Once upon a time there was a group of people at a party playing ping pong. There were drinks and food and everyone was having a great time. At the party there was a mixture of single friends and couples and even a few children running around.

The ping pong game wasn’t competitive at the start but soon became a real competition. They were playing doubles, round robin style. Everyone was forming teams and lining up to play the winning team.

At some point, someone suggested that there should be a prize. There was a lot of debate about the nature of the prize and it was finally settled that all the losers would have to pitch in and buy the winning team a bottle of decent wine each. Once this was decided it became clear who the wine drinkers were.

Bruce and Margie were lined up with everyone else waiting for their turn to play. Everyday Bruce and Margie drank a bottle from the case of Shiraz they kept in the corner of their 2 car garage. None of their friends would have thought that they were so unhappy that they needed to dull the pain of existing together with wine. It had been a number of years since they felt comfortable in each other’s presence without drinking.

One day when work had become routine for both of them and there were no children to distract them, Bruce suggested that they have a glass of wine with dinner. Instead of talking about anything meaningful they discussed the wine and its many aspects and fruity notes. This became how they passed their time together. Because of that they didn’t really know each other anymore.

During the ping pong game they just naturally stood together as a team without speaking. They didn’t know if they could work as a team, especially with something so fast as ping pong. They both stood there waiting for their turn wondering what would happen and wishing they could just step back and not participate. And because of that they were feeling anxious and wanted to be anywhere but standing in that line, together, waiting to play ping pong.

When they were about 3 teams from the table, Bruce had an idea. Without saying a word to Margie, he stepped out of line and grabbed his vintage black and white camera. Bruce announced to the group that he thought such a momentous event should be recorded for posterity.

Margie was left standing in the queue alone while Bruce walked around the table taking photos from various angles. Before long Margie was next in line to play. It became clear that Bruce wasn’t putting down the camera any time soon. In fact he hadn’t glanced in Margie’s direction for over 30 minutes. Margie, as casually as she could, left the line and went inside on the pretence of needing to use the toilet. She stayed inside wondering how her life had ended up like this. Until finally she walked outside to find that the ping pong games was over. Frank and George had been crowned victors and Bruce was busy taking lots of photos of them. It was while watching this scene that Margie realise that this wasn’t the life she wanted. She knew that she had more to offer and wanted a partner in more than just drinking mediocre Shiraz.

Calmly Margie walked over to the hosts and said her farewells. Resolutely she moved towards Bruce and…

Once upon a time there was a couple of middle class parents from average backgrounds who dreamed of giving their children a life more exciting and adventurous than their own. They found they both had a passion for the mountains and set about finding a house to fulfill their dreams.

On a holiday in the mountains one Easter the perfect house materialized. A mountain house with a stone fireplace, pitched roof with exposed beams, tree trunks as supports and an attic for the children’s bedroom. The girls squealed with delight when they saw the attic and begged their parents to buy the house. Thus was the beginning of their mountain adventures in ‘Cold Play’, their alpine home.

Summer in the mountains, they were to discover was just as special as winter when there was snow. There were trips down the mountain to swim in the disused quarry. Surrounded by pine trees with a jetty, a pontoon and a rope swing, the parents felt as if they were swimming in a lake from an American school summer camp.

There was bike riding along the historic rail trail and hiking in the ever changing Alpine National Park.

Winter though is magical, when a blanket of snow covers the ground and the sleepy village comes to life. Although there are many more people around there is also an uncanny silence in the mountains in during winter. Early in the morning walking with fresh snow underfoot you can only hear the crunch of the snow under your boots and the occasional cry of the huskies nearby.

When snow starts falling the whole family get excited. Falling snow is like the best Christmas present imagined, it doesn’t matter how many times you have played with it, the novelty never wears off. This is the place where the whole family can be happy away from the everyday realities of city life, their little bubble.

The perceptions of those with a house in the mountains is often that they are rich. But this family chose to buy the house to give their children a life rich in experiences, rich in family time away from everyday distractions and rich in memories. Already that investment is paying off with the girls becoming more courageous and adventurous than their parents could have ever imagined.

Follow my 2016 Winter adventure on the Facebook page Cold Play, Dinner Plain

Eeeeekkkk, now I will have to write!!

Writing sucks balls. Big, hairy, hangy, veiny, lumpy balls. It takes years of procrastinating, actual blood, and a significant amount of wailing. And never have I wailed so hard as when I realised that Caitlin Moran stole my book. Ok, not stole it, just, you know, wrote it first… and better. After I read How to Be a Woman and I cried because she’d written what I’ve been trying to write my entire adult life and I felt like my life purpose had been maliciously filched by this incredible person that I wanted to loathe, but begrudgingly admired. I’ve considered calling my next book Caitlin Moran Stole my Life, but that doesn’t seem fair to either of us.

Maybe I just need to get over myself and write my own story, in my own words, and let my festering jealousy percolate quietly in the background where all good festering should fester. But my own story feels like an anomalous non-story – a mash-up of odd things. And not a cool Peter-Gunn-meets-Every-Breath-You-Take mash-up. More like Edelweiss-meets-Never-Gonna-Give-You-Up mash-up. You know, daggy.

I started life in an in-between place. Not quite Italian, not really Australian. Not Australian like my friends were: Chicko Roll eating, choc-milk drinking, football-loving Australian. I had leftover Italian meatballs in my lunchbox and ate gnocchi every weekend at my Nonna’s house. But I couldn’t speak Italian and I could sense my father’s discomfort with his Italianess, so it was never celebrated either. We didn’t make tomato sugo or stomp on grapes or sing. We ate and were maudlin and never went to football games or ate Chicko Rolls. It was confusing. Basically I had an identity crisis as far back as the womb, when my dad said he wanted a boy and I was already growing girl bits.

So I was dramatic and withdrawn all at once. And I fought, with my sense of self, my talents, my sex, and with everyone around me. And now here I am, feeling like I’ve swallowed the world and with a story stuck in my throat. One that I’ll never cough out. And it aches. Like my father when he thinks of home and snow and mountains. Like my mother when she yearns for adventure. But maybe this is my story. This stolen, not stolen tale of building a girl.

I am built from many things. From my father’s house. From white rendering and Italian tile. From the smell of spaghetti that makes you weep to be fed. From my Nonna’s thick thumbs. From rose gardens and the smell of frangipani. From a sister who held my hand. From a mother who weeps for the sorrows of the world. From Grandmothers who buried their husbands. From a quince tree in the backyard. From strong women. From bike rides and gumboots in the creek. I am from pig farmers and professors. I am a writer. Yes I am.

https://simonnemichelle.wordpress.com