Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

Big Boy is now twenty.

When I first started this blog, he was just sixteen years old. At the time, he was already very mature for his age, but over the past four years, he’s grown into an adult, with his own opinions and tastes.

Somewhere along the way, our relationship changed – evolved – as Pete and I make a concerted effort to let go.  He still pays a lot of attention to our offered opinions but, while he knows we’ll always have his back, his decisions on the important aspects of life are now his own.

Earlier this week, we were in the city and found ourselves looking for a place to eat lunch. “What about Korean barbecue?”, offered our son, “I know a great place on Pitt Street..” And with that he led us to Madang, one of his favourite restaurants, hidden away in a little alley off the main road.

We’d never eaten this style of food before, so Big Boy pointed out the best dishes on the menu, ordered, and then taught us how to cook the food when it arrived. And the meal was lovely, but not nearly as lovely as watching our adult son, so comfortable in what is now his city, excitedly sharing something that he’d discovered without us. ♥

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There’s a question that comes up regularly amongst bloggers once we start to get to know each other better.

“Are we being honest with our readers?”, we ask each other. “Do we portray our lives as idyllic and perfect, while selectively omitting the bad bits?”

My friend Anne wrote about this last year, and more recently I’ve had a similar discussion with both Jane and Linda. And it is a dilemma, because we want our blogs to be an honest reflection of our lives, not a glossed up magazine version.

When I started this blog all those years ago, it was with the sole aim of cheering myself up. I never planned for it to become anything more than that, and for the first year, I was astonished every time someone read it, because it wasn’t written to an audience – it was just an exercise in focusing my eyes on the positive bits of our lives during a tumultuous time.

As I developed rapport with fellow bloggers who have become very dear friends, I soon realised that everyone has a back story, because no life is without its share of hardships and difficulties. Whether or not folks choose to share this with their readers is a matter of personal choice.

It was my wise friend Linda who put it all into perspective for me when we discussed this recently.  She said, “In all the ways that matter, our lives are perfect”.

This afternoon, I went into the vegetable garden which we’ve built from scratch, in the backyard of the house that we’ve lived in for over twenty years. It truly is a home, filled with a loving family and surrounded by friends and neighbours whom we adore.

I harvested a large head of broccoli and served it with dinner, stir fried simply with homegrown leeks and Australian garlic. It was sublime, and fresher than anything we’ve ever eaten at a fancy restaurant. We sat down as a family and chatted, as we almost always do, about the obscure and bizarre.

Linda was right. Despite all the ups and downs, and uncertainties about the future, in all the ways that matter, our lives are perfect. And that’s what this blog is about – the small, perfect pockets of joy that punctuate and define our days. It’s not a glossed up version of our lives – whilst they’re not always easy, they genuinely are filled with great happiness and contentment. Thank you for sharing them with us! ♥

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I’ve worn these shoes for every metre I’ve rowed on the Concept 2!

I’m not particularly athletic.

Actually, that’s a huge understatement. I’m not athletic at all.

The last time I was on a bicycle (twenty-five years ago), I ran into a tree. The only time I tried skiing, I hit a snowman. I can’t run because I have dicky knees from doing stupid things with weights when I was at university. And those same knees play up if I walk for more than 5km on the treadmill. I’ve fallen off exercise balls, ended up with stitches from a volleyball accident (I tripped and collided with the knee of a very large Fijian man) and been dragged along (on  my face) behind a motor boat while trying to waterski. You could write a Monty Python sketch on my sporting history.

Ten years ago, I went on a mad “Get Fit for Forty” health kick. It involved eating a ridiculous amount of turkey breast and tuna, and I was soon crippling myself on the treadmill trying to maintain the cardiovascular component of my exercise program.

Pete insisted that we buy an indoor rower (I’m not a gym girl, and will only exercise at home). I thought we were going to buy a $300 hydraulic number. Half an hour after we walked into the exercise equipment store, our credit card was $1300 worse off, and we were the proud owners of a Concept 2 Indoor Rower.

It is, without doubt, the best investment we’ve ever made. I suspect it might have saved my life, actually. For the first time, I was able to exercise at an intense enough level to really get my heart rate up, without doing muscle or joint injury. For the last ten years, as my weight has yoyoed up and down (oh, how I hate  perimenopause) and all other forms of exercise have fallen by the way, the rowing machine has been my constant.

Twenty weeks ago, I decided to try and crank up the half hour rows that I’d been doing three times a week. So I started working towards the goal of rowing a half marathon distance. That’s a long way – 21km, to be precise.

Thankfully I had some help – my old friend Kevin runs marathons, Dredgey used to coach rowing, and darling Ali’s husband Nick is a former AIS rower. They were all on my coaching team, offering advice and support over twitter and in person.

I started off all those months ago rowing 5km in 30 minutes at zero resistance. My plan was to do two short rows a week, and one long one each weekend, gradually building the longer distance to 21km and increasing the resistance on the shorter ones. Last Wednesday, I did a 5.4km row in 30 minutes at a resistance of nine.

There were some tricky moments – like when no-one thought to remind me that I was supposed to be drinking water when I went for long rows (though let’s face it, maybe I qualify for a Darwin award for not realising that myself). Kevin, who’s known me for 30 years, was terrified that I’d injure myself by trying to go too hard too soon. He was right, of course, and as you all saw, I went down in a ball of flame a couple of weeks ago.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, last Sunday I finally nailed the 21km distance.

It took me 2 hours, 13 minutes and 29 seconds. It’s by no means a great time, and I’m still pretty sore, but I’ve done it. I watched two long episodes of Top Gear back to back as I rowed, and had less than two minutes break during the whole time, to drink water and eat jelly beans.

As you might have read in my previous post, life is a bit stressful at the moment, so it was soul-nurturing to be able to end last week on a personal high note. The new goal is to try and do this distance twice a year. I’m going to have a few days off now…and then get back on the Concept2.

I’m incredibly grateful to have a physical activity which works so well for my body. I’d love to know…what do you do for exercise?

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At lunch recently, my friend Allison said to me, “You’re so lucky to live where you do. We don’t get neighbours like that in our part of Sydney.”

She’s right, of course, we are truly blessed to have the most fantastic neighbourhood community in our little pocket of the Inner West. It’s hard to imagine living anywhere else.

We’ve known Maude and her family for over thirty years (her husband was Best Man at our wedding), and PeteV and I went to university together. Both now live less than fifty metres away, and it makes me ludicrously happy that our children are growing up together.

Dredgey and El have become close friends, lovely Mark mows the lawns for us (bless him), and Michelle and Shaun let me lie on their living room floor when I’ve had a bad day. Jane and Bernie have slotted right back into the village after a stint in the US, and darling June, now in her mid-80s (don’t tell her I told you), would feed everyone on the street if we let her. As I’ve said before, these folks aren’t family, but they’re our tribe. We share our surpluses, look out for each other’s kids, and comfort one another in times of grief.

Yesterday, as I sat on the back deck having afternoon tea with Nic and Liz (and Liz’ gorgeous baby girl), eating a cake that Maude had baked for us, I again reflected on how wonderful it is to live here.

And I suddenly realised that the reason it works so well is this: we live in a neighbourhood where the individuals value the importance of community, and actively work to develop and build on those relationships.

Often, people will buy a house based on how it looks, or where it’s located. When we bought our place, it was a dilapidated deceased estate, without an indoor toilet or shower.  On our second inspection, we knocked on Mrs M’s door and asked her what the neighbourhood was like. She invited us in for a cup of coffee and chatted to us for over an hour.  We bought the house the following week.

On Gardening Australia recently, there was a segment about a gentleman who had built gates between his backyard and those of his two neighbours, so that he could use their vacant beds to plant exotic fruit trees. His tip for building community relations was this: take a chance, because you’ll never know unless you put yourself out there, but be respectful of each other’s personal boundaries.

I thought this was brilliant advice. If you’re keen to have a social and interactive relationship with your neighbours (and let’s face it, not everyone is), it takes a bit of effort. We’ve always found the easiest way to “break the ice” is with food – when Mark and Mon moved in next door, we met them with cookies and chocolates. Start small – share a little produce from your garden, or a plate of brownies, or a loaf of bread. Who knows, maybe you’ll find others on your street who are as keen to build their neighbourhood community as you are!

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