still in limbo

After much piss-farting around, poking, prodding, drops and lights (and a fairly spectacular fight over me refusing to sign a Medicare claim form before I saw the quack), the poncy little ophthalmologist decided that my eyes did not have a problem (despite not having received the results of my hugely expensive CT scan). They were healthy and normal and had an accurate prescription for visual correction.

He instructed me to return to my GP and get a referral to a surgical endocrinologist (quite why he couldn't give me said referral was never made clear). Based on his examination (and my blood tests), he has decided that all my eye and eyelid symptoms are a side effect of a failing thyroid gland, something called Grave's Disease.

He said there was a palpable mass (don't you just hate that word, mass, so innocent, so scary). He said that the swelling would decrease once the the goitre was treated but, in the mean time, I should sleep sitting up (!!!!!!), apply heat packs (shouldn't I use ice packs for swelling?) and use artificial tears (like I need more bloody lubrication on this constantly lacrimating puffball).

The man was a complete knob. Probably quite good at his job but, after I offended him by not pre-signing his bloody form, he was not exactly personable.

So, tomorrow, it is back to the GP and then on to another specialist. And, still no answers.

Just that bloody word.

Mass.

waiting

I should be reading buddy journals, commenting and writing updates here. I should be. But it is probably best that I don't. I am broody and I know I am best keeping out of everybody's way when I am like this.

I can't think past my appointment tomorrow and what the outcome might be. I am trying to convince myself that it will be something simple and easily fixed. My darker half refuses to believe. My darker half is convinced the news will be dire.

So, if you'll excuse me, I'll just quietly brood in solitude.

out of warranty

For the last few weeks I have had an annoying puffy eyelid. At first I didn't realise. All I was aware of was my glasses not feeling "proper" on my nose. It was a girlfriend that first noted the eyelid (when you have a face like mine, you don't spend a lot of time looking in the mirror so you can miss these sorts of things).

It isn't sore or itchy or inflamed or evil looking, it's just puffy. It comes up over night and slowly goes away during the day.

I did all the usual things you do with self-diagnosis. I tried heat packs and ice packs and cucumber slices and eye baths. I did the eye drops in case it was something in my eye. I did the pseudo-ephedrine in case it was a snot thing. I did antihistamines in case it was an allergy. I changed the bedding and bought a new pillow. (I even tried sleeping in another bed in case I was allergic to the spouse!).

To no avail.

It just got puffier and slower to deflate over the day.

*sigh* Time to fork out for a quack. But it seemed like such a silly thing about which to consult a doctor. *sigh*

Yesterday I girded my loins and went to see the expert. He shone lights and poked and prodded and asked umpteen questions. He then dragged the senior GP in and repeated the exercise. They then rang a "specialist" and conferred with him.

There were more tests. My eye was dyed with flouro drops and numbed with others. There were lights and huge magnifying lenses and darkened rooms. The ophthalmologist was rung again and more conversation ensued.

After a wait, I was shuffled off to have my head X-rayed and a million gallons of my blood (well, that's what it felt like) decanted into assorted vials. Then back to the quack for a referral for more tests and an appointment with the big bloke next week.

The GP was a really nice bloke and very straight forward with me. He did, however, ever so slightly freak me out with his talk of CT scans to look for "masses". I did what every mass-fearing patient does. I came home (several hundred dollars poorer) and hit the net.

I put my symptoms into Google and came up with lots of nice medical type pages to browse through.

Not a good plan.

My vague fright from the innocuous word "mass" grew exponentially with each page. The words "sarcoma" (and variation of) and "tumour" seemed to be the flavour of the month on pages dealing with supra-orbital swelling. "Metastases" also loomed large, as did "loss of vision". After 11 pages I decided to stop reading.

This afternoon I am having a CT scan.

Next Wednesday I see the ophthalmologist.

I have decided that, until then, I will not worry about all the scary possibilities. I shall be optimistic. I shall believe it's just something simple like a blocked duct or bruising or the like.

That gives me time to worry about my blood pressure which seems to have gone through the roof in the last 12 months.

I lose weight and get fit and my bloody body falls to pieces on me. Bloody old age.

the grass is always greener...

Life isn't always a bed of roses. Mostly it's more like an onion patch - useful, productive and pretty boring.

And sometimes life is pretty shitful. Sometimes life just plain stinks.

And, then, there are days like today. Days when your life stinks up everybody else's life.

Yep. It's the day you have the septic tanks pumped out.

My whole house smells like poo.

My neighbour's houses smell like poo.

The whole bloody street smells like poo.

And it's MY poo.

God less the leaky hose on the Dunny Doctor's truck!

almost home

Just two more sleeps.

Then my girl with be safe back on home soil.

Two more sleeps.

and I can untie that knot in my stomach.

blood ties

So. It begins.

Mum told my (totally appalling) sister that she had put her house on the market.

My sister was on the phone to me within moments of hanging up from Mum's call. Her nose is thoroughly out of joint. She said so very nasty derogatory things about Mum and her lack of fiscal abilities and questioned me about Mum's will. I struggled to remain polite and inoffensive (and, thankfully, succeeded) but the call ended with her hanging up. She is pissed off at Mum for her independence and pissed off at me for supporting that.

How can this bitter, narcissistic shrew be my blood?

She is going to play dirty.

Game on.

sorry

All countries have parts of their history in which they can take no pride. Regardless of race or religion, none of us are perfect and nor were our ancestors. We all have a background that includes actions that, by today's standards, are reprehensible.

And there lies the most important point.

By today's standards.

More specifically, by today's western standards.

It used to be acceptable practice to punish criminals with whipping, brutalisation, mutilation and even death. We are all appalled when this is done today but, in our not too distant past, our forebears gathered at the town common to witness and cheer whilst this took place.

With right on their side, past generations invaded, annexed and colonised countries peopled by primitive (i.e. lest powerful in battle) races. If it happened these days were would march in the streets in protest but, at the time it happened it was perfectly acceptable, even praiseworthy.

There are still millions of slaves throughout our modern world but we are horrified when we hear stories of people smugglers and their victims. Yet it is not all that far in the past when some of the greatest nations on earth supported (and profited by) the capture and sale of human beings. In fact, name me one successful society in all of history that have not been based on slavery of some sort. Even if we don't come from a country that pillaged the Ivory Coast to the strong muscles to man our farms, we have (and in many cases still do) supported Asian sweatshops, serfdom, bonded servants, convict labour and heinous class and caste systems. In the slavery arena, no nation is pure.

History is full of appalling and heinous acts of one man, one race or one nation against another.

My country is no different.

Australia's first modern immigrants arrived in chains. Convicted of crimes that, these days, would incur no more than a slap on the wrist, these men and women were sent to see out their sentence (of 7years, 14 or life) as slave labour to open up a newly acquired British colony. They lived foul and miserable lives but were treated in accordance with the mores and ethics of the day.

So too with the indigenous population. They were hunted and slaughtered, their lands taken, cleared, ploughed and fenced and their humanity denied. They didn't share our colour, our heritage, our language, our morals and ethics or our religion. Their only option was to accept and change or disappear.

And disappear they did. Whether through the deliberate genocide in Tasmania or through the diseases we spread or through privation because of loss of land and livelihood, they died in their thousands.

Some integrated, not many, but some. Or as much as their appearance and heritage allowed. Some compromised and accepted our laws and our religion in exchange for other benefits. But most just disappeared.

It wasn't until the middle of last century that we admitted their humanity at all. They were not even citizens of their own country. It was still possible, right up until the 1930s, to purchase a feral pig and aborigine shooting license!

Their lives were appalling and a condemnation of our culture.

But, only in retrospect.

In an historical context, nothing was done in an immoral or illegal manner or against the social conscience. In fact, our early colonist had right on their side. By force of arms, it was their duty to expand the empire and convert the heathen. Even God was on their side.

The buzzword in our papers, at the moment, is a concept called "The Stolen Generation". In the late 1800/1900s, acts of law were introduced into our country governing the treatment and condition of "the aboriginal race". Parts of these acts covered the handling of children of mixed blood. The main aim of these regulations was to promote the non-aboriginal part of these children's heritage. The laws provided for (and insisted upon) the removal of these children from their indigenous environment and a process of preparing them to a white way of life.

The laws were enforced rigorously. Any child suspected of having white blood was removed from his parents, sometimes by quite brutal means, and placed in a white environment. This was usually a children's home, either state run or controlled by religious groups. Some of these homes were rules by loving and caring folk who tried their very best to foster the kids, some where horrific hell-holes. Most fell somewhere in between.

All were run in accordance to the accepted religious and scientific dogma of the era. It was well understood that black people were of lesser intelligence than their white superiors. It was beyond question that their only redemption was through a Christian god. The children were reared with these two tenets in mind. They had religion drummed into them, Christian morals instilled and were trained to accept their lesser place. Education was limited to the very basics (if at all) but the girls received training in domestic skills and the boys in farm labouring.

Once competent in their allotted vocation, they were sent out to assigned jobs. The only requirement for a prospective employer was to be white. Work was rewarded with room and board and compulsory church attendance. No effort was made to monitor the treatment these children received once they left the homes.

With all the right arrogant colonial reasoning, and with the best of intentions, these laws enabled whole generations of indigenous children to be taken from their families and forced into bonded labour. In some cases, this was a blessing. Sometimes they were taken from a home that was less than loving or caring and found a new start through good people. Some went from one kind of privation to another. Most were pulled away from good mums and handed to people who didn't care.

Looking back we are appalled. Rightly so.

But it must be viewed in the historical frame in which it occurred. This was the era when it was acceptable for a teacher to beat a child until he was black with bruises and parents approved. It was the time when mothers, declared unfit for an immoral lifestyle, had their children taken with no recourse. Women were still considered chattels in marriage and had few legal rights. Prisoners were hanged. Children went to work from an early age and where bonded into apprenticeships for half their lives. The orphanages were overflowing with abandoned, unwanted, bastard or orphaned white children in little better condition than their indigenous compatriots. We even shipped them out from Britain.

This was an era blighted by two world wars and a crippling depression. Social reform, even social conscience, perforce, takes a back seat under those conditions. Even if people had begun to see the wrong, they were too centred on feeding their own brood than worrying about children that were given food and shelter by the law.

Yes, what happened to "The stolen Generation" was a lousy lousy thing. But, in retrospect, it was just one more lousy thing happening in that time. Yes, we were slow to raise our voices against it. But, we were equally slow with many other social reforms. It was a nasty thing happen to anyone but, just because it was done for racial reasons, doesn't make it any worse than what happened to any other person who suffered under the laws, morals and beliefs of that time.

Today our Prime Minister made an apology to "The Stolen Generation". It was a very popular move. It was supported by the media and many sections of the community.

Yes, I am appalled at what happened to these kids. I am appalled at the disastrous effect it had on many of their adult lives.

I am equally appalled at many other things that happened during that time. I am appalled at the women who lost their children because they were unmarried or living in sin. I'm appalled that children had to work 10 hour days at 12. I'm appalled that we shipped children out to our orphanages without bothering to make sure that they were, in fact, orphans. I'm appalled that we abused and raped our country. There are many many things from both my country's history and of the history of mankind that appal me. And appal others.

I think we should acknowledge the mistakes of the past. They are many.

But sorry?

No.

For a start, it would open a floodgate. Will the Italians now have to apologise for invading Germany and Britain two millennia ago? The Egyptians for enslaving the Jews? The Spanish for giving measles to the Incas? Once you start with this kind of self-flagellation, there is no end.

Shit happened. It's past. Today is a new start.

I acknowledge that previous generations suffered, black, white or brindle. I acknowledge that my ancestors were the cause of some of that suffering. I acknowledge that, by today's standards, that suffering was unacceptable.

But sorry?

No.

Everything we are, both individually and as a group, is the result of what has happened in the past. Without any single event, what we are would be different. The butterfly effect. The country I live in and the person I am is a direct result of the things that went before. Had those laws never been introduced and enforced, had we, as a nation, not had to fight against those laws, what sort of people who we now be?

Those laws represent a part of our growing as a nation, albeit a dark part. Awareness of those laws has been part of my personal growth as a human being.

Living under the effects of those laws has also been a part of the growth of our indigenous people. Would they have been safer, happier, without those laws? Would they still even exist without those laws? Would they have banded together across tribal boundaries unless they had found the common cause presented by those laws and practices? We will never know.

I am not sorry that part of our history occurred. I am not sorry any part of our history occurred, good or bad. It is all part of who and what we are, both individually and nationally.

I acknowledge that it happened and that individuals feel they were hurt by it. There, and there alone, is where my sorry lies.

I am sorry that some individuals have carried ill effects into their lives from their past. And I am sorry that they are not strong enough to move past it.

my basket collection

The lovely hot and windy weather is ideal for drying washing. I loaded the line to it's limit and then stripped it bared and loaded it again. Everything but the thickest towels were dry, off and in the basket in the 20 minutes it took for the next load to be done. Brilliant. Washing all up to date.

Then comes the problem.

Having ruthlessly sorted through everything, folded and put to the bottom of the pile any item that I can vaguely get away with not ironing, I am still left with a mammoth amount. Two full baskets of shirts, trousers, frocks, hankies and tablecloths. Add to that the other basket of un-ironed stuff I hid in the study and the pile is past mammoth. It's Himalayan!

It was time.

It's not like I never do ironing. I do. It's just that I do it as rarely as possible. I will dig a frock out of the bottom of the basket 10 minutes before going out and give it a quick press with the iron already hot from M doing the same to his shirt. Random ironing and hanging of mass clothes in the wardrobe is a rare and special event but it is not unknown.

I woke up this morning already behind the eight ball (as a matter of interest, what the hell does that actually mean?) I had slept poorly (bless those bloody hot flushes and itches) and it was nearly 8 when I emerged. And there, sitting accusingly in my lounge-room, were those three overflowing baskets.

They stared at me while I ate breakfast and when I fed the fish. They glared when I shuffled off to the shower. They were still there, lurking, when I put the stereo on.

Sigh

I caved.

I went and got a bundle of coat-hangers out of the wardrobe. I collected the iron from the laundry (covered in dust) (the iron, not the laundry). I got the ironing-board out of the study (and brushed off the accumulation of cat hair that Skank had left after sleeping on it). I set it all up in front of the telly, tuned into Silent Witness, filled the iron and turned it on.

Then my mate walked through my back door.

Visitor.

A reprieve.

After nearly 7 hours of weeping, sobbing, yelling, silent misery and kicking of my lemon tree, I think we got her angst sorted (god I'd love to wring that man's bloody neck).

It was better than doing the ironing.

parts of me

I'm one of those (annoying) people who constantly changes her desktop background. Sometimes I have totally random things (like cartoons or slogans), sometimes it is pretty stuff that I snap around the place or I find online but, mostly, it's my kids.

I've had kids all dolled up for school balls, weddings or the races. I have had drunken playing of air guitars and snoozing heads on pillows. I've shown ancient captures of long-grown babes and fuzzy images in wombs. Kids on horseback and wrestling dogs, hugging guinea pigs and shearing alpacas. Alone or in groups, happy, sad, pensive, angry, loving and asleep.

At the moment I have a picture I found in my documents files. It is a cam-whore shot my baby took of herself over the Christmas break. She is there in front of me every time I switch on my monitor and lurks behind every page I browse.

None of my kids will set the world on fire with their looks. They are far from ugly, they are just not stunners. It isn't like I had the looks to pass on and the poor buggers all inherited my enormous nose!

But, when my husband and I were allocating genes to them, somehow we lost the plot with their eyes. Sure, they all got the family's appalling eyesight and my husband's hooded lids but, when it came to colour, well...

My eyes are a washed out bluey grey, my husband's are a flecked hazel. Yet, with those genes on board, this is what stares out of my computer screen each day.....

Green. Not greenish. Not fleckled. Just green. With the blackest of black lashes.

My son, on the other hand, has the deepest of chocolate brown. Not the hazel of his father, thick dark chocolate. Cow's eyes. Fringed with thick thick dark-blonde lashes.

My middle daughter also has green eyes. But not the green of her baby sister. Hers is the green of cats, such a pale green that it is almost yellow. If it wasn't for the surround of almost invisible platinum blonde lashes, they would be feral eyes.

And then there is my oldest daughter. How the hell do I describe her windows to the world?

Remember that fashion, years ago, for mood rings? They sold them at cheapo stores and put them in showbags. They were supposed to change colour according to your mood. Well, my eldest daughter's eyes are mood eyes.

When she is angry they shoot green sparks. When she is tired, they are a washed out blue. When she is concentrating, they mirror her father's hazel. When she laughs they turn Elizabeth Taylor violet. And, rarely seen by anyone other than her husband, passion sends her eyes to the deep chocolate worn by her brother.

We call them chameleon eyes.

In school, like everyone else, I learned all about the Mendelian laws of inheritance. We did all the sweet pea stuff in the lab and watched the proof of dominance and segregation. All that red and pink and white, dwarfed or tall, it all made sense.

I have blue eyes. Every member of my family that I have met has blue eyes. Solid Celtic blood doesn't have the opportunity to change.

My husband's family are a mixture. On his mother's side the Norse blood has blue. His father's side are all hazel or blue.

On neither side is there green. No ancestor (within our knowledge) has purple or chocolate. And any artist will tell you that blue and brown can't make any of them.

I reckon my kids prove the law of independent assortment.

Or the bloody milkman got his bib in somehow!!

guest entry

by Golf Widow, she of the Ministry of Silly Walks.

I always get confused when I pop in on Fi. She says things like "The thermometer hasn't managed to get over 23. It is cool and wonderful."

And I'm thinking, our thermometer hasn't managed to get over 23, either, but it's cold and miserable.

I have to remember that she's down under, where it's summer and we're in winter. She's using a centigrade thermometer; mine is Fahrenheit.

I wish I could bottle up some of our winter, pack it in a box, and ship it to her. I'm sure Tegan could use it, right about now.

And I'd happily take some of her summer off of her hands, in return. I'm fair like that.

making progress

My Mum put her house on the market today.

The price seems ridiculously huge to me ($575K), especially for a wee little house like hers, but the agent said it should sell quickly. The area is in high demand and she has a large block.

It is all starting to happen. I feel happy. And relieved.

Mum will be with us soon.

a real classy entry

It has drizzled rain most of the day. The thermometer hasn't managed to get over 23. It is cool and wonderful.

The break has given me the chance to fill the house with curry smells. A change from the never-ending salads of summer is a bonus.

The rain does have one drawback.

I am not one to use the word "hate" often. I don't use it because I find very little to raise such a strong and damaging emotion in me. Perhaps it is just laziness. Hating takes a great deal of effort and concentration. I am quite relaxed with dislike, revulsion, irritation, annoyance but hate? It isn't a comfortable or discomfiting thing. It eats at the soul.

If I did manage to raise a little hatred in my laziness, it would be directed at snails. They slime around the garden, eating fresh young shoot, damaging bark and roots and leaving gooey trails all over the windows. No matter how many you squish or bait or collect into buckets of brine, the buggers are eternal. They are a gardener's bane.

If I could hate, I would hate snails.

But how can I stay mad, even at snails, when my house is cool and fragrant with bubbling cardamom and cumin and sweet garlic?

Besides, I have something nicer to talk about.....

Liz (she of the little pink house) has awarded me a prize (and said some extremely nice things about me).

Thanks Liz

It is now my duty to nominate three of my buddies to receive the award. It is hard to pick because all my favourites are classy in some way (which is why I read them). Some of them have already (deservedly) been nominated but there are way more of you that deserve than just three. So I am going to take the chicken's way out and nominate the first three on my Google reader that I think haven't yet recieved a guernsey.

My first name is Moshe. Husband, father, migrant, thinker, he writes in a way that captures my imagination and yet is quite unfamiliar. Intelligently opinionated, he is definitely classy.

Next is Deb. A journal brimming with joy and honesty, she shares her busy life with us all in a brief but very classy manner.

And finally the lazy wench. I had a RL peek into her world when I met her husband long before he met her. Passionate, capable, versatile, intelligent and brutally honest, her class keeps me coming back.

---

And, as a final note, because you asked (and because Liz said I did it!)...

Petrichor is the smell you get when rain falls on dry soil. (Not an Australianism, just a word.)

phew

Last night it rained.

There was thunder. There was lightning. There was petrichor.

It was good.

Today it is hot and humid. But the memory of last night, and the promise of more from the clouds rolling in, keeps the goodness alive.

Today is good.

And that's all I have to say about that.

the tables turn

Many moons ago (a very big many), we had a summer which I will never forget.

It was the year we had Tegan and, with my usual haphazard thinking, I had planned another April birth, another season of being large and lumpy through the summer.

This was before the time of air conditioning. No-one had anything more than fans in their homes. A few odd (posh) places were cooled mechanically but most of us just copped it sweet.

We were living in the NSW wheat belt, that huge flat expanse west of the Great Divide. The summer days were scorching hot but, with nothing to hold the heat in, the nights were cool and refreshing.

Until that year.

That was the year the enormous, immovable high got stuck off the east coast in late February.

The days were blistering, well over 40 every day. And, to add to the joy of an enormously pregnant mum, the jetstream stuck on our side of the divide brought thin high-level cloud in every evening. The sun boiled the land and then nature kindly put a cirrus lid on it to keep it at a simmer.

It lasted for 32 days.

Thirty two days of the mercury soaring over 40 every day. Thirty two days when the overnight temperature didn't get below 30.

The local shops sold out of fans, paddle pools, ice, sun hats. People slept (or attempted to) on their verandahs, trampolines, roofs or just out on the back lawn. Gardens singed and died, crops withered, water tanks were perilously empty and dams cracked and crazed around their muddy pools.

The birds began to disappear (dead or gone I don't know). Roads melted and stuck to our shoes (or burnt our feet). Children stopped playing and lay in rare shade.

No-one slept. Tempers frayed. Teachers yelled at kids and kids yelled back. Bosses sacked workers and they didn't care. Accidents increased and no-one showed any sympathy. Violence became apparent. Pub brawls, domestic stouches, playground biffs, shouting matches. The local blueys were run off their feet (and gave out more than the odd spanking).

Babies were draped in damp sheets and old ladies dozed in cold bathes. The banks of the local river were crowded with people just sitting up to their necks in the shallows, a sea of unmoving Greg Chappell hats in the murky water.

By the 22nd day I had had enough (more than enough). Even my usually dour husband had raised his voice at me and the kids.

We went to the bank and took out a loan.

We bought a rare and exotic air-conditioner (we drove a 860km round trip to get it) and installed it in the lounge room window.

We spent the last 9 days of that heatwave wallowing in the cool of our new acquisition. We slept in that room and ate in that room and hosted an almost endless stream of visitors seeking to share our bounty.

We survived.

I've been remembering that summer a lot in the last week or so. I look at the synoptic charts on the weather reports and see the huge high stuck over the Indian ocean and remember.

The thermometer on our verandah tells me it isn't nearly so hot (high 30s) and it gets cooler at night (low 20s) but the cloud rolling in each evening and the teasing sight of lightning out to sea makes me recall. As our cooler thunders along on our roof and its' gentle zephyrs waft over me, I remember.

And whisper a pray of thanks at the altar of the god BreezeAir that it is now Tegan's time to be pregnant.

And I resist the urge to ner ner ner!

the year to be

Our family has a few rather significant dates on the calendar for this year.

The first to come up is in just 16 days. That is the day that my eldest daughter will arrive back on home soil after her deployment to the not-very-nice place. To see her safely back is always a relief.

We won't actually see her until after the next date marked in red. In April her other half will be getting home from the even nastier part of the not-very-nice place.

Once they are both back, safe and sound, I can breathe out. I seem to hold my breath the whole time they are gone. I hate that they are sent to these places. I know it is the life they have chosen but it doesn't make it any easier to be the mum fretting thousands of miles away.

Once they are both home, we will get to see the two of them for a couple of days (as they pass through here on the way to their holiday of a lifetime. In May they are heading off for an African safari holiday. My girl will be able to real live hippos instead of the hundreds of stone, wood, and metal ones that adorn her home.

The next mark on the calendar is a more flexible one but sometime in May we should be celebrating the birth of our first grandchild (gender, as yet, unknown). All we can do in preparation of that date (other than knitting until I go blind and haunting Pumpkin Patch sales) is to keep our fingers crossed for an uncomplicated birth and a whole and health Graygan.

In November we get to the last of our "big" dates for the year (so far). On the 25th, my husband turns 60.

It's the biggie. It requires significant recognition. And therein lay the problem.

M is notoriously difficult as far as birthdays are concerned. Almost impossible to buy for and with a thorough dislike of anything resembling a party, we were at a loss.

Even if he liked parties, he has very few friends (although, a lot of acquaintances). If we threw him a celebratory gathering, it would be our mates, not his.

Gifts are a nightmare. Occasionally we get it right (as we did this Christmas with a selection of weather measuring tools) but, more often than not, we get it totally wrong. He read copiously but with very specific and esoteric taste. Book are out. He enjoys woodwork but has inherited both his and my father's collection of tool and needs (and wants) no more. His fascination with the night sky is covered by the whiz bang telescope (and all accessories) he bought himself a few years ago. He loves sailing and the sea but a yacht was way beyond our finances.

We were stumped.

And, then, my son had a brainwave.

When I first met my husband (whilst sailing), he had recently applied, and been passed over, for a position in an Antarctic expedition. Shackleton and Mawson were two of his all time favourite heroes and he longed to follow in their footsteps. Unfortunately, inorganic chemists aren't high on the staff lists in the deep south and he knew he would never see the great white continent.

Well, now he will.

The family are all combining and, for his 60th birthday, are sending him to Antarctica.

We have booked him a berth on a Russian research vessel and he will spend 10 days exploring the peninsula of the continent. Camping on the ice, sailing an icebreaker in and out of the inlets and bays, scudding around the icy waters in a Zodiac and climbing some of the smaller peaks in the area.

He will leave Australia in early December to join the ship in Ushuaia (in Argentina) and will spend Christmas on the ice.

Because he has to have medicals, buy equipment and undergo a fitness routine before he leaves, we will have to give him all the details early. We have decided on Father's Day (in September) as an appropriate time to make the presentation. It gives him plenty of time to do all the pre-sail preparations.

I sincerely hope we have got the whole prezzie thing right this time. Even with Mum and the kids throwing in, it is costing me one hell of a lot of money.

Fingers crossed that I haven't bought him a 12K dud.