Now's the season to be jolly....

My favorite season of the year is Christmas. I go over the top and then some more to make every Christmas very special for my family. This year however, I am struggling terribly with finding that special Christmas spirit. Sure, there are some half-hearted efforts in the shopping malls to create a festive ambiance but there is no Christmas music as background music or anyone with a Santa hat saying ”ho-ho-ho”. Nothing on the radio and nothing on TV. For the Australians, this time of the year seems to be more about summer, sunshine and vacation and Christmas is just something that is happening on some of the days, nothing special. It is painful for a conservative traditionalist like myself. When I’ve asked a couple of local Aussies how they celebrate Christmas they are quite vague: ”ahhh, we meet up with family, have turkey or ham. Maybe go to the beach. Have a barbie”. No, they are not referring to Mattel’s disproportionate doll. They mean barbecue and it is pronounced ”baaaahhhbiiie”.

            Where's the snow? And the sledge? This is just wrong....

In my efforts of embracing our host country I cooked a turkey dinner on the 23rd of December last year. It came out very well and we decided to make it part of our family’s tradition. We celebrate Christmas on the 24th and I refuse to incorporate any modernity to our traditional, Swedish smörgåsbord. I am however open to try some Aussiefied food on the 25th, which we consider to be a rather sleepy day between Christmas and the Great Sale of the Year. I went to the Boxing Day sale at the fashionable mall Chadstone last year, quite by mistake I admit. I’ll be sure not to do that ever again.

                     The 2012 edition of our family Christmas dinner

Otherwise I have not gotten around go buy all my Christmas presents yet. The Daughters have put their wish lists on the fridge and my Husband mentions some things every now and then. I’ll know where to go and what to get when I hit the shops next week. What do I want you may wonder? Peace and quiet, a good night’s sleep, love and happiness to last me a lifetime. Immaterial but priceless gifts. 

                            Merry Christmas from us Down Under!

In the category "Weird Sandwich Spreads"

Many non-Swedes don’t like our Kalle’s kaviar, the number one sandwich spread among us Swedes. I guess you have to get used to this peculiar, salty, fish flavor from an early age to appreciate it. The Australian equivalent to our Kalle’s kaviar – in the category ”Weird sandwich spreads” – would be the Vegemite. When consulting the somewhat doubtful source Wikipedia we learn that ”Vegemite is a dark brown Australian food paste made from leftover brewers' yeast extract with various vegetable and spice additives developed by Cyril P. Callister in Melbourne, Victoria in 1922. Vegemite is salty, slightly bitter and malty, and rich in umami – similar to beef bouillon. The texture is smooth and the product is a paste”. We are always trying to, if not embrace, so at least explore, the local customs and traditions. ”When in Rome...” and all that. I got a jar of Vegemite at my daughters’ request and the entire family reached the same verdict: the taste is vile, VILE I say. Perhaps it would taste better the second time around? Nobody in the family wanted to subject themselves to the foul taste of Vegemite again so after six months the jar was eventually relegated to the garbage bin. However, Australians seem to love their Vegemite and will defend it until the very end.

Vegemite toast as portrayed on Wikipedia. Looks slightly inedible to me. 

Somethings you just need to get used to from the very beginning, like the Swedish Kalle’s kaviar and the Australian Vegemite. The Daughters who have never lived in Sweden, have their own favorite sandwich spreads: peanut butter either combined with raspberry jam or with banana. Or Nutella with banana, that works too. To me, these combinations are very odd and I have refrained from tasting but the Husband claims that they are ”delicious”. But I guess preferences in sandwich spreads are like most things in life: to each his own.

           Kalle's kaviar portrayed on Wikipedia: now we're talking! 

Daytime live drama on a Sunday afternoon

Did you think that our estate in this bay side, sleepy, Melburnian village provides us with an uneventful lifestyle? Well, think again! We’ve had disruptive, horrible party animals as neighbors for half a year, we have half-naked, littering neighbors, we have weed-throwing neighbors and we have a self-appointed supervisor – not me – who patrols the streets of the estate and takes notes of interesting facts about all the residents which he enters onto a spread sheet. Surprisingly enough, this fact-collecting, potential blackmailer is a man and not a woman, which shows that women are not the only ones interested in gossiping.

In our estate, anything you say or do can and will be used against you 

Sundays are usually very slow and this Sunday was especially slow as I am working on an essay and my family left the house to give me some hours of peace and quiet in my study room. I was very focused on the topic and being quite productive when I all of a sudden heard a car revving followed by screaming and shouting outside our house. My study is on the ground floor and I looked out the windows but all I saw was a car parked in the middle of the road, I could still hear the shouting: ”I know you are in there, come out you coward!” as well as what sounded like loud banging and kicking on a door. A woman in her mid-30’s, early-40’s emerged from the entrance to the neighbors across the street. Our friends own the house but they are renting it out to a couple in their 50’s whom are keeping a very low profile. So low in fact that I have been wondering if they are really living there, especially the husband who seems to be more of a frequent visitor. The person shouting insults and accusations out on the street was angry, nay, she was boiling mad. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. The couple renting our friends’ house came out from the garage to face the upset woman and she instantly threw herself over the man. He in return pushed her and she hit him and threw something at him which he threw on her car. The man’s woman, or perhaps I should specify by saying the woman living in our friends’ house, got into her car and tried to get away. The scorned woman then jumped into her car and tried to crash her rival’s ditto but luckily she came to her senses and the other woman managed to flee. The man quickly withdrew inside the house and the furious woman ran after him whilst screaming her thoughts on him and his woman using a very foul language. I could hear the front door once again being under attack. The closing scene of this little Sunday spectacle was the woman standing in the middle of the road shouting loudly for everyone to hear: ”HE’S BEEN CHEATING ON ME FOR TWO YEARS, THE BASTARD”. She got into her car and sped away at a high speed. I was very tempted to go knock on the couple’s door to urge the man to remind their visitor to respect and follow the 20 km/h speed limit but I realized that perhaps it wasn’t a good time. But if it happens again, be sure that I will be out there to tell him – even if he is in the middle of a heated argument with his betrayed wife and his mistress hiding behind him. There are kids playing on the streets in our estate. So drive carefully! And watch the language! 

 Sirens and the men they got their vengeance on....

Weed attack in Suburbia!

Spring has finally arrived in Melbourne! Some days are absolutely wonderful and some days are rainy and windy. Everything is growing and blossoming, trees, plants, grass and especially weed. I try my very best to keep up with the weeding and keep the flower bed outside our house neat and tidy, not only because I want it to look nice outside our house, but also because we get fined by the management where we live if the plantations outside the house are not looked after properly. I have mentioned our less-than-tidy neighbors before, the ones how throw their used tissues in their own bushes, never removes their mail and to add insult to injury – they always walk around in their intimates at night time and we are so unlucky to have our living room windows facing their living room. Not surprisingly the plantation in front of their house is one big, overgrown weed-patch and a real eye-sore for more fastidious neighbors – like myself.

One night I became acutely aware that I am not the only one who is sincerely irritated by the weed jungle. As I looked out my kitchen window one evening I saw one of the neighbors doing a bit of moonlight weeding: she was pulling weeds from said urban jungle and throwing at the Vegetation Culprits’ front door. I was both chocked and amused by what I was witnessing. She didn’t notice that she had an audience and after the weed attack on the Chinese front door, she moved further down the street and smuggled her rubbish into other people’s bins. Unfortunately her shadowy acts were not left undiscovered. One of the bin-owners found her rubbish bin filled to the top the next morning. She was furious of course, why should she have somebody else’s garbage in her bin? She put on gloves and collected all the trash that belonged to the Shady Lady and simply dropped it all on the woman’s doorstep. One got their weed on their doorstep, this one got her garbage back. It is as they say ”what goes around, comes around”. There is never a dull moment in this Melburnian suburb. 

                    A penguin hiding in the weedy grass at Phillip Island

Sunday night drama: X-factor Australia

Sunday is the Great Australian TV-night. That’s when all the best shows are on like ”Modern Family” and some interesting reality TV shows like ”The Bachelor” and ”X-Factor Australia”. The Daughters and I watched ”The Bachelor” on two occasions but that was so embarrassing I couldn’t continue watching. Sure, the bachelor is a handsome fellow and the girls are mostly beautiful ladies but gosh how desperately they throw themselves at him. Several times I had to look away as it was too painful to watch how little dignity some of the girls have. Besides, my husband is refusing to watch ”The Bachelor” and if we want his company, we have to find something else to watch on TV. Instead, we are watching another reality show – ”X-factor Australia”. This year my daughters are taking an eager interest in the show as one of the hopeful acts are a Swedish boy band called JTR, consisting of three handsome brothers. They also happen to be our friend’s nephews so the daughters’ interest is not purely patriotic. Unfortunately the Swedish boys have not really appealed to the Australian audience as they have been in the bottom-two these past two weeks. This has lead to some serious dramatic scenes in our living room; my eldest daughter gets very stressed when the judges are building up the suspension to see who gets voted off and starts crying, I suffer when I see my daughter crying and I try to comfort her and her tears make me cry out of sympathy for her upset emotions. Youngest daughter gets affected by seeing her sister and mother crying their eyes out so she starts crying too. My husband sits helplessly watching his girls with tears streaming down their cheeks. Luckily the Swedish boy band has managed to hang on so far so the sadness is quickly turned in to happiness again. I am very sensitive and very emotional and I often cry when I watch something emotional on TV. After 16 years with me my husband is used to my tears. ”You’re the only one I know who cries to Masterchef” he says. As my daughters note very often: ”Mom’s crying again”. Yes I am, I’m empathetic and compassionate and those are good qualities. I will proudly keep on crying to the reality shows on TV. 

How to deal with sloppy neighbors

It’s been a while since I have had time to sit down and contemplate on life’s tribulations and joys but now I actually have not only a few minutes over, I also have something to talk about.

As I have mentioned before, we live in an estate with quite many townhouses. A townhouse is according to the dictionary a ”modern, 2- or 3-storey house build as one of a group of similar houses”. I admit, I hardly know any of the neighbors and people don’t really seem to say hello or talk to each other either. In the house that is facing my kitchen window, lives a Chinese family consisting of father, mother, a son in his twenties and a teenage daughter. I only see them as they leave their house or when they walk around in their intimates in their living room at night with the ceiling spotlights on – which they do every night I happen to look out the window. They never take care of the flowerbed in front of their house and they cannot be bothered to remove the newspapers and what not in their mailbox. This means the front of their house looks like a suburban version of Angkor Wat and their junk mail is scattered by the wind – often landing in our flowerbed. This is very irritating to say the least. One of our former neighbors had enough one day, collected their papers in a bag and threw in front of their door where it lay for several days before anyone in the household even took notice of it and eventually removed it.

 Last week I was on the phone with a neighbor and I was looking out the kitchen window and saw the husband. He was blowing his nose in a tissue and when he was done he simply threw it into the bushes in the flowerbed and went inside. I was chocked, appalled but not speechless as I re-told the event to my neighbor on the phone. ”I know what to do” I told her. Soon the entire Chinese family appeared and left in the car. I wrote a note that said ”USE THE RUBBISH BIN!!!” and stapled it onto a plastic bag. With my kitchen gloves I went out and collected the Chinese residue, pulled out all the newspapers and flyers that were jammed into their mailbox and put it all in the bag that I dumped on their doorstep. The next morning the bag had vanished. Let us hope that they will take care of their own garbage and use the rubbish bin in the future. If not, they can count on the Neighborhood Vigilance – me - to point out that they are misconducting. 

Our house where I can keep a watchful eye on the neighbors from the generous windows.

Election campaigning the Aussie way

These are busy times in Australia, the election is coming up in a few weeks. Almost every channel is showing political programs, TV-debates and interviews with the two major candidates for the job as the Australian prime minister; the current minister Kevin Rudd – leader of the Labor party – and Tony Abbott – leader of the Coallition. I can’t say I take much interest in Australian politics and as a non-Australian citizen I’m not allowed to vote. What I have noted is that in order to be a politician in Australia, you must have a very thick skin. The ad campaigns on TV are not about sending out messages on what the parties stand for and what changes they will implement if elected. Instead they are attacking the leader of the opposite party. Picture this: a photo of Kevin Rudd and a list of things he has done wrong, a serious voice is reading: ”last time Kevin Rudd was prime minister, he increased the debt of Australia by xx million dollars every day. He also blahblahblah...”. At the end of the ad, a voice is urging people to vote for Tony Abbott. Kevin Rudd said that he wanted a nice and friendly campaign and since a couple of days his TV campaign shows a mother chopping fruit in her kitchen, the kids sitting at the table. She’s looking a little haggard and talks into the camera, asking Mr Abbott what he intends to about certain things; ”you who always used to be so angry, negative and aggressive. Why have you gone so quiet Mr Abbott?” she demands to know.                    

On Thursday I was watching a great news program on channel Ten called ”The Project”. I always enjoy watching this show but especially yesterday as my celebrity crush Dr. Chris Brown was one of the guest hosts. He was wearing a suit and a tie and interviewing K-Rudd’s 30-something daughter over video chat. He was more handsome than ever and Miss Rudd was clearly not unaffected by him. Her smile would have gone all the way to the back of her head if her ears hadn’t been there to stop it. She giggled like a little school girl and was blushing – which I didn’t when I met him nine days, 22 hours and thirty-seven minutes ago. I kept my cool, I even mentioned my husband. Slightly in passing, sure, but still, I did mention my husband.

Earlier this week, Tony Abbott made new headlines by introducing Lindsay Scott, one of his candidates,  as ”young, feisty and having a bit of sex appeal”. Of course this comment created a media storm with many upset people protesting. One of the more unusual protests came from another politician whose name I didn’t catch. He was indeed upset about Mr Abbott’s comment about Miss Scott and exclaimed somewhat revolted: ”how can Tony Abbott say she has a bit of a sex appeal?! I’ve seen her up close and I don’t think she has any sex appeal at all!!!”.

Mr Abbott delivering his now (in-)famous introduction to Ms Scott on ABC news

And so the election campaign and the mudslinging continue in Australia. I know who I think would make an excellent prime minister in Australia: Dr Chris Brown; he has a university degree, he’s well-spoken, animal- and environmental friendly, he’s healthy, handsome and he has a great deal of sex appeal. Just what the Australians want in the politicians, right?

Dr Chris has it all! He will always get my vote...

A place to call my own please!

Every Friday I watch a TV-show called ”The Living Room”. It is a one-hour show led by Amanda who has the gift of gab and with her in her sofa she has Barry – an attractive DIY-pro (”do-it-yourself” that means, it is very popular to do everything in your home by yourself), Dr Chris – a handsome vet and my celebrity crush and Miguel – a hot, Spanish chef. Sometimes they have a hot doctor on the show as well but that is totally irrelevant to what I want to talk about today. I want to direct my attention to Barry the Handy Man. On every show, he is helping couples or families to fix their home and often he is fixing a so called ”man cave” where the husband can withdraw and have his things the way he wants. Wikipedia defines it as ”A man cave (also sometimes called "mantuary") is a male sanctuary, such as a specially equipped garage, spare bedroom, media room, den, or basement”. In Australia, you can sometimes find a guesthouse or a separate apartment with a house and this is referred to as a ”granny flat”. I am not going to get all feminist about the different naming of the areas; in America they call a sleeveless shirt a ”wife beater” which is not a very flattering name either.

The high-light of my TV-week, courtesy of Channel 10.

Back to my topic: the Man Cave. Why do only men need a place of their own? I would very much like to have a place of my own – preferably away from our house, where I can keep my things and I don’t have to share with anybody and even better, where I don’t have to pick up after anyone but myself. Don’t misunderstand me, I don’t want to escape my family on a permanent basis – only every now and then. In the ten minutes this has taken me to write, I’ve had two visits from my husband and one from eldest daughter – the latter informing me that she will be joining me in a little while. She is teasing her sister as I write this and I can hear that there are some upset feelings being displayed. With my personal space – let us call it ”Lady Retreat” I would not only get some peace and quiet, I wouldn’t have to get irritated over having to pick up after the others. I could keep most of my clothes, shoes and accessories there. My daughters have the same shoe size as me and often they take my shoes and I am currently deprived of all my casual shoes like runners, sneakers and hiking shoes – leaving me only my Easytones from Reebok (eldest just opened the door again and asked what I was doing). Very often, our bedroom serves as the girls’ hang out, they make their music videos in there and use our bed as acrobatic mattress and trampoline. My closet is used as their dress-up room and my clothes as their outfits for their videos.

On the door into my closet

I could probably elaborate my dream of a ”Lady Retreat” even further but with the daughters dancing and jumping upstairs – the agitated screams are replaced by high-pitch laughter – I cannot really concentrate. It is Sunday evening and tomorrow is a normal day with girls in school and husband at work and I am all alone at home. That’ll do as ”Lady Retreat”, that’ll do... 

Let's talk about the weather!

We Swedes have a compulsory urge to talk about the weather. Much of our social life and wellbeing is depending on the weather; if it is nice and sunny during the summer we are living our lives outside, the warmth of the sun is cheering us up and giving us a nice tan making us look fresh. Right now it’s summer in the northern hemisphere and winter here. Yesterday it was nice, sunny and I could sit outside whilst studying for an upcoming exam. Today it’s rainy, windy and I am sitting inside freezing and somewhat feeling sorry for myself. Because of the proximity to the South Pole, the weather in Melbourne is very varied and known to have ”four seasons in one day”. If the weather is not to our pleasure, the Melbournians say ”wait a minute” as it might very well change within the coming minutes.

                                        Sunshine, where art thou?

As it is winter, albeit a mild one, we are not spending anytime at the beach nor in light clothes. I am not spending much time outside at all during this season, despite the Swedish belief that ”there is no bad weather, just wrong clothes”. I was video talking to a dear friend who is currently in Sweden. ”There’s something wrong with the setting on my computer” she said ”or perhaps it’s the light in your room? You look so pale you’re almost white”. ”Nothing’s wrong, it’s my natural winter skin” I said and we had a good laugh about it.

With the weather being cold, I am craving for warm, hearty food and hot, green tea. It’s been many years since I’ve cooked winter dishes and it is great fun to come up with new recipes and trying out new things. I’ve cooked Shepard’s pie, Chicken Roast and Pork roast as a tribute to our new home country and all with good results too. With storms and heavy rain come power cuts and I have just spent an hour without electricity, the last 15 minutes with the construction site manager in our pitch black garage with him showing me how to open the garage manually. Luckily the power came back but now I know how to get my car out should I be without electricity when I need to pick up the daughters in school. Each day I learn something new and useful is a good day so despite all the rain and wind, today is a good day too.

Daughters' Winter favorites: Sloppy Joe's

Queen of Shopping has abdicated

It has finally happened! I always knew it would happen some day, but maybe not just yet... Here it is:  I cannot keep up with my daughters at the shopping mall anymore. Two days in a row in stores and shops for tweenies and teenagers is apparently too much for me and on both days I was the one looking at the watch, rolling my eyes and asking to go home. I am no longer the uncrowned queen of shopping, I am a reluctant lady-in-waiting and that is really what I do, I wait. Outside the dressing room to give my daughters my opinion on the clothes they’re trying on, I am waiting in the store and sometimes outside the store when I am really demonstrating how uninteresting the shop is on a late Friday afternoon to middle-aged woman who only wants to go home, make dinner, have a glass of wine and almost fall asleep on the sofa, preferably in the arms of my husband but that doesn’t happen anymore. We are two adults in our 40’s of Scandinavian built and we both hold comfort before romance when it comes to sofa time. As a lady-in-waiting I do not only wait for my girls as in ”sticking around while the daughters are doing something” I also wait upon them as in ”serving them, assisting them and carry their bags”. I am not paying all the time, the girls have a weekly allowance and they have been very good at saving their money. Now the girls wanted to see if they could find something to spend their money on. Clearly I have not raised my daughters to become ”impulsive shoppers”. They really take their time, they are browsing, trying on, going back to the shops several times before deciding. I realize what my darling husband has had to put up with for one and a half decade now.

Just a regular Friday in a Melbournian suburb 

I was alone with the Daughters on Friday at the fashionable mall Chadstone, on Saturday the Husband joined us for the shopping spree at Southland, conveniently located only five minutes drive from our home. He has worked up quite a stamina after all these years with me and managed to keep up his good mood for the four hours we spent at the mall. I admit, I was tired after two but my attempt to get the Husband’s support and sympathy was in vain. I had to pull myself together and try my very best to keep up with my enthusiastic daughters. A total of seven hours of mall time this weekend did not leave the Daughters empty handed, youngest daughter bought a sleeveless jeans dress and a sweater with a peace sign and eldest daughter got herself a pair of black Dr Martens. I reckon they are pretty set now and we won’t be spending the weekend at the mall any time soon... 

From Ecco-sandals for babies to Dr Martens.... when did that happen?!

Movie genre: Shark horror!

Australia is famous for its great variety in animals, from the cute and cuddly koalas and the curious looking kangaroos to hungry crocodiles and dangerous sharks. With the summer season coming in a couple of months, my husband decided to read up a little about the sharks in Australia. He informed me that the probability to drown in Australia is 1/30,000 while a shark attack is only 1/300,000. My husband knows that I am very skeptical towards sharks and do not believe for one second that any shark attack on humans are ”just accidents as humans are not their natural prey”. Bah, I say. Sharks are just mean killing-machines and will eat anything that they can put their saw-like teeth into.

Sharks are not only terrifying and fascinating to rest of the world, Australians themselves have a very special relationship to this grime yet magnificent  creature. So special in fact they have an entire genre of horror-movies featuring this over sized fish. How about ”Sand sharks” where mutated sharks can swim not only in water but also in sand? There are a number of films where sharks have been mutated to fit into the environment, ”Snow Sharks”, ”Swamp Shark” and the new movie for this year ”Sharknado” where a tornado with man-eating sharks is sweeping through California. How about ”Bait”, a movie where a tsunami outside a coastal town in Australia brings a group of sharks into a supermarket where a bunch of shoppers are trapped? There are so many odd movies I’m amazed how it’s even possible to come up with some of the plots: ”Mega shark versus Giant Octopus” and ”versus Crocosaurus”, ”Sharktopus”... just to mention a few. According to my husband there is only one shark movie and that is ”Jaws”. I’ve seen ”Jaws” and some of the sequels too. Is there anyone middle-aged who hasn’t seen ”Jaws” and isn’t familiar with the theme song? It’s enough to hear a few notes to send thrills down my spine.

                                        No, not my genre in movies, not even in 3D

It’s Friday night. I’ve been spending most of the week in my study researching and putting together an essay that is due in one week. I’m very pleased with being ahead of schedule. So pleased actually I will treat myself with a glass of wine in front of the TV. How about a movie? A romantic one, without any man-eating fishes.

My kind of film...

An Aussie gift for the royal baby

The official name of this country is ”Commonwealth of Australia” and it is a monarchy. The Head of State is the British monarch and the prime minister is the political leader of the country. Needless to say, the Australians are eagerly looking forward to hearing the baby news of prince Will and his Kate and yesterday 15th of July was the announced due date of the royal offspring. A few months ago, Julia Gillard was the Australian prime minister and she decided that she was going to knit and stuff a kangaroo as official gift for the baby. When she was removed from her post and Kevin Rudd took over – called K-Rudd by the press – he decided that the kangaroo was being dumped for ”something more precious”. His spokeswoman said that ”it will be something Australian, precious and very special for both baby and mother”. Rumor has it the gift is very precious indeed: an opal-encrusted rattle. You know what a rattle is, the little toy the baby holds in the hand and shakes, it makes noise. Fisher Price has some soft ones in very nice colors and with a nice rattling sound. How exciting is it for a baby, albeit a royal one, to shake a silver rattle decorated with green opals? Babies like to put their rattles in the mouth. How will an opal-encrusted silver rattle fit in the baby’s mouth? How to avoid the opals scratching the baby’s gum? Why do K-Rudd and his henchmen sneer at the knitted stuffed kangaroo? I think it was a wonderful and very heartwarming initiative that the prime minister wanted to KNIT a toy for the future monarch of England. That is truly a gift from the heart! I can understand if people didn’t think it was enough with just a knitted kangaroo but I am sure there would have been other official gifts as well from the Commonwealth of Australia.

After a busy day governing Australia, Ms. Gillard used to wind down with knitting

My husband has given me some beautiful, valuable jewelry over the years but my most treasured jewelry are the necklaces and bracelets made from pasta and plastic beads by my daughters and I have worn these with pride. I have framed paintings they have given me and I always have some of their art work on the walls. Very precious and so very special to me.

As for the royal baby’s presents of England, I do hope that Julia Gillard will give her kangaroo anyway, although the Australian press think it’s unlikely that she will. I am sure Buckingham Palace has a fair number of bejeweled silver rattles already, passed on through generations of royal babies. What they probably do not already have is a kangaroo, knitted and stuffed by an Australian prime minister. That would be something very special for both baby and mother. 

Baby rattle de luxe - for picky babies

A corkie to the rescue - or not...

Australians have the tendency to simplify many words; presents are called pressies, breakfast is brekkie, the supermarket Woolworth is Wollies, McDonald’s goes by the name Macca’s... The list of Aussie nicknames is endless. There are nicknames for different trades as well. An electrician is called a ”sparkie” because of the sparks that come when the electricity is made. A ”chippie” is a carpenter, named after the chips that come from chopping up wood. A builder is called a brickie, as in the bricks that are used for building a house. The ”-ie” endings can be substituted with ”-y” depending on your fancy.

Serving over-processed food all over the world: Macca's (photo from Wikipedia)

A couple of days ago I had a man of the trade to come and fix in our daughters’ bathroom. In Sweden – and probably in many other countries as well – a bathtub has four short legs so it stands firmly on the floor. Here in Australia, or perhaps I should say here in our house, the bathtub is suspended from a low tiled wall to the bathroom wall where it is only attached by silicone, like they have glued one side of the bathtub to the wall. Every time there’s some weight in the bathtub - like when daughters are taking a bath - the tub is sinking and... well, the silicone is not meant to function as superglue for a water filled bathtub with a teenage girl in it. A gap of 2,5 centimetres between the wall and what is behind the tiles magically appears when the tub is filled with water. The man came and fixed the problem by putting on new silicone that will last until next time our daughters take a bath, which I reckon will be tonight.

                          Our bathtub that is "siliconed" to the wall. 

 I asked him a question about the shower in our master bathroom but he just shook his head and said ”I’m just a corkie”. Corkie? Corky? According to an English dictionary ”corky” is an adjective that means that the wine is tainted in flavor from the cork in the bottle OR it means someone having undesirable or negative qualities, a persona non grata really. It could also mean someone who’s not very clever. Was the man really telling me that he’s a scumbag?! Was he maybe saying that he was not the sharpest tool in the shed? I asked one of the builders – a brickie – who explained that ”corkie” is a corker, someone who puts silicon between tiles as a profession. Considering that our bathtub needs some kind of supporting installation rather than just new silicone, I think in that in this particular case, the corkie might have been somewhat corky. 

                             A meerkat - just because it's cute to look at

Christmas in July

It is winter in Melbourne and although their mother refuse to accept that July is now a winter month, the girls are just recovering from a week with high fever and coughing which they always get once per year during winter. Normally, winter is not that dark and gloomy in the northern hemisphere since we have Christmas to look forward to in December. In southern hemisphere, it is summer in December meaning that we have absolutely nothing to brighten up the dark and cold winter months. However, the clever Aussies have come up with something to cheer everyone up! Christmas doesn’t come once per year in the state of Victoria, it comes twice. ”Christmas in July” seem to be a BIG thing around Melbourne. Every little town and every theme park with self-respect organise something special to celebrate Christmas when it is winter, which it is in Australia in July.

Perhaps I am being narrow-minded because I cannot see the point in celebrating Christmas in July AND in December. I am already trying to cope with the fact that it is actually WINTER and cold in Australia, it was -1C in the morning a couple of weeks ago. How is that even possible? I mean, everybody knows that Australia is supposed to be warm and sunny all year around. Apparently this is only applicable to Darwin in the Northern Territory where they have lots of crocodiles, sharks, stinging jellyfish and other animals that are hazardous to your health. Yes, we have winter in Melbourne but the animals are less dangerous here.

 To get back to the ”Christmas in July” happenings; my husband is trying to convince me that it could be fun to go to Christmas markets, say hello to Santa Claus and listen to traditional Christmas songs. I don’t want to be a party pooper so I will be as enthusiastic as I possibly can although I think it is wrong to have Christmas-related events in July. Call it winter festivals or snow festivals because believe it or not, there is snow in the Victorian mountains. Not very much, just a couple of centimetres but with the snowmaking systems that all the ski resorts have it is entirely possible to go skiing even in Australia. As for having Christmas in July at our house, I am willing to compromise; I’ll bake some traditional Swedish Christmas buns and cookies, warm some mulled wine and light lots of candles when it is dark but there will be no herring and red-and-green table runners and place mats because it is NOT Christmas, it’s just winter. 

Sovereign Hill, the gold mining theme park, is offering an old-fashioned Christmas

The things our children say....

When I drive the Daughters to school, I always listen to a morning show on the radio with the media personalities Chrissie and Jane. Most of the times I find the topics they are discussing to be, well, not my cup of tea. But the ladies are my age, both are mothers and every now and then I hear something I can relate to. Right now they have some competition; five couples are competing to see who gets pregnant first in order to win five thousand Australian dollars. Every day the couples get to answer questions on how they would handle certain situations with children. One of the situations was what to do when your child says something embarrassing for you. My darling daughters are going out of their ways to make me proud of them and I am so proud, so very, very proud. But we had a situation several years ago...

                                 Our eldest daughter, only 24 hours old

It was about five years ago when we lived in Mexico. I had a parent-teacher conference with the teacher of my Daughter-who-shall-not-be-named. The teacher told me that she was doing well, happy girl and all of that. The only thing was that she could become a little restless during music class, the music teacher had said that sometimes she gets up from her seat and walks around in the class room, maybe dances a little and so on. Since I knew that my Daughter loved to sing and dance, I thought I’d be really clever and smooth things over with the music teacher by telling him that my daughter loves music. One day when I was picking up my girl I ran in to the music teacher. I told him that her home room teacher had said she walks around in his class room. He didn’t seem to have put much thought into it himself; ”they are still young, they cannot sit down for long time. I have three kids myself so I know how they are” he said.

”She really, really enjoys your music class” I said and fired of my best smile.

”No I don’t” said the Daughter.

”Yes you do” I replied with a somewhat stiff smile.

”No I don’t” insisted Daughter.

The music teacher was standing there and he did not look very impressed. I could feel my cheeks blushing and tried to smooth things over, get the teacher to see that my Daughter is really a music lover.

”But darling, you love to sing and dance, you do it all the time at home”, I said, hoping I sounded convincing.

”At home yes” said the Daughter ”but not in your music class” she said to the teacher. ”Your music classes are BORING.”

The teacher dropped his jaw but he didn’t say anything. I was mortified, mortified I say.

”Ah well, thank you for your time” I said to the teacher and hurried away with the daughter before anything else could be said.

I told a friend of mine of the incident with the teacher and she said that everybody thought his lessons were boring and the music was too dated. I just wished it wasn’t my daughter who had pointed it out to him. The music teacher DID change his lessons after this and the children actually enjoyed his class and his choice of music from then on. As they say, all well that ends well. 

Mexico: Not so much singing and dancing in the streets as you'd think....

"Real housewives of Melbourne"

In Sweden, USA and many other countries it is very popular with ”Real housewives” TV-shows; you know those reality shows where a group of women are followed by a cameraman who records everything they do. The women are usually rather solid when it comes to finances, they usually lack of manners and they always get in to disputes and fights with each other as well as random people.  This genre of TV-entertainment doesn’t seem to appeal to the Australian audience. Australian TV channels provide a plethora of reality shows of cooking and house renovations instead. Totally understandable, I enjoy much more watching people cook and do home improvements rather than watching women getting a mani-pedi or insult each other. I cannot say why the phenomenon of reality shows with housewives has not reached Australia, perhaps Australians are not interested in the daily life of other people or perhaps housewives in Australia are not that exciting to watch? Let me share today - which is a typical day of mine - with you and you be the judge.

In a beach side suburb of Melbourne on Thursday 13th of June

I wake up at 7.00, get up and turn up the heating in the house. I prepare the Daughters’ lunchboxes while I eat a bowl of special K with some thawed frozen berries, take a quick shower, wake the Daughters at 7.30 and take their breakfast order. This morning both wanted two small, slightly warm croissants with raspberry jam; one wanted a smoothie to drink, the other a hot chocolate with whipped cream and a dash of cinnamon sugar on top. After our regular morning ritual – me making sure youngest daughter doesn’t submit herself to Angry Birds and that the eldest gets out of the bathroom within a near future, we leave the house at 8.30 in my typical ”mother and housewife car”, Volvo XC90 with a Swedish moose sticker in the rear window. The Daughters are dropped at 8.40 and 8.50 in their respective schools.

            My housewife car that has a weekly average speed of 34 km/h

I continue on to the supermarket Coles, located in Southland mall. I am there when they open at 9.00. I am environmentally conscious and bring my own shopping bags, the green ones from IKEA’s bistro. I make up the coming days menu in my head, recall what I have at home and do the additional shopping. I do not talk to anyone hence my shopping trip to the supermarket was uneventful as it usually is. At home, I unpack all the groceries and start the laundry machine with dark colored laundry. I study a couple of hours every day so I light some candles in my TV-room/office/guestroom to make it cozy.

        Candles are setting the right mood for studies among other things

 A-ha! Finally some excitement today! One of the students in my tutorial group is an indigenous Australian – Aboriginal to be specific – and he has very strong and upset feelings about the non-indigenous Australians. Today he is urging his people to make a revolution and dethrone all the self-appointed non-indigenous leaders who have stolen their land, their culture and their language and are oppressing the indigenous people of Australia. I do a bit of researching for my essay and write down some notes before lunch.

                                Environment friendly shopping bag

I make myself a sandwich which I eat standing by the kitchen counter. I make a mental note to buy more Kalle’s Kaviar at IKEA sometime soon, there’s only enough left for one more sandwich. 

Kalle's: considered inedible unless you have grown up with it - like Vegemite.

I look out the kitchen window and notice that our former neighbors – the previously mentioned bogans – are female slobs. While moving out they filled up both the rubbish bins assigned to their house without any regards to if they put their rubbish in the regular bin or the recycling bin. Rain, wind and cats have made a mess out of their trash and is now polluting the street. I snort loudly to myself as to underline how disgusting I think it is. The bogans final legacy to the estate; litter, debris and garbage. 

 No comments. Or rather: so many comments I cannot fit them all in here.

I continue with my studies for a couple of hours more, answering questions and giving my opinion on this weeks readings and lectures. All of a sudden it’s 15.25 and I need to go and pick up the Daughters in their schools. It is raining quite heavily and my housewife-car lets in a couple of raindrops by the roof. I make a mental note to put some silicone (meaning getting the Husband to do it) by the fitting of the railings. At home I make some afternoon snack for the Daughters, help them find accessories for their musical theater today, they are putting up ”Mary Poppins” by the end of the year. I drive them to their class and now, I am home again and will start preparing tonight’s dinner: Indian Butter Chicken with saffron rice and lentils. My darling Husband is expected home later tonight after a business trip to Tasmania. This is where I will stop reporting about my day as a housewife in Melbourne. You will probably not miss anything anyway; we’re going to have dinner, watch some TV and get ready for bed. A seemingly uneventful life and oh how I love it, I wouldn’t want to have it any other way. Not right now anyway...

Awesome, great and just wonderful... My week at a glance

What an awesome week I’ve had! My eldest daughter, my Mini-Me, went to camp with her school. She had been somewhat nervous about it, she’s not very keen on going away without her family but it all turned out to be great, she had a fantastic couple of days. I also had my birthday and what a wonderful day that was! I didn’t have to lift a finger, my family spoiled me rotten and showered me with gifts. Daughters sang the birthday song, some songs by Adele as well as the Australian national anthem in my honor. My studies are also going well so far; I am organised and keeping up with all the reading, lectures and tutorial discussions.

                                  A favorite cake of mine; Blondie de luxe

On Thursday I was woken – as every Thursday these past six months – around 1 am by those female delinquents for neighbors. They were sitting in their backyard, sharing a couples of bottles of cheap white wine. They had a male acquaintance with them and he was the reason I woke up. He was very upset with one of the she-devils which he expressed with very colorful and explicit words. I am now aware that the ”eff” word can be used as a verb, an adjective and a noun and repeated several times in one sentence. I found it somewhat monotonous to listen to, he needed some variation in order to keep the attention of his audience. Nevertheless, if anyone would have talked to me that way they would have been kicked out of my house and out of my life for all eternity. The miscreant sheilas did not seem to mind though, they were just sitting there sipping their wine and smoking their fags. Luckily the heated lecture lasted for only 10 minutes and the bogans went inside. ”Bogan” is Australian slang for ”an individual who is recognized to be from an unsophisticated background or someone whose speech, clothing, attitude and behavior exemplifies a lack of manners and education”. I had heard from their landlord a couple of weeks earlier that these villains had been asked to find a new home. I prayed that that day would come swiftly. And what do you know, my prayer was heard! When I looked out the window on Friday afternoon, I saw what looked like moving boxes. Later that evening we were happily watching from our bedroom window how they carried out their furniture and emptied the house. What a wonderful feeling! I have been happy all weekend, with a fluttering heart and a big smile on my face. I have to pinch myself sometimes, just to make sure I am not dreaming! They are finally out, O-U-T!

                          The usual weekends at the bogans is now history! 

Today is Monday and it happens to be the birthday of Queen Elisabeth of England and therefore a national holiday in Australia. Thank you for that your majesty! As I said, it’s been an awesome week!

Boring at a dinner party? Try this!

Apart from handbags, shoes, place mats and coffee china I also collect interesting information and unusual words. Not only do I find it enriching and entertaining for my own wellbeing, having a collection of unusual information could be a life savior at a dinner party when I struggle to keep the conversation going with my neighbors at the table.

An example of a pleasant dinner topic is the story behind ”Irish coffee”: The original Irish coffee was invented and named by Joe Sheridan, an Irish head chef. The coffee was conceived after a group of American passengers disembarked in the west of Ireland from a Pan Am flying boat on a miserable winter evening in the 1940's. Sheridan added whiskey to the coffee to warm the passengers. After the passengers asked if they were being served Brazilian coffee, Sheridan told them it was "Irish coffee". This little story turned out to be quite the ice breaker at a dinner party once when I was place next to a man I found to be dreadfully boring. Luckily, he also had a number of interesting things to share and the evening was more pleasant than I had initially anticipated. I sat close to him at another party half a year later and apparently he had already shared all his good stories last time we met. Enough said.

 Perhaps you like to show what a cunning linguist you are? Here are two words many people might not know: aglet and blype. Aglet is the little piece of plastic on the end of a shoe lace and blype is the name of the skin that peels of after a sunburn.

If you prefer silly and crazy facts about animals you might appreciate having the knowledge that turtles can breath through their butts, dolphins sleep with one eye open and if a tuna stops swimming it will suffocate.

I have more and even better cards up my sleeve but those I will keep to myself. You never know if you and I end up together at a dinner party and conversation is going a bit slow. Then you’ll be thankful I have saved the best for last.

"Have you heard this one? Three men came in to a bar..." Crown princess Victoria of Sweden knows how to keep the conversation going.

Autumn Down Under

It is autumn in Melbourne and it is rather cold outside with only 13C today. How come 13C feels so nippy here when 13C in Sweden is quite tolerable? When I comment on the weather here – I am Swedish, commenting on the weather is a compulsive behavior we Swedes have – the Aussies seem surprised: ”you’re from Sweden, you must be used to the cold weather”. Yes, winters in Sweden are much colder than the Melbournian winter. And yes, I am used to the cold OUTSIDE, I am not used to it being cold INSIDE as well. Single glazing and poor isolation seem to be a problem in housing not only here but everywhere except most Scandinavian homes. I keep the window blinds down all day in an attempt to keep it warmer inside. I pull up the blinds only when it’s sunshine and the sun is warming up the windows. This is a friendly initiative for the environment as well as for the electricity bill.

I went shopping for indoor sheep skin shoes for the entire family. My husband looked a little reluctant at first, shoes with white fluff and a bow is not his first choice of foot gear but after having tried them on he is now an Ugg aficionado. Ugg boots are are a unisex style sheepskin boots made of twin-faced sheepskin with fleece on the inside and with a tanned outer surface, often with a synthetic sole and made for indoor use. Originally from Australia and New Zealand, these boots have become fashionable outdoor winter shoes all across the globe. I would like to point out that if you choose to wear your sheepskin shoes as outdoor shoes, wear the boots and not the slippers. Last week I met a lady outside IKEA who was wearing her slippers as shoes. Being a shoe-lover, it was painful to watch. Just behind her came a young couple, they were both wearing thongs, which in Australian English does not mean a tiny underwear with only a string between your buttocks but what I would call ”flip-flops”.  That was also painful to watch, it must have been freezing cold.

Compared to the winters in Sweden, I will expect the winter in Melbourne to be mild. As soon as the sun goes down, the temperature drops down to just a couple of degrees above the freezing point of 0C. After many years in warm countries I am not used to the cold. But I am a viking so I just say ”bring it on Jack Frost, bring it on”. 

Sheepskin shoes - preferably used indoors