JOURNAL

documenting
&
discovering joyful things

Naomi Bulger 07/09/2015 Naomi Bulger 07/09/2015

Tactile

Is there anyone who doesn't like playing with clay? I mean, you may or may not fantasise about THAT scene in Ghost, and anyway that's none of my business, but I bet if I handed you a lump of clay right now, you'd start manipulating it. Rolling, flattening, squeezing, shaping, smoothing…

There is something so wonderfully tactile about clay that makes it almost impossible to resist. Even more-so if you harbour dreams of creating beautiful things, and even more than that if you happen to be a three-year-old well-practiced in the art of play-dough, who ALSO harbours dreams of creating beautiful things.

We were at the Northcote Pottery Supplies open day a couple of weeks ago, and Scout was in her element. She made a plate: she shaped it, smoothed it, trimmed it and painted it and was incredibly proud. And then she held my hand and insisted on taking a tour of the entire studio, upstairs and down, watching demonstrations and visiting every individual artist in turn.

Now, Scout wants to make something more. I want to make something too! How about you? Do you want to make something with me?

Naomi Bulger 04/09/2015 Naomi Bulger 04/09/2015

#postcardsforposties + free adult colouring

You guys. What a fantastic response you gave to the "postcards for posties" idea that I shared last week. Thank you! I've been inundated with emails and messages saying "I'm in." So let's do this!

Will you join me in saying thank you to the posties of the world? I was thinking we could start a bit of a hashtag movement - #postcardsforposties - and pop some handmade postcards in the mail for as many posties as possible. They are the women and men who deliver our mail: rain, hail, snow or 40+-degree shine (and the thousands of men and women who sort and manage our mail to get it there). They deserve a bit of recognition and gratitude, don't you think?

Don't worry if you never visit the post office, or if you don't know the name of your postie. This movement is simply about spreading the gratitude. You can sign your name to the postcards or keep them completely anonymous. It's up to you. Here are some ideas...

* Have you recently sent someone a heavy parcel? Write a postcard to "The Postie at [your friend's] post office" and thank them for carrying your heavy mail

* Is the weather really horrible this week? Pouring rain? Heatwave? Massive winds? Write a couple of anonymous postcards addressed "To the Postie" and drop them in any mailboxes you pass on your way to work, thanking the posties for braving the elements to deliver your mail

* Did a postal staff-member go above and beyond to help you out? Write him or her a postcard and mail it to that post office (or slide it under the door after hours). If you don't know their name, just describe the person and/or the scenario in your message

I'm sure you have a lot more - and a lot better - ideas than me. Let's start thanking our posties!

Free postcard printables

What with with the massive interest in adult colouring at the moment, I thought I'd create some printable colouring-in designs for you to make your #postcardsforposties. (If you want to. Of course, feel free to make your own instead. Go to town!). There are four designs to choose from:

>> "Thank you" pigeon post >> "I hope it doesn't rain on you today" >> "You're bloomin' marvellous" >> "May all the dogs you meet be friendly"

Step 1: Click on the design that you want to download, then hit print (they make a standard 4 x 6" postcard, allowing for a bit of a white border, which keeps postage costs to a minimum). If you have a printer that can take cardstock, print onto that. If not, just print onto normal paper, then paste your picture onto some cardboard to make it stronger to survive the post.

Step 2: Colour, paint, collage or do whatever you like to the picture. (Be aware that water-soluble paints and inks etc may run if you end up posting your postcard on a rainy day - that said, I always use water-soluble gouache or watercolours, and so far no problems)

Step 3: Write your message on the back. If you are actually going to post your postcard (rather than just drop it into a letterbox), lay it out roughly the same way as a normal postcard. In other words, lay it it horizontally then write your message on the left and put the address and stamp on the right. (Here's how I did this for Jenny's postcard, if you're not sure)

Step 4: Post or drop off your postcard! Now do another. Let's get thanking the posties of the world!

ps. If you do this, don't forget to let me know, and use the hashtag #postcardsforposties if you are sharing on social media, so we can try to build up a bit of momentum. Imagine if people all over the world started spreading gratitude to their hardworking posties! We could be proud of that.

Naomi Bulger 03/09/2015 Naomi Bulger 03/09/2015

Ralph's gift

Last night in the middle of cooking dinner I went into the playroom and when Ralph saw me, he held out his arms and said "Mummy pick up? Cuddle?" So I picked him up and he snuggled his head into that little nook between my neck and chin and then he murmured, "Lub loo Mummy." (Love you Mummy). There is pretty much nothing better in this life or the next than to hear your child say "love you," unprompted.

Ralph's gift is that he makes people feel wanted. That is a powerful gift. Ralph doesn't judge your appearance, your intelligence or even your motivations. Ralph just accepts you for you.

From his earliest days, if I handed Ralph into your arms, Ralph would look at you and smile. People who were unfamiliar with babies, uncomfortable with babies, or just didn't like babies, loved Ralph.

Because Ralph would make them feel wanted, and everyone wants to feel wanted, don't they? Like when you're not a dog person but that orphaned puppy chooses your feet to sleep on. Or when the most popular kid in school picks you first for their tunnel-ball team.

Ralph makes you feel like that. He makes me feel like that every day. It is his gift.

Ralph. Is a sweet, gentle soul, who loves unabashedly and loyally. Ralph celebrates love.

Ralph. Calls loudly for cuddles and kisses, chubby arms and hands outstretched. Likes to kiss me on the forehead, like a benediction: "Kiss hair, Mummy? Kiss hair?" And I bow to him.

Ralph. Adores his sister Scout above all else. He can't pronounce her real name, so he calls her Sister. Now, we all call her Sister.

Ralph. Gets hangry. (Really, really hangry)

Ralph. Didn't crawl until he was almost one and didn't walk until 18 months, then seemed to wake up one morning with the ability (and ardent desire) to walk, run, climb and leap tall buildings in a single bound.

Ralph. It is our theory that that first year spent not-crawling was spent sitting and watching and listening and absorbing things instead, because suddenly Ralph emerged whip-smart, able to carry full conversations.

Ralph. Moves at full speed or full stop. He literally falls asleep face-first into meals. If I'm tickling him to keep him awake in the car (yes, I am THAT mother), he will simply shake his head and say "No thank you. Tired, Mummy," and then stick his thumb into his mouth and close his eyes.

Ralph. Is obsessed with animals of all kinds and, when his excitement becomes too great to bear, it manifests in shrieks of laughter.

A child's laughter could end wars.

Ralph. Loves to have his hands kissed, and offers them up to my lips like royalty.

When Ralph says "I love you" he always pronounces it "lub loo" and every time he says it, something constricts in my throat.

Naomi Bulger 02/09/2015 Naomi Bulger 02/09/2015

Thoughts on living small

This is not a story I think I’ve told on this blog before but, when I was a teenager, my family moved to a country property in the foothills of the mountains and, while my father built our house, we lived in a caravan. But mostly we lived outside. We even cooked and showered outside (until winter).

These photos are what my teenaged life looked like. The bottom photo is of our kitchen! We had no electricity or running water and at first we had no telephone (until a neighbour strung up a probably-highly-illegal phone cable for us from tree to tree along our kilometre-long, winding driveway).

My father was a social worker, not a builder, so this all lasted quite a long time. Many years, in fact.

There are so many stories I could tell you about this period of my life. Good ones and bad ones, a lot of funny ones. You can’t suddenly change your lifestyle without it changing you, possibly more-so because my brother and I were in the midst of our formative years.

From those years in the caravan, I learned how to slow down and pare back. You can't accumulate a lot of stuff in a caravan, or it will quickly smother you. And so you learn that you don't actually need a lot of stuff. Not at all. I learned to save, to conserve, and to value... everything. Every last resource was hard-won and frequently scarce, and therefore greatly appreciated.

A simple life. Days spent clearing our land for house and garden and horse, by hand. Picking up rocks, cleaning up giant piles of old glass bottles, half-buried. Digging out and gently burning off insidious lantana. Dad, throwing all his weight into the hand-held post-digger, trying to break a ground hardened by a hundred summers, but the ground almost breaks him.

Hardwood floorboards from a demolished 100-year-old farmhouse, used to build a gravity-fed tank stand. Hidden dry-rot. The tank-stand buckling under the weight of the water, and crashing down the side of the mountain.

Everything cooked on a gas burner or a hand-made, wood-fired barbecue. Everything. If you ever need to make toast on a frying pan, I can show you how.

Night-times spent gathered as a family around a single candle and a battery-powered radio, listening to old "talkies" (my favourite was an Australian comedy from the 1930s, called "Yes, What?").

Returning home one evening to find a baby sugar-glider, smaller than the palm of my hand, hiding on my brother's bunk bed.

In recent years I’ve read a lot of blogs about people undertaking tree-changes like ours. Simple living, wholistic living, tiny houses, that sort of thing. It’s funny the mixed emotions I feel whenever I read these stories. I’m not going to lie: sometimes, I feel a bit smug.

I think to myself, these people have NO IDEA how it really is when you seriously go off the grid. This isn't about making your own marmalade and spreading it on your homemade bread (I love doing those things, by the way).

It's about making a washing machine out of an old broom handle and a colander and using it for hours it to POUND your clothes clean, every weekend, until your arms and shoulders burn (that was mostly Mum, not me, although I helped. Poor Mum). Wearing headbands throughout most of your final years of high school, because you leaned too close to the candle while studying at night, and burned your hair. Showering from a canvas bag under a tree, in freezing wind. Applying the roll-on deodorant one morning before school and discovering that your mother had snuck around in the night and replaced all the actual deodorants with white vinegar. Spiders and beetles in your kitchen and bedclothes. Frogs in your drop-toilet.

We didn’t do these things by halves, my family.

But then alongside the smug is a hefty dose of guilt. Guilt because the way I live now feels so commercial and wasteful compared to the way I grew up. I confess: I love it when I can flip a switch and a light comes on. I like having the heater on in winter and I LOVE having the air conditioning on in summer. I like watching TV. I like doing the washing up with the tap running - it’s so much more hygienic! I really like to stand under a long, hot shower.

Please don't hate me but when I find a six- (or more)-legged creature in my house, I don't catch it and release it gently into the wilds of Carlton North. I kill it before it bites or spreads diseases to my children. And then I feel guilty and beg a silent, fruitless forgiveness from its corpse.

I feel like a traitor to my family, and to my planet.

Sometimes I think I find it more difficult to be a responsible global citizen because of the extreme way we lived when I was young. I’m like the kid that grows up without sugar and then makes themselves sick at other children’s parties (actually I WAS that kid, too).

But that's just excuses. I want to lessen my footprint on this world, to leave it a better place for my children. I COMPLETELY understand why all those other people I keep reading about are doing these things, and I admire them.

I have to fight with my own deep-seated selfishness, the side of me that says “I’ve already done my bit, made so many sacrifices. I've been the fourth person to step into an inch-deep bath shared one at a time, cleanest person first (I rode horses. I was the grubbiest). I've bucketed water out of said four-person bath and used it to flush a toilet. I’ve EARNED that long, hot shower, that air conditioner.” I struggle to find a compromise because I spent years not feeling properly clean, and not feeling comfortable. I’m not saying that it was all bad, not at all: a lot of it was fun. But I’m just saying… I don’t want to go back.

I don’t want to go back and I don’t know how to meet half way, because half way feels like I'm not doing enough and, if I’m going to give these things up all over again, it feels like it should REALLY be worth it. But who am I, to bargain with the world like that?

No great ideas, yet.

Naomi Bulger 01/09/2015 Naomi Bulger 01/09/2015

Mailart - lost worlds

"And there we were, the four of us, upon the dreamland, the lost world... ...Following the tracks, we had left the morass and passed through a screen of brushwood and trees. Beyond was an open glade, and in this were five of the most extraordinary creatures that I have ever seen. Crouching down among the bushes, we observed them at our leisure."

~ The Lost World, Arthur Conan Doyle

Naomi Bulger 31/08/2015 Naomi Bulger 31/08/2015

Homecoming?

When we turned the corner on the freeway on the way into Sydney and I caught a glimpse of that oh-so-familiar skyline, I waited for the feeling to settle.

That feeling of homecoming. Of nostalgia, of "this was always my place, and it knows me, and I have come home."

But the feeling never came. I thought, "There it is, I know that place," and that was that.

The next day we took a walk into Surry Hills, where I had lived and was happy for many years. At every corner I said to Mr B and the children, "We used to go for work drinks in that pub," and "I used to walk my dog in that park and there was always a man walking a white rabbit," and "Let's go in here, they make the best fresh juices in the city."

But this was no homecoming. It was as though I was narrating somebody else's life, a television show that I had watched over and over until I knew it by heart, and maybe I had even imagined myself into the show sometimes, but it wasn't REALLY me.

Later, we drove into the Blue Mountains to help celebrate my father's 70th birthday. On the way up, past the local movie theatre, past my high school, past the paddocks and trails where I used to ride my horse, I tried it again. But there was nothing.

Not even when I watched my children play with their cousin and their grandparents, which was pure joy.

I don't know why I wanted to feel like Sydney was a homecoming. Why did I need it? I LOVE living in Melbourne. Living here is the best life I've had since I left New York. I don't want to move back to Sydney. In fact, I feel a mild flutter of panic every time I think of it (which is weird, because my life in Sydney was actually pretty good).

So, why did I go searching for ghosts? Maybe I felt like I just ought to. I mean, how can you live for such a long time in one place, and not feel SOMETHING when you return? I don't have the answer.

And then twice, I felt it.

The first time, it was during a sunny morning spent at the beach with one of my dearest friends, Sarah, and her beautiful baby girl. I was never a beach-dwelling Sydney-sider but that morning, watching my children build sand castles and make friends with waves, sitting beside the friend I hadn't seen in three years although it felt like only yesterday, was like coming home.

The second time was when we arrived back at our house in Melbourne a day early, and an hour past the children's bedtime. They were hungry and exhausted, but they greeted this house like a long-lost parent.

"Look at these new chairs! They are LOVELY!" gasped Scout, about the same chairs we had had since before she was born. And then my darlings made their way into the playroom and reacquainted themselves with all of their toys, one toy at a time. Each toy was held and celebrated and cuddled. Cherished. Everything was as though it was precious and their best. The absence of 10 days had made their hearts grow fonder.

And seeing their happiness, I knew I had come home.

Naomi Bulger 28/08/2015 Naomi Bulger 28/08/2015

Dad turns 70: the party ideas edition

Here are some of the little party ideas we've been working on during the past several months, to create fun surprises for my Dad and his guests at his 70th birthday party.

Save-the-date cards

ΔΔ I had some simple postcards printed up. On the front was a picture of Dad when he was about two, and a cryptic note at the bottom saying "Guess who's turning 70? Save the date 22 August 2015."

The clue was on the back. There, I wrote their addresses (of course), but those who looked carefully would also have noticed that the 70c stamp was actually a picture of my Dad today. Order personalised stamps from Australia Post here.

Invitations

ΔΔ I shared some of the mail-art I painted for the invitations that you see here in an earlier post. This is what was inside the boxes I sent.

When Dad's invitees opened their mail, they found a plain, white box. Inside the box was an old View Master. As they held it to their eyes, it took them through a little seven-slide "This is your Life" for my Dad. So, for example, the first slide was a black-and-white photo of my Dad when he was only a few months old, sitting in a bucket on the verandah. I wrote "It was 1945. Baby Paul took a bath in a bucket." Then on the next slide, my pre-teen Dad learned to ride a bike. I showed him meeting my Mum, being a father, building our house, those kinds of things. The final slide gave all the details of the party.

I used Image 3D to create and order my View Masters and slides. I found them very quick and great quality, despite the somewhat dodgy looking website. We ordered one set first, just as a test, before placing the order for 55. They get significantly cheaper per unit the more you order.

Secret book

ΔΔ Via a series of elaborate lies, I spent months collecting information and resources from Dad and the people close to him so that I could create a secret book for him about his life.

I collected old photos, mementos and newspaper clippings; recollections from Dad about his life and the lessons he had learned during the past 70 years; stories from Mum about their courtship and how Dad proposed (I can't believe I had never heard this story before!); and stories and memories from Dad's sister, my brother, and some of Dad's closest relatives and friends, so the book would be a warm and surprising read, both for Dad and for future generations.

The book is roughly chronological in order, starting with Dad's childhood upbringing, then meeting and marrying Mum, work, being a parent, building his own house, travelling, and becoming a grandfather.

I created this book using Artifact Uprising, since I'd used them before and loved the service and quality. This book was a 100-page hardcover book with linen cover and a dust-jacket, and I also ordered a box made out of reclaimed wood to store the book, with a photo of Dad printed on the top.

Stories and anecdotes

ΔΔ Along with the secret book, I made a second book using Artifact Uprising that was the same size as the other, but in soft cover. I chose a cute photo of my Dad as a toddler to put on the front (how amazing is that technicolour yellow knitted jumpsuit! and those curls!), and then on the first page wrote some words inviting people to jot down their thoughts and memories of my Dad on the blank pages that followed.

We passed this around during the party so that people could fill the pages with messages for Dad. They shared some fantastic stories and moving tributes.

Famous RSVPs

ΔΔ Back in January we wrote letters to a series of international dignitaries, inviting them to come to my Dad's party. Somewhat surprisingly, none of them could make it ;-)! I collected all the RSVP notes and put them in a folder to give to my Dad and display at the party.

So when people came to take a look at the folder on the table, they saw a letter from the Queen of England wishing my Dad a very happy birthday, a letter from the President of France expressing his deep regret that he couldn't join us for lunch in Katoomba, the International Olympic Committee President wishing his schedule could have allowed him to make it, and many more. The Mayor of the town in Brittany where my father's family lived for many generations wished him well, and sent me colour photocopies of a page in a Baptism Register from the 1780s, showing the birth of my father's ancestor Jean Louis.

Hand-lettered name-cards

ΔΔ Never underestimate how long it will take to measure, cut, fold, pencil, erase and fill-in 75 place-cards, and don't leave this task until after dinner on the night before the party. That's just a tip from me to you.

The Most Beautiful Letter You Have Ever WrittenCome join me and a host of gentle, creative, like-minded people in my five-week letter-writing and mail-art course, delivered entirely online. This course is all about creativity, personal connections, … — The Most Beautiful Letter You Have Ever Written
Come join me and a host of gentle, creative, like-minded people in my five-week letter-writing and mail-art course, delivered entirely online. This course is all about creativity, personal connections, and spreading joy to others through the old-fashioned postal service. Learn more or join in here.

Naomi Bulger 27/08/2015 Naomi Bulger 27/08/2015

Postcards for posties

A little while back when we were in Warrnambool, a woman at the post office did us a kind turn (explained above) by coming up with a creative solution when Scout was crying because she couldn't find a postcard to send to her friend.

It was a little thing, but it made the world of difference to my little girl. We were so touched at this woman's thoughtfulness and creativity that, when we got home the next day, I painted up a postcard of my own, and sent it to the Warrnambool post office, to say thank-you.

I'm thinking I should do this more often. There are plenty of other posties I could thank!

For example, at my local post office, I only recently learned that when I send mail-art, if the addressee's country is not written in the same section and colour as the rest of the address, the mail gets returned. But nothing has ever been returned to me and all my mail (as far as I know) has always made it to its destination, because the lovely couple who run the Carlton North post office handle the returns themselves, rather than passing them on to me, and draw circles around the countries to make sure they won't be missed again. I should make them a postcard to say thank-you.

When I sent out the mail-art invitations to my Dad's birthday party, a large number of them all went to the same country town where my Dad lives. Those must have been quite bulky and annoying, en masse, for the poor, hard-working, mountain postie to deliver. I should write him or her a postcard to say thank-you.

So many of our posties go above and beyond to deliver the mail on time. I reckon I could think of at least 10 other posties who deserve a thank-you postcard from me today. How about you?

Naomi Bulger 26/08/2015 Naomi Bulger 26/08/2015

Dispatch from the road

Echuca, Central Victoria. Arrival time 5:20pm

Scout: I want to live in this hotel forever, because it has got Peppa Pig on television. Ralph [with glee] : Noise! Noise! [about the people coming and going from our hotel at all hours throughout the night] Me: Wow, this place has got a spa. That was unexpected. I might get a massage! Mr B: It's not that kind of spa. Tepid water. Strangers.

In the morning, we cruise around the town searching for a cafe that is open for breakfast at kids o'clock. Find a nice-looking cafe, order our breakfast, then thank all the deities on Olympus that I remembered to bring little boxes of sultanas because there is a 45 minute wait for food and NO TODDLER WAITS 45 MINUTES FOR ANYTHING.

Head out to Port Echuca and it is so cute! A horse-drawn carriage rolls past us as we lock the car. I love that touristy stuff! Race down the wooden ramps to catch a paddle steamer just in time. Scout is adamant she doesn't want to go on the paddle steamer, and boards under protest. After five minutes on the river, she announces she wants to ride on ALL the paddle steamers, ALL the time.

Scout's favourite paddle steamer activity: lying down on wool bales and pretending to sleep Ralph's favourite paddle steamer activity: watching the steam engine at work. He is mesmerised!

Also a favourite activity for everyone: drinking tea on the deck. Both children: Real tea! Real tea! (They take their tea weak, insipid, milky and barely warm)

The skipper lets the children have a turn at "driving" the boat. Scout gently holds the spokes of the giant wheel as the skipper steers. Ralph grabs the wheel and holds it, and suddenly we are heading straight for the banks of the Murray River. The skipper hastily redresses the situation. We beat a hasty retreat from the cabin.

Yarrawonga, Central Victoria. Arrival time 1pm

Scout calls it Arrow-Wanta. Ralph dissolves into hysterical giggles every time anyone says "Yarrawonga."

We walk up the main street and Ralph goes everywhere he is not supposed to and does everything he is told not to and then he puts his hands somewhere really disgusting and before I can get to him, shoves his thumb into his mouth. I lunge towards him yelling "Nooooo!" and it's like I'm running in slow motion and I swear my voice has that weird, deep sound that happens when you have the sound on in slow motion, but his thumb was just too quick. I whip it back out and clean and sanitise his hands, but the damage is already done. If he doesn't catch a hideous disease, he will have the best immune system in Australia. It's probably a 50-50 chance either way.

In the car again, later that afternoon.

Ralph [offering up thumb]: Mummy suck my thumb? Me: No way! That's so disgusting! Ralph: AHAHAHAHAHA [proceeds to suck his own thumb] Scout: Suck MY thumb Mummy! Me: [defeated sigh]

We sing 'The Quartermaster's Store' in the car approximately 37 times, at Scout's request. "I ONLY want to sing 'my eyes are dim,'" she insists. At every new verse, Scout picks a family member or friend and her father matches the rhyme to them (there was Mummy, Mummy, rubbing her tummy in the store...). "Now do Shohana Daddy! Now do Sebastian! Layla! Alexandra!

Albury, on the Victoria-NSW border. Arrival time 4:30pm

Scout: Let's see if this television has Peppa Pig! Me: Hey Ralph, Yarrawonga Ralph: [doubles over and screams with laughter]

There is supposed to be a restaurant and room service, but it is closed on Sundays. After we put the kids to bed, Mr B goes out to find some takeout. I turn out the light and sit on the bed in the dark, looking at my phone. Both kids sit up and try to make me laugh. I walk around behind our bed and crouch down on the floor behind the bed so they can't see me or the light of my phone. The kids keep laughing, but slowly go quiet. My back hurts from bending over. I start itching. I think the carpet has fleas. Mr B returns with Chinese takeout and it is so bad, but we are hungry and desperate. I grab an old blanket from a cupboard and we eat sitting on the floor of the bathroom. I wish I was kidding. Later, we share headphones and watch a couple of episodes of Turn: Washington's Spies that I have downloaded onto my computer. A very addictive show!

Gundagai, half way between Melbourne and Sydney. Arrival time 12:30pm

We find an old pub for lunch and I order a salad and convince the children to eat some vegetables, by way of giving them a back tickle for every mouthful of greens effectively swallowed. I am in dire need of salad and otherwise-healthy food. I have already put on weight from all the junk food on this road trip. This always happens when I travel in country Australia. Once I was on the road in the outback for three weeks for work, and came back six kilos heavier! No exaggeration. Everywhere we went, the only thing to eat was chicken kiev. I never want to see another chicken kiev as long as I live.

Things are almost as dire right now. Scout rests her head on my leg, lovingly, then looks up at me. "Mummy, your leg is getting nice and fat and squishy. It is like play dough!" Cue salad for lunch.

After the salad, we go for a walk and then it rains so we take shelter in the Gundagai Bakery, which happens to be the oldest bakery in Australia. It is also very cute and the food is very yummy, so we each have a doughnut. Salad plus gentle walk cancels out doughnut calories, so this treat in no way contributes to play-dough legs.

Currently typing this from Goulburn, southern NSW. Arrival time: 5pm.

Check-out time, if we can help it: 5:05pm. Or earlier. At reception, the lady coughs and sneezes directly into her hand, then picks up the keys and hands them to Mr B. We search for our room. It is on the bottom floor and outside our window, two men are smoking and drinking about eight VBs each. They smile and say hello to the kids. Ralph yells "HARRO!" at the top of his lungs. Scout hides behind my legs.

We unlock the door.

This room is SO GROSS. I can't even begin to tell you. And I have stayed in hotels with toilets under the showers, and weird smells, and uninvited wildlife, and suspicious stains on the bedding, and even more suspicious stains on the walls, and camel poo coming out of the taps (true story!).

- End dispatch -

Naomi Bulger 25/08/2015 Naomi Bulger 25/08/2015

Dad turns 70: the mail-art edition

We have been on the road to celebrate my father's 70th birthday, in Katoomba in the Blue Mountains, north-west of Sydney.

Mr B and I organised a party for my Dad and 74 of his nearest and dearest and, despite a Fawlty Towers-esque performance from the venue we had selected, it was a lot of fun and everyone enjoyed themselves so much that three hours after our estimated "finish time," they were still kicking on. My brother and I were the party-poopers who eventually wound things up, and I want to say it was only because we were thinking of the needs of our children, who were drooping with weariness and plummeting blood sugars, but it was most likely also because we were both designated drivers and ready for a drop or two of leftover champagne once safely home.

I sent out little boxed surprises to all Dad's guests in lieu of invitations, and incorporated their addresses into painted pictures to make things a bit fun for them. In total, I think I sent about 55 painted boxes.