Just A Few Drinks

'Hi, Sobriety: Our Changing Relationship with Alcohol' was the title of a feature article in the Good Weekend liftout in The Age newspaper here on the weekend.

The article included personal stories of "grey-area drinkers", people who aren't fully fledged alcoholics rather they're drinkers who don't like their relationship with booze and what it's doing to their body, mind and lives.

I've never been a heavy drinker but genetically speaking I probably should be.

I grew up in a family who like a wine or beer or 10, so drinking daily and drinking heavily on the weekend was a normal way to live.

I've worked in the hospitality industry on and off for over twenty years and woven into that a decade in food media. There's plenty to drink in those worlds and the lines between healthy and problematic drinking are very blurry.

It was great to see the article in The Age raising the profile of this all too common problem, a problem that I think is the elephant in Australia's living room.

The expectation to drink in Australia feels so embedded that to not drink is viewed by some as downright unAustralian. According to the article that tide of expectation is turning and sobriety is becoming the new black but in my immediate world there is still plenty of evidence of booze causing problems in people's lives.

I'm in my mid forties, with a number of women friends for whom wine has become something they wish they could moderate or give up but on which they rely to 'de-stress' only to find it ends in a hangover, anxiety and sometimes a drunken argument thrown in.

And what scares me is I know first hand from witnessing friends and family battle the harder realities of problem drinking - the accidents, the rock-bottom, rehab, recovery and sadly people dying - that these things can and do happen all too easily.

If you're concerned - even in the slightest - about your relationship with alcohol don't ignore that quiet niggling feeling or that loud voice that yells inside your head and heart.

Listen to your thoughts and feelings, write them down, talk to a friend, talk to a counsellor,
your GP, or check out online resources such as Hello Sunday Morning that features a tailored program to support people to change their relationship with alcohol.

And if you're watching someone you love battle with booze, it's a big step to talk to them about it but for some it can be a turning point. For others your words of concern will fall on deaf ears and that's hard but if you don't try you'll never know and you don't want to be left wishing you'd said something. Believe me.

If you are going to say something, choose your moment well. Choose a time free of interruption and a time when your loved one is sober. Also choose your words well. This conversation is not about shaming or blaming, the person you love will be doing a very good job internally of that. The words can go along the lines of this, "I've been wanting to talk to you about something, it might be a hard thing to talk about but I'm concerned about you and just want to check in and see if you're ok. I'm concerned about the amount you're drinking, how are you feeling about it?"

The aim of the conversation is to show you care and to provide an opportunity for an open, honest discussion. Your friend or family may not be at all ready or interested in having the conversation and there are risks involved - your friend or family member may become angry and not want to talk to you for a while - but talking is the place to start moving us towards an Australia where drinking isn't expected, where we rethink our collective attitude to alcohol. And where people are actually happier and healthier for it.

*disclaimer I'm not an expert in counselling and every situation will be different if you are concerned about your own drinking habits or that of a loved one seek professional advice, if you have a good local doctor they can be a good starting point. And if they're not, don't give up, keep trying until you find someone you like who is helpful.

tea & damper

"Will you go back to town on the weekend?" Shania stared intently at the fire, her brow furrowed. She shook her head no.

"You prefer it out here?" I pressed on.

She nodded. Still staring at the fire.

These were the first words we'd exchanged after sitting for an hour alone at the small, smouldering campfire we'd cooked breakfast on.

It was our job to keep the fire flickering away to boil the billy for tea and in case the hunters came back with fish or mudcrabs.

Shania liked her tea in a red plastic cup that easily held half a litre of strong tea.

She made each cup with two tea bags, water boiled on the fire, a splash of cold water and no milk but a good spoon of sugar stirred in. The sugar taken from a crumpled bag that had become home to a family of ants.

Pete had gone into town, an hour and a half away on red dirt and across four river crossings. One of the crossings called Boggy Creek for good reason.

We were camping at a homeland with the Elder Pete is working with on a community led healing program, and her family.

One of the Elders had woken with a toothache and realised that the next day was a public holiday so she needed to see a dentist today. Plus her husband needed to pick up his medication from the medical clinic.

Pete's focus was getting a generator and water pump back in action for the homeland after it being without running water for two years. He packed the parts into the 4WD, the Elders and their grand-daughter climbed in and they were gone for the day.

Sol and River had gone hunting with the Elders' son and grandson and a new friend we'd made in town who was helping with repairs at the homeland.

The whole time they were away hunting I was anxious about the boys getting sunburnt, about sand fly bites covering every piece of their exposed skin and the very worst fear...crocodiles.

Shania's three month old baby was at the camp with us,  I was delighted to be regularly handed the baby. Such a gorgeous boy, so chubby and full of smiles. When he grizzled I rocked him and walked the red dirt track til he fell asleep in my arms. I would return from walking and hand the sleeping baby to his mother who tucked him into bed inside one of the the three rooms that were used as bedrooms by the family.

Pete and I and the boys were camping in our two room tent and each morning I paid great attention to sweeping the sand out and straightening the bedcovers until they were perfectly straight. I needed order in the tent, it was an oasis from the sand flies whose bites stung for days.

After three days of heat and no running water our skin was grimy and itchy with sweat, sunscreen, sand, insect repellant that didn't work and the myriad of bites as evidence. I was ready to go back to town and have a shower but in an odd way I was enjoying the grime, the letting go of all the things that matter in town.

I was also ready for a full nights sleep without the constant hum of the generator or being woken by Sol who was beside himself with discomfort from the burn and itch of bites.

On more than one occasion I zipped myself out of the tent and into the night with my torch to find a bucket and pour a bit of water into it from the jerry can holding water collected from the river 10 minutes drive away. Every drop counted so I used it sparingly but I had to do something in an attempt to bring Sol relief and bring us both sleep.

I washed his bare bite covered legs down with the cool water, wetting a towel and laying it over his legs. Once the burn and sting had eased slightly I dabbed the bites with a tea tree antiseptic cream and layed beside him singing softly til he fell back to sleep.

Bleary eyed I rolled back over to my bed for a few hours sleep before he woke me again. It was one of those nights that felt endless, one of those nights that mother's know so well where you just will the sun to rise and bring the day because the night is for sleeping and you're getting none of that.

---------------------------------------

"We're having Grandmother's damper for supper" announced Rose sitting crossed legged by the fire she rolled up her sleeves and washed her hands in a bucket of water as she prepared to make the dough.

Shania was assembling the ingredients in front of Rose as she requested them. "Got any baking powder Galay?" Rose called out to me. "No, but I've got self-raising flour". "Ma," she said.

Galay is the kinship word Rose uses for me. The Indigenous kinship system is like a vast weaving that takes deep concentration to follow and to start to work out the relationships. Galay is the word that refers to 'brother's wife'. Rose calls Pete wawa (brother) which makes me galay.

'Ma' means ok.

Once all the ingredients were gathered from the tucker box I sat on the mat and watched Rose mix and need the dough. Her elegant hands flattened and smoothed the dough over and over until it was supple and lightly dusted in flour. Rose began shaping pieces into squares about the size of a slice of bread. She placed a fry pan on the grate over the fire and poured in sunflower oil to fry the dough in. The result was somewhere between a donut and the fried scones my great grandmother made when I was a child. Rose sat carefully cooking each piece until there were two towering piles. "This one's for your family, my family," she laughed, "I know how much boys eat".

With all the pieces cooked everyone gathered around to eat. It was dark by now. A fluorescent light powered by the generator hung from a nearby tree and gave us light to squeeze golden syrup onto our damper from a plastic squeezy bottle and to pour cups of tea.

I ate my piece of damper that was crisp on the outside and softly doughy on the inside. Golden syrup dripped down my hand adding stickiness to the mix of sweat, sand and sunscreen already on my skin.

The texture and sweetness of the damper was as satisfying as the nostalgic memory of my own grandmother's version also eaten with golden syrup. I thanked Rose for the damper, drank my tea and headed to the tent if not to sleep to rest until the sun rose again.

Have you eaten damper by the fire? Or fried scones with your grandmother? I'd love to hear your stories.

*some names have been changed 

today

A man I'd never met before arrived at our door yesterday afternoon with an injured River on his back.

River had been playing footy at the little park four houses away in the court where we're staying. I'd been down to check on him about twenty minutes before he was returned home with a swollen, bruised and scraped right knee.

I'd agreed nervously to let him go down to the park with the other kids who live in the street, I'm usually one for keeping my boys within sight. But the park here is bordered by the homes of the children that River was with and the day before they'd been at the park and there were other parents around. What could happen I thought? Gotta let him have some independence some time. All those kind of thoughts were going through my head as I walked back from the park after checking on who was at the park. There were no adults when I went down there, just four boys. "Come straight home when the others go home" I instructed River. "Yes Mum" he answered immediately.

Instead, some of the other kids parents and uncle joined in the footy match and when one kicked the ball to River he was so busy focusing on the mark he forgot about the knee high fence behind him. Bang went his knee into the fence, he flipped over the railing and landed on his back. He was extremely lucky to get out of it with a bruise.

Ice packs and arnica cream seemed to help. Although, he went to bed with a throbbing leg wondering how he was going to sleep. "Remember that time Archie fell out of the tree house at Van's and landed on his arm and thought he was ok and then woke up in the middle of the night in bad pain and it was broken? Well what if that happens to me?" River asked.

I did my best to reassure him that if his knee was broken he'd be in too much pain to be going to sleep. As mothers do best I kept my thoughts to myself that wondered the same thing, what if he'd really damaged himself? I had visions of returning to Melbourne with River in plaster.

He slept soundly as he always does and despite laying straight as a board when he first was in bed, by morning he was tangled in his sheet legs bent and splayed in opposite directions. Clearly his knee hadn't bothered him overnight.

Pete set off at 6.30am out to a community where he is building a women's healing shelter. He had a long hot day in the sun ahead of him and wanted to get started early.

At about 7.30am I heard River hobbling his way out of bed. He still couldn't bear any weight on his knee. I helped him to the couch where it looked like he was set to stay for the day. Without a car and with River injured we were house bound. As it turns out, a day at home was just what we needed.

With so much to get involved in in Alice Springs and knowing we are only here for a limited time, I had forgotten the value of having a day at home.

Sol stayed in his pj's and ate buckwheat pancakes in the morning sun. River read for the best part of the morning and relished having a rooibos tea with milk and sugar because we'd run out of honey. We raided the bush camp bag that had sugar in it for when we made billy tea.

We did manage to do some school work, River wrote three songs and Sol created imaginary worlds and battles with his Star Wars figurines. I even let them do some maths games on the computer! A very rare event.

By the afternoon we'd all earned some down time, a movie for them and a cup of tea and time reading 'Wrong Way Round' a fabulous true tale of a family who packs up their life in Fitzroy, Melbourne and hits the road. Written by Lorna Hendry I'm aiming to finish it before the weekend when I'm going to a workshop Lorna is presenting at the Writer's Festival. I've been reading it to the boys too, they get totally lost in the story asking for one more page, one more page.

As I sipped my tea and soaked in the quiet of the house and the rhythm of Lorna's story I felt a slight pang of guilt that I should be doing something else, something more 'productive'. To stave off the guilt I told myself that essentially reading the book was work. I am a writer after all and I needed to 'study' the book before the weekend. The guilt also stemmed from thinking about Pete building in the blazing sun while we were in the cool comfort of the house. Guilt, it is so pointless isn't it?

By the end of the day River was back on his feet. At 4.30pm when the boys' buddy Jacob and the other kids in the street arrived home from their school day River's injury was a distant memory. "Who wants to play hide and seek?" they all scattered to find their hiding spot.

Have you forgotten the art of staying home? Are you caught in the busy loop too? Take a day off!

desert mob alice springs

 

 

Desert Mob is one of the many celebrations of Aboriginal art and culture that happens here in Alice Springs. We've been lucky to coincide our visit with the 25th anniversary of Desert Mob. 

A week ago on Friday evening we joined the crowd pictured above at the Desert Mob Dancesite where Aboriginal women from a number of Central Australian communities sang and danced their traditional songs and dances.

The magnificent women pictured above dressed in yellow skirts and white feathers are from Tennant Creek they are dancing the Munga Munga dreaming, looking for water in the Dreamtime. (I was scribbling this down while keeping an eye on kids so if I have any of that incorrect apologies! Let me know and I will update it).

Desert Mob is hosted in partnership with desart the association of Central Australian Aboriginal Art and Craft Centers. The annual Desert Mob exhibition is a highlight at the Araluen Arts Centre as is the Desert Mob marketplace held on the Saturday. Pete and I managed to have a morning without our boys (thanks Jodie, Scott and Jacob!) to visit the marketplace. Market goers were in a buying frenzy as you can see from the last few photos. The art market is a unique opportunity to buy Aboriginal art at remarkably affordable prices (the majority of work on sale is under $500) and if you aren't in the market for a canvas there is jewellery, cushions, scarves and t-shirts.

Don't you love the t-shirt? The artist who painted this is the youngest artist from the Minyma Kutjara Arts Project, he is 6! 

The design on the first cushion cover pictured above is owned by Mary Anne Nampijinpa Michaels. It tells the story of a sheltered rock basin where the rockhole Lappi Lappi is a permanent source of water. It is surrounded by country rich in bush tucker. The rockhole is home to a warnayarra, a rainbow serpent that travels underground between various rock holes. You can read more detail of this story here.

The second cushion cover, the design is owned by Betsy Napangardi Lewis. This design tells the story of all a group of women of all ages who travelled to the east gathering food, collecting 'ngalyipi' (snake vine) and performing ceremonies as they travelled. You can read more about this story and purchase this cushion cover from Better World Arts.

Winter is a perfect time of year to visit Australia's red centre because the weather is perfect, blue skies every day, and there are so many festivals and events that provide a great opportunity not only to learn more about the art and culture here but also to meet Alice locals.

Now that it is Spring, the temperature has jumped up into the low 30's. Cannot imagine living through summer here!

Happy Monday everyone x

weekend reading

Have I told you lately how much I love Alice Springs?

The day we arrived here I was already thinking about how we'll be sad to leave. We're not leaving for a while but it has cast a spell on me as has happened to many, many people before me.

During the week Pete dropped us in town to go to the library, twenty minutes later after he'd driven off I realised the school book bag was still in the car. Instead of maths and writing we did a walking art gallery tour, spending time at Papunya Tula

On Friday night we spent time at Desert Mob to see some beautiful traditional dancing. I'll write more about that next week.

And enjoyed good coffee and friendly service from The Coffee Horse

I've added this cookbook to my collection since I've been here, I want to make so many of the recipes, I don't have an oven here though so some will have to wait til I'm home

I'm loving the Artful Parent, so many great ideas for art with kids

Winter is over here in Australia but for anyone still fending off the common cold here is a great post from Georgia, Top Five Foods to Reduce Mucus

I've mentioned it before but I'm really looking forward to the NT Writer's Festival

I've taken SO many photos this week, can't wait to share them with you. I'm hunting up recipes too!

I hope you're all having a beautiful weekend x

weekend reading

A gorgeous blog find, if you are following GAPS you'll like this

Love this

I thought Melbourne had a lot of festivals and exhibitions but I think Alice Springs has taken the lead. Let's see, there's the Desert Song festival coming up, The Alice Desert Festival and Desert Mob and that's just skimming the surface!

Pete and the boys and I were lucky to spend a day at Akeyulerre this week, an Aboriginal healing centre here in Alice. You can read more about Akeyulerre social enterprise and healing products made from traditional bush medicine here.

We've also been fortunate to spend time with MK Turner a respected Arrernte woman and author of a beautiful book Iwenhe Tyerrtye - what it means to be an Aboriginal person.

I'll be talking more about Thrive over the coming week, a fantastic new e-course for Raising Kids Who Love Real Food. Put together by two wholefood mamas and health coaches, Alexx Stuart and Brenda Janscheck. You can read more about it and sign up here. (I'm an affiliate which means I get a small commission if you sign up via my link, just so you know!)

I support domestic violence campaigner Rosie Batty and her online campaign Never Alone, they've had a win this week with Tasmania committing to a respectful relationships program being introduced in Government schools from kindergarten to Year 12. Join Rosie's campaign and help put pressure on the other states to do the same.

Have a great weekend everyone. X

smooth revolution

How cool is this bike?

We spent last Sunday morning at the desertSMART eco-fair here in Alice Springs and River blended up a smoothie for him and Sol using pedal power.

Note to Canberra: solar and pedal power are the new black!

No doubt the harshness of the climate and the limited water supply here means that environmental concerns are at the forefront of people's minds. The eco-fair is heralded as Central Australia's Premier Sustainability Event and offers visitors opportunities to participate in activities and workshops so that they can learn and create.

The highlight of the day for Pete and I was hearing Arrente Traditional Custodian Aunty Doris Stuart in conversation with Costa Georgiadis and our friend Jodie Clarkson, speaking about connecting to country.

Aunty Doris spoke from her heart about responsibilities of traditional custodianship, the importance of sacred sites and what this means living in a modern Alice Springs. Aunty Doris's words stirred much emotion in her and in the audience.

"We get our life from our land. It's not just a hill, it's not just a tree, when it's cut we feel that pain. 
Everything comes from country and goes back to country. 
Country is kin, country is family.
Kinship is a map. When people are born that map tells them how to relate to country and to people".

Pete and I had tears rolling down our cheeks as we listened. At times Aunty handed her microphone to Jodie to speak while she took a moment to compose herself. Jodie has lived in Alice for twenty years and describes arriving in Alice "Like coming home to a place I'd never been before," I can appreciate this. Jodie's deep connection with the land and its people is clear, the friendship and respect between Jodie and Aunty Doris was moving in itself to witness.

Aunty Doris shared a vivid and fond memory from her childhood. She remembered sleeping outside and hearing the sound of singing and chanting carrying through the night air from women in ceremony at nearby sacred sites. "We'll never hear that again because so many of our sacred sites are gone," said Aunty with sadness. It made me think about the younger generations of Aboriginal children who have grown up or are still growing without this experience of their culture.

Being a Traditional Custodian brings with it responsibilities and decision making that cuts deep. Aunty Doris explained that for Aboriginal people being asked to choose which tree to cut down so a road can be built, so that people can save 5 minutes on their travel time, is like choosing a relative to be killed. To non Aboriginal people who don't have an appreciation for the depth of connection between Aboriginal people and the land, that may sound extreme but for Aboriginal people it is a painful reality.

"All we want is for our sites to be respected" - Aunty Doris Stuart.

Culture and environment, that's where we need a smooth revolution in this country.

stills collection

1. The wide open road. South Australia desert.

2. Road train

3. Road school

4. Exploring Coober Pedy

5. Roadhouse cuppa

6. View from the top of the hill at Olive Pink Botanic Gardens Alice Springs

7. Barefoot and happy

thursday recipe: lauren's chocolate brioche

We fell in love with Cooktown. As with all great loves, it is that element that you can't quite pin down or put into words that is the most seductive and that's the case with Cooktown. I can't quite put my finger on what stole my heart but stolen it was. (Ok so the consistent hot weather, palm trees and spectacular views of the mountains and sea had something to do with it).

The township of Cooktown is pretty basic, one pub, one bank, bakery, butcher, post office, a souvenir shop, an Italian restaurant, Indigenous art gallery, a couple of petrol stations, an independent supermarket with 4 aisles of groceries and a few accommodation options ranging from a caravan park and a back packers to guest houses.

Oh and there are a couple of cafes but don't bother with the coffee there. Pete decided he would brave a take away chai from one of the cafes, I went in and ordered it for him. The waiter asked, "Would you like coffee in it?" say no more.

One Sunday morning I visited the bakery thinking I'd buy River and Sol croissants. I scanned the few racks of bread and couldn't see anything that resembled pastry. "Do you have any croissants?"
"I could defrost some for you," came the reply. Thanks anyway.

So you can imagine our delight when we left Cooktown with our friend Dave who had flown up from Byron Bay, and headed out to Eddie's camp at the remote Elim beach and were treated to French and Vietnamese inspired campfire cuisine by our newfound friends French born Lauren and her boyfriend Josh.

It was out there at Elim beach where the heat was relentless, the showers cold, no swimming allowed of course because of the crocs, that we enjoyed good coffee brewed in Lauren and Josh's coffee press and Lauren's handmade chocolate brioche made using her Dad's recipe.

One afternoon while Pete, River and Josh went out fishing and crabbing, Sol, Dave and I watched Lauren create her French delicacy. The previous night in a stockpot over the campfire Josh had carefully prepared a wonderful Vietnamese fish curry. The spice kit they travelled with was better than the selection in my pantry at home!

This recipe isn't paleo, or raw, definitely not vegan, gluten free, sugar free or egg free. No, it's French. And having this made for us, in a remote location while listening to Lauren talk about her Dad and her life in France was as much a gift as the brioche itself.

Given we had been eating mainly fish and salad for days, the brioche was sheer decadence. (I did have a moment out at that camp where I thought I can't possibly eat fish again, and immediately felt very ungrateful!)

The day after making the brioche, we took some of the catch back into Hope Vale to share with our friends in the community.  The brioche however, well, leftover chocolate brioche? Whoever heard of that.

Lauren's chocolate brioche

60ml milk
3 eggs, whisked
140g butter (melted + cooled)
50g sugar
430g white flour
14g of yeast
a few drops orange essence (optional)
200g dark chocolate

In a large mixing bowl, place the flour, yeast and sugar and mix with a fork.

Make a well in the centre and using a fork, whisk in the eggs, followed by the milk and melted butter (and orange essence if using).

Mix until you have a dough.

Leave in a warm place for 2 hours or until it doubles in size.

Break dough into approximately 10-12 balls and press 2-4 squares of chocolate into the centre of each ball and cover the chocolate over with the dough.

Lauren baked the brioche in a camp oven over a campfire until it was golden. At home you can preheat the oven to 200C and bake on a tray until golden, approx. 12- 15 minutes.

stills collection

 

1. Yoke. A friend gifted me this new mag which made for great reading at our camp.

2. Cooktown stole our hearts.

3. Home made pasta is the best!

4. My man Pete with the beautiful Dr Tommy George Snr of the Kuku Thypan clan, in Cairns at the launch of the book they worked on together: Fire & the Story of Burning Country.

5. The beautiful Natalia Mann (home made pasta maker extraordinaire!) tuning up to play harp at the Fire book launch. Thankyou Natalia.

6. As we drove south out of Cairns we followed this cutie.