the best little place in tasmania

This is my ninth year of living in Tasmania, and I'm still trying to pinpoint my favourite location. Last month I swear I found it... at least until the next trip!

We decided to spend a quiet winter's weekend in Mole Creek. It might not sound like the most attractive destination, but this little hamlet tucked in between two gentle mountain ranges is a real gem. Only forty five minutes from home, we entered a parallel universe of slow moving time, wood-fired cottages, untouched nature and home made bread. There were soggy pub meals, fog, mist, dells and vistas. The perfect antidote to traffic and grime. (not that we have too much to complain about on that point, but grime comes in a variety of forms I suppose)

It was a beautiful, relaxing weekend and here are the pics to prove Mole Creek is worthy of being counted amongst Tassie's best.

money games

Last week I sorted receipts from shopping long past. Someone, somewhere once told me to keep receipts as a safety net against inevitable banking errors. Ten years of receipt collection later and I've found one or two mistakes, both of which occurred in the UK, one having nothing to do with a receipt, instead being the incorrect withdrawal of money from my account and its subsequent quiet return. It was sorted out well before I received the statement in the mail and my only lasting concern was that, since the 'withdrawal' was made in a foreign country, the volatile exchange rate left me a few pence short.

My receipt pile was getting beyond a joke, taking over its file, the drawer... the house. I decided to sort, cross check and chuck. It took all day, during which I found one receipt from Jesmond BigW dated 27/10/96, a letter with an email address I've been hunting for for a couple of years and a Chickenfeed receipt for 50 cent wrapping paper. They made a big difference to the bank statements...

Rustling through the papers I couldn't help observing the way my shopping habits have changed recently. No longer do I visit the discount meat store, choosing instead to pay a bit more for meat I know the source of. There were Spotlight receipts, where now I support several fantastic locally owned craft stores. I found a reminder of how much sugar I used to consume with the receipt for two dollar jelly babies - another Chickenfeed special. Some shops no longer exist, others like the Christian bookstore have been taken over. There was a receipt for antrid, from the time our kitchen benches were infested and one for the beautiful cashmere jumper I bought on a trip to Hobart. I'd even kept the receipt from a money order to pay for my visas to the Philippines in 2005 and China in 2006, plus the Tamar River Cruise work Christmas dinner in 2005. Some items weren't even receipts! There was a list of all the cartons and items moved from Newcastle to Tasmania by a local removalist company, a lease agreement and a referee report from a previous landlady. What a trip down memory lane!

The receipts matched up with the bank statements well enough, though there were several gaps where some were missing... and after five years of elapsed time I don't care about that, leave alone the bank! They joined the others in the bin.

I'll probably go on keeping receipts - old habits die hard - but perhaps now my motivation will be posterity rather than good book keeping! Tedious as it was, there was some fun in remembering the past and musing over how life used to be, even just five years ago!

i think i've kicked the sugar habit

I broke the cardinal rule and went to the supermarket hungry this evening. It wasn't intentional.

I was improvising for a recipe I was a few ingredients short on when Frank arrived home. He'd had a crazy busy day and hadn't been able to purchase the milk and yoghurt as planned, so I thought I may as well pop down to the shop, get the milk and yoghurt and pick up some tomato paste for the pasta mince bake. (Good, hearty winter fare)

While I was there I remembered the group I am running at school tomorrow with pre-adolescent girls. To introduce the topic of value and worth we play a mini game of 'The Price is Right'. Usually I rush to the supermarket on the way to school and select the tastiest, most inexpensive, nut-free, ethical chocolates available. Nut free, inexpensive and tasty I can usually do but ethical is out of the question so I resort to cadbury or nestle and salve my conscience with the 'it's for a good cause' euphemism.

And there tonight, were the kit kats in all their glory. And I was hungry. And they said 'new creamy recipe' on the front and 'it's all about balance' on the back. So I succumbed and went against my fair trade, no crap additives, cut-out-the-sugar ideals and bought one.

And when I got home I tore open the packaging and bit into it... and it tasted disgusting. I remembered too late that the 'new creamy' claim was misleading, I much prefer the old recipe. And sweet? Awful, sickly sweet. Almost put me off my tea.

I guess going to the naturopath and detoxing for a month was worth it after all. I had my doubts about her at the time. She seemed to be prescribing supplements to get more money out of me, and when I questioned this she side stepped by claiming she would rather not prescribe and only does so when absolutely necessary. After three visits valued at over $500 I opted out. But I can't deny my skin has improved, I have new energy and enthusiasm, my hideous abdo-pain-for-a-week PMT has disappeared and I don't crave sugar anymore. (Unless I go to the supermarket hungry it would seem) I grudgingly cede to the healing power of her naturopathic supplements - I have been freed from the grip of sugar-laden, crap filled sweets. I might even go back for the liver cleanse she said would free me from debilitating dysmenorrhoea.

Maybe.
She was a little odd.

Naturopathic dilemmas aside, I will never eat another kit kat in my life.
Well most likely not.
Unless I dash to the supermarket with an empty stomach.

It just isn't worth it. Urgh.

what the dentist pulled out

My dentist draws some strange things from me. Not teeth... you'd maybe expect that at the dentist but thankfully I received the all clear this visit. No fillings, no removal, no need to even clean them. My teeth are in tip top shape. (Having said that, I am realising teeth tell an interesting tale of aging. My face may be unmarked, but my un-whitened, un-capped teeth are starting to give me away. I've taken to peering hard into other people's mouths to test my aging teeth theory)

No, my dentist draws strange, almost sardonic lines from out my mouth. He's a rather abrupt, jocular English fellow, quick with a quip and full of witticism about life. Perhaps that's his way of putting clients at ease, maybe it sustains him through the halitosis and decay confronting him every day, or quite possibly it is the only way to cut straight to meaningful conversation in the course of a ten minute checkup. Whatever it is, I find myself unable to give a simple, straight answer to his searching one-liners. Instead derisive snorts (it's hard to talk with your mouth full of steel implements) or wry reflections burst out of me.

Take the other day as an example. I had just picked up three counselling text books from the post office and was flipping through one while I waited for my appointment. 'Don't you like our magazines? Have to bring your own reading material?' he said as we walked through to his room. I sheepishly admitted to wanting to get into my study early.

Between forays into the gaps between my teeth he asked me why I was studying counselling. That's when I snorted derisively and said I couldn't remember now. What I didn't say was that I feel rather disgruntled with the whole affair and seriously don't know if I will ever pursue counselling as a career.

As I sat on the edge of the dentist chair, regaining my composer, wiping the last of the dribble from my chin and breathing a sigh of relief at my dental reprieve, the dentist supposed that counselling is only worth it if people want to change. And that's just it. What if people don't want to change? What if people can't change? What if the structures and systems of our society keep them stuck where they are and no amount of trying on their part will change things? Counselling is just too individual in its focus for me now.

So there you have it. I went to the dentist and, instead of discovering dental caries, my current thinking on counselling crystalised clearly in my mind. I have one semester, one enormous semester of study to go. I'll finish the course, get my Grad Dip... but I have a feeling I might not ever use it again. We'll see. Right now my thinking has moved on and I see more benefit in helping people by working on the systems that trap them in self defeating cycles. It's not all wasted though... I'll be really good at listening to you next time we talk!

this puts day to day life into perspective!

Just found this story on the abc website and decided to stop complaining about menial problems.

well that backfired a little!

It's coming up to two years since I went through the whole dentist saga and I've been thinking I should do the right thing and make another appointment for a check up. I don't subscribe to six monthly or even yearly check ups... they seem to just be a way for dentists to make lots of money. Besides, I proved with ten years of drastic avoidance measures, that no matter how many times you might dream it is happening, your teeth will not suddenly start falling out if you don't check in with the dentist all the time.

Two years seems a reasonable gap to me, so I finally plucked up the courage to phone for an appointment this morning. There aren't enough dentists in this part of the world, so I thought if I phone now, I'll get an appointment in July and can gradually prepare myself for the jaw-aching onslaught.

Ha. That one backfired! Two dentists are on leave so my dentist has picked up extra days to fill the space. He had a spare appointment next Wednesday... and I'm now booked into it.

Excellent service. Far too good.
Seriously, I would rather have waited two months!

if this is a crutch, give me the other one

I know someone who 'hears from God' with regularity. In fact two weeks ago God told them they have cancer... it turned out to be an infection.

Of course they believe God healed them. I myself have doubts.

Not that God doesn't have important things to say, and not that God doesn't care about the minutiae of our lives. I just don't like positioning myself at the centre of God's work in the world. There are far greater forces at work than my actions, more important factors to consider than my personal preferences and comfort. God may be the source of all that is good, but when we attribute every extraordinary thought or inexplicable event to him I wonder if we don't verge on the edge of a form of hoodoo voodoo christianity. How are we different from the ancients who saw fertility gods behind the rain or sacrificed to war gods for help in their conquests? We would do better to take life at face value and respond according to the principles of justice, mercy and humility as so ably lived out by Jesus.

Having said all that, I don't want to negate the comfort I frequently find in my faith. I'll admit there are some pretty strange beliefs to subscribe to when you follow Jesus, and I choose to believe them because that's what faith is about, but the real boon in fostering a relationship with God is the meaning and purpose it gives. If that statement flies in the face of everything I wrote above... um... bear with me, I'm still figuring it out! Anyway, I had a special God moment last week.

I'd just been 'laid off' from one of my positions. That's far too dramatic a turn of phrase... the company I work for was asked by the company who contract my services for two hours a fortnight (no great biggie), to replace me with another member of personnel. The rationale offered seems to be that I am too youthful and gentle for the role required, though I am yet to clarify the accuracy of this. As you would imagine, I was pretty upset. Here I was being misjudged and taken lightly simply because of a youthful manner and a lack of lines. I wailed and gnashed my teeth and determined to demonstrate maturity beyond my appearance. Ha. Some of that is true, and yes, I am dealing with the matter in a hopefully appropriate manner. It's probably not wise to say more than that and it's not really the point of this post anyway.

So I was lying in bed sniffling, trying to steady my breathing and calm my thoughts, feeling miserably sorry for myself. What happened to diversity? justice? respect? valuing a person for who they are not what they look like? How humiliating to be judged so unfairly!

The perfect place from which to step back and gain a little perspective.

I thought of all the people around the world living in absolute poverty. There is no reason for this other than gross injustice keeping them there. My little episode started to pale into a piece of global insignificance.

Believing Jesus is the son of God (as I crazily do) reveals another pretty hefty injustice. The son of God comes to earth, receives no respect and is killed on the cross*. Whoa. That's one almighty humiliation to endure. My little issue became even smaller.

Actually, that's not true. I stood with Jesus and he held my hand and rather than tell me to get over it, he offered comfort as only someone who knew exactly how I felt could offer comfort. I was soothed and calmed by the presence of Jesus and fell asleep soon after.

Now you may think this is all mumbo jumbo invented in my head, as hoodoo voodoo as the person who believes God told them they had cancer. You might even go so far as to say it's a crutch I'm leaning on rather too heavily. I'll live with that. In fact I'll laugh and say you might be right. But there's no denying the fact I fell asleep in record time after I remembered Jesus and his hellish experience. So if it's a crutch, give me the other one, cause I love hopping around on this faith that holds me up.

*Phil 2:5-8