A parcel arrived from The Mothership. It took two months and $90 to come over on the boat. Among the loot - ancient issues of delicious magazine, a random handbag, moisturiser, two fleece hoodies, tiny tins of passionfruit and creamed corn.

As always, Mum had mummified the parcel with a kilometre of packing tape so we had to hack it open with a breadknife. But when I was finally in, I could almost smell home… traces of Bert the dog, Earl Grey tea and chilly Goulburn air, trapped in the fabrics and pages.

Reading the magazines was a strange mix of foreign and familiar. I gawked at a photo of a sheep for ten minutes, because I’d forgotten how beautifully beige and sturdy Aussie sheep look. And all those food brands… King Island Dairy, Devondale, Pauls. It’s pathetic when a yogurt pot makes you sigh with longing.

And that Bill Granger… bloody hell, he’s everywhere, isn’t he? Does he ever stop smiling? They had his show on the BBC but he hasn’t become the same level of culinary god as he seems to be in Oz. Maybe he’s just too smiley for Britain? All that sunshine and salad; we just can’t relate to that. Gareth reckons if he shot a series on a council estate and flipped the bird as he stirred the gravy, he’d be huge.

Recently I sent a parcel to Hollie and James, my wee brother and sister. It cost £30 to send about £5 worth of British sweets and crisps. But that’s the grand tradition of the long distance care package - the postage is always at least five times the value of the contents. The ratio may have been higher for Mum’s parcel - she sent me a bagful of loose change left over from her last visit. I could just hear her voice as I pawed through the pennies, They’re no good to me now, you might as well use them! This 2p coin has had an exciting life - from Scotland to Australia and back again.

It baffles me how the British call the practice of painting the interior of a house, “decorating”. Where I come from, we call that “painting”. You decorate cakes, Christmas cookies, brave soldiers… but walls?

I first heard this word on BBC’s Changing Rooms circa 1999, when Rhiannon and I subscribed to cable and lost entire weekends to the Lifestyle Channel. Linda Barker and Laurence Llewelyn Bowen were so exotic, if not a bit colour blind. They called it “emulsion” instead of paint. Somehow that made their MDF-encrusted designs seem far superior to those on the Australian version of the show.

But now that I actually live in the land of Handy Andy, I refuse to Decorate with poncy Emulsion. WE PAINT WITH PAINT, dammit.

Gareth and I have begun the tedious process of tarting up our flat. We started in 2005 with the spare bedroom then abandoned the project due to lack of interest. But now we have the fancy Shower! everything else looks really scabby.

Doing DIY on the weekend feels so grown-up and depressing. The next step is matching fleeces and Midsomer Murders and the general End of Fun. I’ve heard of people painting their houses and going on to experience enjoyment in their lives, but it still feels like a slippery slope.

It’s going alright so far. I accidentally walked through the paint tray and trekked paint through the flat then Gareth’s roller disintegrated and distributed pube-like debris all over the ceiling, but that seemed more productive than last time when he knocked a five-litre paint tin off the ladder and coated himself, ceiling and carpet in Dulux Buttermilk.

My problem is a tendency to stand around waiting for instructions instead of getting stuck into the work. Once again I must attribute this to the Mothership as she used to tell me I was too messy to help with the painting. Instead I had to be her Roller Slave. She’d stand on a bar stool to paint the high bits, and when the roller ran dry she’d hold it out without even looking at me, and issue the snooty command, “LOAD!”

I’d put more paint on the roller and pass it back up so she didn’t have to get off the chair and do it herself. Most times she’d hand it straight back, declaring it to be coated with too much or not enough paint. “RELOAD!” And how my whole body would twitch with the urge to paint over her eyeballs.

The Mothership was Cinderella and she was not ready for the ball. Rhiannon and I had arrived at her hotel last Sunday morning, all set to whisk her away for a day of fun and togetherness before she headed back to Australia. We were having a family photo session then afternoon tea at a posh hotel. But after three weeks on her European Contiki For The Middle Aged tour, her wardrobe was looking slightly rumpled.

So we swung into FairyGodDaughter mode, hurrying her down to Oxford Street in a double-deckered carriage. With efficiency that made Trinny and Susannah look amateur, Rhi secured a suitable outfit within five minutes of the shops opening. She sat Mum down right there in the change room and worked her magic with the make-up brushes. Meanwhile I went and paid for the garments, then sneaked them straight back in so she could get changed. It was all coming together beautifully.

But then we decided the bra wasn't doing her any favours. We whisked her away to Marks and Spencer and had her fitted for new scaffolding. Hello boys!

A swipe of red lipstick was the finishing touch. This is the kind of thing you miss when you live on opposite sides of the world. Rhiannon and I ganging up on Mum and telling her what to do.

The now-glam Mothership queued up to pay for an empty bra box. She looked mighty gleeful when the teenage lad behind the counter asked her where the bra was. "I'm wearing it RIGHT NOW!".

And so the three of us trotted hurriedly through Mayfair to the scene of our photies. It had been ten years since we'd had family snaps. That was when we still lived on the farm and involved wholesome denim and cheesy poses on bales of hay. Urgh. Plus it was so rare for the three of us to be in the same country at the same time - we hadn't been in the one spot since April 2004 - that we thought we should capture the moment. Who knows what gravity will to do us before we meet again.

The photo session was good fun. And mercifully brief too, because I couldn't wait to get to the scones. Scones rule at the best of times, but scones served on fine china in a posh hotel would surely be even more delicious.

We were presented with a grand towering tray of dainty sandwiches, fussy French pastries and of course the scones. The Mothership began her travelogue as I lunged for the strawberry jam.

Each story went like this: "Have you ever been to -------- ? Oh, you gotta go. You GOTTA GO. It's amazing. And the history. THE HISTORY. I just love the history!"

Among the places we gotta go, we just gotta go, are the Hofburg Palace in Vienna, Monaco, Pompeii and Hitler's Nest, which is what she endearingly called Eagle's Nest, the Fuhrer's mountain retreat.

And that's another thing you miss when you live on opposite sides of the world. The Mothership's loopy stories where she mispronounces all the place names, her teacher voice growing louder as she gets enthusiastic.

"Well here's some history for you Ma," said Rhi, "This here hotel was the favourite of The Queen Mother."

"Oooh, I should write that down."

"Aaaaand, Alexander Graham Bell made the very first telephone call here."

"Excellent!"

I kept drifting in and out of the conversation, as I was transfixed by the clotted cream. I'd never eaten clotted cream before. It was so thick you could slap it onto bricks and build a house.

"Have you ever been to the Sistine Chapel? Oh you gotta go. You just GOTTA go."

I wondered how much clotted cream you could pile on a scone before you wound up with clotted arteries. And there was just the one lonely scone left. Would I have to arm wrestle anyone for it? I knew I could win. I'd been working out.

"It's amazing what he did, really."

I emerged from the Scone Trance to contribute. "Yes, truly amazing. He was Scottish, you know."

"Who?"

"Alexander Graham Bell!"

"What?"

"He's Scottish!"

"We're talking about Michaelangelo now!"

"That's who I meant," I mumbled, snatching the last scone. "Michael McAngelo."

Yet another thing missed when you live on opposite sides of the world. Sitting round a table laughing like idiots, spraying crumbs everywhere.

Later I moved on to the most spectacular looking item, a triangular sponge cake filled with raspberry mousse. I cut it into three chunks and offered the plate to the Mothership, "Righto, have some of this."

"Oh no! I've had enough sweets."

And that was when the whole whole room somehow fell silent - the silver spoons ceased to clink on the china cups, the pianist stopped playing - just at the precise moment I bellowed, "Come ON! You'll never get this fancy shit again!"

The final thing I miss when we live on opposite sides of the world. Acting like an oaf in public and making my family wish they could disown me.

Now Mum's back in Australia, Rhi's down in London and I'm here in Scotland missing them both like mad.

On Tuesday we got the train into Edinburgh.

"So that woman with the keys, does she always have to open and close the doors?"

"The conductor? Yes, that's her job."

"Does she have to open and close the doors at every station?"

"Yes, every station."

"What about in the event of an emergency?"

"!!!??"

"Does she still have to open and close the doors then?"

"Umm... I imagine so. Unless she was indisposed by the emergency. Actually, I DON'T KNOW."

"Well she's the only one with the keys."

"Mum, have you noticed that you always manage to think of the absolute WORST case scenario in every situation?"

She peered out across the water for a long minute. "Wow, you're right! I do do that, don't I?"

This morning we said some teary goodbyes as she embarked on the London leg of her Tour de Offspring. The flat seems rather quiet and dull now; I shall write more when I recover. Meanwhile Gareth is back to his normal routine, ie. running over to me at regular intervals and farting in all-too close proximity. When I protest he just says, "It's been four days. FOUR DAYS!"

The Mothership is in orbit!

She's due to touch down here tomorrow. She'll come bearing Cherry Ripes, Cadbury Top Deck, John West Passionfruit in a tin and other Australian essentials. Not to mention her lovely company.

That is, if she ever bloody arrives.

She sent me a text Wednesday morning UK time, saying she was at Canberra Airport about to begin her journey. She was due in Glasgow just over 24 hours later, BUT I HAVE NOT HEARD FROM HER SINCE.

Now that sentence is unnecessarily dramatic. You see, she is travelling with her fella. What do you call it when you're fifty years old and you have a man in your life? Your partner? Your companion? Your devoted love slave?

Anyway, she has a fella and he lives around the corner from her in Goulburn, but he's actually originally from Scotland (Clearly we have some sort of genetic kilt fetish). Their overseas jaunt is to begin in Glasgow where they will visit her fella's family for a few days, then tomorrow they come here to Chez SHAG*, then they're off to London to see Rhiannon before nicking off to Europe for three weeks on some sort of Contiki For The Middle Aged tour.

Since I've read no reports of major air disasters, I can safely assume they made it to Glasgow. But it's been over 48 hours and The Mothership has STILL not called nor texted to confirm her arrival. I have tried calling her mobile and her fella's mobile but they're switched off. This is most likely due to fears she'll be charged £450 just for switching it on in a foreign country. I am not so much concerned for her wellbeing but bloody pissed off at her infuriating double standards! If I'd not confirmed my presence as as we arrived in Australia, she would have had a herd of sniffer dogs and helicopters on the case within five minutes!

MOTHERSHIP! You are so GROUNDED young lady!

They're probably having a wild old time in Glasgow. But what I'm really wanting here is an ETA for tomorrow. How long do I have left to clean underneath the oven? How long do I have to polish the doorhandles, to comb the hairs of the carpets, to scrub every individual rung of the venetian blinds with a toothbrush, to make sure I am wearing a bra? I want to be ready for inspection, you know.

UPDATE:  All is well. Turns out their phone don't work in the UK and they had some trouble figuring out how to call my number without an international code. Hehe. The cleaning is also progressing nicely.

* SHAG = the collective noun for SHauna And Gareth, as devised by Jane and Rory.

The Mothership believed in throwing you in the deep end and seeing if you'd sink or swim. Quite literally. It was Tuesday Night Swimming Club, I was eight years old and it was the 25 metres freestyle race. By that age most Australians could swim a lap of the whole island if called upon, but I was always a slow learner.

I stood at the pool edge, shivering with dread as we waited for the starter's pistol. I looked over to Mum. She was leaning against the pool fence with what she'd say was as an encouraging smile but I thought embodied pure sadism. I hate you, I fumed silently. I can't believe you're making me do this. I will drown right here in all that kiddie pee and then you'll be sorry!

The gun fired and the fright tumbled me into the water. I thrashed along for all of ten metres, spluttering and flailing, before some bloke had to jump in and fish me out. I felt like the eyes of the whole town were on me. See Mum, I glowered, Told you I sucked. But I'm sure all she said was, "Well done."

My main complaint growing up that Mum always made me do things I didn't want to do. Drama classes, netball, Brownies, the dishes; looking up words in the dictionary rather than her just telling me how to spell something. I wasn't just lazy, I was scared and I hated new things. It was like she existed purely to dream up more ways to make me suffer.

It's only when you're old enough to figure you out for yourself, that you realise she had you pinned right from the start. That sometimes you needed to be pushed, and that you wouldn't have turned out as interesting if she hadn't. It's incredible to think that when I was that grumpy brat at the swimming pool, Mum was the same age as I am now.

The Mothership steered us through all the dramas and divorces; droughts, deaths, depression, dead-end jobs. There were situations so surreal and ridiculous; there were arguments so volatile I thought we'd never recover. But when that fades, what you remember most is how you never had to doubt that she loved you. Other things filled you with fear and uncertainty, but never her.

The older I get the more I appreciate that. And the more I appreciate being thrown in the deep end. Sorta.

Happy 50th Birthday, Mothership! You rule the school.

(If you're new round here and haven't seen the brilliant blog fodder she's provided over the years, here's the Mothership archives. And if you've been reading about her for awhile, why not leave a wee birthday message? She's always watching!)

"Now whatever you do, don't pay full price," the Mothership lectured as we pulled into the Woolworths petrol station. "You have to haggle."

"But we're buying an electric frying pan!"

"So?"

"You can't haggle on a frying pan! We're going to Retravision, not a market in Thailand."

"Nonsense! Did you know, I got five dollars off my hair straighteners. And the new toaster."

"I'm not going to haggle."

"Oh come on, live dangerously." She switched off the engine. "Can you rummage in my handbag and find me a fuel voucher?"

In many respects, The Mothership was still the same old Mothership, generous provider of years of golden blog fodder.

• She still rakes through abandoned shopping trolleys looking for the discount fuel vouchers.

• She still drives like a maniac. But disappointingly, she didn't once ask me if it was okay for her to merge lanes in her unique way, "Can I blend? Can I blend?".

• She still has her bizarre taste in music. Some new titles on the rack: two copies of Katie Melua and an AC/DC live album. Katie Melua was born in Georgia, and who else was born in Georgia? Stalin, that's who. Now that says it all. Somebody please banish Katie Melua and her corkscrew curls and dreary little ballads to a distant gulag.
  

• She retains her unique combination of generosity and Buy-Bulk mentality. Every time Gareth so much as glanced at anything in a shop, she'd offer it to buy it for him. In triplicate. Once at Target, Gareth was pointing and laughing at a pair of revolting pyjamas with Victoria Bitter logos splashed all over them. The Mothership swooped at once. "Do you like these? Shall I get them for you? How bout two pairs? One to wear, one in the wash. And look, there's matching boxer shorts!"

  Another time I was showing her my new toasty polar fleece jacket, all the toastier for being 65% off at Kathmandu.

  "Wow! So why didn't you buy two?"
  "Because I've only got one body!"
  "But 65% off! Are you sure? We can go back! We've got time!"

Anyway, we went to Retravision to fetch an electric frying pan. Gareth had never seen one before he went to Australia and thought they were a brilliant invention. And I fell in love with them all over again, the way they heat up instantly, do exactly what you tell them - roast, simmer, fry, boil to oblivion - and remain non-stick and wipe-clean for years on end. Unlike our grotty bastard of an electric stove here in Scotland. It has just two settings: Flames o' Fire or Cold Indifference, with nothing in between. Even with the postage back to the UK, a good old Aussie frypan was still a bazillion times cheaper than buying a new oven. We had just settled on the gigantic Sunbeam model when the saleslady approached.

"Can I help you?"

"Yes," I smiled, "I'd like to buy this fry pan please."

"Sure, if you'll just come over to the till, I think that one is eighty dollars."

"Excellent."

Mum cleared her throat. "Is that your best price?"

The woman looked puzzled. "Erm. Yes?"

Gareth grinned while I pretended to be fascinated by the display of electric steamers.

"Would there be any discount for paying in cash?"

"Well... I'm pretty sure the price on the sticker is already our best price..."

"Would you mind checking?"

"I suppose I could go out the back and ask the manager?"

"That would be wonderful, thank you."

"Muuu-uum!"

"Well! It doesn't hurt to ask!"

Ten minutes later the lady returned from Out The Back. "The manager says we can't reduce the price, but I can give you this $10 fuel voucher for any Caltex Petrol Station."

"Excellent!" said The Mothership.

"Yeah brilliant," I muttered, "That'll be just enough fuel to get you to the Woolworths Petrol Station!"

So the lady still loves a bargain. Yet many things have changed since I first left Australia. She has developed an adventurous streak, and always seems to be going on a holiday or to a concert or taking a new class. She is energetic and fun and sparky. You could probably pinpoint it from the moment she hopped on the plane to visit us last year. It was almost like once she saw that Rhi and I were safe and happily living it up in Scotland without too many fire hazards, she just let go of old Mothership worries and focused on getting her own life. I'd never seen her so happy and settled. I had a lot of fun hanging out with her in Goulburn, and bawled on Gareth's shoulder when we said goodbye at the airport coz I knew I'd miss her more than ever.

And would you believe she even makes the tea now and then.

Ma, I am so proud of you and everything you have achieved. Love ya heaps.

The Woolworths supermarket was the main attraction of my hometown, the beating heart of a rural metropolis. It was the modern equivalent of a town square, the place to meet and greet and catch up on local news. You'd go in for bread and milk and come out with the latest on hip operations, infidelity scandals and corruption on the local council.

"You'll never guess who I ran into at Woolies the other day," The Mothership would say in our weekly phone calls. She never saw people, she always ran into them. I'd always picture a violent collision of shopping trolleys, her half-price loaves of bread flying into the air and knocking down small children; escapee apples rolling down the aisle. Mum always chose the most fabulous verbs, even the most banal story became action-packed. "On Wednesday or was it Thursday, at 7 o'clock or was it 7.30, I jumped out of bed then dived into the shower, then I ducked down the street, dashed into the post office then zapped into Woolies..."

In a small town like ours there was about a 95% chance you'd run into someone down the aisles. "This will just be A Quick Trip To Woolies!" Mum would promise as my sister and I whined, "So you'll not be waiting in the car, you're coming in with me!" But there was no such thing as a Quick Trip To Woolies. It quite often started in the dairy section with Mum deeply absorbed in raking through what she called the Chuck-Out Bin, a place where marked-down near-death cheeses and yogurts lurked. To her an expiration date was not a recommendation but a challenge.

"Look at this, a six pack of Ski Fruit of the Forrest for only 99 cents!"

"Muuuu-um!"

"There's nothing wrong with them!"

And then suddenly there'd be a tap her on the shoulder, followed by a chirping voice, "Hello Sharon!"

The Mothership would spin around in a flash, a welcoming smile automatically pasted on her face. She was used to this. It could be a neighbour, a colleague, a relative you didn't like very much, or often in Mum's case, the parent of one of the kids she taught. They always had something to say and didn't mind taking half an hour to say it. They barricaded her in with their trolleys so she couldn't escape.

Sometimes it was someone interesting that you'd genuinely want to catch up with, but it was more fun to watch when it wasn't. She'd nod and smile at their scintillating stories with her arsenal of phrases like "Oh really", "You're joking" and "That's terrible!". It looked like she had their undivided attention but she was actually busy stopping our attempts to replace Chuck-Out Bin Yogurt with chocolate bars.

She could get stopped half a dozen times in one shop. Tap tap tap... Hello Sharon! Spin, smile, story time! Over and over again. It was incredibly tiresome for a couple of kids who were huuuun-gry and just wanted to go hooome. Rhi and I would amuse ourselves by spying on other people's trolleys and making snap judgements on their contents, a habit we never grew out of. Ooh look, they've got Neopolitan icecream and topside steak. And it's not Home Brand Neopolitan either, the bastards!

Even when I grew up into a post-university sullen and unemployed bum, The Mothership would still drag me into Woolies; apparently I still wasn't old enough to wait in the car. These expeditions filled me with terror. I didn't have Mum's diplomacy skills. Who would we run into today? What would they ask me? How much of an idiot would I look like? What if I saw one of my old teachers and they found out their swotty student has amounted to naught? There was nothing worse than being confronted with people from the past when the present and future are looking rather shoddy.

Most times we shopped late at night - for me it meant less chance we'd see someone we knew, for Mum it meant a greater chance the BBQ chickens would be reduced to half price. I'd still send her out in front of me, like a canary down a coal mine. But despite hiding behind cornflake displays or towers of oranges I'd soon enough feel the inevitable tap tap tap and perky greeting, Hello Shauna!

I'd do a feeble Spin and Grin. "Why helloooo!"

The questions were always the same. "So I hear you've finished your degree! What have you been up to?"

Oh plenty! I rise at noon to pull the blinds down so no one thinks I'm home, then I eat lots of ice cream and watch Days Of Our Lives. And then I curl up in a nest of rejection letters and cry great self-indulgent sobs, then it's naptime until Walker: Texas Ranger comes on.

"Oh, not much."

"So have you got a MAN yet?"

"Oh, not yet."

"Well dear, it will happen when you least expect it!" Sympathetic pat on the shoulder. "And same goes for your job situation, I'm sure!"

And then I'd wallow in self-pity and paranoia, thinking they'd rush home and tell their families, "That Shauna, she peaked way too early."

My fondest Woolies memory is the day Rhiannon abandoned Mum at the Chuck-Out Bin. She stalked her at a distance for about twenty minutes, waiting for the perfect moment. She tip-toed up behind as Mum examined a two-pack of garlic bread.

Tap tap tap. "HELLO SHARON!"

"Hellooooo!" The Mothership wheeled around, cheesy smile in place. Her face was thundercloud dark when she saw who it was. Rhiannon cackled and danced in the dairy aisle.

Old Town, Tallinn

Today I tackled the workplace Christmas decorations. Nothing makes me crankier than a big pile of tangled tinsel. I'd lazily shoved everything into a box in the New Year thinking some poor sucker could deal with it in December. I never expected that sucker to be me. How did a four week temp job turn into fifteen months? I could hear The Mothership's voice in my ear, "You should have done it properly in the first place!"

Top Five Mothership Phrases

1. Use your brain!
2. I'll put a bomb under you!
3. Are you wearing a bra?
4. If you had brains you'd be dynamite!
5. Did you LOOK?

If Kate Potter of South Australia is reading, please email or leave a comment! Kate sent Christmas cookie cutters off my Amazon wishlist. Kate, you rule the school! Does anyone have any good cookie recipes?

Until we saw her toddling towards at the airport this morning, I don't think we ever believed The Mothership would make it to Edinburgh. But there she was with her huge grin and ridiculous sunglasses perched on her head.

"I left the case in the car! So I've had these on my head all the way from Canberra! Ha ha!"

We expected tears aplenty after a year apart, but she just launched right into her usual blethering.

"Would you look at this shirt? I'm a bloody disgrace!" she pointed to various blobs on it. "That's lunch at Sydney. And here's my ravioli on the way to Singapore. And here's a bit of breakfast before we got to Heathrow. You know I've had TWO breakfasts today, they gave me another one on the way to Edinburgh. I got two bits of bacon, pork sausage, scrambled eggs, half a tomato and a bread roll. A stale bread roll."

Her suitcase wasn't hard to spot on the carousel - bright red and bedecked with multiple padlocks and purple gauze ribbons.

"You know the Nice Singaporean Businessman beside me couldn't believe this was my first flight outside Australia. Well it is, I said, indeed this is the first time I've exercised my passport. You know I was so paranoid about deep-vein thrombosis, I took my asprin and wriggled my legs but still I thought, that'd be right, I'll get off the plan and cark it."

We sat on the top deck of the airport bus as we headed into the city. She frowned at some grey houses with concrete gardens and asked casually, "So do you enjoy living here?"

Next she crowed at how green and old everything was. She read out shop signs, "Hollywood Tan Studio. Magnet? Is that like Magnet Mart back home? Another Hollywood Tan Studio? Sunday lunch only £6.50. Is that cheap? Saint Ninian's Church! Oh! I always wanted to have a son called Ninian!"

"Why?!"

"It's a beautiful name!"

We got off in the West End to catch another bus home.

"So girls, can you believe The Mother made it? Did you think I'd bail at the last minute?" Her teacher voice boomed across Lothian Road as we waited for the lights to change. "I'll tell you what I noticed on the flight and then at Heathrow, and that's all the healthy male specimens! My god, I've never seen so many hunks! Overseas is where the hunks are, I reckon. I thought to myself, there's bound to be some worthy hunks here for Rhiannon..."

"Mum, mum. Stop talking for a minute. Look up."

"Where?"

"There! That's the castle."

"That's Ennbra Castle!? Right there in front of my nose? Fair dinkum?"

"Yep."

"Well there you go," she grinned, "Ennbra Castle."

Long ago, back where January meant sunshine, the Mothership was slumped in her armchair. At her feet was her school basket, stuffed with Christmas gifts from adoring students - padded coathangers, Cadbury Roses, pot-pourri. Beside her was a pile of romance novels with heroes named Thorne or Lord Swarthy. A great deal of her summer holidays were spent in that chair, drinking tea and consuming all the trashy books she didn't get time for during the year.

It was an exhausting business. Before long she'd nod off, book splayed out the armrest, fingers still curled around the mug. Soft snoring was our cue to run amok. But her Scary Teacher Radar was always at work. Just as we'd tiptoe past on our way to the fridge, she'd give a mumbled order without even opening her eyes: "Put the kettle on," or "What about those dishes" or "Water the dogs".

I hated Water The Dogs. We had six of them on our farm, all stationed at different points around the base of a hill. Lugging buckets of water through waist-high dry grass filled me with both fear and apathy. I'd ponder the probability of the dogs' water bowls being empty on a 40'C day, versus my untimely death by sunstroke or snakebite. I had imagined conversations with the dogs to ease my conscience, "Hey boys, do you need more water?", "Oh no, we're fine! We're just snoozing here and enjoying this sultry day. You stay inside!"

Just when it seemed my laziness would prevail, The Mothership would stir and give a one-eyed glare, "I thought I told you to water those dogs."

January afternoons were long and dull. Once we had built a Lego city in my room, a Lego city in Rhiannon's room, and a connecting freeway down the hall complete with truck stops, what else was there to do? We sprawled out on the carpet and bitched about Town Kids and how they could go to the pool. They had bikes that they rode to corner shops to buy ice creams.

We had no pool. Just a dry creekbed choked with mosquitos. We had ice creams, but they were Home Brand Choc-Coated Ice Creams and only distributed for good behaviour.

"Our life sucks."
"I know."
"Do you want to nick a Choc-Coated Ice Cream?"
"Yes."

We sneaked down the hall. The Mothership was most definitely asleep. Her head rested on her shoulder, mouth open. We noted the rise and fall of her stomach, the china rattling softly in the cabinet as she snored. The coast was clear.

We made it into into the kitchen. The lid of the freezer gave a tiny groan as we prised it open. We carefully rummaged through the great chunks of ice and onions and lamb chops until we found the booty. We cackled quietly at our genius.

But just as we were making our escape, delicately tearing the generic wrapping from our frozen treats, The Mothership gave a sudden twitch and opened one eye.

"Get me one."

“Hello darling daughter, how's life treating you in...

— Enn-bruh

— Ennenbruh

— Edderburrow

— Edenbuh

— Eden, the Garden of

— Ennerbrow

— Ededbra

— Ed from Radiohead

— Edward Scissorhands

...?”

It is remarkable how The Mothership is able to annoy us, even from this incredible distance. We had all our mail redirected to her house, and she feels it is her duty to open our bank statements and credit card bills and provide insightful commentary. Why did you spent money there? Can you afford that? Have you got enough money left to eat? You better be eating vegetables!

Over the past few months I've been bombarded with nasty letters from Optus, insisting that I had not paid a phone bill that I insisted I had paid before I left Australia.

When letters from debt collectors arrived, we finally worked out what the problem was. I'd paid the bill via internet banking, and had selected "Optus" from the drop-down list of past payments. I did not realise that the list was linked to an old Optus account from a previous address. So basically I'd paid money to a dead account. So The Mothership goes on a mission to get things sorted:

Dear Shauna,
After several calls, have managed to sort out your "little" problem. All is fixed. Your Credit rating is still intact, so that's good news. So...always type in correct details - never do drop down when paying accounts!

Of course the smugness of her tone filled me with an irrational rage. So I fired back this snooty message:

Mother,
You didn't even bloody know what a drop-down menu was until I told you!!! So why don't you...

At this point, I had to save the message as a draft because I was at work. But instead of hitting save, I accidentally sent her a half-written email. To which came her infuriating reply:

dear shauna,
ah! this is your second "???" with technology....don't let it become a habit!
Hope your reception job goes well - you can do anything with all that background in KFC. Just let them keep "greasing" your palms...more holidays abroad...Greece? Ireland?
Anyway, must be off, the dog needs a run.
Love Mumsy

I've never known anyone that I so badly wished to simultaneously hug and smack down.

SHAUNA:  Hello Mother! It's The Daughter.

MOTHERSHIP:  Hello The Daughter!

S:  I just wanted to call you before we nicked off for the weekend.

M:  Oh yes, Paris. Well you know what they say about Paris.

S:  No?

M:  Pickpockets and bum pinchers. That's what it's all about. If they're not stealing your wallet they're pinching you on the arse.

S:  Really?

M:  Oh yes. They can be quite rude.

S:  And who told you this?

M:  Oh I read it in the Sunday Telegraph.

S:  Now there's a reputable source!

M:  If you can't trust Rupert Murdoch, who can you trust? Now stay out of that Tunnel.

After five years of singledom, I think my mother is ready to start dating again.

MOTHERSHIP: You know, I really think I am starting to like that Bono bloke.

SHAUNA:  That's nice.

M:  He's done some good work lately, you know. Third world debt and all that.

S:  Indeed.

M:  I wouldn't mind having dinner with Bono.

M:  I wouldn't mind getting to know Bono a little better.

M:  And I wouldn't mind...

S:  Please stop talking!

The recent bushfires came nowhere near Goulburn, where The Mothership resides. But she was determined to be prepared for the worst. So what did she do? Fill her gutters with water? Hose down the roof? Pack up all her ornamental chickens?

No. She got some animal tranquilisers. So she could knock the dog out in the event of an evacuation.

"Well do you have a better way of getting Bert into the car?" she protested, "He wouldn't bloody stay still long enough."

The Americans were lucky enough to meet The Mothership last Saturday, when we were in Goulburn to see the Big Merino.

MOTHERSHIP:  Have you shown them the mailbox with the legs?
SHAUNY:  Sorry?
M:  It's only the biggest tourist attraction in town! Somebody has a mailbox that consists of a big pair of legs sticking out of the ground. The postman has to slot the mail into its arse! Hee hee hee!
AMERICANS:  [alarmed look]
M:  Trust me, it's really cool! You'll love it. It is Australia! Let me draw you a map.

So we drove by and hung out the car window with cameras. I'm sure the highlight of their whole insane Australian jaunt will be the mailbox with the disembodied plastic legs. It even had a pair of black undies on, for the sake of decency.

The Mothership also landed on Tuesday to eat our pasta and to sit on the couch asking, "So, what's new?" and other inane questions every seven seconds.

MOTHERSHIP:  So what's new?
SHAUNY & RHI:  Nothing!
M:  Well there must be something!
S & R:  There's nothing!
M:  Hmmph
M:  ...
M:  Hey, do you think you'll ever go to France?
R:  Sure, why not?
M:  Will you be going in that tunnel?
R:  Possibly.
M:  I don't want you going in that tunnel!
R:  Why not?
M:  It's crazy, that tunnel! It's underwater and goes on for miles and anything could happen in there! I don't believe in tunnels!
R:  I've been in the Sydney Harbour Tunnel.
M:  I don't like you going in there either but this one is longer. And foreign! Promise me you won't go in that tunnel!
R:  You're a crackpot.

"Why don't you give me something I can use?" I asked The Mothership as she crossed her eyes, tongue curled up, checking her top lip for stray capuccino foam. She'd spent the whole meal relating stories in her booming Teachers Voice, my mascara was smeared from laughing.

The Mothership loves telling stories and loves me regurgitating them on here. I've got a good one for ya, she'll say on the phone. Or she'll ask hopefully, Are you going to use this on your website? Huh huh?

Famous among dozens. But lately they've all been school stories, not ones I can repeat online without fear of retribution from the Department of Education or deranged parents.

She was in a somewhat melancholy, philosophical mood. She just told us about the little kid who wrote a "death threat" to another little kid on the toilet wall. With a piece of grass.

"Who would have thought you could write with a piece of grass?"

"Well some blades of grass are quite thick and juicy. Inky." She looked into the distance, shaking her head sadly.

"You know what's happening here?" she mused. "We're just like the rats and mice."

Stunned silence from Rhiannon and I.

"Well, think about rats and mice. They breed like... rats and mice. Their world is so overcrowded and dirty!"

"Yes?"

"And look what happened to them! Their world got crazy. So what did they do? They turned on each other. Violence! No respect! Biting each others tails off! Hitting each other on the head with hockey sticks! Some of them became cannibals!"

"Do you have evidence to back this up?"

"And that's what's happened to the humans. We're going the way of the rats and mice. Everything's dysfunctional. Overpopulated. And it makes me so sad. People just don't care about people anymore!"

"But we live in the sticks, Mum. It's not crowded here. You haven't really thought this through have you?"

"Hey! This is something I've been pondering a lot. It keeps popping back into my head at night. So it must mean something."

What happens when your mother is a drama queen AND a hardcore fan of vapid confections like 7th Heaven, Touched By An Angel and Oprah? She breaks sad news in a way that would make Michael Landon proud.

MOTHERSHIP:  Shauna! This is The Mother.
SHAUNA:  Hi.
M:  Poppy's left just left us.
S:  Ohh Mum.
M:  I'm at the hospital, sitting here at his bedside.
S:  Okay.
M:  Do you want to say something to him? He's right here.
S:  Umm... what?
M:  Hey, I will hold the phone out right now and you can talk to him.
S:  Mother, did you not just tell me he's no longer with us?
M:  Yes! But I am sure he can hear you!
S:  ...
M:  Speak up, girl. I can't hear you!
S:  Well neither can he!
M:  What? Say something!
S:  Christ! Okay... Helloooo?

Five minutes later

MOTHERSHIP:  Rhiannon! This is The Mother.
RHIANNON:  What's happening?
M:  It's not good.
R:  Yes?
M:  Poppy is... [dramatic pause, voice low and pious] ... resting with the angels now.
R:  I see. So are you okay? Is anyone there with you?
M:  No... [long pause] It's just you, me, and Poppy.

We took my grandmother out so she could have a break from the hospital. She got a few things at Woolies. We were walking along Anson Street when Mum said, "Keep your eyes peeled for fuel vouchers!"

"What?"

"You know, 2 cents a litre off at the Woolworths petrol station. Help me look."

If you spend $50 or more at Woolworths, they give you a voucher that entitles you to a teeny tiny petrol discount. My mother and grandmother save them obsessively. When they meet up it's like baseball cards. "I'll trade you three 2 cents a litre off for your expired 4 cents a litre. I don't think they really check the dates..."

You may recall that these dames love a bargain. So we should not have been mortified when they started pacing the street, plucking stray receipts from the pavement.

"Put that down, mother. You don't know where it's been."

"The other day I found about half a dozen on the way to the car, some people just toss them away without a care!"

"Mother! Get out of the gutter!"

"Just a minute! I've hit the jackpot here."

"Girls, there is nothing wrong with your mother wanting to save a penny!" declared my grandmother, plucking a docket from a rose bush.

Rhiannon watched them with exasperated expression, leaning against the car with her arms folded. "Do I share genes with these people? Where did I get my class from, I ask you? My sense of dignity?"

Mum and Nanny were crouched on the pavement beside the Trolley Return. There were fifty shopping trolleys nestled like rusty sardines, and they'd spotted two abandoned receipts right in the middle of it. They dug through their handbags for suitable implements to rescue them.

"Oooh. Nearly got the bugger."

"Muuuum," I whined. "They all expire on the 11th of October. Do you really think you're going to fill your car eight times in the next two weeks?"

She ignored me, brushing dirt of her precious finds and clucking happily.

"They're like fucking squirrels, that's what!" snorted my sister. "Bouncing around and digging through the trash with their arses in the air. Bloody squirrels."

We were sitting in Tilleys eating potato wedges and there happened to be Darryl Braithwaite doing a soundcheck. He's somewhat grey now but still of golden tonsils.

"Well there you go, Mumsy. You come here for coffee and you get a free concert."

"Yes! I've seen him before. In the Sherbert days. And so have you! In utereo. You were rockin' along in there with a rhythmic kick."

"Well, howzat."

Now that Rhi is teaching classes, she's bonding with the Mothership on a whole new level. She's tough but the students love her, they call her Miss even though she's their age or younger. Mum had proud tears in her eyes when Rhi told her that some of the kids have nicknamed her "No Mercy".

They talked about teaching styles and cirriculums and somethings and something elses. La la la. I sat quietly playing Snake on my phone, watching stray dogs out the window (why are there so many dogs in Lyneham?).

I eventually butted in to say, "I have a staple remover. It is yellow and shiny."

Then it was out to Gold Creek for The Chicken Shop. It has other crafty ye old homewares but for the Mothership it is primarily The Chicken Shop. We hid in the car while she picked up her layby. A patchwork Santa doll, a patchwork Snowman doll and a framed chicken painting. She unwrapped her purchases on the hood of the car, hopping from one foot to the other, shouting through the windscreen, "Look at his cute little carrot nose! Look at that stitching! Don't you wish it was Christmas now so we could hang these up?"

"No."

On the way back we were updated on The Continuing Saga Of The Lack Of Toilets At The School (official title) which she claimed, "would make a great story for your website" however I don't think kindergarten kids with crossed legs and pained expressions queuing up for Port-A-Loos is that interesting.

Finally we heard the sad tale of a friend who is taking care of an ailing mother. The old duck has had an operation for every bit of her body and the daughter has had to drive her to the hospital and nurse her back to health every time, while the other two sibilings haven't lifted a finger.

"Well that's bloody slack. Why aren't the others helping?"

"Oh I don't know. They're good for nothing. She's doing it all!"

"I hope she'll be rewarded for her good deeds!"

"In the next life, you mean?"

"Nooo, in her mother's will!"

"Shauna! She is doing it for the love of her mother!"

"Well, I'm not sure that would be enough incentive for me!"

"Why would you want to go to Vietnam for?"

"It's a popular tourist destination, mother. Its a beautiful country. And affordable."

"But what would you do there?"

"Oh I don't know. Crawl through some Viet Cong tunnels. Step on some landmines."

"Are you being facetious? Oh, hang on a minute..."

Her head cocks to one side like a magpie, eyes narrowing. She has spotted one of her students, out shopping with its parents. She darts across the crowded K-Mart, slipping into Teacher Mode as effortlessly and comfortably as a granny sliding into slippers and dressing gown on a winter evening.

Out come the wild gesticulations, the booming classroom voice, the wide sparkling smile. Well! How are you today, Fred? And how are Mr and Mrs Fred? Out doing a spot of shopping are we? Enjoying the first day of your holidays? Recharge those batteries Fred coz we've got an exciting Term 3 coming up!

"Look at her there in PR mode. Schmoozing. Being at one with the children."

"She's like Jesus."

Moments later she bounds back right into the conversation.

"Anyway, I've decided that if you really want to go to Vietnam, I'm not going stand in your way."

"What is this, 1965?"

Partial and belated F5.

Do you have any recurring dreams?

I have three - driving a speeding car with no brakes, missing the bus, and turning up to my final exams and realising I forgot to study and/or turn up to class all year.

My mother, she has three recurring dreams too. That is, three copies of Recurring Dream - The Very Best of Crowded House.

"Well I don't know, I had a copy at home and then I forgot I had it so I bought a copy for school, and then the third one? Some cloning going on in the CD rack perhaps."

This is the same woman who once was alphabetising her CDs and told me to put Recurring Dream under H.

"House, Crowded!"

"Right. So by your logic that one there goes under Z for Zeppelin, Led?"

"Right!"

Have you ever written your dreams down?

My dream journal started in July 1999 when I was heavily medicated and having some real crackers that I wanted to record for prosperity. I'd make myself wake up and I'd scrawl down the details in the dark, not even stopping to put a light on lest the details fall out of the brain.

The links here are scans from the journal, so have a gander. First I get pulled over by a ranger and searched for smuggled native animals then see some goldfish swimming in air. Then there's a horrid nightmare in which my sister drowns in a dam and an opportunistic man tries to sell me Dam Protection Insurance. And then I encounter a cult and run naked through a pub.

"So we had the Cross Country the other day, we're out in the middle of a paddock somewhere and the stewed ants [mothership speak for "students"] were limbering up to start the running. And Leanne is organising everyone and getting people to be checkpoints along the course, to make sure none of the kids run off into the wilderness. Then she hands me this walkie talkie. What am I sposed to do with this? I says to her. It's a walkie talkie, says Leanne. I know it's a walkie talkie, but why do I need it? You have to report back to me when the last kid has run past your checkpoint, she says. Well, okay, but I don't know how to use a walkie talkie. It's easy, Leanne says, you just press the button and talk, and when you arrive at your checkpoint I'll send you a message to make sure it's working.

So I toddles off to my checkpoint and I am standing there waiting waiting waiting. The race starts and the kids are off, so I sit down and enjoy the sunshine. Then all of a sudden the walkie talkie is talking....

Big Mama on the Hill! Big Mama on the Hill!

... I look at the walkie talkie and wonder who this Big Mama person is, but think nothing of it. And then...

This is HQ. Come in, Big Mama on the Hill! Big Mama, can you read me?

... I am scratching my head and I just couldn't figure out what the hell she was on about or who she was talking to and thought she must have a drinking problem. And there it goes again...

Big Mama on the Hill! Hello! We are looking right at you but you do not seem to be responding! Come in, Big Mama!"

This is when my sister had to interrupt.

"Mum, how many of you had walkie talkies?"

"Three of us. Leanne and the lady at the other checkpoint down the track."

"Didn't it occur to you that you were the only one standing on a hill?"

"Well..."

"And also the only one with a walkie talkie on a hill that happened to be a little roly poly?"

"I guess my powers of deduction were a little off. Anyway I finally figured it out so I pressed the button on the walkie talkie and said, Leanne, if I am supposed to be Big Mama on the hill, I am going to have to come down and discuss this Big Mama business with you, I demand a new code name!"

THE MOTHER: Oh! Shauna! Remind me to tell you about The Pork!

SHAUNA: The Pork?

M: Ohhh yes. The Pork. The Pork I had at Neila the other night.

S: Ah yes.

M: You've never had anything like The Pork! It was simply an orgasmic dining experience! Orgasmic!

*silence*

S: Hey, remind me not to remind you about The Pork.

"I am having trouble finding things on the Internet lately."

"Have you tried Google?"

"Google? Is that www G-O-G-G-L-E dot com?"

"No, that's goggle."

"Oh. So if I type google in to Yahoo, will I find Google?"

"Ummm."

Brief, merciful silence.

"Did I tell you I took a bath in methylated spirits the other day?"

"No you did not."

"Well I can tell you now! There's been a stink in my classroom, for a week now, we couldn't figure out where it was coming from, but it smelled like metho. On Thursday, no, Wednesday, the kids were in Scripture class, but I had to hang around and make sure they didn't misbehave. So I decided to investigate! I sniffed here and there and managed to track it down to this one particular cupboard. I ferretted around but couldn't see any metho. But then I noticed a big wet stain on the top shelf. It looked like something had leaked from above. Anyway, so I gets on a chair and hops up and there's was two huge bottles of metho sitting on top of the cupboard! I'd say they were left over from the days of duplicating machines, before photocopiers. And one of them had a huge hole in the side of it that had been gnawed away by mice! I'd say the mice started chewing the bottle some time ago and got all crazy on the fumes and said oh boy oh boy, let's have a party and bought round their other filthy mouse friends and chewed and chewed and eventually it started to leak! Anyway, I reached for the bottle but I slipped on the chair, next thing the grotty bottle of metho goes flying in the air and I go flying and I end up with a mouthful of metho! I was snorting and sputtering but I couldn't swear because the students were there and it was scripture class! So I had to go home and get changed otherwise I'd have stank all day. So yes. Wasn't that exciting?"

Pause for breath.

"So why didn't you tell me things were going so bad with your job?"

"I dunno."

"So have you adopted your sister's policy of Not Telling The Mother Anything?"

"I already had that policy, I just didn't tell you about it."

Yesterday was a public holiday. Canberra Day, in which we give thanks for being Canberran. Apparently.

THINGS TO LIKE ABOUT CANBERRA: Good restaurants. Easy public service jobs with stationary ripe for stealin'. Suburbs named after dead politicians. The Museum of Erotica (still haven't been, dammit). Nights so quiet you can always get a good 8 hours after a nice day in what is really a nice and highly livable town.

THINGS TO DISLIKE ABOUT CANBERRA Crappy FM radio stations. The overly perky Channel Ten weathergirl. Lack of rental properties. Lack of personality. Nights so quiet that you can't sleep for your ticking brain, feeling restless and lost and cranky.

After a haircut, you can enjoy approximately 2.5 days of groovy hair until you finally have to admit that it's shampoo time. During those 2.5 days you study your haircut with great intensity, trying to imprint on your brain the precise location of the part, the way she swept it in that direction just so, how high the spiky bits go, so you can recreate this masterpiece on your own. You take photos, draw diagrams, write down measurements. After waking up a ball of grease and Product, you hit the shower and then the hairdryer. And it ends up looking shithouse.

The Mothership visits our new abode:

MOTHERSHIP: Three flights of stairs? How do you do it? I don't think I can do this very often.
SHAUNA: That's the idea.
M: Don't you go insane from everyone else's noise?
S: I heard people having sex this morning.
M: Don't you worry about being trapped on the third floor?
S: No.
M: I see you have a balcony. Has anyone tried to break in yet?
S: No.
M: You'll be burgled if you don't burn to death. How much rent are you paying for this hazard?

The humble onion, while tasty, really shits me. Once they're all cooked up they're so harmless and delicious. It's the raw form I have problems with. And I'm not talking about the crying, I can handle the crying, in fact I quite enjoy the crying, it makes me feel all melodramatic and fuzzy inside. I just hate how one small touch of an onion and its stinkiness sinks into your fingers. The pores soak it up like red wine to expensive carpet. And no amount of soap and scrubbing seems to get that smell off your skin.

Raw onions also trigger serious flashbacks. One whiff and I'm back at the dinner table and my sister is sitting across from me and we both have tears in our eyes.

— We don't want to eat the icecream, Muuum.
— Eat the bloody icecream! There's nothing wrong with it!
— I'm telling you Mum, it tastes funny.
— I'll give you funny in a minute.
— I will plunge this spoon into my heart if you make us go on.
— EAT!

It all started with the margarine. It had been on special for 99 cents a tub at Woolies, so we had 8 tubs of it in the freezer. One morning I gnashed into my vegemite toast and almost choked in disgust. Vegemite is a pretty domineering kind of flavour, but something about the margarine was purest evil. Margarine isn't supposed to taste like anything, it's just the essential sludge for the vegemite to melt into. But this margarine tasted faintly savory. I whinged to Mum but she commanded me to "EAT!".

Months passed and we slowly made our way through the margarine stockpile. By then we complained bitterly that it tasted like "something had gone feral in the tub".

Then came the chocolate chip cookies. We'd made a double batch yonks ago so we had to put some away in the freezer. When finally ate them, it was like swallowing death. To this day I still go pale at the sight of a cookie. One expects a mouthful of buttery chocolately goodness, but these cookies had surely been marinating in a footballer's armpit. The putrid after taste lingered for days.

You'd think Mum would have believed us after we rolled round the kitchen floor clutching our stomachs for a full hour. The Vile Taste had penetrated almighty TUPPERWARE for heaven's sake. If evil could invade solid, practical yet overpriced plasticware, surely the end of humanity was nigh. But instead we were forced to continute eating weird-tasting peas and pizza and lambchops, fresh from Satan's icebox.

It's been well documented that I come from a family of tight-arsed waste-not-want-not bargain hunters. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that the source of the problem encompassed all these qualities. When even the family dog refused to eat a rather pungently flavoured lamb roast, Mum finally admitted there was something wrong.

I was sent in to investigate. It was one of those massive chest freezers, big enough to fit a whole cow if it so pleased you. I felt like a deep-sea diver, legs flailing as I plunged down, scouring the ocean floor for ancient shipwrecks. The deeper down and closer to the stinky source I got, the more I wish I really did have some sort of oxygen device.

Finally I found it, stuck to the bottom. An innocent looking plastic bag. But stuffed to the hilt with chopped raw onions.

"Oh! I forgot about those!" said Mum sheepishly.

Never one to resist a freebie, Mum had been given the onions at a school fete, leftovers from the sausage sizzle. She'd thrown them into the freezer For Future Use, and hadn't given them another thought until long after their evil scent had invaded every last bit of food in the freezer and bludgeoned our tastebuds.

She was going to make us keep eating the remaining six loaves of bread (on special, $1.20), but we went on a hunger strike until she relented. Let this be a warning to you kiddies, onions are the devil's vegetable.

The Mothership is closer now. Before we had a nice buffer zone of 2.5 hours, but now she's moved to Goulburn so she's a mere hour away. Close enough to swoop in unannounced for a routine inspection/nagging session. Quelle horror.

You may recall the last time I helped her move. Well, she went off to a patchwork class and I did the moving. After that ordeal I vowed next time she moved, she was on her own.

When I move house, I take it as an opportunity to purge unwanted items. But Mum doesn't do that. She brings everything. Last time she didn't even empty the fridge.

We discovered this gruesome fact over a year later, on Christmas Day 2001. Rhiannon went to make the pasta salad and found in the fridge door the salad dressing from Pasta Salad Christmas Day 2000.

I fear for my life when I open Mum's fridge. You never know what buried treasures you'll uncover. The problem arises because the woman buys shitloads of food, but never gets around to cooking it. So it sits in the fridge slowly morphing into a museum piece.

One cannot just pluck something from the Mothership Fridge and eat it. There's a lengthy examination process, in which you check for expired use-by dates, wacky odours, strange growths, etc. Then you have to interrogate The Mother. A typical scene:

RHIANNON: Mum, when did you buy this cheese?
MOTHERSHIP Last week!
R: Last week as in the week just been, or 1986?
M: Last week as in LAST WEEK, you little smart arse!
R: It smells funny.
M: It does not smell funny!
R: It doesn't look so good either. Have you go any other cheese?
M: You two are so obsessed with freshness!

But we have good reason to be obssessed, especially after the Gravy Incident. Mum wanted to prove to us once and for all that she could actually cook, because we didn't know, having cooked almost every family meal since we were seven years old. She got out the pots and pans and roasted us a chicken and some vegies. But she was spent from all that effort and asked Rhiannon to make some gravy.

Her ill-equipped kitchen could only offer us a box of Gravox. Rhiannon was stirring away at the stove when she observed:

"Hey Mum, this gravy looks kind of lumpy."
"Nonsense!"
"It does, I tell you. It's got flaky bits in it."
"Oh! It must be that new onion gravy stuff. It's onion flakes."
"Are you sure it's not old?"
"Yes I am bloody sure! You two are obsessed with freshness!"

It wasn't until she'd poured gravy all over my food that she noticed the gravy was actually MOVING.

"Oh look! There's weevils swimming in the gravy! Ooops!"

Of course everyone else's meal had been spared from the bug bath but mine. Grrr.

And then the Orange Juice incident, again Christmas 2001. I live for Orange Juice. Mum's too stingy to buy fresh stuff but she does keep some of that long life Berri stuff for me.

"Mum, this orange juice is brown."
"What?!"
"Shouldn't orange juice be orange?"
"That's long life juice! I only bought it the other day!"
"Bloody hell! It expired in May! Are you trying to kill me?"
"There's nothing wrong with it. You two are obsessed with freshness!"

Then there's the organic vegies. She has a friend with an organic vegie farm. She calls us up all time, "Do you two want some organic vegies? They're organic, you know! Organic! So fresh and tasty! ORGANIC!"

But the time she gets down to Canberra to deliver the booty, they're not so fresh and tasty. The bag of Organic Mixed Salad Leaves have become a bag of Organic Green Sludge; the carrots have taken on a deformed twist; the Fresh Organic Lemons are mistaken for limes because they've turned powdery green from age.

A particularly disturbing moment was when I went to make some guacamole, and digged through the pantry for some Tabasco to give it some kick. The Tabasco use-by date was June 1982. The current year was 1999.

But just like the bargain shopping, it seems Mum inherited it all from her mother. When I was I kid, I once found a can of pineapple in Nanny's cupboard that had a faded green price sticker that read 5d. Decimal currency was introduced to Australia in 1966!

My sister and I chose to stop the insanity there, and take a minimalist approach to fridge stocking. Two or three items per shelf at the most. And the orange juice is always orange!

After few days of mooching around feeling pathetic and sad, I'm rejuvenated. The meeting did not go very well, but I just got my hair cut and I feel good so that's what I chose to focus on for now. Woo!

On Monday we got tarted up for my sister's graduation. Although she graduated last year, she had to return to receive her top of the class medal thingy. Very impressive looking hunk of metal, I tells ya.

Mum only arrived in town half an hour before we had to leave. She came bearing carrots. We don't pass down precious heirlooms in our family, just vegetables. My grandmother's neighbour gave my grandmother a Clint's Crazy Bargains bagful of home-grown carrots, tiny and deformed looking with huge green tops, so they made the journey down to Canberra for our dining pleasure.

We were running terribly late. Of course that was the moment our iron decided to spew murky water all over Mum's suit, leading to a rousing chorus of "Don't you ever clean your iron?". Then poor Emily was in the bathroom cleaning her teeth when Mum strolls past the half-closed door, reaches in and turns the light out. Emily later reported that Mum muttered, "You kids! Wasting electricity! Disgusting!"

Finally we were off and we dropped Rhiannon off out the front of Parliament House, she had to be there a bit earlier to get her cap and gown. As she made her greatful escape, Mum is rabbiting on, "I hope she's got a good deoderant on a day like this. What's that black gunk on the back of her leg? Shauna she's got black gunk on the back of her leg! Quick! Beep the horn and get her to come back here and get that gunk off the back of her leg!"

She was just winding down her window to bellow at my poor sister when I pointed out that the black gunk was in fact a small bruise.

I then had the pleasure of sitting in the foyer of Parliament House chatting to Mum for 45 minutes before the ceremony began. Once the local gossip was out of the way, she took to her usual habit of saying, "So what's new?" every 2 minutes.

MOTHERSHIP: So what's new?
SHAUNY: Nothing.
M: Did you know these granite floors came from Eugowra?
S: I did not know that.
M: I'm glad I'm not the one that has to clean these floors.
S: *sigh*
M: What's wrong with you?
S: I feel like a blob today.
M: Well, you're quite an attractive blob.
S: Um. Thanks.
M: See, don't you just love me? This is why you bring me places.

Five minutes blissful silence.

M: So what's new?
S: Nothing!
M: Well there has to be something!
S: There isn't!
M: Well. Alright. I see you are wearing a skirt today.
S: Excellent observation.
M: It's nice to see you wearing a skirt.
S: Thank you.
M: But are you wearing a petticoat?
S: What?
M: [schoolteacher voice, over-enunciating] Are you wearing a petticoat?
S: Do I look like a crusty old lady?
M: You should wear a petticoat if you're going to wear a skirt. You may as well be naked without one.

The clock inches forward a little, Mum's still talking and I am watching the cricket on a television in the corner.

M: So I haven't been to your website lately.
S: Good.
M: I just haven't had the time! I'm flat out at work. I'm running around like a mad chook! But don't think I'm not interested! I do want to go and see what wonderful things you're writing.
S: I haven't written any wonderful writings lately.
M: And why not?
S: Just feeling a little uninspired.
M: Well. Let The Mother help you. You should write about something funny you see. People like to read about funny things. Like look at all those men gathering around the television to watch the cricket. Isn't it funny how men always do that? Oh you could write about that. And how the more things change the more they stay the same! What do you reckon?
S: Umm.

It was lovely evening, we had dinner at The Tryst which is always tasty. Especially when Mum has a few wines then decides to make her own road rules on the drive home. With my fifteenth reminder from mum to Please Clip Harry's Toenails, and nice bellyful of red, I slept very well that night.

The Mother called and asked me to take down the photos of her old school. I was sad, because I worked hard on that page and the captions were funny. But you type the name of the school into Google you got this site. So that's bad.

She also read some of the blog. "What's New Pussycat, eh? What's all that about?"

"Stuff."

"Do you really think you should talk about your neighbours like that? What if they find out?"

"I don't bloody give an address!"

It's funny how she chose to complain about that and not the fifty million things I've written about her. What can I say, she's a character. I think she enjoys being a character. I told her once that if I wrote a book she'd be a character. She got all excited. "Me? A character! Am I character?" Much giggling. Yes, you're a character.

Mum, if you're reading this again, please... don't. It's just too weird. Toddle off and watch an episode of Touched By An Angel or something. You know I love you, but please. Bugger off :)

In other news, my "novel" is a sprawling mess. It's funny how some characters are a breeze, you can imagine them up so easily. Then some you just can't get to know at all. Like the Lurve Interest, I know nothing about him at all, except that he's got brown eyes and a Magic Tongue.

What about his personality? What floats his boat? What music is he into? Is he funny or serious or a complete bastard? Does he speak in eloquent thoughtful sentences or is he one of those one word at a time grunty types? Does he have good hygiene?

It all boils down to the fact that I just bloody forget what men are like. The dialogue I'm writing sounds so false and stilted. No matter how many times I write and re-write it doesn't sound authentic. I forget what you say and how you act and what the stupid things you do that make me want to love and punch you in the nose all at the same time. I forget how it goes.

Very sad and pathetic. The nunnery is calling me.

Here are some things I like. The summery smell of cucumber and watermelon. My flatmate poking and tickling me when we're watching TV. My shoes. When you wash the sheets and when you reach up to peg them on the clothesline, you can feel the wet cotton against your skin and it's all cool like slipping into a swimming pool.

Here are some things I don't like. Scooping Harry poop from the back lawn. Misuse of apostrophe's. Abrupt emails. Abrupt phone calls. Abrupt goodbyes. Abrupt anything, really. And let me reiterate that the poop scooping really sucks.

This blog thing is getting harder every day, or rather every time I find out someone I know is reading this. It's getting harder to say how I really feel so I will have to start writing obscure, wanky paragraphs and make you read between the lines.

Hey Mum, I told you to stop reading!

"I have to tell you something very important," the mother began. "I just finished this book that Oprah recommended!"

"Pfft."

"Shut up! And it was all about controlling parents and how they have such high expectations of their children! How this is so very traumatic for the child! So I had to call you and say I am very sorry for any pressure I put on you over the years!"

"Pressure? You? Never!"

"I just want you to know I don't have those harmful expectations of you anymore, all I want is for you to be happy and for you to be doing what you want to do, whatever you're passionate about. So I don't mind about the failed journalist thing, and if you don't do the computers for the rest of your life I don't mind about that either! So there's no expectations from me anymore!"

"Cool. I don't have any expectations of me either."

"But you can always talk to me about anything, you know? No pressure! No expectations! I am serious! Can you hold on a minute?"

The phone is dropped and I hear her toddling out of the room. There's a loud noise and giggle before she returns.

"What was that?"

"I had to fart."

One day long long ago, in the mid-80s, someone caught on to the brilliant idea of putting jelly and fruit into a can together and calling the resulting taste sensation Jelly Fruit. There was Peaches in Orange Jelly and Pears in Passionfruit Jelly. There was lurid packaging with hot pink graphics that wouldn't be out of place on a Culture Club or Duran Duran album. And there were about 37 cans of it in our pantry.

After a delightful meal of Eternal Chops, we'd ask hopefully, "What's for dessert, Mum?" and for a long time the answer would always be Jelly Fruit. When you opened up the can it would come slithering out with a revolting schloooooooooop. It didn't even wobble like normal jelly, just stood there unblinking with the peaches smooshed up against the sides, pleading to be set free. You had to cut it with a knife, it was thick and uncompromising like a can of dog food. I'd whisper to my sister in a poor scottish accent, "Sooooo chumpy you can carrrrve it" and Mum would wave the knife at me and glare.

My mother and grandmother shopped like the world was about to end. We were apparently about to be living in some post-apocalyptic hell and have no food, no clothing, nothing at all, so we had to hurry and stock up. They also loved a good bargain. At 59 cents a can they couldn't resist buying the Jelly Fruit in bulk. Even though it was only available in a supermarket about an hour and a half away.

It wasn't that unusual to go long distance shopping. My home town was small and publically everyone subscribed to the "shop locally and help our town's dismal economy" way of thinking, but made secret expeditions to Bathurst or Orange to take advantage of the Big Town Bargains. I particularly remember the January post-Christmas trips to Orange. We'd stop by and pick up our grandmother in our ancient yellow Mitsubishi Lancer. It had no air conditioning and black vinyl seats that fired up something fierce in the summer. My sister and I would be moaning and complaining in the back seat for the entire journey as the upholstery barbequed our thighs.

The day was planned with great precision. It began at Big W where they'd pick up a dozen boxes of Christmas cookies and bags of tinsel and plastic reindeer and angels.

"Why do we need another star for on top of the christmas tree? We only have one tree", whined my sister and I.

"Shut up! It's On Special!"

It didn't matter if we already had it at home or simply didn't need it, if it was On Special we got it regardless.

"Muuuum. He already has a pair of tennis shoes. He only has two feet. Why does he need anotherrrrrrrrrr pair?"

"Shut up! On Special!"

"Muuuum. I don't like pink. I don't want pink swimmers. You said before redheads shouldn't wear pink!"

"I did not! On Special!"

My grandmother was just as bad:

"Oooh purple mohair wool only 39 cents a ball!"

"But Nanny, you said you can't knit anymore because of your arthritis!"

"On Special!"

And on and on it went. Again at K-Mart. Again at Lincraft. Again at the second hand bookshop that smelled like death and tobacco. By this time my sister and I had managed to stretch about 47 syllables into the word "Mum" and were begging for lunch, for a drink, for a bullet.

"Muuuuuuuum. Are we going home now?"

"No we are not going home now!"

"Why not?"

"Because we're going to Franklins! Your grandmother wants to get some more Jelly Fruit"

"But I HATE Franklins!"

"How can you hate a supermarket?"

"Because it's stinky and cheap and the aisles are too cramped and it doesn't look pretty like Woolies."

"But it's cheaper!"

"How is it cheaper if we have to drive an hour to Orange to get it?"

"You shut up back there! I don't want to hear any more of your logic!"

"Can we wait in the car?"

That is when she yanked the rear-view mirror around to maximise the impact of her frosty glare. She lowered her huge, horrible plasticky sunglasses that looked like fly eyes (bought on special at K-Mart in about 1982) and fixed her black, black eyes on me. "You're coming in with me and that's all there is to it!"

The grocery shopping was the most humiliating part of the trip. My sister and I stomping behind Mum, scuffing our shoes and muttering as she crowed, "Oooh 2 litre Dynamo is only $3 here! Can you believe that? It was $4.50 back home. Shauna, put three bottles in the trolley!"

Franklins tried to spoil their fun by putting a limit on how many items you could buy per sale item.

"Ooooh Cream Wafer Biscuits on special! Only 89 cents a pack!"

"But Muuum, it says Limit 6! Limit 6! That means you are limited to six!"

"Limits! I'll get around those limits!"

Getting around those limits meant giving us kids some cash and an armload of biscuits and send us through seperate checkouts. Then we'd all meet outside with our collective purchases, Rhiannon and I glowering as my mother and grandmother did some sort of triumphant victory dance around the trolley.

All these years later and Mum claims to have reformed, but last trip home I shared my bed with six boxes of cornflakes and a 3-foot Santa statue. And at last count my grandmother has about 12 packets of chocolate biscuits and 20 gallons of softdrink in her pantry. She's diabetic, and I'm sad to say my dear grandfather can pretty much only eat mush these days, so I don't know who she's buying it for. Some days I wonder what deep psychological issues they both must have with their compulsive need to surround themselves with so much junk. What pain are they trying to mask by shacking up in a fortress of Earl Grey Tea ($1.99 for 200 bags, on special), ceramic chickens, and Tim Tams? Or maybe they just really do love a bargain.

"So I'm going into the funeral business," my mother declared to me on the phone last night.

"What?"

"Well we had another Quilt Til You Wilt Night, and I was talking to so-and-so, and we're both panicking that we won't have enough money to retire on, so we need to come up with some ideas. And I was just quilting a log-cabin square when she said to me, how about we start a funeral parlor?"

"Were you drinking?"

"Well yes, and it was 2am, but you get the best ideas at that kind of hour!"

Apparently her friend works at a nursing home and "sees a lot of dead people" and there's only one funeral director in town and he's "not particularly sensitive". They've decided there's a market for a different kind of funeral service.

"And what would you do differently?"

"Oh! You know, talk to the families more, find out how they really want to remember their loved one, perhaps a less traditional funeral, maybe some stencilling on the coffin or something..."

"So you mean like White Lady Funerals?"

"No, no... we're thinking more mauve... or lilac..."

It alarms me how serious she sounded. She also said her years of make-up artist experience as a Nutri-Metics lady would come in handy.

Then again, it was only a short while ago she was cooking up a scheme with her friends to start a mobile sex toy shop. You know, like a bookmobile, except with vibrators and fluffy handcuffs, giving a whole new meaning to Mr Whippy.

11 o'clock on a Saturday night and the house was quiet except for the possums scratching around inside the roof and the AM faintly rattling out of Mum's clock radio. Suddenly I heard the sproing of the saggy old mattress as she vaulted out of her bed.

"It's Your Song!" she gasped. "It has to be! Your Song!"

I could hear the billowing of her flanelette nightie as she swooped down the hallway, huffing and puffing with determination. The doors drew breath and the Royal Albert shuddered in the china cabinet. She fumbled for the phone and dialled furiously in the dark. 6-2-0-0-9-9.

Back before we got 8 digit phone numbers, and before we got a touch-tone phone, my mother was obsessed with winning radio competitions. The first caller through gets a copy of Rod Stewart's newie and ice cold six pack of Coca Cola! kind of competitions.

It didn't matter what the prize was, she just had to have it. When 1089 2GZ had their Non Stop All Music Weekends she'd be glued to the radio, in the house, in the car, everywhere. If she went outside to hang the washing on the line she'd crank up the volume so she could hear the DJ over tractors and baaa-ing sheep, then whoosh back in with a trail of pegs behind her when The Call came.

She relied on me for my trivial mind. I was woken many a time with her switching on lights, shaking my bedclothes, swatting me with teddy bears, sqwarking desperately, "Shauna! Quick! Tell me! Who was the bass player in the Little River Band? Who married whom in ABBA? What's the name of duet Paul McCartney did with thingo?"

"Mmmmph. Sleeping."

"Hurrrrry! I have to be the seventh caller through!"

The actual task of dialling was quite arduous as we had one of the godawful phones where you actually had to dial - stick your finger in the hole of the corresponding number and spin the wheel thing, none of that modern keypad claptrap. When you were bursting at the seams to win The Very Best of Hall and Oates, the distance from zero to nine seemed an eternity.

But not many people were listening on that particular Saturday night and yes indeed Your Song was the correct answer and she won the Songs of Elton John and Bernie Taupin LP. She also scored an ice cold six pack of Coca Cola that joined the few dozen other ice cold six packs of Coca Cola gathering dust in our garage because Coke rots your teeth and we weren't allowed to drink it.

Soon she was so good at the dialling she'd have already won an album by the Friday night of the Non Stop All Music Weekend. But this didn't quench my mother's thirst for dodgy vinyl. She bullied my sister and I to call because thanks to the joys of remarriage, she had a different surname from us now so we could win again. If we refused to call, she'd dial herself and put on a funny voice and pretend to be my grandmother, her secretary, her dentist, her brother. A week or so later they'd be rewarded with a brownpaper-wrapped Foreigner or Let's Go '88! in their mailbox.

Even our dog Susie managed to score a Billy Joel record. Mum didn't let her have the Coke either.

Mixed bag of a weekend. Friday night was Bridget Jones Diary with my sister and Miss Emily, much laughs and scoffing down of snakes. Nice to discover that Mr Darcy still butters my muffin like no other. Ooh er. What a tasty treat he is.

Saturday the Mothership touched town. I guess we've been lucky, she hasn't been for about six months. She arrived early, right in the middle of our mad housecleaning preparations. During her mercifully brief stay she managed to squeeze in the following complaints:

1. The kitchen windowsill. "Urrgh! grotty!"
2. The kitchen floor. "Don't you own a mop?"
3. Just about every other thing in the kitchen. She prowled with a chux and a bottle of Jif generally pissing us off. Many sentences beginnning with, "When was the last time you cleaned the....?"
4. My bra. "You're flopping all over the place. I think you need a smaller size."
5. The front door step. "Don't you own a broom?"
6. Rhiannon's sheets on the clothesline. "Shouldn't we go out and bring those sheets in? It's getting cool, they'll get damp." Well Mumsy, little do you know that those sheets had actually been out there for a week, they'd survived three frosts, torrential rain and Harry nipping at them.
7. Our peg bucket. "Don't you bring you bucket of pegs inside? Oh god! There's leaves in the bucket! You haven't brought this inside for months, have you? Have you!?"
8. Harry's water bowl. "Good lord! Don't you ever fill that up?"
9. Harry's coat. "He's filthy! Don't you ever bath him?"
10. Harry's toenails. "They're too long! Don't you ever clip them?"

Also got to hear about her upcoming Quilt Til You Wilt Night, the organic vegetables craze sweeping the town, the crooked church pew she bought for her hallway, and thorough recaps of the past weeks Oprah episodes.

The rest of Saturday and Sunday I spent either crying or sulking because I somehow managed to aggrivate my stupid shoulder, despite being good and sitting up straight and gentle stretching and yoga-ing and pilates-ing and left-handed-mouse-ing. Note to self: find new, non-computery job.

Last night I sat on the back step hand-feeding Good-O's to Harry in an effort to get him to sit still long enough for a huggle. As soon as Good-O's were gone he took off. Dumb mutt. Why does everyone else get those doting, loyal companion types and I get a insane little bastard wh