The big swim

A month or two back a few friends and I decided to do an oceanswim – partly as a challenge that we all agreed to and were therefore more likely to follow through on, partly as a “let’s pick somewhere nice to go for a swim” thing. None of us are competitive, it’s just swimming up and down a pool gets a bit boring but we’re also a bit chicken about swimming far in the ocean unless it’s well manned by lifesavers – so an organized event like an ocean swim is pretty much the only way to go (if you don’t live near the beach), and it raises money for the local SLSC at the same time.

So we picked the Coogee Wedding Cake island challenge. The swim was either 2.4km or 1km – the latter is too short, so I settled on the 2.4 km swim and proceeded to not think about it too much so I wouldn’t woos* out.

So Sunday morning rolls around…
- By 8:30am: 2 friends have pulled out (one sick but still offering to drive me there and mind my bag, the other opting for the 1km option). That just left me doing the swim.
- By 10am: I lost my goggles when I got dumped by a wave whilst warming up. This was a bad omen, but my friend had a spare old pair she offered to lend me.

So there I was, “warming up” in the rather cold November Tasman Sea, thinking, “I’m not sure this feels right”…. A mostly pool swimmer, I’d forgotten how hard it was to swim in the swell in unheated water!! I had a headache (not sure if it was due to not having coffee that morning for the first time in a while, or if I was coming down with something…), I was unusually thirsty, I had no friend to hold my hand, and the island I had to swim around looked a long way out…

At the last minute I met someone through my friend, and we walked up to the start line together and made “just having met” chit chat, which helped ease the butterflies quite a bit. Then suddenly my cohort of similarly aged swimmers (some very buff and brown and fit looking) was up at the start line, ready to have blanks fired out of a gun by a newly-in-government Peter Garrett, to make us run like startled sheep to the water!!

Off we went! The start is a flurry of kicking feet, waves, trying to find a patch of ocean on your own to swim in, and trying to catch sight of the buoys ahead of you whilst getting into a swimming rhythm in a body of water that won’t be still. After about 400m I felt settled down a bit, and started to enjoy it. The course is basically out to sea, around and island and back again, and I got to the island ok. The water was cool, but the sun was nice and warm on my back. Then the sea got a bit rough, and I actually felt a bit sea sick. Tried to ignore it – what else could I do but swim back?

By the return journey, the field had thinned quite a bit, so you didn’t have to worry about other swimmers so much. But each time you looked up to see where the next buoy was, you were taunted by a far off vision of the Coogee foreshore – was I really that far out? I kept trying to repress the sea sick feeling, tried to ignore the fact that I’d stopped having fun and wanted to just float for a bit, and kept going. Finally, I reached the last buoy, and suddenly, the bottom of the ocean was only a few feel below, the water was warm, and the waves - with a bit of careful timing – carried you into shore (despite my tiredness, I managed to not get dumped). I made it out of the water, made an effort to run like my co-swimmers (although I really couldn’t be arsed), and stumbled through the finish line, which quite strangely had the words “START” above it.

I felt a bit ill and cold for an hour or so after, and was mindful of the memory of my brother going in a Triathlon as a kid and vomiting afterwards from the effort of it. But after I’d sat in a hot car on the ride home, then eaten a bowl of stodgey vege risotto I’d made the day before, I felt much better. Then I had a bath, relaxed for a bit, and it sank in that I’d actually completed something quite hard, and had kept going despite wanting to stop.

I think I’d like to do more ocean swims, but maybe ones with better courses – triangular swims in bays or swims around headlands don’t feel so bad. With the Coogee swim, you round the island to head home and think “my god! I’ve got another KILOMETRE to go!” Which is quite hard psychologically when you are starting to get a bit tired at the same time!

* is that how you spell it?

armed robbery, 3 way car crashes and lacerations to the left hand

It's been dramatic around here lately...

E-chan and I were coming home at around 5:15 on Wednesday, and found the staff of the nearby chemist hanging around outside their shop with a few other people. On closer inspection, one of the pharmacists had her hand covering her mouth. On closer inspection, she was gasping and going into shock. The other pharmacist was walking back from down the street, with an angry expression, as if she'd just come back from an unsuccessful chase. Concerned shop owners came in to comfort them, others were ringing the cops on mobile phones. They walked into their shop and locked the door shut behind them.

Then yesterday, there was a three-way car crash near my house. A car door had to be removed, peak hour traffic was diverted, fire engines and ambulances at hand.... the works. Many onlookers standing by.

And then also yesterday, without onlookers (E-chan was asleep, thank goodness), I foolishly and regretfully cut the webbing between my index and middle finger on my left hand whilst trying to remove the stone of an avocado with a blunt knife (note to self - get out a chopping board instead of holding avocado, and use a sharper knife next time). Wound was quite deep, so I saw before the blood. Luckily, I went into First Aid mode - my perception zoomed back up behind my head, and I watched myself locate my first aid kit, blood dripping all over the floor, washing the cut, finding a suitable gauze, and working out how to keep my two fingers from moving too much using my working hand and a bandage. Blood flow stemmed, it was avocado on toast (still thinking of my stomach - see?!) while my left hand was elevated for bit. This cut is going to be a bummer to heal. Seems I can still type though.

Straya votes

Got an interesting email from Getup.org via a friend:

http://www.howshouldivote.com.au

According to the survey of 20 questions, they suggest which candidate in your electorate has views that most line up with yours. Depending on how many undecided people do this quiz and take on the recommendations, it could have an interesting effect on the election. For example, my best "match" was with an Independent who I'd never heard of before, and wouldn't have bothered voting for. Kind of an interesting way to find out about candidates running for your seat.

Another useful site is the ABC election site:
http://www.abc.net.au/elections/federal/2007/
complete with Anthony Green's (the very properly spoken gentleman who gives a run-down of the swings in each seat vs the % of votes counted) election guide. I had a look around the site last week, and didn't realise, for example, that I was in SUCH as safe Labor seat.

Upwardly mobile young men

Well the clumsy first few weeks of motherhood all seem like a distant memory (I won't put a link there because I just don't want to go there).

These days motherhood is quite different. We have a little boy who is cheeky, gives us impish grins before embarking on something he knows he shouldn't. He will cuddle on occasion, but now I mostly get cuddles when I have to carry him through crowded or dangerous places, and he decides he has a better view up high.

He sings (often a song that goes like this: "doidey doidey doi!"), he babbles, but occasionally it sounds like something in context (e.g "Open the box?", "read-a-book?"), and he uses plenty of single words e.g. bubble, Daddy, water, shoe, car, pole, tree, hat, dog, ball, book, banana. He understands plenty more, and we can ask him simple questions and get either a shake of the head or a look of vague interest in reply. Some words have multiple meanings - e.g. "shoe" is not just a noun. It accompanies him getting his shoes and dumping them at my feet, dropping a massive hint that he wants to go outside. Then he gets my shoes and does the same (he knows which shoes are whose!), and maybe even his hat!

And he sleeps - mostly through the night, and mostly once a day for a good 2 hours. Sometimes he even voluntarily takes himself off to bed. And he sleeps in travel cots and at child care. And in the car and pram if the time is right, staying asleep as I pick him up, snoring away on my shoulder.

He walks around with his hands on his hips, in the air, or behind his back, as if he hasn't worked out how to swing them casually yet. He stumbles into a little run, and falls over less and less. He stops and squats and plays with puddles and leaves, and looks up at adults walking past and waves "ayooo!". He falls over and gets bruises and cuts, he wails for a bit and lets us pick him up and kiss and cuddle him, then he either gets distracted by something, or his cries settle down to a few big huffs of breath. He's stopped liking baths and started taking showers.

He smiles at us winningly. He bosses us around, and tells us we should put our oven mit back on its hook! He eats many things, but most things he'll refuse at first (with the exception of banana, most other fruit, yoghurt). He is able to feed himself for a bit, until he starts to lose interest part way through the meal. He loves it when we all sit down together to eat, and his head turns around from side to side, to grin at me or his father in turn.

If you can't read between the lines, I'm loving it!

go away... no... stay?

A week of humid hazy air, stuffy indoors, and sticky nights has me thinking "go away summer, we're not ready for you yet!". I wanted to get more wear out of my winter clothes before I realised my summer wardrobe had hit rock bottom. I wanted to be snuggly under my bedding before starting to sleep with only a sheet and having to work out where to store my quilt in the meantime.

But then... leisurely swims, cotton dresses and sun hats, gin and tonics on the balcony as the sun goes down, outings to the beach, bare feet, salads and summer fruit...

Enough to sway me for 6 months, I think.

My first Lego invitation

Took E-chan off to Playgroup on Thurday morning as I do most Thursdays - it's held at an afterschool care cottage within the school grounds of one of the local primary schools. It was raining and I thought best get out and stimulate him before he goes bonkers at home.

A true child of the drought, E-chan has only just discovered puddles. So there he was running around, his puddle homing chip in full function, and there was me chasing him with his little raincoat, attempting to get it on him before he got too cold and damp (as I was getting!).

I had been chatting with a 5-year-old boy and his mum a bit on Thursday, and as E-chan and I were making our way home towards the gates, he ran after us and started talking about lego. I'm not sure why, but he might have heard me chatting with his mum about it. He mentioned something about having a certain set of lego at home - to be honest, I couldn't understand everything he was telling me, but as I'm keen about lego in general, I nodded enthusiastically and asked him if it was big or small lego. To which he said he had both, and it's really good and we should come over and play with it sometime!!

COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!

Saturday nite jukebox!

(Who said parents have no night life? We do - it's just largely home-based)

Tonight, the jukebox is 80's, complete with The Specials, Adam and the Ants, Cindi Lauper...

"Get into the groove boy..." (arms in the air and dance whilst showing off your armpit hair! damn which I hadn't shaved mine a week or so back!)

And now, for love song dedications... Bryan Adams with "Heaven". Get out your ciggy lighters and sway!!

Yes I think my house was making me sick...

I've been watching a show on Telly when I can these past few weeks:
http://isyourhousekillingyou.sbs.com.au/home/. I lived in a damp-infested terrace a few years back and this is when a lot of my allergy problems got worse. I didn't know you could be allergic to mould at the time, had a vague idea about dust allergies, but didn't really manage it properly. We moved out of there, and things improved a bit, but then I went to an allergy clinic, got tested (and yes I do have allergies to mould, dust and pollens), and was put on an elimination diet.


There were days where I'd wake up (after a night on a dust mitey pillow, in the right kind of weather), and I'd look in the mirrow and almost scream with fright (see left), except my face was so sore and sensitive. You can't cover it with make-up, as that only makes things worse. Most days, I'd have to soldier on, feeling quite self-conscious, and putting up with stares and unsolicited (and uninformed) advice on what clears up eczema. In addition, my nose ran like a dripping tap (I'd thought this was normal by now).

It occurred to me that things - toxins, allergens etc - must have built up in my system and caused my system to overload and break out into symptoms. But I didn't really have any scientific knowledge to prove to me that my home environment may have been a major cause of my problems, say when compared to food intolerances.

Well this show has been enlightening. Poor families buy houses they can afford only to find out they have dreadful damp problems and their house is riddled with mould. Other families are inadvertently introducing toxic chemicals into their home, through cleaning solvents, treated pine, pesticides. I've been trying to manage dust levels in our new place for a few years, but I could be better at it - vacuum more often, air the bed, hot wash sheets etc etc. In addition, I think my allergy shots (pollen and dust mite) are beginning to have a desensitising effect (should be complete in a year or so). And I've gone low chemical with our cleaning materials - microfibre cloths, earth friendly, bicarb and vinegar etc. Did you know that vinegar is the most effective treatment of mould, and that bleach may even just provide mould with more food?

Anyhow, this above web site is worth a squiz if you want some pointers on potential issues your home might have.

No, honey, don't sit down in the middle of the road...

...is what we are finding ourselves saying a bit lately. A few times we've crossed the road to get to the park, and half way through he's lost balance, fell down on his bottom, and decided the road or a leaf or a pebble is more interesting than walking. Luckily, it's a quiet road, so rarely is there a car in sight. But nonetheless, time to instill some road sense. Not sure how much of an impact it's making yet, but repeated lessons of "stop, look both ways, nothing coming now quick! Walk! keep walking, quickly!! We're nearly theeeeeeere..... Good boy!!! Good walking!!" has to sink in at some point, yes?