March 7. Day 66. You are my sunshine

Generally when  I utter the phrase "I just hung the washing out" there will be a resigned irritation mixed with a large dose of something resembling exhaustipation*. Well, if I don't who else will? Oh poor me.
Not today. Today there was genuine joy. Happiness is enough sun to dry your clothes after days and days of rain. Happiness is no longer having to rifle through the bottom of the undies drawer to find clean smalls.
Happiness is also a walk in the sun and today that happened and the destination was one of my favourite places when the sun shines - South Bank Parklands.
Like just about every day this week my footwear got soaked, the difference is that today the water was in the water park not from the stuff bucketing down and forming great streams and puddles everywhere.
The socks and shoes are no less wet but like the washing, the reaction is much different. The soggy footwear came when I was talking to Michelle who was playing in the waterpark with her adorable toddler 11-month-old Thomas. Thomas has been walking for only three weeks but there was no stopping him. The youngster from Townsville was taking to Aquativity like a duck to water and the glee on his face was obvious. Hopefully
 the change in weather will ensure the visitors return home to Townsville on the weekend with a sunny picture of Brisbane in their minds. It threatened to be a little bleak up until today.






*Defined as too tired to give a shit

March 6. Day 65. Mushroom cloud

I never met a vegetable or other edible plant worth dying over. Ever.
Some days I could kill for some hot chips but I would not go into battle for the rights of beetroot or to defend the honour of a carrot.
Chocolate or that slow roasted lamb lasagna I had at an Italian restaurant recently, they are are to die for.
Mushrooms are perfectly nice specially when sauteed in butter and garlic and few pizzas are the same without them (apart from a dessert pizza, my mind returning to that Italian restaurant) but if I was never allowed another mushroom again, I'd be okay with that.
Mushrooms are springing up everywhere at the moment. The clouds and non stop rain are creating the perfect conditions for the fungi. Just in the carpark where I work there are at least four different types and some of them are HUGE. Many are also quite attractive and would make a meal in themselves. But I'm not even tempted.
In fact I find it curious that people would take their lives into their own hands and harvest wild mushrooms knowing full well that if they get it wrong that delicacy could be the death of them.
Despite what the supermarkets keep telling us, fresh isn't always best.  Never is that more true than with mushrooms. What can you expect with something that thrives when kept in the dark and fed with shit?
I have quite enough of that in my life already, thank you very much.

March 5. Day 64. Those puppy dog eyes

Nellie was stopping traffic at Kelvin Grove this morning.
In the first instance, Nellie was taking her life into her own hands and trying to dodge cars on busy Kelvin Grove Road.
Carry on that sort of game of chicken for any length of time and the result will inevitably be disaster.
Nellie got lucky. She as rescued and taken to the safety of the Kelvin Grove Urban Village by an employee of the local bank who called the number on her collar and tried to locate her owners. No luck. So reluctantly she contacted council, left Nellie with a bowl of water and tied her to a pole with a note advising the pedestrian traffic about what was happening.
Tied to that pole, was sure turning heads. Just about everyone who passed stopped, read the sign and gave Nellie a quick pat. In many cases it was a much longer pat
She's such a gentle soul with big puppy dog eyes and dirty white paws. She's reminded me (not that I need much reminding) how much I want a dog.
Only a heartless cat person would not be moved by Nellie. Someone has loved her and cared for her and I can only hope whoever that is is relocated with this pooch. I rather suspect she's someone's best friend and right now whoever that is is missing her badly.

March 4. Day 63. It's growing on me

My father had a couple of standard responses to standard whinging exchanges with teenager daughters.
If we said: "But I'm trying, Dad."  The response would always be: "Yes you are, very."
And if we tried to insist that the new haircut, fashion, boyfriend would grow on him he'd say. "yes, like fungus". Occasionally, for variety, "Like mould."
Similarly it is possible this weather will grow on me, like mould.
Just over two months gone of this year and already we've had half the normal annual rainfall. The only surprise in that statistic for those of us who live here is that it is only half.
Unrelenting, drenching, serious rain.
The rain that makes everything damp and musty, the rain that makes any type of outdoor activity virtually impossible and the rain that encourages mould spores to spontaneously spring into action and grow everywhere.
People who choose to live in Brisbane are largely attracted by the weather and let me tell you this isn't the type of weather that attracts them.
On the upside I only got a bit wet today. The sun did come out at times and one load of washing is now dry.
I also rather like the photo of growth I took when I parked briefly outside the office. Luckily it was only a 15 minute zone. Any longer and this,  too,  may have grown on me. It's that type of weather.

March 3. Day 62. Spoon fed

The buzz in the baby raising world is baby-led weaning. It means no purees. It means no weaning spoons. Gone is the aeroplane game where we pretend the spoon is an aeroplane and coax the child to open his or her mouth so we can land the food inside.
Instead, finger foods are presented as soon as the baby is able and the little one is invited to try everything. From an early age, baby gets used to different food and textures, joins in at meal times and is able to take as much or as little as he really needs.
Sounds messy and I'd worry about chocking.
But it's more than that. In the great spectrum that ranges from free range to helicopter parenting, I fully confess to being a hoverer of the top order.
Forget spoon feeding. As my bottom would attest, given half the chance I would eat it for you.
See these magpies feeding on my back deck today? That would be me. I would predigest it if I could.
This is despite the fact that I see the end result of this kind of take-over parenting every day in my job as a university lecturer. There's a whole generation of kids who want it all chopped up in tiny little bits and presented to them on the plate. And then they want it spoon fed to them.
Ideally they would like this to happen virtually so they don't even need to turn up.
But in so many other ways they are so knowledgeable, so independent and so confident.
So hovering can't be all bad. And in any case there are enough people out there ready to blame mothers for everything that is wrong with society without us doing it to ourselves.
 Now if you'll excuse me it's time for morning tea. I need to go and cut off the crusts of some peanut paste sandwiches - and then feed them to myself. Some people never grow up.

March 2. Day 61. The naked truth

I am relatively sure that this time last year I was not walking around naked. Yes, the mind does have a commendable ability to blot out unpleasant facts but still I'm sure I would remember that if only because I've been having the same recurring nightmare about arriving at a do in either my PJs or nothing since I was in kindy. A fear of not being prepared and being "exposed" means any nudey dude action I would recall.
Which raised the question, what was I wearing this time last year? It's now autumn and with the  bucketing down rain there was a definite chill in the air this morning which hasn't been there. I stood there in the rather large walk in robe and looked at all the frocks, blouses and slacks (these are words which I am determined to bring back into fashion) and could see nothing appropriate for the occasion and the season. Nothing.
There's been no wardrobe purge so where are the autumn clothes? Why does this happen at the change of season every year? So with a face as long as a wet weekend I pulled on a pair of leg ins and a shirt and rushed out the door for a medical appointment.
I got wet, I got cold and I wasn't hanging around the great outdoors for any longer than strictly necessary. Weekends are normally characterised by long walks and awesome photographic opportunities. Today, not so much. I'll call it a self portrait. I'm such a drip desperately trying to hang on to summer. The naked truth is there. I'm losing it.

March 1. Day 60. Head above water

It's game on. The students have arrived and finally the main game of teaching can begin - I just need to clear the backlog of paperwork. I'm up to my neck in it. My head is above water but only just - a bit like this lizard at South Bank this morning.
I'll let you in on a big secret. I hate paperwork. Never has the need to fill in a form, write criteria sheets or complete appointment documents motivated me to get out of bed in the morning. Indeed if that was it I might never crawl out from under the doona. But there's a mountain load of administrivia in my and I suspect every job and it only gets worse. Efficiency drives seem to mean the phasing out of administrative staff. Sure I can make my own coffee and phone calls and do my own printing. I've never dictated anything to anybody. But more and more of the complex administrative tasks seem to be finding their way into my inbox. I sometimes wonder about the wisdom and indeed the cost of shifting responsibilities from specialist office staff on to academic staff.
Don't get me wrong. These things are not beneath me it's just that I'm not very good at them.
Surely it is better to have someone who is fast, efficient and experienced at a task do it rather than farm it out to those who are slow and inefficient.  It's prematurely aging me. Beady little eyes and scaly skin are other things I share with this lizard. I may also be growing horns.
Humph, if only I got to laze on a rock or wade in the water at South Bank every day. Perhaps this fellow could fill in appointment forms and we could swap. He couldn't be much worse at it than I am.