Tuesday morning

Part of the reason for this blog is to try and encourage me to write more, and to write more regularly, and so I am going to try and view it as an on line diary. The downside of this is that of course I am exposing myself to the world. As I have already said to the few people to whom I have admitted the existence of this blog, it feels a bit like taking all your clothes off and standing under a spotlight waiting for howls of laughter. Even the thought of this image is quite enough to evoke ghastly memories of the communal changing rooms of my teenage shopping years. Needless to say whenever I ventured into them they always seemed to be filled with lithe teens whilst I was inevitably the struggling figure in the corner, puce in the face and stuck in the too small dress. This little trip down memory lane is designed to illustrate the fact that baring all is a truly terrifying concept.

I had to do a supper mercy dash to the supermarket last night and was amused to see that Woolworths, which is one of the main supermarket chains here, has launched a new campaign “We’re behind our farmers”. I’m all for the aim, Australian farmers are having a tough time after years of drought, but I do object to the photo of the stunning girl they have chosen to front the poster, supermodel like she beams out clad in immaculate blue shirt and jeans. I don’t want to damm an entire slice of the population but I’ve met very few, very glamorous farmers and none at all wearing clean, pressed clothes with their hair lifting fetchingly in a breeze.

After weeks of heat, the temperature dropped by about 15oC yesterday, just in time for number 3 daughter’s swimming carnival and this morning it is raining with slow, persistent drips that suggest it will keep it up for most of the day. Rain is the best thing ever at the moment given the dreadful bushfires still burning in Victoria, and on a more mundane and selfish note the fact our back lawn now resembles a yellow, overused doormat, however both the dog and I are peering out and feeling very unenthusiastic about our morning walk. Pluto is definitely a fair weather dog and when forced out into the rain will seize his chance to double back and sit mutinously by the car. However I shall drag him out, all four legs braced rigidly in an attempt to stay inside and whilst we walk around the wet oval I shall think of how lucky we are not to be battling fires, watching our house burn to the ground or dying in the most horrible ways in a wall of advancing flame.