Hello, hello!

Today Malcolm and I have lived in Australia for thirty two years – I don’t count being born here and then leaving the country for twenty three years.

And two days ago Malcolm and I had been married for thirty three years. Neither of us can understand how this could be possible since we aren’t any older than twenty six and twenty seven respectively. Even more puzzling is the fact that Chloe appears to be thirty going on thirty one. Good grief: how could this be?! And that’s enough about Chloe. Forever. She is now a qualified teacher and was offered six full-time permanent jobs at the end of her teaching course in November, much to our delight and her ecstasy. She begins her career‹teaching History, English and French at high school level‹ at Loreto College in Adelaide, on January 22nd. A teacher must have her privacy. I mean, imagine having your students read all about you on your mother’s website. Blagggh. In future I will just write CIDFAIWAH which will mean: ‘Chloe is doing fine, and is well and happy.’

In between this hot news and the last hot news an entirely different ‘hot news’ got lost so my apologies for an apparently long silence. It was unintentional. One of the pieces of news that got lost was the report of my very happy visit to the Australian International School in Hong Kong. I adored it! Great kids, brilliant staff, super shopping!

I have survived 2001, clearly. So have both my adored parents, amazingly. But the stress and distress associated with their crumbling is indescribable. The time it takes! The emotional see-saw! The anxiety! The grinding of teeth in my sleep! But I am grateful to have them still, and grateful also to be living in the most peaceful and gorgeous place in the world, away from any real trouble such as war, famine, repression, religious fanaticism or political turmoil.

Australia politics have disgusted me, however, in 2001. Our attitude to refugees is heart-breaking, humiliating and sickening. Australia is the best country in the world unless you have arrived recently and have no English and no employment. How we, who are usually such sunny people, can be so cruel to those less fortunate than ourselves dismays me.

I haven’t written a picture book or even part of a picture book for a year, for which I am secretly thankful. Those of you who have kept up with this website will know how much I detest writing picture books because they’re so easy to write badly and so impossibly difficult to write well. I only love writing picture books when they’re published and I’m reading them to an enchanted audience of wide eyed children. But I do have three great new ideas for picture books and will begin to write them as soon as I am orphaned. i.e. when I can make the time!

My sister is Jan here from Italy to take over the parent-shift so that tomorrow Malcolm and I can go to Vietnam and Cambodia for a much needed two week holiday. My little sister Alison (’Lailu’) is already on her vacation. It’s hard for us to escape family duties at this time in our parents’ lives so Jan’s arrival is a huge blessing.

Last week I phoned Jan to tell her how I had just made some scrumptious pumpkin and sweet potato gnocchi from scratch (using an icing bag, for heaven’s sake!) and she was in the very process of doing the same in her own kitchen in Italy! We freaked. It was hysterical. Cooking is one of my favourite pastimes and Adelaide has the best fresh food in the world (am I biased?!) so it’s easy for us to thrive on a quintessentially Mediterranean diet. It’s sort of like Tuscany in the southern hemisphere. Bliss.

In the last two months I have been honoured with not one, but two awards. Embarrassing really. (Those reading this outside Australia need to understand that it is compulsory for Aussies to be embarrassed by awards. It’s part of our national character.) The first was from Flinders University: the Convocation Medal for outstanding international achievement. And the second was on the state’s birthday: December 28th. It was an SA Great Award (South Australia – SA – is the name of the state I live in) for services to literature. Both occasions were terrific and made me feel ‘great’ too, for a moment.

There’s probably more that you’d like to know but I haven’t packed for our holiday yet and Malcolm is yelling about bedtime so a very happy New Year and may 2002 be absolutely fabulous for all of you!

Love

Mem Fox xxx