the view from here

I had surgery last Tuesday. The pain in my right foot that I have alternatively ignored, put up with or numbed with analgesics for the past 6 months made itself known through the wonders of an MRI. A benign tumour - 4.6cm x 2.1 cm. Which, as my surgeon explained, is quite large when you consider that there is not a lot of space for extra stuff in a foot. He declared it must come out, laughed when I asked if it could be done with a local and so, while I am great at ignoring vague signs that I may have health issues I am actually onto things quickly once I have a definitive diagnosis. And this one proved impossible to ignore.

So I have spent the past 6 days house-bound, reliant on lovely friends for meals, trips to the doctor or chemist and picking up kids from school. The first few days I was bombed out of my mind on Oxcycontin. I had to wean myself off that lovely, hazy feeling and am now sticking to the soft stuff - Panadol and gritted teeth.

I have been not only housebound, but couch bound. Once I stopped my prescription narcotic habit I was able to concentrate and picked up Milly's quilt again. So I have been on the couch - sewing, watching season 4 of Friday Night Lights (great series), snoozing and drinking peppermint tea. Once the kids come in from school we play card games, watch tv, read to each other and wait for dinner to be delivered.

Autumn is making way for winter and the bleak grey skies have made it easy to hunker down in the lounge. It hasn't all been smooth sailing: I've had some problems with the wound which started to become 'macerated' (do not google that one) when the blood saturated the dressings that were hidden under layers of gauze; I've burst into tears when a friend answered my call for help; I've gone four days without a shower as I was unable to stand up and balance and I've had to acquaint myself with various laxatives (drop me a comment if you need a recommendation).

But the view has been pretty - the quilt edges are coming together, the grape leaves twisting on the vine before they fall, Echinops flowering out of season (we've had these blue spheres flowering for 8 months straight now), Mothers' Day roses dropping on the table next to me, dust gathering on the coffee table, birds in the garden. Yesterday Sam brought me the camera and I took some shots of the view I have had in the quiet house while I recuperate.

I will be back to the normal routine soon, today I have probably done too much - a visit to the doctor for a dressing change then lunch with Amber who has excelled in her 'Amber-lance' duties. I will make dinner tonight for the first time in a week (nothing onerous - eggs on toast). There is an hour until the kids come home and until then I am going to rest.

20 // 52

 A portrait of Sam and Emily, once a week, every week in 2013.

Sam stopping to talk to Sadie on our walk. Milly looking for feathers caught up in the reeds on the bank of the river.

 

19 // 52

A portrait of Sam and Emily, once a week, every week in 2013.

You could be forgiven for thinking we are hot-housing Milly but it is proving difficult to get a photo of her doing anything but writing and reading at the moment. 
Sam and Milly gave me a rainbow umbrella for Mothers' Day and he and I were in fits of giggles as he played with it on the bed. Precious moments are these, when he forgets that he is a somewhat cool 8 and a half year old boy and plays with me.

 

retreat

Everything seems to be pointing me in the same direction - our ANZAC day adventure, watching Moonrise Kingdom (a very cute film), a Sunday spent in front of a fire in the park, planning our July holiday. It seems that what I would like for Mothers' Day is a house in the middle of nowhere. Preferably near a lake to get the best of all seasons: I imagine hunkering down with a book in winter, walking up and down mountains and through fields of wildflowers in spring  and floating on my back in the water in summer. All images are from this site.

sunday snaps

You Yangs Regional Park, Sunday May 5th

18 // 52

A portrait of Sam and Emily, once a week, every week in 2013.

He is not a natural tree climber but this tree at the zoo was calling out for him to clamber up. She is reading constantly. Sounding out words and looking up for help when she gets stuck. Her patience is amazing, her sense of enjoyment is lovely.

 

where do you want to live?

photo of Laura's print from here

I am sure that the nuances have escaped me, that there are details that I don't understand, but the basics (as I see them) are:

A while ago the government decided on a way of looking after people with disabilities through something they were calling the NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme). The NDIS was going to help people affected by disabilities. It was going to change lives. It was going to stop horrible things like young men and women with disabilities living in nursing homes with the elderly.

It was a good thing that was going to cost a LOT of billions of dollars. The government has less income than  expected and less than it needs so for the past week or so there have been ruminations that there would be a levy to pay for it. That we would, in effect, through the tax we pay, look after people who are the most disadvantaged and the most alienated in our communities; and the people who love and look after those people.

There has been some horrifying online commentary about why "we" shouldn't have to "foot the bill" -
including a truly repulsive debate about how much a woman with physical limitations that I can not even imagine 'deserves' to be subsidised for her $20K wheelchair. There has been such lack of compassion, such a lack of awareness of how a car accident, a stroke, any twist of fate could see any one of us disabled and in need. There has been a sense that this is about 'them' rather than us.

But despite the vocal opposition and outrage, despite a looming federal election that the Labor government will probably have no chance of winning, they announced it - a 0.5% increase to the existing Medicare levy (a tax to fund healthcare). A levy that would be quarantined and used exclusively to fund part of the Scheme.

And I am overjoyed. Because THAT is the kind of place that I want to live, a country that is socially aware, that looks after the people who need it. And I know I may be naive, that there are still billions to find elsewhere, that this will not be a one size fits all panacea. But it still makes me happy. And hopeful.

17 // 52

 A portrait of Sam and Emily, once a week, every week in 2013.

Milly still spending time on the couch recovering from a tummy bug that lasted way too long. Sam doing homework, the basketball is always close by, ready to be picked up and played with once the homework / chore / meal is finished.

 

geomorphology

We live close to the Otways, a beautiful stretch of forest along the Great Ocean Road. Deep in the Great Otway Park there is a lake called Lake Elizabeth that is only 61 years old. In June of 1952 there was massive amounts of rain and the Barwon River swelled to amazing heights. A landslide in the forest meant that when the flood waters receded some of it was trapped. And made a lake. Which is still there dozens of years later.

This Thursday was a public holiday so we decided on an adventure and thought this new lake was worth discovering. We drove, then hiked. It was most strange to hike up the hills to find a lake. But we found it, and it was beautiful with the bare tree trunks still standing in the water

I wonder who it was that came upon this new lake sometime in spring of 1952 once the river was confined back to its banks? Perhaps it was Elizabeth herself? Perhaps a logger with a view to wooing a local girl with a romantic gesture? I suspect it was named after Queen Elizabeth in the year of her coronation.

And I wonder how utterly amazing it would be to walk a forest and know it well, to bunker down to take shelter from the floods; then, once the floods were over, to go out walking to a well known spot and find a lake where there had only been forest.

16 // 52

 A portrait of Sam and Emily, once a week, every week in 2013.

Sam on the couch after school. Sadie knows that once he has had his fifteen minutes playing on the iPad he will put it away and walk her around the block. It's become their ritual.
Milly sick with a tummy bug, fast asleep on the couch, her teddy never far away.

 

15 // 52

 A portrait of Sam and Emily, once a week, every week in 2013.

Sam in Melbourne, watchful, always on the look out for things you see in Melbourne but not at home. His home haircut horribly obvious.
Milly, wondering when I will put the camera away, nonplussed at the notion of yet another photo. I really like this photo of her serious self.

Running late with the project this week, we had a great few days in Melbourne, I completely forgot to post as I was too lost in my obsession with dahlias.

 

pokarekare ana

Is this not the BEST thing you have seen this week?

autumn

I walked the long way to pick the kids up from school yesterday which meant going past the front of the school and the only remaining old section with the established trees and red brick. It seems that when we were all on school holidays autumn arrived.

dahlia overload

There is a dahlia farm about 45 minutes from where we live. Not just any dahlia farm but one that boasts the largest collection of varieties in the world. I have been intending to visit for years but never made it. The gardens are open in March and April, when the flowers, some as large as dinner plates, are in their most show off-y glory.

On Easter Monday I had breakfast with friends from work and an outing to the farm was suggested. Today we went. It was ridiculously beautiful, my fantasy of having a large cutting garden was fuelled and yet again I am longing for 5 acres and enough time and energy to devote to the folly of growing flowers as far as the eye can see.

The owner and expert, Mrs Parish, described the farm as a living catalogue - two enormous borders are planted so you can walk around them and take note of the varieties that appeal, place an order and return in October for the tubers. There are hundreds and hundreds of single plants, all staked and named. Some names are intuitive - Flamingo for the pink, Sunray for the enormous yellow. Others are more romantic - Devon Regal, Somersby. Bert's Mistake was mainly red with a dash of pink and yellow flashing through the petals. X10 must have been named once all other imaginative options had been exhausted (for the record it was a stunning blush of dusty pink).

Once you have trekked around the borders, a walk past the house and out a farm gate takes you to the two paddocks of flowers. Surrounded by pines as a wind break and in the shadow of farm buildings and the oldest machinery you can imagine there are rows and rows of dahlias for as far as the eye can see. Forgive the ridiculous number of photos, I can't bring myself to edit it down to only two or three.

The four of us wandered around, stopped for complimentary tea and coffee and ended up feeling almost blase about the beauty of it all by the end of the tour. We came home with big, multicoloured bunches and order forms. My cutting garden will remain a fantasy for the moment but I am sure I can squeeze some of these big blowsy blooms into my borders and beds.

I am always in a bit of a funk the day before school term starts again, not today though. It was lovely. A day with friends and flowers; listening and sharing stories of parenting, childhoods, diverse jobs, gossip about colleagues - everything and anything. A seriously good day.

tidying up

I am doing some tweaking and tidying on the blog. As I have no idea how to take it offline, play and then put it back up, there may be some funky stuff happening while I get sorted.

In the meantime - we went to Melbourne for a few days. Glorious. The highlight was the start of the autumn leaves. My favourite thing is when there are still green leaves hanging on above the start of the autumnal carpet. The kids and I spent a few minutes sitting here watching leaves fall on a crisp, still day. Which as Sam said "feels a little bit like magic".