Zesty Mumma's Words

A life lived without passion is a life half lived

Archive for the tag “observation”

21 Sep 2013

Magpie Season

I am still on about birds. I really love them, waking up in the morning, hearing the tinkling tones of their morning song is just so pleasurable. The chirp chirp chirp as they go about their business is just a lovely  way to start the day.

In Australia we are just so lucky to have the amount we do,  even in suburbia, there is a great variety.

Which leads nicely into what I was planning to say, some birds just aren’t that nice.  We’re talking Bush Turkey’s (anyone who lies in a Bush Turkey plague area knows exactly what I mean), we’re talking Top Knot Pigeons. Not that they aren’t nice, it’s just that they are so stupid, just ask Genevive the cat. I’ve got two words for you, “sitting ducks”, and we’re talking Magpies

Walking this morning in another part of town, I see a Magpie warning sign hammered into the ground ( Where were the signs when I was nine I ask). Magpie breeding season,  a time of terror, a time to be scared, a time when it would be really good to own a heavy duty sling shot but you know deep down you would never be able to hit the thing anyway.

Don’t get me wrong most of the time I just love to see Magpies hopping around, warbling on a fence or washing themselves in a puddle. However, another few metres and I see a convoy of kids on bikes weaving their way along the path on the other side of the road. Suddenly the whole bunch erupts into a series of high pitched squeals and I see a Kamikaze Magpie dive bombing them from on high, aiming for any exposed skin it could find.  The memories came flooding back, the stupid running with your hands waving above your head. The sharp stab of its beak as broke the skin on the top of your scalp  The cuts and bruises when you fall of your bike because the bird was chasing you and it tries to scalp you as you lie on the ground crying (yes I have trauma, I may need therapy).

What is the answer, who knows, but every year another batch of kids are subjected to a childhood right of passage that is Magpie mating season.

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20 Sep 2013

Home Sweet Home

The early morning peace was shattered, The locals were in an uproar, there were intruders in the neighbourhood and they were determined to defend there home at any cost. A gang of out of town hooligans were causing trouble and the neighbours were determined to run them out of Cotton Tree. A few altercations later, a few bruised ego’s and they left with no harm done……..

And you thought it was only humans that were freaked out about people they don’t know, moving in and taking over their home

It is amazing the ruckus a strange flock of Cockatoos can cause with the local bird population

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14 Apr 2013

Uni Night – Fun for all, Especially Your Mother

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The car glided over the intersection at the top of the hill, the panoramic view of the Pacific Ocean sparkling in the early morning sunlight was breathtaking. Driving at that hour of the morning could almost be considered a privilege. Streets usually congested with traffic, resemble airport runways, no stress, no road rage, time to think. Time to be thankful for my home on the Sunshine Coast.

You may be thinking that this all sounds lovely but what’s the purpose of all this driving, could it be only for pleasure? Not likely with petrol prices the way they are. The question can be answered in five words – Uni night at the Tavern. If you’ve never had children between the age of 18 and 23 you may never have realised the iconic signifigance of this type of event, it’s a rite of passage thing.

Then you get in the one o’clock in the morning phone call.

“Mum can you come and pick us up” said the voice of my beloved son on the other end of the phone.

“No I told you I’m not going to pick you up when you go to the Tavern. You choose to go to that place, you get yourself home” said I in my best strong mum voice, all the while picturing my boy standing shivering on a lonely, wind swept Burnett Street.

“You’ve got to pick me up, someone head butted me and I’ve got a fat lip and the bouncers kicked us out.”

I was up the hill in seven minutes flat, pulling up in the Woolies driveway. I can hear your voice of judgement right now as I write. The voice of accusation that says “you push over”. How could my son ever be at fault. I have no words of justification other than he’s my son.

The seathing monster that lives deep inside every mother, the one that lurks and waits, ready to spring to the defence of your six foot, broad shouldered, eighteen year old son, because no one can protect him like you, was desperately fighting for release. I sat there eyeballing the bouncers standing outside while two boys walked toward the car. Then I realised that the boys walking toward me weren’t my son and his friend and that I’d driven straight passed them. They had been sitting quietly on the curb on the other side of the street. I’m sure I heard someone say “pshyco mother” as I drove away with my pride and joy safely belted into the passenger seat, with no real evidence of any fowl play. It did enter my mind that possibly the revving of the car I was sub counsciously doing, while directing all this protective energy at the bouncers, could have been badly misconstrued.

 

At least this weeks call came at a semi reasonable 5.30 am.

“Mum can you pick us up I’ve got to go to work.” says my boy.

“No, get someone else to take you to work” hissed I, mother of the year.

“There’s no one else to take me, come on Mum” pleaded my son. 

Pulling the car over to the side of the road at an uncertain address, I thought about how many ways a mother sacrifices for her children. Sleep, no matter how old they are. Money, no matter how old they are. Time, it is never your own. Sitting there honking the horn and muttering to myself something about this being the last time, even I didn’t believe it.

 

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06 Apr 2013

Watermarks

We are the product of all who have gone before us. Have you ever thought about things that way? In a world where some people don’t even know their own grandparents, I wonder how many of us have ever really considered the people who went before them.

When you have children you look upon the tiny infant as a clean page, ready for the life experiences that will mould them into the person they will become. As the child grows it sometimes displays traits that you may have seen in Grandma Rose or uncle Ted and you realise that rather than a totally clean page there are imprints and watermarks that you may not have noticed initially.

I’ve never known any relatives, I don’t know who’s traits, good or bad, I have received. I was Five when we came to Australia and I haven’t been back. When I was given a stack of birth, death and marriage certificates from my maternal grandmothers family, it was the first time I had any information about any family members further away than my grandparents. My mothers disjointed postcard sent to my during a trip to England alerted me to their existence. It read in part “…….lots of family history to bring back, very exciting.” and I have to admit I did dream, if ever so briefly, of blue blood running through my veins. The oldest of these documents was dated at seventeen eighty five which was three years before the first fleet arrived in Australia. Your instant reaction might be to ask was there anyone rich or well known amongst ancesters, sadly no.

What I found instead was ordinary people, living ordinary lives. Policeman, miners, signal men, ambulance drivers, even something called a maltster, which seemed to appeal to most of the men I have spoken to. They were all literate and educated.

As I followed the men through history; however, it was the women that touched me. There was little information about them other than their age and date of birth, marriage or death (which unfortunately for most was very young). What stood out glaringly however, was that each one, up until my maternal grandmother, was illiterate.

Mary Hobson, Jane Graydon, Sarah Wells and Mary Jane Grant, could only leave their mark, a cross on a page. In some of their cases, only a wobbly mark at that, so unfamiliar were they with the use of writing tools.

Poor, illiterate women, not even taught to sign their own name. I couldn’t help but consider the fate of women through out history. Repressed and suppressed by lack of education as they have been and in many countries still are, having little power over their own lives.

The more I pondered their lives they became real people to me and I could almost picture them. Strangely a sense of obligation descended upon me. I owed something to these women. I have had education and I have had choices. I don’t know what that something is just yet. It may only be that I ensure no daughter or grand daughter of mine ever be uneducated.

We live in a time when so much is taken for granted sometimes it is good for us to peer into history to see just how far we have come.

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01 Apr 2013

Byron Hippies, Wrinkled Rockers and Rabid Hamsters

 

The huge amber globe that is the easter full moon hung with regal prescence as my car approached the Byron Bay turn off, its radiant glow illuminating my way. In spite of the fact that my old Astra was sounding exactly like a road train since the exhaust pipe partly fell off a few days before, it was Bluesfest time again and life was good. Rodriguez, who was not dead as most of us had believed had miraculously reappeared as a headline act on the Blues Fest stage, could life get any better!

Rodriquez time was fast approaching and the end of Ben Harpers performance chimed, only 2 hours to go. We entered the tent as his last song finish and the crowd, which by this time had been jammed together like sardines for about ninety minutes, turned around and walked out. It was amazing and I couldn’t believe it, we took the opportunity to find a position centre stage third row. There was nothing on this earth that could make me move. Whatever torture I would have to endure for the next two hours till Rodriguez walked out on that stage would be worth it. I just didn’t realise that it would infact be torture.

There were thousands like me, fifty plus and determined to see our teenage memories bought to life. Joan Armitrading was amazing but she wasn’t Rodriguez. Age did not weary them, nor the heat, the lack of water or the cramped conditions. But for me personally the Y Gen almost suceeded where nothing else could.

While the stage was being cleared at the end of Joans performance, a tall blonde American boy came and stood behind me and his girlfriend locked in her position next to me. The fact they were smashed wasn’t immediately obvious. His attempt to pour vodka from a snap lock sandwich bags into a soft drink can, causing me to be showered in Russia’s finest exposed his plastered state.

At the same time the girlfriend, who was five foot nothing and as equally hammered, entered into an argument with another festival goer, who had tried to push her way to the front. Not cool I know, but lets face it, who hasn’t done that. The trouble was that I had a raging headache, I think I had a hot flush and my feet were going numb. Her shrill voice wouldn’t let up, she just went on and on and on. I thought my head was going to explode!

The other woman was speaking in a whisper but I don’t think the young girl had ever heard of such a thing. She ranted and raved about her great dream of seeing Rodriguez. I know that I should have stayed out of it, but the previously mentioned symtoms made that impossible and caused me to make my fatal mistake.

I leant slightly sideways and said, “ Would you just calm down”, as nicely as I could. It really was my fault though, I should have realised in her state nothing would have shut her up and it didn’t. I’m sure the other lady was extremely grateful as the girl poured out her vitriolic tirade on me, the pity in her eyes was plain to see. I have to tell you I really did attempt to ignore her. However, as Rodriguez was about to enter the stage after a rain delayed start, I couldn’t stand it anymore and once again turned sideways to speak.

“Would you just shut up, you sound like a rabid hampster and your voice is like a buzz saw in my brain”, using hand signal for emphasis. Then turned to the front before she knew what had happened. For one brief precious moment there was silence. She then spent the next hour screaming in my ear defending her whinny voice and singing at the top of her lungs, determinedly doing everything she could think of to goad me into retalliating.

What she never realised was that I am a mum and I learnt along time ago to block out children who were screaming for my attention. My perception of what tomorrow would bring for that young woman consoled me when ever her behaviour threatened to ruin my day. There was no doubt in my mind that she would have lost her voice when she woke, this fact I am sure her boyfriend was very grateful for. Secondly, the pain in her head would have been so unbearable, I doubt that any meds but the strongest would have helped.

And lastly but by no means least, she will never, never, never forget that she is a rabid hampster with a voice like a buzz saw.

 I say take note Gen Y, don’t mess with a Zesty, late baby boomer mumma, who can eventually regain composure and has an exceptionally good vocabulary. Rock on

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