Hi Mate

Finding time for stuff. It's a dilemma as old as time. LOL! But seriously.  Mate, I don't have anywhere near the claims on my time that you've got and yet I feel like have no time for stuff. No time at all. The other day Holloway organized an dinner with a relative of his, of his Dad's generation, who he saw at a funeral recently. It was a perfectly pleasant evening but leading up to it I kept thinking I don't have time to see my actual friends, why the fudge am I doing this?   I'm writing this on the Wednesday that came eight days after the Thursday you wrote your last post. I've thought about writing so many times over those eight days but I've felt like I don't have the time. It's only now, with the little H bomb in bed, Holloway out for the night, dinner consumed and dishes cleaned that I feel like I've got the time to sit in front of a screen and type. And those are the circumstances I feel I need to write something. But they're so i...

Over the school holidays I was feeling pretty stressed out. I had lots of work and no time and also no money and everything seemed to be weighing on me heavily. But I knew some money would come in and some time would come too and I decided I could put off a few bits of work until this week. I could put off writing here for a few days and  I could put off the launch of my Open Letter blog till this week or next. It made me feel a bit more at peace but the time mate! There is no time. Last night A. told me "I want to be a singer or an actor or a (something else I can't remember because there is also no brain space)" I said, "I always wanted to be a singer." He asked me "Why aren't you a singer? You could be. Maybe you will be one day." It was so goddamn sweet. When am I ever going to have the time to write down all the adorable things the kids do? It's very upsetting. This morning when J. was looking at a picture of F. on my phone I said, "T...

Whoa! I have so much to say! First, when you told me JFo had a Gwyneth look at the Emma's I really imagined her dress to be pastel pink but you're right. Even with that fuchsia she still looks GOOPy. Shit, a 70-year-old woman can look how she wants.  Any woman can. Even Leigh Sales.  I enjoy a cup of tea and a price of chocolate before bed sometimes too. Though sometimes I prefer milk to tea.  Makes the treat a little richer. And healthy cause of the calcium.  Speaking of sweet treats I tried your day-old orange polenta cake.  After a day it was a little dry and I guess my feeling was that the polenta doesn't really doing a cake any favours but perhaps I'd feel differently if I'd eaten it fresh. I look forward to hearing what you have to say about it. I can't believe the icing got that colour from blood orange juice! Fantastic! But mostly I was interested to hear what you had to say about the Ostro woman. Of course I know her. Of her. I don't ...

So Mate, I thought I'd respond to the above text here, rather than there as I guess I have more to say than thumbs up emoji, though I do want to say that too.  How exciting that you bought Sweet and how exciting that soon you will have it and soon you will bake from it! I wonder what the first cab off the rank will be.  I am fully intending to buy it, but I bought this other book recently and have been cooking lots of things from it.  Do you know this woman, Mate? She is part of that Melbourne food/design scene I guess. She's friends with Gemma. She lives in Brunswick and I follow her on instagram so I feel like I know her in the way one does in these weird times we live in. So when it came to handing over cash for Ottolenghi or Julia, I felt like I should buy Julia first.  I've made a couple of savory and a couple of sweet numbers from her book and so far they've all been simple and pretty darn delicious. I've been trying to put my finger on what's good about ...

Gosh, I know how Freddie feels. I usually have a couple of pieces of chocolate with my cup of tea before bed. Sometimes I fall asleep on the couch well before it's a reasonable time for tea and then wake up with a start and wonder what's going on. I know I should just get up off the couch and get into bed. But I usually stay up so I can have my chocolate and tea. I just don't want to give up that little slice of pleasure, even though it's fleeting and being asleep in bed is longer lasting. I guess Freddie is the same . I'm afraid I have no up to date knowledge of Alberici and Sales' wardrobes. But here is a picture of Jane Fonda at the Emmys last week...see what I mean about the GOOPyness of this look?  There's a couple behind me on the train debating whether Tim Curry had a stroke but is still acting, or whether he's dead. They're two very specific options amongst so many. 

Tonight as I was putting Freddie to bed he told me he really wanted to sleep in my bed so I told him he could but he couldn't have his bedtime booby if he did. He still has a bedtime boob which we are trying to phase out mainly by talking about phasing it out. He really agonised over it. Stay in his bed and have a feed or go to my bed with no feed. He put his finger to his lips and said "Mmmmm" really thinking about it and then asked something which I couldn't understand. It sounded like "What the dilemma is?" Which seemed apt but a little too advanced and then I realised he'd asked "What's the yummiest?" In other thoughts I've had I wonder who's in charge of ABC news wardrobe. Why does Emma Alberici always look so good while Leigh Sales just looks terrible?

Sometimes I wonder if it's unhealthy or unnatural how deeply I think about Ewan sometimes. But then I get distracted. You know like "Is it weird that I think about Ewan so deeply? Ewan..." Destination reached. Mate, we're definitely in the middle of the lives and changing direction is going to be hard. Like changing careers will be a bit hard. Changing other things will be harder. I wish I'd lived away from Melbourne more when I was younger. Now I have children to worry about, their schooling to worry about, money to worry about. It's not impossible to do this but the implications are much broader. So I probably won't do much to change my life. Not in bold movements anyway. Not for now at least. But you know I just think about Elena Greco. I know she's fictional, but lives are long and much can be done in them. Meanwhile my hair is greying a lot around my hairline. The unattractiveness of this coarse grey hair is exacerbated by the fact I also have...