Perth Holiday Part III - Mandurah and Perth

I had a fantastic time in Mandurah. Not only did I get to wander by the water and check out the various markets, but I got to swim in the clear blue ocean and see dolphins!


On my second last day there we hired a boat – more of a punt with a cage around it – and we went all around Mandurah in search of dolphins. Many of Mandurah’s houses and apartments are built on canals – think Venice, but cleaner and bluer and sunnier – some are absolutely huge with their own jetties, massive boats, tennis courts, etc. Around the entry to the ocean marina we saw dolphins. At one point they came right up to the boat and under it and around it. It was a magical sight.

That night we went to the local Irish pub for dinner. There was a singer / guitarist playing music from my teenage years. I’d forgotten how much I enjoy listening to live music.

The next day I was headed back to Perth and my father. On the way we went to the local harness races as my son had to help with one of the horses. After that we stopped at a national park and saw some very tame kangaroos – tame enough to pat! Then to the city for some shopping, dinner at an Indian restaurant and we took our dessert to Kings Park – a large park with natural bush land bordering the city.

I’m back in Perth now and things are a little better with my father. I’ve been allowed to walk down to the shops in the mornings, giving me a bit of a break. Today I had lunch with a friend I haven’t seen for over 30 years. It was fabulous to catch up with her and comforting that she hasn't changed a bit!

View from Kings Park

Perth Holiday Part II - Mandurah

So last night my son brought me down to his new home in Mandurah, about an hour south of Perth. It is absolutely beautiful here – right on the beach. There is a boardwalk along the water, heaps of places to eat, drink or just have a coffee. Actually as I was having my morning coffee I saw a dolphin! I tried to take a photo but it was far too quick for me.


In the afternoon we went to the beach and had a splash in the water. It felt cold when we first got in, but we soon got used to it. Sunbaked for awhile, back in the water and then we saw another dolphin!

It’s probably lucky that I’m having this weekend away from my father as I blew up at him yesterday. I was just tired of being locked in the house and frustrated with his constant paranoia. He had wanted me to go to the bank for him, but had insisted I take my son with me for protection. My son was late, I was worried we wouldn’t make it to the bank before it shut and I just exploded! I told him in no uncertain terms that I was totally capable of going to the bank on my own and I was tired of being constantly protected and locked up. I apologized later, but I really should have tried to keep my temper.

I am going back to my father’s on Monday until next Friday and I will have to try to keep my temper. I think I will just have to insist on going for a few walks and hope he will be able to put up with it. In the meantime, I’m going to enjoy myself here.

Perth Holiday Part I

I’ve come to the conclusion that I really don’t do holidays well at all; at least not the sort of holiday where you sit around and do nothing. Note to my friends, if I offer to do the dishes, I really want to do the dishes because I don’t like sitting around.


My holiday did start well. One of my friends picked me up from the airport at midnight – thank goodness for friends like her! We sat up and drank wine and chatted until 3am, which would have been 6am in Melbourne, so I can boast that I pulled an all nighter! The next day we went food shopping for lunch. She had invited her mother, her sister and another friend of ours. Let me tell you, I was very impressed at how good they all looked. They hadn’t changed a bit and it had been over 3 years since I saw them last.

Lunch was delicious; there was bbq chicken, salad, cauliflower cheese and lots of bubbly. It lasted well into the evening with leftovers for dinner. It was great to catch up with everyone and find out what they and their families have been up to.

The next day my friend’s son took me to my father’s place, with a rather long detour to my son’s place to pick up my netbook. It is wonderful to have my netbook back, I’ve missed it!

So I spent the rest of the day with my father. He is 91 and, although I admire him immensely for still living on his own in his house, I do wish he would realise I’m an adult now. I really don’t appreciate being told to wash my hands every 10 minutes and I’m a bit over being told to go to bed at 9pm. Mind you, that is after he has asked me what time I usually go to bed and I’ve told him 11pm. I expect I will get comments telling me to put up with it and I do but that is why I’m grateful to have my netbook back.

So here I sit, in bed at 9.15pm, with my netbook on my lap and a usb stick full of episodes from Season 1 and 2 of the OC. Guess what I’ll be doing when I’ve finished this post?

Tomorrow I plan to go for a long walk to try to get rid of all the food I’ve eaten over the past few days. Naturally my father doesn’t like the idea of me going for a walk. Apparently there is a rapist / burglar / kidnapper on every corner just waiting to pounce on me. My personal opinion is that the entire neighborhood is dead already because it’s just so quiet around here! Apparently someone attempted to kidnap a young girl the other day and my father thinks I’m a prime target and am next on their list. Naturally I would be flattered if a kidnapper thought I was an acceptable victim at over 50 years of age. I’ll let you know in my next post if I get kidnapped or murdered.

The week that was

My technology woes continue to stalk me. I don’t know what I did to offend the god of technology, but I’ve obviously done something.


Now our Foxtel (equivalent of cable) isn’t working. We can no longer access shows we have recorded nor can we record any more. This is not good. I spent a rather long time on the phone with one of the technicians – to the point where he told me he had spent a long time with me and I was tempted to tell him to suck it up. He talked me through a variety of troubleshooting solutions, none of which worked. Eventually he got me to reset the entire system, which resulted in losing everything we had recorded, and that didn’t work either. So now we have to wait a week for the technician to be in our area before we can have it fixed.

On the bright side I took my phone into the customer service centre and they believe they can fix almost all the issues I’m having and I should have it back before I leave for Perth next weekend. The girl on reception was lovely and restored my faith in warranties.

I managed to put on a kilo of the weight I had lost, however it’s not all bad as I’ve lost an inch off my waist! So I’m hoping I’ve put on some muscle instead of some fat. I totally broke my diet over the weekend, pigging out on pizza, chocolate cake and chips, but I don’t feel so bad.

Went shopping yesterday and found just what I was looking for, some flat summer shoes to take on holiday with me. Temperatures in Perth are rather hot so I’m only packing light summer clothes. At the moment they are fighting some awful bush fires that have destroyed several houses. I hope they come under control soon.

Speaking of natural disasters, the weather here has been totally crazy – cyclones, rain and floods in the East of Australia and drought and high temperatures in the West. All we need is locusts – oh wait – we have had them too! This summer has been totally extraordinary. I’ve even had the heater on this morning as it was freezing in the house when I woke up. Its summer! What’s going on?

I’m looking for a good book to take to Perth with me to read on the plane. Any suggestions?

Technology Battles

I was torn between writing about my battles with my new phone and new provider or my battles with my youngest son. I chose the new phone because it won’t read this blog!


So last week our new mobile phones arrived in the mail. Note to self – we still have to fill out the warranty cards. I had been cajoled into buying a new phone by my youngest son who wanted to get one as well. Actually, he didn’t have to cajole me that much as my old phone was reaching the end of its productive life and had begun to turn itself off. We had also both decided to change providers, so we obediently went to the suggested website and chose the phones we wanted.

It took me a little while to navigate around my new phone and I admit I’m still navigating and often getting lost in the various settings. Most importantly I have learnt how to answer a call, make a call, send a message and read a message. I even taught myself how to download my own ringtones as the manual was totally useless. I still have to work out how to assign my own tone to message notifications – no matter how many times I select the music I want, the phone insists on using its own notification tone. How on earth did I manage to attract a stubborn phone?

I did have to call a friend of mine a couple of times in order to find some solutions. She has the same phone and gave me some helpful hints, especially about setting up calendar. Nowhere in the manual did it say you had to sync one of your email addresses to the calendar in order to set it up, but apparently that’s what you have to do. And here is where the fun begins.

At the end of last week I transferred my phone to a new provider whose rates look pretty good. There are no contracts so if I don’t like them I can transfer to another provider. My son also transferred a few days before I did. He got the extra $5 credit they were offering for transfers before 31 Jan, I didn’t. He got emailed instructions of how to connect to the internet etc, and I didn’t. It didn’t worry me at the time and yesterday morning I rang them to ask about the $5 of credit and they added it to my account without any problem.

Yesterday afternoon I tried to add a new event to my calendar but couldn’t. The phone asked me to log into my email account and then told me my password was wrong – it wasn’t. It then told me it couldn’t sync to my email so I couldn’t use my calendar. I should explain that I use my phone calendar on a daily basis. It reminds me when to pay my rent, when to take my son to the physio and who is having a birthday. It is my memory and I feel very vulnerable without it.

So I went on the internet to find solutions but there was nothing. After three hours of googling and fiddling and calling my friend again and getting frustrated I gave up and called my new phone provider. Apparently I should have received an email giving me instructions of how to access the internet. Sam, the very nice trouble-shooter from my new provider endlessly tried to sort out my problem over the phone to no avail. After a long time talking to Sam –far longer than I have talked to any of my boys over the past week – he told me he would call this morning and see if he could sort it out.

Sam called this morning while I was on the exercise bike. I hope my puffing and panting didn’t put him off. Apparently he had sent me some text messages which I hadn’t received. After a brief conversation he hung up promising to talk to his supervisor and get back to me. We are obviously building up some sort of friendship here!

So I sit and wait for Sam to get back to me with a solution. Until then I’m in the dark about what is going to happen this week as all my notes are locked away in my phone’s calendar. So much for technology!

So Far So Good

It’s been a few weeks now since I started my health kick to lose weight and get fit and I’ve managed to keep on track. I’m pretty proud of myself as I’m not usually known for my staying power. So far I’ve lost 2kgs (about 4½ pounds) and I think I’ve lost a few inches as my clothes seem looser.


I thought I’d share my daily routine with you, just in case you are interested.

On weekdays my alarm goes off at 5.30am. I take about 15mins to wake up then I get out of bed and make sure my middle son is awake. I go back to bed and wait for him to leave at 6am. Once he leaves I meditate for 15mins or thereabouts. Sometimes I find meditation incredibly difficult as my brain doesn’t want to stop wandering. On those days I might only persevere for 10mins or so.

Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays I then do a few exercises. Using a thera band I work on my arms, I do some crunches and some back exercises. Every few weeks I change what I’m doing, usually when I find a different exercise to try. The whole routine takes about 10mins.

Then I start getting ready for work. I have a cup of black coffee and make a smoothie for breakfast that I take with me to work. If you want to know what’s in my smoothie, here it is:

¼ cup of uncooked rolled oats, 1 large tbsp LSA (a mixture of ground linseed, almond and sunflower seeds), 2 tbsp low fat or no fat plain Greek yoghurt, ½ cup frozen blueberries, 1 tbsp flaxseed oil and about ¾ cup low fat milk.

I did some googling on why middle age women have a problem with weight around their stomachs and, from what I read, it appears that after 40 years of age women make more testosterone than oestrogen and this is why weight gravitates to their middles. So I concluded that adding more oestrogen to my diet might help. Apparently flaxseed not only has large amounts of omega 3s which are really good for us, but ground flaxseed can help with oestrogen production and has lots of benefits for women. I haven’t found ground flaxseed yet so I’ve been using the flaxseed oil to start with. I’m no expert but I do feel better and have a lot more energy.

When I get home I change and get on the exercise bike for at least 30mins. I’ve cycled for 45mins a couple of times, but past that my butt hurts too much!

On weekdays my mornings are far more relaxed and often extend to afternoons. I still meditate but often for longer than 15mins. If it’s sunny I get up and sunbake for about 30mins. Then I get on the exercise bike for 30mins and after that I’ll think about breakfast. On Sundays I don’t have a smoothie because it’s Pancake Day! Of course I still have to fit cleaning into my weekends but I’m starting to look at it as another form of exercise.

I’m not too fussed about my diet. I limit the amount of wheat I eat – so far the only wheat I have is in pasta and that’s only because gluten free pasta is so expensive. I buy either spelt or oat bread and I use spelt flour for pancakes, etc.

I usually just eat smaller portions of whatever I’m cooking for the boys. Smaller plates and smaller bowls make the portions look just as big as normal. I drink heaps of water – I have to force myself because I’m not big at drinking much of anything. I eat more fruit than I used to. I’ve never liked sodas or sweet or fizzy drinks so it’s been easy to just drink water. I still have a couple of glasses of wine at dinner time.

I’m happy with my results and I plan to keep going. I would still like to lose another 3kgs and some of the bulge around my waist. Hopefully in a month or so I will have done that!

BTW – for those of you with small children reading this now – there is no way I could have had this routine when my boys were young. It’s only now that they have all left school that I can focus on myself.

Looking for Solutions

I’ve discovered that parenting and providing for adult children isn’t that easy. I no longer know when they will be home or where they are going. Not that I mind, as I’m happy they have plenty of friends and a busy social life. However, I still have to do the food shopping and prepare meals. Nowadays it’s not unusual for those meals to remain uneaten and, once their refrigerated life has ended, to be thrown out. Of course I do freeze portions and one of us takes them to work for lunch, but there is just so much sausage casserole or pasta bake that I can eat over and over again!

I hate waste and I especially hate seeing food that I’ve taken care in preparing later thrown into the garbage. So what do I do? My sons don’t live to any form of schedule or planned existence. Their friendships are based on impulsive meet ups and spur of the moment decisions. So when I ask them in the morning if they will be home for dinner they can’t give me a definitive answer. As my middle son has told me “I can’t tell you I’ll be home because if I decide to go out later you will be mad at me and I can’t tell you I’ll be out because if I stay home you won’t have enough dinner for me.”

The other day I called a family meeting to discuss this problem. We brainstormed for a few minutes, middle son suggested freezing all the meat in portions so that we can all take out what we want for dinner and cook it ourselves. It isn’t such a bad proposal, but it means I have to get out of the frame of mind of cooking for the family and that is difficult for me. Portions might be the way to go, but what if I’m cooking a casserole or pasta? Youngest son just suggested stocking the freezer with chicken schnitzels as they are his favorite right now.

Today, for example, it is nearly 3pm and I still haven’t taken anything out of the freezer for dinner tonight. I would like to have steak tonight, but the three steaks I have are all frozen together so I would have to take them all out if I want them for dinner. Yes, I know I should have frozen them separately, but I wasn’t thinking of solutions then. My youngest son is home at the moment but that could change at any time. My middle son is still not home after going to a 21st birthday party last night and I have no idea when he plans to return. So here I sit and wonder whether to take the meat out or leave it in the freezer. It’s a problem that will be on my mind until its time to cook and there is nothing defrosted.

Yes, I do have a microwave but I haven’t yet learnt how to defrost accurately. Nine times out of ten if I’m defrosting steak or chops they end up slightly cooked around the edges and I’m left unhappy. I do defrost some things, just not everything.

So what to do? I would be more than happy to listen to all solutions. Perhaps some of you have already been down this road and would like to share your experiences?