Clare in Melbourne

Trip Over

2012-01-19T07:57:00.000-08:00

I am really lucky, this trip was a treat. First, four days in wintry Manchester. Perhaps words to strike fear into some people, but it was great. The Mancunians looked to be over January, I saw some glum faces and many ads for package holidays to Tenerife. But everybody was very very friendly and chatty. I bought some matching roman centurion pyjamas for the kids at the Manchester Museum, and I remarked to saleswoman that everyone had been so nice in Manchester. In reply, adding to my claim, she said (imagine Manchester accent), 'It must be something about you love that makes them nice'. My kind of city! In Manchester, I remembered Winter's pleasures. Just when you are all tingly with cold, you pop into a coffee shop for a drink and suddenly feel that amazing combination of cold body with warm room, the glasses fog and comfort begins to prevail.

Then it was 48 hours in Berlin with Ethan. Of course, it was not enough to do the place justice. But armed with matching longjohns from HandM, Ethan and I gave it a go. We walked all over the city, in the experience of this extraordinarily penitential city. I am barely back in Australia, and have a lot of work to do to think about all that I saw. I was away from home for 9 days, my shortest ever trip to the northern hemisphere. It was so swift, and the return to the intensities of family life was so swift and immediate, that it already looms like a strange dream.

48 hours home and it is all domestic thicket. Cameron was a trooper. He is heading to Perth soon on his own trip. It sucks to be the person left at home, but the traveller does return so refreshed and ready to re-embrace toddlers that climb out of high chairs, just as some arbitrary example.

Manchester and Monagles in Melbourne

2012-01-10T09:59:00.001-08:00

The top two photos were taken today, in Manchester. I am here for a conference, after the usual arduous journey that we southern hemisphere people make with relative good grace. Mum gave me some melatonin and I think it made a difference. This place, in spite of the grey weather, is great. I have marched around all day looking at people, and the odd modern Catholic church, and it feels like some strange hybrid of Melbourne and Baltimore. Talk about projection!

The photo below was taken at a lunch on Sunday. It was lovely for all the Monagle girls to be together, and to welcome the scrumptious Thea Glubb into our family. Honora was in her element. We got a babysitter for Terry, he would have spoilt it. On the plane over the past 30 hours or so I felt so grateful not to be wrangling him through the rigours of international travel. 16 months is probably exactly the wrong age for long haul flying.

Non-scheduled bliss

2011-12-28T17:05:00.000-08:00

When I was a little girl, boxing day was a sad day. It was all over, and I felt lost without the anticipation that had been filling my body for the whole of advent. I remember, seriously, being about eight and thinking that I didn't have it in me to wait a whole twelve months. Later in life, I used to feel like that on Monday morning, thinking about a full five days of sober well being before I could hit the fun again.

So, maybe this is maturity. This year, post-Christmas has been so pleasurable. Yesterday pork buns and 'We bought a zoo' with Honora and Ngaio. Cam has been to the Boxing Day test. I have sat on the floor and played with Terry for hours. And my body has processed the food work of Christmas day, so I no longer feel like an advertisement for an American heartburn product. Best of all, the university is SHUT, actually SHUT, the gates are in fact locked! I couldn't work if I tried.

Christmas 2011

2011-12-26T03:02:00.000-08:00

This was taken on boxing day, down at Frankston. Honora and Meg look so beautiful in the matching Aunty Bernadette dresses. We spent Christmas day with Eileen and Catherine, and enjoyed Melbourne's weather through heat and storms. We went to mass on Christmas eve and Meg and Honora were angels dressed in white shorts and tops, with tinsel in their hair. Cam accused them of being Victoria's Secret Angels.

Tomorrow Cam is heading off to the test. I am going, in the evening, to see Melancholia. Biddy and Paul and Thea arrive very soon. All the natality of these days is wondrous, even as a non-believer, I somehow believe in the baby over the Christmas period. Except when I have to look after one...then I am grumpy.

Happy Christmas

2011-12-15T15:31:00.000-08:00

Sitting with Santa and getting 3 prints of the photos cost 34 dollars. Christmas has many costs. Right now, among the frenzy of finishing up and wrapping stuff and looking aghast at credit card statements I am really feeling the pain. But there is always that nice feeling on Christmas day, when nobody else is at work at all, and you know that you probably won't get an email telling you about something you need to do. That feels festive.

Mr T

2011-12-12T15:46:00.000-08:00

This morning I put Terry down for his nap at 9:30 am. We had already been up for quite a while, and had visited the park. On the walk he became crazed with excitement every time a truck whooshed past, or a tram creaked to a stop. I thought he would be tired and sleepy for sure. So I put him in his bed and all was quiet. I took the opportunity for some very productive checking of latest celebrity fashions. The phone rang, and I rushed to get it before T woke up. Suddenly, I heard loud chiming from the room he shares with H. 'Allo, Allo, Allo'. This is somebody who can not yet feed himself, who poured a bowl of porridge on the floor this morning, who seems entirely insensible...yet he has managed to somehow understand something about telecommunications. They are amazing, babies.

And look, I know this is not Tiger Woods on Letterman practicing his putting as a toddler. I am not saying this is precocious. It is just that I am shocked at what they can take from culture, and what they seem to ignore so wilfully, like keeping food in bows.

2011... so glad we are finishing up

2011-12-10T15:10:00.000-08:00

This is our pissy little Christmas tree. We have promised Honora her own bedroom and a larger Christmas tree by this time next year. I hope we can pull it off.

This has been the year of the crazy ball of energy that is our little Terry Monagle. Why whisper when you can scream? Why toddle cautiously when you can run and land head first on a hard floor? Why nuzzle when you can bite? Why play with sand when you can rub your sunscreen covered face in it? Why eat your toast when you can smear the butter and vegemite all through your hair?

Each night, around 7:30 pm, we put Terry to bed. Cam and Honora and I tidy up the flat, make our cups of tea and nibble our two pieces of each of dark chocolate. How moderate things seem when he is quiet, how measured. We each read, or we watch Glee together, and everybody sits quite still.

I have been away ten nights or so over the course of this year. Cam has been away for about six. We have both tried very hard to write books, and occasionally managing to work between 8:30 pm and 10 pm. We have both occasionally thrown away the cork, and really regretted it later.

We had our tenth wedding anniversary. Honora turned 7 and Terry turned 1. We drove a lot in order to have our children minded. Honora was in many productions and evinced an extraordinary calm prior to performing. Terry's whole life is a demented performance. Our interpretative strategies, so far, haven't helped us that much in understanding said performance.

What am I saying? It is has been a very intense year, fairly sleepless and lots of worry about getting enough done at work and finding time to be good children, siblings, friends and partners. But living in our bourgeois eye of the domestic storm has, overall, been marvellous. We are tired and weary, but not through dejection but through exhilaration and awe at being near these growing beings every single day.

The day after

2011-11-12T19:13:00.000-08:00

It was one of those days where a lot of it felt very long and a tad uncomfortable. There was a lot of lining up for drinks and food. Sometimes the sun was too hot, when it got cold it was a bit too cold. There was a bit too much hay fevery sneezing.

But, we had some musical moments that were so full of pleasure, and invoked so many memories, that it was worth the money, the irritation and the petrol to get there. Mercury Rev sang songs that Cam and I have been listening to, together, since the middle of the 1990s. Those Catskill generated melodies from the Deserter's song album have been with us a long time. I had forgotten what showmen they are, part rock-stars, part parodies of rock-stars.

The Flaming Lips were as joyful and delightful as I had been lead to expect. There is something so restorative about anthem style group singing, even if it sometimes feels about 2 degrees away from some sort of strange proto-totalitarianism.

It was really hard to get a beer at this festival. A terrible flaw. This meant that we kind of raged without alcohol. It can be done.

We are going to this.. today!

2011-11-11T16:01:00.000-08:00

I am a bit nervous. My last festival of this type was Big Day Out 2001, at which Carl Cox was the highlight. Needless to say, it isn't going to be quite the same. I don't think I will have the stamina for the sweaty dance this time, if you know what I mean. There was also Golden Plains in 2008, but that was avec Honora which I have to admit killed our buzz a little..... and I managed to make myself sick on Light beer which was quite an achievement.

So, this time Cam and I are heading to Werribee Mansion to see the National and the Flaming Lips and to get sunburnt and pay too much for beer and everything else. I actually can't quite believe it, a whole day of this, and no one under 18 is allowed in. Not even toddlers.

I will report back, even if no one is reading, for my own memory making.

on a particular sort of embarrassment

2011-10-16T01:55:00.000-07:00

This morning we went to a cafe in the above building, the very very swanky Blackman Hotel. I asked for 3 cakes and 2 coffees to take away. I was served by a dishy Frenchman who called me 'Madam'. It came to 26 dollars. This was about 10 more dollars than I expected. I did my internal gasp and then handed over the money as if it was completely reasonable.

It reminded me of being at the famous farmacia in Santa Maria Novella in Florence, the one that was founded by the Dominicans back in the Middle Ages, and which provides quite the most amazing retail experience that I have ever had. After lingering for ages in the lovely rooms and sniffing all the perfume, I thought that I should buy something. Two lip balms I asked for, one for me and one as a gift for our companions. They called me Signora, which was disappointing as I had been a signorina when I had visited 4 years prior, and asked for 36 euros. For two lip balms. 36 euros. I paid it, mortified lest my discomfort be apparent.

I am not sure why I am so gutless...in both places were thin women of a certain age with pursed lips, artfully bobbed grey hair, very expensive tasteful clothes and an ease that I wished I could bottle...and I would pay 36 euros for essence of poised posh middle age...Anyhow, I don't know why, but those women bust my balls, make me tremble, and in order to pass I pay too much for things I don't need.

Vacation....the big banana is not so big

2011-10-07T20:54:00.000-07:00

We went to Coffs Harbour and were very excited about the Big Banana which turned out to be a Big anti-climax. It is so small we didn't even bother with a photo. Honora and Cam did visit, however, the largest inflatable waterslide in the southern hemisphere, so I guess that is something.

We were away for 8 days, and 4 of them were spent driving. The kids were remarkable for most of the trip. Our major insight from the holiday is that there is an absolute proliferation of Peri-Peri flavoured things on offer from major junk food providers. And also that if you give an almost one year old a lot of chips and frankfurters you might pay for it later.

public infrastructure

2011-09-19T20:09:00.000-07:00

I was sole parenting this past weekend, as Cam was away. And I was so grateful for libraries and museums. These photos were taken at the Melbourne museum, where we managed to pass a lot of time. The days were really long, the entertainment needs of a six year old are quite different from those of an almost 1 year old. Honora takes up a lot of psychic energy. 'Would you rather drink a lot of wine with your friends, or, go to a movie with me?' 'In Katy Perry videos why does she have whipped cream coming out of her boobs?' 'Would you rather me watch a pg movie or say the s word?' These are tiring questions to answer.

Terry, on the other hand, wants to move move move move move. He just wants to be in motion, and to be grabbing the next thing. And he likes nothing better than when a parent lies on the floor and becomes a pleasurable obstacle to his momentum. He loves to invade the body, and Honora loves to invade the mind. And I don't have a particularly robust mind or body to invade.

Honora and Terry at 6 years, 11 months and 11 months respectively.

2011-09-13T00:46:00.000-07:00

Terry is a maniac but not maniacal. He is always moving, eating and smiling. Every morning when we go in to get him from his cot he looks delighted and surprised that we are all meeting again. The best noise is the sound of Honora and Terry talking to each other in their room, while we lie in bed in ours.

Honora is performing in her first musical tonight. CJC's production of Hansel and Gretel. I say first because, given the excitement pulsing through every cell of her body, there will be more of this.

They are both lovely right now, and things change fast, so I want to acknowledge this interlude of fantastic in their lives.

City to Surf 2

2011-08-31T19:41:00.000-07:00

I spent 29.95 on this photo, from the official event photographers. So I have to put it here to get my money's worth. I like the smile on my face, I was surprised to see it.

In other news I pick up my custom orthotics in the afternoon, and my shoulder is much better after I saw the physio. Thanks for asking. Non-athletic middle-aged athletes must have funded the private school fees for the children of many an allied health professional.

But the running must be paying off psychically, even if it is wearing me down physically. This morning I logged on to my computer at work and everything seemed lost, I couldn't see any of my files. But with nary a raised a heartbeat, I rang IT support, they came and fixed it, and all was well.

City to Surf

2011-08-16T18:11:00.001-07:00

I did it. In 100 minutes I ran 14 kilometres. They were slow minutes. On the sidelines, we were observed by drugpigs on the way down, double bay matrons, cheerful children and bemused old people. Heartbreak Hill was hideous, every time I thought I was there, I was not there, at the top that is. Once again I enjoyed running as metaphor and was reminded of there being no there there. Running as metaphor is much more attractive than running as reality. The feeling of this still somewhat post-partum body facing gravity with every step was not a good one. My feet whinged the whole way.

When I crossed the finish line I burst into tears, thinking about little Terry at 10 months, and Honora now at almost 7 years old. I remembered the bay to breakers, and thought of running with Kate and wishing that it could be so again. I thought about Cam holding the fort so that I could play out the beginnings of mid-life with the obligatory fitness drive. I thought about Terry senior, who ran the City to Surf years ago. Would that he were there, but there is no there there.

Never Get A Fringe

2011-08-07T03:28:00.000-07:00

I just need to put this somewhere public. I have a really bad cowlick. I should never get a fringe cut. I recently did so. It was wrong. Never do it again!

Windy Wellington 12 months later

2011-08-05T18:32:00.000-07:00

I went back, 12 months to the day I went last time, to visit Bid and Paul. Wellington turned on the sun. We ate and drank, and I marvelled at a city without traffic. Melbourne has become so epic in the past 10 years or so.

In some other news, I finished another book draft. Sometimes I go and sit in the library and look at all the books and think 'they all got finished', so maybe this one will as well.

This weekend, it is just me and T, hanging out. Honora and Cam are at the snow, spending Honora's inheritance. After 24 hours I miss them more than is surely normal. I have so many questions. 'How was the drive?', 'What did you have for dinner?', 'did your socks get wet?'. Such are the days of our lives.

School Holidays - Frankston 5-0

2011-07-17T02:01:00.000-07:00

Things done to get through two weeks of school holidays in the middle of winter.....From bottom to top.

1) Visit a historic house and notice that heritage isn't as trendy as it was in our Laura Ashley filled 1980's childhood.

2) Go to 'purple day' at the school holiday programme.

3) Do a free yoga class at the Mall (yes, in my day it was clowns and balloons, things change, history happens!)

4) give Terry a ride in an ikea washing basket.

5 and 6) Visit Cam's Grandma's house at Frankston and frolic among the comfortable sofas, warm carpet and good heating as befits the house of an old lady, and, also have rare great winter weather and go to the beach. We also went here http://www.peninsulahotsprings.com/ and here http://drivein.net.au/ One of them cost a lot more than I expected, the other a lot less. Guess which?

Honora and books

2011-06-26T04:15:00.000-07:00

Honora is now reading. Terry is mostly sleeping, but that is a boring issue for another boring post.... although I will say that driving around St Kilda on a saturday night trying to get him to sleep was surprisingly enjoyable last night. But Honora is really reading, and loving the privacy and pleasure of the written story. We have been reading the book above, written by one of the members of my mothers' group. This book has been given away as an attachment with 'Total Girl' magazine, which should be evidence enough of its cred.

Sofie, the author, was kind enough to sign Honora's copy. This inspired Honora to imagine when she too might be giving out autographs. In spite of all of our virtualities, there is something about the autograph which still carries a frisson. I have seen Honora practicing her autograph for when that time comes. Bless....

Perth and Lesbian Nuns

2011-06-10T03:00:00.001-07:00

UWA is the most lovely campus in Australia, as far as I am concerned. Well, it sure is prettier than Monash Clayton.

It is great to be here, to soak up winter sun, to talk to people, and to sleep without interruption. In the campus bookshop I found the book above. For whatever reason, Mum had this book when I was a kid. I was completely intrigued and would read it whenever she was not looking. I haven't seen it since. I was completely delighted to stumble upon it in the bookshop, with the front page being far more winning than I remembered.

Emotions

2011-06-08T00:47:00.001-07:00

Airports make you feel a lot of feelings...as Kath and Kim might remark. How appropriate then that I should be heading off to Perth for a conference on the ‘History of Emotions’. But I am not there yet, I am currently sitting looking out the window at the planes, at Melbourne airport.

Airports make me feel small, like the world is merely the movement of bodies in space, and I am just another little one of them. Airports make me feel free, as if anything could happen and I could be in Zanzibar by dinner time. Airports make me feel separation, sometimes more keenly than others. There have been some hideous airport farewells, with Cam or with our parents during the american years. Airports make me feel indeterminate, not in reality, in glossy over priced seductive air bubble land.

Right now, on the day after Terry’s 8 month birthday, I feel exultant. During the c-section I remember thinking ‘In June I shall go to Perth, and he will be much older and much more a person and that will be a time by which I will love him as him, not as an abstraction’. That has turned out to be true. So I feel some pangs at 4 nights away, but I also feel that the time is right to enjoy the sheer relief of this, sleep problems notwithstanding.

And enjoy I will, because my conference paper is about enjoyment, in both psychoanalysis and in scholasticism. And you didn’t know they had anything in common? Well they do, it is enjoyment.

2:30 am....

2011-06-02T09:31:00.000-07:00

The photo above was not taken at 2:30am....but he is pretty awake right now nonetheless. He is in his cot, letting his lungs go, furious at not getting a bottle. I am going in every couple of minutes to give him a pat. The rest of the family are elsewhere tonight. This is the night we are GETTING SERIOUS about sleep. Tomorrow night I will be elsewhere with H, and Cam will be continuing this effort at GETTING SERIOUS.

So I am listening to the dreadful sound of a crying child, and going through the rational thought processes that got us here...
1) it worked with Honora about 6 years ago
2) we have to train him out waking at night, as he wakes all of us in our little abode
3) following from number 2, we are trying to lead our little life in our little flat which is much smaller than most people's place in Melbourne who have small kids. Ergo, we are good people, we use less power.... but in the interests of maintaining the peace in our little place, I am now letting the baby have a scream, ergo we are selfish bad people
4) I am a bit of a Freudian, I believe in the long term effects of infant trauma, so why am I producing said trauma? Because the trauma of demented sleep-deprived parents might be worse... does that work out right?
5) I am giving him the gift of sleep, learning to sleep through generates better days. Well at least sleeping through, in my opinion, gives me better days, so I am going with that projection.
6) The three of us in the family who aren't Terry aren't coping as well as we would like at school and work, due to sleep deprivation. Again, surely Terry's difficult night tonight can be offset against that? Whose psychic costs will be greater? how do we work that out?

What is hard about this very moment, it is now 2:41 am, is that all these thoughts are moving around my head at once, in a very ugly piece of music. I am trying to be persistent and consistent. Short term pain for long term gain. I think we can.

In the morning, I hope to once again encounter the cherub in the photo. The little boy who watches balls avidly, has a cheeky smile, who coos with a cuddle and displays none of his sister's prodigious grasp of television watching at the same age.

Speaking of Honora and TV, Cam's mum remembered something lovely the other day about Honora's viewing talents. Nola came to visit us in Baltimore in June, almost exactly 6 years ago. Honora was, as Terry is now, about 8 months. Nola recalls that Honora had an episode of the teletubbies that she watched (okay, that i dumped her in front of) in which she anticipated with an arched back and kicked out toes a particular moment when tubbies jumped in a muddy puddle. Terry, I must say, has not engaged with screen culture with such sophistication.

Now, 2:49, He is asleep. Thanks for supporting me in my vigil!

Daylesford

2011-05-22T20:14:00.000-07:00

We went away with some of our oldest friends, 12 adults and 11 children. We stayed in a large house that still felt pretty small when full of bodies large and small. What I loved was watching the children running around and realising that we adults were just the backstory. We were either enablers of or obstacles to fun. For 48 hours that was what the grown ups did, in the their eyes at least.

Meanwhile the children became our backstory, they all blurred together in clamour and energy. The babies woke in the night, the six year olds slept like logs. We shovelled food in their mouths, poured formula into bottles, and hoped they would be distracted by dvd's while we drank more than we should.

7 days of great and crap

2011-05-13T16:21:00.000-07:00

The past 7 days began with the greatest 24 hours I have had in a long time. Marking the ten years since the celebrant declared that we had satisfied the legal requirements for marriage under Australian law (which seemed to be that you had to be over 18 and a MAN and a WOMAN...they were very clear about the latter part, to my enduring shame for participating in such an institution) we had 24 hours on our own. We went to the Daily Mail hotel in Dunkeld, and had a really lavish dinner, and stayed in a lovely room with fancy aesop toiletries and great sheets. And to our credit we managed to get on really well for almost the entire time, and I feel confident now that we will be good at being retired. Anyhow, I feel very grateful for what we have had and what I hope we will have for a long time to come. On the road I plucked songs from the ipod that had come out in the last ten years.... Given that we moved to the USA not long after our ceremony, the ten year date was easy to remember. Our tastes seem to change when we past through immigration control at JFK in New York. We went from a collection that included Hoss, Pulp, the Chemical Brothers, Sonic Youth, Kylie Minogue, Beth Orton... to suddenly listening to a lot more music that you might euphemistically call 'urban'.... suddenly it was all Outkast, Jill Scott, Erykah Badu and for my worst purchase over the past ten years, the award must go to J. Lo and Ja Rule singing I'm Real http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_NQn-DLpho

Then we had a weekend hangover until about wednesday. Everything felt hard and slow and yet too busy. I felt like I was looking through everybody, unable to register them. My metabolism was still getting over ten courses, and my psyche couldn't believe that you had to come back to dandenong road and rain after living the high life for the all too brief 24 hours.

But redemption happened on Friday. Childcare called to say that Terry had a rash and I had to go and get him. So I cancelled my appointments and took him home. Cam was there, working from home. He took Terry to the doctor, nothing to worry about. Then the three of us sat on the carpet and played for a very restorative hour. And once again, I felt so grateful. And I thought that I need to write down that for that time I was utterly content. I know things can't always be like this, so rich, and so I want to say a prayer of thanks to the God that I don't believe in.

He's Alive.....

2011-04-14T15:55:00.000-07:00

Easter is coming up. Yesterday, on a rainy school holiday day, Honora and I produced the greeting above. I kept trying to get Honora to leave me alone, 'go watch tv' I said channelling Betty Draper. But she wanted to play. Eventually, I renounced the self and sat down with paper and pencils and scissors and aided her in making our Easter greeting. If Jesus could sacrifice himself, surely I can sacrifice an hour or two.

I think that I might get the stigmata soon, such is my identification with the Son of Man.

Terry is Eating

2011-04-02T18:32:00.000-07:00

I am surprised by how much more real and human Terry seems now that he is an eater. Does this mean that I will always be alienated from tube fed people? That the capacity to ingest solids marks some genuine frontier of recognisable humanity? It sounds pretty stupid when I read that back. But when he smacks his lips in pleasure over this puree it feels like he and I might have something in common.

There is much else to report on the Monalog domestic front. I am at work 3 days, and spend the remaining four in a rhythm of housework, accompanied by the whirr of our various labour saving devices. The dryer is the metronome of the music of our lives...sometimes a dirge and more often a polka.

I am trying to work on the book manuscript (yes, still working on that) in all the interstitial time between childcare and house management....and it is pretty hard to do so. The consequence of these efforts has been internet surfing. Unsurprisingly, this lack has not proven to be deleterious.

Cameron too is trying this approach, of cramming research into the nooks and crannys of time... and amazingly, we are both getting somewhere, very slowly, but it seems there might be a there, there...

Ascent up the Paps

2011-03-21T01:54:00.000-07:00

Climbing up the Paps was very special. Not a very big hill really. And the hill is most notably the site of the mobile town tower that services Mansfield, so it hardly resulted in a petrarchan reverie.... But Honora was just so tough, charging ahead in her 15 dollar sneakers, her leggy little legs marking the way. When we reached the top she was buoyant like an NFL player after a touchdown...with a little bum wiggle and fist pump.

On fitting in

2011-02-27T13:56:00.001-08:00

Terry has begun childcare for two days a week. So far so good. I won't bore with accounts of maternal guilt over the issue. I have it, it is pointless and gendered, and I am just trying to get on with things. Something Honora said made me feel much better about it all. The carers at childcare said that Terry was mostly very cheerful, except when the other babies cried. They said that this would make him cry too. My immediate interpretation of this was that poor little Terry was overwhelmed and confused by the noise, and that his crying was an expression of fear. But when I told Honora that Terry cries with the other babies she said "Awesome, he's fitting in".

Terry watching cricket

2011-01-23T18:42:00.000-08:00

This is Terry with my uncle John and cousin Liam, on the occasion of Liam's eighteenth birthday. All has been good in our household, with Terry's increasingly stable bodily functions making us all feel more together and coherent, in body and in mind.

I am slowly getting used to the fact that someone with the same name as my Dad is so little and helpless. Enrolling Terry Monagle for childcare was a very strange moment. I wonder how long it will take before this Terry Monagle owns the name. It will be a happy and sad day when that happens.

2 weeks of vacation

2011-01-15T22:19:00.000-08:00

The weather was mixed, we spent half of the holiday staying in an octagonal house, Honora and Terry were very very happy, I gained 2 kilos, we had fish and chips once, we drank every day, we had a great lunch at Chris's at Beacon Point, Danielle and Yung visited, I read some bad bad novels, there was no internet and we went to see Tangled at the Apollo Bay mechanic's institute.

so much plenty

2010-12-26T11:37:00.000-08:00

Here we have Honora and her girl cousins, all dressed up in Christmas Day dresses made by Cam's aunty Bernadette. Oh to be six years old on Christmas Day! there is not much better, at least if my memory serves me correct. And the plenitude......Thank You China.

Terry didn't have a great day.... his parents were distracted and when they did apply their focus they spent too much time trying to get him to sleep when all he wanted was food, and vice versa. When the food did come, it was exactly the same as every other day. He wasn't really up for the presents, and was forced into photos without providing appropriate consent. But he did sleep very well that night, probably recovering from the trauma of the carnival.

Last Day Of School

2010-12-18T15:48:00.000-08:00

The top photo was taken back in February, on Honora's first day at school. The bottom photo was taken on Honora's last day of school, free dress day! She can now read, but more importantly has begun to inhabit the treacherous, difficult and reality-tv like world of female friendships in the playground. What a learning curve. I have to try to remember that it is indeed possible that these little innocuous seeming girls are capable of wielding awesome and destructive social power. The shock and awe of the playground involves extended discussions of categories such as fat and skinny, pretty and ugly, smart and dumb. The word 'hot' to describe atractiveness is also being used with alarming alacrity.

When I worry about it I remember a girl from my school lining us up in grade 2 and telling us whether or not we had adequately high cheekbones for a modelling career. And I survived....with enough baggage for a flight to the US (they let you have a lot more luggage than you get for the flights to Europe).

Weekend in the High Country

2010-12-13T02:26:00.000-08:00

That light and kid saturated room above is at Tash and Paul's place in Mansfield, home of the Man from Snowy River and a number of stores that sell R. M. Williams Boots and Akubra hats. Speaking of which, Oprah has been spotted in an Akubra while travelling through our sunburnt country.

The smallest child is Terry, chilling out to the summer sounds of cricket. He is hanging with his cousins Tomas and Annella. The cricket, so far, has been disastrous for the Australians. The English are set to retain the ashes with barely a whimper of protest on the part of our oakley-wearing and zinc-creamed covered players.

The weekend away was really good, looking after infants should be shared among as many adults as possible. When it is just me and Terry, he and I stare at eachother with barely concealed frustration...neither of us know what to do..... But when there is a crowd, we both come to life. Bring on Christmas and the saturation childcare provided by slightly drunk assorted relatives.

on feeling sisyphean

2010-11-15T18:47:00.000-08:00

Photos of babies look cute, but the backstory is labour both tedious and unpredictable. Would that I were a bit more zen about it all, but irritation seems to be winning. Even though Terry's desires are pretty simple, this doesn't make meeting them particularly easy. Why is it that something so longed for results in a reality so confused.

Having said all that, it is much easier the second time around, which means that the first time must have been rough.

Terry in the Matrix at 4 weeks old.

2010-11-03T12:16:00.000-07:00

In the first tough two weeks after Terry was born, I was often visited by either Mum, or her sister Marita. As I waged more war for women, struggling through mastitis, Marita and Mum were strategic advisors. There was no war room, as such, although it felt like our whole flat was devoted to the theatre of my strugging mammaries. Anyhow, in one of the best examples of good management that I have experienced in either my professional or personal life, these two good women encouraged me to confidence. They just kept saying nice things about me and the baby, over and over again. "he is so gorgeous", "you're doing so well", "go and have a sleep", "Cameron is doing such a great job" etc.... it was a lullaby of positive reinforcement and it was just what I needed. We are now 4 weeks post birth, me and my breasts have had a rapprochement, Terry is 4 kilos, and I now know what I will say to younger women in 30 years or so when I am a golden girl...like Mum and Marita (as my cousin Jenny calls them).

And...then there is Terry's sister. Honora has a lot going on. She and her friends at school are fantasising about elaborate sleepover parties involving children's television presenters (innocent of course). She is conquering totem tennis and monkey bars and can now read the odd Charlie and Lola all by herself. But sometimes when she sees Terry she gets momentarily transfixed, overwhelmed by his marsupial cuteness. She gushes "ohyouaresocute" to him and nuzzles his downy head. She has never noticed the cuteness of anyone besides herself so far.

Beautiful Beautiful Boy

2010-10-18T21:30:00.000-07:00

The anaesthetist had his ipod playing during the c-section, a special playlist for births. I was lying on the trolley, not feeling my legs, watching the sun stream in the window thinking "I would really like to hear John Lennon's Beautiful Boy right now"... and then I heard it come out of the speakers... Those things only happen when you're on drugs.

His name is Terence Brian Monagle after his two grandfathers. He was 8 pounds, and so far he is placid and sweet. I have been in the wars, with a bout of mastitis that sent me back to the hospital. When we left the hospital with Terry, we walked out feeling like our story was complete, and somewhat triumphant. The return to the hospital four days later ended that chimera of closure.... but I guess that is the whole point of having a child...the relationship is ongoing.

On the shoulders of Giants

2010-10-03T14:54:00.000-07:00

Honora turns 6 next Sunday, 3 days after the scheduled arrival of the baby. Given that timing, we thought that the birthday party should occur prior to the world turning upside down event.

We went all out this year, making last year's Halloween efforts seem amateur and slapdash. We had a gym party at a seventies style gym in a sylvan suburb of Melbourne. This place is the real thing, two Beijing Olympians trained there, and one reserve as well.

Honora got to spend 2 hours with 15 friends in all sorts of combinations of running and jumping. They got to jump in a massive foam pit. Finally, Honora got to enjoy the singular privilege of the bungee.

Now that the Honora festival has subsided, the count down continues, three more sleeps til the elective c-section. The words that the doctors use to describe this procedure include 'calm', 'civilised' and 'convivial'....

The words I used last time to describe my experience of 'natural' birth included 'brutal', 'savage', 'devastating' and 'apocalyptic'.... Now I am well aware that I have set up a very problematic binary between civilisation and savagery.. and I apologise for that... with that disclaimer, however, I say 'bring on the drugs'.

Just some shots

2010-09-19T15:46:00.000-07:00

Waiting for the arrival of the child is slow and quiet. I can't do much, being constrained by painful braxton-hicks contractions whenever I am upright for too long. So I have been sleeping, eating, and reading detective stories. I consider it quite an achievement to unload the dishwasher or hang out the washing. When Cameron gets home from work, I point out the empty dishwasher like the cat who has dragged in a dead bird, expecting much congratulations.

But I attach some shots of recent times. Honora in yellow and black is from "Dress in your favourite footy team colours" day at school. In the morning I promised her that she looked more like a tiger than a bumble bee. This was obviously a lie. The first thing her teacher said was "You look like a gorgeous little bumbe bee."

The serious looking photo is from the recent launch of Monash Publishing, which is being managed by our friend Nathan. It was as close as I will get to the sort of party that gets promoted in the social pages...and it was not very close, being at Clayton and being full of academics. But the Leonard French stained glass is pretty fetching.

And there is Honora and Ngaio...different schools but still friends. They have been close for over three years now. There are some fissures. Ngaio wants to dress like a princess, Honora likes "cool clothes now". Ngaio wants a pony, Honora wants to watch Lady Gaga on youtube. But once they find their groove, and it often takes a good overnight stay, they become two bodies united in one annoying and affected baby voice.

Hair and the Economy

2010-09-08T20:55:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday I got my roots dyed. The grey is coming, tuffet like, and I am not ready to go there yet. So I went to a hairdressing salon and my roots were painted a colour that matches mine. See above for my renewed roots. I also got a haircut as well, and a blow dry that made me look very glamorous from the back, when neither bump nor face can be discerned.

The day after I went to Ikea. I bought a change table, and change table accessories, a bedside table for Honora, a little stool to go under her table, a salad spinner and a coat hanger which is specially designed for scarves. The last two purchases were not intended, and came upon me ikea style. And all of this cost less than my cut and colour. How can this be? The answers are obvious of course, variance in labour costs between Australia and china/poland (where the ikea goods come from). And economies of scale, ikea makes a lot of salad spinners...

So I am wondering which purchase was more obscene on my part? Is it bad to lavish money on something as inconsequential as a few grey hairs. Given my job, in which style does not reign, I can't argue that I need to have slick hair for work. Am I vain, foolish and contributing to a banal economy of false hopes and frustrated desires. Or, is it worse to buy all this shiny new stuff for prices that can't possibly cover the human and environmental costs of making goods this cheap.

Home stretch, manuscript in, on maternity leave

2010-08-29T16:31:00.000-07:00

We are looking down the barrel at the end of life as we know it. Honora is like a flatmate now. Off she goes to a friend's house, or to swimming, or to school. She explained the meaning of 'comme

ci comme ca' to us recently. She had a dream that Marge and Homer were watching the election on TV and Homer supported Tony Abbott. Six years after the most difficult day of my life, when she popped out, we live well together, with many shared interests.

Soon the stranger will be amongst us, in all of his shitting guzzling glory. The three of us are frightened. 'How disgusting will it be mum?' asks Honora. Quite, I reply. On the other hand, we can't have him inside much longer either. My ankles are swollen, I am anaemic/diabetic/neurotic/pedantic....

That's so rich.....

2010-08-22T16:51:00.000-07:00

Whenever I see people skiing, or just in ski gear, I feel like I can hear Michael Kors in my head saying "That's so rich"... For those of you who don't know Michael Kors, he is a fashion designer and judge on Project Runway. For him 'That's so rich' is the ultimate compliment he can give a piece of clothing, it should just look rich.... Well, that's what ski gear does....and that is where Honora has spent the weekend, at Mt Hotham learning how to ski. So Not Baltimore....

The other picture of Honora, the one with her holding the microphone, was taken at her school assembly. She had the honour of saying the 'Welcome to Country", the formula that acknowledges indigenous land tenure. She acknowledged the Kulin people. Then on the way home she told me a joke, 'What do you say when you play the didgeridoo badly?', 'It's a didgeridon't' So the messages are mixed. That's so rich!

The final photo is self-evident. Me with a gut, wearing slimming black which has ceased to be effective.

A bit of a depressing night....

2010-08-21T18:16:00.000-07:00

Australia was meant to decide last night, but instead we have a hung parliament, and it looks likely that some maverick independent right wingers will join Tony Abbott in governing. I can't face the newspapers today....

I am consoled, however, by the arrival on the national scene of Abbotts beautiful three girls. They are convent educated, well tressed and leggy. Surely this will result in column inches that i can read online while not doing my work. Surely one of them will have a rakish boyfriend, a drug scandal or something.... I just feel like they could be the gift that keeps on giving when it comes to my visual and schadenfreude pleasure.

As Biddy said "They are like way way better looking versions of us".

Windy Wellington

2010-08-01T18:28:00.000-07:00

I am just back from four sleeps in Wellington. I forgot my phone, so the photo of Wellington is a stock photo from the Tourist Board. The other photo was taken about 2 years ago at Bid and Paul's civil union ceremony. I put that photo in for colour, as I was going to Wellington, and she lives there.

Wellington is spectacularly beautiful. The weather is ferociously bad, for the most part. Both are true at once. This is hard to reconcile, at least for a simple binarised thinker like myself. Wellingtonians are very chic, and very buttoned up. Even the schoolgirls wear their skirts down the floor. It looks pretty gothic and it matches the weather. And, if you want a skinny latte you have to ask for a trim latte. I guess both are about wishful thinking.

Me, Clayton and Farrah

2010-07-27T13:17:00.000-07:00

I am trying really hard to finish my book manuscript. This involves more time than usual spent at work. Behind me, in the photo, is the carpark at work last Sunday. But I was looking happy because I was finding the Farrah flicks on my just washed hair very amusing...."easily pleased".

I am wishing that I could combine the seventies hair with the finishing of the book into a dynamic televisual montage that would go for three minutes or so. In this montage, set to some Curtis Mayfield, I would be running through empty carparks, with flicked hair, on the trail of some slightly lost twelfth century intellectual heresy. Then, we could cut to a shot of the Menzies building at night, with my office light shining out among the darkened windows. And then, book would be finished, baby born and post-hormonal hair settled down, and I would be reclining on the couch with a glass of something cold and with bubbles.

Sausage Casing

2010-07-05T16:39:00.000-07:00

Squeezing into this wetsuit was fairly unpleasant, reminding me of extra largeness everywhere. I am trying to be as sanguine as possible about the body changes. They were, after all, planned and anticipated. But... pregnancy this time, as last time, reminds me of the psychic fear induced by a rapidly changing body, and launches me right back to puberty in my memories. How strange it is to wake up a different shape. I have realised, once again, how my sense of the solidity of the world is entirely grounded in my sense of the solidity of my body. However imperfect it might be, my body is mine and I know its moves inside and out. But at the moment it is a stranger carrying a stranger, an enigma in a riddle yada yada. And this makes everything else confusing as well. I hate to sound ungrateful, but I do wish that the lean machine with whom I made this baby could spend a couple of days on pregnancy duty.

Could you be the most beautiful building in the world?

2010-07-05T16:30:00.000-07:00

So you are just walking along and then you see it, and your heart lifts. It is as if the whole harbour evolved just so Utzon could have the perfect setting for the opera house. It is magnificent, and you just want to keep looking at it all day long. Cam once heard some guys on the tram say that the Crown Casino building was sexy - see first picture. Even with the far superior picture quality, I think that we can agree that the the opera house trumps all for charisma. Sex appeal, well I am not sure....I have spent this winter watching MasterChef and am a little tired of gnocchi/creme brulee/goat's cheese/whatever being described as sexy... But the opera house certainly does arouse some feelings...

100 table settings

2010-06-19T01:13:00.000-07:00

At the start of the year I rashly told Honora that she could have a DS if she set the table 100 times. That day came, and we went to a large electronics retailer so that she could redeem my foolhardy promise. It was a very expensive promise, I realised when I was told what I owed the large electronics retailer. Each table setting cost us 2 dollars. Given the quality of the job and the amount of times I had to correct her efforts, I can say that it was not worth it.

What price, however, jingly private entertainment that frees parents so that they can spend time on their jingly private entertainment. The family that stares at screens together.....

Who broke my dragon? dragongate

2010-05-31T19:11:00.000-07:00

In our flat block there is a resident who has left her ceramic dragon in a public area for a really long time. I can live with this. I don't love it, but I can live with it.

Apparently, however, the dragon has been disfigured. Cameron noticed this note on the dragon's nose last night. It says "Who broke my dragon? At least have the decency to own up." Cameron and I could not actually tell how the dragon had been broken. But perhaps this is because, in spite of our professions as a medievalist and architectural historian both of which might imply a passing correspondence with dragons, we are not dragon aficionados.

It's a boy!

2010-05-28T20:17:00.000-07:00

The ultrasound has revealed a boy baby nestled in my tummy. There is a scrotum in my stomach. We are shocked.

And we have to take the sonographer's word for it. Because frankly, what she saw as maleness I experienced as pixillation. The whole session felt like we were looking at avant-garde video art, with much occult meaning. I certainly did not feel that I was looking at a baby, but apparently it was. So there you are!

Mother's Day

2010-05-09T02:37:00.000-07:00

This was the scene in the centre of Melbourne today. I am the person in black whose face is covered by a random hand. Honora is below me. We were doing a walk for Breast Cancer funding, and this was the group aerobics prior to the walk.

As Cam and I discussed, it had the feeling of a revival meeting. There was lots of emotion, produced by the people wearing t-shirts proclaiming the absent relative for whom they were walking. There was lots of energy, mass aerobics and the black-eyed peas on the stereo will do that for you, even at 9 am on a sunday.

I was reminded that 3 years ago I ran the funrun for the same event, with Dad and Biddy. I had a monstrous hangover and the combination of aerobic beats and still being drunk made me feel like I hadn't gone home. It was Dad's last real run, I am sure he enjoyed being accompanied by his soak daughter, and a load of middle-aged ladies in garish pink.

Annella Catherine Williams Logan

2010-04-26T18:41:00.000-07:00

We went up to Mansfield to see Honora's new cousin, Annella. She was born last week, and was 7 pounds, 3 ounces. This is not very big. She is a very beautiful, small animal. That was Honora's impression, the overwhelming animality of the newborn, all downy and suckling.

She didn't put it like that, that is my interpretation of her words, which were "she can't do anything, she just lies there with her eyes shut".

I felt this wave of sorrow for Annella. How hard it must be to emerge from that comfortable womb, how bright the lights of the world, how stimulating everything is. Is it all downhill from gestation? Pass me a scotch! actually don't, because I am about to do the same to another little being. This one inside me is in comfort, only to have to leave eden come October for my world of Neighbours, Masterchef, Chadstone, Kevin Rudd, Monash etc...

A sibling for Honora

2010-04-06T22:01:00.000-07:00

is coming around the 10/10/10. We are so f****** grateful for this.

On learning new skills and Jesus is risen.

2010-04-05T02:14:00.000-07:00

Happy Easter, another revelry of leisure. A four day weekend, fantastic weather and lots of food. The kingdom of heaven is at hand, it can be found in a pie shop at Rutherglen, where rich gravy meat mixtures are encased in flaky pastry.

Honora is now riding without training wheels!!!!! The daughter has surpassed the mother. She said "are you scared of me now that I can ride a bike and you can't?"

Her life is a steep learning curve right, in addition to mastering the bike, she is learning to read at school. After one of her rides, I heard her saying to herself "that was dumb". Then, she painstakingly sounded dumb out to herself, it became "duh-aaah-mmmm".

graduation day... high school reunion

2010-03-21T16:01:00.000-07:00

It was a weekend of education. On Saturday I went to my Aunty Marita's graduation at Monash Gippsland, a rural campus about 2 hours out of Melbourne. She has just graduated with a Masters in Nursing. As an academic staff member I got to process in the procession accompanied by "Pomp and Circumstance". I then got to sit on stage while the many degrees were handed out. I clapped all the graduands, but I lifted my hands much higher for my Aunty. I got to wear my gown, which Mum and Dad paid for. I really stood out among the tasteful blacks of Australian University gowns. Somebody snidely said "How very American" when they saw my gaudy gold.

On Sunday it was my 20 year high school reunion. You can see above one of the photos that emerged. It was a very nice occasion. I was a bit shocked to find out how much I have forgotten. I know I have done my share of things that might impair memory, but I was still surprised at things that people remembered I had said and done. There was a lot of talk among the frizzy haired how the advent of hair straighteners and serum had changed lives for the better. You've come a long way baby.

Harmony Day

2010-03-18T14:11:00.000-07:00

It is harmony day at school. Honora's, not mine. You have to dress up in the colours of the country of your birth. Since Honora goes to school with lots of French kids, who will also be wearing red, white and blue, we felt we needed some brand differentiation. Hence the flag. Honora also goes to school with lots of Israeli kids. So we have France, Israel and America in the mix. Sure to be harmonious.

The Scream

2010-03-15T14:25:00.000-07:00

Sometimes your Grandma won't wake up!

There is one thing that Honora does that delights me, even though it probably should perturb. She has taken to browsing fashion magazines while she sits on the toilet. She says that she likes to look at dresses. She says that if Mum gets to read magazines on the toilet, so should she.

I found out about this yesterday. I went to the toilet, and a Hello magazine was staring up at me. How strange, I thought, for once it hadn't been left by me. Was Cam following the Cheryl Cole break-up story? So I asked him, and Honora overheard. She said "it's mine". I have never felt so proud.

Daughters and Dads

2010-02-21T13:52:00.000-08:00

The top photo is Honora and Cam riding tandem. Cameron just bought this attachment, that sticks to his bike. It is basically half and bike. Honora gets to ride behind. This is now their preferred method of getting to school. I am a failure at this part of family life. Can't ride a bike. Just can't. Sometimes I wake up in a cold sweat, having had a dream in which we move to Holland.

The other photo was taken in the backyard at my grandparent's house in Reservoir in Melbourne. That is Terry, my dear departed Dad. And the girl is me. My uncle sent me the photo last week, scanned from a slide. The colours are so bright. It feels so much more immediate than the faded photos that usually convey childhood images. Those were the days of un-landscaped gardens, before lifestyle channels and "outdoor rooms".

School, what's not to like?

2010-02-04T15:52:00.000-08:00

Today, Honora Carmel Monagle started school. Public School. FREE SCHOOL. We have been paying childcare fees for four years. Now, the government shall provide. A great day. But what is the real cost, I hear you ask? Well, besides our taxes, the cost is being told what to do by the school. They tell us what to do with Honora's hair. They tell us not to put junk food in her lunch box. They tell us that she ought to exercise, avoid skin cancer and that reading should be a part of family life. They seem to like immunisation. Well, we'll take it. Because, between 9 and 3:15 for five days a week, somebody else is taking responsibility for her well-being. A problem shared is a problem spared... Happy Days!

More shots from the source

2010-01-25T03:07:00.000-08:00

Florence, Bologna, Arezzo and Pisa. In that order. All remains good. Honora's highlight has been definitely the "big girls". These are the 20 year old Monash students with whom she likes to hang out at the back of the tour bus, while me and Cam sit up the front. Sometimes, after the bus trips, Cam and I quiz her as to the gossip going on with the students. Honora has actually managed, as a five year old, to fill us in on all sorts of romantic youthful intrigues. I am not sure, however, whether or not she is a double agent. What does she tell them about us?

Rainy Pisa

2010-01-09T08:27:00.000-08:00

We made it and it is great to be here, even though it is pissing down. We have a little apartment with cold tiled floors. Italians don't seem to do cosy in their home decor, in our very limited experience. We have been to Florence and Pisa, with Arezzo, Bologna, Lucca and San Gimigano to follow. We have seen a lot of ladies wearing a lot of fur. It is such a funny feeling to be Monash, Prato and to see that blue logo everywhere. Who woulda thunk it?

New Year...

2010-01-01T03:50:00.000-08:00

Honora and I made cupcakes to bring in the New Year. Later on we ate roasted meats, drank bubbly, and made it to midnight. We had our evening al fresco, at a little park around the corner. We were visited by torrential rains, so we all sat under the play equipment. We made it til midnight, and I can't remember the last mojito, although Cameron assures me I enjoyed it.

On Monday andiamo a Prato. where I will be teaching this http://www.monash.edu.au/pubs/2010handbooks/units/HSY3125.html. Honora is excited about the ice-cream. Cameron is going to Berlin and Stuttgart to look at hospitals. I am pretty nervous, but after having read Dante properly for the first time I am happy to report that the Divine Comedy is not bad at all.

Happy Christmas...on our way to Mass

2009-12-25T15:32:00.000-08:00

This was how we started the day...as churchgoers. And it shows, right? Look at those smiles, feel our grace. By the end of the day much animal had been eaten, beer drunk, paper ripped off presents, puddings boiled, tempers frayed, and intestines working overtime.

End of an Era

2009-12-23T13:08:00.000-08:00

Honora is done with childcare and will start school in February. Thanks to all those new left radicals at Monash who started her childcare centre. Your efforts are appreciated. Thanks to all of us now who have helped to run it in the recent past... this is a battle that will need to be fought forever. Thanks to the staff who have taught Honora that Pluto might not be a planet, and that Beyonce's Single Ladies has a dance. And thanks to Mr Rudd and Ms Gillard for their 50% rebate that made it a lot easier.

The fairy at the top of the tree...

2009-12-14T13:10:00.000-08:00

Honora is cute like it is 1992 and Frente are on top of the hit parade. Australians will know what I mean, and Americans shouldn't worry. Accidentally Hughenden Road....

Care of the self...

2009-12-10T13:21:00.000-08:00

Since my hebdomada horrida I have been encouraged to take care of myself. And I have been wondering how the self takes care of itself. And I remember hearing a comedian ponder "Do you control your mind, or does your mind control you?" So in my case, "Do you care for yourself, or does your self care for you?" Anyhow, when women are given advice about self care, it often involves nails. So I got a pedicure.

Naming Day

2009-12-07T23:26:00.000-08:00

As part of his first birthday, Honora's cousin Tomas was 'named' by his friends and family. A picture of the fairly relaxed ceremony is above. Honora is the one in the pink jacket gesticulating madly. Perhaps in the absence of a sacrament, she felt keen to impart some priestly gestures.

Hebdomada Horrida

2009-12-03T13:57:00.000-08:00

That's bad week in latin. I ended up in hospital this week, for a little day procedure. All is well, and there is nothing to worry about. As you can tell from my cheerful face above...I was about to be anaesthetised.

Anyhow, the strange world of the hospital is alienating and nurturing in the same instance. All that chrome and white, all those probes. all that hair in nets and feet in paper slippers. But so many nice people giving me smiles, and holding my hand, and givine me lovely painkillers. And this was for a pretty small health event in the grand and dramatic life of the hospital.

This was done in the Women's hospital in Melbourne. A public hospital. Over 4 appointments, a day procedure, and lots of pictures taken of me with very expensive cameras, I was expected to hand over exactly nada. And, unlike the post-Honora experience, I do not expect to ploughing through elaborate and confusing bills over the next couple of months. As I said, it was a hebdomada horrida, so it is nice to be spared also challenges to my bank account and adminstrative finesse.

We are heading away this weekend, and I hope to be able to share some prettier, happier and more alcoholic photos soon.

Stage Mother

2009-11-05T15:25:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday was the ballet concert. Ticket were 40 dollars each. The DVD of the concert costs 60. I sewed sequins on a tutu... This job was necessarily gendered. Cameron's hands are too big to sew sequins on a tutu.

I hoped that she would hate it... we lost a weekend to this concert. I was bossed around by bossy ladies. But, when she was on stage she looked as though she was born to it. And when she was asked how it felt to be on stage, she said "Normal".

Halloween Honora

2009-10-31T18:58:00.000-07:00

Honora's party was yesterday, October 31st. There were many witches, a couple of demons, a princess and a tiger. You can see my costume above, I dressed as someone with fangs and cellulite. It was hard to fnd the cellulite, but I got some on ebay.

the delicious proof

2009-10-24T04:11:00.000-07:00

Today, Mum and I went to a plum pudding making workshop. In anticipation of Christmas, we mixed alcohol-soaked dried fruit, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, eggs and butters into an amazingly delicious batter. We then bunched in calico, and mine is now boiling on the stove for five hours. After that it has to dry for about 5 days.... hanging off a hook in the kitchen.

Anyone would think it was the olden days in our house. After the pudding dries it should be as hard as soccer ball, and then it sits somewhere dry for two months until we boil it in the calico again, and then serve it up for all to see, smothered in brandy and aflame.

I don't even particularly like plum pudding, give me ten beers and a block of cadbury's any time. But the making was therapeutic.

how the five year olds chat now

2009-10-20T13:32:00.000-07:00

Honora and Ngaio no longer attend the same childcare. This is sad, but skype compensates. Last night they had a little end of day debrief, over the internet. Ngaio had some animals come to her childcare, and she told Honora all about it. Honora told Ngaio that we had sausages and vegetables for dinner. What was striking was that they were just so excited to see each other, even virtually.

growing up

2009-10-11T03:52:00.000-07:00

Honora Carmel Monagle turned 5 this weekend. The top photo is courtesy of Kate Moran, who emailed it to me as a marker of this special occasion.

What can I say about her, well she makes me laugh a lot. She is quite easy on the eye. She grows very regularly and ordinarily. She is full of energy and cheery thoughts.

Best of all, she often tells me how beautiful I am and how fabulous my clothes are. She says I am the prettiest person in the whole wide world! And what is nice is that, for now, she actually believes it. I know it can't last forever, that sanity and independence shall prevail, and that I will cease to be the goddess of her imagination. This is rightly so. But I am just so chuffed that anyone has thought of me in this way at all, even if I did have to make her myself.

Beachy Bliss

2009-10-06T00:20:00.000-07:00

Here are a few pictures of the one perfect beach day we had in Broulee, which is in between Bateman's Bay and Narooma. It was a corker. In the photo above you can see Cam and Honora on that sandbank.

Most of the holiday I felt like myself (agitated, self-conscious, moving between enthusiasm and grumpiness a little too rapidly for comfort, over-stimulated etc... ), but at the beach I was truly away, not only from my normal places but also from my normal psyche. I don't know how the beach does that, but it does. Booze helps too of course, but the beach produces therapeutic miracles.

Canberra

2009-10-04T03:26:00.000-07:00

Back from our civic vacation to the capital, Canberra. I haven't been there since I was about 15. We stayed in Kingston, and made our way to many highlights. The portrait gallery, national museum, the parliament and the war memorial. It was truly DC lite, so many situations reminded me of touring DC, but without the traffic, noise, poverty or racial tension. And no Ben's Chili Bowl whatsoever, nothing like that at all...

As with touring DC, I became aware of my own overall mediocrity in comparison to the greats who have been portraited or busted or whatever... When you walk through the war memorial in your casual clothes, having just enjoyed a latte in the coffee shop, and you look at the glorious sepia shots of young men who did brave and insane things and promptly died, or you see the portrait of Eddie Koiki Mabo in the portrait gallery whose land claim forced the revision of the doctrine of terra nullius at the High Court of Australia, then you think I am most probably not going to get a photo in a museum.

And that makes me a little disappointed, which is immediately repressed as a stupid thought/emotion, but which lingers a little regardless. But then I think, well, Hitler is in lots of museums and that is not necessarily what you want...

And it took about six months

2009-09-14T19:39:00.000-07:00

Back in Feb I wrote this http://clareinmelbourne.blogspot.com/2009/02/shoulder-pads.html

I anticipated that it would take me about six months to get on the whole shoulder pad revival thing.... and I do know myself! This morning, Cam insisted on this photo, when he realised that I had completely fulfilled my own prediction.

a couch

2009-09-13T17:44:00.000-07:00

From wikipedia, A couch is a generic term, usually North American, for an item of furniture designed to seat more than one person. Typically it will have an armrest on either side. Couches are normally found in the family room, living room, den or the lounge. They are covered in a variety of textiles or in leather.

From me, you have made us better people o new couch. There is enough space to lie en famille in front of Charlie and Lola, but there is also enough space not to touch at all if that is what is required. You are the first piece of grown up furniture purchased by your owners, with the exception of Honora's bunks. You came neither from a thrift shop or ebay. This couch says 'YES', global financial crisis notwithstanding, we will not let insecurity restrict our rights to furniture. warriors we are, fighters we fight, for the right, to be supine.

The connoisseur II (1984), by Peter Corlett,

2009-08-30T17:17:00.000-07:00

I first saw this sculpture in the National Gallery of Victoria when I was 11 or 12, and was visiting with the gallery with Mum and Dad and sisters. This was a DAY OUT, which would have involved Dad parking illegally, ice-creams dipped in chocolate from the van outside and gallery, sticking our hands in the water wall, and wishing that Mum and Dad would take us somewhere like luna park or the movies.
Yesterday, me, Cam and Honora had a DAY OUT. We took the tram to Federation Square, had a lemonade at a cool cafe, and went to the Ian Potter, which is the relocated NGV contemporary collection. When I saw The Connoisseur lurking in the corner, I felt so happy in my city that I shed a tear. I rushed to grab Honora and pulled her over and promised her it would be good, and when she saw him she let out a shocked and delighted cackle. "That man is in his underpants" she screeched. The guard laughed at her laughing, and past and present were all mixed up in a quite shivery way.

In other news....this sporting life

2009-08-24T18:58:00.001-07:00

Australia lost the Ashes. I wasn't too sad. The pleasures of cricket for me, win or lose, are the dulcet sounds of cricket commentary on the radio as I go to sleep. In the Australian summer, this usually means blissful afternoon naps. When we play in England, the timing is perfect for a 10pm bedtime.

In my other favourite code, australian rules football, I have committed an extraordinary deed. I have changed teams. You aren't meant to do this. I used to support Collingwood, the Yankees/Man U of Australian Football. But Honora and Cam are tigers supporters, the proud yellow and black of Richmond. This team never wins! really! but for love I have decided to change teams. And the love is not only for my husband and child. It is also for the Richmond player Ben Cousins. Ben used to be a high flyer for the West Coast Eagles, based in Perth. He was arguably the league's best player, and arguably its biggest drug pig. It ended in tears. The photo above is Ben being picked up by the cops, after a car chase, after a massive night out. His tattoo reads "such is life", famously, Ned Kelly's last words. Anyhow, after Ben's tragic fall into the world of Perth nightclubs, petty gangsters and bad sunglasses, no club would pick him. But Richmond did! Richmond, the Ellis Island of footy teams, "Give me your tired, your poor,Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, not to mention gorgeous but tragic footy stars". And above you can see Ben looking thoroughly rehabbed at Tigerland....

2 weeks have past since my last post..

2009-08-16T05:36:00.000-07:00

Things that have happened.
1) There was a possum in our house. It got in at about 4:30 am through a very slightly opened window. I was utterly terrified. Honora and Ngaio were excited. Cameron and I got it outside and I have thought about it much since.
2) Dad's birthday passed, and the Monagle girls marked the sad occasion with some vietnamese food and a junk food miracle. Some context, back in 2004 the first junk food miracle ocurred. Cam, Clare and Terry were driving back from Towson to Remington and decided to get some Popeyes for lunch. We only had enough cash for two meal deals, but they gave us three! Then, last week, we were sorting through Dad's books and me and Bid went out to get fish and chips for dinner. When they gave us our food, at the fish and chip shop, they also gave us a packet of snowballs (marshmallow covered in chocolate and coconut). This was Dad's favourite treat, and it is not customarily given out with fish and chips. Think about it.
3) A nasty cold. I was a bit sick, but I was a lot shitty.
4) warm weather, I wore the sandals for the first time. It was somewhat premature, but not unduly so.
5) Honora has seen Grease for the first time, and she LOVES it, as did I at that age. Even though my mother said that I couldn't watch it at the time.

Open Day

2009-08-03T17:21:00.000-07:00

At Australian Universities we have Open Day. This is like a massive trade fair of undergraduate education where parents and children come to check us out. We had our day on Sunday, and it was insane. I spoke to hundreds and hundreds of people, repeating myself, getting hoarse, and trying to explain why one should study history. This was not easy...., at least not easy without being a tad evangelical about "becoming a better person".... Were it not a question of belief, I would definitely be a preacher

Knock-out....

2009-07-27T20:31:00.000-07:00

We spent the weekend up at Tasha's. We took Gavi, our guest from the USA to see some marsupials, and we succeeded. We drove up to Tasha's block of land near Tolmi, and had a wander through the delights of the glades and groves on this pretty magical property. Our fashions may be a little pacific north-west, but the landscape was pure Oz, in ever sense...

I may have a face for radio

2009-07-21T12:37:00.000-07:00

but as I found out while making this program below, I don't have a voice for it. Like any number of singer biopics you may have seen, I had to stand behind the sound proof window, while the producer asked me for the readings, each time slightly different. It was amazingly hard work, trying not to go up at the end of a sentence, or to rush too much, or to breathe at the wrong time. Next time I reckon I would take a bit of testosterone prior, as deep is better...

Here are the results

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/encounter/stories/2009/2617794.htm

just in case....

2009-07-20T16:58:00.000-07:00

you thought the french were different...they too seem to be obsessed with chronicling the travails of mid-thirtysomething women whose biological clocks are ticking leading them into all sorts of farcical situations...

Travel... or on always looking for the next toilet

2009-07-20T16:53:00.000-07:00

In what will sound appallingly ungrateful, I have to confess that I don't like to travel much, even when I am not paying. My recent couple of days in Paris were spent in a feverish missing of my family. Instead of sighing at sights or stuffing myself with charcuterie in a frenzy of hedonism...I found my eyes following people going about their daily business with envy. It is crazy, I have spent the last 12 months longing for the privacy, quiet and anonymity of some time on my own. But when there, at last, in the city of lights, I found myself watching wistfully as somebody did their supermarket shopping and carried it home. Having said that, my first trip to Ste Chapelle was quite revelatory....

Princesses on Ice Skates

2009-07-20T16:48:00.000-07:00

In order to bribe Honora before my trip away, I took her to Disney Princesses on Ice, subtitle Princess Wishes. It was pretty amazing - and you can read into that what you like. Afterwards, Honora was exhausted with the joy of it all. She started sobbing and begging for more merchandise, even though I had already purchased an obscenely overpriced Ariel from the little mermaid necklace... We met up afterwards with my sister Biddy who observed that the aftermath of the event was a bit like the scene outside a pub after closing. Everyone was tired, emotional and yet still full of agressive desire.

Happy Birthday Paul Glubb

2009-07-01T15:28:00.000-07:00

Hi Paul,

Clare and Cameron and Honora wish you a very happy birthday. Honora says "Have a good birthday cake".

love, clare

Dad's Gravestone

2009-06-28T01:34:00.000-07:00

Dad's gravestone was put onsite last week. So we spent the weekend at Taradale, near the burial spot. Catherine did a great job of organising the beautiful blue stone. Honora did a puppet show for us, standing behind the stone.

I'm gonna live forever

2009-06-26T17:56:00.000-07:00

shelves

2009-06-25T17:45:00.000-07:00

Cameron and his dad made these shelves! with some help from Ikea...

bourgeois wish fulfillment...

2009-06-20T23:19:00.000-07:00

We had a dinner party last friday, and for about 3 minutes our house looked like this.

locks

2009-06-20T23:15:00.001-07:00

How good is kid hair? Would that mine would weave and curl like that. But I am not so sure about the Juicy Couture knock off velour...

Beatrice turns 40

2009-06-20T23:08:00.000-07:00

Ngaio's mum Bea turned 40 over weekend, so Honora and Ngaio set to work decorating cakes. Their work is above.

night out..

2009-06-20T23:03:00.000-07:00

A couple of weekends ago, Cam and I went here for a birthday party. http://www.theorder.com.au/, and we ended up in a hotel room...see the top photo! This is us on the tram going in. But no tram on the way home, we stayed up very late, until 5 am, and got a cab home. Exciting times. In the photo, please note my artfully flicked hair.

giving out messages to the resistance...

2009-06-09T18:05:00.000-07:00

I apologise to those of you for whom this will make no sense, like I am giving out code to the resistance as Phil Day once wrote on one of my facebook entries... But good news at our end, that Biddy's operation has gone well and she won't require more in the immediate future. Protecting privacy and all that...

Kew Traffic School

2009-05-25T23:31:00.000-07:00

Ted Logan just turned 6. He celebrated at Kew Traffic School, a mock roads set-up for kids. It has real traffic lights and a police car. The top photo is Ted looking quite the suave gent on his bike. The photo below shows Honora in her element, embodying authority and throwing out admonitions.

Forgive me... such cuteness

2009-05-25T23:24:00.000-07:00

It was crazy hair day at childcare today. Honora was beside herself with excitement. We made this happen this morning, with merely hair ties and ribbon, and that weird clip thingy. I took this photo on my phone and have pathetically spent today sighing over the photo. All that excitement, those eyes and all that glorious hair. Is it possible, I address this to all of us adults, that we were ever that cute. Life is indeed a story of declension... I think as I look at my freckled skin and examine my wrinkles. Last week I was plucking my eyebrows and tried to pluck a stray hair, but it was a deep wrinkle masquerading as a dark line! save us

weekend away...

2009-05-17T03:57:00.000-07:00

We had a great weekend passed. Besides dreaming about paper deadlines, and a minor panic over my incomplete understanding of twelfth-century logic, it was pretty relaxing. We spent Friday night with Tash and Tomas in Mansfield. Tash made a great casserole and we drank some wine. Honora said to Tash about her cooking, "I'm sorry I didn't like it more". Some times you can be too polite. On the Saturday, me and Cam headed here, http://www.casaluna.com.au/, for a night away. This was a Christmas gift for the past two celebrations. It was AMAZING, one of the loveliest places I have ever stayed. And food that made us stop talking. Back to the logic...or lack thereof

Mother's Day

2009-05-10T00:28:00.000-07:00

Saudi Arabia came through, Honora gave me a lovely present, this negligee, which mum had brough back from Saudi Arabia, yet another of her junky souk presents.

It was quite a surprise. You are very lucky I wore it with my exercise gear underneath.

The baby is Tasha's little Tomas, in a hat that my clever sister Catherine made.

A Town Day

2009-05-08T23:02:00.000-07:00

Recently, Honora and I had a day in town. We trammed in, ate a cupcake, observed the clock in Melbourne Central, met a strange lady in the foyer of Cam's work... and the next morning it was ballet. Honora collected "treasures" on our town day and came home with three autumn leaves, an easter egg wrapper and a Jehovah's witness pamphlet.

wine tasting

2009-05-06T20:02:00.000-07:00

Near Mum's country is place is a very little wine tasting place. Last Saturday we sat down there, drank a bottle and watched the owners moving a portable toilet into the garden.