Home and Away...

So since that last post (and thankyou, kind commenters with your lovely words) things have been a little wayward here. Well not wayward, things have simply been unfolding in their proper manner as per the universe as my Byron Bay Naturopath sister would say. (Except she probably wouldn't say 'as per'. That was me.)


C has been away filming Things On Farms (Ey oop Mr 'Erriot) and so Tricky and I have spent a jolly week in Newcastle, my former stomping grounds, hanging out with my dad and stepmum and also with Nanny Annie who is famous among many other things for having taught Tricky his first word.

Oddly, although Nanny Annie is sometimes known to myself and to her other old theatre-luvvie pals as "Annie-Pig", the word she actually taught Tricky was "Moo".


By coincidence (in that I had babysitting on tap), on Friday night was the City Of Newcastle Drama Awards. I so wanted to include a picture of one of these gold-look, glass winged beauties but my digital camera is stuffed and apparently in the entire world of Google Image search, no such picture exists. So I'll just put one of these things in.

Frankly, the CONDAs are exactly like the Oscars. Maybe less people in the audience. And smaller queues for the loo-lahs. Also no goodie bags. But we're talking speeches, we're talking high kicking musical numbers, we're talking sequins.

No sequins with me though, I decided not to wear my party dress ten minutes before leaving home because yet another storm was threatening to descend and six months ago to the day, Newcastle and surrounding suburbs, looked like this.
Instead, like some lily-livered, light-weight, girl's blouse, I decided to wear jeans and, well, a girl's blouse. Also sensible shoes for when my car would be suddenly surrounded in floodwaters and I would have to kick out my windscreen and swim for my life. However, luckily as it transpired, I did wear lipstick. Glamour? I am all about YOU my friend.

As if getting to go out with old theatre-luvvy friends (who all wore sequins and high shoes and looked gorgeous and no one had to raise an umbrella let alone kick out a windscreen)and drink champagne and wear lipstick was not honour enough, I also received one of these Uncannily-Oscar-Like Awards for "Match" a play I had written for a Newcastle theatre company. Nanny Annie herself received the Special Gold Brilliance Award For A Year Of Being Fabulous.

Afterwards I attended an exclusive after party which was held in Nanny Annie's (sadly soon to be ex)rehearsal space in an old radio station in once thriving Hunter Street. More champagne (which I cunningly blended with ginger beer to give me all the fizz but a fraction of the alcohol) more jolliness, and special trumpet fanfares by that little known Brechtian heroine Mother "Dutch" Courage as people came and went.


It was great fun indeed and marred only slightly when at the end of the night one of my (male) friends tried to one-up me in the "God I'm So Tired" stakes.

At least, he said confidentally, you won't be woken like me by my neighbour's incredibly loud snoring.
Well no, I said, I shall be woken by my screaming toddler. Is that better?

It was a ridiculous statement anyway. Although he may well have been woken by his noisy neighbour, he certainly wouldn't have to march in and breast feed him.

While we were in Newcastle, Tricky and I also continued our search for Playgroup utopia. This one had excellent sandpit facilities and several dolly strollers as well as a generally well equipped indoor area. This allowed it to score quite highly, but it was slightly let down by the instant coffee provided for carers and also the Slide of Death.

This last item was a plastic slippery slide that ended on a crashmat. Frankly no crashmat on this earth could halt the speed at which a small child sitting on their butt would barrel down this evil appliance. It was something to do with angles I expect, and also static electricity, what with the entire Newcastle region being one big lightning rod for the entire week.

Naturally, Tricky loved it.

And so here we are, back in Sydney, feeling rested, relaxed and freshly showered in Drama Awards (exactly like the Oscars I tell you, exactly) and of course this means that Tricky has come down with...something. Horrible spiking temperatures, much unhappiness, and, worryingly, no other symptoms which, Dr Toddler, has told us, could be a urinary tract infection.

In which case, he muttered as he taped a special collection bag to my outraged baby's bits, there could be need for Further Investigation.

These words, of course, with their menacing promise of prodding about in bits that have no desire for prodding, takes me right back to the glory days of Infertility. Today, thankfully, there has been no further need for baby Panadol and I am hoping like mad that that will be that and the tests will be normal and it was all just a little souvenir from Newcastle.

Fingers, and legs, firmly crossed.