My Mother's Daughter

I have an announcement.

It's finally happened. The one thing I always hoped and prayed wouldn't.

This week I've found myself putting up the bathmat, spraying the shower screen with daily shower cleaner and making the bed. I even turned the radio down in the car the other day as I couldn't hear myself think. 

Not only that, I have been seriously contemplating ironing the sheets before I put them away, because after all it is quite nice getting into a bed with clean, ironed sheets.

All this amounts to is the rather disturbing fact that I have officially turned into my mother.

Family

My Grampy was visiting with us last week and yesterday Ma, Dad and I dropped him at the airport.

What’s sad is that I know perfectly well that I’m probably not going to see him again. Well into his 80s and with prostate cancer, he wasn’t the same Grampy that I remember.

It’s hard to know what to do.  I don’t want to the people I love not being able to get out of a car by themselves.  But I also know that I’d have never forgiven myself if I hadn’t have seen him. 

So all we can do I suppose is make the most of the time we have left with out elder loved ones.

Which is why I spent my Friday night, with my Daddy’s Dad, learning how to make traditional Yorkshire pudding. 

It was super tasty.

“How Are You? What STILL Single?” “Oh Sod Off”

Recently I’ve attempted catching up with some people I have not seen in awhile, and their first question is always “Any boys” “Seeing anyone”.  Quiet frankly it makes me a little cross.

Whether or not I am seeing anyone is not an indication of my well-being, how I am doing, whether or not I am enjoying my job, how my writing or my course is going or if I am currently just a bit fat (well, this COULD be an indication as to why I’m not seeing anyone). 

My reply that indeed I am still single is always met with one of the following:

a) The right one will come along when you are not looking or
b) Plenty of fish in the sea, bla bla bla or
c) You better get a move on or all the good men are taken.

I don’t mean to sound so Bridget Jones-ish, but really must all the smug married people be so fricking patronising. Coming from a small town it seems your self worth is based on whether or not you are shacked up. 

The fact of the matter is, I can’t see myself staying in this supposedly idyllic (read dull) quiet coastal village for the rest of my life.  I am not done having adventures, and it would take someone extraordinary to deter me from this.  Yes it would be lovely to have someone to share these adventures with, but I’m just as happy with the companionship of my friends, and the company of myself.

And since my resolution to stop whoring around has left me thinking that perhaps finding a man should be a little higher up on my agenda (purely so I can relieve some of my daily frustrations in a more satisfying way), I am not going to go out of my way to achieve this.

I’ve managed to evade Mother’s continual requests for grandchildren by the addition of our adoring and affectionate Border Collie, if only I could do the same for my friends.

Mother’s Day Guilt Trip

You may have noticed that today is Mother’s Day.

How you could have missed it is beyond me.  Retailers have been pressuring us all into spending hundreds of dollars on our mothers.. Just because.  Mother’s Day is the second biggest retail day after Christmas.

To say I dissapproved would be an understatement.  I hate the retailers have decided that I am a bad person if I don’t buy my mother new slippers and a dressing gown, or chocolate and soap.  I don’t want to spend my money on this rubbish.  

Please don’t get me wrong, I love my mother, but we fight a lot and annoy the crap out of each other.  If perhaps she stopped telling me that I’m fat or that my clothes look rubbish on me, and that big bottomed girls shouldn’t wear skinny jean, or refrained from asking me when she is getting grandchildren, or when I am going to get married and move out then perhaps I would be more inclined to spend my money on frivolous nonsense. And unfortunately today, on Mother’s Day I don’t remember the countless nice things she has done to me. What I do remember is her telling me when I was 16 that I wasn’t pretty enough to be an actress (the only thing I ever wanted to do), or her telling me that my blog was ridiculous and “who would ever want to read such things”, and her snickering every time I tell her of one of my aspirations to travel to far flung places.

That is the sad truth of it. On the whole she is a good person and I love her, but I have come to accept that in this family, there are mother daughter issues that are long to be resolved.

But I will try and behave today and be nice because society tells me to. And my Father will kill me if I do not.

Lest We Forget

Today is Anzac Day. For those of you who are international readers, Anzac day is the day that Australia and New Zealand commemorates all of our countrymen who have served in our armed forces.

Whilst having lunch at work a while ago, someone from my company came out and said that they didn’t think that Anzac Day should be a holiday.  Something to do about how WWI was all about politics and we shouldn’t celebrate it.

To be honest, whilst I like this person a lot, I was slightly disgusted with this comment.  Anzac Day is not about celebrating the politics of war. It is about taking time to reflect that there are people in life with far more guts than I would ever have, that gave up their youth to go and do their bit for their country.

My Great Grandfather was a Captain in WW1, My Grampy, at the age of 16, was in the first wave of troops that landed on Normandy on D-Day.  My Great Uncle George was captured by the Japanese and died in a POW camp (That one from The Bridge on the River Kwai, its name escapes me).  My Uncle Peter was drafted into Vietnam, and spent his service shovelling dead bodies.

Anzac Day (even though my Father’s family all fought for England) is about saying thank you to them.

in 2008 I walked along the beach at Gallipoli, and the tranquillity, beauty and harshness of the landscape moved me to tears.  What moved me even more was seeing a young Turkish man, painstakingly weeding the grass by hand by a grave of an Australian Soldier, aged 18.   

For whatever fucked up or genuine reason a country goes to war. Politics has no business on ANZAC Day.

At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, we will remember them.

Lest We Forget.

A Family Affair

Today is my mothers birthday.

Please do not mistake me, I love my mother. What I dislike is having to pretend that I enjoy doing family things. Lunch was, delightful. Going to 5 different shops in search of a bedspread (not sheet sets, a bedspread) is not.

It is highly important in these sorts of situations to give the correct opinion.  The wrong opinion will draw out this shopping expedition for another 3 hours longer than necessary. Unfortunately in this circumstance I also have to feign having an interest in bedspreads. 

Lord give me strength.