Family Life in the Country. Sound Sexy?

So yes, there is a mothers group I attend. Last week they held it at the local Greyhound Club. It's the kind of place where a schnitzel looks like a potato cake that fills up an entire plate, and children wolf down stuff parents ought not let them eat (particularly because it is fried and unrecognisable, and the parents themselves weigh 146 kilos)...the kind of place which brings on depression in me very speedily.

Interestingly enough, the other night the pastry chef turned breakfast radio presenter held me close as I cried deeply in some strange primal, animalistic suffering, moaning way. "Does all your family sound like this when they cry?" he asked. It was like the cry of every moment in my life I've ever felt I might be unwanted. It came from that deep hole inside we are usually trying to fill up. The country life seems to bring about a self in contemplation I've not experienced before. I get lots of flashbacks.

The town we live in has a very big lake. I walk around it everyday. Recollections of characters in San Fransisco I had forgotten, and conversations with people on street corners come into my mind as the pram makes it's noise against the now, very familiar, path . These memories are vivid. I'm not deliberately thinking about the San Francisco years, they just seem to be part of this release I'm having down here. I find this let down of memory interesting considering my consumption of so much really good Champagne, wine and Ma Huang over there; I had come to think of them as the hazeblurrdrift?cool years. Is it the country, or something to do with motherhood...family life...this relationship..and the meditative drives, paddles and walks we take which is bringing the past back with colour and pizazz?

A few evenings ago I attended a show at the local theatre- Interpreti Veneziani Baroque Ensemble. Absolutely fabulous. All these Italian men with string instruments and a triangle. Most of the audience had very grey hair..I didn't bump into anybody from mothers group or the supermarket. Then again...this is one of those towns where99.5% of shoppers definitely want a plastic bag even if they have less than three items. This is also the kind of town where a checkout lady once got very annoyed at me because I did not want my slice of watermelon in a plastic bag. In fact, she told me to stop being ridiculous and put it in a plastic bag anyway. The only place I ever experience traffic anymore is also in the supermarket.

I wonder if my city friends enjoyed the recent shows of Joan As Police Woman and the Tallest Man on Earth? Baby Wantons capacity to be entertaining, makes up for every show I have missed this year. I particularly like it when he does the wanton boogie and then shrieks with laughter. His papa is a bit of a showman as well. It's rather infectious actually. I find myself breaking into singing sentences to friends while on the phone. Hmmmmmm

Must be time to walk around the lake.

Consuming Skies and the Language of Rivers- Sequins and Gumboots in the Country

So it's my first time living in a country town. My mother,( intelligent, getting older, journalist, Anglican...), says it's wise that we stay here for a few years. She seems to think that tucked away in the country, no harm can come to us, and we can wait out the nasty 'world financial crisis'. She's very pleased about my friendship with the tattooed wife of the bishop I might add.

This is the kind of town where it is large enough to spend 1.5 hours searching for a good croissant, and it's also the kind of town where you will never find anything that comes close.

Not sure if I mentioned I now have a babe...my little wanton I call him..