The Good Life

Well with the departure of TSH on Saturday morning at 5:30am, things haven’t stopped for me. Despite not working, Wednesday morning at 11.30am has been the first time I’ve been able to sit down, have a cup of tea and write.

There’s been sleepovers, swim class, English lessons, gym class, general parunting, organising things for the village committee and catching up on family admin stuff that I’d put to the side during my last frantic weeks of work. PUH! Lucky I have the worlds largest tea cup and a mother-in-law that’s arriving later this afternoon.

But I must say, any morning that doesn’t include an alarm clock or a silent vibrating watch, is a very good one. I’m still getting up at the crack of dawn to do kid wrangling, but 6:30am is a sleep in and I am LOVING IT. It is the good life.

This week I’ve been doing a bit of work for the village body corporate as we have our Autumn clean-up day this Saturday. I’ve been running around town finding just the right garage lights and this morning, I’ve been taking delivering of all the material we’ve ordered; paint, brushes, bark for the communal gardens. I’ve been directing traffic of the huge delivery vans, ‘no don’t come down here the roads are too small, stay up near the park and I’ll come up to you …’. The delivery men have been very handsome, so I haven’t minded the work.*

My to-do list today:

I do not know why, but a while back I volunteered to go around to all the body corporate sheds that are dotted around the village and take an inventory of all our crap. Today is the day I had to do it, as we have a meeting later on tonight at 7pm sharp for full reporting. WHY FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DID I PUT UP MY HAND FOR THIS? Anyone that knows Swedish and has half a brain would have been done in a few minutes, but for me, well I seem to be missing these essential elements.

But my quinces are going well…

Although I have plans of becoming a biodynamic gardener with a primary focus on vegetables and sustainability, let’s just say that I am not quite there yet. I’m still sitting at home, drinking tea and listening to Madrigals. Sitting here, just kind of dreaming about getting a green thumb, rather than actually getting one.

This morning I’ve been going through the sheds writing down everything in English which I will then translate later on with the help of google/my mother-in-law. But just getting the names of maintenance/gardening materials done in English is hard enough:

3 x collapsible chairs

2 X opened tins of the special white paint for the speed bumps

3 X secateurs, which I can spell but of which my knowledge stops thereafter

2 X unknown gardening tools

4 X bigger sized unknown gardening tools

1 X big pole I think you shove down the drains to clear them out

My mum, the gardening whizz, would roll in her grave. If she was actually dead. She’s very much alive, praise be, but would have died, if she’d seen me go around the village today. Her 42-year-old daughter who has no life skills whatsoever. I couldn’t even open one of the padlocks to get in, despite knowing the code.

The good life: Tom, Barbara + Jerry, Margo

A side note: The Good Life

When I was a child I did what every Australian kid did – watch a hell of a lot of British TV.

One BBC sitcom that I loved to watch was called, The Good Life. It chronicles the life of Tom, a 40 something who enjoys classical music and knitwear, but dislikes cereals and plastics. He resigns from his corporate job and convinces his wife to turn their home into a farm with the aim of becoming self-sufficient. They turn their front and back gardens into allotments, growing fruit and vegetables then start to make their own clothes and electricity. The series follows their affable adventures as they try to turn their city slicker ways into a sustainable life, coupled with the hilarious trials of farming with little to no knowledge of what they are doing.

MAYBE I SHOULD HAVE GOTTEN OUT MORE.

Does what you watched on TV as a child, influence you in later life?

The cutest little street we get to live on.

*Hello TSH!!! Hope you’re enjoying the USA!!!!!