Category: Snippets of Life
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Traffic controller
The traffic controller is sprawled on the front seat of his ute, one leg hanging out the open door. He’s texting on his phone while the line of cars crawls past him towards the temporary traffic light, blinking an inactive orange. I glare balefully at him. He yawns and taps at his phone again. The…
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Things I found in my pantry
When I’m on maternity leave, I clean out my pantry. I do not, as a rule, clean out my pantry at any other time. You may think to yourself that this does not sound like a particularly good idea, and indeed, you would be correct. Recently I had a baby and subsequently in accordance with…
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Pink berries
I was watching Edward busily gathering up pink berries scattered over our friend’s garden, as he muttered about them being “tiny ‘matoes”, and asked our host if they were safe to eat. “Oh yeah, the lilly pilly berries. I think they’re actually deadly poisonous,” he told me laconically, watching his own children play with them.…
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Night sky
There is a Tawny Frogmouth that is often perched on one of the fence posts near our front gate when I arrive home in the evening. It freezes in my headlights, and then when I get a little closer or open the car door, it opens its wings and flies off silently into the dark.…
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The last fire
We used to have a possum living in the chimney of our wood heater. We coexisted happily for a few years, the possum scraping and banging each evening as it levered its fat bottom out of the narrow confines of the chimney to explore the night, and grumpily vacating the chimney for the month or…
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Movement
My ankle twinged doing one-legged squats in a kettlebell class yesterday, and today during a fake yoga class (aka Body Balance) it expressed its unhappiness at me standing on one leg. Now it’s frustratingly achey, and I am dolefully contemplating my plans to go for several runs over the long weekend. They were rather optimistic…
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Night rituals
Once a night, I am often awake giving Edward a bottle of milk and then lying next to him on a swag on the floor of his bedroom waiting for him to go back to sleep. Once he seems to be satisfactorily unconscious, I push myself up in order to sneak out of the room,…
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Mornings
I slept in this morning, having scheduled my alarm for 5.40pm rather than am. Edward cried out and woke me up just after 6, and I walked down to his room, telling him to lie down and I would make him a bottle of milk. He understands this concept now and plugs his thumb into…
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Lack of space
I feel like I only have room in my head for so many thoughts at the moment, and no room at all for writing those thoughts down. My plans for writing diary entries about Teddy so I would remember these early months don’t get fulfilled very often, as if I have time and mental space…
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Morning
With a little trepidation, I started drinking coffee again for the first time in almost a year (I chose not to drink it at all during pregnancy, as I’m better at cold turkey than moderation). The additional caffeine doesn’t seem to have affected Edward’s sleeping in any way, so I take great pleasure in a…
o frabjous day! 