Just two weeks after having been there for our holiday, we drove to Melbourne for the weekend for Jarrah (my first cousin once removed) and his fiancé’ Chelsea’s engagement party/ celebration of their ten-year relationship.
I lived with him and his parents when he was just one year old, for one year, 28 years ago now. His parents were young and they were going through a hard time. It was a learning experience for me to see the sheer work involved in caring for a young child. I remember hearing a radio program about the domestic load that mothers carried at the time (and probably still do), that estimated it to be two-and-a-half hours of unpaid work each day. I was incredulous but my cousin quietly agreed that that was the amount of time she spent on washing, cleaning, cooking and other caring activities. Even living with her, I didn’t appreciate all of the tasks involved until I heard this program and she confirmed it.
Anyway, hopefully I was of some help back then, and they also had my cousin’s in-laws, Viv and Brian, living in the flat attached to the house during the working week (they spent their weekends back in wet Warragul in the house they had built nestled beside tall eucalypts and a large mowed block). We also spent a lot of time with Viv and Brian, who kindly took all of us out to dinner on occasion. My cousin Jessie and her partner were studying and a struggling musician respectively, and I was at uni too. I hadn’t seen someone put $4 worth of petrol into a car before because money was tight, but we all lived modestly from our social security payments and got through.
To get to Jarrah and Chelsea’s party, we left home at 5pm that Friday and ate takeaway pizza in the car on the way to our motel in Albury, where we slept well and enjoyed brunch at a café in the centre of town the next morning, soaking up the sunshine and the town’s autumn leaves. It was only another three-and-a-half hours drive to Melbourne, and we arrived mid afternoon to catch up with Steve’s family and get ready for the party.
It was such a lovely evening on the rooftop of a restaurant on Lygon street; meeting people I had heard about for decades, seeing Viv again and commiserating with her about Brian’s sudden death ten years ago; and watching Jarrah and Chelsea shining with happiness. Lara and Rhea hung out with Tara and Jolan, who had not known our girls were coming and were relieved to see two other children there. We ate pieces of the large round layer cake and the smaller iced duck cake that Tara made that day from the Women’s Weekly Birthday Party cookbook. And on Sunday we drove home.
On the weekends since then, we have kept movement to a minimum. We’ve shopped at our new favourite supermarket, Aldi, saving at least $50 each week. We took Rhea to Netball. I had a dentist’s appointment and we’ve undertaken other necessary shopping. Last night we had Rhea’s best friend Mila over with her parents for dinner, and while chomping on lamb shanks with mashed potatoes, carrots and broccolini, drinking red wine, and finishing up with Tarte Tatin from the apples I bought by the side of the road during our Victorian holiday, we got to know each other a little better than the rushed snatches we have been exchanging for the last ten years. The three girls left the table in between courses, and left us to sit by the fire and conclude with stories of their last overseas posting to Paris; and concoct plans to outwit the teenagers in their screen usage – that topic on which any parent of teenagers can talk for hours.
Mila and her parents are moving to Bangkok in about a month, for four years; and it’s very likely we’ll put at least one of the girls on a plane to visit them during their time there. We have as much in common with Mila’s family as I had thought we would, including a shared enjoyment of Gardening Australia on Friday nights; green spaces; good food; Chat 10 Looks 3; overseas travel including Paris; an alignment of myself and Mila’s mum being totally exhausted by work and viewing early retirement increasingly favorably; and similar taste in books.
Tonight we’re relaxing in front of the fire by ourselves. It’s just as nice as last night.
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