by

28 Days

Yesterday I went for an interview for a communications internship at UNICEF in Sydney. Part of the process involved a writing task, which was to compose tweets and a facebook post on a new campaign, 28 Days. Children are 500 times more likely to die in their first day of life than once they reach one month of age. The campaign aims to support expecting and new parents  to have healthy pregnancies and to prevent fatal childhood illnesses so that babies can survive the important 28 day milestone.

Sitting at my desk I thought about the births of my two children and the choices I had available to me. Opportunities to choose when to have a baby due to available contraception, a choice between having a natural birth over intervention,  a choice to give birth in a hospital or at home, whether to have the baby in a bath or in a bed.

I remember the relief of arriving at the birth centre, knowing the midwives there had helped many women before give birth to their babies. I also knew that should anything go wrong there were qualified doctors and state of the art equipment to assist me.

I was lucky enough to go home the day after the birth of my second child and a midwife came to the house every day to check on us. All paid for as part of Australia’s public health system. There are many cracks in that system but the principal of universal health care is still a tenet of our society.

 

28 days

Moges and his mother, Ethiopia

I look at this photo of little Moges from Ethiopia and his mother. I see the same love a mother has for a child anywhere in the world. I see a tiny, precious life at the beginning of a perilous journey. When I look harder I see a dirt floor and walls and I see that this mother very likely had very few choices about her birth and the subsequent care that she and her baby will receive.

I composed my tweets and facebook post, thanked the interviewers and left. I will find out next week if I was successful in gaining the internship. I see now though that whatever the outcome, my life is full of choices and opportunities, unlike that of Moges and his mother, and I have a responsibility and the privilege to use those choices to make some sort of difference where I can.

For more information on UNICEFs 28 days campaign click here.

by

Travel theme: Beaches

Shells on a beach

Beauty in the randomness of nature.

shells beaches

Whitewashed shells bleached by the sun and surf left in a pretty pile by a fellow beachcomber.

Tamarama beach

Tamarama Beach, Sydney

There aren’t many beaches in Sydney where I can find shells, so when we go to the south coast it’s a treat to go wandering along the shore and see what has washed up. To see more beachy shots from all over the world go to Where’s My Backpack where this weeks theme is Beaches.

by

Book Review: Kitchen Table Memoirs

 

 

169621

Kitchen Table Memoirs would make a gorgeous present for mother’s day. It is infused with the love of family and the triumphs and tragedies played out around the kitchen table. It brought back to me fond memories of growing up in the seventies in Sydney, watching Countdown on a Sunday night, jumping on a trampoline endlessly throughout the school holidays, and the joys and tortures of sitting at the table while family dramas played themselves out.

Prominent Australian writers and foodies have donated their stories:

  • Denise Scott remembers her mother’s kitchen table as a hub of activities including tea drinking, smoking, sewing and tanning children for gym competitions. She describes what it feels like to witness her mother’s Alzheimer’s as she reshapes the history of the kitchen table to help her cope.
  • Dan Stock describes his experience working and eating as a chef at the River Cafe.
  • Helen Garner reflects on the different tables she has purchased for different phases of her life.
  • Annabel Langbein enjoys sharing a workers lunch in Italy.
  • Valli Little describes a kitchen table left behind with her parents in England when she leaves to live in Australia.
  • Martin Brown points out the merits of table climbing learned while living in a shared household as a student.
  • Elizabeth Cashen reveals what she learned at the table as a patient at an Eating Disorders Clinic during a difficult period in her life.
  • Barbara Santich’s childhood table taught her to enjoy the preserving of fruit, jam making, bread baking and the happiness of preparations for Christmas lunch.
  • Jean Kittson describes the journey a table takes from generation to generation with her working class family in the countryside. The table is a country where babies are bathed, pipes are smoked and family tragedies and triumphs are played out.
  • Tony Wilson’s brother is laid out on the kitchen table after a trampolining stunt gone wrong.
  • An adult Jane Caro tries to talk to her mother at the table about growing up that she has revisited in recent therapy .
  • Jessica Adams realises that growing up in Australia had a lot to do about sitting down to dinner in front of Countdown every Sunday night.
  • Bruce Esplin talks about what it was like to sit for his wife Roz’s Archibald portrait prize entry.
  • Gemima Cody grows up in the school of hard knocks and travels the world to find her way back home.
  • Spiri Tsintziras sits at the family table at her parents’ house with her own kids.
  • Ben Robertson finds a love of family and his table.
  • John Tully works as a chef in the Antarctic and prepares an extravagant Midwinter dinner.
  • Stefano de Pieri enjoys the ritual of an Italian Sunday lunch with his family and friends  in Australia.
  • George McEncroe is one of a family of seven so table room was at a premium growing up. She now has four of her own small children and the table conversation is priceless.
  • Simon Marnie talks about finding and eating Australia’s first truffle and the genius of chef Tim Pak Choy.

A percentage of royalties from each book sold will be donated to Foodbank, Australia’s largest food relief agency.

Note: I was given a copy of Kitchen Table Memoirs to review for MumsDelivery.