We Have a Situation Virginia Woolf!

I’ve been rigidly sticking to my exercise routine and walking 5.2 kilometres on my treadmill every day. It’s too hot to walk outdoors but I miss it because walking on the treadmill in the spare room (with the dogs sitting on the bed, staring at me in googly eyed wonder at why Mummy is endlessly walking and not getting anywhere) is a stupefyingly, boring activity.



Lately I’ve been watching a Netflix streamed movie on my laptop, reading Why French Women Don’t Get Fat on my Kindle, checking my Twitter and Facebook feeds, reading emails and blogs and chewing Nicorette gum to combat the boredom.

My set up...

The only problem with this is that the steady whir of the treadmill drowns out the speakers on my laptop.

I planned to watch the rest of ‘The Hours’ during my walk this morning and I don’t know if you've ever seen the Nicole Kidman movie based on Virginia Woolf but it’s not the sort of movie you can comprehend without sound. It doesn’t have visual jokes like say, Dumb and Dumber or prat falls like those puerile Johnny Rocks in his Head, Jackass movies. 

In fact without sound The Hours just seems to be about a whole lot of women weeping.


“Do you have any headphones I can use?” I asked Scotto this morning before he left for work.

He gave me these.

“Look after them,” he said in a cautionary tone. “They’re the only ones in the house.”


“What do you think I’m going to do with them?” I retorted sarcastically. “Stomp on them and set them alight? Drop them from a tall building? Run over them in my car? I’m not stupid you know!”


He sniffed and left for work.


In hopeful anticipation I set up my little electronic nest and plugged the headphones in.

Somehow in my eagerness I forgot to attach the safety clip to my t-shirt. I love the safety clip because it means if I go into cardiac arrest and collapse then the clip will immediately shut down the treadmill saving us from wasting expensive electricity; and our power bill is high enough already, thank you very much.


In my excitement I also failed to notice a loose cord hanging down from the headphones which somehow became entwined around my foot leading to a plummet of cataclysmic proportion by the unsuspecting treadmill user: me.


The treadmill, sans safety clip, kept going, and there was a very inelegant scrabble which took place leading to a near broken arm and a very distressed Chihuahua who leaped off the bed and began whimpering and licking his unfortunate mistress who lay howling on the floor.

Distressed Chihuahua

After checking my throbbing arm wasn't broken by wiggling my fingers, I resumed my walk.

Something doesn't look quite right!

The headphones were well and truly stuffed after being ripped from the laptop in such a violent fashion so I had to watch The Hours without sound after all. I amused myself by covering up Nicole’s prosthetic nose with my ‘good’ thumb to make sure it really was her and not just a plain cousin the producers had hired on the cheap.

I’m pretty sure it was the real Nicole but I have no idea what the movie was about.

The only problem I face now is where to hide Scotto’s head phones.


Any suggestions?

Shredded arm.

A Back to School Checklist for the Primary School Teacher

Annoying Classroom Toys

More Annoying Classroom Toys

It’s one more week before we Queensland teachers go back for planning and professional development meetings and two more weeks before we’re sent to the front line of rug rat warfare. Gahhh!


The kids will arrive with their carefully packed brown paper bags full of their new writing utensils and books, but what about us teachers? We don’t have an official back to school list so I thought I’d compile one.

1. Sanitising Gel for when you spot little Darius with his hand buried and vigorously scratching down the back of his pants just before he walks up and high fives you good morning.

2. A strong pair of scissors to cut every rubber/eraser you hand out in half; this will ensure the class supply lasts at least until the end of second term.

3. A set of tongue twisters you can run through religiously every morning before the kids come in so you don’t become tongue tied on names like; Kimeeka, Tameeka, Talitha, Shameeka, Shaquila, Shakeera, Brandon, Brendon, Braithan, Brayden, Jayden, Hayden and Jordan.

4. A large set of cards with answers to questions and statements you’ll hear 90 million times a day. It will save your voice in the long run and I guarantee you’ll use them over and over..



Some suggested response cards.

“No. Your best friend just went to the toilet. Wait until she comes back then you can go.”

“I’m twenty-one.”

“What letter did the swear word he said to you start with?”

“An ‘S’? Whisper it in my ear then.”

“That’s not really a swear word.”

“No, you can’t bring your Bandog for Show and Tell unless it’s only six weeks old.”

“No, the tuckshop won’t accept all that coinage your Nana brought back from her holiday to Fiji and gave you for Show and Tell.”

“If you keep making your Connector Textas into a gun I’ll put them in my drawer.”

“I warned you.” *

“I’m putting them in my drawer. You can have them back at the end of term.”

“If you keep using your pocket calculator to do your Maths I’ll take it off you.”

“I warned you” *

“I don’t care if your mother bought it for you.”

“I’ve told you before. You can’t save to your USB stick if it’s not plugged into the computer.”

“I said you can play Maths games on the computer, not Minecraft.”

“Thank you. It’s a beautiful drawing of me in a rainbow. I’ll put it on my fridge at home.”

“No. I don’t watch Big Brother and neither should you be.”

“No I didn’t go to watch Crusty Demons on the weekend. Was it fun?”

“You don’t need to go to sick bay. I saw you spinning around on that roundabout at lunch time. You’re just dizzy.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you felt like vomiting?”

“Your arm/tooth/eye/finger hurts when you touch it? Stop touching it.”



* Your most frequently used card so laminate it.




5. A set mousetrap you can keep in your top drawer for anyone who tries to illegally retrieve their connector textas/pocket computer/collector cards/toys.

Bloody Collector Cards

Connector Pens: Gahhhh!

More teacher posts to remind you what you've been missing:

Show and Tell

Why I want to work in an all girls' school.

How my students frighten me.

Overheard in a Grade Four classroom.

Art in the classroom.

Are you looking forward to the kids going back to school?

Would You Like a Cat?

The Buzz Club gals and I had an impromptu hive gathering yesterday to catch up on how our Christmas and New Year festivities went. 

They weren't very impressed when I told them we were moving at the end of the year. They sniffed in disdain at the photos of the house we’re buying and ignored me when I reminded them about the surprise going away party I’ve always dreamed of and I dearly hoped they were planning.

I told them about how Scotto dropped his phone on our holiday and had to fork out for another $300 specimen because his contract wasn't going to run out for eighteen months. Personally I would have bought a cheapo from Coles as a self-punishment... but not him.

“Didn’t it come under your household insurance?” asked one of the Queen Bees.

Sadly our household insurance has an excess of $500.

“So you’re moving to a place infested with paralysis ticks and taking four dogs with you. Do you have pet insurance for all the multitudes of animals you own, Pinky?” asked Shazza.

“Just one dog is insured,” I replied.

“Which one?” asked Lee-lee. “I’ll bet it’s that bloody spoiled little bastard Chihuahua.”

“It’s whichever dog gets hit by a car,” I answered.

Our insurance only covers a ‘male dog’ and it doesn't specify a breed so which ever dog is unfortunate enough to ever become involved in an incident shall be THE MALE DOG.

“What if it’s Celine who becomes ill?” queried Kyles.

“Well… we’ll just say we thought she was a boy dog when we bought her. Anyway, the insurance only covers injury not illness.”

“So…” continued Kyles, “if one of the dogs get a paralysis tick I suppose you could push it in front of a car and they’d have to fix everything up for free?”

“I suppose,” I shrugged.

“And what about your cat? Is she insured?” asked a concerned, feline-loving, Kaz.

“No, she’s not insured. I guess we could say we thought she was a dog when we bought her,” I pondered out loud. “We could say we were a bit concerned because we thought she was a kitty-kat but the pet salesman duped us and told us she was a Corgi.”

“I don’t think they’d believe you,” quipped Kyles draining her cup of Earl Grey. “She doesn’t look anything like a Corgi. She could pass for a rabbit, maybe.”

“There’s a $40 000 fine for keeping rabbits in Queensland,” I replied glumly.

There was a moment’s silence.

“Would anyone like to have my cat?” I asked hopefully. “She’s fourteen and won’t be around much longer.”

Everyone stared into their teacups.

“Maybe she’ll pass away before you leave,” Kyles finally said.

“Doubtful,” I mused. “She only cost me twenty bucks. She’s like a Bic lighter. Those moggies just keep going on forever. If she was an expensive Persian or Chinchilla she’d have died years ago from feline enteritis or something.”

So it looks like we’ll be driving down the highway at the end of the year with four dogs (three uninsured) on the back seat and an uninsured twenty dollar cat* in the boot.



Unless of course you’d like a cat?

*Of course she won't really be in the boot. Our luggage will be in the boot. She'll be in the glove box. Or in a fudging luxury pet pack in an airplane while the rest of us travel on the fudging Marlborough horror stretch. Typical bloody cat huh?


Linking up with Grace from With Some Grace for #FYBF

Pinky Goes Transparent

Do you remember the Mortein giveaway I did a few weeks ago when I said I'd draw a winner from all the comments on Christmas day and then I didn't? Typical Pinky huh?

Well, I finally got around to it and I thought I'd do the draw on video to show off our lovely North Queensland weather and for complete transparency.

What I didn't figure on was exactly how transparent it would be.

"Can you see my fliegal flop???" I asked Scotto hysterically when he played the video back to me. "You can see my bloody fliegal flop for God's sake!"

"No, you can't," he assured me.

"I dunno, Scotto," I carried on in my whiny voice. "What's that shadow? And it looks a bit narcissistic putting a video of myself on my blog, don't you think?"

"Don't other bloggers do it?" he asked.

"I suppose..." I said. "The Empress Blogger and the most famous in the world, Mrs Woog from Woogsworld does it sometimes. And plenty of others have done it too."

"There you go then," he trumped.

So it's on the blog.

You'll have to watch it until the end to find out the winner, and my sincere apologies if you can indeed, see my fliegal flop.

Congratulations to the winner and please send an address I can give to the company to send you your prize pack x.

Linking up with Jess at Essentially Jess for #IBOT

The Queensland Badlands

Horror Stretch

The 300 kilometre stretch between Rockhampton and Sarina is called the Marlborough stretch and is sometimes referred to as the 'Horror Stretch' because of a long history of murder, robbery and assault on the highway. Now it’s called the Horror Stretch because of all the fatal accidents in the fatigue zone.

Our family drove the Marlborough stretch every second year when we were kids and on our way to visit the grandparents in Sydney. We didn’t have air-conditioned cars back then… or seatbelts. Mum would sit with my baby brother on her lap in the front and my sister and I would draw lines on the back seat forbidding each other to cross. Mum would reach her hand back every now and then to slap us into submission. Or Dad would, whilst driving his unseat-belted, squabbling children.

Scotto and I drove through the Marlborough stretch today on our way home after our holiday.

“You know the Marlborough Man?” I said to Scotto. “He comes from here.”

“Really?” queried Scotto. “The guy on the horse with the cigarettes?”

“Yeah,” I replied smugly. “The macho guy who’d come on the screen before a movie started. This is where he used to ride around rounding up cattle. My Dad told me when I was a kid.”

As I perused the monotonous panorama full of dreary eucalyptus trees, scrub and brownish grass it occurred to me the Marlborough Man probably smoked so much because he was bored shitless. 

The horse most likely smoked as well it was such a samey-same landscape. Hundreds of tedious kilometres of colourless bush and a mob of useless cattle to round up would lead anyone to chain smoke. 

The koalas probably shared a durry up in the trees. Maybe that’s why kangaroos have pouches… to carry their smokes in. I did wonder how the Marlborough Man avoided starting bushfires though with all the natural tinder around the place. Maybe he carried one of those portable ashtrays around in his saddle and shared it with the horse?

My mind wandered to the many unsolved murders committed on this desolate highway. 

Perhaps the dullness of the scenery coupled with the sticky heat led to murderous thoughts when wives had to sit as a captive audience listening to their husbands drone on comparing petrol prices at each town’s petrol station from Tweed Heads north to fudging Townsville? Who knows?

Anyway, I began to write this post and thought I’d do a Google search on the Marlborough Man and guess what?

He doesn’t come from Marlborough, Queensland. He comes from the United States and is called the Marlboro Man. 

My father lied to me. 

I must admit I always wondered why he rode around with a thick sheep skin coat on when it’s 40 degrees Celsius most of the year around the Marlborough district in Queensland. 

I wonder what other lies my father told me that I’ve spouted like a know-it-all for years?

What 'stories' did your parents tell you?

Pinky's cast and crew choose to stay at Tailwaggers Retreat

Improvised Selfie Stick

It’d be a bit slack of me to not post on the first day of 2015 so even though I feel a teeny bit seedy and one of the dogs just passed wind right beside me making me feel even queasier, I guess I’d better make the effort.

When we arrived at Tailwaggers Rainforest Retreat I thought I was in heaven. 

The clouds were sitting all around us and Celine the fox terrier and Pablo the Chihuahua assimilated to the northern New South Wales ambiance immediately.

Celine and Pablo

Naturally, we bring protection when we go on holidays.

Safe practise protection against scrub ticks.

One for me and one for Scotto… jokes.

Yesterday, I met Kathy from 50 Shades of Age for coffee at Burleigh. She looked exactly like her photos except even tinier and was as bubbly, vivacious and interesting as her blog. The blogging community has opened up so many genuine friendships for me with bloggy buddies all over Australia.

Kathy and Pinky

I bloody love it.

“So where are you staying, Pinky?” asked Kathy.

“Tailwaggers,” I replied, nonchalantly slurping my coffee.

“You’re really staying at a place called, ‘Tailwaggers?” she said incredulously. “I thought you were kidding.”

“Nup, we had to put the dogs in kennels so we thought we might as well stay with them.”

Seriously though, it’s an amazing place with views over the Tweed Valley and out to Coolangatta.

This is our kennel unit.

The dogs have their own private little fenced yard but can still say hello to the neighbours.

Even when they're butt ugly... though sort of cute.

We can bring them into the unit whenever we want and they have a doggy door flap to run in and out whenever they like if we go out without them.

While we were out yesterday, the retreat owner Tony, mowed our lawn and Pablo the Turducken went off his nut barking so Tony chased him in the doggy door by blowing the leaf blower up his bottom. 

I might buy a leaf blower.

There’s a winery around the corner where we went for a late lunch yesterday and someone may have bought a carton of Chardonnay even though one of her main new year’s resolutions was to quit wine.

Someone told them Pinky was coming.

Er...that's not for taking home, Scotto.

Today we spent all day driving around looking at real estate on Mt Tamborine with my parents.

Have I mentioned that we’re planning a move down to the Great South in 2016?

There’s only one house we liked: their house. They have a weekender up there and it’s perfect except for being just a smidgeon too small but lends itself to possible extensions.

Just think... if I was a writer I could sit up at Mt Tamborine like Judith Wright the famous poet did and pen the Great Australian Novel!

The glass observatory where I'd do all my very serious writing.

I’m taking Mum and Dad to lunch tomorrow and we’re preparing to make an offer.

But Dad can be a tough negotiator so wish us luck.

The Little Brown Turducken

Byron Bay

It feels really weird but I'm actually sending this post from the Byron Bay beachfront because we can't get the Internet from where we are in Tweed Heads. Does this make me a blogger with an addiction? Do I need to go to BlogHab?


We arrived in Tweed Heads at about 5 o'clock on  Sunday and  a storm was coming in but the view from our view at Tail Waggers Retreat was stunning. 

(I'm not sure if "Tail Waggers Retreat" needs an apostrophe but at least I have more of a comprehension of apostrophes than the makers of this sign spotted at Burleigh....)

They're Taco, Nacho and Burger's beers OKAY????

We spent our first day checking out the pet friendly options at Burleigh on the Gold Coast. There were frickin mutts everywhere. Every cafe had a bull terrier or poodle tied up to a table so we felt quite at home until Pablo the Chihuahua decided to strut down the street like John Travolta listening to an imaginary soundtrack of Saturday Night Fever and proceed to malevolently attack every unsuspecting dog we passed.

"My God!" I squealed as we hurriedly stuffed our toasted sandwiches down our throats before we were asked to leave. "He even barked at that guide dog."

"That's ironic," guffawed Scotto.

I paused mid chomp. 

"What's ironic about that, Scotto?" 

"Well... you know, the dog can't even see him."

"The owner is visually challenged not the DOG!" I grumped.

"Anyway Scotto, we need to get a muzzle for this little brown shit. He's very anti-social."

Meanwhile, Celine the fox terrier simpered up to everyone we passed, sucking up the attention from passing children and rolling over to have her belly rubbed as her brother, Pablo, sat on the edge growling aggressively with a surly expression on his snarling snout.

We stopped at a pet shop and I ran in leaving the others in the air conditioned car.

"I need a muzzle for a savage dog," I bleated at the girl in the store.

She directed me to the muzzle display.

"I'm not sure these will fit?" I said. "He's just outside. Shall I bring him in?"

"Okaaaay," she replied nervously.

I went back out to the car and retrieved the Hound of the Baskerville from his harness and carried him in.

The owner of the shop had come to the counter and I swear it was the Dog Whisperer, Caesar. He even had the accent.

"Zis is za dog?" he asked incredulously.

"Yes," I answered, as Pablo bunged on the terrified, tiny dog act and started clawing my shoulders and quivering like a frickin mouse.

"Eeee iz too small for muzzle," said the Dog Whisperer with a small measure of disgust in his voice and staring sorrowfully at the tiny Pablo.

I scurried back out with Pablo gleefully perched on my shoulder like a self-satisfied parrot.

"Apparently eee is too small for a muzzle," I whimpered to Scotto.

Anyway, we thought we'd pay a visit to my parents who are dog lovers and carry the genes I seem to have inherited.

Mum had set up her veranda so it was dog friendly and as we sat drinking wine and chatting, Pablo sat on my lap growling viciously every time Dad leaned forward to top up my Cab Sav.

"He’s a very sour looking dog isn't he?" commented my mother.

"Yes," I said. "He's a little brown turd."

Burleigh Beach

How to Get Along with your Step Daughter

“So I hope you realise how much I’ve sacrificed having a good time on my holiday because of you,” I groused, as I sat in the car waiting for Scotto to pick up the key to our room from motel reception this afternoon.

“We can’t go out anywhere nice, can’t leave you in the motel room alone, can’t have any fun at all really! All because of you. You!”

“Yes, I do know and I appreciate it, Pinky,” came a polite little voice from the back seat.

I spun around in my seat, horrified.

“I was talking to the DOG, Petal. The Dog! Surely you didn’t think I meant you?”

We left on our road trip yesterday morning with Scotto’s thirteen year old daughter, Petal and Celine the Fox Terrier and Pablo the Chihuahua tethered in the back seat. The plan was to drop Petal back to her Mum in the New England area on our way through after she’d spent Christmas with us.

“I wasn’t sure,” answered Petal.

“You don’t think I’m an evil stepmother do you? I would never say that! The dogs’ve spoiled my holiday, not you!”

“I know,” she replied quietly.

I’ve tried to be a good stepmother over the last ten years, I really have.

So anyway, after driving for nine hours we’d arrived at the Ambassador (pet friendly) Motel in Rockhampton. 

Bloody Rockhampton. Just as stinkin’ hot as North Queensland but incorporating a massive bull with huge testicles hanging between its legs planted in the main street into the mix.

The Ambassador motel owners are true blue; dinky di, the nicest people… ever. They are just as mental about dogs as their beatendownbycaninesobsessive clientele. It was a decent, tiled room and we were allowed to feed and keep the spoiled Beverley Hills mongrels in the room with us. The only stipulation is that you’re not allowed to leave the dogs in the room alone, BUT the motel has an excellent room service menu AND sells booze at the counter at a reasonable price. 

Let’s face it… there ain’t a hell of a lot to do in downtown Rocky on a mid-holiday season night anyways.

We left home at 5:00 this morning when the sun was just rising; reminiscent of family holidays when I was a kid when Mum would make us eat Weetbix at 4:00am before a road trip and my sister Sam would invariably spew all over the back car seat (whilst inconveniently positioned beside you know who).

Scotto and I decided we’d stop for breakfast at ‘Bowenwood’. It used to be called ‘Bowen’ until they made the movie ‘Australia’ there and the flamboyant mayor decided to label it fudging, Bowenwood.

I seriously hate Bowen. There’s NOTHING I like about Bowen except Horseshoe Bay where we sat and ate our bacon and egg Mc Styrofoam. 

Horseshoe Bay, Bowen.

It’s a pretty bay, I’ll give it that… but with an underlying secret loathing for all things Bowen; the depressing salt pans, the stupidly wide streets and the absence of human life. I swear we did not see one living soul apart from the young girl who served us at Maccas who had NEVER HEARD of Horseshoe Bay and couldn’t even give us directions.

R.I.P. Bowen.

So now, as the weary travellers rest on our bed in downtown Rockhampton on our way to the luxurious 5 star resort, “Tail Waggers”, Scotto lies fast asleep and the dogs are cringing beside me like a pair of miniature dire wolves ready to pounce on and savage anyone who happens to walk past our door to ask reception for extra milk.

“At least someone loves me,” I gestured at the dogs and joked to Petal who was watching a terrible movie starring ‘The Rock’ on the telly.

“I love you, Pinky,” she whispered.

"I love you too, Petal," I replied after a moment's stunned silence.

Gold I tell you. It was pure gold.



I ask you my friends… would you sacrifice your holiday for your pets?

Boxing Day Miracle

If I had to choose which actor I’d want to play me in a movie, I think I’d have to go for Benny Hill. Even though he’s no longer with us in the ‘living’ world, I’d at least have the soundtrack to his show going on in the background. I don't chase buxom women around park benches or anything but he really did set the bar for silliness, didn’t he?

My five hobbits and I have one ‘set in stone’ tradition. Every Boxing Day we go to the movies to see the latest new release and if there’s anything Peter Jackson directed on the big screen… we’re there.

We’ve been to all the Lord of the Rings movies since 2001 and have loyally attended the last two instalments of The Hobbit, so it was a given as to where we’d be this Boxing Day.

At about 11 o’clock this morning I sent a flurry of text messages checking my own hobbits were all coming to the 2:30 pm showing of The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. Trying to track them all down was harder than shooting an arrow directly into Smaug’s soft spot but I managed it somehow and the Poinker hobbits (bar Hagar, who was channelling Bear Grylls and pulling in crocodile crab pots in some remote estuary) were locked in.

“Two thirty show’s booked out Pinky!” announced Scotto.

“Fudge- knuckle, Scotto!” I hissed.

Back I went, texting like a crazy lady and a 4:00pm show was finally agreed upon. Lulu’s friend and Tolkien aficionado, Sanri, wanted to come too so I booked six tickets. Sanri was to arrive at 3:30pm and drive Lulu, myself and Padraic whilst Jonah and Thaddeus would meet us there.

“Surely you're not going like that?” I said to nineteen year old Padraic, when he arrived and jumped in the back of Sanri’s car, shirtless and shoeless.

He held up a crumpled t-shirt as if to say, ‘Never fear,I have my tuxedo in hand, mother.’

“But what about shoes for God’s sake, Padraic?” I chided. “They won’t let you in without bloody shoes! Even Reading’s Cinema have a minimum dress standard!”

He was out of the car and back in a flash with a pair of rubber thongs he’d found on the veranda.

“I think I might have grabbed someone else’s thongs,” Padraic said, as we all tumbled out of the car after arriving at the cinema.

‘Mmmm,’ I thought. ‘My nine year old nephew Heinrich’s fudging thongs.’ Padraic's feet were hanging over the ends by a good 15 centimetres.

Padraic in Heinrich's Thongs

‘What the fudge,’ I thought. ‘More shame him.’

I’m used to walking about ten paces behind my kids in case anyone suspects they belong to me anyway.

Our online tickets were printed at the counter and I sent the girls and Padraic inside to save seats while I waited for Jonah and Thaddeus in the foyer.

Three minutes later Lulu was out to buy popcorn. “There’re no seats together, mother. It’s fully booked and packed inside.”

‘Great,’ I thought. ‘I’ll be stuck down the bloody front again with my neck snapped back in an unnatural, root canal therapy position.'

Thaddeus arrived and I gave him his ticket and sent him in to fight the wolves.

But where the fudge was Jonah? He was always on time! Mr Punc-tu-fudging-ality.

Before too long I spied his jaunty frame heading towards me, pausing at the snack counter to stare at the popcorn.

“Here, take your ticket, I’ll meet you inside,” I said and went towards the usher.

“Um… this isn’t a ticket,” she frowned at me. “This is just the receipt.”

“But…” I stammered. “I bought six tickets online. The other four people are inside and there’s just me and… him.” I gestured towards Jonah, salivating at the snack stand.

“Sorry,” she shrugged.

I sat on the leather seat in the foyer and sniffing away tears, sifted through my bag for a non-existent ticket, even though I knew it was a fruitless task. The fudge-wit at the ticket counter had clearly made a mistake.

“You go in love…” I bleated to Jonah. “I’ll just sit outside for the three hours. No matter.”

“Okay,” he shrugged, munching on his buttered popcorn and balancing his icy coke cheerfully.

I pictured myself lying on the foyer floor tracing the swirls on the carpet and counting bits of fluff and crumbs for the next few hours until security came and escorted me from the premises.

Then a miracle occurred… a fudging Boxing Day miracle.

“Ma’am?” said the usher, approaching me as I sat despondently on the couch in the foyer. “You can go in. It’s okay. I believe you. It says six tickets on the receipt and there are only four inside plus him, right?” she said gesturing towards Jonah.

“Yes!” I squealed, unable to believe someone was ready to cut the red fudging tape and break with protocol.

“I’ll bring them all out and introduce them to you afterwards!” I beamed at her.

“Not necessary ma’am. Enjoy the movie.”

Naturally, Jonah and I had to sit in the second row and I had a neck stiffer than a scotch on the rocks by the end of it, but we could see Thaddeus and wave to him because he was sitting in a seat for the disabled right behind us.

God knows where the other three were, but we got to see the movie together, sort of.

And whoever that beautiful usher girl at Reading’s cinema was… thank you and God bless.

Who would you choose to play you in a movie?

P.S. Drawing of Mortein prize pack still pending.

A Letter to Santa from a Middle-aged Woman.

Pinky and Santa c.1964 (Crying)

Dear Santa,


I know you’re quite busy at this time of year and I’m sorry this letter is arriving so late.

There is one thing I’m hoping to find in my stocking on Christmas morning as on the whole I think I've been a fairly good and honest girl this year apart from the time I dropped a sausage on the kitchen floor whilst cooking Scotto’s dinner but put it back on his plate anyway. It was the five second rule you see and I managed to get it out of the (recently wormed) Chihuahua’s mouth before he left any visible teeth marks.

I realise the floor hadn't been mopped for at least two weeks but that’s because I like to vacuum before I mop and I hadn't been able to vacuum for at least two weeks because the vacuum cleaner has been broken ever since I threw it against the wall in a fit of temper after it kept getting trapped on the skirting boards.

I know it was a relatively new vacuum cleaner and I have a violent history with that particular type of household appliance but the effort of vacuuming brings on the hot flushes which in turn bring on intense feelings of rage which leads to profuse bouts of swearing and a low tolerance towards aggravating domestic machinery causing one to hurl said items at the wall.

I know I really should have informed Scotto the sausage had spent a small amount of time on the floor in close proximity to the Chihuahua’s mouth but I made certain to offer him the pepper grinder so that if he happened upon any crunchy bits he’d not be overly suspicious. Besides, I've read that ingesting germs is good for the immune system and I’m not sure how many germs Scotto ingests each day but surely more can only be better.

The other point in my defence is that I’d been standing cooking the snags over a hot stove which is another effective way to provoke a hormonal surge inflaming one’s face with a burning uncomfortable flushing sensation, stimulating murderous emotions and hateful, internal self-questioning as to why in God’s name one is cooking sausages on a hot summer evening for one’s husband when one is in fact, a pescatarian and one’s husband is not a blind cripple.

When Scotto asked me if I’d remembered to buy his favourite smoky barbecue sauce I smiled pleasantly and confessed I’d forgotten again. I can assure you it was a smile not a spiteful smirk into my wine glass as it may have appeared to be on the surface. 

Although I sometimes find his peculiar obsession with needing every possible type of condiment available to mankind to be grating, I would NEVER deliberately forget the smoky barbecue sauce and think to myself we still had two bottles of the normal barbecue sauce and he could just deal with it or have nothing… because that wouldn't be very wifely or nice… would it? 

Scotto's Condiments

Similarly, when he asked me to fetch egg nog at the supermarket I would never lie to him and say they’d sold out because I’d noticed it was $4.80 a litre which is a ridiculous price to pay for glorified flavoured milk and because walking around the supermarket instigates hot flushes, anxiety attacks and bitter resentment as to how some people can drink egg nog until it’s coming out of their eyeballs and not get fat whilst others just look at it and gain another spare tyre. 

Scotto's Egg Nog

 That would be plain mean and not in the Christmas spirit at all.

Anyway dear Santa… the thing is, I have been very good this year and I was wondering if I could please have some estrogen in my stocking this year because it seems I may be running out of the silly hormone. 

Just the regular type will be fine and don’t worry about gift wrapping it… I’ll take it to go.

Love Pinky x

Pinky c. 1964

Tell me... what's on your wish list?

Linking up with Jess at Essentially Jess for #IBOT

Australian Horror Story

I heard girlish screams coming from the lounge room last night. I dropped the spoon on the kitchen bench and ran in to see what was going on.

Scotto stood in the middle of the room manically flailing a TV guide around in the air.

“What is it, Scotto?” I yelled in panic. “What’s the matter?”

“A cockroach just flew in the window,” he shrieked Nathan Lane style, swatting the air with Rove McManus.

“Is that all?” I sighed and turned to go back to my cooking. “You don’t need to worry about the cockroaches that fly! They’re just German Cockroaches. They don’t hurt you.”



“That sounds like bollocks to me,” he replied, staring around the room nervously, waiting for the Red Baron to appear out of nowhere and engage in mortal aerial combat. “What’s the difference between German cockroaches and ordinary cockroaches? It looked exactly the same as all the others to me. That cockroach didn’t look particularly German to me.”



“Well Scotto,” I pontificated. “My Grandma used to tell me the ones that fly are hygienic German cockroaches so… ,” I began to falter when I looked more closely at the oily, brown insect crawling up the lounge room wall. It did look EXACTLY like a normal cockroach; it wasn’t even performing the Sieg Heil and goosestepping around the skirting boards or anything.

Maybe it was just pretending to be a German cockroach?

Maybe my dear old Grandma had been telling me porkies?

Like the time she told me that Toe-biters don’t really bite your toes and then I was bitten on the toe by one during an episode of Matlock Police and screamed her house down until ice was applied.

My Grandma had no flyscreens on her old fibro house and on nights she babysat us a multitude of insects would scurry in and out while we watched Cop Shop or Homicide on the telly.

Not to mention the swarms of mosquitoes flying in, attracted by the lights and ignoring the pongy mosquito coils on saucers which would inevitably be tripped over by one of us kids. It’s all fun and games until someone acquires a second degree burn on an ankle.

No one really talked about Dengue Fever or Ross River Fever back then, even though we all lived on the actual ‘Ross Fudging River’. I can throw a stone from my bedroom window and it will land in Ross River we’re that close to it.

Well it would if I didn’t throw like a girl (Scotto’s words not mine).

I don’t think those particular fevers had been invented back in the sixties. A mosquito bite was just a mosquito bite then not a debilitating disease. Either that or the rheumatic inflammation was dismissed as ‘growing pains’… who knows.



Anyway, I was concerned about my Grandma’s possible deception (and post war racism) so I looked it up on Google. Apparently there ARE German cockroaches (in Germany they're called Russian cockroaches which is funny) and also Asian cockroaches in Australian households.

German cockroaches don’t fly and the Asian ones do.

NB: Have you ever seen an Australian freakin cockroach? I saw one as we were leaving a fete late one night.

“Has someone lost their little dog?” asked a plaintive ten year old Jonah pointing at what at first appeared to be a Yorkshire Terrier. I glanced over and almost fainted at the sight of the behemoth. Thank God they don’t infiltrate houses and just stick to leaf litter is all I’m sayin’.

Although why a cockroach is cleaner if it can fly has now begun to raise a few questions, Grandma.

Surely a flying cockroach is capable of traversing much more immoral and offensive areas (such as sewers, mortuaries and teenager’s rubbish bins containing maggoty leftover quarter pounders) than a non-flying cockroach (which is relegated to lowly kitchen cupboards and toothbrushes on the bathroom sink) and indeed, should be even more alarming.

Lulu, my 18 year old daughter, was asked to do the washing up the other night. Imagine my jaded disappointment when I walked downstairs to find the sink still overloaded with greasy dishes the next morning.

“I couldn’t do it, mother!” she exclaimed in disgust. “I came down here late at night and there was a huge cockroach sitting on the kitchen counter staring at me. Why don’t you get the pest exterminators in? This place is filthy!”

“Well that’s because he smelled all the leftovers on the plates you were supposed to clean up before we went to bed!” I said. “And besides, I like to deal with things on a more personal level. I don’t like exterminators.”

I’ve never liked the idea of a guy dressed like he’s reading radio-active levels at Chernobyl, spraying stuff around the house while I’m inside mask less, drinking my tea.

That's why I like to use spray and baits. I put the dog’s dishes away and spritz my pest control products around the areas I know the Sergeant Schultz, and Hong Kong Phooey cockies are likely to congregate in: the corners, the skirting boards, the doorways and my rubbish bin under the kitchen sink.

As for the mozzies; well, there’s nothing like the scent of mosquito repellent in the air to make it feel like it really is Summer.


This is a sponsored post and I am delighted to offer you the chance to win a package of Mortein products to keep cockroaches and mosquitoes (of any nationality) away from your home.

All you need to do is leave a comment in the comments section on the blog and I'll put your name in a draw!

The winner will be announced on Christmas Day!


Linking up with Grace at With Some Grace for #FYBF