Getting through the front door
On tackling things, one bit at a time
I manoeuvred the double pram under our tiny porch, avoiding two bikes, a kid’s scooter, an array of flung footwear (tiny blue sneakers, a pair of flowered gumboots, assorted adult shoes), and an unravelling door mat left behind by the last tenant.
Things stayed dry there – it was Melbourne, so this was important – but as an entrance, it was unworkable. Every morning I’d manage the impossible task of feeding, clothing, brushing, cajoling and readying two small people to get out the door, then still have to find footwear and reverse the pram through a forest of handlebars.
Eve jumped out, chucking her shoes into the chaos, while I extricated Claire from the pram without impaling myself, then flumped down the corridor carrying the shopping, nappy bag and a massive wad of frustration.
‘I can’t handle it anymore!’ I wailed to Guy, dropping Claire on his lap, slamming milk into the fridge and chucking toilet paper in the direction of the loo. (This was easy as the bathroom, loo and laundry all opened straight off the kitchen/eating area, a novel feature that made dinner parties awkwardly intimate.)‘We’re going to have to move!’
Guy rapidly regrouped from whatever lovely thing he was doing in the empty weekend house – reading the paper, listening to music, who knows – and flipped through the available modes of reply, before selecting a good one: sympathy and problem-solving. He listened to me rant about the shoes, the bikes, the pram; how the west-facing living area baked in the summer sun; the disgusting brown carpet decorated with burn marks from irons and cigarettes.
He made the right noises, agreed with it all, then began reminding me of what I loved. There were so many awesome people and things around us. Great public transport, with trams and trains and buses at the end of the street. The buzz and cafes and parks of the St Kilda area. ‘You like living here’, he ended. ‘We’ve got so many friends.’
‘I know.’ There was a silent ‘but’ there. He heard it.
‘I reckon we can fix most of it with a trip to Bunnings’, he said, transforming a house move into a day’s activity.
‘I’ll make a list’, I said, activating my own transformation.
By that evening we had neat shoe racks, a weather-resistant bike shelter, and magic film on the back doors and windows that lowered the summer temperature by a good five degrees. It wasn’t pretty – the ‘bike shed’ was made from plastic roofing and a tarp, the shiny silver film meant our house looked like a crack den from the backyard – but it worked.
Instead of thousands of dollars, and days of house hunting, packing and moving (only to find new versions of the front door problem), we spent $200 and a happy afternoon of problem solving.
We stayed in that house for three more years, our house deposit growing with saved rent. Eve and Claire learnt to ride bikes in the quiet cul de sac, went to an amazing community preschool nearby (with weekly trapeze lessons, amazing gardens and unicycle-riding, marathon-running teachers), while we had plenty of friends within baby-monitor range.
We couldn’t do anything about the carpet.
Yes, Prime Minister
Back in June the whole family went to the Sydney Film Festival to watch the Australian premiere of ‘Prime Minister’, a documentary about NZ’s Jacinda Ardern. It’s an incredible movie showcasing a different type of leadership, one with kindness and empathy at its core. It was also deeply humanising watching a powerful figure struggle, admit she doesn’t have the answers, and smile, joke and cry – you know, just be a normal person.
We all loved it – James said it was way better than the Minecraft movie (high praise from a ten-year old boy) – and we weren’t alone. There were shiny eyes throughout the State Theatre when we saw it, and it won the audience award at the Sundance festival.
The film was co-directed by the brilliant Michelle Walshe, a good friend of my sister’s from our salubrious Stromlo High School days, and will soon be streaming in Australia on HBO. Watch it.
Love camping?
We’ve been camping a bit this year, and each time I spend the whole time thinking (and gushing) about how wonderful it is. And it is: the peace, the downtime, the old-school games, sitting around fires and looking at the stars.
A couple of recent proposed changes to NSW National Park camping fees and policies are going to make it both harder and more expensive. The first aims to ‘standardise’ the pricing structure based on facilities and demand, but will more than triple the cost of staying at some campsites, particularly in school holidays.
The other is a trial of ‘supported camping’ in national parks, which basically means commercial operators get first dibs on campsites. These businesses can then put caravans and tents on these public sites, rent them out for commercial rates, and provide gear and food and who knows what else.
I’m all for encouraging people to get into nature, but this seems more about taming it, giving ‘exclusive’ rights to those who can afford it (and excluding those who can’t by reducing public sites) and allowing businesses to profit from the small areas in the country set aside for nature conservation.
These changes are part of National Parks services across Australia shifting their focus from protecting parks to profiting from them. Private developments are proposed within national parks around the country from Tasmania’s South Coast Track and Walls of Jerusalem (among others), to Victoria’s Alpine National Park and NSW’s Beowa. The crazy thing is that the profit from developing (and degrading) our wildest land – beautiful places, of most conservation value – goes to private, for-profit companies, while conservation and biodiversity programs in national parks (and plenty more) are seriously underfunded.