'Twas the Night Before Christmas at Pinky's Place

                                                                  Bad Pinky

In honour of my eighteen year old son Padraic, I’ve rewritten the famous, well-loved poem:

‘Twas the Night Before Christmas.

‘Twas the night
Before Christmas
While inside the house
Little Pinky was stirring
Some tea for her spouse

The stockings were hung
For her doggies, with care

In hopes
In the morning
Some bones would be there

Teenagers were nestled
All safe in their beds
Visions of juggling apes
Danced in their heads

Pinky in her nightie
With the torn shoulder strap
Settled on the couch
One more present to wrap



When out on the lawn
There arose such a clatter
She sprang from the couch
To see what was the matter

Away to the window
She flew like a bee
To peer through the window
And what did she see?

The moon on the breast
Of the bitumen road
Reflected the
Carcasses
Of twenty dead toads



When what
With her wandering eyes
She did spy
But a beat-up Holden
With eight youths piled inside

With a scruffy young driver
Screeching down the street
Pinky knew in a moment
‘Twas son Padraic, in the seat

As the burnt rubber settled
The youths toppled out
And they whistled
And shouted
And milled
All about

“Hey Gazza!
Hey Dazza!
Hey Bazza!

Cried Pinky.



“Hey Grommit!
Hey Stupid!
Hey Poiter!
Hey Stinky!

You’re waking
The neighbours
With that noisy
Car horn
Now dash-away
boys, for tomorrow’s
Christmas morn!”

And then
In a twinkling
They stared at the roof
At the revving
And stereo
Playing ‘Doof, doof…’

'Twas St Nick on the roof!
Doing donuts around

In a shiny
V8 hot rod
With full surround sound

He was dressed
Like a rev-head
From his head
To his thongs
With a singlet
And board shorts
Tattoos and a bong.

A bundle of letters
He had packed
On his back
One each for
The boys with a
message
Intact.

His eyes
How they twinkled
Though red and bloodshot

A result
Of imbibing
More often than not

The stump of his joint
He held tight
In bad teeth
And the smoke
Encircled his head
Like a wreath



He said not a word
All stern
Without noise
And handed
Out the letters
Then said
To the boys

“Whatever you do
Don’t just follow others
Be your own person
And look after
Your mothers.”

He jumped
In his car
Music blaring
Tyres screaming


And the boys
Stared aghast
Their faces
All beaming

Pinky heard them exclaim
In the growing morn light

“It’s Christmas tomorrow
Time to call it a night!”

And off into
The night
They drove quiet
As mice.

Promising they’d

Not be naughty

But nice.

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Thanks to Photoshopping by Scotto.

Just how important is that OP score?

Introduced in 1992, the Overall Position (OP) is a tertiary entrance rank used in Queensland for selection into universities. Akin to comparable systems used throughout the rest of Australia, the OP shows how well a student has performed compared to all other OP-eligible students in Queensland.

The night before last, the state’s OP scores were released to frightened, excited and anxious high school graduates all over our state. Slack, slipshod mother that I am, I was unaware of this fact and it wasn’t until late yesterday that seventeen year old daughter Lulu, sombrely informed me of her result.

Let down and dissatisfied, she confidentially requested of her big-mouthed mother to, “Please don’t tell anyone what I got.”

I looked at her final school report which had arrived in the mail while I was away last week.

There was certainly nothing to be ashamed of.

She’d passed everything including top level Mathematics, Chemistry and Biology which her recalcitrant, algebra-challenged mother would have had no hope in hell of accomplishing. (In fact it just took me five goes at spelling ‘recalcitrant’ correctly.)

“Seven per cent in Mathematics!” screeched my own mother when she perused my GRADE TEN report back in the day. I’d earned seven points out of one hundred on my final test, although I must add I’d been placed twentieth in a class of thirty students even with that miserable result. Let’s just say Mathematics was not my forte but I do feel our teacher may have had some questions to answer. I dropped Maths in grade eleven and twelve as it wasn’t compulsory back then and even now still scratch my head at long division.
Lulu has a high enough score to get into the science degree she wants to do and that’s good enough for me. 

Sure… if there’d been less partying; less boy stuff, less Facebook, I’m sure she could have done better, but perhaps it has all been an effective lesson in life for her.

You know, 

Padraic (eighteen year old son), on the other hand, went down the Vocational Education Training (VET) road in grade eleven and twelve so he wasn’t eligible for an OP score.

Imagine my amazement when I received a text from my friend Kyles last night,

“Holy shite!!!!! Padraic got an OP 4. Congrats! All those English assignments you did for him paid off.”

I checked his Facebook page and sure enough he’d posted “OP4 :)”  on his timeline.

Nice and subtle like...



He had over eighty ‘likes’ on the post. Cheeky little bugger.

The Village Idiot Goes Missing.

                               Lulu on the train into the city.

I’d already annoyed Lulu in the departure lounge at the airport by showing her funny memes and asking, “It’s funny, don’t you think?” over and over and over. 

That must be why she sat beside me in the plane with her earphones determinedly stuck in her ears and her eyes shut tight for the two hour plane trip.

I was a bit lonely... but I read the latest health magazine and made a few silent, but probably futile, resolves for 2014.

Lulu was no doubt cranky with me for chipping her about the outfit she’d chosen to wear on the plane; or rather, the lack of outfit.

I spent a lot of my time at the airport glaring, in what I hoped was a menacing way, at the filthy perverts eyeing my seventeen year old daughter up and down when they walked past us.

We caught a train from the airport into the city and when we finally emerged from the station lugging our suitcases behind us we found ourselves on the same street as the hotel we’d booked.

“It’s a really long street,” I sighed peering down one end then the other. “I wonder which way we should start walking?”

Then I suddenly looked up and miraculously there it appeared. Our hotel was straight across the road. Bazinga!

“Are you here for any special reason?” asked the bubbly blonde at reception.

A slow, slightly smug grin spread across my face, “Oh… my son is graduating from University tomorrow.”

“How wonderful! What’s he graduating in?” asked Blondie pleasantly.

“Law,” I replied, as humbly as possible.

Well? She asked didn’t she? It’s not like I was bragging or anything…

Jonah, the law graduate in question is still surviving on a poor University student pittance and was on the blower about thirty seconds later inviting himself to a free lunch with Lulu and myself.

         "You look like a turtle!" were the first words she said to her brother.

                            Pinky, with her son the lawyer.

We walked off our excess calories by wandering around the Modern Art Gallery at Southbank (Jonah’s idea), whilst Lulu trailed behind us uncomplainingly, but possibly bored out of her brain.

Best afternoon EVER!

It’s seven o’clock and Lulu and I are vegging out quietly in the hotel room but I just had the most unexpected and peculiar call from twenty year old son Hagar... 

over one thousand kilometres away at home.

“What are you cooking for dinner tonight, Mum?” Hagar asked.


I could have sworn I told him I was going away for a week??? Or did I?

Our Birds have Left the Nest.

Birds of Tokyo’s beautiful anthem “Lanterns” seems to be the graduation song of 2013. My school sang it yesterday at the Valedictory Assembly as did Lulu’s school this morning. I attended Padraic’s V.A. at 9:00am then scooted over to Lulu’s at 11:00.

It’s been a bit of an emotional day.

“In darkness I leave, for a place I’ve never seen

It’s been calling out to me, that is where I should be.”

I love those lyrics… the promise of unknown lives about to unfold.

Personally I just want them to get through schoolies next week.

              Padraic: last time in a school uniform ever!

                           Padraic and the lads!

          Bet their teachers are breathing a sigh of relief.

              Sanri, Lulu and Lucy: last time in uniform.

                               Pinky and Lulu.

The final Guard of Honour!

Good luck guys! Make sure you soar with the eagles!

I'll never be able to hear this song again without thinking of you.

First Installment of ...School Formal F#%K Ups

Wednesday morning at ground zero...

7:30am: Pinky opens Padraic’s bedroom door only to find he’s still not home from last night.

7:32am: Opens Lulu’s door and corroborates with her to meet up at home after work as early as she can get away and drop her to Jock’s (boyfriend) place at 4:00pm sharp for photo shoot.

8:00am: Pinky arrives at school and parks Golden Boy in superior, strategic location for quick getaway in afternoon.

Pinky runs through plans in head. Leave school at 3:00, pick up corsages, rush home, help Lulu dress, drive her to Jock’s house, take photos, rush back home by five pm to take snaps of Padraic and his partner Keely before they leave.

Pinky high fives herself for superwoman-like organisational skills!

3:00pm: Pinky travels home just under speed limit. Can’t risk speeding fine.

3:25 pm: Pinky sashays into florist and scoops up prepaid corsages. Pinky is just too cool for school.

3:30pm: Arrives home, Lulu's not there... where the hell is she??? 

Sh#t a brick.

Pinky locates Padraic, in coma-like state on couch. He grumpily mumbles that Keely is picking him up at 4:00 to drive him to the park to have photos taken... but will return here at 5:00pm so that obliging neighbour can drive them to formal in his flash car.

3:35pm: Pinky rings Lulu to determine her whereabouts. She’s still waiting at shopping mall to have professional makeup done. Lulu will be very late home. 

Pinky’s finely tuned plans go devastatingly awry.

3:40pm: Pinky thinks on her feet… informs Padraic she will take his photos at 4:00 when Keely arrives instead of 5:00.

3:50pm: Padraic is still asleep on couch. Pinky wants to scream at him to get up and put his suit on... but stops herself. Veins are sticking out on her temple.

4:00pm: The gorgeous Keely arrives. Padraic is still asleep on couch.

4:05pm: Keely rebukes slack-arse Padraic then leaves to retrieve a tie she forgot to bring for the unpunctual youth.

4:07pm: Hagar and Padraic have a loud and vitriolic skirmish on the staircase because P. drank H’s pineapple juice. 

H. threatens to give P. a black eye. 

Much swearing ensues. Pinky breaks it up by screaming threatening obscenities at them. 

Pinky needs a fricking drink badly but it’s too early. 

Still no sign of Lulu.

4:12pm: Keely arrives once again and Pinky makes futile attempts at tying a half Nelson Windsor for Padraic. Not possible. Does dodgy school-boy tie style instead. Ushers the pretty couple outside for happy snaps. Runs back inside for almost-forgotten, expensive corsages in fridge. Waves them goodbye.

  

Presenting... the lovely Keely and handsome Padraic!

4:15pm: Still no sign of Lulu!

4:40pm: Still no sign...

4:45pm: At last, Pinky hears tyres crunching on the driveway and the sound of Cinderella rushing up the stairs instead of down.

4:50pm: Pinky, oh-so-carefully zips up Lulu’s dress, flounces the hair, sprays on enough perfume to drown a large rat and they’re out the door and on way to Jock’s place.

Phew! I knew I could do it!

Presenting... the gorgeous Lulu and divine Jock!

Lulu’s hair appointment had been at 1:30 followed by engagements concerning nails and makeup. All up, it took her about 3 hours to get ready. 

How long did it take Padraic? Literally, ten seconds.Hardly seems fair does it?

Princess Zoe's Eighteenth

                                   Zoe and Lulu

Why are teenage girls these days so much more beautiful than they were when I was growing up?

Lulu’s friend, Zoe turned eighteen yesterday and Scotto and I were honoured (cool) enough to be invited to her birthday party last night.

I was a bit apprehensive. I haven't been to an eighteenth birthday party since I turned eighteen. 'What goes on?' I wondered. Boys doing donuts up and down the street? Girls vomiting into garden beds? Fights?

As we walked in to the party and gazed around, what met our eyes resembled a teenage supermodel's conference. Twenty or so statuesque, long-legged, athletic beauties with waist length hair and glowing skin gracefully milled around the back patio.

“Lulu! Pinky’s arrived,” one of the Miranda Kerrs called out.

Lulu came sashaying up smiling, vivacious, glamorous and looking frighteningly grown-up. 

I’ve probably known most of these girls since they were twelve. I recall ferrying the giggling crew around in the back of my car over the past five years to birthday parties when lemonade was on the beverage list sans vodka.

Lulu, with four older brothers to deal with, never really missed having a sister with these girls around.

Whilst Scotto stood drinking beer and chatting to a group of affable, enthusiastic young men about what their future plans in life were I caught up with some of these gorgeous girls.

There was a distinct undercurrent of anticipation… excitement buzzing in the air.

School has finished. Their entire lives lay before them with so much promise and so many possibilities.

Some of them are taking gap years, some going overseas for a year, some are moving south and some are going straight to University.

Our precious baby girls and boys have flowered into such well-rounded, poised, self-assured young adults and one thing is for sure, the future of Australia will be in good hands.

                                  Zoe, Max and Zoe's mum, Sue.

                                                               Taylor and Lulu

                                 Finley and Shannon

                                                      Sanri, Nikita and Lulu

For F F F F F Formal's Sake!

                          

I’ve just returned from buying the dress I plan to wear to Lulu’s formal next Friday night.

You already know what I’m about to say don’t you?

Now that I have it home I hate it… and I mean REALLY HATE IT…typical Pinky, huh?

I took it downstairs to seek out a second opinion.

“It’s alright, but it wouldn’t look any good on you,” commented the ever subtle eldest son, Thaddeus. “Maybe a teenager could get away with it.”

Whose dress did he think I was showing him?

I’m going to wear it anyway even though it accentuates my tuckshop arms and pot belly. It’s not the dress at fault you see, it’s the untoned, flabby, porker in the mirror that I’m most p#ssed off with.

And just for once, I won’t give a damn because I have far more pressing issues to agonise over.

Next week is going to be a hell-raiser. 

My baby boy, Padraic 

and baby girl, Lulu 

are both attending two end-of-year formals each, on Wednesday and Friday night, for not only their own school but for that of their partners as well. 

We’re talking about four separate schools here guys.

There are two dresses to be picked up from the dressmakers, two lots of make-up and hair appointments, two corsages to purchase, two suits to spruce up, two cars to organise and two valedictory ceremonies to attend.

I don’t know how I can possibly be in two places at the one time. Even though I’m only expected to attend Lulu’s formal, I want to be at the arrivals for all four of them to take photos of the significant occasions and ooh and aah with the other parents.

Formals are just so damn… formal nowadays. When I graduated from high school all we had was a crappy dance at the local lawn bowls club and then threw eggs at each other on the last day of school.

As soon as the formals are over Padraic and Lulu are both taking off to Airlie Beach for a week of Schoolie’s celebrations. Pinky will lie in bed each night, eyes protruding towards the blackness, gnawing at her fist and worrying about her babies, whilst they are whooping it up on the money they’ve managed to extort from me.

School, for my two babies is finished forever. I don’t have to nag about study or assignments, attend boring speech nights, fossick through the dirty washing for a lost uniform, attend parent teacher interviews or sell dodger tickets for the school fete ever again.Hang on… yes I do. I forgot. I’m a teacher.

How to Outsmart Your Teenagers (or think you are)

The last ten years have been akin to an extended episode of ‘The Roadrunner’; with me starring as Wile. E. Coyote, desperately scheming up plots to outfox, blow up or impede the flock of Roadrunners living under my roof. (There is no word for a group of Roadrunners as the species prefer to live alone which explains why mine like to lock themselves in their rooms a lot.)

Tip 1.

When Thaddeus and Jonah reached their early teens we needed to prevent brazen pillaging of blank CDs, loose change for the passing Mr Whippy van and insolent rifling for random booty whenever we left them alone in the house.

One of the first things we did was install a lock on our bedroom door. Regrettably, the kids discovered an illicit means of access via the laundry shute in my ensuite.

When the older boys grew too big to shimmy up the shute they solicited the diminutive frames of little Lulu or Padraic; who were hoisted up and encouraged to scramble like slithering eels into the forbidden chamber, granting access to the canny looters via the door.

This clandestine adventure carried on for some time until one day nine year old Padraic, became stuck in the shute for ten minutes and it frightened him so much he confessed the whole sordid conspiracy. So… we put a lock on the door of the laundry shute as well.

Tip 2.

At one point our electricity bill reached a lofty $1200 per quarter and drastic action was required. Not only were we going broke but my kids were single-handedly driving global climate change into the stratosphere. 

Scotto put a padlock on the power box and turned the air-conditioner off between 9:00am and 6:00pm which chopped $500 off the bill after three months.

The collective whinging was unbearable but worth it. Teenagers sleep more than hibernating grizzly bears and mine were sleeping in on holidays and weekends until 3:00 pm in their air-conditioned bedrooms.

One day we found the padlock had been sawn off. 

I’m serious. 

We bought another more robust one and threatened removing the unit from their walls thus allowing for a more natural and permanent style of air flow. 

Tip 3.

Hagar the Horrible enjoyed roughly three hideous, amnesic years when he would constantly lose his front door key. His cunning solution to this predicament was to scale the roof and break in via an upstairs, screened toilet window. 

Don’t ask me how a six foot tall basketballer could squeeze in through a tiny toilet window but he managed it.

Hagar destroyed numerous screens breaking into the house whilst embracing this technique until one day while he was climbing on to the roof he snapped my clothes line, left all the clean clothes on the dirt and was unofficially disinherited.

We installed a code lock on the front door and have never had an issue since.

Tip 4.

It’s tough setting punitive consequences for teenage misdemeanours. You can’t send them to their bedroom as that’s where they spend most of their time anyway. You can ground them… but when their mates all have cars it becomes complicated. 

One effective ‘Achilles Heel’ however is the Internet. The router is located in our bedroom. Too much crap from them and Internet access is immediately cut off… and if I don’t want a hissy-fit scene, I plead ignorance.

“It must be the damn provider again,” I’ll say innocently. “It’s annoying isn’t it?”

Any of your tips or advice is most welcome!

Should we charge our kids board?

Whilst lunching with friends a couple of weeks ago I mentioned that twenty year old son Hagar, had recently landed an ace job placing him into a much higher pay bracket than ever before.

“So are you charging him board yet?” the gal pals all badgered at once.

“Well…” I hesitated, “Not exactly. I did ask him if he could contribute a hundred bucks every quarter towards the electricity bill though.”

There was a stunned silence at the table.

“I know it seems a lot but his girlfriend Meggles, has moved in you see and they use a lot of power what with hot showers and airconditioning…” I trailed off self-consciously.

“Whaaaaat?” shrieked Emmsie. “They’re both living in your house for a hundred bucks every three months?”

“Can we all move in too Pinky?” squawked Kaz and Rach. “We’ll even do the washing up!”

“I did ask him if he’d pay board but he said he didn’t like the idea because it would seem like I was making a profit out of him,” I whimpered pitifully.

Gales of mocking laughter erupted.

“It’ll teach Hagar to be responsible!” wailed the howls of protest when I screwed my face up in reluctance.

Scotto, my sister Sam and her husband Pedro, and all my colleagues have advised me in no uncertain terms that I’m being the biggest chump since... 

                                   The Three Stooges

...and I’m starting to think they’re on to something.

Hagar does sweet F.A. around the house to earn his keep. The only conversation I get out of him is “What’s for dinner?” and now his girlfriend Meggles, is living here as well.

Pushover Pinky.

Easy Pickings Poinker… that’s who I am.

Until one day Hagar made his fatal mistake.

It was Friday afternoon and I was feeling burned-out and jaded after a challenging and shitty week. The dishes from the previous night’s dinner were still in the sink as they seem to be invisible to everyone apart from myself and Scotto. 

The laundry shute was crammed with stinky tradie uniforms all belonging to Hagar and I’d noticed empty Maccas bags sitting on the letterbox as I walked in.

Hagar had just arrived home from work and languidly plonked down beside me on the couch yanking off his mud splattered work boots carelessly spraying bits of dirt all over the floor.

“So Mum… just wondering, how much do you earn in a week?” he drawled, grinning most unwisely.

I knew that grin… it was one of smugness. He was just about to gloat about how much he’d been paid this week.

It was time to pull out the big guns.

The cannon ball was loaded, the gunpowder lit. 

I brought out my comprehensive list of household expenses (one I’d prepared earlier). With insurance, rates, electricity, gas, etc; our household needs entail 900 buckerooneys to run smoothly each week and that estimate doesn’t include car registration and insurance, food, pool servicing, and blah-dee-bloody-blah.

All Hagar is required to pay is thirty dollars per week.

He begrudgingly agreed.

“But that means I don’t have to pay that money for electricity though, Mum.” he admonished with the magnanimous generosity of Scrooge McDuck.

Somehow I don’t think I’ll be making a profit out of the negotiations.

What do you think? Should kids in full time work be charged board?

The End of an Era for Pinky!

In roughly four weeks Pinky will see the end of a very long and arduous era… the end of school days.

Padraic and Lulu, my youngest two progeny will be chucking their well-worn, mildewed school bags in the wheelie bin and graduating from Year Twelve.

Hip hip hoo-bloody-ray!

Five kids in the educational system, for thirteen years each, adds up to an impressive SIXTY-FIVE years of running our lives in accordance with the frenetic bedlam of educational mandates.

Today, while perusing the students’ book lists we teachers are readying to hand out to parents for 2014, the magnitude of putting five kids through school hit home.

Over 65 years of 200 days attendance I made approximately 13 000 school lunches. That’s a hell of a lot of ham slices, bananas, roll-ups and juice poppers.

Assuming there were about ten permission notes sent home each year I must have signed about 600 all up (although most of Hagar’s were most likely left to party in the bottom of his bag with the neglected and highly compressed lunches I’d so lovingly created).

If I’d had any nous I should have bought shares in B.P. in 1994 (when Thaddeus began pre-school) as I estimate I performed at least 20 000 pick-ups and drop-offs…

(they went to different high schools complicating things even further).

In their early school years head lice eradication occurred at least twice a year so I can confidently conjecture I murdered at least 2400 innocent head lice (if you consider the average infestation consists of 15 of the little critters).

I bought in the region of 960 pencils, 240 erasers, 1920 colouring in pencils, 80 sharpeners, 80 pairs of scissors, 80 rulers, 240 glue sticks and 600 exercise books; and that’s only counting primary school.

Can you imagine covering 600 books with contact, tangling myself up in the bastard sticky plastic and crying about the ubiquitous, unavoidable bubbles? Only one of the reasons I drink too much.

I probably only attended 100 parent teacher interviews as I slackened off in the later years figuring that the further Pinky stayed away from the teachers, the less they’d develop a disliking for my kids.

Washing 13 000 smelly, paint-stained school uniforms to be worn the next day was one of the less pleasurable activities I can recall over the years.

Add to that; speech nights, concerts, homework, sport carnivals, swimming carnivals, debate clubs, etc, etc,etc.

“Aren’t you sad those days are coming to an end?” someone asked me the other day when I skipped merrily into the staffroom singing, “Five weeks to go! Five weeks to go! Hey Ho the Dairy-O! Five weeks to go!”My answer to the concerned citizen?…. “NO.”

In fact I'm buying the t-shirt.

Princess Lulu Returns! Pinky sings a song.

Click on the MP3 above to hear Pinky singing this song! (Sorry it won't work on mobile only desktop or laptop!)

In honour of Lulu's return from a netball tour of the U.K. I penned a song to celebrate her return to Boringsville.

Looks like heaven

From my window

Now we’re landing

I can see Ross River

Back to real life

Back to work and school

Heading back to Brownsville

Where it’s hot not cool



Townsville Shire… Castle Hill

It’s the place… time stands still

There’s no action… ‘Boring Central’

Coming home, country town.



All my memories… on my iPhone

All my money, spent on clothes and snow globes

No more fun times, painting London red,

English boys and netball

Might as well be dead.



Country town, such a bore.

Crappy shops… I need more.

And I’ll have to… see my momma

Don’t like home… anymore.



I hear her voice

Every morning when she calls me

Reminding me and nagging me to pack my lunch.

As we hit the tarmac I just get the feeling

That I wish it was still yesterday… yesterday.



Country town… you’re so lame

Everything… just stays the same

Now the tour’s done, life is over

Goodbye friends and netball games.



Study time… all day long

U.K. trip was my swan song…

Welcome home Princess Lulu!

For My First Born Baby.

                          Pinky and Thaddeus the day he was born.

Thaddeus celebrates his twenty-fourth birthday today, two days after mine. It seems like only yesterday I was collecting the memorabilia to present to my precious son on his twenty-first birthday.

I went to great effort over the years keeping scrap books, first teeth, locks of hair, newspaper clippings, their first silky hairbrush, first singlet, their newborn hospital bracelets… hell, I even kept the pregnancy tests I used to discover each of their impending presences in the world… much to the shock and rising alarm of my sister Sam.

“What are you going to bring out next, Pinky? An umbilical cord? A foreskin?” she shrieked incredulously at Thaddeus’ twenty first gathering.

I still had scrapbooks of every congratulatory card we'd received at his birth, every christening card, a newspaper from the day he was born and his favourite Cabbage Patch doll which he disconcertingly named, ‘Teacher’.

“Does ‘Teacher’ ever talk to you?” I’d ask the pensive three and a half year old uneasily, as he played with the sinister looking toy.

The menacing expression on the doll’s face reminded me of Chucky and I was more than happy to finally smother it in a plastic bag and put it in a suitcase for seventeen years when he outgrew it.

I presented these lovingly accumulated physical memories to Thaddeus with joy and hoped he would treasure them.

I’m not a hoarder by nature. I constantly throw away things I haven’t used for six months… always discovering I need them the VERY next day.

These remembrances of my childrens’ early years however, have been squirrelled away in plastic boxes under my bed for twenty-four years now. I'd never told the kids what I was doing. I wanted it to be a surprise.

Poking around the cupboard in the spare room this morning I found all of these things I’d so proudly produced for Thaddeus three years ago abandoned at the back corner of a shelf in a barely ever accessed room.

I’m going to keep them now. I’ve just realised, they’re my memories… not his.

Happy birthday my first born son. I love you xxxx

Lulu "Leaving on a Jet Plane"

The awesome foursome (Lulu on right)

Darling daughter Lulu, flew off to the U.K. on her netball trip today.I miss her already so I wrote a song for her to read when she arrives…

It goes with the music to “Leaving on a Jet Plane”.



All my bags are packed I’m ready to go

I’ve got my stuff I’m sure… although

I need more cash, I’m scared I might run dry

The dawn is breakin’ we’re running late

Mum I’m coming soon please don’t berate

me, I’ll soon be gone, of that you can’t deny.



So kiss me and pass your purse

Someday I will reimburse

you, Twenty bucks then I’ll be on my way

Cos I’m leavin on a jet plane

From sobs and tears you must refrain

It’s Netball I must play.



There’s so many places we will see

Many places across the sea

What a way to end our last school year

Every place I go, I’ll email you

Every place I go, a text should do

I’ll bring you back a cheap, lame souvenir.



So kiss me and say good-bye

Soon I’ll be up in the sky

England, Ireland we’ll be on our way

Cos we’re leavin on a jet plane

Your funds are all completely drained

It’s Netball I must play.



Now the time has come for us to board

All photo angles you’ve explored

It’s time we went to spend your hard earned cash

So dream about the games we’ll win

Your long goodbyes are wearing thin

So sorry Mum we really have to dash.



So kiss me and smile for me

Three weeks will go fast I'm sure you’ll see

England, Ireland are not so far away

Cos we’re leavin on a jet plane

Three weeks we’ll all be back again

It’s Netball we must play.



Cos we’re leavin on a jet plane

Three weeks we’ll all be back again

It’s Netball we must play.

Love you Lulu, stay safe xx

                           Good luck beautiful girls!

Pinky and Lulu's Magical Quest!

The Quest for the Perfect School Formal Dress

                          Lulu chowing down at the food court.

“This is going to drain my bank account big time!” I lectured Lulu on the way to the shops. “It might pay you to be a bit nicer to me, you know!”

“Whaddya mean?” she murmured tetchily, whilst furiously texting on her phone.

“I mean, like, speak to me without a certain tone, like, you know, like…” I tried adopting the teenage vernacular.

The first boutique we tried was closed. It is Sunday after all.

“Let’s try “Fashion Scammers- ripping people off for over twenty years!.” * Lulu suggested.

“I really don’t want to go back there, Lulu.” I’d had a small altercation with the management seven years ago when they refused to give me a refund on a hideous yellow dress I’d changed my mind about. 

“They hate me in there!”

“Mum! They wouldn’t remember you after all this time. Don’t be stupid… but wear your sunglasses in case,” she added thoughtfully.

I attempted to lay low as Lulu sifted through the gorgeous, exquisite gowns on the rack.

“This one looks alright,” she held up a frock to die for. And die is what I almost did when I peered at the price tag.

I felt the sudden urge to sneeze… “Aaaatchoo!!”

I was holding a gilded gown in each hand and not wanting to snot all over them had turned my head towards Lulu.

“Mum! That went ALL OVER me! You’re DISGUSTING!” she shrieked, commanding the frowning attention of ‘The Manager’ who immediately hurried over to us.

“What can I do for you?” Madame queried, eyebrow arched towards the ceiling and eyeing a sniffling Pinky up and down skeptically.

“May I try this on please?” requested Lulu sweetly.

After several minutes of the muffled rustling of silk and satin, Lulu tentatively stepped out of the dressing room.

“Crap!" I thought. "She looks absolutely stunning! I’d pay ANYTHING to make my adorable princess happy!”

So I handed over my life savings to the delighted (and possibly amnesic) manager and took home the very first dress Lulu had tried on.

You know what it’s like girls… when it’s the right one, you just KNOW straight away.

I can’t show you a picture because it will spoil the surprise but here’s a teaser.

                                 Think, Cinderella!
“I hope you really like it, Lulu,” I began, “Because you won’t…”

“I KNOW Mum… I won’t get a refund!”

* Not the real name of the store.