Tax Return

Oh Joy!  End of the tax year and so Australians were meant to lodge their tax returns by midnight yesterday.  So of course I was sitting in bed with my laptop at 11:30pm doing the bloody thing.  We are trying to secure another rental property, find out tax information, get the children ready for Halloween and then of course I had to leave amongst all the chaos to go to work in the evening.

First things first.  How crap is Halloween?  I mean really.  Children pull a sheet over their heads and then beg for sweets at various neighbourhood houses.  It is sort of cute and fun, but also a bit shit really.
And our boys did not have proper costumes so they went as a dragon, Spiderman and a Star Wars Stormtrooper.

Our tenancy in our lovely house is coming to an end.  So when a big house almost across the road went up for rent on the weekend we decided to have a look.  Suspiciously it was cheaper rent than our current house.  We soon found out the reason.  A very old house by Australian standards.  Almost reminiscent of The Adams Family.  So I guess I'm going to have to change my entire wardrobe to look like Morticia.  But it is a nice big old house, even though it is very simple in terms of kitchen and bathroom.  Instead of nice shiny floorboards there is carpet everywhere.  I can just imagine the amount of food that will be embedded in that carpet in a few years time.

How bad would plastic on the floor look in the dining room?  Not up to Camberwell standards I'm sure but hey ho.

The tax people ask questions like "Did you, or do you, have you, or have you ever had, a reportable superannuation fund which you may or may not make contributions to, now or in the future and if not why not?"

What?

What Cheeses Me Off

There used to be a rather popular show in Australia when I was a little girl called "Hey, Hey It's Saturday".  The basic premise of the show was a man, Daryl Sommers, and his puppet Ostrich.  Sounds crap but it was very funny.  Anyway, years later it became more of an adult show on a Saturday night.  (For further research watch Australian film "The Castle" for an insight viewers demographic.)

Anywho.  There was a segment on the show called What Cheeses Me Off, and people would write in - literally as this was before email - with their grievances.  I mean this blog is really about that anyway.  And here is another one -

What really cheeses me off is single friends - and by single I mean without children yet, who bemoan their action-packed lives.  Young and carefree, without the constraints of time and dinner-cooking and unpacking and re-packing of lunch boxes (my whole life!).  These Facebook-looking, Twitter-participating, night-club dancing, iPod-listening, iPhone-texting singletons really get my goat.

But let me tell you why.  They will constantly tell you they have literally no time.  That is because they have filled it with all sorts of social media.  Including the time-poor posting of every single second of their lives.  Look a picture of me in my bedroom.  Look a picture of me putting make-up on. Look a picture of me on the loo.  Oops!

I recently went on a girl's holiday with English pal Emma B to Noosa.  She won't mind me telling you that we were both in hysterics over the fact that I was actually enjoying the palm trees, the balmy breeze, the pool, the cafe with the view and she was living it by posting all of it on the internet through various communications.  She was so busy tapping the keyboard, taking photos, sending endless texts that she forgot she was meant to be whale-spotting and missed the bloody whale.

Every week I get extremely short emails from singletons "I've got 2 minutes to say hello...".  Bullshit!  They have hours and hours of free time.  Only they don't know it yet.  Before I had children we didn't even have a TV.  We didn't have social media.  The internet had only just arrived - but I didn't know about YouTube in those days.  What did we do with our free time?  I remember a fair amount of drinking and parties and lying in the garden.  But we also bemoaned the fact that we had no time.

Kiss Me By The Sea

The Accountant and I had a one-night opportunity whilst The Grandparents No. 1 were here to go away.  No dinner to cook.  No nappies to change.  No chasing children around the house at bedtime.  A friend has a lovely B&B in a place called Mount Martha.  The funny thing is - there is no mountain, more of a molehill (ha!), but there is a lovely view of the sea.

We had champagne (some of us had a little too much), spa bath, dinner and quiet time.  We could not get my iPod to work.  The Accountant only has two songs on his iPhone and one of them is Eye of the Tiger.  So we chatted in the moonlight whist Neil Diamond blared from the stereo.

Since I have been back in Melbourne I have had the flu.  Today whilst Jonty had an afternoon nap I thought I would do the same as the headache, sore throat and chills were getting the better of me.

Jesus! The incessant noise of gardening machinery from across the road was deafening.  Even with a pillow over my head I could make out that four different machines were operating at the same time.  If we lived in a less salubrious suburb it would be quieter as these rich folk can afford to have four gardeners working at the same time.

It was two houses at once.  The most annoying people in the street.  "The Flanders" we call them - as they resemble Homer Simpson's Christian neighbours both in tone and character - "HI NEIGHBOUR! Hey diddly Ho!".  And also Mr Obsessive Compulsive.  If one tiny leaf flutters on to the driveway, Mr OCD has to get out The Leaf Blower.  The single most annoying gardening instrument ever made.

I say let nature be natural.  Let the leaves fall, let the grass grow and, god forbid, let those bloody hedges grow in a normal un-box like manner.  Otherwise as a formal protest I will go out in my natural state with a daisy-chain around my head singing appropriate folk songs from yore.

Goundhog Day

It's a bit like that isn't it?

Some days you wake up in a panic and wonder if you have slept in (Ha!) or if the baby has slept in, or the whole world.  And what on earth is the time.....What day is it....Oh it's only Saturday.  No hang on Friday.  Right everyone up.  Lunches stuffed in bags, drink bottles, reading books, library books, bikes, scooters, pram, helmets, dummy, blanket, purse, phone, keys.  Boys!

The other day I left the house in such a hurry that I told Henry to close the door behind him (still brushing his teeth and putting on his shoes) and I headed down the path with Rufus and Jonty.  At the corner Rufus wondered if I was really going to leave Henry so far behind.  I looked up the street. Finally a small figure came came pedalling down the hill.  When he reached us I asked if he had shut the door.  No he had not.  Back up the hill he went whilst we all waited.

A certain man and his dog pass us every day.  If they pass us around the corner then that is fine - we are on time.  If we see them on our street, then we are late.  Today was going to be one of those days.

We have all noticed that our special school crossing man Michael, has been missing in action for some months now.  First it was rumoured that he was seconded to another school.  Now the latest is that he has retired altogether.  Michael was such a character - he knew everyone's names and their little character traits ("Rufus!  What a legend!").  We are now on our third school crossing man.  As we were  heading to school the other day, we crossed with Man No. 3 and Henry in his most carrying voice said "First it was Michael.  Then Barry.  And now this old guy..." and he nudged his head towards the offended man.  I offered what I thought was a wry smile.

I have started going to yoga early on a Saturday morning with The Cousin.  The class starts at 8:15am.  If we walk there The Cousin needs to be at my house by 7:55am.  She usually knocks on the door looking very jolly and fit at 7:45am.  So really I need to be looking jolly and fit by 7:30am so as not to be caught out.  It never happens.  I usually greet her looking tired and grumpy with one or more children screaming in the background.  One leg in a pair of leggings and one hand putting my bird's nest hair up with the other on a cup of tea.

So Saturdays have become a frenzy of activity, as after yoga is football and gymnastics. There is all this organisation to be done - before you enter the yoga class and are told to lie down again.  Hang on. I've just been doing that for 8 hours, then I made myself wake up, jollied myself up, got myself here with all the thin people - only to be told to lie down and relax.  It is actually harder than it sounds as you know you could just drift off again.....

And after waking from the end of class yogic relaxation I think.....What day is it? Where am I.....

Photo caption: You would think it would be the parents climbing the walls, not the children.  But our boys LITERALLY climb the walls.  Just another day Lyons/Burke household.

House Inspection

Mainly for the International folks.  Here are a couple of pictures of our Melbourne abode, as we had a house inspection the other day and I took some photos whilst it was nice and tidy.  Probably the last time in our lives we would be able to live somewhere as lovely as this.  I did get a Lottery ticket last week but, damn it, the numbers did not come up.  But I did read in the newspaper last week that one Melbourne lady had a memory lapse and put two tickets in on the same day.  And so she won.  Twice.

Gay FM

Let me tell you readers that I am leading such a glamorous new lifestyle in Melbourne.  Last Friday night I was invited to a Cleaning Party.  My usual Friday nights in Oxford veered between a good night out with low lighting, funky music and a glass of something lovely in my right hand, and a cosy night in with The Accountant and the boys.  I am such a dag now that an Enjo party is the highlight of my week.

For the uninitiated these Enjo products are not for the fainthearted.  The sponges alone are $45.  No Tesco 79p cleaning products for these Camberwell ladies.  However, they were developed in Austria by a chap who had the sense to create something which would clean up oil spills in the ocean without Spray n'Wipe.  So you use no cleaning product but just these magical sponges and cloths.

It was being in a reality TV infomercial.  The sceptical among us who arrived just for the champagne and good cheese, scoffed and laughed in the corner for the first 30 seconds.  And then there were "Ooohs" and "Aahhs" from everyone as the Enjo Lady did her stuff.  Suckers.  Of course I snapped up $300 worth of products right then and there.  Do you think I am crazy enough to let this stuff go?

Another funny part of my week was the appearance at my door of the Radio Diary Lady.  She very inconveniently turned up just as I was trying to wedge Jonty into the pram for school pick-up.  I must admit I was a bit off with her.  She wanted me to put down my radio listening regime for the next week.  I tried to explain that mainly I list to BBC podcasts but this did not put her off one bit.

I have yet to find a good radio station in Melbourne and so the other day whilst I was doing my usual radio fiddling in the car, tutting at every bad song and annoying DJ (oh yes please tell us again about your D-list celebrity social event) I found JOY FM.  The news was being read by a particularly camp newsreader, complete with lisp.  I thought it was nice that this station was being so inclusive.  Then the announcer said "JOY FM.  The gayest station in the nation!".  Hilarious.  That cheered me up no end and of course I can't wait to pop that in my Radio Diary.  Disco beats at 8:30am?  Yes please.

Now just waiting for my Enjo products to turn up so I can really go crazy in the bathroom.  I might have to wear heels and a dress though so I don't feel like such a complete tosser.

Garsington

It was absolute madness in a bottle.  I was meant to be jet-lagged.  Sarah expecting twins at any moment.  And Robert running about being successful club-owner/expectant father/house renovator.  And yet every night since I arrived in the quiet village of Garsington, all three of us were up until one or two in the morning.  Doing what? Rummaging mainly.  Drinking cups of tea in dressing gowns.  Organising stuff in the wee hours.

Halfway through my visit we moved house. Across the road and up a bit.  So one night I was in my usual guest bed in one house, and the next night I was in exactly the same bed across the road.  All of our belongings magically re-appearing at the new house.

I even found myself making up my dance class at 5:30am in the morning.  Typing out emails.  Making endless lists of projects for the house in Oxford.  During the day I would spend my time between the house and catching up with friends.

I think when you see black scuff marks on your walls, drips of tea and red wine in the kitchen, blackened, mouldy taps in the bathroom and guk you cannot identify in the corner - then you know you are in for a fun week of cleaning.  Don't even get me started on the kitchen ceiling (possibly a pancake Sunday gone horribly wrong?).

On Tuesday it looked like a student house. John Belushi would have been proud.  By yesterday it looked like our family home again.  I found one of the boys' old plastic frogs in a dead pot plant and put it in pride of place on some bricks.  A little welcome for the new tenants.  I also cleaned the house to within an inch of its life.  And left garden flowers in glass jars here and there.  A little reminder to the new tenants that I have a standard (see County Living magazine) and I expect it to stay that way.

I am writing this in Brunei Airport. A place I hope I never have to see again, only because four hours in a tiny airport is not that stimulating, especially having travelled for 16 hours already.  So if you find me ranting with an air of madness in this blog there is a good chance I have already lost the plot.