two posts in one night and this one is introducing : Nice Ex

So my Ex's picture is on the front page of Emirates Today (UAE publication) with the massive headline:
RAISING THE BIG QUESTIONS BUT OFFERING FEW ANSWERS

Clearly under different circumstances, this would be positively begging to be used as a cheap dig at my ex partner, but, unfortunately, no can do...you see, this is NiceEx. He is my friend. No really - he is.

Some background: NiceEx and I have been friends for an absolute yonk. When he fell out with his Dad in a teenage tantrum type episode when he was aged 15, it was me that he turned to, and me and my flatmates that he stayed with whilst he and his Dad cooled off. He became a permanent fixture at our place and dated (and subsequently lived with) some young girl that used to "hang out" out with us years and years ago.

We saw less of each other when I married a man I barely knew and moved half an hour away from my "old friends", but we were still close and he (NiceEx) was always very supportive, even when he thought my decisions (like marrying a man I didn't know) were crap.

When I realised the sham that was my marriage, and mustered the strength to say "enough is enough", I was alone in the world but for a tiny six week old baby and the last shreds of self respect which I had clung to.

Nice Ex was my friend, became father to my little baby C and biological father to L. (Though he always has and always will treat them equally).

Bringing things up to the present day and after many years of Legal Separation we are friends again. This is smashing. Himself and NiceEx also rub along well together which is really smashing and nothing less than exceptionally convenient.

NiceEx lives in Dubai as has been mentioned before.

He has just collapsed at work.

I would have been worried, but for NiceEx having a really very nice Girlfriend (Nice Ex's Girl) who called me and explained what had happened to him.

NiceEx's Girl was in the UK at the time of the collapse and felt all of the anguish and panic, whilst I cruised along in my very own timezone, without a care in the world. By the time Nice Ex's Girl got hold of me, she had spent a night awake with worry and anticipation for her flight over to the UAE to mop NiceEx's brow; had sent out emails to me in order that I might know the situations as they changed; had spent numerous hours on the phone to NiceEx so that he may feel comfort from her voice; had endured the knowledge that NiceEx had decided to go into work and battle through the pain in typical NiceEx fashion; had cancelled her ticket to Dubai and only been refunded the Tax; had spent further numerous hours on the phone trying to get through to Dubai to ascertain what was going on; had learned that Nice Ex had been sped off to theatre and would NOT be attending work; had informed me of "the latest" and then had FINALLY spoken to a very groggy NiceEx who had come round from the operation. All is well.

Get well soon NiceEx, the boys are thinking of you. I am thinking of NiceEx's Girl (and you a bit I suppose!!). Sleep well tonight NiceEx's Girl, you deserve it!

Dear Diary....

Today has been the first day in a while that I have had chance to type anything at all.

On Monday, Baby J burned his hand on the grill whilst I was merrily toasting Raisin Bread as a mid-morning snack for us. It was horrible. It happened in an instant. I was standing right next to him when it happened, just about to scoop him up and shoo him out of the (Open Plan With No Place For Safety Gates) Kitchen. Suddenly he screamed. There was a smell of burning and second later I am calling a cab (quickest mode of transport in the city) to Subiaco for treatment at the local children's Emergency Room.

I had the forethought to pick up Panadol and a box of crackers before the trek down our Riduculously Long Driveway. I also picked up an Ice Pole for him to hold (it's far more appealing to a one year old than a bag of frozen peas) as he fought me for the duration of the "calling the cab phonecall", tooth and nail to yank his arm away from the cold water I insisted on holding his littel fingers under.
Needless to say, there was a wait at the ER, but really, it was totally bearable and frankly, the calmest couple of hours of the day and it gave L Junior chance to munch his way through some of the crackers I had brought. The Panadol kicked in and then all I had to worry about was Other People's Children crying and screaming. Oh, and:

• the fact that whilst we have private medical insurance, we haven't gotten around to aranging Medicare so the cleric was looking at me like an idiot*;

• the fact that I had been neglectful enough to stand next to my one year old son IN THE KITCHEN** and allow for him to be injured;

• the fact that I had no idea how long this hospital trip was likely to take and the Older Boys required collecting from school so as not to add to the case for Social Services***

• and also the fact that the whole incident meant that I was starting to breath shallowly and felt dizzy, with the shock of it all.

Baby J, however is oblivious to all of this and is merrily playing with his big brother in the play area of the waiting room. Nerves of Steel that one.

The day was zipped up nicely by the treatment being some white cream and a bandage until tomorrow when the blisters would be de-roofed (which sounds positively horrible). Queue mad rush for a taxi to deposit me somewhere near OBs' school to collect them a half an hour late (dont' worry, mum, if you are reading this, I called to appologise in advance and they kept them "in the office" with some colouring pencils).

Himself arrives at the School ten minutes after I do to a frosty reception from me; I mean, how dare he take the car****on a day when I was likely to do something so ridiculously stupid. Baby J waves his new white boxing glove around in delight as he sees The Parent Who Would NEVER Let Him Burn Himself On The Grill. Himself is all smiles and placating hugs for me. I am spiky, cold Ms Guilty Knickers as I have finally absorbed the horrors of the day.

Fast Forward to the next morning and I have deposited the three OBs at School and Kindy. It's 8.50am and Baby J and I are driving around and around the one way system that circumnavigates the Hospital of yesterday to attend his 9am Deroofing appointment. The are no buggering parking Spots within miles. I call the Burns department and speak to a Doctor who is lovely and thanks me for bothering to call to say I will be late. Half an Hour later and I am forced to call her again. Still no Parking. She is untroubled, I am mortified. Two and a half hours later, we find an unlikley spot on the most Major of all of the roads that we had been driving along. I call the department. She would be happy to still see Baby J. I am astounded, this is nothing like England where my appointment would have been auctioned to willing bidders at the slightest sniff of me being late.

We are in and out within ten minutes. Job Done.

We find a Coffee Shop on said Major Road and as we duck under the sheltered outdoor seating area, we are just in time to witness the most torrential rain I have ever seen in Australia to date. It was wonderful. After the crap couple of days we had experienced, it was so lovely to sit and watch the big fat droplets of rain drench the pavements, people and cars. Baby J whooped and giggled and I joined in, ignoring the snoots in the (quite posh as it turned out) Coffee Shop. We spent the next hour or so, letting the day run away from us, spilling couscous and coffee down my lap and watching everyone running for cover from the downpour, it was quite magical. Time well spent. The previous traumas were washed away. There was suddenly a familiar odour and at first I thought it was the newly wet pavements, the way that London smells when it is wet. No. It was Baby J. Time to leave for the dry comforts of home. So we did.



* which of course I am, but that's not her look-out
** seriously what was I thinking?
*** I am being trite, incase that need to be pointed out
**** we are waiting for his brand spanky new one to arrive

Anonymity

So. Anyone who has read this blog more than once will know that I can be kind of serious. Dry witted, compelling and generally hilarious of course (although I unfortunately deleted the posts which demonstrate this...butter fingers!). But serious - ish...Well, I have spent the last half an hour (add "easily amused" to my list of wonderfulness) laughing at myself. The situation is thus:

My children, The Boys (as they will forever collectively be known) have their own blog. This is to keep in touch with family and friends in the UK, and for their general amusement, I also happen to think that it's quite educational for them to learn to compose, spellcheck, publish, that kind of thing.

Anyway, there I was adding some pictures for them that we had uploaded yesterday (of Onions as it happens - no, you probably don't want to subscribe to this particular page unless you are under the age of eight); and I started checking some of my regular reads - bookmarked for my ease - some not yet link to due to my laziness.

I was aware that now was not the time to leave comments, after all I was using The Boys' identity. But I was tired, and then something that Eliza The Very Funny Almost Med Student wrote, made me laugh and I tapped out just a little, quick comment forgetting which user I was under.

The Boys blog contains pictures of themselves (yes, and onions) and also their little ramblings but Eliza was sweet enough to leave a nice comment, and not forward the link to any local Wierdos. So. No situation here! Thanks to Eliza. NO THANKS TO MUMMY!

So, it got me thinking about the cloud of anonymity that we all tend to use in order to blog freely. I also thought, that it's nothing new (here comes another blog about me, me, me), I have been living behind that cloud most of my life.

When you (me) are at school and your Dad works in the "Media", the young children equate this with "Your Dad Is Famous". They used to whisper and point at me and I was "the girl who..." for most of my formative years. How they even knew what he did for a living is beyond me.

Anyway, so they would expect me to be prettier than normal people, more glamorous, more polite, more smiley - you get the idea. I balked at this and I responded by only letting one or two people close to me and used the "They don't really KNOW me" theory to protect myself from the rest of the world. Somehow the stigma followed me to Senior School, only there, I had the added pressure of Elite Headmistress and teachers with "Doctor" before their name, expecting me to be not only pretty, but Clever too. Brilliant.

By thirteen I had seriously had enough. I would trowel my face with white pan stick stage make up and paint black patterns of varying design in the space between my eyes and my eyebrows - Hell, I made Marilyn Manson look positively demure. I played a role and no one was allowed to know me.

Stepping infront of a camera is (and always has been) second nature to me. I have made a living out of talking, informing, smiling etc. I was thrown* in to do an interview with less than 30 seconds notice once (I was there to do the Sound!!):

I grabbed a mike and the words spilled out of my mouth, and I nodded and smiled in all the right places. When I came away, another reporter who had watched the whole thing was agog. She said "where did that come from?" I shrugged, a bit embarrassed. I watched the rushes back and it was a good interview.

Fast Forward a few years and Babysis and I are shooting with a camcorder our Everyday Lives to send to our brothers in Oz**; we are chatting and being Generally Banal. Bright red colour has risen up my face; I stutter and trip over my words; I grin like an amateur and my voice is strangled. I am twisting my hair with my finger and I am very uncomfortable. I have to be ME infront of a camera, instead of The Reporter, The Presenter or The Broadcaster.

I Can't do it! I prefer to be anonymous.

So, in summary, this is me:
I'm not so anonymous anymore as I was before Eliza read my babies' blog, but I am totally OK with it. I like me.Well, Nearly anyway...




*not literally
**before I made the move over here obviously

Kevin Carter Made a Difference

It is far too late for me to express to Kevin Carter, that I think I understand why he couldn't live anymore. He had seen so much and felt so much, and a Pulitzer prize could well have been too ironic to take (in my humble opinion).

In my younger years,I vocally berated and hated my father's industry for a long time. There were a multitude of reasons. But the shallowness of the whole sorry affair was forefront. I couldn't imagine not "making a difference" in the world in the [noble] career path which I was going to choose. How naive I was.

One night, Dad came home from an assignment. I had no real concept of where he had been 0ther than that he's been away for a few weeks. He looked really tired, but he often was. He had been to somewhere called Romania, wherever the hell that was*. He'd filmed children in Orphanages. I'm not sure who the client was. I think maybe a charity? Anyway. He took scores of pictures. Obviously he shot lots on film too.

He tried to show me, but after a few minutes of feigning interest, I went to my room to deafen myself with The Sisters of Mercy or some such quality listening.

My Dad didn't talk much. Anyone who knows Daddy, would know that this is beyond weird.

I surmised that he was really ill and didn't know how to tell me/us. He would sit alone in the conservatory for ages. Shut off from the rest of us.

He looked at the photos a lot too. With affection as though they were pictures of Me and Babysis when we were kids or something, he was all "oh, look, this is [Alexandru] , he was so lovely, he kept wanting cuddles. He called me Mr Mick. He was so little, darling, so tiny."
Me: "Uh, huh? d'you wanna coffee, I 'm making one...no, OK. Oh, I need a lift into town later by the way, is that OK?".

I'm thinking "Dad's ill. He doesn't even want a coffee".

The children he visited and filmed had no-one. They lived in appalling conditions (the lucky ones who were in Orphanages and not the ones on the street, their lives were beyond appalling) and had no one that really loved them. They were riddled with disease and the majority had HIV and would be lucky to see their next birthday. Dad had shown them affection which gave them happiness for a very short time and then he had to leave. He couldn't pick their tiny little bodies up and carry them to a safe place (which is human instinct). He had to pack up his expensive Camera equipment and go home to England to a well fed family, a pedantic little shit of a daughter (that's me...my sister's always been quite pleasant), and a Country full of ignorant bastards who had no concept of what he had just seen and what he had just felt.

No wonder he sat in the Conservatory with his own thoughts for company. How could the rest of us have comprehended his thoughts, even if he could describe them to us? His own Daughter was disinterested because the story wasn't wrapped up in a Christmas Single and Red Noses.


It's not the first time for Dad. He's a season ticket holder for "Misery" Filming - he's done wars, Starving Children, Dying Children, Murders, Rape Victims - the whole nine yards. Over and Over. The emotional energy it takes me to talk about his experiences is only a fraction of that which it must take to live with the memories of what he had seen.

Men like Kevin Carter and My Father bring us images which shock us. They bring us perspective. They bring us drive to change the world. Without Men Like These, who suffer for their work, we would live in our cosy lives unaware of what else is happening out there. Without Men Like These change would not stand a chance.

My Father has not only shaped my life, but he has shown other people things in this life that aren't OK, they aren't acceptable and he has "made a difference" in his lifetime at great emotional cost.

The day that Kevin Carter felt that he couldn't go on, was the day the rest of us lost a man who also changed peoples lives and achieved greatness in holding his camera steady in situations in which the rest of us would lay down and cry.

The Picture by Kevin Carter that Won the Pulitzer prize 1994
A Toddler is stalked by a Vulture who is waiting for her to die so that he may eat her remains.

* of course I know NOW where it is... at the time, I was a young teen who didn't give a bollock where it was.

Things I May Have To Explain To My Grandchildren

...whilst they pull incredulous faces.

It struck me that as strange as I find the world we live in and as much as I marvel at Earth's inhabitants and their breath taking stupidity (for the most part); my Grandchildren (should I be blessed in the future to have them) will find our world (as we know it now) even stranger.

Are there enough brackets in this paragraph for you? I am very pleased and think that I shall use as many as possible in this blog - just for fun

One of my Grandparents died before I was born. Another was a bigoted, womanizing* old fool who "left" long before he was old and before my Dad had chance to ride a scooter, let alone conceive children and One was my very best friend until I was seven when he died.**

That left one Grandparent to shoulder the responsibility for Babysis and I's quota of Grandparentness. She (my Nanna) was (and is) brilliant. She is sharp and clever, funny and has a dry wit. She is not judgemental and unfazed by most things.She's also very interesting to talk to and writes the most beautiful letters to me.

The one thing I remember being unsatisfied by (as a child) when speaking to anyone of an older generation than myself, is when I asked "but why did you [drive cars with no seatbelts]? , quite often the reply would be "because we did, that's just the way it was".

That's children isn't it? They are inquisitive and want to know why, why, why. Why do we have clocks? Why do we drive on a different side of the road to the French? Why is it OK for an adult to drink milk from a cow, but not from a human's boobies?(recent question from one of my own lovely offspring)...you get the picture.

So I was thinking: what will my Grandchildren ask me? What will I have to explain to them? The intrinsic workings of a Telephone with a wire? "No mobile technology when I was a girl, kiddo!"

Perhaps the Bilbo will make it to the year 2037, perhaps not. But if I have to describe it in full detail, will I be up to the job? What does it do again?

Maybe I will be in a position where I have to describe a time when Cane Toads didn't overrun Australia, that "back in 2007" you only found them in certain states of Australia, but we didn't know how to cull them, so they just kind of took over the country. hmmn. How topical!

Non Digital Cameras!

Imagine the scene - Attractive but mature looking sixty something (think Sophia Loren) talks to alarmingly acute and attractive, [they're my Fantasy Grandchildren, I am allowed to have high expectations] year 2037 eight year old. Digital Cameras will be pretty flash by then, if they haven't already been superseded by something new...how am I going to explain that we used to put a roll of shiny parchment into the back of the camera in order to manipulate the light from the viewfinder to burn an image directly onto the "special paper", but in negative form, only to have them printed onto more "special paper" by way of chemicals that would burn your skin and a process of dipping the second type of "special paper" into trays full of chemicals in a fully darkened room. Flippin Heck, really, I am going to have to explain this shit away?:

"yes, darling, we used to pop it in just there [I will gesture], without letting the sunlight get to it, then we used to press a button that wound the film around a little cog within the camera itself...yes, around the same area that you have your Retina Recognition Widget with Super Fly Lazer Sight Correction System these days, that's right". Phew!

I think it is likely that I will explain that in 2007 most families could afford to run one if not two cars each. People didn't pool cars in the same way as they do "now" in 2037, because the damage we were doing to the planet wasn't instantly recognisable like it is "now".

I hope that I don't have to describe a time when children didn't all carry Tazer guns for protection like they do "now".

I wonder if I will have to describe what a prison is/was and how it works - the incredulous looks and the "what? you locked people into big houses on the mainland and paid money out of your own pocket for them to stay there? And then you ran out of room because there were too many bad people? The olden days were wierd Noni"***are much anticipated.

Will I have to describe a cigarette? A small stick that contains many chemicals, but also contains tobacco which makes you feel "nice" when you inhale the fumes from the unlit end? "you put a burning stick in your mouth Noni? and it was killing you? Why?"

Answer: "people just did, it was how it was".

Suggestions welcome.

Answers on a postcard please (...or just leave a comment, as you don't have an address for a postcard).




* "Womanizing" is a probably a little bit much. He cheated on my Grandmother with his German Interpreter. He then spent the rest of his life with said German Interpreter and lived happily ever after, 10,000 miles away from the rest of us. He never saw fit to share the "happy ever after" with any member of his immediate family. I guess that makes him an Arsehole. I guess this also makes me Bitter.

**I thought of nicer ways to put this, but them be the facts.

***I have decided that this is what my Fantasy Grandchildren call me