Meanwhile, in the Land Downunder, the southern states are on fire and the rest of the joint is as dry as a b******d, to use the vernacular. It rained constantly when I travelled through Wales. I couldn't believe the ground's seemingly endless capacity to soak up water. Obviously, it's reached its limits. That's a lot of very cold houses without power. We flood where I live, but not with the low temps you get in Britain. D

I used to be an Army medic. I've seen a lot of stinky feet! You need to kill off the bacteria or fungus (I can't tell which it is without smelling them -gross, I know! but one of my special skills;-)). Ti tree oil is the best option. Soak the feet in hot water with ti tree oil in it (add it to that nice looking soak above but leave the wheat bran out - it'll feed the beasties). Scrub the dead skin off so the bugs have fewer places to hide, dry the feet well (blast them with the hair dryer or fan if you have to), and clean out the goop under the nails. Then mix some ti tree oil into a carrier cream like sorbolene and slather it on. If she won't do that, mix some ti tree oil into bicarbonate soda and dust her feet. Do this daily. Round up all the socks and wash them in very hot water. Line dry in the sun. If you can wash her shoes in the washing machine, go for it. If any shoes are really feral, chuck them. Put the rest in the sun and/or wipe them out with ti tree oil. Buy those little socks that you can't see when you have shoes on and make wearing them compulsory (with a bit of luck she'll think the above treatment is such a palaver that she'll get the message). Get her to drink more so dehydration isn't a factor. Make sure her nails don't have fungal infections on them - if they do, they'll look cheesy. Put neat ti tree oil on them till they regrow into normal nails. Ahhh, the joys of teenagers! D

Huge thanks to both of you: I am running a book club with 7 teenagers from our homeschool group. I've got lots of great ideas from your posts. Most of the kids haven't done any lit analysis. We are currently studying Animal Farm, which is a bit of a hit. One kid was busted last night reading it under his bedclothes by the light of his mobile phone. I feel compelled to add that no one was busted sneaky reading Huck Finn last year........ D

Extra points for Pod's mum for using Oi up in a post!

I really don't like pavlova - it's a waste of good fruit. A further piece of toilet trivia: the water in Australian toilets only comes up a little way into the bowl. When I stayed in Canada we were so entranced by the water coming halfway up the toilet bowl that my boss, my colleague and I stood around the toilet marvelling at it for about 5 mins. It became quite a conversation piece. D

I grew up in a house built in the 60's. It had the toilet in the bathroom, with no other loo (considered very low class in Sydney these days - it's now unconscionable for the parents and children to use the same loo;-)). My last two houses, including this one, are older. Both houses have a single bathroom (I have obviously not moved up in the world) in extensions built onto the back of the house, with the loo in the bathroom. Yes it's a pain if you have a toilet hog, but it cuts down on streaking. D

I love the toilet confusion story! I travelled through Wales with two friends, one Canadian and the other an American who had lived in the UK for 20 years. They pulled me aside after a couple of days for a serious chat. Could I please stop saying I was going to the toilet and instead say I was going to "the bathroom". I complied but I still think it was silly. It was quite obvious that I wasn't going to have a bath at 2pm. I was going to the toilet!!!! We don't find that offensive. Another national trait: we call a spade a spade. Euphemisms are not big here. And yes, Australian chocolate is much better than Hershey's, which tastes like cheap Easter eggs. You do have Peanut butter M&Ms though. We don't and they are fantastic!

Thank heavens I can't sing, cos to me that title reads "Kill me now!" D

You could try a shampoo bar (ie a soap) with a cider vinegar rinse and then use coconut oil as a leave-in moisturiser. I really like Alchemy but I'm not sure if its gluten free. D

If you trawled back through the Hansard for 1973 you'd probably find it, but it would probably be easier to hunt through a memoir or well-researched book on Whitlam. It would have been his government and I would imagine he would have done it with some fanfare. What about asking a Labor historian? Or try the Immigration Museum in Melbourne. I spent Australia Day volunteering at a local heritage museum, and continuing a 6 month long community occupation of Australia's oldest town square, Thompson Square (1795) in Windsor, NSW, which is under threat from the NSW Govt. We spent today's public holiday painting a bedroom and sorting out books. Danielle

Try Jackie French's Fair Dinkum Histories. There are 5 or 6 of them, aimed at about year 7 reading level, so he should be able to chew through them quickly. They are humorous but pithy and the author doesn't mince words when she tells both sides of a story. The books span pre1788 and white invasion, through to modern Australia. If he read them he'd have a better grounding in Australian history than lots of Aussies If he has the time and inclination, he could watch The First Australians, a frank and gruelling miniseries about the treatment of Indigenous Australians. Read anything (except perhaps the Buggalugs Bum Thief) by Tim Winton, a superb Perth-based author. Cloudstreet is probably his best known. Things to check on Wiki: cricket, Aussie Rules, mining boom in Western Australia, ANZAC, sharks Perth isn't like lots of Australia. While it has a penal colony past, it's geographic isolation has meant that it developed its own identity. It is a recent boom town: lots of new wealth and "immigrants" from the eastern states. Perth is buzzing, but it has more than its fair share of Indigenous poverty. Be prepared to see that on the streets. Place to go: Kings Park, Fremantle, Margaret River, the Kimberly, Listen to some good Aussie music: in loose chronological order (and showing my age): AC/DC, Cold Chisel, INXS, Powderfinger, John Butler (Perth-based), Angus and Julia Stone, Gotye, Megan Washington, Busby Marou,

Yes, year 7 and 8 seem to have soooo much stuff! I've actually been using year 6 because yrs 7&8 are supposed to be a rehash and I much prefer the integrated format of yr 6, but DS started to get really bogged down, so we switched to the interactive lessons and used an Australian book to fill in gaps. Honestly, MEP6 is quite hard and year 7 was a whole lot easier! I will probably do a combination of both this year (yr8 for us), using the interactive lessons for things he is strong on like fractions, decimals and percentages and negative numbers, and labour through the books for the stuff that he needs more practice with, like geometry and probability. Given the choice, DS would play on Khan academy, bluffing his way through the challenges. D

We've used them to brush up on things. They are designed as a catch up for kids who have missed lessons or need extra teaching. You can move through them quite quickly. DS likes them for the most part and they are reasonably rigorous. However, I'm not convinced that they provide enough practice to cement the ideas completely. And because they only require a single answer at the end, they don't encourage working out on paper, so kids like mine get a bit lax! We're using MEP yr 8 this year and will use the interactive stuff as well. Ask me again in six months! D

Boy is part of Dahl's memoirs. He had a pretty rough time at boarding school. It's not a book for young children. Reading parts of it sickens me. D

7 is too young to appreciate Dahl's off-beat humour, IMO. The Minpins and The Giraffe, the Pelly and Me are fine. Esio Trot is inocuous. The others are grim. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is OK, but wait for a bit, yet, so he gets the full experience of Dahl's gifted story telling. There are plenty of wonderful books for 7 year olds. Read those now while he's stll young enough. FWIW, The Vicar of Nibbleswick is hysterical. It was written to raise money for dyslexia. The Vicar says words backwards. Some of the words come out rude, eg, Please don't krap (park) on the grass (said during the sermon). Hysterical for boys (and my mother!), but maybe not yet. D

I'm feeling like a complete slacker after reading how often you lot clean your floors. Mine get vacuumed and mopped once a week whether they need it or not. I sweep in between (large shedding dog). No shoes in the house, but our house is weird and has two buildings almost joined by a verandah, so we do track some dirt in. Honestly, I'd rather wash socks than the floor! D

Good luck, Victorians. Much as we Sydneyites like to make rude remarks about those south of border, we are really very fond of you so please take care. D

Good luck, Victorians. Much as we Sydneyites like to make rude remarks about those south of border, we are really very fond of you so please take care. D

In the first recipe (Joy of Cooking), the rising agent is the baking powder and heat, aided by the baking soda reacting with the acidity of the beer. It's a soda bread. The carbonation of the beer shouldn't matter. In the second recipe, the yeast is the raising agent, feed by the sugar in the beer. The fact the recipe has only a little bit of yeast and sugar is the reason it can sit for up to 30 hours and why it needs a long ferment. It's a proper, old style bread, with similar qualities to a sourdough without the stuffing about. You could probably omit the beer and let the yeast feed on the carbohydrate in the flour, but the flavour may not be as good. If the yeast and sugar content was higher the bread would ferment and smell alcoholic. If it wasn't so bloody hot here at the moment, I try one or both recipes, but I can't stand the thought of lighting the oven. I'll have to let DH drink all the beer instead! D

Prenatal screening for Down syndrome was my PhD topic back in the early 90s. I know the risk algorithm well! Nuchal translucency is only one factor, and is certainly not definitive. Your risk will be determined by a blood test, combined with your maternal age. Maternal age carries a lot of weight in the algorithm, so if you are over 30, with an increased NT your risk will be high. I don't know the current false positive rate (pregnancies that screen positive for DS but where the pregnancy is unaffected) because I haven't worked in the area for a long time, but its usually around 5%, or 1 in 20. Really, the only definitive diagnosis available is a karyotype from either CVS or amniocentesis. Many families decide to get a definitive diagnosis even if they fully intend to go ahead with the pregnancy so that they can be well prepared when the baby arrives. Have you spoken with a genetic counsellor? D

"Math does not come in neatly wrapped one year packages labeled "algebra" or "geometry". Math is organic, all parts interacting with one another. Compartmentalizing hurts more than it helps." This!

The problem with a percentage figure is that its affected by the denominator, ie your total income. While income varies greatly, the need to eat a filling, nutritious diet doesn't vary that much. So its quite possible for me, say, to spend $200 or 14% of our weekly income on food and for this to be a comfortable amount, but for it to be small proportion of someone else's weekly income (not unusual in a dual income, middle class Aussie family), or a whole lot of another's. while the ability of some people to rake in the money seems quite fantastic, there is only so much food you can and should eat. Just because you can't get your percentage figure down as low as someone else's doesn't mean you aren't a creative or frugal housekeeper. It may mean that food has a different priority in your life or that you a have a smaller disposable income, or that you live in a higher COL area or whatever. D

My Place by Nadia Wheatley is fantastic. There is an ABC series which you might find online too. Seven Little Australians I found a bit harsh as a kid, but many like it. Colin Thiele is far better, IMO. Try Sun on the Stubble or Emma Keppler. If you want modern (and silly) try Round the Twist or anything else by Paul Jennings. If you want modern but less silly, try Tim Winton's Lockie Leonard. Not Australiana, but gives an idea of lifestyle and psyche. Check out Homeschooling Downunder's website for the Australian Book Traveller (linked above). Loads of great picture books. You really have to read and/or see The Magic Pudding. It's very silly! Also look at Norman Lindsay's paintings (screen first - he's was considered a bit risque). Check out some artists, especially the Heidleberg School, circa 1880 for some stunning images to go with Banjo Patterson and Henry Lawson's Poetry. The movie version of A Man From Snowy River is nice for middle schoolers Jackie French has a fabulous, very well written series on Australian History: might be a bit much detail but it really is worthwhile. She's very funny but there is no sugar coating of history. Keep in mind that much of Australia's history is still written by white fellas. We are still coming to terms with our Aboriginal past and our shocking treatment of the Traditional Owners. Lots of the details are too awful for middle school. You could try the movie Rabbit Proof Fence, but watch it yourself first. Aboriginal creation legends are fabulous. Try anything by K. Langloh Parker, or search out the Rainbow Serpent legends. Build a model of the Opera House. It lends itself to origami! D

The Brits built an Empire on tea, weathered two world wars, as well as numerous other conflicts, and seem as hardy and stoic as ever. While it might give you a stiff upper lip, I can't see it doing much harm. It's known to fix most minor catastrophes, especially if taken with a friendly chat. Australians drink gallons of tea as well and we seem OK (any problems are due to over consumption of beer....). The biggest problem is sugar (nasty habit) and our avoidance of the "naked cup of tea", ie tea without biscuits or cake. If you eat something every time you have a cuppa, you'll get portly quite quickly, but a cup of tea on its own is fine. If you don't want caffeine, try Rooibos. It's almost the same (almost!) as black tea and you can add milk. BTW, if you add milk to tea it won't stain your teeth as much. D

I like Dr Bronners, but I find it really strong, so the dilution idea is good. Try cutting back the olive oil with coconut oil. Coconut oil isn't as heavy. If you need a cleanser for oily skin, mix olive oil with castor oil and use that. It's seems weird because the castor oil is very thick, but its quite drying. Also fantastic are hemp seed oil and rose hip oil, but they are pricey. Sesame oil is supposed to have an SPF of around 7 - not much good in Australia but better than nothing! I can use some sunscreens with titanium dioxide but I can't stand the smell - its like I can smell metal all day. At the moment I'm using a Dermaveen sunscreen, but not everyday. We'll see how long it lasts! Oddly, I can use Olay's sensitive daily moisturiser, SPF 15, but not the Total effects one, SPF 30. I have no idea why the original is fine and I hate buying it, but needs must! Our UV is rated extreme for 6 months of the year and I need a sunscreen cos my mob should have stayed in Wales with their blotchy fair skin and skin cancer! D