Ahem. Is this thing on. Hi. I’m not sure if you remember me but I used to work here ages ago. Then I left to write novels, which is what I’m still supposed to be doing but then there was a pandemic and the schools closed so now I’m an unqualified governess to two, shall we say, spirited children. I used to write a lot about them when they were little — their funny turns of phrase and how much they were teaching me as I muddled thorough early motherhood. But then they became bigger children, who can read and know what suing someone means, and I had to acknowledge that as such they had human rights, one of which was not to be mined for lols online by their attention-starved parent. That’s when the novels came into it.
Right now I’m struggling with the fiction writing, even though I’ve got a contract for more books. That’s a pretty terrifying thought. So I thought that I might dip back in here and waffle on a bit while the Havers of Human Rights work on some literacy and maths on all the computers we own (I’m writing this on my phone). I’ll try to talk more about me than them and my goodness what a treat that will be for you all.
A little catch up for the new kids: I’m Jess. I live in Sydney, with my husband H (that stands for husband, it’s not really his initial) and my children, known on here as May Blossom and Garnet. May Blossom is almost 11 and Garnet is 8 and a half. They are bright and funny and sensitive.
H runs a business from home, and is a very equal partner in the running of the house and our life. This fact means that I have a great deal of help with my wifely duties (not THOSE wifely duties), so it’s long been something of a mystery to me that I find it so unbearably hard to do all the things an adult is expected to do: help keep the house tidy and clean, cook, keep on top of grocery procurement, keep everyone in the correct size and warmth of clothes, not cry all the time, attend to the health of two cats, be a reasonable friend and daughter and aunt and sister, keep myself fed and exercised, attend to general life admin.
Last week I learned from a new psychiatrist that this is because I have ADHD. I am forty-two. You could have knocked me down with a feather. Then I would have lain on the ground staring at the ceiling rose for ages, and then googled what kind of feather it was, and then thought a lot about feathers and particularly about feather beds, and then spent some time recalling how interested I was in the bed fillings of the children in books I loved as a little girl. Laura Ingalls and Heidi both had hay-stuffed mattresses, which sounded cosy to me back then but which now I fear might be a bit prickly. I suppose it would depend on how thick the fabric they were stuffed into was. My parents had a mattress on their guest bed that was made of horse hair. Guests hated it.
Anyway, ADHD. I don’t know. It might explain some things. I’ve never had trouble sitting still class or at work. I’m pretty bloody sedentary for a diagnosis with “hyperactivity” in it. I did very well at primary school. High school was harder, and I definitely daydreamed a lot more than I listened (because MY STARS the Peloponnesian Wars were really just stunningly uninteresting. So many islands. So many naval sorties. Herodotus can get in the bin.)
Apparently one symptom of ADHD is that you’re fine concentrating on things you find interesting, it’s just boring stuff that your brain will go to any lengths to avoid. I thought that was just how brains worked. I’m still not a hundred per cent sure it’s not how everyone is and it’s just the weak and pathetic who can’t force themselves to just get through the tough stuff.
The doctor tells me that girls often manage fine with ADHD in primary school and even through parts of high school if they are quite smart (there’s a compliment in there somewhere), and it is true that once there was more required of me in life (what is colloquially termed “adulting” because what are the young people for if not the verbification of more or less everything) I started suffering from anxiety and depression.
Long story short (‘SHORT?’ I hear you scream. ‘We might have to have a bit of a chat about the meaning of short’): I haven’t done my tax, I’m struggling to sit down and write my book, and I’ve just started on some ADHD medication this week. What a time to restart a blog!
Now all that’s out of the way I will try to write more normal fun stuff for you every few days. Perhaps I’ll tell you about how H and I have been watching Line of Duty and now we amuse ourselves by speaking only in police jargon. Perhaps I’ll tell you about what I’m cooking. Perhaps I’ll talk more about Mattresses of Yore. If there are things you’d like me to talk about, leave me a comment on here or on Instagram. I love messages and comments. Mad for a chat, me.
It’s nice to be back.
Sometimes, as a parent, you reach a point where you kind of sort of maybe think you might just ever so slightly have gotten your shit together. Your kids are well and happy and they seem to like going to school and preschool, and they don’t have set their minds on owning something that is completely out of the question, like a Lego Hogwarts or an actual lynx.
This weekend, the Sydney Opera House will come alive with challenging premises and audiences will wrestle with a variety of thought-provoking concepts when the 
Today it’s H’s and my seventh wedding anniversary. According to some website or other the appropriate gift for seven years of marriage is either made of copper (traditional list) or wool (modern list). I’ve been trying to find a good gift for H. You’d think wouldn’t be that hard since copper is currently very much In Fashion. For a year every catalogue and homewares website I’ve seen has had nothing but bloody copper: clocks, beds, kettles, prismatic vases and picture frames. But do you think I can find one solitary knitted copper jumper? I cannot. And I’ve left it too late to knit my own.
Another long weekend, another virus or two lay waste to the House of Gusto. The past four days are best described as ‘not at all in any way resembling how I made it look on social media’. The illness struck the extended family this time, with nine of us coming down with some or all of nausea, vomiting, fevers, coughs and body aches. The kids added a common or garden variety cold to the mix, to keep things fresh, and so on Easter Sunday night May Blossom ended up screaming in pain from an infected ear, and barking the house down with croup. Because we were at my parents’ place in the country, we set the bush telegraph to work and located a vintage 1980s humifier from some local friends, which got her through the night, along with regular doses of Panadol and Nurofen. First thing Monday morning we hightailed it back to civilisation and steroids and antibiotics. Today we have applied a heavy dose of sofa and Netflix, which seems to be helping.
I’ve been so tired and befuddled this week that I have just realised that there are only four days left to threaten my kids that the Easter Bunny will take a flying leap past our house if they don’t stop that immediately. I don’t know how I could have been so remiss. And it’s been the perfect week for it because Garnet’s been sick since Friday – first vomiting and then coughing – and he has been about as easy to reason with as a chipmunk with rabies. Rabies and gastro and a cough.
Life With Gusto 