Author: Isolde

After our family pilgrimage to dad’s hometown of Ballarat in 2019, we all first planned to visit mum’s childhood hometown of Sea Lake back in 2020, and then 2021 and 2022. COVID had other plans for us and by 2023 the trip had fallen off the agenda. April 2024 was when our plans aligned with mum and dad’s, and Maggie was able to join us. If I swept up all the impressions I had of Sea Lake over my life, it would be an ill-defined collection, evoking thick dust, at times stifling heat, 1950s country balls, yabby-fishing, my great grandmother’s…

Lara: ‘We got up at 8 or 9 to go to Sydney and we got to Kay and Toni’s house at 12 ‘cause we were getting ready there while mum and dad went to a gallery. We went upstairs and got changed in Kay and Toni’s room because it had a bathroom with a mirror. Kay suggested to do our makeup first, we charged my phone downstairs and Rhea’s phone upstairs in the study, which was kind of like the same story in the room directly opposite. I went downstairs to get my phone and their cat was downstairs and…

It started like a normal day: get up, clomp downstairs, rub cat’s tummy, feed cat, eat breakfast, walk down street to bus with girls, drive to work. As part of the office morning chat, someone mentioned there would be another release of Taylor Swift tickets that afternoon: 2pm for Melbourne and 4pm for Sydney. I texted Steve and suggested he try to get Melbourne and I would see if I could get in the booking system for Sydney given that I leave work early anyway on Tuesdays to take Lara to her after school French lesson. After my morning team…

After almost three years away, we went to Depot beach for a weekend. Fish and chips at Batemans’ Bay: cooked prawns and aioli, calamari, lemon wedges, chips, and grilled and battered fish. We arrived in the dark, down the potholded road that had deteriorated in the intervening period. We rented the smallest cottage, with a bunk bed in the same room as the Queen with no windows at all – a perfect room for sleeping deeply in. The girls brought the mattresses from the bunk bed into the living room to sleep there for a bit more space. In the…

After a week of silence and withdrawal, my heart heavy, sadness for our country was punctuated by a tiny sliver of distraction: news that Paul McCartney is in Australia, that he would be playing in Sydney, and that tickets were still available. I found this out on Wednesday last week, by Thursday I had decided to go with a friend, whose fiftieth birthday is only three days before mine. At $300 for each ticket, this was the most I have ever paid for a show, and quite a stretch in these straightened times. For me, this would be the first…

As Patrick Dodson has written, our nation will soon be tested as to whether we believe in a fair go for our Frist Australians. Each one of us is being asked whether we support a voice being enshrined in the Constitution for those who have a unique connection to this country we all share. It saddens me that anyone would reject such a modest and simple request, the result of the culmination of years of dialogue by Indigenous people, and the consensus of 250 Aboriginal leaders from across our land. As the Uluru Statement from the Heart so eloquently says,…

We all had a lovely weekend away in Sydney with Steve’s aunt and partner a few weeks ago, swapping our Australian Chamber Orchestra ticket for the Sydney performance and bringing the girls along to the city for the ride. We were unable to attend the concert in our little town because we would be skiing for a few days at the same time. Our ski trip overlapped this time with the last week of matches of the women’s soccer world cup. How could we miss it, when Australia was up against France in the quarter finals? After a day of…

We all had a lovely time in Melbourne. Steve and I took it in turns to work remotely for a week each, and we stayed with Steve’s mum  who kindly did most of the shopping, so even in my working week when I finished work at 6.30 or 7pm, it felt comparatively restful. We had special time with Felix and Becky, and Felix and Duncan, during my week off, and enjoyed the impressive light art at the Botanical Gardens (though I think it should be free so that cost isn’t a barrier to peoples’ access). The four of us went…

Officially teenagers! This June, the girls’ birthday was marked, cheered, noticed and celebrated by clusters of friends and family. First the birthday phone calls from Steve’s family interstate. They had banded together to buy the girls some ear pods that they really wanted, and ski pants. My old friend Alice came all the way from Adelaide, with her support worker Daisy, for the whole birthday week. They stayed nearby and had a few meals with us as well as the birthday afternoon tea and an afternoon out shopping for CDs. ‘I like her, she’s funny’, said Lara after Alice left…

The new kitchen is taking shape: we have filled the shelves with all our sauces, tins, salts and peppers, oils, spirits and vinegars. The Moroccan tiles are laid, the blackbut benchtops are installed, and the drawers are all in and filled with cutlery, crockery, Tupperware, saucepans, baking containers, gladwrap rolls, bread and potatoes, and plastic bags. It’s just the pantry, pocket doors, shelving and painting left to do now. We have also been industrious. I ride, run, catch the bus, do my arm strengthening exercises, balance on one leg while brushing my teeth, work, handwash the polyester clothing, damp-dust the…