Christmas

Christmas is almost here! I’ve been so busy pining for a holiday lately, that without me even realising it, it suddenly became December. And now there's only a week and a half left until Christmas.

I’m sure I’ve mentioned before how much I adore Christmas. It’s not a religious event for me. It’s not about the birth of Jesus, and it’s most certainly not about a fat man in a red suit sneaking into my house while I sleep and leaving presents.
For me, it’s about family. It’s about getting together with all of the people that I love and having a big meal. It’s about giving gifts to my loved ones to show them that although I don’t always say it, they mean a lot to me and I appreciate them.

But while these are the things that I love about Christmas, sometimes life and the people in it don’t seem to want to work with me on this. Some people seem to feel that Christmas is all about obligation, and whinging about Christmas obligations can just suck the fun right out of it in a matter of moments.

Take, for example my step-sister-in-law. This is only our second Christmas together as a family; and for some reason she felt the need to have a very long and complicated discussion (via facebook) about gift giving and who would be gifting to who and how much we were spending. This was while hinting all the while that she didn't want to buy anyone gifts.
As far as i'm concerned, gift giving does not require pre-meditation. The act of gift giving shouldn't be done with any sort of expectation of reciprocation, and most importantly, gift giving should never be done grudgingly. People seem to forget that there is a reason behind it all that isn't just 'because it's Christams and that's what you do.'


Christmas this year has been further complicated for me by crazy family members.
In every family, there are the ‘strange’ relatives. The unusual ones who are crazy or perpetually angry - or sometimes both.

In my family, we have more than our fair share of these, but most specifically my Uncle and Aunt on my Dad’s side. Some years ago, they moved away from Melbourne to a small town about two and half hours drive away. This wasn’t a problem for Christmas lunches, because after years of jumping from house to house at Christams, we had settled into a routine of having Christmas lunch at my parents place. It's the most centrally located place for all of the family, meaning that everyone has the shortest drive possible to spend Christmas with their family. My Aunt and Uncle knew this when they moved, and each year they drove down to see the family for Christmas.

But as the years progressed, my Aunty and Uncle became more and more withdrawn form the family, until they stopped coming to Christams all together.
Then this year, out of the blue, they decided that they wanted my 83 year old grandmother to spend Christmas with them. Only they didn’t want to make the two and a half hour drive to come and get her. Instead, my other Aunt (also on my dad's side) had to offer to give up her regular family get-together on Christmas day and take my Nanna all the way to spend the day with my crazy relatives. And while it sounds nice that my Nanna gets to see her son and daughter on Christmas day, there's one person that got forgotten in it all. My dad. And it's not a case that the two and a half hour drive is too much when the rest of his family lives here. It's that they didn't even invite him.

So I guess that Christmas isn't about family for everyone.


As well as Grandparents, Aunts and Uncles not being around for Christmas lunch this year, my brother and his wife are in England with their three kids, visiting my sister-in-law's family for the holidays.

So it's going to be a quiet one this year. Instead of 18 of us having lunch together, there will be five. But that's ok, because it's five wonderful family members that I get to spend a whole day with. And I get to spend the evening with my new family-in-law, who despite all the trauma of the gift-giving debate, are great people too.

And for me, that's what really makes Christmas.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

You know what one of the most awesome things about living in Australia is? (and there are many.)
We get Christmas before most of the rest of the world! In only 2 short hours it will be Christmas day here, and soon I will be eating a gigantic roast lunch while most of the rest of the world is just waking up to the very early beginnings of the day.

Don't feel bad that my celebration starts early though, because sadly, this also means that Christmas Day is over for me long before it is for everyone else.


So while this might be a little early for some of the visitors to my blog who live on the other side of the world, I just want to say that I hope that you have a very Merry Christmas full of good food, lots of laughs and happiness and that like me you're lucky enough to be able to spend it with those who mean the most to you.

Merry Christmas Internet!!!

We Wish You A Swingin' Christmas!

It’s the 21st of December, and while I’m still at work, I’ve spent my time trying to pretend it’s the Christmas holidays by listening non-stop to Christmas carols. Unfortunately, I only have one Christmas album on my iPod – so for the past week I’ve been listening to the same 14 tracks over and over and over again.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, because as far as I’m concerned, it’s the best Christmas album around. It’s a compilation that some friends made up and gave to me a couple of years ago, and every Christmas since it’s been played non-stop.

So given that I don’t have a lot of time for writing at the moment, I thought the least I could do would be to share this album with you so that you can enjoy the same swingin’ Christmas soundtrack that I do every year.

I have to admit, that the album is very 'snowy christmas' heavy - which isn't really relevant in Australia, however this year, for the first time, it seems appropriate because we are having the coldest, rainiest freaking summer in about 50 years.

So here it is - 'We Wish You A Swingin' Christmas!!'

Jingle Bells - Natalie Cole

Happy Holiday - Peggy Lee

Winter Wonderland - Ella Fitzgerald

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas - Johnny Mathis

Sleigh Ride - Ella Fitzgerald

Santa Claus is Comin' to Town - Bing Crosby & The Andrews Sisters

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer - Dean Martin

The Twelve Days of Christmas - Bing Crosby & The Andrews Sisters

Santa Baby - Eartha Kitt

The Christmas Song - Nat King Cole

White Christmas - The Drifters

Jing-A-Ling, Jing-A-Ling - The Andrews Sisters

Jingle Bell Rock - Amy Grant

Jingle Bells - Diana Krall

Done

So after a month of slogging away trying to get my photos done for this year’s Photo5 competition, I’m DONE.

This year I set myself the task of taking all 5 photos, no matter how uninspired I felt. I did pretty well with them I think – I only really had trouble with the confetti brief.

Now it’s just a matter of waiting for two weeks to see if I made the finals – although in all honesty I’m so happy with the photos I’ve ended up with, I wouldn’t mind at all if they don’t make it.


Now I guess it’s time to get back to normal life. I can’t spend the next two weeks obsessing over my photos the way I have for the last month. Well, I could give it a go, but I’m not sure I have the stamina for that kind of obsession. I’d never be able to become a stalker. I’m too easily distracted.

In fact, I’m so easily distracted that I’m having a lot of trouble concentrating on work at the moment. I think it’s a combination of the Photo5 distraction and the fact that I am just 8 weeks away from wonderful, glorious, magnificent holidays. I’m choosing to forget that this also means that Christmas is only 9 week away. I love Christmas, but I’m not quite prepared yet for the chaos that it brings.

Instead I’m focusing on the fact that for the first time in as long as I can remember, I don’t have to work right up until Christmas Eve. I have the entire week off before Christmas, which never happens. I feel that it should always end up this way. For me, Christmas is a bigger signifier of the end of the year than New Year’s Eve. It’s symbolic of making it through another year, the way NYE is for so many other people. Plus it works out better as an end of year celebration, because there’s no such thing as a Christmas resolution - which means you don’t have to make a heap of resolutions that you will ultimately end up breaking anyway.

The only problem with Christmas as an end of year event is that when you work right up until Christmas Eve, it feels a lot like you’ve worked right through the entire year without a break. So naturally, having a week off work pre-Christmas is ideal. Or I imagine it will be. I’ll let you know in December.

Alcohol = Smart

The Christmas chaos has come and gone in pretty much the usual fashion. Every day leading up to Christmas day was sunny and warm; Christmas day was cold and overcast.
It didn’t last long though – I already have my inevitable and very painful Christmas sunburn – a kind of painful reminder that too many years sitting inside at my desk job every day without a window has left me freakishly prone to burning despite an olive complexion that should make burning more difficult.

Today is the first day since Christmas that I’ve had a moment to myself and it’s really kind of nice. The last week has been an utterly chaotic race to catch up with every family member and friend that I haven’t seen in the last year. It all starts again tonight and goes until the end of this week, but then at least it will all be done and I can start to relax.


Christmas Day this year saw me going a bit heavy on the Christmas Spirits (as anticipated) and it brought something kind of odd to my attention.
When I’ve had a few drinks, I get kind of oddly smarter, while also stupider in the way that can only be induced by alcohol. Let me explain.

I read a lot. By a lot, I mean a ridiculous amount. I’ll read pretty much anything you give me – I’m not picky. If I have nothing to read, I’ll just read the same books over and over.
I prefer fiction and although I did say I wasn’t picky, I absolutely refuse to read anything political – fictional or not. But that’s a whole other story and I’m getting off track. Christmas holidays does that to me.

Anyway....The point I’m trying to make here is that if you read a lot it means that you tend to know more words than people who don’t read a lot. I’m talking more about synonyms for regular words rather than knowing entirely new words - ways of phrasing things that regular people don’t use in every day conversation.

Sometimes, when I’m talking to someone and am trying to phrase what I want to say, a much more obscure than necessary word will pop into my head and my brain will filter it so that I don’t use it, but instead use the word that will be understood by more people. I have enough trouble with basic social situations without being the chick that uses odd words and always has to explain what she’s on about.

What I’ve noticed is that once I’ve had a few drinks, the filter that gets rid of all these unnecessary words shuts down. My brain is suddenly on its own in the vocabulary department. So suddenly, I become this blubbering drunk who, given my special kind of social retardation, says really stupid things but manages to sound kind of brainy (and pompous) while doing it.

It’s a very weird phenomenon that I’ve never noticed before – probably because I’m usually too drunk to realise that people don’t understand what I’m saying. Or maybe I just think that it’s the alcohol that makes me indecipherable rather than the words I’m using.

This would make me ideal to be the loner in the bar who listens to your problem, and then gives you wise drunken advice – the kind that you completely ignore, but that makes you feel better because at least you’re not the drunken thesaurus hanging out in a bar all alone.

Now if only I could get the hang of texting while drunk, I could really have it all.

Christmas Eve

It’s Christmas Eve, and while I really have nothing much to share, I felt like I should post something, because it will be a few days before I have time to post again, and I hate to feel like I’ve gotten slack about blogging.

I’ve been up since 7am helping to prepare things for the big family lunch tomorrow. It’s a huge traditional meal, and there are usually about a dozen of us there for lunch and 18 or so for dinner. It’s a big day. We spend a lot of time setting up the table in a kind of explosion of Christmas decorations - green tablecloths, red sparkly placemats, coloured crackers and Christmas confetti everywhere. It’s like Christmas threw up all over the table, and that’s the way it should be – festive to the point of tackiness. It wouldn’t be Christmas otherwise.

Santa has already been, dropping off a new 46” LCD TV (I must have been really, really nice this year!) that I will later crank up carols by candlelight on in a last ditch attempt at maximising my Christmas spirit.

Now all that’s left to do is sit back, put on some carols, open a beer and wait for tomorrow to roll around.

I hope that everyone reading this has a Christmas Day as happy and enjoyable as mine promises to be. Merry Christmas everyone!

It's Back!

Yes! I’ve found it! My Christmas spirit! Well, kind of. Last night I went out to a late movie – a kind of girls night out thing. Have I mentioned before how Gold Class is the greatest invention ever?

It was about 9pm by the time we left the cinema. The second I stepped outside it hit me. The air was warm - that kind of mild, balmy weather that means you could wear as much or as little clothing as you like. The sky that was still blue, although it was dark outside – almost as though the day was refusing to be turned into night, even though the sun had already disappeared. There were Christmas lights everywhere and the shopping centre was crowded with people – and that was it. All of these things somehow combined to give me that festive Christmas feeling.

It stayed with me the entire way home. It was gone when I woke up this morning, but for a couple of hours, I had it. It’s good because it means I’m not quite doomed to become a Scrooge yet. There’s still hope that by Friday I’ll have found that Christmas feeling.

Christmas Party

Three last, fun filled days of work before we’re on holidays - finally!

I have to say that the one thing I miss about my previous job is the Christmas parties. They were big affairs at trendy restaurants with lots and lots of booze and no limitation on how long the bar tab ran for. If you could ignore the half of the staff that were pure evil, you could have a really good time. I never went to one that didn’t last at least 12 hours.

In the new job they’re a lot different. I’m not looking forward to this one at all. It’s tomorrow night at a cafe in the middle of nowhere, an hour’s drive from home. There is no alcohol, because the cafe is BYO, so if we want to drink, we have to supply our own alcohol. And the place is only licensed for BYO until 11pm anyway.
There are no taxis home if we do drink, because it’s seriously, without exaggeration, in the middle of the bush. Besides which, an hour’s cab ride from the middle of nowhere would probably set me back an entire day’s wages.


So I can’t really say I’m all that enthused about this one. Or perhaps it’s just my increasing cynicism around the festive season that is making me un-enthused. I’ve always loved Christmas, but this year I’m struggling to really get myself even a little bit excited. That could be the reason that the Christmas party isn’t appealing to me as much. Maybe I’m just reaching my Scrooge years.

Fires & Spirits

We had a bit of excitement here at work yesterday when the factory two doors down caught on fire. To be honest, I had no idea anything was going on until 5 or 6 fire trucks pulled into the street. Then I stood up to go downstairs and see what was going on and a frenzied policeman ran through the factory screaming at us all to evacuate.

We all wandered out into the street where we could see thick black smoke pouring out of the factory just up the street. It was 39 degrees yesterday so it was way too hot to be outside, let alone in the middle of the street in full sun. We took it in turns to stand in the shade of the one small sapling that someone had planted nearby.

20 or so firemen ran around connecting hoses to hydrants and yelling important sounding things to each other, and then it was all a bit of a letdown after that. The smoke just sort of disappeared and the policemen told us we could go back to work.

I haven’t yet worked out how standing in the street was any safer than being inside a big concrete box, but I guess he knew what he was doing since it’s his job and all. Well, actually he was a traffic cop, so maybe it wasn’t his job.

These kind of minor emergencies really do manage to break up the day a bit though. It’s just a shame that I had left my camera at home yesterday. I actually picked it up on the way to work, then thought that it would be a waste to lug it to work where nothing ever happens, so I put it down again.



Honestly there isn’t much going on around here other than that. Christmas is coming up and no matter what I do, I can’t seem to find my Christmas spirit this year. In an attempt to build some excitement, I put 200-odd Christmas songs onto my MP3 player and listened to them in the car on the way to and from work. But that just got annoying when I wanted to listen to something else and shuffle mode kept picking out Christmas songs.

I guess I’m just hoping for a last minute rush of Christmas spirit. Alternatively, if I can’t find any, I may resort to Christmas spirits instead.

Smell Memory

I put my Christmas tree up over the weekend. It’s a fake one, which is kind of a letdown, but we can’t have a real tree for many and varying reasons, the most important of which are that KJ gets hay fever from them and I’m too lazy to clean up after a real tree.

Instead I went to my brother’s house and got my Christmas jollies out of inhaling the pine-ey goodness of their real Christmas tree.
The smell of pine trees always makes me happy because it reminds me of childhood Christmases and the excitement of running downstairs on Christmas morning to find the pile of presents that Santa had left for me. It reminds me of big family lunches and eating so much food that I would feel sick by the end of the day.

This weird kind of smell-memory got me thinking about what other smells had some kind of significance for me. This is what I’ve come up with so far, but I’m sure the list would be much longer if I spent a bit more time thinking about it.

• Freshly ironed clothes smell like responsibility to me. I can only assume that this is because the smell of ironing clothes was always present at the big events where your mum wanted you to look your best. First days of school, big functions, job interviews – these kinds of responsible moments were all moments where your clothes had that newly ironed smell.
  
  
• The smell of truss tomatoes reminds me of my grandfather. He used to grow tomatoes in his backyard and from memory he had quite the green thumb. To this day, the smell of truss tomatoes always makes me feel warm, safe and happy. It makes making salad a very happy experience.
  
  
• The smell of ‘Acqua di Gió’, while it makes me want to gag, reminds me of a boyfriend I had who was pretty influential in my life, but who acted very melodramatically (I think he thought he lived in one of those generic teen angst TV shows). Similarly, the smell of ‘Joop! Pour Homme’ reminds me of the guy I lost my virginity to.
  
  
• The smell of mothballs reminds me of my grandmother – not because she had that old lady mothball smell like so many old women do, but because she was a dressmaker and used mothballs in the endless bolts of fabric that cluttered her house.
  
  
• The smell of burning rubber reminds me of summer. I know that’s kind of bizarre, but I’m pretty sure it relates to a great summer weekend spent at Summernats many years ago.

I’d be interested to hear if anyone else has any weird smell memories like these.

Santa gets a Facelift

What is more disturbing to me in this story about Santa's facelift is not the freakishness of Santa's old face, but the fact that Santa is already up and it's still ONLY NOVEMBER. This whole commercial-Christmas starting early is starting to bug me. It sucks all the fun out of it if you try to drag it on for too long. I'd like to see a blanket ban on all Christmas items until December the 1st.

Bah Humbug.

A (heat)Wave of Visitors

Days like today are always the busiest in our house, because when the temperature tops the 40°C mark (104°F), those of our friends who don't have air conditioning come to visit.

Today was particularly busy, because not only did we reach 41 degrees, but tonight the temperature won't be dropping any lower than 30°C (90°F) which means that those who are visiting just to take advantage of our cooling are more reluctant to leave.

More sadly it means that all of the things I had hoped to accomplish before work on Monday are probably not going to get done - a day this hot only lends itself to sitting on the couch in front of the air con, and little else. Tomorrow is going to be 41°C as well, so that only leaves me with Saturday to finish everything.

Sunday is second Christmas, which is going to be a nice way to end my holidays before i head back to the hollow bat cave of an office where I earn my living.

Two Christmases

As I mentioned in a previous post, we're having two Christmases this year.

1st Christmas was regular christmas - December 25th with my parents & sister; grandparents; aunties, uncles and cousins.
2nd Christmas is with all of these people again, minus my grandparents, as my grandfather isn't well enough - because, as he puts it, he's going down the gurgler. 2nd Christmas will also include my brother, his wife and their 3 year old daughter. They spent Christmas in England with her family this year, which means that we get 2nd Christmas once they get back in mid-January.

I think it's just because everyone missed spoiling my niece, who is the most loveable, pretty and well behaved child I have ever come across in my life. This is despite the fact that she's the only grandchild so is therefore incredibly spoilt. I know you think I'm biased because she's my niece, but if you met her, you would agree.

She's such a good kid that I've actually considered just stealing her instead of ever trying to have kids of my own. I believe it's completely as a result of my sister-in law, who is an amazing mother and has a freakish 6th sense that tells her exactly what the appropriate reaction to her child's behaviour is. It's not normal. Everyone knows you're supposed to screw up your first two kids and then just let the third one do whatever they want because by then you're over the effort.

Anyway, the point that I was getting at is that because of this wonderful child, I get to have two Christmases. That means two gigantic christmas meals, two lots of presents and two lots of cheap christmas bon-bons/crackers with dodgy jokes and paper hats. And as my christmas present to my niece is a box of dress-ups, i'm guessing that we'll all be enjoying our meals, presents and crackers while wearing big fake witches noses and clown wigs.

It's going to be fun.

The Pumpkin Pie Experience

Nothing beats Christmas lunch as made by my mother. She is the master of the Christmas roast. Every year she cooks a gigantic leg of pork with the most amazing crackling; a turkey with ricotta and spinach stuffing under the skin, a mountain of vegetables; a baked ham; Christmas pudding and the very best potatoes known to man - baked in the juices from the roast pork. And then to top it all off, we eat it all again at dinner time, along with piles of barbequed seafood & salad. I'm drooling just writing about it now.

Every year I make a small contribution to this fantastic feast which in the past has generally been a dessert - in particular an ice cream dessert which is super easy and super popular and I am going to share my top secret recipe with you right now so that you can impress your friends and family with your amazing dessert making super-powers. For people like me who find recipes pretty boring to read, just skip over this part to hear about my amazing Pie making attempt.

Torrygirls’ Amazing Magical Mini Pudding-Shaped Ice Creams with Chocolate.

I soften a litre or two of ice cream (depending on how many people you need to serve. 1 litre makes about 8-9) and mix in some crumbled meringues, chopped up cherry ripe bars and frozen mixed berries. This works best if you don a pair of gloves and squish everything in by hand – otherwise the berries start to melt and everything turns pink. Pink is pretty, but not very Christmassy.

Then I line muffin tins with cling wrap, and spoon in the mixture. Push it down well so it fills up the corners. I cover with more cling wrap & re-freeze.

Then after dinner I just pull them out of the muffin pan, peel of the cling wrap and we have mini pudding-shaped ice creams topped with chocolate – I like to use Cottee’s Ice-Magic because it sets firm and looks all pretty and professional when really I’ve just squeezed it out of a bottle. It takes about 10 mins to make, tastes awesome and looks impressive.

This year as we’re having 2 Christmases (long story) I thought that I would use 1^st Christmas to try out something new on the side of the family that I’m not overly fond of. I attempted, for the first time ever, to make a pumpkin pie.

The pie baking would have been a lot easier had I been able to get the canned pumpkin that was suggested in the recipe, but as canned vegetables in Australia are pretty much limited to corn, peas and carrots, I had to make my own pumpkin purée. This involved chopping up a bunch of pumpkin, boiling it, blending it and then putting it into a tea towel in a sieve and sitting it in a bowl overnight so that the extra water could drain out. Yes, you're right, that does sound like a lot of effort. Actually, making the pumpkin puree took more effort than putting the pie together. Oh for some good old fashioned American convenience food.

The rest of the pie making was fairly simple. I opted to make my own short crust pastry, which sounds incredibly fiddly, but in fact just involves a packet of pastry mix and some water. The pie prep only took about 30 mins, including the pastry making, so I did it first thing Christmas day & then let it bake while we went about the usual Christmas morning business.

This is the recipe I used (as suggested by Carrie), except that I substituted the ground cloves for nutmeg and I made my own pumpkin puree. It took a lot longer to cook than the recipe said it would, but I think that’s probably as a result of my dodgy oven rather than anything else.And how did it go? Well in an amazing 2D/3D first, you can see for yourself:

Tasty looking, I hear you say? Well yes, in fact it was. Very tasty. Oddly enough it didn’t really taste a whole lot like pumpkin. It was a bit like a more savoury version of a custard tart. It was very sweet and creamy and spicy. And despite the crazy side of the family being incredibly rude about it (I hate people who criticise different foods even though they’ve never tried them), it was a hit. Something I will definitely make again.

Senior Sergeant Santa

Every year on Christmas eve, the Police from the suburb I live in drive around the streets with Santa in the front seat, blipping the siren until people come out of their houses so Santa can give gifts to the kids.

I like that I live in a suburb where the crime rate is low enough that the police have time to do this.

Either that or they're just really inept and don't care about crime.

I like to think it's the former rather than the latter.


Merry Christmas!

The Midnight Shopper

Since it's the holidays and I've spent most of the last six days sleeping, I decided at about 10pm last night that it would be a good idea to head to Chadstone Shopping Centre, which is open for 34 hours straight over Sunday/Monday. I don't have any shopping left to do, but I figured that because it was pretty late in the evening, it wouldn't be too busy there and it would keep me amused for a couple of hours.

Ok, so it was a stupid, totally unoriginal idea. It seems that every other person in Melbourne had very inconsiderately left all of their Christmas shopping until the last minute and were managing to ruin things for those of us who, by some miracle, finished their shopping early.

It should have a been a good sign that we should turn around and head for the hills when we got to Warrigal road and the traffic was absolute chaos. Three lanes of traffic, all trying to merge into the right hand lane was not a pretty sight. It's amazing how many people think they can just sneak a tonne of metal into a 10cm gap between cars - and that sticking out across two lanes of traffic is a-ok.

It's no wonder people get so road rage-ey at Christmas.

We stuck to the left lane and headed around to the other side of the shopping centre, which was relatively tame - although it did take four changes of lights for us to get into the carpark. We fluked a parking space almost immediately, without even having to stalk anyone, which made a nice change.

Inside it was more crowded than I had thought - the walkways inside Chadstone are pretty wide and the centre is absolutely enormous, so I figured that even with the crazy traffic, things shouldn't be too bad. Again, I was wrong. Someone had the brilliant idea of filling the walkways up with vendors stalls, so it was chaotically busy. I was belted with so many boxes of Barbie scooters and train sets that I expect my shins to be solid purple this morning. Kids presents are dangerous when placed in the hands of frantic, last minute shoppers.

Don't these people know that Santa does home delivery?

We stuck it out as long as we could, but had to bail out after about an hour as the throng of people just seemed to swell with every passing minute. It was bizarrely hot in there with all those bodies pressed shoulder to shoulder and 20,000 people all talking at once in stone corridors is loud.

Leaving was a lot easier than getting in, and I didn't even mind being stalked to our parking space by a desperate looking man with a car full of kids. I guess my great idea of a late night shop while everyone else was asleep was not really as great as I hoped.

Christmas shopping really could kill the Christmas spirit in even the most dedicated holiday-lover.

Buckets of Rain

Yesterday the bottom of my street was submerged in a flowing river of rainwater. Some kind of bizarre flash flood type rain jumped out of the sky and soaked all of Melbourne from head to toe. It’s not such a bad thing, since we’re in the middle of a pretty severe drought – I just wish it would rain into the catchments a little more and onto my lounge room carpet a little less.

I spent half an hour during the most torrential part of the rain holding a bucket to the lounge room window in a vain attempt to catch the water that was streaming in thanks to the blocked drain pipe outside. I was soaked within minutes, but at least I got a good view of the bizarre river that was flowing through the front yard of the people across the road. We live on a street that is sort of on the side of a hill - our house is way above street level and the people across the road are way below street level. This means that while they were submerged in a brown, frothy tide of rain water, I was standing at my window watching the water flow down our steep driveway and add to the river below.

If I was a better blogger, I would have taken a photo of the river and posted it here you could see how bad it really was. As it turns out, holidays have made me lazy and unmotivated and to be honest, the only reason I’ve managed to blog at all is because I have a laptop computer and I didn’t have to get up from the couch to do it. I figure this is ok, because that’s what holidays are all about – not leaving the couch without a good, solid reason.

I’m going to have to get myself motivated to get off the couch, because with Christmas day coming up very soon, I have a lot to do. This year I’ve decide that I’m going to bake, and I thought that in aid of trying something new and different I’m going to bake a pumpkin pie. I have a recipe from Carrie that I’m going to have a go at. Sadly for me it will be a lot more work because in Australia we have a devastatingly limited selection of canned vegetables, so I’m going to have to purée my own pumpkins.

It should be interesting given that I’ve never done this before, but it’s worth a go, I think. Every Aussie that I’ve spoken to who has tried pumpkin pie has hated it, so I’m beginning to thing that maybe pumpkin pie is a taste that Americans are conditioned into liking – much like Aussies and Vegemite. It could be very disappointing.

I’ll let you know.

Beautiful, Beautiful Blissful Holidays

Beautiful, beautiful blissful holidays - I love you.

I slept until midday this morning and woke up with a smile on my face. 3 1/2 weeks of NO WORK. 3 1/2 weeks of sitting on my bum watching tv, browsing the net and shopping. I AM SO HAPPY!

My last day seemed to go reasonably well by comparison to previous years. Everyone had been warned in advance about me leaving 3 days earlier than everyone else, so they had gotten themselves organised. The guy who usually causes me grief and has me working until 8pm on my last day had finished work on Monday to drive from QLD to Victoria, so I didn't have him to worry about. Or so I thought.

At 5pm as I was saying my goodbyes to everyone, the phone rang. I was standing next to the GM, who took a call from annoying man. She was nodding and smiling and when she hung up, she said to me
’Annoying man said he's got 8 jobs for you to draw up and that we didn't tell him you were going on leave’.

'I told him 3 times’ I replied.

‘Don't worry about it, go and enjoy your holiday and forget about him, I told him myself 3 times so you don't have anything to worry about.’

I could have kissed her.

I'm not sure why annoying man delights in making my life hell like this, but I think I’m at a point now where if he does it again, I’m going to have to tell him what I really think of him. Given that he is a director of the company this may not be the best idea, but he
does it every time I leave the building - for any reason at all. And this time I genuinely don't feel any guilt at leaving early, which is a sign that I’m well and truly over the drama.

On the brighter side of things, the receptionist (who I have lunch with every day) bought me a Christmas present – just something little that I had pointed out at the shops one day – so that made the day a lot more enjoyable. It’s nice to work with people like her when you have to deal with people like annoying man.

Six Days (& Counting)

The Christmas tree is up, the present shopping has begun and really it’s just a shame that I have to go to work on Monday. I think I’m well and truly ready for a holiday, or else to change jobs. It’s hard to distinguish the difference at this time of year, because by Christmas I’ve had enough of everyone I work for and everything I have to deal with. It feels a bit like I’m sick of my job, but I’m pretty sure I just need a break from it.

This year has been hard because once again the issue of me taking extra time off has presented itself. I’m the only one who knows how to do my job, so if I’m not there the work doesn’t get done. Every year one of the salesmen (who also happens to be a company director) goes off his nut about the fact that I want to take an extra week of in January.

Who will do the work? He demands.

There will be no work for me to do that week, I tell him

But what if there is?!

There isn’t. There never is.

But there could be this year!

There won’t be. You bitched last year because I wanted to take it off, and it was fine. You bitched the year before because I wanted to take the time off, and it was fine. You bitched again this year and now I’m sick of it.

It’s not nice to constantly have to justify why it’s ok for you to not be at work for 5 days. 5 days in January, when all the schools are still on holiday, when all the councils are still working out their budgets. In January there is no one to sell to. In January, there is no work for me to do. In January, nearly all of the other people in the company will take leave that week and I shouldn’t have to show up to work just so you don’t freak out.

So it’s seven working days and counting until I can sit back, relax and forget about the constant nagging of a disorganized control freak who is bent on making my holidays difficult for me. Six days if I leave out next Friday which will be taken up by the work Christmas function. Six days and counting….

Hobby on Hold

Another warm, sunny day has brought with it the smell of summer and the sad realisation that one of my favourite hobbies must be put on hold for a few months.

Through Autumn, Winter and Spring I spend copious amounts of time with the windows in my car rolled up and the radio cranked to full volume. I sing loudly and proudly and very very badly to whatever dodgy music I can get my hands on. Recently it has been Cake, Ben Lee and Mika, although other regular sing-alongs involve Elvis, Aretha and Huey Lewis amongst others. Summer means rolling down all the windows to account for no air-conditioning and also more traffic jams for some reason. Singing into other people's open windows while waiting at traffic lights is not a pain that I wish to inflict on anyone, so I'm putting down the imaginary microphone for a little while.

The bonus of this time of year is that once mid-December arrives and the traffic congestion has eased I can get out the Christmas Carol CD's and embarrass myself with those instead. I can't wait!