Music makes the world go round

I slept last night, slept in this morning in fact, waking only to my daughter informing me that it was 7:27am and it was time to leave for school. SHIT! Pulling on the nearest items that could pass for clothing, including Black hippy skirt, blue floral flowy top, mint green cardigan and Ugg boots. Stylish.

I eyed my bed hair and yesterdays smudged mascara in the mirror, grabbed my car keys, tripped over the rug and yelled at the kids to get in the car hoping that they were actually awake and dressed since I was yet to sight them that morning.

 Amazingly enough, my self-sufficient little darlings had readied themselves and despite not having yet had coffee and not being quite certain of whether I was awake or dreaming, I managed to ferry them to the bus stop without incident. Didn’t even run over a kangaroo!

Now that I’m a bit more with it, I can feel that today is calmer and with its calm, it has brought me the gift of a snotty nose and inflamed sinuses. My mind is still firing left and right and mentally I still feel a bit like I am trapped in a bubble, observing the world on a high definition television screen. 

But for the most part reality is coexisting with me and my body is physically getting on and doing things on autopilot. I went to hang out the washing and I had already done it, I have no recollection of that.

I keep having brilliant brainwaves but I can’t commit to an idea for long enough to act on it or write it down and I keep forgetting where I was up to, attention span issues.

 Just found out that legendary comedian Will Anderson has been touring in a city near enough for me to get to AND I MISSED IT.

The discovery that Coldplay and The Chainsmokers collaborated on a song made my heart sing and my wallet bleed; I never leave iTunes as rich as I went in but then again I guess its a sound investment because when it comes down to it music makes the world go round. See what I did there?

I caught up with my best mate from life before adulthood is about to release a new album “Beautiful Shadows” in March 2017 and its great. Fuck I am proud of him, from the day I met him in Yr 8 maths class he wanted to sing and write music and he damn well did it. 

He sometimes worries that because he doesn’t have “a real job” or kids or a partner that he’s not “adulting” properly, but his entire life he has always stayed true to himself and that’s something I really fucking admire, so lying in a bed of nostalgia, I dreamed of what could have been and wrote him a song; well the lyrics to one anyway, my musical talent begins and ends with the air guitar.

I will leave you with a Tom song, this is one of my faves “Flying on the 88” its going to be on the "Beautiful Shadows" album and it was filmed on a NY roof top during a freezing winter. Wish I had been there, sigh…

On Top Of The World! (well, Australia)

It is the summer holidays here in Australia and the kids are hot, sweaty and bored. So hubby and I decided to do what anyone else in this situation would do and drive 4 hours away from our comfortable couch and go on a 6 hour 20km hike up to the top of the tallest mountain in Australia and then drive home again, all in one day! 

So after wails of “My iPod’s flat, are we there yet?” from the back seat, we finally drove into the Kosciuszko National park around lunchtime and found ourselves amidst a very large group of hardcore cyclists. These lycra clad exercise junkies had ridden up 30 odd kilometres of hilly terrain just to reach the BEGINNING of the walking track that led to the summit of Mt Kosciuszko. Once they arrived many of these cyclists, who were clearly not yet content with their energy expense for the day, felt that they would then RUN up to the summit and back. Bah, Fit People!  

   

We paused for a picnic lunch on the rocks before embarking on our journey, sadly calling it a “quest to the top of Australia” did not fill the children with much extra enthusiasm once they thought about how far 18km actually was in relative terms, but spurring them on with promises of chocolate muffins at the top, we took a quick group photo for the cycle warriors and set off on our adventure.

We noticed the distinct lack of trees the higher we climbed, not a single speck of ground was visible but for the walking track, with mosses, shrubs and large rocks completely covering the landscape. 

The wildflowers were diverse and stunningly beautiful. Part of me immediately began planning a rock garden project to replicate this at home.

There were abundant mountain streams and little springs where we could refill our drink bottles with crystal clear, pure icy water. Despite it being a perfect sunny day in the middle of summer and over 30degrees Celsius, patches of ice and snow still covered areas of the mountains and the light, cool breeze was refreshing and invigorating. 

We peered over the low level concrete bridges along the wide gravel pathway where fingerling brown trout were darting between the rocks in the streams, chasing and fighting over the more uncoordinated dragon fly’s as they landed briefly on the water surface. The children quickly made a game of slapping the giant March Fly’s on each other’s backs and throwing them down to the fish.

 

Many different walks of life made the same epic climb the day we were there, there were the ultra-fit cyclists of course all dolled up in their lycra bike shorts and backpack water sippy things, there were the experienced hikers with their khaki cargo shorts, cotton shirts and huge backpacks containing compasses, snake bite kits and rations for several days in case Hollywood movie style bad weather was to suddenly to set in. 

We saw the overseas tourists with their selfie sticks and layers of clothing excitedly chattering in foreign languages while filming each other conquering this national landmark. Older people made their way up too, slowly but surely in their long sleeved shirts and broad brimmed hats with plenty of stops for photographs and luke warm thermos coffee. 

 

There were quite a few families much like us, Mum, Dad and the kids. Shorts, T-shirts and the smell of SPF 50+. Complaints of “My legs are broooookkkennn!” “how much further?” and “I’m hungry!!” flowed from the children while the parents forced smiles, ignoring their own burning muscles and pangs of regret by trying to be encouraging “Wow we are nearly there! When we get to the top we can have something to eat, look at the snow!”

Despite the different worlds we came from, as we stood at the top of that mountain and looked at the most incredible view of this beautiful country that I have ever seen, there were shared smiles and an unspoken comradery between all of us that day, we had made it!

The walk from the summit back to the car may have nearly killed my two youngest children aged 7 & 10 and they have vowed never, ever to do it again but they achieved a sense of accomplishment and pride in themselves that day and even admitted that it was actually a fantastic experience. Particularly fantastic in retrospect while we were finally sitting down at Mc Donalds on the way home looking at the photos of the stunning landscapes and eating Big Macs and Sundaes without the usual guilt.

Awful, awful photo but the only proof I have!

While we are still nursing our aching calf muscles several days later and it turns out I might not be as fit as I thought I was, our little Mt Kosciuszko adventure was a big tick off my bucket list and a wonderful experience that I am really happy I got to have and will never forget.