We took a long weekend on the weekend. Went up to the Hunter Valley to see what we could see! I know what you're thinking - she's pregnant*, why on earth did they go to the Hunter for a holiday?? Well there's more to wine districts than wineries. There's breweries too. But avoiding alcohol entirely, there's art galleries, food, restaurants, scenery, and much much more. Rambling country roads, cows, fruit groves, and C-chan's Uncle. I happen to think that the Hunter is a bit too obviously developed with tourism in mind. Lacks much of the charm of the South Australian wine valleys (Barossa, McLaren and Clare). But it was a nice break anyway.
After the Hunter, we took the road less travelled to the Blue Mountains to visit Seagreen on the last night of our mini-break. We wound our way along the outskirts of the Sydney Basin past countless citrus groves and stone fruit orchards. We crossed the Hawkesbury river by ferry, then made our way up into the mountains. Seagreen's house was a welcome end point, with a pot of chai and nibbles quickly rustled up (thanks for your wonderful hospitality again!). But $%^# it was cold!! 13 degree days in late November - that's just not normal.
* news out of the bag now, so thought large print was appropriate
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Today I went to a women's networking thing run by my employer's women's group. I haven't been to one before, and wasn't sure what to think. The topic of the talk today was work life balance for women. It wasn't just about balancing raising children with work, it was about society as a whole and balancing caring and family in general with work and of course, questioning whether we all need to have as much money as we seem to think we do. Nothing mindblowing was said, but I didn't realise that not only do women bear more responsibility at home when it comes to housework and kid-rearing, but the same is also true of caring for elderly parents or relatives. The talk discussed lots of angles really briefly, including how do we as a society make it more "acceptable" to employers for men to request similar flexibilities to care for their families. The place I work for has some seriously well qualified women when it comes to feminist theory, equal opportunities and law. Ran into someone I knew vaguely but got to know that little bit better, which was nice.
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Am having a day off today, and was therefore home to watch the media circus on telly surrounding the execution of an Australian in Singapore. I theorise that somewhere in the past week or 2, the Australian dialect has shifted, and the word "vigil" has taken on a new pronounciation: "vigual". There are so many issues surrounding this execution that I don't want to get into here, but I was saddened - that the death penalty still exists, that 50% of Australians seem to have forgotten why the death penalty was abolished here, and that our PM, apart from getting a furrowed brow when he wasn't informed directly of the execution date a few weeks back, did too little too late to stop this happening. It was, after all, an Australian caught in the act of being about to break Australian customs law. Other Governments have successfully intervened to extradite their citizens from Singapore in the past.
1 comment:
It was awful wasn't it. I feel worried that we are so closely aligned with a certain other country which also has the death penalty.
As for your meeting - you go girl. Women's issues are everyone's issues, and with social services going the way they are and women being in the workforce longer we are going to see more and more issues around paid and non-paid work responsibilities and how they interface.
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