Daunting accumulation of reading material

Posted on September 2, 2008 by Panama Hat

Finding, once again, that I couldn’t help myself, I was drawn over to the fiction area of the booksale once I finished picking over the children’s section (twice).  And having found myself in the fiction section, I could not resist at least ten purchases, despite the fact my book pile had already become two book piles.  Now it has become three.

I have finally picked up Cultural Amnesia and am loving it.  I consider it to be a very important book and I am very grateful that someone has bothered to write it: even more so that the someone is Clive James.  Rather erudite, it is sometimes a little too much effort at the end of the day, and so I am concurrently reading Rashamon, the Japanese short story book.  Both of which I received for my birthday in May.  So I’m only about three months behind.
Now if I could only get myself as interested in my study material, all would be well.
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Hope is a Monster

Posted on August 21, 2008 by Panama Hat

I read a post by the Shifty Shadow just now that was about hope.  And what hope means.  And especially what hope means for people in my kind of woods.

It struck a chord so deeply with me that I wanted to link to it.  Because I could just try to write about it myself, but it has already been so well said here.  So please, read it.  Because this is the kind of thing people need to know before they go telling me stories that ‘offer me hope’.
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The Annual Save the Children Fund Book Sale at the University of Western Australia Undercroft

Posted on August 21, 2008 by Panama Hat

The opening night of the annual Save the Children Fund Book Sale at the University of Western Australia Undercroft is not for the fainthearted. Held in late winter, the threat of rain is feasible and the likelihood of being quite cold as you stake your claim in the very long, increasingly early queue, is high. The Sale doors open at 6pm (and close at 9pm) but if you are not among those huddled on the sheltered verandah you obviously didn’t make it here before 4pm. And if you are in the company of those suckers trailing out past the pond and up the lawn towards Stirling Highway, you can forget about taking your place among the Book Sale Elite.

Strategy is all. To go with friends, so there will be someone to while away the hours with as you stand (or sit) stationary, or better still, to mind your box; or to go alone, the better to hunt without being impeded by a potential threat to your quarry? To strike up a conversation with the person next to you, or to strike him down as you enter the fray? There is plenty of time ahead in which to plot and plan, endless minutes of nothing nothing nothing, are we moving yet, no, nothing nothing, see if you can squeeze up a bit it’s starting to rain and I want to just nudge in under the verandah, nothing nothing nothing and then counting down, some movement at the doors and then BAM it’s on.
Not as fast as the Men’s 100m Olympic Final, but no less exciting for that. As the doors open and the crowd surges forward, you grab yourself a cardboard wine box and rush directly for your chosen topic field, the area layout the same each year, no surprises or ambush await, just the struggle to wade through the honey thick throng of folk all dedicated to the same end as yourself- a find, a bargain, the holy grail. With box above head (at least to begin with until it becomes weighted down by your ever increasing catch) you climb the stairs (if you’re me!) to the Children’s Section, advancing further into the frenzied fossicking where the gross physical movement of whole bodies has slowed and the motion of minds and hands increases, whirling quickly through the rows of books, flick flick flick, in search of titles, authors, illustrators, something quirky that may catch your eye.
Each shopper has his/her own system and things get awkward on the floor as space becomes a premium beginning to fill with half empty and rapidly expanding boxes of books. Then at about quarter time confusion sets in: where to dump your heavy load, as you need agility and empty hands to navigate successfully through this densely packed domain. As you continue to wade about the floor how will other people know that lone box in a sea of lone boxes is yours, and not go riffling through it in search of goodies? Or worse still, would they even care the box ‘belongs’ to you, and pillage it regardless? The floor is by this time littered with the public’s unattended filled boxes which are becoming interspersed with still other filled boxes systematically opened by staff as the shelves lose stock. As fast as staff restock the shelves, books disappear into public boxes on the floor.
The unattended boxes on the floor are moved around by any persons trying to pick their way through the space, even if they AREN’T plundering your stock, so you work with one eye on an ever increasingly distant box that is liable to teleport at any moment, and another on the next freshly opened box of potential glory; or summon up the courage to bring your box along with you, forcing small children to yield and adults to capitulate, giving up their precious foothold, else endure a heavy box thrust upon their lower appendages. It is a nervous shuffling kind of dance you perform in a space no larger than a small bedroom, up here on the platform that is the Children’s Section, where the best part of a hundred adults and children attempt to cram into a 5m x 2m area overflowing onto the stairs where the rest of the sale crowd have also left their boxes of books in limbo – right next to the clearly marked signs indicating that this practice is not tolerated. Some weary travellers, those who have underestimated their stamina for first-night battle, may endeavour to use the stairs as a time out area or meeting place, struggling to make space to sit, box on knee, or even stand, perhaps hugging their box to their chest if no more space can be created. By now it has become apparent that space is scarce and in demand, at least until the crowds thin out, but this will not happen until at least three quarter time. In fact, if you could find a way to sell space or box minding services you would make an absolute fortune.
When your one box becomes two or three, my friend, the strategy becomes more complex. You have to know there is no safe place for your unattended boxes, not even if they have been bought and paid for, unless you have brought a friend with you for the sole purpose of box-minding (see strategy 1.) in which case you are privileged with a rare species indeed, for they would now be worth their weight in gold were you to choose the following option.
You may toy with the idea of taking some books back to the car and returning, but in this way lies madness (unless you are blessed with that serf). Where have you parked? Again- initial strategy of arriving early is key to not only gaining access ahead of the pack, but having to walk less distance at the end of the evening, one piece of lead at a time. And how much time will be wasted in this pursuit? Calculate the queues at the myriad far-flung checkouts: slow. Actually making it over to the checkouts: slower. Shuffling boxes to the car (while STILL leaving the remaining unattended, but a little safer somehow now they are on the outside): painstakingly tedious.
No, that idea may be tantalising but it is in no way practicable. I have not any notion of how others solve the mystery, but I am going to let you in on my secret. However, first know this: if I catch you telling anyone else, or trying it yourself, I won’t hesitate to kill you.
So, this is it. I edge my way ever closer to the corner of the table, on the right hand side of the staircase. I place my box of books just under the table and then I shuffle the other (unopened and awaiting staff re-stocking) boxes around a bit so there is just enough space for my body to go in between them. Then I climb under. Safe. Among the boxes of potential gold. Sometimes they may have come open (accidentally, see?) and I have a little sift through, a preview, if you like. leisurely, in my own time, my own pace, no one pushing me or moving my box. Just me and the sea of cardboard, I savour the calm and quiet in this undiscovered oasis, this cramped space in which only someone as child-sized as I could fit. I can barely get my neck straighter than a 45 degree angle and I feel like Alice in Wonderland, but it’s worth it to be the first to unfold the secret of these boxes, offering up their prizes only to me, my collection of filled boxes close by my side.
The Book Sale runs all week, but the thrill of the chase can only be had on opening night. The adrenaline rushing through your veins as you wait in line using these last moments to go through your strategies one last time: grab box; go straight to Children’s section; start in the far right, no, wait, left hand corner; work around in a L shape for one lap then disappear under the table. Come out at the end of the night battered, bruised and shaken, but victorious. Without fail hand over far more money than I bargained for at the checkout. Lug boxes back to the car. Stay up late into the night pouring over my finds, devouring new stories, adding to my collections.
When is this lustrous event you may ask? Well, as it happens, it is tomorrow night. And this year I shall miss it. A promise to a friend (who has an entry in this year) to attend the Fremantle Print Award at the Fremantle Arts Centre has superseded my favourite yearly event. I can only say this: my friend had better win.
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In which I major in Big Dreams and some minor wistful thinking

Posted on August 20, 2008 by Panama Hat

Wow, time on my hands and I am not yet so tired I need to fall asleep in my cocoa.  With one eye on the Olympics (Australia v Japan in the softball – we lost) and DH off playing soccer I get to roam around my blog for an unspecified period of time.  What shall I blather about today?

I am desperate to start shooting some rolls of film around the countryside.  Spring really is about to burst forth, and already the yellow wattles are blooming everywhere.  The paddocks are greening up, the lambs are frolicking and the abandoned, dilapidated wooden farm sheds with their broken down windmills are taking on that particularly picturesque hue, especially in that magic late afternoon light that Australia does so well.  
Each week the Wednesday afternoon girls get together for a walk somewhere in the neighbourhood (and driving there has reminded me of all the places I want to shoot). When I say neighbourhood I mean that term very loosely – it encompasses any plot of land within the shire boundary, so we might drive for half an hour, even, to reach our walking destination.  Then we stride around for an hour, or generally a bit longer, on walk trails mostly, but sometimes on private land by prior arrangement.  The ladies I walk with are very knowledgable on all topics to do with local flora and fauna, as most of them either do paid work or volunteer in the local environment society.  
They are in their 50’s with grown up children and have accumulated a wealth of experience in all aspects of life.  I enjoy their company immensely and don’t find it at all odd that most of my friends in this town are actually my parent’s age.  There are also major benefits to hanging out with people who are past their childbearing years: they have loads more time and attention to give me; no kids hanging off their skirt demanding something or just whingeing; and have a much wider repertoire of (uninterrupted) conversation that doesn’t revolve around lack of sleep and washing nappies.  
These ladies also have developed a variety of skill sets that I call on often to help me advance my rural lifestyle.  Two of them helped me plant out the bulk of this year’s revegetation project last week (DH and I finished it off over the weekend, putting in a total of around 30 reeds and sedges and perhaps 150 upland trees and shrubs) and a third is always at hand for advice on weed control.  Before the walk today three of us got together and sowed, in trays, about 70 species of summer vegetable and parked them in J’s greenhouse until late September when the ground will be warm enough to plant them out.  It was so much fun to do together something that could have been a major chore alone.  I love the companionship of living in a small community: the sharing of time, resources, skills, exploits – these qualities truly make life so much richer. DH mocked me when I was designing my potting shed to accommodate a bench large enough to fit about 20 seed trays and 6 high stools.  “I don’t know who you think is going to be coming over and doing this with you” he said, “It will be mainly you working in here on your own.”  I beg to differ.  And so do my friends!
When we get our greenhouse up and running (maybe 2 years from now?) it is going to be MAJOR.  Built from cob, it will have sufficient space to house several large permanent garden beds (in which I will grow cold intolerant plants such as ginger, tumeric root, curry tree, lemongrass, along with early crops of summer herbs and vegetables) and a big area in the centre for the seed trays, which will be mist-reticulated from above.  On a timer system.  We have started collecting (scavenging) glass already, and scored windows from two combi vans at the tip a while back.  Very exciting.  With cob, you can just build in windows wherever you want, so they can be all higgledy piggledy and it doesn’t matter.  You do need to make sure it doesn’t melt, though, which is why the spray area will be in the centre, and the beds around the walls will be reticulated by a dripper system (we use miniscape).  Which is much more water efficient anyway.
The shade house is taking shape already.  The holes are in the ground, the poles have been collected and creosoted (against termites) and five poles have made it into the ground.  We have designed it so that you can walk through the shade house into the potting shed and then through that into the harvest shed.  You can also walk into the potting shed through the back of the wood shed.  The shade house will be constructed of jarrah posts and shade cloth with a built in reticulation system so we can leave the pots to themselves if we go away in the summer; while the potting shed will be jarrah posts and tin, with a tin roof interspersed with sheets of alsynite (a polycarbonate roofing that lets light in) and will contain a sink for washing produce, pots and trays, and a large seedbank.  Plus a tool section.  I’m drooling just thinking about it.  Imagine, I might be sowing my autumn crop in that very space!
The harvest shed will be made predominately of cob, so that is going to take a while to get going as we are not at the cob building stage yet.  We decided on cob because it has such great insulating properties, and we want to keep the harvested crops as cool as possible.  I want high ceilings so I can hang a lot of garlic and onion from them.  I want one wall with a very narrow shelving system where I can put all my preserves and pickles layed out in single file.  And I want several tin-lined boxes filled with straw dug into the ground along that same wall, so I can lift the lid and access my vermin-free stores of apples, pumpkins etc.  The harvest shed will also house an upright freezer so I can snap freeze peas/broccoli/broadbeans etc; hoard tomato sauce and chicken stock, mulberry and passionfruit icecream etc.
Having held this hippy kind of dream for some time (I grew up on a semi-self sufficient property, but an hour’s drive from my current home, in fact) I  have been somewhat further inspired to go completely overboard in this domain, by Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal Vegetable Miracle.   If you love the idea of growing what you eat, and trying to eat locally, I highly recommend her book.  However, if you are, like me, seriously suggestible, I advise you to proceed with caution, lest you find yourself chalking up a lifetime’s commitment to your allotment!  I don’t for a minute think it saves money, or time, but the seeds I use are all traditional open pollinated non-hybrid varieties and mostly heirloom, so it means I can harvest and re-use them, knowing that I am preserving plant heritage for the future.  I also know that I am not eating GM food, or poisonous chemicals.  Besides which, the taste of a homegrown product is so superior, I almost can’t bring myself to buy a tomato or an apple anymore.  And what happened to strawberries?  It’s like they had their flavour completely removed.  Anyhoo…
The harvest shed will open out into the courtyard, in which we will have some sort of a pond growing water cress and water chestnuts; a pizza oven; an open fire for standing around, and some bench seats etc.  This area is all a bit vague at the moment as we are not up to planning the details at this stage of the proceedings.  Seeing as how we kind of have enough to be getting on with elsewhere.
We are getting closer to the final design of the fowl yards, however.  People often ask us if we have chooks and are surprised when we answer in the negative.  Of course everyone who lives in the country has chooks, it’s a given.  And, yes, we will.  But I refuse to have a temporary chook pen, because I know how temporary pans out.  After a while it becomes permanent. Unsatisfactorily permanent.  And I have big dreams for Chook Hilton.  Another cob structure, (in fact it will be our guinea pig) it will be designed in three parts: chooks/ducks/geese.  The ducks and geese will share a run (but not a pen) and have access to the wider garden area and the brook.  The chooks will remain in their (very large) run as they cannot be trusted in a  garden environment.  We will be able to access their eggs from the outside of the pen, through lift-up hatches.  The doors to all the pens will back onto the compost bay area (already built and up-and-running) so we can clean out their pens straight into the compost bin.  Too easy. Then re-fill with clean sawdust straight from the sawdust bay.  Too easy.
We may even have this built by the end of the year.  DH is keen to make a start on playing with cob and this will be the first thing we build because it doesn’t matter so much if we make mistakes.  Then comes the harvest shed, then the green house.  And in about ten year’s time, after much experience, comes the MUSIC STUDIO.
Oh yes.  Professional grade.  Built from cob, but also built into the side of the hill (hobbit-style), it will be very very soundproof.  What this means for me: no more drums underneath my bedroom on a Thursday night when the boys come over to practice.  And no more tiptoeing around my house for a week or two every year when the band comes down to record.  Whoo HOOO!!!  Also great for DH, of course.  We haven’t got firm plans as it is so far down the track, but it will be big enough to accommodate bands and have a self contained shower/toilet/cooking area so we don’t have to have hoards of folk trooping through the house using the amenities.  Also handy when we have large amounts of guests to stay simultaneously, like, at Christmas!  Because we have two titles (one 3 acres, one 7 acres) we will be able to get away with building a structure that will be considered a dwelling (ie: it has a sink and a stove) and this is the main reason we didn’t join the two titles together when we bought them.  
Adjacent to the studio site is a natural amphitheatre that runs down to the brook line.  We are going to plant a semi-circle of sheoaks at the outside edge, this year.  If you have ever heard the wind whistle through sheoaks, you will know why.  There is something very primal about it.  My parents have a coastal property in the Margaret River region, that is a 5 acre bush block mainly populated with sheoaks and blackboys (don’t sue me, but I refuse to call them grasstrees) and it is the most amazing experience to camp there.  The sheoaks drop a thick carpet of soft needles that dampens outside sound, leaving the high-pitched whine/whistle of the wind through the trees to come to the foreground and dominate the surroundings.  In the Northern Territory, Aboriginal people maintain that the wind through the sheaok will ‘sing people to sleep’.  It is certainly conducive to meditation.
Anyway, I digress.  A lot.  Actually I am not sure where I am going with all this, just sort of meandering around and mapping out my dreams.  I haven’t even mentioned the guest cottage, which we plan to do up (this is pictured at the top of my blog).  Nor the gardens on the North side of the house, where we plan to do greywater recycling through a series of reed beds.  Nor the Zen garden on the East side, which we are starting to plant out with camellias and a black bamboo screen.  Nor did I mention the 20 cubic metres of sawdust I had delivered on Monday, ready to create great swaths of paths around these garden beds.  Or how I still want to grow saffron on our south facing rocky slope, and that next year I will see about importing about ten varieties of garlic that look interesting.  Then there’s the hazelnut and oak trees we need to get in if we are to dabble in truffles.
But guess what?  And I can’t believe I failed to mention this yet – THE BATHROOM RENOVATION IS FINISHED.  Yes, we are finally showering inside once more.  And it is pure bliss.  I will endeavour to get around to taking a pic or two and posting them.  When I figure out how to do that.  What I won’t do is go into detail about how red-tailed shark almost met his end during the transfer of the fish tank.  Because it all had a happy ending and that’s the main thing.
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This Quotidian Life

Posted on August 15, 2008 by Panama Hat

I’m on a roll now, so I may as well keep going while I have the chance.  I also wanted to put down for posterity the kind of week I normally get myself into.  This week seems as good an example as any.  First I’ll lay out the bare bones of Mon-Sat commitments then flesh it all out with a long litany of chores that get stuffed into wherever they may fit.  Please don’t feel obliged to read any of it, I am doing it more for my own benefit-  getting it all out of my head.  Having this inventory constantly swim around in there I think it is creating some whirlpool or vortex of horror, sucking me down to some subterranean tomb where I am stifled, smothered by a beast of my own creation.

MONDAY
9 am yoga
2 pm (usually) DH comes home early from work and we do stuff in the garden together
5 – 7 pm Bridge lesson
TUESDAY
Shiatsu treatment every second week (varying times)
3 -4 pm cycling with N
WEDNESDAY
Clean C’s house (in return for yoga and shiatsu)
reflexology treatment every second week
3.30 – 5 pm walking group
THURSDAY
3.15 Tutoring (2o min drive away)
FRIDAY
10.40 – 11.30 am painless pump class
SATURDAY
9 am yoga
Somewhere in there I try to fit at least 5 hrs of reading study material (my Special Needs unit has begun), but I can’t seem to make it fit any particular time slot.  This week I have managed about 3 hrs.  Along with:
  • meeting with the accountant
  • brandied and pickled cumquats
  • began the limes for preserving (cut and froze them)
  • preserved lemons
  • organised (made/wrapped/wrote cards for) birthday and Christmas presents for my dear Godchildren and their mother in England.  These will be posted today.  Sea Mail takes 3 months minimum!
  • ordered a load of sawdust to be delivered next Monday
  • organised my friend to order a load of potting mix to be delivered sometime next week
  • phone call from the insurance man
  • month’s worth of filing
  • half hour daily of journalling first thing in the morning (Artist’s Way Morning pages – haven’t made time to do the exercises for over three weeks now)
  • 4 loads of washing including all sheets and towels
  • phoned a nursery in Perth where my fruit trees came from.  Have been trying to get hold of them for 6 weeks (kid you not) to ask some questions.  Then my mobile kept ringing while I was on the phone, I had to hang up and answer mobile it was parent’s of a friend wanting to come over and look at my garden.  Spent an hour doing that.
  • collected loose straw from a neighbour’s hay shed for free, then spent about an hour having a cup of tea with her
  • pulled up old vegetables from about 3 garden beds
  • composted these beds, lay them with the new straw (which I am almost finished and will try to refill today so there is enough for mulching the roses)
  • planted out a few seed trays of lettuce, flowers (two types of poppy) leeks, onions, mizuna mustard and a couple of feeble spinach plants.  Still have two trays of leek/onion and spring onion to go.  Scattered some loose coriander seed around in the hope it would come up on its own
  • completed a questionnaire for my reflexologist about the program of treatment I have just finished with her.
  • researched and put the final touches to the design of the fruit orchard we are about to construct.  An espaliered job within a massive netted area.  Organised the man to come and rip the plot and auger the holes for the posts and the trees next Monday afternoon.  By then I will have to get the gypsum scattered over the area, so it can be turned in more effectively with the machine.  I still have to draw up the final copy of the diagram with exact measurements.  This is something I really don’t want to fuck up.
  • cleaned the upstairs loo and basin
  • vacuumed the large living area (just before the visitors arrived, luckily! It was looking like a cesspool)
  • dropped in on someone to discuss some business (yes, very mysterious!)
  • shopped
  • organised one of the cars to have a service performed
  • caught up on a backlog of emails stretching to March last year 
  • took some quick photos of the frosty morning
  • finished reading Death at Intervals by Jose Saramago
  • finished reading Is It Just Me or is Everything Shit
  • had a few turns on my scrabulous game
  • replied to all my facebook messages
  • researched gypsum applications rates
  • cooked lots of meals and did at least one load of dishes per day
  • had an hour phone call with a friend whom I haven’t spoken to in ages
And probably heaps more that I can’t even remember.  I throw my daily list in the fire at the end of the evening, so I can’t check back.  Maybe that’s a good thing.
I can hear a fox howling in the mid distance, the fire crackling in the room underneath (I am in the mezzanine above the main living area) and the dripping of melted frost from the eaves on the windows opposite.  I still have an hour before leaving the house.  I need to get dressed and make sure all the bins are emptied as I am taking the rubbish to the tip today (after pump and before shop/post/newsagent, where I will pick  up the weekly treat of Friday’s Guardian Weekly).  Then home to rustle up some lunch and some scone mixture in preparation for the lovely J and N who are coming to save the bacon of my revegetation project at 1 pm.  
Then we can all have scones and jam and cream and cups of tea and sit in the sun on the back verandah overlooking the babbling brook watching the parrots and magpies and the odd Australian Wood duck wander around the lawn.  And admire all our hard work.  And then if there’s time I’ll race over to the neighbour’s and fill the back of the ute with hay again and hopefully get home in time to have a shower (still outside – don’t ask) before it gets too cold. 
By which time I will be starving for my dinner and totally unprepared and will probably end up having leftovers of the roast chicken I made last night.  And then maybe I can put my feet up for a while and watch a bit of the Olympics.
DH reckons I would be a shoo in for a medal if house-wifing was an Olympic event.  I’m inclined to agree.  Anyway, you could maybe see where there really isn’t much room for a full time job. Come to think of it, not much room for kids either!  Ha Ha Ha.  Oh the irony of wanting something you haven’t got time for anyway.  I wonder if I am completely mad?
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Snatching Time for Spring

Posted on August 15, 2008 by Panama Hat

Last week, (or was it now the week before last?) I began reading Julia Cameron’s The Right to Write.  The chapter on snatching small moments of time in which to write struck home for me.  I feel as though I don’t get nearly as much time to write as I would like, and that I can’t write in bits an pieces, 15 mins here and 15 mins there, so I don’t begin at all.  Julia makes a strong argument for NOT waiting for the right moment or the long stretch of time – it may never happen – so just get on with it in the time you DO have.

So here I am, 8 am, snatching some time before my painless pump class at 10.40.  Let’s see what happens…
I have been wanting to write about spring for some time now.  Although technically we are still in winter (being August) I noticed spring began to waft through the days very early in this month.  The air had a warmth about it so lacking in the past season, the icy edge removed and a softness returning with the sun’s strengthening heat.  The hint of summer bite that tells you the UV index is through the roof.  I have been longing for the warm sunny days when the trees will begin to blossom and the garden fills with bees.  I can begin to wear fewer layers of clothing  and there will be less need for the fire to go all day.
But spring is also a season of tease, giving insight to the summer coming whilst compelling you to  remember the season just now making a slow exit.  Frost.  Today is the fifth morning I have woken to frost covering all outside surfaces, the hard crackle of stiff grass underfoot, the below zero chill in the air.  This is the closest we ever get to snow and it seems magical, other worldly, so fleeting but leaving behind a trail of destruction if you have been foolish enough to plant tender seedlings or trees too early.  Lulled into a false sense of security by that first week of placid warm weather – here one day, retreating the next and you are left standing in nothing but a negligee with the Arctic wind whipping around your ankles.
I am wary of spring’s roaring winds and must protect my neck from wind invasion at all times but I also love them for they sweep through and clear the last vestiges of winter stagnation, creating a path for the new season, stirring new life, rousing it from post-winter dormancy.  These gusts can be exhilarating: full of latent energy, the power of rebirth and awakening.  They are not an event you can ignore.  These winds feel like the kinesthetic equivalent of rustling energetically through great piles of autumn leaves or splashing vigorously through large  winter puddles.  In spring you can just stand out in the open air and let yourself be buffeted this way and that while nature takes full control.
Spring is both rough and smooth, cold snaps and wintery storms are not a stranger to this season, yet we are offered also a sneak preview of what to expect from summer, a little pre-emptive taste, just a morsel.
I wonder if people can miss spring, simply by focusing on the winter just gone, and how they so much want it to be over; or the summer to come and how they so much want it to fully arrive.  But to do this would be to miss an opportunity to see nature at her most raw, bare bones chaos, neither here nor there, this nor that, promising nothing, offering all possibilities, showing us the duality of rebirth.  The gentle and the violent in the same breath.
Usually, after what is more like 6 months of winter here, I can’t wait for summer.  But this year I am all tuned into spring and I’m not going to miss a moment.  I can see it peeking out from behind the curtain and I’ve got it under close surveillance.   And I’m up for whatever it has on offer.
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And the specialists say….

Posted on August 4, 2008 by Panama Hat

Keep trying.

None of them think it is just bad luck, but they also say there is no indication that the endeavour is completely hopeless either.  Although none can actually pinpoint where my body is going wrong, we have come out of this week with a couple more ideas to try.
The lovely Jennie Slee, geneticist at KEMH, says there is nothing to indicate I/we should throw in the towel.  Both DH and I have normal Karyotypes, and though many of our embryos have been ‘chaotic’, we did have two ‘normal’ ones, which indicates some hope.  She recommends continuing with PGD if we do IVF again, and was not sure if there was a clinic in Australia using CGH testing for embryos.  I will have to do further research on this.  The CGH method is a bit more reliable than FISH, plus has the bonus of testing ALL the chromosomes, not just 8 of them.  Jennie also mentioned another test, the microarray based CGH, which she thinks is still in experimental stage in Australia.  This test is apparently a lot more reliable than the other two, but I need to do some more research to see who may be offering it, and when.
The hardworking Dr Barry Walters, physician and recurrent miscarriage specialist gave me and my paperwork a thorough going over.  Although he found nothing conclusive he did suggest that trying Clexane 40mg daily as soon as pregnancy was confirmed, may be helpful.  According to him, studies have shown that in cases of recurrent miscarriage where clotting disorders have NOT been found, administering Clexane still increased live birth rates.  So I shall be giving that a go should I be lucky enough to fall pregnant again.  Dr Walters did not seem to think low dose asprin alone would be of any benefit, however the third specialist we saw (below), said he thought it might be.
Dr Mark McKenna is a lovely chap with a good sense of humour and an interest in his patient’s problems-a rare bird in this industry! He has also closed his books so we were very grateful he even agreed to see us.  I think my GP had done some hard grovelling on our behalf.  And perhaps he likes the real challenges.  Anyway we spent about 45 mins shooting the recurrent pregnancy loss breeze with a person who knew EXACTLY what we were talking about.  How refreshing to have one’s questions sensibly and concisely answered by someone who had actually spent time thinking about what those questions might be BEFORE YOU EVEN GOT THERE.
Dr McKenna’s take: the rate limiting factor for us will probably not be menopause, it will be emotional burnout. (Amen, sista!)  So the question was really, given that there is still a chance of success, how long are we prepared to go on trying?  And then if we do intend to go on trying, in what capacity shall we try?
The first answer is yes, we will continue to try to create a child.  And we will do that slowly at our own pace with as many breaks as we need to, in order to stay sane and married.
The second answer is more complicated.  What form will the trying take?
Well Dr Mc Kenna’s suggestions for improving our chances include trying clomid.  He seemed to take my luteal phase defect seriously, thought it could be interfering with the egg maturity and why not give it a whirl.  [He didn’t have a preference over femara or clomid, so please write in folks, and let me know your own experiences/suggestions/advice/opinions on which I should choose.]
None of the specialists seemed to think we ought to rush out and use another woman’s eggs. In fact, no one brought up the egg issue until I mentioned it, and consensus was that no proof existed to suggest mine were so faulty we needed to abandon them.  I raised the idea of surrogacy and no one jumped all over that either.  They all seem to think I have plenty more time to give things a go with my own eggs and body, but ‘isn’t it nice that I have other options up my sleeve for later’ sort of response.  So there you are.  38 and I seem to have all the time in the world.  Much more reassuring than having everybody freak out and wave their arms in the air telling me to get on with it, and quickly!
So, plan A: 
  • Begin low dose asprin now – what can it hurt? [if you have an actual answer to this rhetorical question, please do leave a comment!]
  • Start clomid/femara next cycle
  • If pregnancy occurs begin clexane injections
  • If pregnancy doesn’t occur by the end of the year, think about an IVF cycle.  Decision as to where will be made on availability of best PGD process vs inconvenience of perhaps having to go out of state to have that done.
Plan B: At some point [we will know when the time has come] we decide plan A hasn’t worked, then:
  • donor egg IVF in Perth
  • think about surrogate
HOWEVER: HSG results have thrown a small spanner in the works by showing that the left tube is being compromised by remaining ectopic tissue/and/or scarring.  The dye made it through (painfully) but you can see it isn’t properly clear.  Given that the technician tried very hard to flush it out with saline but due to me being in quite a lot of agony gave up, there seems to be not much hope it will go away of its own accord.  It may reduce slightly, but some of it will be permanent scar tissue.  What this means is, if my left tube ever decides to escort a future embryo, then: (very probably but can’t say DEFINITELY) hello ectopic, hello surgery, goodbye left tube.  So this makes trying again ‘naturally’ rather nerve wracking.  Having said THAT, IVF presents a 25% risk of ectopic anyway, so what the heck.  I’m pretty much spinning the wheel either way.
Of course I COULD have pre-emptive surgery to remove the tube now, or even remove both of them.  Then I would be guaranteed no more ectopics.  But I hesitate at such a radical step.  At the moment I prefer to take my chances.  The tubes will go only when they HAVE to.
Oh yes, one last thing.  They found that my uterus was slightly retroverted.  Which probably explains why the procedure was so painful.
And there you have it.  My week in a nutshell.   Carry on.
*I reserve the right to remember other details later and add them in without admitting I have edited this document.
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To lighten the mood…

Posted on July 23, 2008 by Panama Hat

I saw this on Mrs X’s blog and thought I would give it a go. Apparently, the National Endowment for the Arts believes that the average American has read only 6 of the books on the list below. I wonder how the Aussies are faring. My total was 72. I think I just got lucky- the list looks a whole lot like my bookshelf. Even down to the ones I haven’t read yet. Most of them are still actually on the shelf!

Here’s what to do:
1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline (or mark in a different color) the books you LOVE – my favourites are in red
4) Reprint this list in your blog so we can try and track down these people who’ve read 6 (or less!) and force books upon them 😉

1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch – George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy ( I read 2/3 and gave up. Just not that into it!)
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky (it is on the pile)
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
34 Emma – Jane Austen
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne (how can you get through childhood without reading this???)
41 Animal Farm – George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany – John Irving
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50 Atonement – Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52 Dune – Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons (still on the pile)
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth (still on the pile)
56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72 Dracula – Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses – James Joyce ( I did TRY)
76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal – Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession – AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert (gave up halfway through, couldn’t love it)
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection
91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94 Watership Down – Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

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My creative recovery

Posted on July 23, 2008 by Panama Hat

I am finding the Artist’s Way very helpful at the moment. I seem to be including many more pleasurable and creative moments into my day and leaving until later many more dreary chores and ‘must/should’ undertakings. And I am doing this with less and less guilt and more sense of entitlement. Which is a refreshing change.

On the weekend DH and I went to the local Wine and Truffle Company for lunch, with my parents. We had a wonderful boozy and completely overindulgent afternoon. I have decided I like truffle products. I bought a bottle of truffle oil to play with in my future cooking and DH and I think we will plant some hazelnuts and oaks and try to get some going on our own property in the next few years. That would be fun. Why not give it a go?? The truffle hunting dogs were also very adorable…

During the week my step-Aunt and her twelve year old son came to stay (school holidays) for two days and we had a lot of fun. Went for a long walk over hill and dale, arriving home as dusk turned to dark and our shoes were sodden from trekking through the long wet grass. The moon was rising, almost full, and I dusted off and resurrected the telescope so we could better contemplate the wonder of the universe. Many board games were played (I think we counted nine) and much sitting around in front of the fire with cups of tea was accomplished, with some bouncing acrobatics performed on the trampoline in between rain showers. Nephew and I cooked up a storm in the kitchen beginning with an almond and ginger cake for afternoon tea, and he learned how to make a cracking risotto with emphasis on the importance of sound in the cooking process. All the roses got pruned and we brought in a beautiful vaseful of clipped buds to enjoy. They are now in my bedroom, filling the space with their delicate perfume.

On Saturday I had the house to myself and began my latest felting project – a red silk wrap to be worn over trousers – it is up to the point where I can actually do the felting bit now. I’m very excited to be creating something for myself (the last five all went to other people).

And yet, the housework has somehow still got done: the sheets and towels from all the guests have been washed, along with general clothing; the house has been vacuumed; the wood box filled and dishes done daily; food on the table at night (today I have prepared a whole-bird comforting chicken soup, with Chinese flavours and egg noodles); the ironing is under control; filing is done and the new tax year folders organised for future paperwork management.

I spent the afternoon with a dear friend in another town (70mins drive away) yesterday while DH was giving people anaesthetics. We had a lovely time just chatting and catching up. I went with her to do some of her chores and discovered a new gourmet shop that had some hard to get spices and came home with a bagful of: rosebuds/dried pomegranate seeds/dried tamarind slices/Spanish Cocoa. All for under ten dollars. What a bargain. And then I met up with my friend in her favourite shoe shop and impulsively bought a pair of bright red leather heels for a hundred bucks. Why not?

Spicing up my wardrobe and image has been a lot of fun. I have taken on board the comments from my hairdresser of a fortnight ago. It is kind of liberating to let myself be more playful with my appearance.

The rain has eased up and now I think I might join my Wednesday afternoon walking group for a stroll in a local forest.

What a fortunate life I lead.

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Another miscarriage

Posted on July 23, 2008 by Panama Hat

My best friend just lost her baby.  I feel gutted for her.  

She texted me this morning while I was in my reflexology treatment and I forgot to check it until I was in the car driving home.  Baby.  Lost. Don’t call.  Very sad.  
It hit me straight in the heart and I bawled, feeling the pain rip through my chest and upper body, as if it were my very own grief.  I had been thinking only this morning about her, how I had not made time to see her in the last two weeks and that I would make the effort today to check in with her.  I also had thought to myself “apart from all the OTHER reasons why I want her to keep this baby, I just don’t feel like I can go through the whole miscarriage thing again – and although it would not be MY miscarriage, I would feel as though I was going through it all again myself, on some level.” And I do.
I see her in my mind, dancing with joy at her own party a couple of weeks ago, 7 weeks pregnant, alive with the possibility that THIS MIGHT ACTUALLY WORK.  Struggling to quell the fears that it wouldn’t, and to dismiss doubt from her mind, all the better to enjoy what was, being present in every moment- because we all know we don’t get to change the outcome, so enjoy it while we have it right?  I know so many of you reading this know exactly what I’m talking about.  
But the flipside to that positivity is the pain when you lose that baby.  It hurts so much more than when you didn’t invest any joy and wonder and hope.  But you feel you have to invest that hope, because to start out with a negative or neutral attitude may doom that baby, and then it would be ALL YOUR FAULT because you didn’t believe hard enough.  So you can’t win. Damned if you do and damned if you don’t.  All you can do is leave your heart wide open and take the hit when it comes.  And the danger is that the more times you take the hit, the harder it becomes to open your heart the next time.  Perhaps that is what people mean when they say “you’re so strong.”  It isn’t so much about coping or getting through it.  I think they really mean ‘brave’ because what it takes is more and more courage to keep opening yourself up to the possibility of another round of soul-shattering grief.
Don’t ask me how we do it.  I don’t know.
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