"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...