It's been a long time between posts. Life happens!
I will add photos very shortly, I just need to do it from a different computer.
Paul and Danleft the Dandenongs for the milder climes of Newcastle...sad, but such hope embedded in that move and scope for great success and personal happiness for some of our favourite people! Dan didn't just leave Victoria, she left the parental hold of Monash University...something I haven't been able to do yet. Hmmm, there's a theme I could explore. But won't.
Let's see, Black Saturday happened. I won't blog about that, for various reasons.
My first trip to Brisbane happened. I ditched the boys and went to visit my 'sister', Monica and her boyfriend, the fabulous Prazole, who is truly a kindred spirit :) I had a wonderful time sharing vegetarian, organic food made with love and inspiration, and also being introduced to the human tones of mantra music. I experienced the Eumundi Markets, dropped in on Byron Bay and also on Noosa (and took a dip in the sea even though it wasn't hot...but I was there...). I came back armed with a gomasio recipe and a desire to include miso in lots of my cooking. And an ambition to consume more chai - real chai. I decided Brisbane is my kind of place and if I ever have to take flight from Victoria, southern Queensland could well be the place for me. Not that I intend leaving my Victoria. More on that later.
Our first trip to Newcastle to visit said beloved people, Paul and Dan, was just so nice. We took a drive to the Hunter and shared wine and cheese. Except the really stinky cheese from the Smelly Cheese Shop. Nup, this one was completely inedible. It was nostril destroying. If you don't believe me, if you insist on defying me, get some Esrom into ya and tell me, so that I can laugh heartily at your misadventure. We didn't eat it. Wiki it. Newcastle University is a very different uni experience. It has a lovely outdoor pool and a student bar that overlooks a large, grassy area with loads of trees and general lushness. Most unlike Melbourne Uni's staid surrounds and sombre architecture, and Monash Uni's (albeit changing) mission brown, concrete slab wind tunnel (I love my academic home, don't get me wrong!). So, Monash's loss is Newcastle's gain in it's promising new lecturer, our Dan.
Ok, the next trip I made was in September to Canberra. Another first. Made with the lovely Narelle and her babe, Esme, who was just on one year old. It was for the Birth Rights Rally organised to protest against the much-lauded Midwifery Bills, which, unfortunately, took an unnecessary and spiteful swipe at homebirthing in order to pass in Parliament. Appeasing the 'gods' (read: the Australian Medical Association and RANZCOG) meant that homebirth was to be driven underground by forbidding private midwives from attending homebirths. The reason? The real reason was that the legislation said they could do homebirths if they could get liability insurance. Hmmm, cynical. No insurer had provided this kind of insurance since about 2001. Not for safety reasons IN THE LEAST. It was the economic reasoning of too small a pool of insurees (is that a real term? Is now) to make it a viable product to offer, after an obstetrician was sued for about $6 million by a couple birthing in a hospital. Yup, makes perfect sense. The AMA and government spin on it was that homebirth must be unsafe and that's what the rally was for - a protest about the premise of the legislation and the dumb rhetoric coming from parties with vested interest in keeping homebirthers in the minority. It was a great rally, where we joined our friend, Mel and her daughter, Bec, and shared a hotel room at Rydges and took in the refreshing Canberra environs. It's a much nicer place than Google Earth will have you believe.
Within this time of travelling inter-city I had also done some gigs with Brett in our guise as Black Pepper, both at the Bodhi Tree in Healesville and also for World Harmonies, in Eltham, where we'd played about 4 years before. Before Boy was born, anyway! Playing again injected me with a new enthusiasm for performance and discovering what ELSE my voice can do. The last time we gigged I had fallen into a pattern of singing in a way that was just sufficient to get to the end of the gig, hitting notes and sounding good. It had felt obligatory. The 3.5 year break had done me good, even though I had only meant it to last one year.
After September I stopped making appointments in my diary, because I didn't know where the next adventure would take us. Since January 19 of 2009 I had been pregnant. I knew a little person had implanted into my hesitant host-body when, on the day we spread Poppa's ashes at the Cranbourne Botanic Gardens, my pelvis gave out completely and I found myself unable to walk without holding onto Tom or a wall. Given that the very next day I rode my horse into the afternoon for a Lysterfield Adult Riding Club Sunday rally, I knew it was more than just an odd one-off occurrence. So, I just ticked along, knowing I was up the duff, went out and did a Strike Team day at Healesville the week after Black Saturday (Valentine's Day, actually) and didn't think much about it. I didn't talk about it. For various reasons I just decided that I was going to honour my belly by letting it grow without attention, discussion, speculation or scrutiny. It was easy to do, as I only started to 'show' in late May. Early June saw my last horse ride, where I did some galloping up hills, popping Dante over some cross country jumps and trot work. My pelvis wouldn't allow it anymore, and I was really rather forlorn about this. I was about 22 weeks pregnant, where with Oscar I lasted till 27 weeks before giving up the bridle. Life happens.
Boy was warming wonderfully to the idea of this baby. After all, he had ordered it back in January. He loved to meet the midwives when they came to our house, as Helen and Nicola from Midwives Naturally alternately paid their visits to our home. I also tested the friendship between the constantly serene Katerina and us by asking her to be part of our homebirth, mainly to help with Boy, but to be around if Tom had to deal with him or some other matter. Three wise and strong women boarded our adventure train and everyone trusted me with the job at hand. No choice, really!
Meanwhile, Tom was getting more and more frustrated with the place I'd called home for 6 years and he'd owned for about 10. I nested ferociously and made the place very birth-worthy and it all unfolded on the night of October 15. Within 3 hours our new babe was here and had enjoyed a peaceful waterbirth. Boy witnessed birth at its best, I reckon. Even Coco stuck close to the action and we have footage of her hanging around, concerned to see the outcome of all my measured breathing efforts, accompanied by the soothing metre of Deva Premal's mantra music and some other meditative pieces supplied by my massage therapist. Boy-child will be a wonderful birth support when his time comes, as he now thinks everyone is "cooked in a belly and made in the birth pool". He had no cause for alarm as he watched me do my work, and offered me nuts and water...not always when they were required, and not always in measured doses, but his gestures were well appreciated, all the same, and he was rewarded with watching his sister emerge into the birth pool and give her first meow - "She needs your Babu", he informed me. Yep, she did, and so she went on to have her first breastfeed. All in the dusky light of my Chinese red paper lantern in the loungeroom - red is for fortune, yes? Intense, quick, peaceful, loving, warm, trusting, instinctual, primal and ethereal all at once. Girl Face was born on a rainy night, in Upwey.
I had been pretty chuffed with how I'd raised Boy thus far and decided the things I'd change would be minimal. In fact, I only added to my repertoire by including Elimination Communication in my parenting schema. I had bought a vintage enamel chamber pot and had read the little available on Natural Infant Hygiene (the other terms you may find for it) well in advance. All that was left was to...start.
I bit the bullet and started putting Girl on the chamber pot when she was about 2 weeks old. At about the same time as we finally decided to do something about notions we had of selling the house. I remember the real estate agent coming in and seeing me on the recliner with a newborn...on a chamber pot! She was very unperturbed with the scene and revealed she had been a midwife in her previous professional life. Not that EC would have been something she'd see very often...if at all. Anyhow, when she was two weeks old we did two major things - started EC and put the house on the market. We also had Susan D'Arcy come and take photos of our expanded family, after she'd taken great pregnancy photos of us.
It wasn't as simple as that, actually. We gave ourselves a lead time of 4 weeks to get the house in order to our first Open For Inspection. It was true madness. Superfluous furniture was stashed into the shed. Knick knacks we didn't want on display anymore were thrown into boxes and into ye olde shed. The bathroom was painted, skirting boards were fixed, things were done that took no time to do...yet I had been wanting them done for, oh, 6 years!
The EC'ing is marvellous - far less nappies and in February I was brave and ditched nappies overnight. Since then we can go days without a wet nappy for having 'caught' her eliminations. It feels so much more dignified and respectful this way, having done nappying with Boy to be able to compare. The hardest part was starting. And Tammy from my local boutique, Voski Von Mueller, is gobsmacked and impressed with her favourite girl for being so clean! It's so laughably easy that I'm convinced nappying is another form of slavery - I'm no longer a slave to the nappy bucket...woo hoo!
We spent a truly special and completely spontaneous New Years with Paul and Dan and Liz at the flower farm in Gembrook - free natural light show and some dam swimming got done, before P&D had to leave for their northern home, once again. I can't wait to meet their little one when Dan gives birth some time in September.
Another Daniela will greet a baby of her own in July, as we were told in January when I finally met her husband, Jason. Dan and I went to school and uni together and had a ten year separation before I began and completed my quest to find her in 2008. Some good things I just can't let go of!
After a couple of false starts, we 'sold' the house to a guy who loved the feel of the place and wanted a project to work on between work trips to Japan. We had a long settlement into April, but it ended up being May, after a freak hail storm in early March, while we were in Mildura for the VFBV Urban Firefighters State Championships, derailed settlement on both the Upwey house and the property we were buying. We didn't have confirmation of his finance until the Australia Day weekend in January, so we were actually living in a lot of limbo for many months and it was most unpleasant. We had been away for the Fire Brigades Eastern Championships held in Traralgon at that time and I was given permission to make calls about farms I had been looking at on the internet once we got home. But first, we were heading back to Bairnsdale.
In December my parents purchased a lovely 6 acres of land and house in Nicholson. We were there just after Christmas and then later in January when my sister and her family came over from NZ for a visit. It had been about 6 months since we'd seen them and my gorgeous niece and nephew had gotten so big! So, we parted ways knowing that when we saw each other again we would most likely have our much-wanted farm.
Tom and I went to see one place in Strzelecki and thought we could make something of it. We weren't in love with it, but it was something we could work on and make our own. The following week I organised to see another block without Tom, that was closer to Warragul (by, oh, about 5 mins...not heaps!). I decided to drop in on some dear old family friends that I hadn't seen in years. Not since my sister, Teresa, and Dave got married in 2004. I had known them since I was born and it had been the longest stretch between seeing them ever. I had missed them so much, too, as they are very loving, unconditionally accepting, intelligent and compassionate people.
Reynaldo and Cristina lived on the outskirts of Warragul, and on my way home, so that's where I headed, with the two kids they had never met (and had only heard of the eldest of them). I walked in and instantly recognised Cristina, who hasn't changed one bit. I couldn't see Rey, but recognised another family friend from even longer back, who had moved to QLD years before. It was a most salubrious reunion. There is no reunion quite as soul-drenching as a Cuban one! I am so, so lucky to have these people in my life. Cubans are quite a cut above! Finally, Rey made himself known to me. You could have knocked me over with a feather. He was chubby and bald. Not at all like the skinny, dark-haired cheeky man I had last seen. He had cancer. In fact, he was suffering a lot from advanced lung cancer and was due for some spinal surgery the very next Monday, and had been on some serious cortisone treatments, putting the weight on him. Talk about a fateful decision to go see them. I was devastated. I still am. I called my parents and told them to call and drop in because I had a feeling it was extremely important to drop everything and reconnect. Meanwhile, Boy had a ball playing with Rey's great-granddaughter and another grandson. The following week my mum took Boy by train into Carlton to see Rey after his surgery. Boy was quite affected by this. I hope he never smokes a day in his life.
In mid Feb I went to see him in hospital when I was told he hadn't been eating and the surgery wasn't as successful as hoped. I went in with Girl Face and he was in great spirits when he woke to find me waiting for him. I told him about our farm search and one place we'd found in South Gippsland. I knew he'd love that we'd chosen their part of the world. The following Monday was my birthday and I made another trip to town to see him. He sat in a chair, with some help, and we talked land and farms again. I never was to see him again. He passed away at the Warragul Rehab place and had been despondent about not being able to walk. Rey, who had been around for some very significant events in my life - my birth, my 16th birthday, my 18th birthday, my 21st birthday, our momentous move from North Dandenong to Upwey, my sister's wedding, my first horse - was gone from this life. But only in flesh. When I think of beautiful people who make a difference and who define great humanity, I always count Rey in that number. He had many personal 'fans', telling similar tales at his standing-room only funeral. That was just him. Humble, switched-on and wonderful. He just didn't want to remain alive if he couldn't walk around his 'finca', plant and reap corn, dry garlic, raise calves and play with his great grandkids. He was so many things to so many people and life proceeds, reluctantly, I might add, without him. I'm so grateful that he met my kids, in the end, and learned on my dream to have some rural land, just like his dream.
Our dream was materialising in the form of said property in South Gippsland we had seen and offered to buy. It had just come on the market when I called about it to organise a tour and we put in the offer before two other interested parties ever got a chance to see it in real life. It had "mine" stamped all over it and I got a bit territorial about anyone else coming to have a look at what was clearly OUR place, and most definitely unable to be purchased by anyone else. Humph! It all came together and all we had to do was wait until settlement. Having settlement delayed was torturous. Settlement day was glorious. I have taken so many photos of this place and I never tire of looking over the photo thumbnails.
We're in the process of purchasing stock and I'm looking into alpacas and some horses I want to have on the farm. We need a proper trading name. We need a place to live in. We need a quad bike (see photos of topography)! We're in lush hills right alongside the tourist railway, and less than half an hour from the seaside town of Inverloch. We have views to The Prom and the sea as our horizon on clearer days. We have far too many wombats. We have a vibrant creek and we have bucket loads of hope and gumption! On 150-odd acres, partially Crown lease, mostly hilly freehold in the wettest region of Victoria. Bliss.
Boy will be 4 soon, and is just as much a pocket-dynamo as ever. It gets him into strife quite a bit, and I love having modelled consideration of others' feelings, evidenced when he sidles up to me, hugs my leg and apologises, quite unbidden, for the specific thing he's done that contravenes natural understanding of physical or personal safety, or breaches of consideration for others' comfort. He 'gets' it, even though his 4yo brain often overrides every other consideration. He's physically and mentally agile, with an unusually clear diction - he may be talking in 4yo stream of consciousness, but, dammit, every word is comprehensible, even if, when put together, the sentiment is less so! Ach, go on, let me have my brag!
Soon I will be back at uni for the second last unit of my course and I have no idea how I'll go doing that with Tallarah, as she's already at the cruising stage and not one to take a back seat. She's already taken to food like the demon Boy never was, food-wise. She's progressing in swimming at the same rate (comforting, as we now have 5 dams, a creek and a pond to consider), and began moving at about 4 months. I was used to that from Boy, but could have done with a reprieve this time. She's also a great fan of her breastfeeding and loves to be carted around in a sling. Oh, and she's an absolute doll face. Just my own opinion ;)
I have precised our life since September 2008 and hope to blog about our farm-change regularly. I always thought of the hills of the Dandenongs as my refuge, and it turns out our new life will play out in different hills that we'll call home. So, the title of this blog remains unchanged.
