Making New Friends: Playdates

Following up on the Gold Coast post and McDonald's Happy Meals

We have a lot of kids over to play where ever we live. My kids demand it and I supply. Anything to keep them happy, even though this means lots of phone calls to strangers lining up the play dates and lots of conversations with mothers I don't know. Recently I had a conversation with one mum who was dropping her lad off at my house which went a bit like this:
“Samuel can stay for supper.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, it's no problem. We're just having omelets.”
“Samuel doesn't like eggs.”
“Oh dear.”
“Just give him a little bit, maybe he'll try it.”

Later at supper, after Samuel's mum has gone home, Samuel eyes the omelet with suspicion and asks:
“What's this?”
“Cheesy delight.” I answer, smiling encouragingly.
“Try it.” Samuel obediently has a bite, then asks:
“Has it got egg in?”
“No.” I reply, then shamed by the blatant and, to my own children, obvious, lie I add:
“Well, just a little bit.”
“Crocodile eggs” My hubby interjects helpfully. We all laugh and Samuel looks slightly confused but eats the omelet anyway. Good lad.

Shameful I know, but we had Samuel's best interests at heart. After all, you just can't beat an omelet for taste, nutrition and ease. But I'm sure they'd be more popular if they came with a free toy.

Gold Coast Theme Parks - White Water World

Learning to be like an Aussie and Speak Aussie

Last Saturday we went to the Gold Coast on a bus trip with our local Surf Life Saving Club to celebrate the end of the Nippers season, where children are schooled in the fine art of surf life saving. This was the final bash to reward the kids for all their hard and fast running, paddling and swimming over the season. For someone like me, who doesn't like bus trips, this was a brave move. Travel by bus makes plane travel, with it's opportunities for walking round people watching and star spotting, seem positively enviable. Yes, five hours on a bus was a brave, some may say foolhardy move. Still, I have to say it all went well and was worth the trip.

We spent the day at White Water World, a kind of aquatic adventure park and the only hiccup was that my kids didn't want to go on any of the rides. I have to take some of the blame here. I have raised them on a small island in New Zealand and in the jungle of Costa Rica where the only adrenalin rushes are provided by nature. So, a vast theme park with thousands of people running around squealing may have freaked them out a bit. We went straight to the Temple of Huey where there were some short tubes for people to whizz down in inflatable rings. It looked like great fun and all the other pleasure-seekers had smiles plastered on their faces. Not my four year old though. She screamed, she yelled, she cried, she clung to the edge of the tube and refused to let go. The helpers and I cajoled, pleaded, ordered and finally prised her fingers away and pushed her off into the tunnel. “Wheeeee” I whooped.
“Again, again.” Small cried when we got to the bottom. Phew! Meanwhile Medium, aged seven was having the same problem and weeping inconsolably at the top of the ride, so I had to go through the same scenario all over again with the same predictable end result. Sometimes you really do have to be cruel to be kind. Surely Large, aged ten was having a blast, I thought. But no, he was skulking around at the bottom and refused to even climb the steps to the top of the ride. This time the usual cajoling, persuasion and ordering failed and sadly, I had to resort to bribery. Yes, I am sorry to have to say that I had to pay my son a dollar to go on the ride. It makes me wonder what is wrong with my children in these kind of situations and by extension what is wrong with me. Any comments on this are welcome...maybe.

Anyway, after all that nervous excitement, we really did have fun and spent six hours wooshing down slides and around bends. On the way home we stopped at 'Maccas' just as one of the other mums had told me we would. “What's that?” I asked “McDonalds.” She said, without even rolling her eyes. Our kids, who have been deprived of such things for a few years were delighted to be reunited with the 'happy' meal, especially Small who was over the moon with her Hello Kitty watch. Combined with an unexpected meeting with Dora the Explorer things can't get much better than this when you're four.

Australians love abbreviating words to create new ones like 'Maccas', 'avo' (avocado) or 'arvo' (afternoon). There are so many examples I'd like to compile a list of them. But wait, the thoughtful people at Koalanet have already done it for me, so if you want to learn to talk like an Aussie and be in the know if you come across a bogan, a hoon or a jillaroo try Koalanet.

Small and Dora the Explorer

Noosa Festival of Surfing 2009

Bad News: Skin Cancer, Oil Slicks, and Sick Trees
Good News: Hot, Hot, Hot Surfers, doing what they do best

Some of the beautiful people, and Thomas Meyerhoffer, launching his radical longboard design

The people sitting on the beach must be hot, and ignorant of, or choosing to ignore, the dangers of the midday sun, whose ultra violet rays are so strong here in Australia. Under the shade of a pandanus tree, with its roots growing in a cone to support its trunk, it is cool, chilly even with the off-shore breeze. Laguna Bay is glittering as far as the eye can see, like a million tiny mirrors catching the sunlight. From the shoreline the white surf and gauzy green shallows darken gradually to deep velvety blue on the horizon. Noosa National Park is hidden around the leafy headland, but the white sands of the beaches and dunes of Cooloola National Park are clearly visible across the bay. Yet this paradise on earth conceals many hidden dangers, and it's not just the sun which is posing a serious health risk or only humans who are in peril. On land there is a mysterious insect infestation which is killing the iconic pandanus trees. At sea, an oil spill has blighted beaches only twenty kilometers from here, and along much to the coastline further south towards Brisbane, causing untold damage to plants and animals at sea and on land.

But here in Noosa, the Festival of Surfing must go on and a good time is being had by all. The pro-women's surf competition is underway and the only drawback visible to the naked eye are the waves, which are so small, it's a wonder anyone can surf on them at all. Lucky that these people are professionals who can surf on any wave, big or small. On Sunday pro-surfer Julian Wilson was surfing in the family competition with his dad. If the local press is to be believed, twenty year old Julian, is one of the best surfers in the world. Despite the obvious bias of the local press towards this Coolum surfer he has beaten Kelly Slater several times already so it may just be true. Julian and I flew to Brisbane together from Los Angeles in November. I'd never heard of him then, but like me, he is a poor flier who prefers to roam the plane and loiter outside the toilets for hours at a time, while other people are sleeping soundly in their cramped seats. His carroty tan and woolen hat pulled down low over wild straw-like hair made a lasting impact on me. I had no trouble recognizing him a few weeks later when I read saw him featured in a magazine. So you see, me and Julian go way back. Fortunately for him and the other pros I have decided to stick to surfing at an amateur level this year, and I can't help noticing that Julian looks much better in his board shorts, with no beanie and with wet hair.

Writing career conflicts with tenancy agreement

Writing and Renting in Australia

Well, yesterday was a momentous day in my writing career. After all I've read about writing, the one thing that seems clear is that you have to be prepared to get many, many rejections before a piece of your writing will be finally be accepted for publication. This is a truth universally acknowledged in writing and everyone knows the story of famous authors suffering multiple rejections, before finally someone showed an interest in their work. Knowing this, I thought I'd better get the ball rolling and actually submit some work to someone so I could start ticking off those rejection slips and start this writer's rite of passage. So yesterday, for the very first time, I actually sent a stranger, in this case the editor of the local rag, an article I'd written. Sure enough, I got an instant result and within hours my very first rejection was emailed to me. This is what it said:

“Hello Annabel
Many thanks for your column idea. We are always on the lookout for new ideas and ways to brighten up our publications. At present we are not in a position to add any extra columns, but we would be happy to revisit your column idea at a later date.
Best wishes”
(Name and address withheld)

Wow! I am really pleased with it. Especially because it didn't contain the words “that sucks” or “you loser” so all in all I think it bodes rather well for my writing career. If he actually read it that is.

Changing the subject now, here are a few thoughts on being a tenant and renting a house as opposed to being the proud owner of your own home. I think we actually got a bit spoilt renting in Costa Rica. We had a lovely Italian property manager who would go out of his way to make sure we had what we wanted in the way of furniture, house keepers, gardeners and pool maintenance people, and all for a price which we found acceptable. How things have changed. Here in Australia, we actually had to beg a property management company to allow us to stay in one of their houses. We had to provide references and copies of our bank statements, rental history and career progression. Of course, these all needed a bit of tweaking before they were accepted by someone. Now we pay through the nose to stay here, and are obliged to do all the cleaning, gardening and pool work all by ourselves. What's more, we are treated as second class citizens by the press, who are forever making snide comments about how no one wants to live in areas where there are a lot of renters and little things like that.

Meanwhile, our property management company is coming to conduct a property inspection tomorrow. This sounds quite reasonable and they kindly gave us a few weeks notice but with that notice came a letter that would strike fear into any mother's heart. It said that the property had to be neat and tidy, the garden free of weeds, it listed the items they would be checking and requested that we do a few obscure things like “clean the grout” in the bathrooms. The timing of this is bad. It comes, just when I am really getting into the flow with work and have gleefully lowered my standards when it comes to cleaning to avoid exactly these pointless activities that they are now asking me to perform.

So I have to go. Today will be devoted to tidying, cleaning, scrubbing, hovering and mopping ready for the clean test tomorrow. Actually, maybe I should just forget the cleaning and carry on as normal. Is it really that much of a sin if my house isn't 100% clean? After all, it's not a total health hazard or anything, we do perform a standard clean on a regular basis and, anyway, I like a home that looks lived in, not like a museum. I wonder what punitive action there will be if I don't make reach their expectations. Actually, it would be quite interesting to find out....

New to Noosa and enjoying all it has to offer

Free activities huge draw card for family with Scottish ancestry

Before moving to Noosa we lived in the south of Costa Rica where there were more monkeys than people and the only family day out would be the odd cabalgata, or horse parade. These were generally typified by the number of drunken cowboys riding their horses round the village, while sinking progressively lower into their saddles and leaving a trail of crushed beer cans behind them. Not really that family-friendly in fact. Prior to Costa Rica, we lived on Waiheke Island, a stunning wine-producing island in the north of New Zealand. There were some great events on Waiheke, like the wine and jazz festivals, or the spectacular biannual sculpture walk, but the time between these big events seemed to drag by, often for months on end. Meanwhile, here in Noosa we seem to be spoilt for choice with the vast array of things to see and do. Take last weekend for example. On Saturday, we enjoyed the TravelSmart Noosa event, kindly organised by the local council to encourage us to be more eco-friendly in our transport choices. To this end the lovely TravelSmart people organised a fun and non-competitive bike and walk circuit for us, and about 500 other people, providing free entertainment afterwards with music, a stilt-walker, a giant twister board and a prize raffle with loads of prizes that you'd actually want to win: a family voucher for Australia zoo, a bike or a two night stay in a posh hotel to name but a few. As if this wasn't enough, they also plied us with useful freebies including water bottles, bum bags, bicycle repair kits and backpacks.

Because we thought our seven year old would struggle to cycle to the event and then complete the ten kilometer circuit, we opted to drive there and do the five kilometer walk. I know, going by car kind of missed the point but still, we weren't the only guilty ones. The car park was full. I'm sorry to say that the walk didn't get off to a very good start. Our adorable four year old kept falling off her bike as the trainer wheels weren't in the right position. Our adventurous seven year old complained of thirst constantly. Even my dear hubby bleated on about how hot it was and how he wished they'd chosen a shadier route. He even suggested we sit down for a while, wait until all the other walkers had gone by and then take off our numbers and go back to the car! He then claimed that he was joking but I have to wonder. Just when I thought I'd surely go mad if I heard another complaint in this unrelenting heat we spotted a koala.

“Look,” someone shouted. “It's awake.” And sure enough it was. Well, if even a koala could stay awake for a few minutes to egg us on during the walk, then we could complete it. Mercifully, soon after that we reached a water stop, and it was all down hill from then on, via the bat colony and back to our starting point. Apart from one final scooter accident involving our independent ten year old, it was all good old-fashioned fun from then on. We saw a few familiar faces from school and the Surf Life Saving Club, and had a laugh thanks to the man who was manning the microphone and encouraging us to chant childish inanities like: “What do we want? The prize draw! When do we want it? Now!” Even though we didn't actually win one of the big prizes we came very close, had fun, got a bit of exercise and got motivated by a koala. Now, not a lot of people can say that.

For us jungle-dwelling, island escapees, it was an action-packed day and we had barely recovered from all the excitement when Sunday rolled around with a family fun day at the Noosa Regional Gallery. Yes, another free event to keep us off the streets. We rocked up grumpy, well, some of us, and not quite knowing what to expect only to be pleasantly surprised once again. A bevy of friendly, helpful volunteers guided our children through the array of shoe-related activities on offer. It's a monthly event and this time the theme of shoes was chosen to tie in with the amazing display of creative footwear by Pendragon Art Shoes. From designing shoes, to actually making them or decorating a shoe box, our kids spent a happy hour or so letting their creative juices flow. What's more we didn't even have to cook them lunch as there was a sausage sizzle to stave off hunger pangs and give us a much needed break from the feeding and cleaning merry-go-round. It wasn't just us that had fun either. I saw a few kids leave their thongs, as Australians adorably call flip flops, behind, preferring to go home sporting a pair of gladiator sandals hand-crafted out of cardboard and twine. So next time my kids want to buy a pair of fashionable but impractical shoes I know what to do, just let them make themselves a pair and keep everyone happy.

Moving abroad to Australia from Costa Rica and New Zealand and a foray into online grocery shopping

Surfing for Salami Sticks


Last week I was also trying to sort out my grocery shopping. Basically it has been taking up too much of my time since I moved to Australia and I need to get that sorted out. Still, at least I don't get lost on the way to the shops anymore. But when I do get there it still takes me ages as I don't know where anything is and I have to read every single price and label before I hit the right combination of cost and nutritional value. Of course, as well as taking so long, it always costs too much as well. But there's not much you can do about that when you've got five hungry mouths to feed, and a serious chocolate addiction to support. Anyway, we seemed to be heading off to the supermarket every other day, so in a bid to get that under control I decided to take advantage of our local supermarket's kind offer of free delivery on all Internet orders. This is something I've been wanting to try for ages but haven't been able to as the service just wasn't available where we lived in New Zealand and Costa Rica.

Well, I have to admit that shopping online didn't actually save me any time, although it could well do in the future if I make it a regular event. I think you're supposed to set up internet shopping lists so that your regular items and favourite buys are automatically loaded into the 'trolley'. OK, I admit, shopping online took me well over an hour. But that's no longer than it would have taken me to drive to the shop, drag my trolley up and down every single line, load it with groceries, queue to pay, then stuff it all in my car. In fact the only down side of shopping from home is that it didn't give me a chance to catch up on my Hollywood friends by having a sly read of the gossip rags while I wait at the checkout.

Anyway, after a good sixty minutes on the supermarket website, I finally placed my order, and organised to pay by mobile eftpos. I was delighted when a large refrigerated van turned up outside my house at 9am on Saturday morning. A charming young man then proceeded to unload everything I would need to feed the family over the weekend and the kids even got involved and helped schlep it into the kitchen. Of course I immediately noticed that I had been sent me long life milk, not fresh, but the delivery man assured me I could just call the customer service people and they'd refund me, then he would take away the unwanted stuff next time I ordered. Not really a big deal that one, and apparently if I did run out of milk I could use the UHT stuff and still not have to pay for it. So far so good.

What worried me though, was the amount of salami sticks I unpacked. Instead of the eight mini salami sticks I had ordered for the kids' lunchboxes I had been sent about 80 of them. There were enough salami sticks to feed half of Frankfurt. And they don't come cheap either. When I checked my receipt I saw I'd been charged (and paid) about $80 for them. Ooops. I pictured the wrath of my husband as he shook his head and reminded me how he told me it was a waste of time shopping online. I planned the conversation with the customer service people and decided the best tactic was just to admit my stupid error in over ordering, plead for forgiveness and beg to be able to return the 72 unwanted salami sticks. But they were real sticklers there at customer service and quite adamant that it was a fault on their website, and not my error at all. In view of this they promised to refund me the full amount for the preserved sausages and let me keep them too. So that's how I come to have a six month supply of salami sticks in my freezer. Quite a bonus and the only problem is my freezer's not really big enough so now I need to buy a new one.

So, all in all the online shopping was quite a success and I decided to do it again the week after. I had to laugh though when I logged onto the supermarket website, revisited my previous order and saw that they are right out of stock on salami sticks.

It's shocking that I've already been a bit slack on the blog and didn't post an entry at all last week. Probably because I was too busy making new mates. I went out surfing twice and met some lovely ladies. The first session there was absolutely no surf what so ever but we gamely gave it a go. If my surfing pals in Costa Rica had seen me they would have been totally unimpressed. My new pals were fab forties like me and seemed like a good laugh but maybe more into the social than the surfing element. The next day I went out with a younger crowd of surfing mums. They texted me the location saying "small, clean waves" so I was a bit shocked to see ten foot churners when I got to the beach. Way out of my league. Some of the girls gave it a go and managed to get out the back but even that would have been beyond me. It was scary out there. Still, I had fun riding the white water and getting that rush you get from being churned around in the surf which you just can't get when it's dead calm. Definitely good to be back in the surf and hooking up with some other surfing fans, even though it has eaten into my writing time.

Bad news: all the kids have announced they no longer like salami sticks.

Migrating and networking in a foreign country for the busy mum

Making friends but Not Exactly Influencing People

I do confess that last week I was feeling a touch lonesome and missing my far flung amigos. So this week I've vowed to take a more active role in making new contacts, meeting people and maybe even making some new friends! To do this I have settled on a four-pronged attack. This is following on from joining the Surf Life Saving Club where I am starting to feel a bit more comfortable and getting to know some friendly faces. My poor children though, they aren't really into the Nippers side of it and all the activity is a bit beyond them but that's another story. Anyway, these are the four lines of attack I have chosen in my bid to make some mates.

1. Help out at school with reading in Medium's year three class: I can meet Medium's classmates and maybe their parents down the track.
2. Help out in the tuck shop: this has been recommended as a great way to get to know the ins and outs of the school, hear the gossip and get to know some of the teachers. Plus, I'll get to know lots of faces around school and some of the mums (I bet there aren't any men!) who work or help out in the tuck shop.
3. Find some groovy women to go surfing with: I can do what I love, be active and make a friend or two in the process.
4. Go to the movies on cheap day Tuesday: make myself invite some women I'd like to get to know better and see the latest cinematic offerings, a rare treat and something I've been largely deprived of for 12 years!

So this week I've been charging ahead with my plans to meet the people. There's a lovely lady I've met through the SLSC who lives close to me and she very kindly gave me the phone number of a friend of hers who goes out surfing with some other ladies once a week. I took the plunge and called Claudia's friend who was super friendly, even though we had a Costa Rica style conversation on our cell phones and it took about four calls to organize. To give you an idea of what I mean by 'a Costa Rica style phone call' the initial contact went a bit like this:

Me: "Hi, my name's Annabel, I'm a friend of Claudia's, I'm interested in going surfing with you." This sounds a bit stark but please imagine that I was talking with a smile on my face.
My prospective new surf mate: "Hi, hi..." (white noise, silence)
Me: "Hello, hello, can you hear me? Are you there? Hello, hello? Sorry, I can't hear you, I'll have to call you back." (hanging up)

This charade was repeated several times, each time with a little bit more information being relayed, until finally it was agreed that she would text me in the morning after checking out the surf conditions. I have to say she was incredibly friendly and helpful despite having been landed with an apparently semi-deaf newbie to entertain during her special surf day.

Well, I was very excited and slightly nervous about my relaunch into the realm of ladies surfing. Not least because it means I have to get all my stuff ready and deliver the kids to school early so that will be a challenge. To avoid too much stress I located and packed my towel, rash top, wax, hat, dry clothes and tampons. Of course, it would have to be the first day of my period and having a little blue string dangling out of my bikini bottoms isn't quite the first impression I am hoping to make. Bit it was a risk I'd have to take. I laid out my togs and did everything except strap the surf board on the car roof because, after all, it wouldn't really feel like the morning without a bit of stress. As soon as I got down to the beach for my run at 5.40am I thought the surf date looked dubious. Sorry to boast about the running thing but I had to slip that in. This morning the sea was almost totally becalmed and that's the first time I've seen it like that. Also the beach had changed so much, with about two feet more sand than usual, that I completely failed to recognise my beach exit and walked and extra kilometer leaving me quite literally running late. Of course when I finally got home, soaked from an unseasonal downpour, the surfing had been canceled so we will have to try again next week.

Instead I kicked off the day by helping out in Medium's class. I get to hear the kids practice their reading which is lovely. I listened to about four of them and they were so quiet and studious it really touched me. The reading levels are hugely different with some children at a very low level and others quite fluent, with my boy being in the latter category I hope! Medium's teacher is lovely so it's good to spend some time with her and I met another mum who is helping out lots so off to a good start with my meet and greet despite there being no surf.

I followed up on that mini success by popping into the tuck shop and offering my services there for half and hour. Well, every little helps! Sure enough that was a good move. There were three mums in the tuck room baking cookies and making cakes. They were very friendly, quite funny and a veritable font of all kinds of useful information. In the short time I was there I made garlic bread, filled tiny pots with ketchup, prepared rolls with mayonnaise and lettuce for chicken burgers and got some good insider knowledge on the school scene. I must go back and help regularly. I offered to help on Friday but apparently there are loads of parent helpers there then and they were worried it might scare me off!

Next stop was Small's school to watch her karate lesson. The four year olds look adorable in their karate suits and I met a lovely mum and her son so that was a bonus. Small was practicing her blocks, kicks, scary looks and screams of "back off" with gusto and it is nice to think that one day she may have a fighting chance of defending herself should the need ever arise. I haven't really told my kids much about 'stranger danger' mainly because there hasn't been much of a need for it in the small communities we've been living in, but I think it's a different story here. Small's not shy so when they sat down at the end of the lesson to talk about 'staying safe' she was an eager participant.

"If a stranger said they had some kittens, puppies and sweets in their car would you go with them to see?" asked the teacher.
"Yes!" yelled Small enthusiastically. Those three items must be about her favorite things ever and it's scary to think that some pervert could use that against her or any other child.
"Don't you think you should ask your mummy or daddy first?" asked the teacher, concerned.
"OK" nodded Small, happily getting up to come and ask me.

I think that the 'stranger danger' thing is going over her head at the moment but I'm sad to say that I know she needs to be made aware of these things as do all our children. The age of innocence is over.

Anyway, all in all I think that my forays into friendship have been a great success so far. At least the scheduled ones. There was an awkward moment this morning at the end of my walk when I greeted a neighbor cheerily with a beaming smile. It swiftly turned to a look of revulsion as I felt the need to point out:

"Your dog's just done a poo."

Shipping personal effects to Australia and childcare

Post Traumatic Typing Syndrome

On Saturday I wrote this:

There is one cause of great frustration in my life at the moment and that is my typing. I actually thought I was quite a good typist to begin with, reasonably fast, but I made a lot of mistakes. So I decided to follow the Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing CD ROM and it is a nightmare. First Mavis evaluated my skill level and pronounced it to be 8 words per minute. The same as my ten year old! Basically, I am having to relearn how to type and it is taking forever. After four hours and 40 painful minutes of hard work with Mavis I have attained a top speed of 24 words per minute. Big deal. I'm sure that I was much faster before I took the lessons. So the question is not whether an old dog like me can learn new tricks but why she would want to. Poor Mavis has been cursed and trashed mercilessly throughout the progress, despite her never ending patience and kind words of encouragement. Apparently I am a great typist in the making! Hardly the kind of thing I aspire to I can tell you. But this is a means to an end and if it helps me write faster it will all be worthwhile. The big problem is that I have to do it all Mavis's way. It seems with typing there is no room for creativity and little need for style. In short its is all rather a yawn.

On Sunday I wrote this:

I have now done five hours and thirty minutes of typing practice. The net result of all this hard work is that my speed is now 24wpm. The same as before! In the interim I was promoted to intermediate level. A huge hurdle that really made me think I was finally getting somewhere. Then I got demoted back to beginner level. Truly demoralizing and all because Rich was talking to me during a test. Mavis is a cruel task master who shows no mercy. She keeps making me repeat the home keys when even a child could see that it's the critical full stops and commas that are slowing me down. That and constant petty errors as my fingers struggle to control themselves and stick to their allotted keys. If it was a football game there would be a lot of whistle blowing and calling "off side".

Other news

I decided to step up my running as it was going to take too long to be able to run for 30 minutes on the trot so this morning I ran three lots of ten minutes. The typing is going worse than running - still only 28 words per min after six hours of effort!

It turns out I wasn't as mean as I thought I was and I shipped loads of toys and other children's paraphernalia over to Australia. Small is finally asleep with at least 20 stuffed animals. The little lamb is just not going to sleep in the evening and I think she has been sleeping at childcare. They encourage all the kids to lie down and rest after an early lunch. Well, force them actually. Small said she got told off for fidgeting during rest time. I will have to broach it with the teachers.