The Long Drive Picnic. about 1989.

Foxymoron's blog inspired this tale... she was posting about a day she spent with her kids going on a picnic and just following their noses....

It reminded me of a day our family came to call "the long drive picnic." We drove up into the mountains west of Port Macquarie...in mid summer (Que???) and we spent the time looking for a way to get off the road and to the rivers and creeks...okay for us but none were wheelchair accessible. We broke down outside the Long Flat pub and the Bikers all came out and got us going again... after meandering about down gravel roads and in and out the bush, we gave up trying to find a place where we could all get near the water for our picnic. We drove all the way back to Port Macquarie...to the picnic area near the North Shore ferry, only ten mins from home...thats why they called it the long drive picnic... it was great fun and the kids were highly amused...I remember finally turning into the picnic area at Port Macquarie, close to where we had set off from and the old Kombi van was sheer rocking with laughter at our predicament. The kids were great...no way did they want to enjoy their picnic unless don could also get in under the shade or near the water... it was lovely and we all remember it vividly.

The girls were about 14 and 11. Don was 38 and me about 34...so long ago but as i write this it seems like it just happened...in another world.

Good news re my manuscript.

Some of you will know i have been working on a manuscript, about the dreadful treatment and death of my husband Don...my reasons are about justice and so that things might change...especially attitudes to disabled people...which are in the dark ages in our hospital system.

I finished the first write last September and had no idea of the task I had set for myself. It has had many rewrites by me, and apart from one bad so called editor, I have been fortunate to have three people edit the manuscript, each adding to it and showing me better ways to write. Nicki Taylor, Charlie's wife was the second of these and she did a wonderful job.

The hardest thing is to find a publisher, being an unknown...hard enough if its a story, but non fiction and on such a subject which in my case amounts to an expose of bad research, brutalisation, denial of human rights, mistakes, neglect and what I feel was an unlawful death, well publishers are not all that willing to read it and seem to be overwhelmed with stories and other.

I was walking down the path yesterday afternoon talking aloud to myself...you can get away with that if you life out of town...I'll just have to remember not to do it in town... (mad old woman stuff)... I just said out loud, where on earth am i going to find a bloody publisher who will be willing to read the whole thing?

I was feeling desperate...self publishing on such a subject is really risky due to the willingness of doctors to sue...them being more litigious than ordinary people.

Half an hour later I had a phone call from a long time friend of mine in Newcastle (NSW). She has a friend who worked as a Fleet Street Journalist, and who has a disabled son. She was telling her about my manuscript, which she (my friend) had just finished reading and how it had to be published, and how powerful it was.

This journalist writes for a major Australian paper now, freelance and has had many articles published around medical care and disabled etc.

My friend put me in touch with the journalist and she asked me to sent the whole manuscript to her as she wanted to read it. I was up till the wee small hours tiding it up, adding photos, a timeline, a synopsis etc.

Its on its way to her and I can only hope. I know that were someone to read it as it is now, not as it was months ago, filled with anger and "may they rot in hell...a curse on all their houses" stuff it will be realised that the manuscript is a tool for change as well as an expose.

My last editor showed me how to change things i had in there which i thought were okay...and she got me to not tell what happened so much as "show" but description of events what happened. This has made it so much better.

So, here is hoping. Nothing ventured nothing gained. Its just so odd how it all came about...

Multiple Chemical Sensitivity.

A freind of mine, a very brave woman and a born crusader has made the following videos which need to be watched.
This is her website and well worth a look
http://www.mcs-global.org/

But take the time first to watch her story...this condition is overwhelming more and more of us, especially the young. It is a world wide tragedy. Something I am learning more about as both my girls have had problems here but thank god not as bad as this woman's son. Sje is Queensland based.






http://www.mcs-global.org

Just some recent photos of my best mates

..my kids...two of the sanest and silliest people on this planet.


Melissa and I
Alison and I












L2R
Alison me and Melisa

Went to see Dylan Moran from Black Books in Melbourne.

If you have never seen his series Black Books just type in his name and Black Books... Its brilliant... I can't put one of the you tube videos on here as embedding has been disabled... enjoy this bit of a send up on Aussies anyway.

Just Back from Melbourne.

My apologies to those who have asked me to make contact when I visit Melbourne... one day I will, but my time with my kids is so short, we spend it all together. I can not really stay away for longer than a week, as this place of mine takes a power of work to maintain..and I love it, so its not tying me down. This time in between some very painful varicose vein treatments...(the doc said to make sure I walk two hours a day as it helps healing) we went to the Melbourne botanical gardens again. This place is magnificent and only half an hour away by foot from my daughter's flat.

She told me that we had only gotten around about a quarter of it...and I was amazed at the size of the place in the middle of a city. I am easily impressed as I have only ever really travelled in my head... but oh the places i have been there are amazing.

This lake had the black swans on it...if you click on the photo they are clearer.





This is my youngest amongst some flowers..I did read but can't recall what they are.









I had to put this one in...my two kids are two of the best and most decent people I have ever known...not to say there isn't enough of the devil in them to make sure they are good fun and shit stir quite a bit...

Their dad was the master shit stirrer.

And I got to take home some Easter goodies from the girls. Melissa posted some which was unexpected as we usually don't send eggs... for years I have sent the girls a pair of winter pajamas and just a sample of chocolate...as they begged me when they were in their early twenties..."MUM no chocolate" so as we are heading towards winter here...the tradition in our family of a pair of old style flannelette pj's came into being. Both were renting and money very short... pajamas are the last thing you think of when you are stretching the dollars. This year I found them each a pair of "Little Miss Bad" ones...they used to love the Little Mr men and little Miss books as kids...Melissa said "You sent me Little Miss Bad...what did Ali get, Little Miss Sunshine I guess..." nope they both got the Little Miss Bad ones...I think Melissa was surprised. Sad thing about all the chocolate...its in my fridge...I just can't seem to eat it like i used to do...I had a legendary sweet tooth all my life, but for the past 4 years or so it seems to have deserted me. About time i guess...Don's favourite sweet was Peanut brittle. When i came through Sydney Airport I saw in Darrell lea's window a Peanut Brittle Easter egg. So I took it out to the cemetery...its an amazing place...many people leave little tokens of the events of the day....an there were a few little bits of silver paper with chocolate on them at the base of headstones... once upon a time Don had to hide all his sweets from Melissa and I...he even had a wooden chocolate box with a key (someone gave it to him as a joke). Now it would be safe as houses...funny that.

Got some catching up to do on my blog roll which should keep me busy for the next six or so hours!!!!

I am away for a week...for the final varicose vein... hmmm how romantic...treatment..big needles shoved into my veins is just to die for... glad to be able to stay with one of my daughters for the day or so after as there is always the danger of clots...so at least I will be found...here could be dead for the week...hm and not even my doggie Thorn to clean up after me.. Hope all have a good week and alls well in blog land till I get back

As above... so below

I was 41 when I wrote this 14 years ago as the introduction to a collection of short stories based around my family...after I wrote this mum died, Don was sick for a long time and once again down in that filthy RNSH...shortly later his mum and sister died etc etc...it became too painful to continue...but the stories are there for the girls as a colourful history of our family warts and all... Things were so different then but I feel the same about many things...

Intro for "Roaring with delight"

"People say that, "Time Heals All". I don't believe this. Time doesn't do anything at all, we do. The passing of time may knock all the raw edges off, that's all. We are like planetary bodies passing through a vast asteroid belt.

The new planetoid approaching this belt is smooth and spherical. It sails serenely through the blackness. It dreams a thoughtless dream as it rolls along in its absolute innocence and total ignorance. Seeming perfect. As it approaches the asteroid belt,
it wakes up slowly to the dangers. In its mind it calls to its parent Sun for help, but in its young gameness it has already wandered too far away, for the parental gravity to call it back. The little sparsely scattered rocks of the asteroid begin to chip
away at its pure surface. Its surface becomes pock-marked, and its regular rolling, less regular.

Well into the asteroid belt, the larger rocks begin to explode onto its surface, and cracks form. From some of the cracks light emerges. From others, crawl all manner of darkness. The balance is being struck. Its atmosphere is filled with the dust of its
sorrow, and it begins to lurch and roll dangerously, trying to consciously steer a course towards a space between the rocks. The old and battered planet carries its baggage like a 'Bag Lady' ploughing her way up a crowded city street, head down and
avoiding all eyes.

As the planet wobbles its way through the enormous belt, the asteroids become fewer and smaller. It hardly notices the millions of little collisions that occur through the millennia of its travels. The knocks become less hurtful and the planet begins
to forget the suffering and begins to dream again, this time without innocence and without ignorance. It laughs and rumbles with mirth at many centuries of life in the belt.

Now the vastness of space can be seen again, becoming rich with mystery. Peace and wisdom grow in the planet and it begins to roll evenly again, but now with a difference. Now it is the most beautiful planet imaginable. It carries a halo of
light-reflecting particles, tossed up around it by all the impacts. Those last small rocks which besieged the planet, sculptured it and it is now spherical again, after all this time. It gives out its own light now, and appears like an angel in the dreams of young planetoids waiting to be born.

Life is like this, I believe. Some people never pass through the asteroid belt. It seems to others that they are the lucky ones but I'm not so sure in the long run, although it must be nice to reach the end of life without losing innocence. Some people see
the asteroid belt coming and make adjustments to avoid it, weaving and dodging, only to be fall into an unseen black hole and get sucked into a long string of nothingness. Others refuse to begin rolling and remain innocent and ignorant, impersonating perfection. Whether it takes all sorts to make a world or not, the majority of us end up in the asteroid belt, being sculptured by our sorrows and joys, savouring empty spaces we call peace.
(These photos were taken about five years after I wrote this - but it was such a silly day itworks for me in here)

I'm right in the middle of the asteroid belt now, and I pray that
none of the rocks that smash into me will be too big to handle.
The title of my story " Roaring With Delight", describes how I
feel inside much of the time. Life is really funny, along with all the unbelievable sorrow and suffering, the world is a very funny place. Often I am aware of the 'roaring' feel of life. Its like being on a huge water slide unable to control your descent, but most of all I feel like that planet, plunging through aeons of collisions in the crowded spaces in the asteroid belt, having breathers in the stillness of the spaces in between.

At forty one, and at this moment today, I feel good about the
life I am about to describe. I would like to make it right
through the asteroid belt, so I too can roll smoothly, trailing
my halo. Ha! I also hope that this emergence from the turbulence
doesn't happen for at least another forty years. I am much too rough headed yet to roll smoothly, and I quite like it here
amongst the other rough headed ones. I keep telling God this and hope it carries weight.

There is a big drawback in writing your own story, when most people you know are still alive, and may choose to be hurt. I would most certainly be hurt myself if I were to be presenting a totally graphic account. The best bits often have to be left out.
The things you got away with unscathed, have to be put on hold, to protect the guilty, and some of us could be pretty guilty of minor anarchy, in the public interest, of course. I might just have to put in a sealed section called 'Naughty Bits'. Next time
perhaps, when I am eighty.

These are such good fun...just because they are...have a listen to all his others...

This is for the baby boomers who shall NEVER grow old...Yah!