Interesting. Apparently the current levels of Covid in the community in NSW are at one of its highest as well. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-01-09/nsw-sydney-covid-variant-virus-pandemic-hospitalisations/103298610

In our high school (year 7-12, so from 11.5yrs to 17.5yrs), we had a half hour recess and an hour's lunch each day. This was partly so groups like choir and so forth could meet during the lunch break. NB in Australia.

I'm glad. I love downtime. I definitely spent whole days reading when it was school holidays.

So I've heard that with a chronic cough you are supposed to get a chest xray to make sure it isn't lung cancer. I don't know if that's the case in the USA.

Had to walk half a km to the bus stop and back. Then running about at school, games and sport etc. We had a farm so lots of walking about there, we used to bushwalk by ourselves a bit which involved a bit of clambering over rocks. We rode our bikes around the place. We did not do any out of school games or sports or anything. We did have swimming lessons during summer, maybe a week's intensive, and we swam when we went to the beach. I was always last in the school races for everything as I was the smallest, but it did not bother me. My kids don't do much either really, just lots of walking and playing and riding bikes. We do try to go swimming once a week (heated pool) and do one other activity such as indoor rock climbing which they like, and they also have Scouts which involves lots of movement games, hiking or biking.

All the fast food places didn't reach our way till I was in my teens. Reading @Ausmumof3 meals sounds familiar. I went crazy when I left home and went to university and had access to all the junk!

I was 11 in the mid 80s in Australia Breakfast - toast (white bread) with margarine and vegemite. I drank water, didn't like juice. Recess - likely fruit (apple) and perhaps a homemade piece of cake or similar. My mother was at home with the younger kids (big family) and did bake. Lunch - likely to be a vegemite sandwich or a chicken sandwich using leftover chicken. Afternoon tea - might be pikelets or similar if Mum had baked. Dinner - Tended to be meat and veg, so chops and boiled veg such as peas, zucchini. Ugh. Before bed if we were hungry - apples.

Wonderful author; I found him via his mentor Roger Deakin whose book Waterlog I picked up one day. I highly recommend his work alongside McFarlane's books. You can listen to a lot of the Lost Words songs on youtube and I highly recommend the picture book which is enormous and beautiful.

I've just discovered that free (government funded) walk-in mental health clinics have opened up in Australia. One has opened up locally. You can literally just walk in with no appointment and get free mental health support. They also have a free hotline. I'm kind of flabbergasted that something so useful exists!

So I got a personal air filter for overseas travel (Respiray I think?) and it felt too weak and useless, and just awkward to wear. The only use really was when we were waiting at the airport and it was incredibly hot, as a little fan!

Hearing more and more stories locally about Christmas being derailed by Covid. One guy who isn't elderly (prob in 50s) was saying he caught it on the 22nd and is still only able to get up, cut up some fruit for breakfast, go back to bed, get up, do one thing, go back to bed. Sheer exhaustion (and nasty cough). Another lady, elderly, today was coughing and told me she's still positive (was wearing a mask at least, but I told her she should head home until she's negative).

There's heaps more for kids locally than when I was young - and there's a higher expectation that you'll take kids places. We lived on a farm and my parents worked all the time - we helped, played outside or read books. Nowadays there's a playground within walking distance and heaps more within driving distance, along with a few play centres (eg ninja warrior, trampolining, bowling). Oh, and heated pools with splash pads for kids. The local community organisation runs youth programs too (I say local, we're rural, it's half an hour away). I do agree though that screen time has changed everything. It's really hard. I'm enrolling my boy in 'summer day camp' here just for a screen break because it's so exhausting to be so constantly vigilant esp as I'm working every day. If we didn't have screens my kids would be living the same sort of life as I did - outside, bushwalking, biking, lots of reading. Because of screens they're outside far less, read far less, and have to be forced to bike or bushwalk. They do creative things online of course, coding and drawing and so on. Some of it is really social (D&D online). I just accept my kids won't have my childhood, they have their own childhood.

Have you read his other book Legends and Lattes? That is the ultimate cozy fantasy - I read it a lot. The Tea Princess series also fits into this (starts with a coup of tea I think). I was able to read a lot of books in the last two weeks. I downloaded 8 to take away on our trip and then read two more. Since coming home I've downloaded a few more but back at work now. I enjoyed Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross which is a YA fantasy about 2 war correspondents during a divine war - I've downloaded the sequel now. I read a Korean fantasy called the Dallergut Dream Department Store which was a fun read but a bit light weight. I also read The Witchwood Knot which was a gothic fantasy/romance by Olivia Atwater - I recommend this author, she's very thoughtful. The romance is always very mild but the ideas about social justice within a regency/victorian setting are really interesting. I am back to re-reading Lois McMasters Bujold and saw excitedly that a new Penric will be coming out this month. For those who haven't read them, the Penric & Desdemona books are a wonderful series of novellas that she writes exclusively for ebooks. They are very deep, brilliantly written and positive fantasies. Brilliant for your vocabulary, she always uses very interesting words!

my friend hosted NYE get together last night and sent out a message that she was RAT testing beforehand - which of course reminded us also to RAT test - which meant we were all a bit more comfortable about hanging out together.

That is a great question. Basically most people start with The Hands of the Emperor. She has written stuff set before, after and kind of sideways to that book. The other series - which is sideways to the above - begins with Stargazy Pie. I would say like most of my favourite books, there are flaws in her books. But what I like is that people are striving to be good people. There is a high value on poetry (esp in the second series). Overall, kind and very much positive.

Thanks for those recommendations, I've downloaded them today. I started with A Thousand Ships - which was your favourite of Natalie Haynes? I read The Women of Troy a week or so ago (Pat Barker)and thought it was good, although a bit traumatising. I also read Ithaka by Claire North but didn't enjoy that one. I also don't track my books. I read a lot already and tend to move between fiction and non-fiction, fantasy/sci-fi and literary fiction. I joined a book club this year which introduced me to a few books I hadn't read before or wouldn't have read otherwise. I would say Victoria Goddard's books have been the great find of 2023. But I can't remember if I started reading in 2022 . . . I've certainly read a lot of them in 2023, though!

Happy new year! We are spending a quiet day at home before work begins again tomorrow. Cool and rainy here in Sydney - a nice mild way to begin the year.

If you have the space, get them pod style or therapy style swings - the ones you can really nestle into. My kids love them, using them to read, pretend to be circus people, swing intensively and so on. We have gone through many swings, they get used all day every day on our verandah. The outside swing not as much due to weather or mosquitoes. Second idea is stuff to do up a room. I got my son for his 11th bday the whole space thing from IKEA (bought online) - the curtains, bedspread, sheets, wall decorations and plushies. I got my husband to take him to a friend's house then did up the whole room, it was a great surprise. I tend to buy xmas and bday at the same time for mine whose bday is so close to xmas.

I don't have any practical solutions but do want to give my sympathy. I went to the psych with my child this year and tried to get her to back me up on internet limits. Nope. Was told in front of child that she was intellectually about 19 so therefore we had to back off and give her internet freedom. Well, she is gifted, but she's 12 and has no life experience. I don't think she's googling porn (I know she isn't - I have qustodio on her device), but I want fewer hours before bedtime so she sleeps! I feel like some of the psychs just don't have the experience in this field. A friend of mine whose child also has both ADHD and Autism was told to allow her son on instagram so that he could be part of the social scene. As you can imagine it ended up with major bullying because he could not understand the social nuances. You are in an even more stressful situation in the USA because guns are accessible. My kids make jokes about guns as 'dark humour', but of course over here they've never even seen one and probably never will. I feel for you and I really hope you find someone to listen to you.

I don't think it's 'kids these days' - I was the same in my 20s. Had no aspirations to buy a house, was quite sure work would fall my way forever and I'd write the great Australian novel and be rich. By 30 I owned nothing, not a car, not a bike lol! Everyone is different - my 2 sisters were married and babies in early 20s - but I wasn't ready for anything till 30s. I did however have my degree and lots of varied experience in my field (and very low living costs, not drinking/smoking/having expensive tastes). I am going to do whatever I can to ensure my kids have a marketable degree of some sort in something they're interested in. But if they're like me, they might job hop and do all sorts of weird things in their 20s. If they have to return home a few times, well we've got the back shed they can live in if necessary!

You can do an undergrad (3 years) in any discipline and then do the 2 years Speech Path masters degree at Charles Sturt - so you could start with a science degree and see how you go - after 3 years you could decide whether to do Speech or Vet science.

It's the same in my area - it's unusual to go to uni, almost every boy leaves to do an apprenticeship and a lot of the girls end up in hospitality. Do give uni a go, though, don't let HECS put you off. I did my master's online and it was great fun. So much better than in person. And if you're planning to do special education, most of the cost is covered by the government anyway. You can even start with one or two subjects.

I know we can get free RATs at the library here in NSW. I think you can get them in SA if you have a health care card (and apparently you don't need to show proof?) But I agree, as soon as they're free or low cost I start to worry they're not actually working. When my friend's family had covid, they used their own ones - came up straight away - and then the free ones from the school - didn't show up at all.

I got the Brooklyn wrap dress. My mum was like, oh you should buy a couple in different colours . . . then I told her how much they are (around $150 but double that really now that the Aussie dollar is so low).

I also downloaded 8 new books on my Kobo to take on our trip and they were all pretty good, so that was a major 'hit'. I was glad to see my husband enjoying the books I bought for him, so I guess that's an extra 'gift' for me for Christmas.