Fish and chips

Last day in the office today - tomorrow is earmarked for packing, tidying and frantically reweighing suitcases and wondering how many jumpers I can wear on the plane to save being over the 30 kg I was already just over when I came here and before I bought anything...

So I went to the university Italian place and had fish and chips and the obligatory Asian slaw - I am yet to find a meal here that does not have some sort of Asian flavour added in some way. Actually it was Barramundi and chips, which is a new fish for me, and very tasty. Lovely light batter and just the right amount of fish. Saw a baramundi in the fish shop on my way home from work and it turns out to be a very attractive blue fish in real life.

National Museum again

Return visit to the National Museum of Australia today to see the galleries I didn't manage when I went last month. It is a very modern looking building with a large map of the whole of Australia that  you can walk around/over.

This is supposed to be snake that runs through the museum, part of a Dreamtime story.

There was a small exhibition on the  home front in Australia during the First World War, which I found interesting because of my own research on Scotland. As well as all the Mothering online research that I have been doing whilst here, I have also found time to submit a proposal for a paper for a conference on women on the home front - looking specifically at the suffrage movement at that time. So it was nice to see a familiar face amongst the exhibits.

Not my favourite Pankhurst (Sylvia) but definitely preferable to Christobel in my admittedly biased opinion.

There was also an exhibition of feminism in the 70s in Australia, with Germaine Greer's coat, which she had made herself. Very nice.

Possible route home

I "treated" myself and got off at Dickson shops on the way home tonight to go to the Woolworths supermarket - and I am well aware that I am buying into consumerist and postfeminist values when seeing a shopping trip to a more expensive supermarket as a treat, but when you have been restricted to the lesser supermarkets for most of your time here, a trip to Woolworths is a bonus.

Anyway, after spending some time perusing the products of that nice Mr Oliver, who has his own range at Woolworths, I walked back through the shops to get my bus. Dickson shops is a nice shopping precinct with some interesting clothes and food shops and there was even a man with a banjo singing "And the band played Waltzing Matilda" so it was a suitably Aussie experience.

And then I caught sight of this sign in a shop.

No. I have no idea what it means either. but there seems to be the possibility of an easier trip home than the 32 hour marathon I have to undertake next weekend. 

Unfortunately I had no time to go "downstairs" or "to Manchester" as it will now be known, as my bus was due, but I will be back!

Freezing fog

Parrots freezing in freezing fog this morning

So this morning we had freezing fog. It was/is very very cold here. Bitterly cold. Please do not mention the European heat wave to me right now. The only positive thing I can think of in relation to that is the fact that it is statistically unlikely to have occurred in Aberdeenshire.

Sorry - a pause while I stare at the television in amazement. There was an advert on for sensodyne toothpaste where a woman with a strong Aussie accent just said "It's nice that I can just put that straight in my gob" in relation to icecream.

Things I should have brought with me - more jumpers. Gloves. Hat. Scarf. I did bring some scarves, but they were of the floaty, cottony, skimpy variety. I have had to go out and buy wool and knitting needles and knit scarves. So I should have brought knitting needles. I have knitted two scarves and a jumper so far.

I have also been writing and researching a lot! Not just knitting.

I have been considering the rather ironic fact that I have spent two months reading about, researching and writing about good and bad mothers. I know about all the different mothering ideologies extant in western culture - traditional, neoliberal, feminist, postfeminist, intensive, economic nurturant, etc, etc. I can even throw around a reference to Foucault and how he argues that hegemonic ideologies - in the case of motherhood in contemporary society, intensive motherhood or 'the new momism' - support the dominant culture, ie patriarchy (bastards). However, I have been unable to find an ideology of motherhood that includes going off to Australia for two months... Will continue to look - and I am back in ten days!!!! 

Nice and nasty

Nice things

Brunch in Canberra - Spanish omelette and sourdough toast. Just what you need on a foggy and cold Saturday morning.

Nasty things found in the shopping centre - vegemite flavoured Dairy Milk.

Another victim for Mr Fluffy

How can you not be drawn to a newspaper headline like that?

Waiting for my sandwich order at the University cafe, I sat down to peruse the local newspaper - and this was the front page headline. The story was illustrated with a sad looking older man outside a nice looking house with the typical Australian tin roof.

Apparently, Mr Fluffy is - or rather was - the brand name of an asbestos based insulation product that was used on Canberra homes built decades ago. These homes have now been identified and will be bought by the government and demolished because of the dangers of living in them. They will also need to contact around 30,000 people who have at one point or the other lived in one of the identified homes. The house in question is apparently one of the oldest houses in the area - hence the tin roof - although that term is of course relative - I have dishes older than the oldest houses in Canberra.

Anyway, having lived in his house for forty years, having brought his first child home to the house, and now watching his grandchildren play in the garden, the homeowner is being forcibly repossessed and will have to move out.

Another victim of Mr Fluffy.

Merry Jule

It is Jule here in Australia.

I first noticed this phenomenon when I was in Sydney last week. The school winter holidays have started here and so there are a lot of activities being laid on in the city centres to keep families busy, Ice-skating rinks, fake snow globes, etc.

What is slightly surreal, however, is the fact that this time is being called Jule. The idea of Jule has been diassociated from Christmas and moved to midwinter - which I suppose makes sense. And it really is midwinter here, it is dark by the time I get home now.

The wierdest part for me about Jule celebrations are the decorations - all the shops have snowflakes, icicles and - wait for it - Christmas trees in the windows. Yes, Christmas trees with presents under them.

And that is where, to me, Jule slips into Christmas. Hence the confusion that I am already feeling about the season and the cold has been amplified by having Christmas trees in the shops.

Anyway, as all the signs say, Have a Cool Yule !!!