Ho hum

I’m not good at this blog thing am I? But honestly I would rather be living life than writing about it so that’s what I do.

Anne Bonny’s Locker has been open since the first weekend in December; not enough sales for me to get of NewStart and Bungee has had to find other work (casual/part time), but the business is managing to pay its own bills, just can’t provide either of us with a reliable income.

Shortly after my last entry I started to be concerned that I may be breaking Fair Trading law as Etsy did not make it clear that prices were in US$, they have now fixed this so I’m filling the shop again; no official sales as yet however.

The tests for Lupus came back negative, but the symptoms continue as before. I am seeing a new GP who may be able to help with the arthritis, and I’m getting a B12 shot every four weeks.

Winter is beginning to sink its teeth in, though we are still getting the occasional warmish day. Bungee still hasn’t finished the renovations on the kitchen, so the house is going to be freezing again this winter; I should make a curtain for the door from the kitchen to the hallway to block some of the draft.

After about seven years of living with a vague diagnosis of CFS and six of sero-negative inflammatory arthritis, I really can’t afford to dwell, but over the last two years the symptoms seem to have been getting worse—a core reason for my move from St.Kilda—despite keeping to a healthy vegetable rich diet, a slew of vitamin supplements, gentle exercise and practical acceptance of my limitations, while at the same time not letting my limitations completely stop me from participating in social activities: it is a difficult balance, and when my limitations kick me in the butt it is . . . frustrating . . . infuriating . . . and yes, depressing, though thankfully not “clinical depression”.

I live with some level of constant pain, thankfully most of the time it is like background noise, but then (often without warning) burning pain will stab, make me catch my breath and I have to consciously breathe through it to keep myself from crying. One of my great pleasures in life was dancing, now even walking can be difficult; the anti-inflam medication I’m on seems all but ineffectual, one toe on my right foot has been swollen since December 2006 and for the last month or so it’s neighbour has joined it, so the one has become two though the pain is not limited to those two toes, nor to the visible joints.

Other symptoms are something called Raynaud's phenomenon (mind I’ve had that for almost two decades without knowing its name), ulcers on the back of my tongue, a swelling in my throat causing me to feel as though I am about to choke (I often gag when brushing my teeth), constant mucus and regular blood nose, or blood spotting when I blow my nose (I had yet another blood nose this morning as I lay in bed trying to ready my body for rising).

I’ve had the major vein that runs on the inside of my arm opened for the normal slew of tests; each time these tests come back more or less normal. Urine has also been collected, x-rays taken and nothing significant has been seen. Thankfully no one worth paying any attention to has suggested my symptoms are purely psychological; the few who have, have generally been connected to the job search agencies I’ve been assigned by Centrelink; that’s right folks, despite my treating doctors filling out long forms stating that I am generally not fit for work—and even when I am, my fitness is not reliable—I am still on Newstart rather than a disability pension and required to look for work because a bureaucrat has deemed I am capable of working 12 to 20 hours a week. The truth is I am capable of working 12 to 20 hours, sometimes, and I don’t seem to be able to sustain that level of workload without a dramatic worsening of my symptoms, this was confirmed yet again over the last month as I’ve pushed myself a little harder than I should costuming The Lieder Theatre’s production of Cinderella (check my Flickr Photostream for the ball gown) which opened Wednesday evening and will run for the next few weeks.

I see a specialist every four weeks to get a Vitamin B12 shot, I think it helps a little, and the last time I saw him on Thursday 2 October, he sent me to be tested for Lupus as even though the tests have been negative or inconclusive in the past, the symptoms all seem to point to that diagnosis. I was meant to get the results back the following Monday but every time I have called or dropped in, Dr TW has been busy with one emergency or another and apparently has not had time to return my calls. Today I have an appointment with the GP who referred me to Dr TW a year ago; I have to renew the referral. Dr K (the GP) is an odd and vaguely paranoid man; the only reason I am seeing him is that he bulk bills he isn’t completely terrible and I don’t have the energy to continue GP shopping as my main health issue is the underlying “condition” (whether CFS or Lupus) and Dr TW is monitoring that.Anyway, I’m hoping Dr K will have the Lupus result for me.

Not a lot new to report with Anne Bonny’s Locker, it has been one delay after another and while it looks like we will be open in a few weeks, I feel like I have been singing that song since late July; I do worry about how my health issues will affect the success of the business, but more on that at a later time as I fear I’ve exhausted myself with this entry.

It really felt like spring at about 8:00 this morning here in Goulburn; there was actual warmth in the sun for the first time in months; sure the forecast is for a clearing shower and a top of 10°c, but I am sure it will get to at least 13°c and am so confident that I put on a load of washing even before I made my morning coffee.

The Bureau of Meteorology predict a 14°c top for Monday and, wonder of wonders, 15°c for Tuesday—Goulburn has not enjoyed such warmth since the start of June . . . or possibly even late May.

Anyway, I am thankful for spring; it has come just in time—the winter electric bill arrived yesterday and it wasn’t pretty even though I was trying very hard to be conservative with my use of the heater though I did manage far better than I did last year, halving the average daily usage from 41 kWh to just over 20 kWh. I’m looking forward to the transformation of my garden with my peas and beans bursting into flower and I’m confident the lettuces and greens as well as my herbs which have struggled through the frosty winter months will just take off in celebration of more clement days and nights; when I went out to pick some mint for my coffee I felt my plants singing with joy at the early morning sun.

Money is very tight at the moment; Bungee has been in Sydney all week working with his sparky friend and camping in the Magna at a caravan park to save driving. He has had a few bad days, but overall I can hear him getting more and more confident in his abilities. He should be back in Goulburn this evening.

I still haven’t made any Esty sales, but clothing was always going to be difficult over the net. I’ve put the grocery bags up on eBay and Mintd and I’m looking at a few other “home made” or “direct from the designer” e-commerce sites. The big problem with Etsy is everything must be listed in US$, so when the exchange rate changes all my prices in my Etsy shop are wrong; the AU$ has dropped from around US$0.96 to US$0.87 over the last fortnight or so—I’m offering a 10% discount to any potential buyers as the thought of editing the price of everything in store is just too daunting.

As for the co-op, well our friend who will be running the café has been very ill; Bungee is looking at opening up the space as “Anne Bonny’s Locker” to sell antique and vintage furniture three or four days a week; stay tuned for that one folks.

Finally, Bungee asked me to promote the Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation, his brother’s grass roots NGO which has been officially helping Vietnamese street kids beat the poverty cycle for over four years now. I know there are a lot of worthy causes in this world and no one can support them all; but seriously folks, Michael and his team are making a real difference and in a way that the larger NGOs (such as the equally worthy World Vision) can only dream of. You can read Michael’s blog here: http://vietnamstreets.blogspot.com

PS I forgot to add, The Annual Triple R radiothon is on, listen to them in and around Melbourne at 102.7 on the FM dial, or stream them over the net; then subscribe just like I have for many years, because the world is full of too many crappy commercial radio stations and life is too short to endure listening to all those “hits” you couldn’t stand the first time round.

Oh so cold!

This is the most brutal winter I’ve ever endured; Goulburn is cold, so very cold! The overnight low regularly drops to −5°c, and a day feels balmy if it reaches double digits and the sun shows itself. Yesterday was not such a day, though it began promising, the forecast was for snow—I doubted the prediction more fool me—mid afternoon the already low temperature dropped sharply and a sleety rain was suddenly frozen flakes of actual snow. Ahh, yes, even the memory of the stunned realisation leads me to an over use of redundant adjectives; but I did have the presence of mind to pull out my Nikon and record the event to pixels.

Half renovated California bungalows are not suitable for a semi-alpine climate. If I were to design a house for myself in this district I would avoid brick like the plague, I would probably go for thickly insulated small weatherboard cottage, double or triple glazed windows and a northerly facing glass conservatory.

Of course I am unlikely to ever have the money to build my own place and if I ever was to be “propertied” Goulburn would not be my first choice; last Sunday (eight days ago) Bungee and I went to a clearance sale in Moruya and as I’ve not seen the south coast, he took the long way home via a detour to Bega and Tathra to look at the old wharf; I instantly fell in love with the country south of Narooma, it seemed largely unspoiled, indeed it looked as if the land had been respected and loved gently by all who had come to call it home since European settlement.

I despair at the impoverished windswept bareness of the county around Goulburn; grass is burned brown by frost in winter and by lack of rain in summer and yet those who settled here to graze sheep in the early 1800s cleared it of almost every tree; it was a crime against the land, a slow murder that breaks my heart and feeds an impotent anger within me.

Despite the cold and minimal rain, my garden bravely defies the elements to my repeated amazement; the snowpeas I planted in late autumn are as high as the top fence (though flowering there is no fruit as yet, if you’ll allow me to refer to peapods as fruit) and I’ve herbs, rocket and other salad greens to harvest.

Since my first and only post here in January the row of sunflowers I planted next to the drive have blossomed with flower heads big as dinner plates; the largest measured 40cm across, 30cm if you don’t count the outer petals.

I have in fits and starts worked at landscaping and relandscaping the front garden; I decided to turn it from scrappy weed infested lawn to a cottage garden accessed by an internal path of recycled bricks. Winter revealed that oxalis was rife, so I’ve lain down a thick layer of newspaper covered by underfelt left out on suburban Sydney kerbsides for council hard-rubbish collection. I’m hoping to suffocate the oxalis and other weeds before laying the bricks; but have noticed on exploratory raising of the underfelt that the weed lives up to its reputation of a study constitution.

Employment wise, well, my heath has not been compliant; I had a part-time promotions job for a “family photographic studio” in Canberra in December and January and ended up making myself very sick with fatigue and the arthritis in my feet hobbling me with pain; this is possibly the primary reason I did not return to this blog after my first post; I’ve bitched and moaned a little in online fora (None Of Our Representatives Will Call, Upsize This and Our Patch) to some extent, but in a blog it seemed a little too self-indulgent for me and when I was feeling a little better I preferred to get out in the garden and commune with the earth and nurture the potential of my little garden.

Bungee, who had been growing more and more dismayed at the politics and upper mismanagement of the business he had worked for the last six years, decided it was time to move on and devised a cunning plan to start a vintage furniture business in Goulburn; the initial plan was for him to work part-time for another employer while I managed the store most days in his absence but another plan was sought after we realised commercial rental was way out of proportion to commercial reality. Apparently 90% of Goulburn’s commercial property is owned by about two families who have a mafia like attitude to any businesses that may compete with their own and so shops remain empty because of their short-sighted greed. As Bungee and I were coming to this realisation, a friend of ours at the Goulburn Club approached me with the idea of forming a cooperative around a café she would run in the club’s unused downstairs rooms, so a plan was laid down to hopefully open by the end of June.

In April Bungee gave notice to his boss and for the last month of his employment he was transferred to the Canberra branch and moved out of his weeknight accommodation in Bowral back to Goulburn.

In the tradition of the best laid plans of mice and men; things did not come out as we’d hoped—the co-op is happening but been delayed by complications and the essential renovations of the space and no one expects to be open before mid-September. Bungee is doing some casual contract work for some old friends so he doesn’t completely exhaust his finances.

As for me; I’m still on the dole and trying to work out what exactly I am able to do without causing the CFS and arthritis to cripple me completely. Fingers crossed and touching wood, I think I have a toe in the literary door with a proof reading gig for a young local writer who has scored a five book deal with a major publisher. The money is not great, but there is an audition aspect to the gig and if I do well it will lead to more work and then the gods willing I will banish the writer’s block which has held me back the last 18 months . . . I’m not about to count any chickens as I’m still waiting for the eggs to be laid.

Finally, I’m trying to sell some of my stack of “Bone Couture” and “Cyndy Kitt” sample and returned consignment stock on Etsy; www.cyndykitt.etsy.com There has been no real “joy” as yet, but it’s all in the trying and I hope you’ll at least have a look at the items I have on offer and check back regularly to see what new items I’ve listed.

Till next time, adios etc., and may you receive sunshine and rain in bounteous equal measure.

Cyndy Kitt