He is a tourist. She is a holidaymaker. I, am a TRAVELLER! PART 1 in a series.

My paid working week came to a close, as is usual, yesterday afternoon.  Quite pleasant to wave my long suffering colleagues goodbye knowing I don't have to worry about them until next week.  Although it's hard to get in the groove for just two days.   I obviously still mostly have my brain set to "mother of small child" mode because I do some dumb things. Like when I'm on the phone trying to say something without letting other people in the office hear, I use the universal parenting technique of spelling the words out, like I do with M when I don't want P to hear.  Note to self: Spelling words out loud is NOT a secret code.  Pretty sure my colleagues know what B-O-R-E-D spells.  And pretty sure some of them think I'm an I-D-I-O-T, but there you have it.  I can just see them rolling their eyes as they listen to me hissing down the phone in a sort of stage-whisper, spelling out words on the lowdown like I think it's the Enigma Code.

The funereal atmosphere at work was actually somewhat alleviated by the absence of a couple of senior overlords, so, as the proverb goes, us mice played up.  We went crazy and talked in the corridors and PLAYED MUSIC IN THE OFFICE!  I know, somebody stop us we are HAVING TOO MUCH FUN!

One of my colleagues R is planning her first solo overseas jaunt to Europe, and her planning has been making me think of the somewhat limited overseas travels I've undertaken in my life.

As anyone who has been lucky enough to walk the path less traveled alongside me can attest, I am well known for my adventurous, risk taking nature. I'm always the first to rush over and tie the bungee chord to my feet before plunging over the nearest available cliff,  the first to skip joyfully into the whitewater raft, the first to chow down on crunchy roasted grasshoppers and so forth*.

So I thought I'd get all Lonely Planet on your arses and do a little series on some of the more interesting anecdotes and places I've visited.  Just call me Bear Grylls.  Or maybe Bearina Grylls.

Here's the first instalment.

I left my heart stomach in Koh Phi Phi.  

M and I were having a wonderful honeymoon in Thailand.  M did spend 24 hours of it chucking his guts up in the hotel room, but apart from that the two weeks had gone brilliantly.  The final day of the stay was to be the best part of all!  We decided to go on a boat trip out to the beautiful Koh Phi Phi islands (is that tautologous? might be.).  Seen that movie The Beach?  Yeah, some pretty awesome backpacker style cool destination, thanks very much, perfect for a cool boho hippie type relaxed beach person like me!!!!! WHAT MORE COULD I ASK FOR!?

See this is Kho Phi Phi.  Gaw-jus, right? Photo by us.

I should pause here to add that the whole tour was basically my idea.  Because if anyone embodies the cool suntanned Thai-fisherman pants wearing Aussie tourist in Asia it is ME!  I practically scream HIPPIE TOURIST!!!!!!!!

Annnnyway, at my nagging, M booked said tour and we got up early that last day and tooled out to the marina to climb aboard our luxurious vessel.

My first inkling the whole thing wasn't what I thought, was when, instead of being greeted with this sort of transportational arrangement...

[Source]

...we were met with this.

Taken by me. After the first journey was over.

I was vaguely disappointed but figured, what the hell.

The fact that they started handing out sea sickness tablets to us as we boarded probably should have set off a few more alarm bells for me but despite my hardcore fear of boats, the ocean, the beach, death, sharks, deep water, and so forth, I remained in an uncharacteristically relaxed honeymoon-esque frame of mind and chose to ignore the twinges of doubt and cheerfully found a seat.

Me at the beginning of the trip, full of excitement and anticipation, and wearing a pink name tag.  See, TOTES BOHO HIPPIE WITH A SUNTAN!!  Well, I'm wearing a cheesecloth shirt anyway.

We set off at a cracking pace.  In a small speedboat.  Across the ocean.

People, I'd never been in a speedboat before.  They. Are. Fucking. Scary.  And you know what?  When the sea is rough, they are even. Fucking. Scarier.

And the sea was angry that day my friends.  Like an old man trying to return soup at a deli.**

As the boat made it's way out across the open water, going THWACK, THWACK, THWACK, I began to feel a tad nervous in my tummy.  M patted my hand manfully and reassured me that all was well, it wasn't too rough, speedboats just went THWACK as a matter of course.  I calmed down a little.

Until.....pffft....putter putter putter sputter spurt pffttttttttttt. Silence.

The fucking motors (as depicted in above photo) had died.  Our formerly calm and nimble boathands (one also depicted above) started jumping about and talking loudly and in a panicked fashion in Thai, what with it being in Thailand and all.

"What the FUCK is happening!" I hissed at M, "What the fuck, fuck, fuck, shit, we've broken down in the MIDDLE OF THE OCEAN!" 

M tried to calm me but wasn't having much luck.

I don't know if you've ever been on a tiny crammed broken down speedboat in the open water on a choppy day in a foreign country, but what happens is the boat sinks....down...down...down, until the "choppy" water and waves are looming over you like the fucking Perfect Storm is about to hit.  And the boat stops going THWACK THWACK THWACK and starts going UP and down, UP and down, UP and down until the family sitting across from you get seasick and the little girl throws up all over her mum's lap.

"Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck", I mutter, wringing my hands. "We are going to die out here I JUST KNOW IT and it smells like VOMIT I DON'T KNOW WHICH IS WORSE."

At one point I sprang to my feet and attempted to walk to the other end of the boat, in a sort of panicked attempt to escape the situation, and while doing so I was thrown into the lap of various Russian tourists including this woman in the orange bikini...

Anyway, just as I was really about to totally lose my shit and plunge overboard in a foolhardy attempt to swim for freedom (in the DEEP WATER with the darkness and the sharks and the gahhhhhhhh), the nimble boathands finally kicked the old girl back into life, and we rose once again from beneath the waves and THWACK, THWACK, THWACKED our way over to the island.  When we got there I looked like this...

After.  Aged 20 years, no shit.

Once we got to the sticky uppy out of the watery bits of Koh Phi Phi, can't remember what they are called, we were all supposed to go snorkelling.  M plunged in, again quite manfully, and in what can only be described as the BRAVEST THING I HAVE EVER DONE, I gingerly crept down and bobbed around in the water for a while too, while the fish nibbled my toes and gnawed at my fingers.  Don't think I wasn't replaying that shark attack scene from The Beach over in my head a thousand times. Because I was. Like a mofo.

There were about 20 million billion trillion other people and boats there and no-one dropped their anchor, so despite the crowds of bobbing snorkelers, every two seconds one of the boats would randomly start up their propeller in order to ensure none crashed into each other.

There was one huge ancient boat there that contained a massive number of Chinese tourists.  The tourists on that boat sort of lined up so their tour guides could shove life jackets on them and then practically throw them into the water to flounder blindly around en masse.  Didn't seem to matter that they couldn't swim.  One panicky be-life-jacketed girl made an ungainly beeline for our boat, reaching blindly out to us and trying to grab onto the freaking propeller, oblivious to the screams of warning from us and our boat dudes.

See?  Like shooting fish in a barrel.

I was waiting for the water to turn into a bloodbath, it seemed only a matter of time before one of the whirring propellers sliced the head off a bobbing snorkeller.  Fortunately it didn't happen and we continued on to the main island for our classy smorgasboard luncheon with this guy...

Rocking the swimming trunk and multi-plait look.  And why not? Good luck to him I say.

The trip back to the mainland was less eventful but I have never been so freaking glad to see dry land ever in all my days.  This was me later the same day.

Toasting our survival.

 So there you have it.

Do you think I can get a job on Getaway?  Anyone else like to wear swimming trunks and/or man plaits?  Are you brave and fearless and adventurous like me?

*Um, NOT! So not.  Irony again.
**Thank you George Costanza.

2012 - the year in review.

WARNING - long and photo heavy.

Sick of hearing me moan and whine and groan and complain? Me TOO! So luckily this post will have me easing up a little on the poor me stuff.  One of my steps in the grand plan to GET RICH QUICK by becoming a famous Mummy Blogger, is to link up with the lovely Grace's "Flog Your Blog Friday" linkie on her blog, "With Some Grace".  FYI the get rich quick plan is NOT working out. Lucky I enjoy the blog anyway.

Anyhoo Grace has set us the task of doing a 2012 highlights reel for Friday's linkie, so I have dutifully obliged.  Thanks be to God for Facebook keeping some kind of record of my life because frankly at the moment I can hardly remember what I did yesterday let alone 12 months ago.  The interwebs stole my brain.

FYI I might not be very funny in this post.  In fact you guys I'm probably going to get downright emo.  It's been a big year.

January - My aunt and uncle celebrated their 50th (yes!!) wedding anniversary.  I was great with child.  Baby no. 2 was due on 30 January.  I must have a hell of a comfy uterus because he didn't make an appearance until 11 days after the alotted due date.  Lazy, lazy little bugger.

The last photo of my overdue bump, before they evicted the squatter.

February - Our beautiful baby boy B was born, as I said, 11 days after his due date.  Darling boy we love you so much. I was stupidly worried I couldn't love a baby boy as much as I loved P. Ha! As if. You have us in the palm of your tiny hand.

Squishy faced baby is squishy.

P meets B.

March - I turned 32. I had a picnic in the park but there's no photographic evidence.  Apart from being insanely windy I think it was a nice day.

We learnt that my stepfather D had Stage 4 secondary bone cancer.  His prognosis was not good.  This was a dreadful shock for him, his kids and my mum. And for us.

Baby B and his "Dai".

Baby B getting used to the world.

April -  We traveled to Mum and D's beautiful beach house to spend Easter with them, along with 2 of his 3 children.

We didn't really talk about it, but I think we knew it would be the last time we were all together in that house.

 May - M had his birthday.  P "helped" make the cake.

Oh yeah.  Cake batter.  Nectar of the Gods.

June - We went to my lovely Aunt and Uncle's 40th wedding anniversary shindig.

My uncle is wearing his "formal" volleys.

The girl cousins.  Channeling Cate Blanchett with the out-turned palms for maximum thin-ness

M and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary with a rare date night out.

What a pair of lookers.  Well, you can't really tell but take my word for it we are SPUNKS!

Everyone felt that my stepfather D was responding quite well to some palliative chemo.  Unfortunately in June the cancer caused spontaneous fractures in his bones and he was hospitalised. We traveled up to see him.  It was for the last time.

No words are necessary really.

I think it was some time around here we found out M's mum had leukaemia and was going to undergo chemotherapy. Her prognosis is good.

July - On the 22nd July, my stepfather DJG died.  He chose some songs to play at his funeral.  This is one of them.





I could say more but it isn't my story. I wasn't very close to D. He was a quiet man and didn't involve himself much in my life, and anyway I was hard to get along with and very close to my own dad.  The grief for my mum and his children however is overwhelming, he was a devoted husband and father and I'm glad he got the chance to be a grandfather to my kids and to his first baby granddaughter D.

Some time around here I also got a phone call from the CEO of the government agency I work at to let me know my permanent full time position had been made redundant.  Luckily I was still being offered 2 days a week on a contract.  Still.  Upsetting to say the least.  Talk about timing.

August - Our beautiful P turned 3.  We got her a trampoline.  My darling girl, how can it be 3 years since we brought you home from hospital, tiny in the baby capsule, me sitting in the back next to you, Daddy driving at 20 kms/hour in case we crashed, the responsibility of our tiny cargo overwhelming us?  We love you.  You are spirited and creative, you love to dance and run and talk and of course watch telly.  You love drawing and most of all you love dress ups. You are a peach and you have everyone under your spell.

September -  I started the blog.

We traveled up to Mum and D's beach house again, to visit it one last time before Mum made the move back down to her old house on the Sunshine Coast. She and D had decided it would be too lonely for her up there after he had died.

October - We hung out lots with Grandpa G, as usual.

The awl man and the young'un, as my Irish cousin put it.

We did a bit of gardening and it looked good briefly before looking shit again.

November - Urhhhh I'm getting tired but I'm almost done...

Baby B was baptised.

Cute, no?

December - It's not over yet! Don't worry, as you all know through this blog I love oversharing EVERY small detail of my life so I'll keep you ALL updated.

Gawwd that took forever to do.

2012 has been a big year. So much joy, so much change, so much stress and grief.  I feel stretched so thin as to be almost transparent, exhausted, depleted and run down.

Goodbye 2012.  We laughed, we cried.  What more can I say?

Poo of a day. Festivus. For the rest of us.

WARNING: This post is long,  photo heavy and self-indulgent.


I had a CRAP DAY!  Everywhere I go I read blogs that say "I'm sick of hearing about people whinging and whining about life, harden up and be POSITIVE" and dammit I try hard to be humorous and see the good (which is hard as I am naturally all "What do you mean the glass is half empty?  It was never full!  Who drank it?  I'm thirsty and I want a drink and you mean my glass is EMPTY?") and what not but basically today was SHIT and I was a SHIT MOTHER and yelled at my toddler and rang my busy husband at work bawling and hysterical and had a HARDCORE MELTDOWN!  I put this status update on my personal FB account;

I usually hate whining FB rants but my 3 y.o. daughter and her behavior have reduced me to screaming rage filled tears today. I'm not looking for reassurance that I am an awesome mother here because I am freaking telling you today has been a What Not To Do as a Parent Day and I feel like poo. Yelling, screaming, crying, begging, shouting, chasing, threatening. You name it. Over it. Over it. Over it. I know there are people with awful problems and so forth but today I can't get perspective. And no booze. And no comfort eating. Farking farkity fark feck bum poo arse bugger bollocks crap shit.

This actually had the effect of cheering me up no end because of course my personal cheer squad chimed in with supportive crap out the whazoo so I am ok again and about to GET ME SOME BOOZE.  Also we bought P McDonalds in an attempt to atone for the horror day.  Poor kid stuck with a psycho mother. Who buys her junk food. Oh well.

Here's some slightly more cheering festive thoughts from me to distract from the gloom and horror of the day.

This year we will be up at the Slapdash family compound and spending Christmas Day with Mum in a sort of weird retro revisiting of family Christmases I have known.  It will be nice but also sad.  Last Christmas we didn't even know my stepdad was sick and now he is gone.  Anyway here's a sort of Dickensian tribute, a photo montage of recent-ish Family Christmases Past.

A much younger Mum sitting near the Chrissy Tree perusing some weird  retro cookbook for Christmas Dinner ideas no doubt. Maybe 1995-ish?

  This pic is from what I like to call "The Portly Years".  Mum and Dad and me looking rather well fed indeed. Brother C probs taking the pic.

This is much more recent.  Me and my bro at the unit at Mooloolaba we all stayed in one year.  This was M's first Christmas with us.  Probably 2005?

My first Christmas with M's family.  M partaking in a little tipple as he glazes the ham.

Cake and sherry.  The essence of Christmas.

The completed ham from that year.

M checking out his ancestral Christmas Tree.

Lunch with his family.  Me on my best behaviour, I didn't burp or even use the wrong cutlery or anything!

It was pork that year.  Crackling, anyone?

Fruity flan!

Another year, at M's family pre-Christmas knees-up.

The same year.  We went out to lunch at Pepper's Hervey Bay on Christmas Day with Dad.  Delightful and no washing up.

Same year.  M partaking in some bubbles.

Same year.  Awkward family shot.

First Christmas in our new house.

Dad and my brother-in-law with our niece.  

 All M's fam and my Dad and bro.  Note the crazy blue velvet cusions on the chairs.  We also inherited this dining suite from the same lady as the couches.  I ripped those suckers off and Mum and I reupholstered the hell out of them by buying some cheap IKEA fabric and staple gunning it on in true slapdash fashion.

As above, with atmospheric blurriness.

P's first Christmas.  Have Bumbo, will travel.

Christmas with Grandpa.  This was a hellish year where we drove to every parent under the sun and I went mad.

Christmas at Mum's with my brother C.

It was some time around this day that I went mad.  Screaming , sleep-deprived batshit crazy.  Sorry everyone.  Seems like this is a bit of a pattern for me!!!

Christmas the next year just us 3.  Was supposed to be Mum and her husband D too but the horror floods meant no traveling.  It was quite lovely really not to have to go anywhere.

Angel scampering.

The loot.

The morning.

Family photo.  Lush crazy vegetables and herbs in the background due to major crazy rain that year.

Last year.  Everyone at our house again.

Cousins.

My stepdad. And the ham. We didn't know this would be his last Christmas.

Pressies.

Table set ready to roll.

Almondy boozey fruity cakey goodness.

I for one can't wait for Christmas.  I am anything but a Scrooge.  Bring it on. We all need to look forward to something.