Politics and all that

I am here... still. I was up at 5am yesterday and caught a cab to the airport. Met my colleague and boarded the plane to Sydney, to get the first flight to Papua New Guinea. Another domestic flight had some problems, so QANTAS decided they would divert some passengers from that plane to Sydney. Thus we arrived in Sydney with 30 minutes to get to the International terminal and to board our flight. Only by the time we did get there, the flight had closed. So there we stood, with four other passengers due to fly business class to PNG. I returned to the office and went from work to meet David at the shops. We bought Nicholas' birthday present. So nice I could be here to do that. I was tired by early evening!!
Nicholas had asked me to bring him a coconut home... or if I couldn't get a coconut, then a book about coconuts!?? I don't know where his interest in coconuts has come from, but thankfully David had bought him one from the supermarket. He was thrilled! So today I was at home. And this afternoon I reflected a bit more on political events in the last week.

Last Wednesday I came home after having written a paper to Executive, recommending the Deputy PM as a guest speaker for a conference I am organising on the topic of social inclusion. I also came home with a copy of Quarterly Essay: David Marr's essay on The Political Journey of Kevin Rudd. The Prime Minister I was pleased to see win office in 2007. The Prime Minister whom I had become disillusioned with and disappointed in. I was determined to try and understand the man. No need now, really...

David went to the shops later that evening as we were having a dinner at our house the following evening. When he came home he said to turn ABC on. he said there was going to be a leadership challenge. My response was that it was incredulous. They won't do that now?? Maybe after the election... So what i was hoping to be an early night soon became a late one. And the following morning I watched the news from 7:30am. That morning as the Returning Officer came out to the media my heart sank a little as he said "The new..." I was disappointed and frustrated that it had come to a challenge. I feel for Kevin Rudd. I like Julia Gillard. I do not like factions. there are many good political analysts and journalists I to listen to (in my opinion). Barrie Cassidy, Kerry O'Brien, Annabel Crabb, Chris Uhlmann... but I particularly liked this discussion between Philip Adams, David Marr and Laura Tingle on the day Julia Gillard became Australia's first female PM.

the roller coaster

I haven't been very motivated to post lately. I have been busy. Too busy. My brain feels constantly drained - more responsibility at work that I care for. I dream of going back to my old position at work... then i worry if when (if) I do go back to it, will it be hard for me to accept direction from someone else? Most days I don't think so...
It has been a while since I have had my downhill roller coaster ride. but it came the beginning of this week. I came home late from work on Monday night. David had bathed the kids and they were eating their dinner. They squealed and gave me the "biggest hugs". I cried. Next week I need to be overseas with work and had found out I was returning on the evening of 1 July. My baby's 5th birthday. I know in the grand scheme of things it shouldn't matter, but I wanted to be there in the morning to say happy birthday. To kiss him and hug him tight.
Later that evening I told Nicholas to always remember how much I love him. He said "I will remember it wherever I go". I cried again! To imagine my baby grown up, studying, working, living somewhere else.
But I know that these bumps most often coincide with the times I am exhausted. So I refrained from browsing real estate sites. I won't look for that gorgeous weatherboard home that I just know would make it all ok. I have fabric cut for garments I want to make for Audrey. I have four soft toys I need to make before end August. I have a quilt that needs quilting and a garden that is not growing because our neighbour has an amazing, beautiful gum tree in her backyard that blocks the sun in winter... (but the weeds still grow). I have a birthday cake to make. I want to paint the giraffe on Nicholas' bedroom wall before he is too tall for us to actually measure him by!
I went to work on Wednesday and all my meetings overseas were moved to the same day, so now I can fly home a day early and be right where I want to be on 1 July! That makes my heart leap for joy.

i wish...

... preschool could last forever.

I like this photograph. I wish it was me ~ it looks therapeutic. Piecing together dolls, surrounded by all the required materials. The blog is gorgeous~ picture after picture of these gorgeous rag dolls. It makes me think of these paragraphs from Little House in the Big Woods:

"Mary was bigger than Laura, and she had a rag doll named Nettie. Laura had only a corncob wrapped in a handkerchief, but it was a good doll. It was named Susan. It wasn't Susan's fault she was only a corncob. Sometimes Mary let Laura hold Nettie, but she did it only when Susan couldn't see." pg 12

Then later in the book, at Christmas time: "They just looked with shining eyes at those lovely Christmas presents. But Laura was happiest of all. Laura had a rag doll.

She was a beautiful doll. She had a face of white cloth with black button eyes. A black pencil had made her eyebrows, and her cheeks and her mouth were red with the ink made from pokeberries. her hair was black yarn that had been knitted and ravelled so that it was curly...

She was so beautiful that Laura could not say a word. She just held her tight and forgot everything else." pg 43

I made Audrey two dolls last year - mainly as a test of the patterns. She gets them down from the shelf to play with and says "mama make". That makes me smile.

King of the Castle

Yesterday we went to Story time at the local library. We stayed a while - there weren't many kids this day, and the "story time lady"is lovely and interacts with the children a lot. The theme was 'fantasy'. For craft the kids made a crown. Nicholas took a lot of time and care with decorating his. He said he had a great idea - that he could "wear it to the castle!" And he did. Today we had a wonderful family day trip. We don't get away enough - even for a day. Iandra Castle has a small number of open days each year. The trip took 2 1/2 hours and of course we had driven barely 30 minutes before Nicholas asked if we were there yet! He was drawing in the back seat and drew a picture of a castle, with a moat and a king standing at the top. He asked if there would be knights there. I was a bit worried he may be disappointed, but he wasn't - the house was big, and there was a flag on top. A woman smiled at Nicholas and Audrey in their crowns and nudged her husband as she pointed to them. I was pleased that someone understood the significance of their paper crowns...
It was a lovely atmosphere as people drove up to the house, listened to talks, walked through the house and had picnics. I had made soup, biscuits (Australian for cookies) and some savoury muffins yesterday. We bought bread rolls and cinnamon doughnuts, some treats for the kids and were good to go. The house had a sewing room that would have been glorious in its day, with bay windows and light streaming in all around.
The weather was glorious. The kids loved playing under the trees - giant Morton Bay Figs...They pretended to snore themselves to sleep in one of the many bedrooms. I like the way Nicholas hung his crown on the stand by the bed... I wonder if that is what real kings do?? ;)Audrey tried to escape under the main dining room table...Bees filled the bottle brush.
Finally, a picture of Nicholas and Audrey with their "Distinction-average" dad. David received his university result for this past semester... he is doing very well indeed! :)

growing a little bit more...

My little boy had his first school assembly today. I was able to leave Audrey with David and pop along by myself. I hadn't told Nicholas I was going. It was so cute to see the preschoolers walking hand in hand, two by two and sitting up on the primary school stage. They sang some action songs and I got all the smiles and waves from Nicholas that you would expect from someone doing something for the first time. Nicholas was chosen to accept an award from the vice principal on behalf of his preschool class.

I didn't have my camera, but caught every picture in my heart...

my new favourite cd...

Leave Your Sleep by Natalie Merchant. A compilation of poems she has set to music.
This one is called If No One Ever Marries Me.

a bit of the old me

Petro Georgiou gave his valedictory in Parliament this week. He will be missed. A moderate Liberal, politicians like him are very much needed. I wrote to him once, about six years ago when he challenged his own Governments asylum seeker policy, the Pacific Solution, the introduction of temporary protection visas and the instigation of detention centres. Cruel, barren places. I thanked him for simply saying something. If I had been at work on the day of his speech this week, I would have taken the short walk through the car park to the seat of our Government and applauded him.

This is some of what he had to say:
"Until a few months ago I believed that the reforms made by Howard and the Rudd Government meant that we had irreversibly turned the corner. I wrote that we were closing a dark chapter in our history. This chapter had seen men women and children seeking refuge in our country incarcerated; innocent people imprisoned for periods longer than convicted rapists, robbers and kidnappers. Escapees from persecution were demonised... That chapter has now been re-opened.
Regression has become the order of the day. With an increase in boat arrivals, asylum-seekers are being subjected to increasingly virulent attacks. The Labor Government has frozen the processing of Afghani and Sri Lankan asylum-seekers, and is reopening the Curtin detention centre, historically the most notorious detention centre, a place of despair and self harm.
The fact is, Australia's punitive approach did not deter people seeking to come to Australia. Mandatory detention, charging asylum seekers for the cost of their detention, the introduction of temporary protection visas and the Pacific Solution did not deter.
After mandatory detention was introduced, boat arrivals increased. After temporary protection visas were introduced, boat arrivals increased. Most of the people subjected to the Pacific Solution were found to be refugees and resettled in Australia and New Zealand. We have not lost control of our borders. People smugglers do not determine who comes into Australia and who doesn't...
Petro Georgiou said he he once said to journalist Michael Gordon that “in life there are many things that you'd like to walk past and not notice. Lots. But sometimes you do notice and when you notice, you have to do something”. Well I have noticed some things, and I have tried not to walk past."

My mind is brought back to the period between 2002-2004 when I corresponded with an Iranian woman who, with her husband, was in detention - firstly in Curtin, then moved to Baxter. When I first began to write I was horrified to know that I had to address the envelope to their "numbers": 42 and 43. People given a number? People locked behind fences. It reminded me of another time, another place. Another history that should be burnt in all of our minds.
She is a couple of years younger than me. She was a dentist in her home country, her husband a pharmacist. At the time we first exhanged letters they had already been in detention for two years. She wote "after running and escaping for almost 2 months and then after wandering in ocean for 25 days we came here and are stuck to these fences and razor wires". At the end of that first letter she wrote of Curtin: "You can feel the anger and tension and frustration in the air. My only hope is to get out soon. With lots of love. Convey my regards to David." then; "if we are moved to Baxter I will let you know my new address".
I sent her cards with lovely pictures on them. She copied me Iranian poems. I printed poems from her favourtie poets and sent them back. She would ask me how my holidays were - did I enjoy my New Years? In one letter she poignently wrote in reference to the war in Afghanistan "Is it not horrible? We people here have experience about it. We know how its gonna be. When it's far from you, you never understand but when it comes to your home then you feel it with your whole being."
In another letter: "This little person in me is growing fast. Another four months and he/she will greet life. Hope it brings blessing and some change and some joy to us... [husband] is very angry and sad about everything. I feel he can't tolerate any more. He takes care of me a lot and swallows his tears."
I cannot imagine spending years confined to one place, without freedom to do anything. She tells me in one letter: "You asked whether we can cook here or not. Not. We don't have any activity but knitting." I smile now, knowing that I certainly would not manage if all I could do was knit!! At times I sent her dried fruit, and tobacco for her husband. I know that her birthday was last week and that this year she will be 36. I wish I knew what became of them. I wish we had maintained contact. I know her baby was born, a little girl. She later wrote of her to me: "My only joy is [name], she is full of joy, curiosity and mischief. I love her. Now she is on my lap watching the computer and saying hello." I sent her baby magazines and clothing. The end of my last letter from her she writes "hope to see you out of these iron gates and kiss you tones of thanks."
I know that they did receive a bridging visa (as did the majority of asylum seekers) and were living in Adelaide.
I could have cried when I heard Petro Georgio's speech. I have long mourned the loss of compassion in our Government, the fear mongering and the use of the vulnerable as a political football. I am disappointed in the "new" Government - a watered down version of the previous one.

300??

I haven't written two posts in one day for a while. I was looking at Ali Edwards blog, which was one of the first I ever read. I have written more than a few times here about my frustrations in letting my scrapbooking fall way behind. Nicholas has a great 1st year album. Audrey has a page. But I was inspired by this Rejoice photo book. I thought I might by it - or just use the concept. It would do me some good to b reminded of scriptures that have always inspired me in the past.
It ahs been months since I even printed photographs, and years since I have even looked at scrapbooking. And I am even more aware of my kids growing, and it only makes me want to capture more of this time.
What do you know... this is post number 300!

I finished reading Jane Eyre yesterday. And mum was right - it is a fantastic story. I am not one for writing book reviews (I'd much rather read them) but I found that in reading the story I became aware of a whole lot more than the tv adaptations often show. It really was enjoyable. Now to my old friends, Heathcliff and Cathy. The blog-along is fun. I can't imagine what late nights were like for Charlotte, Emily and Anne. All those stories to tell each other...

Oh, and speaking of Mr Rochester, in a couple of weeks we are off to the closest thing we probably have to a castle. I'll have to watch for the madwoman in the attic!