, learning our rhythms and coming to grips with our props.  You could see it was easier for anyone who had drumming experience. I had no drumming experience and very little formal dance experience either.  But I had had 3 years at drama school with lots of movement training, and I worked really hard at anything that didn't come easily, like the broom handle triplets: bang broom-handle on ground, step right, step left, over and over again at speed. Try it, it's harder than it sounds. At the after-show party, the creator Luke said to me Respect. You worked really hard, I could see you did.



The show was performed at the Melbourne Town Hall.  It was a lot of fun running around in there, and incredible to perform in front of such a large audience.



In our down time, I learned the rudiments of cryptic crosswords in the dressing room with two others.



But I spent as much time as I could peeking through gaps in the stage to watch the masters at work.



I couldn't get enough of all the routines - the zippo lighters, the sticks, the matchsticks, the buckets.



A review in The Age mentioned the local cast, saying we were lithe and beautiful, mostly.



A special Stomp shirt was made for us all with that quote on the back. I still have it.  It's tatty, and the signatures from the proper Stomp people have all but faded away. I can't throw it out though.



Being in Stomp! changed my life.  When it was over I knew I wanted the rhythm to go on, and not long after that a woman walked into Charmaine's Icecream to put up a poster for tap dance classes. Stomp creator Luke Cresswell had taps on the bottom of his boots. So I went along to try a class and have been tapping ever since.

The End of Heavy Maintenance

Mister Fixit was made redundant last Friday. It wasn't unexpected, but, in true form for our family, when it was announced that 40 jobs were being cut Fixit thought he'd go and I thought they'd keep him. I mean, why wouldn't you keep Mister Fixit? He's fantastic; Fantastic Mister Fixit. But he was right and I was wrong.

It is slightly hard to say to people oh by the way Fixit's been made redundant so I emailed our family, and I guess people around us will find out when they see Fixit hanging round the neighbourhood drinking coffee. I don't want to catastrophise it, because it may turn out to be a good thing. That workplace has been a poisoned chalice from the start, owing primarily to the management. So it is possible that he'll find another job before too long and we won't have to chip into the redundancy payout, in which case we'll be better off.  We don't know yet if it's a bad thing, so there's no point getting worked up about it. Having said that, I noticed that we both slumped a little this weekend, that we were both grumpier and touchier than normal, but I daresay that will wear off soon. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, start all over again, as Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers sang.

Phillip Island

We managed a little getaway during the school holidays, an overnight trip to Phillip Island which is about 90 minutes south-east of Melbourne, and famous for its wildlife.  My sister and her kids, who were in Melbourne for the holidays, came along too.



By far the biggest attraction at Phillip Island is the nightly Penguin Parade, where hundreds of Little Penguins come in to nest after several days hunting at sea.  They wait until sunset and then emerge out of the waves in nervous little packs, before waddling up the sand to their nests.  Very cute. My kids have always been mad for penguins so it seemed worth braving the cold to take them to see it.  And boy! Was it cold!! We should have brought binoculars and a rug to sit on (note for next time) as you can't see very well from the viewing area on the beach. For a start, it's dark, and none of the packs come very close to the human area (not surprising).  However, you do have a chance afterwards to see them quite well from the boardwalks as you make your way back to the tourist centre. Unfortunately Cherub got separated from us at this point, so I spent my whole time trying to spot him (without success) and none at all spotting sweet penguins waddling close by.  We located him with a ranger 20 long minutes later, and all was well. Climber, who has got himself lost at various exhibitions, most notably the Harry Potter experience in Sydney where he was completely panicked because of being lost in a foreign city, was quite unnerved by Cherub's disappearance and stuck to me like glue from then on, so he really didn't see the penguins properly either.  But ah well, next time, and we certainly enjoyed what we did see. You are not permitted to take photographs at all of the penguins, so I borrowed a picture.  Naw.

Afterwards, we had dinner at a pub, where the water was cucumber-flavoured. Nobody at our table thought much of that.



Then it was back to the excitement of staying in a motel. Everyone had a spa bath. Our motel room had a separate room for the boys, and the beds had electric blankets.  Cherub in particular thought this was very good, and announced as we left the island that the best thing had been the "electric beds".  Weirdly though, our motel had no bowls so we had to eat our cereal out of mugs with a teaspoon.  All part of the adventure.



Our first expedition the next day was to The Nobbies, which is close to where seals hang out. Not close enough to see any actual seals unless you get on a boat, but a very beautiful bit of countryside, and we enjoyed walking around there and taking lots of photos of waves.



We stood there for ages in the freezing cold, watching the water crash in. Just beautiful.



That tiny island you see in the background is the seal colony.  We couldn't quite see any from where we were.



After The Nobbies, we had lunch in a bakery and caught up with a cousin who coincidentally was also visiting the island with his family.  Then it was time to visit the koala sanctuary, where we spotted lots of furry lumps in the trees.  Cute!

 

Plus a bonus wallaby.



My boys on the boardwalks. We really enjoyed the koala place.



Beware fake koalas though.



Full set of photographs here

Step In, Step Out

Mister Fixit's employers have forced him into a month of night-shifts, using a loophole in their Enterprise Agreement which allows temporary shift changes.  It's to do with how shaky his industry is in Australia at present - most airlines are opting to outsource the regular 'heavy' maintenance of their aircraft (the 3-5 day complete overhauls) to Asia, where the labour costs are significantly lower.  Only the really unavoidable services, the overnight ones, are being done in Melbourne.  Hence the mandatory night-shift: surprisingly, very few people put their hands up to do voluntary night-shift. Particularly when it doesn't come with any extra income.  He is working 4 nights from 8pm through to 6.30am, then he has 4 whole days off to see his family and change his bodyclock back round.  And then we're back to greeting each other as he creeps in from a long night just as I'm getting up.

The reality so far has not been as bad as I anticipated. I was pretty worried about Mister Fixit's tiredness levels but so far he seems to be coping pretty well. His great gift is that he can sleep at will.  Famously, he once dozed off riding a motorcycle home along the freeway, but jerked awake before he came to any harm.  But it isn't particularly family friendly, and even less so because we've had school holidays and visitors (harder to keep quiet during the day).  Also, the childminding for the nights I work has been haphazard, because our regular sitter is away and it hasn't been worthwhile getting someone else in owing to Fixit not leaving til 7.30pm and me being home at 8.45 or 9.45pm - it doesn't feel like a long enough shift to offer someone.  My visitors (my sister and my mother) kindly helped out whilst they were here. Fixit started late on one occasion. I don't really know how we'll swing it if it becomes a long term prospect.  But I suppose where there's a will there's a way, my newly adopted proverb of choice at this stage of my life.  We'll find a way, we always do.

Meanwhile, holiday snaps.

My sister and kids came to Melbourne (as did my Mum but I didn't get a photo of her)



We saw two movies, Monsters University and Despicable Me 2.  Minions! Purple minions!!
 

We hung out with friends



We kept the house in order, mostly.

 

We went to the Zoo.  We had a great day at the Zoo! The seal show is absolutely fantastic and I can't believe we've never seen it before in all our years of visiting.  Gordo the seal is so clever. And Cherub and I discovered the trick to attracting butterflies to land on you in the butterfly house: white hats.  Climber was ever-so-slightly jealous.

Big Brown Bear


Daddy Lions


Meerkat watching


Phone photography


At the Carousel


Watching seals from under their pool


Seal in training out the back


Gordo the Seal making waves


Butterflies definitely prefer white hats


 Best ever hat for attracting butterflies to land