Sunday 20 April 2014

Easter. Plus a Ranty Mc-rant.

Hi All, and happy Easter/ Pagan Festival of Fertility or something...
{and a warning that some of this might be ranty and controversial}

It's been a quiet old weekend in Cilla-ville.
Thursday was a busy old day, but intentions were good to make hot cross buns in the Thermomix. By Thursday afternoon, HCBs were purchased for the event that I could not be arsed.

Friday morning - lo and behold, I could not be arsed, particularly not after Boot Camp!

Anywho, back to Thursday evening, I went out with a good girlfriend for a cheeky wine or two, a nice din-dins, then to the Princess Theatre for the comedy show, Puppet up.






It was basically a mix of Jim Henson/ Muppets-esque Puppetry, improvisation and lots of rudeness and swearing. It was cute and naughty and hilarious and very enjoyable.

Saturday involved house-hunting, traipsing through the same bunch of properties as a bunch of other aspirant home buyers.

The whole idea of house auctions depresses me a little. The ultimate sale price of a house often bears little resemblance to the estimated sale range given on the ad.

Give me a private sale any day.

Anyone with a good story of an auction can feel free to share it, though.

Then some shopping in Doncaster Shoppingtown, followed by a chillaxed dinner at Bar Fred. If you are down in Melbs you should come with me.

Kate and Wills and Bubba G are in the country.  Kate's frocks have been crashing websites.

I think this number was from LK Bennett. It distresses me somewhat that I know this. Plus she wore her hair up. She looked pretty.

Essentially she is an objectively pretty, non-threatening, lithe lady with great fashion sense who had very good luck with meeting a royal and squeezed out a photogenic male heir.

Why all the idolatry? Is this the metric by which women should be measured? (I think it is, but it should not be).

Does she add anything tangible other than a bit of sparkle? Are we that in need of a bit of sparkle?

The saddest thing is, she is far more interesting than Wills (Prince? What prince?), who is as boring as batshit. But he flies a chopper and (in theory) rescues people. That has to count for something

On a slightly different ranty vein, a relative of mine who recently had a baby said that having a baby is the highest blessing there is, and that it is "wrong" when children get sick, and on that basis we should all dig deep and donate to the Good Friday Appeal for the Royal Children's hospital.

This raised my hackles on a number of levels.

The whole "having a baby is the highest blessing" and "the hardest job there is" thing gets to me a bit. Those types put their child's photo up as their own profile pic on social media, but whinge about the trials of parenting. They hint at how their life has far more meaning now they have children. I probably sound a bit churlish here, but a few out there will see where I am coming from. I won't go into it too much.

Suffice it to say that the mothers I admire most are people like Sydney Shop girl, Faux Fuchsia and Mrs Woog. Their blogs inject the whole craft of mummyhood thing with a big dose of sanity, humour, joy and humility. Most of all, they retain a strong sense of themselves, and manage great careers, social lives and friendships. It is what I aspire to, if and when I am lucky enough to become a mummy.

It is indeed heartbreaking when kids get sick, unimaginably so. The RCH gets millions of dollars in donations. That is fair enough.

I work at the other end of the age spectrum and there are most certainly not those kinds of resources coming in. Without saying too much, it would be nice if this group, who are at the end of worthwhile lives and have paid taxes and borne children and seen hardship, got some of the same monetary resources, and a place in our consciousness.

Anyway, that is me for tonight.

In Bella-dog news, she has gotten very cheeky. She helps herself to the kitchen benchtop. She got her paws on some chocolate eggs (not too many, chocolate is no good for dogs) and hot cross buns. She also brings her bones inside to chew on, but, in the absence of bony chews, the remote control will do. The fella gets cross with her, and the dog gets very sheepish, but he can't stay mad with her for long.


Also, I have had this Johnny Farnbottom song in my head. It is kind of nice but kind of annoying

You are welcome.


11 comments:

  1. That whole motherhood is a blessing/ martyrdom blah blah blah gets on my nerves too.
    You're so right about money for aged care, too. Old people get very little interest in our youth obsessed society.
    I haven't paid much attention to the Royal visit. Not really interested, although that yellow dress was quite mad.

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    1. Mad? In a bad or good way ;)

      You are an uber cool mamma x

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    2. Mad in a god way, but mad nonetheless. I feel the Royals really don't have much relevance here. Despite we being British, I'm not a monarchist and feel that they don't really have much place here.

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  2. I liked the yellow dress too, but the royal visit thing doesn't interest me a whole lot. I'm a republican, and frankly having the royals front up every 2 years to spend 8 /10 days touring our large country doesn't exactly make me feel like we get either value for money, or establish a meaningful connection through them with the old country. I can't help but feel it is on some level patronising. Not sure why I feel like that, but maybe because the last one to spend any significant length of time here was Charles at school.
    Motherhood is loaded. I don't write a lot about it for that reason - I was burnt very early on in my blog.
    I find people who change their profile photos to their dead mothers photo more irritating on Facebook. I guess we all grieve differently, but I find it offensively in your face to others to do that (and as my mother died of cancer too, I feel I can say that where others could not).
    Is Bella off to puppy school? xx

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    1. blogs are a personal space and I am of the commenting school of "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all".
      I don't allow anonymous comments on the blog, if you are going to be nasty, identify yourself. Though I probably don't have the following to attract much in the way of ire.
      I think we are all adults and we can respectfully disagree if we need.
      I'd be interested to read that motherhood post.

      I have unfriended a few people on facebook whose posts have gotten up my nose.

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    2. There wasn't an actual motherhood post... I'd written in the comments of another post of mine that I'd rather stick pins in my eyes than go on a long haul flight with my children again (travel with multiple small children is tortuous), and someone took offence to it. She thought it was more honourable to write me a handwritten hate letter and put it in my physical mailbox than a nasty anon blog comment (because that's not threatening at all to have someone identify you and your home??!). Apparently I didn't love and cherish my children enough, they are a gift etc - completely misplaced concern when you consider all the children out there she should be showing some real concern for - not the mother who has no desire to take toddlers on long haul flights to Europe. There was a lot more. Fair to say that she didn't get me or my blog. After that I took down the post about the renovation of the front of our house so that it was not so identifiable, and I haven't really written anything since about my children for privacy reasons.
      I leave anon comments on the blog as sometimes someone wants to write a one off comment or ask a question and I don't feel they should have to sign up to google to do that... I've had a fairly small number of nasty comments overall, but you unfortunately tend to remember those, despite the other couple of thousand positive ones.

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    3. Bloody hell Heidi! That woman sounds like a nutter! How scary to have a note put in your mail box! Very sorry to hear that you had that happen.
      If it's any consolation, I agree that I too would rather stab myself repeatedly with a fork than travel with small children on a long haul flight ever again.....

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    4. Heidi that woman sounds like she had some issues! I have to say that I am not looking forward to dragging little children onto long haul flights! I never even got on a plane till I was 20.

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  3. Totally agree on the royals. I could never understand the fuss about Diana either. I wonder if it's a total PITA when they visit hospitals etc with all the extra work, news crews around the place etc. I've pretty much avoided any news about the tour.

    That's balls about motherhood. I loved it when my son left home. Not that I don't love him, I just loved not having someone nag me for food all the time... and having all that extra money for travel etc was pretty awesome.

    Damn helicopter mums need to get lives. I remember my son having his birthday at Luna Park one year. The kids were about 11 or 12 and one Mum insisted on hovering around - because I obviously couldn't be trusted with her kid. She kept shoving the kids asthma puffer in his mouth the whole day, not even giving him a chance to determine if he needed it or not. Poor little bugger.

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  4. Oh God I hear you sister!!! On all counts.

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