Dey Gorn!!!!

Sorry about the dodgy title I'm just excited.  Back to school after a very long six weeks or so.  I still think the Summer school holidays are too long but I won't go on about it again.  They both got up without fuss and got themselves dressed, no breakfast but that's a work in progress for me.  We have no car today and Emily wanted me to walk them, I don't know why but I did, any exercise is a bonus.  I left them 3/4 of the way there when she started with her verbal crap.  But they went and it's a good start to what I'm determined will be a good better year.
Went down and picked up Josh's shirts yesterday and got a skirt for Emily in the size I figured would fit her, ladies' size 12.  They must be a small make because she couldn't do it up and she has lost weight.  Little bugger ripped off the tag though and the uniform shop lady wasn't impressed by all accounts.  They went and exchanged it on their way fishing at Temora.  Josh is totally in love with fishing and I think Phill regretted his beer influenced promise on Sunday to take them back yesterday on the other side of the lake to fish.  But they went and it was so nice to have a few hours to myself.  I like to have dinner early so I made myself a stir fry with some turkey breast fillet, snow peas, carrots, mushrooms, capsicum, baby bok choy/choy sum something or other, garlic, ginger, red onion and a not quite ripe chilli from the garden.  Did it in oyster sauce with a bit of fish sauce and topped it with some fresh coriander and stirred in some udon noodles.

  It got to about 39C yesterday here and is shaping up to be 42C today.  I sent the kids off with frozen water bottles and frozen yoghurt tubes in their lunch bags.  The poor animals are really suffering.  I read somewhere about making frozen stock iceblocks for dogs and had a chicken one in the freezer, but Max wasn't interested.  The cats were though.  Especially little guts Lucky. 

Nobody has phoned about him yet. I made up better posters yesterday with a nicer picture of him.  There he is waiting for the call from his new family.

Josh was so stressed about going back to school.  I really feel for him but do him no favours by coddling him, I know that now.  So I cheerfully went about doing what needed doing and he came out with a grin and told me he wants to start blogging.  I said "Great!  It can be a really good outlet even if you don't make it public".  He wants to write his account of school, with a funny slant on the bullying and crap that he puts up with there.  It can't be a bad thing and knowing his sense of humour and his often wry and succinct view of things could be very amusing. 

I grew up mostly in Sydney and lived most of my adult life there before we made our tree change.  I was raised in the age of being terribly politically correct and any hint of racism, or should I say, perceived racism was severely frowned upon, in public anyway.  The word "wog" which was used to describe the wonderful Italian and Greek immigrants, many who I went to school with, is now a term of endearment and used by them more than us, even though they are us now of course.  I love that we're a melting pot of multi-culturalism etc etc.  So living in country towns was a huge shock to me.  Racism is rife and not hidden behind veiled agendas.  Yesterday Jo, the uniform shop lady and I were talking about school bullying and she told me the tale of an Arabic family whose kids were starting at our high school this year.  The mother didn't like the short skirts (they're not that short really, my high school uniform put them to shame), so the poor kid now has to wear the skirt (????) AND a pair of trousers, and the school shirt AND a burka.  I feel so sorry for the poor things, and the year seven girl's name apparently is "Arsa".  I can imagine what they're in for up there, there are some horribly ignorant and awful kids attending Coota High.  When I thought about it though, I decided that the good and kind kids, my Josh is one of them, will probably take them under their wings and look out for them.  But what shocked me was Jo telling me she had a go at the mother.  I'm not sure what country they're from, but she told her that if they want to come and live in our country.....well you know the rest.  This is a nice woman, who has really nice kids and runs a very successful business.  I am glad I raised my country kids the way I was raised, to accept people for who they are, not what colour they are, not what religion they are, and to embrace other cultures and learn from them.  (Thanks Mum).  They both jumped on me once when driving through Dubbo and I made a silly comment about some people who ran in front of my car.  I won't embarrass myself here by repeating it but I was proud (yet annoyed) of them.

And talking of Arabic reminded me of the time when we lived in Junee, that horrible year when Phill was working away permanently, he had a fatality when some mental patient (fucking mental health policy in NSW) decided to make his suicide a group thing by laying his head on the tracks and being decapitated, the poor driver (Phill) and his offsider having to see the head bounce along in front of them,  the trial of my brother's killer ended up being two trials (fucking idiot judicial system in Australia) and I decided on the spur of the moment to drive over to Mum's on the coast.  Packed up the three kids and off we went.  I am not known for my sense of direction.  We got to Canberra, Katy was reading the map to me and saying "Okay take the green road, then go right on the red road....."  At one time we were powering the wrong way up a one way highway and eventually realised we were headed for Sydney, not the coast.  Aussies will understand how lost we were.  I told Kate to go through the NRMA book and ring some motels.  All the way up everywhere was booked out until she finally found one in Bass Hill, a suburb of Sydney, who asked if she was "with the Arabic people".  She repeated this to me and I was outraged.  How dare they ask our race and discriminate??  But it was approaching sunset and I cannot drive in the dark so we made a booking.  Still seething, we got to reception to find that an AEROBICS convention was happening and the motel was almost booked out by them.  Kate had misunderstood and much hilarity ensued when I told the story to the people milling around as we booked in.  You probably had to be there.

Yay John Laws is back on radio.  I am listening to his familiar voice on the computer.  He's either loved or hated but mostly loved these days.  He retired two years ago but as I knew he would, got bored with that and came back to an underdog Sydney radio station.  They won't be for long.

Well it's time to put on the mask, protective clothing and boots and tackle Emily's room.  Wish me luck.

Yes that chair needs throwing out but she won't part with.  LEAST of her problems as you can see.

I'll need it.