Here’s the back story: my Mum, the Dowager Empress, is the youngest of nine children. Only two others are still alive, both sisters. One of them — the eldest, turning 97 in July — just happens to be a Catholic nun in France. And this year, she’s celebrating her 75th Jubilee of nunhood. Nunship. Nunience. Nunnerousness. Nunerosity. I could go on all day.

Back in March, the Dowager Empress received a card in the mail, inviting her to the “special Jubilee celebration” on 6 June. And although she’s not yet at the carbon-dating stage of advanced decrepitude, she’s still somewhat senior to be contemplating a NZ-France trip on her own. She’s never been there before and she doesn’t speak the lingo. So Your Correspondent, drawing on the experience of three holidays in France and six years of high school French, offered to take her. It took three days to book flights from New Zealand, flights from Australia, train fares from Paris and travel insurance for us both …

… and it’s all for a lunch.

Yes, superheroes, we’re travelling from the Antipodes to France … for lunch. I can live with this, though, having experienced first-hand the type of slap-up meals this convent puts on (it is French, after all). The Dreamboat and I were served a bloody yummo three-course lunch with wine at the afore-mentioned convent when we visited back in 2006.

The fact that I’ve been to the convent once before and met my aunt fairly recently is gong to make things easier for me but it’ll be a very emotional experience for the Dowager Empress and her sibling. This is the first time they’ll have seen each other in 60 years — and it’s probably the last time they’ll see each other in their lives.

The contrasts are amazing — two women, born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, whose lives couldn’t have been more more different. One left home at 18 to join a French convent, was imprisoned by the Germans in WWII, lived in constant fear of arrest in Spain during the Franco era … and the other sailed across the world at 28 to marry the fiance who’d emigrated to NZ three years earlier, and raised four children.

Then you’ve got the setting — on the one hand, thousands of people taking part in the noise and fanfare and spectacle of a massive public sporting event … and on the other, this deeply intimate and poignant reunion taking place in the hush of a convent on the Rue de la Solitude (the “Road of Solitude”).

Part of me is dreading this trip, part of me is excited and another part of me can’t believe it’s real. I do know that once I’m there, I won’t regret it.

Hopefully, the magazine that’s just agreed to buy the story won’t regret it either.

I’m not sure why I like swearing so much. I suspect the reason isn’t too complicated … the shock value, perhaps? Or maybe it’s that as an adult, I can get away with the sort of language that, as a child, would’ve sent my mother grimly rummaging around in a drawer for a wooden spoon.

When I was working in radio, a Media Studies student came to the station for a week’s work experience. After two days of sitting in the cubicle next to mine, she said I swore more than anyone else she’d ever met in her life. I rather liked this. Eventually, my foul mouth wore down my colleagues and one or two of my better efforts were absorbed into the workplace vernacular, like substituting “arseholed” for “drunk”:  I went out on Saturday night and got completely arseholed.

But now I work for myself. I no longer get much opportunity to wow the Great Unwashed with my profanity, so you can imagine how very excited I was indeed to join online knitting community, Ravelry.

Stop smirking.

Ravelry is great. Yes, it is. Not only is it filled with funky fan groups like this and this (enabling Your Correspondent to nurture her inner geek while playing with pointy sticks), you also get to include your very favourite swear word on your profile. You’re invited — nay, encouraged — to do so. Why else would Ravelry’s designers put a blank field next to a label reading, “Fave curse word”?

You can be sure I wasted no time at all in obliging. These Ravellers were my kind of people! I duly typed up my current favourite — fucking mongrel arse-head — and sat back, waiting for all the like-minded cuss-merchants to add me as a friend.

That hasn’t exactly happened. I have just one friend on Ravelry. I think the only reason she added me was because she joined a group I belonged to and automatically clasped every member of it to her bosom. Still, it’s nice to have a “friend”, even if her “Fave curse word” is “pork monkeys” and she’s never contacted me again since and probably never will.

There are times when I wander blithely through Ravelry, hoping I’ll connect with someone — anyone — who’s prepared to bare their all in the “Fave curse word” stakes … but I never have. Most people leave the field blank. Others make weak excuses: they’re trying to give up swearing or they stopped when they had kids (I thought that was when a lot of people took it up in earnest). Then there are the “pork monkeys” brigade; those who use ordinary words (sometimes with exclamation marks) and weakly try to convince us that these are a credible cursing substitute. Here are a few examples I’ve just found: Monkeys! (What’s with the fucking monkeys?) Flangdang; bother; rats; diggity … you get the picture.

It’s a bit disappointing, really. I’m considering starting up a new Ravelry group called “Knitters who think it’s clever to swear”. I want to reach out to them, those special few, those oh-so-lost souls forlornly crying, “Fucking prick!” and “Shithead wanker!” into the void. I will gather them together, offer them sanctuary and then, as one, we’ll brandish our bamboo needles … and really let rip.

Yes, I’ve taken up yoga. Yes, I am aware that taking up yoga, along with taking up tap dancing, are things that Women Of A Certain Age tend to do.

So be it.

The truth is, I like yoga. It makes me less mental. It makes me so less mental that I haven’t really felt mental at all for quite some time now. Maybe I’m cured — how pleasant! But even if I’m not, at least I’m a lot more in control and a lot less fraught and everything’s a lot better for everyone, all round. Thank you, yoga! You’re the tops!

But back to the music. I was looking to download some so that I could have some variety when I practised (which hasn’t exactly happened with any great regularity yet, but ya never know). I found a couple of albums that had the right kind of eastern-y, yoga-y vibe. But then my eyes — oh unfortunate orbs! — fell upon this. Yes, folks, it’s Yoga To Rick Springfield! Well, fuck me dead!

As if assaulting our sensibilities with Jessie’s Girl way back when wasn’t bad enough, now the song’s back to potentially menace a whole new captive audience of poor innocents wobbling through their Lord of the Dance pose.

But wait! There’s more! How could I possibly not mention Yoga To The Killers? Or Yoga To Coldplay or John Mayer or Grease (fucking Grease! What are these people on?) or … wait for it … Radiohead? What the hell am I doing here? wails some poor individual as they struggle not to fall and break their neck in a Crane pose. I don’t belong here …

There are others but I don’t want to spoil the fun for you of finding them yourself. Go on — head over to iTunes or Amazon and prepare to be quite delighted.

I thought yoga was meant to be uplifting. I thought it was supposed to help people become centred and kind of enlightened. Then again, I’m getting on a bit. I might have missed something. Maybe those strangulated hernias acquired from maintaining a Firefly pose don’t hurt so much when You’re The One That I Want is tinkling away in the background.

I’ve saved the worst — or best, depending on how you look at it — til last. Even if you haven’t clicked on any of the other links, click on this one and know the true meaning of “ghastly”. Words almost fail me at its awfulness. Note the demented goblins on the cover. Presumably, this image is supposed to encourage parents to buy the double CD (containing no less than 72 tracks — what a bargain!) for their own kids. But these ones don’t look chilled and centred and yoga-fied. They look as though they’ve been locked for three days in a vat filled with cocaine.

If that cover isn’t enough to convince you that Ultimate Evil does indeed exist and it’s trying to destroy us all through the medium of putrid yoga music, listen to the Track 2 sample … and then tell me there is no Satan. If you’re powerless to stop the forces of darkness from bitch-slapping you a little more, listen to the sample for Track 22. Heaven help you and heaven help any poor kids whose parents foisted that on them for their birthday.

And if you’re thinking of taking up yoga … well, go for it. Just be sure to inspect the instructor’s music collection before signing on any dotted lines. Otherwise, you could be consigning yourself to a very particular sort of hell — where you’re forced to spend eternity in Corpse Pose, with Summer Nights playing on a perpetual loop.

Gand-Agent: Hi, I promised you I’d ring as soon as possible because I know you really want to know the outcome of your offer on the property and I don’t like to keep people in suspense, blah, blah, blah …
Faithful Ham: (thinks) God! Will you just get the fuck on with it?
Gand-Agent: What’s that noise in the background?
Faithful Ham: It’s tango music. We ran away to Argentina. Waiting makes us restless.
Gand-Agent: Really? I’ve always wanted to travel around South America but it certainly has nothing whatsoever to do with all those extremely gorgeous women wearing teeny little skirts, blah, blah, etc …
Faithful Ham: Yeah, so anyway …
Gand-Agent: … blah, blah, congratulations, your bid was successful, blah, blah …
Faithful Ham: (nearly puts fist through window while banging on it to get Frodoboat’s attention, displaces three neck vertebrae due to violence of nodding, then bursts into tears — again.)
Gand-Agent: … blah, blah, papers to sign in the morning so I’ll meet you at the airport when you’re seeing off Frodoboat.
Faithful Ham: (runs back inside and is picked up and whirled around by Frodoboat while David Wenham look-alike barman beams on benevolently.)

The following morning, Frodoboat and Faithful Ham (nursing her throbbing, hung-over head) meet Gand-Agent at the airport.
Gand-Agent: I couldn’t really mention this last night but now that everything’s signed, I thought you should know — the orc rang and made an offer on the property.
Faithful Ham and Frodoboat: (exchange a look that is 38.573% sardonic and 61.427% smug)

It’s right at this moment that a flight arrival is announced. It’s the plane that Frodoboat is due to fly back out on. The luggage is off-loaded … and sure enough, Frodoboat’s missing bag is among it. One of the airport staff takes the bag off the trolley, affixes a new label, and puts it back on.

It would be nice to say that from then on, our victorious couple lived happily ever after.

And so they did … apart from the tiny matter of four hours spent by Faithful Ham in a lawyer’s office later that day because of a misunderstanding (the lawyer’s) over an easement on the property, the subsequent withdrawal and then reinstatement of the offer … not to mention some interesting discussions with Mrs Vend-Or concerning the property’s chattels. But hey, every good story has its Gollums and Shelobs … this one was never going to be any different.

P.S. Hey, it’s 2010. When the hell did that happen?

Before driving back to Nelson, Frodoboat and Hamwise visit the Enchanted Land once more. They’re standing at the gate, filming their surroundings, when a strange chariot covered in symbols pulls up. The driver is an orc.

Orc: Are you the owners?
Faithful Ham: Not yet.

There is a silent passenger in the chariot. He is not an orc. He is merely dull and stupid.

Orc: Not many properties with this amount of land left. What would you do with it?
Faithful Ham: Set it up along permaculture lines … regenerate more native bush … maybe put a B&B on it.
Orc: Well, I build eco-homes. Carve it up and I’ll build all the houses for you. That house there doesn’t look like much. Tear it down, carve up the land, put an eco-village on it … you’d make a fortune. (He uses the phrase ‘carve it up’ twice more in the conversation.)
Faithful Ham: Wow. Your obvious deep love and respect for the land is very touching. Am I going to have to fight you for this place?
Orc: Oh no … my money’s all tied up in properties I’m building in town. I wouldn’t be able to afford it.
(He eventually departs, for which relief Frodoboat and Faithful Ham sacrifice 17 goats, someone’s pet lamb and a crow that got in the way)
Faithful Ham: Babe, if you’re sure about buying this property, we need to ring Gand-Agent right now and make an offer. I don’t trust that guy.

The phone call is made on the shores of Lake Rotoiti, while eating pies. Gand-Agent instructs the pair to meet him in his tower later in the afternoon. When they arrive …

Gand-Agent: Someone else flew in from Hamilton this morning and I’ve taken them to see the property. They’ve already made an offer. I can’t tell you the amount, obviously, but I’ve told them I’ll be presenting yours to Vend-or first. You need to understand that if your offer is unsuccessful, you probably won’t have any come-back.
Frodoboat and Faithful Ham: (shattered)

They put in their very best offer. They’re not optimistic. Gand-Agent doesn’t seem very optimistic either. He tells them he’ll ring them back that evening with Vend-or’s decision. Utterly dejected, they leave Gand-Agent’s tower and look for somewhere to eat.

Faithful Ham: There’s a restaurant in town called Plan B. Let’s go there because I have a feeling we’re going to need one.

The restaurant is shut. It’s a miserable, rainy Sunday night. They start hunting for somewhere, anywhere that’s open. Eventually, they find a nicely refurbished pub with a restaurant. The place is called The Verdict*.

They enter to the strains of mournful violins. The local tango club has booked out the restaurant for its weekly get-together. Beautifully-dressed middle-aged people wander in and out, managing to look simultaneously self-conscious and self-important. An apologetic barman who looks a little like David Wenham (happy, Lizz?) informs us we’ll have to sit in the bar and slum it with the rest of the non-tango personnel.

A few drinks later, the snivelling begins …

Frodoboat: (eyes welling but in a manly way) I should’ve offered more …
Faithful Ham: (blubbering openly) I can’t believe we came all this way, just to lose it at the end …
Frodoboat: We don’t know that yet … we have to keep hoping … but I don’t know if I have the strength … (hangs head over beer)
Faithful Ham: Come on, dear Mr Frodoboat. Snap out of it. I can’t carry this burden of worry for you … and I can’t carry you either, you fat bastard.
Frodoboat: (to the David Wenham look-alike barman) What the fuck are you looking at?
Barman: (whimpers)

To be continued …

* I swear I’m not making this up.

This is the story of a great man on a great quest. The man’s name: The Brave Frodoboat. His quest: to fly to NZ with his hottie wife (The Faithful Ham), inspect a 61-acre property in New Zealand, decide whether or not to buy it, and then fly back … all in just one weekend. His first challenge: to get out of Australia. Unfortunately, Immigration officials at Perth Airport seem to think he’s someone else. Someone on their List. Someone not fun.

Every quest, every epic, involves a series of challenges. When we watch the movies or read the books, we know these challenges are designed to test the hero’s resolve. They show his mettle. They are a device to prove to us — viewer, reader, gods, whoever — that the hero has earned the prize. He deserves it. (Because boy, don’t people hate it when someone they deem unworthy gets their mitts on something valuable.)

Tests are all very nice in morality plays but when things go wrong in real life … well, they just piss you off, really. Having finally convinced the Immigration guys that he is indeed who he claims to be, Frodoboat and his Faithful Ham board a plane for Middle Earth. After a sleepless night, they touch down in Auckland and head to the baggage claim area. Upon arriving …

Frodoboat: I can see your suitcase …
Faithful Ham: Yeah, but where’s yours?
Half an hour and a number of conversations with various airport staff later
Frodoboat: How the fuck could Air New Zealand not know where it is? It’s either in Perth or it’s here. How fucking hard is that?
Faithful Ham: Er … what time is the flight to Nelson? I think we’d better go. We’ll have to buy you some clothes when we get there.
Frodoboat: Fucking harrumph.

A couple of hours later, our sleep-deprived heroes are in a Nelson department store …

Frodoboat: (holding up a grey knitted pullover) What do you think?
Faithful Ham: Wow. A silvery chain-mail tunic crafted in the elven fashion. Immensely strong yet strangely weightless and a bargain at only NZ$34.99. I say, buy it!

With suitable raiment procured, the travellers hasten to meet their guide to the Enchanted Land, one who is wise and wizardly in the lore of real estate … the venerable Gand-Agent.

“Follow me,” he beckons from his shiny 4WD chariot. The pair do their best, although their steed is somewhat more modest, being of the hired persuasion and with its indicators on the wrong side of the steering wheel.

After journeying for an hour, they reach their destination. Waiting for them is a grizzled warrior who knows the Enchanted Land intimately and has offered to guide them through it. His name is Vend-or.

Vend-or: Would you like a cup of tea?
Faithful Ham: What miraculous fortifying beverage is this? Warming, yet also thirst-quenching. Surely, it is the product of the ancient healing lore of Rivendell, brewed by Lord Elrond himself, no less!
Frodoboat: Don’t mind her. She’s a bit tired.

It takes all of five minutes for the Enchanted Land to work its magic … the native beech forest, filled with the melodies of tui and bellbird; the strange fungi (Faithful Ham: What marvellous dwelling for pixies is this? Such a brilliant violet hue! Would that I could witness the little woodland folk dance their fairy dances around it of a full moon eve! Frodoboat: Will you shut the fuck up? You’re really starting to freak me out. I mean it.); the swiftly-flowing stream; to the south, the line of snow-capped mountains stretching east to west with the Wairau River at their base; to the north, the forested hills draped in mist; the duck-pond, the vegie garden, the wood-lot, the orchard; the humble little cottage with its verandah that has a larger floor area than the house itself; the ever-changing sky … and the peace.

Frodoboat: Yeah, well, we’ll think about it and let you know.
(they bid Gand-Agent and Vend-or adieu)
Faithful Ham: Oh my God. It’s even more fucking gorgeous than it looked in the picture.
Frodoboat: I want it. I have to have it. I’m going to buy it. We’ll ring Gand-Agent tomorrow and make an offer. But now, I’m going to check up on the missing luggage.

The pair merrily skip arm-in-arm to their chariot and hasten to a warm and welcoming inn, where they spend the night carousing like it’s 1999.

But trouble and more tests are a-brewing … as they discover the next day. And it’s not all about the still-missing luggage.

The Dreamboat heard me. “What is it?”

“Come and take a look at this.”

He walked in, saw the image on the screen and said, “That is fucking gorgeous.”

It was the most encouraging response he’d made to anything I’d shown him to date. He didn’t like this, for example …

I spent months trying to convince him it was the place for us and yet he stubbornly refused to come around … even though it came with this view:

He had his reasons but I couldn’t help being disappointed. The place ticked every box on my wishlist: interesting architecture, built from native timber, on the West Coast of the South Island, stunning views of the ocean, elevated situation, a bit of land as well as the house, not too expensive …

Unfortunately, the place wasn’t finished. It had only been built to the ‘weatherproof shell’ stage and nothing had been done inside. The Dreamboat had looked at the floor plans on the real estate website and fashioned a deep and abiding loathing of them. So … dream over.

The next place to grab my attention was this:

This place was situated in the middle of the Southern Alps, near a small community called Springs Junction. There was a lot of land going with the property but the Dreamboat was concerned at its remoteness. I’d been planning a trip back to NZ and was intending to check out the place anyway. Until that fateful Sunday afternoon when we both lost our hearts to the idyllic snowy scene, that is …

Exactly two weeks later, we were sitting in a real estate office in NZ, completing the paperwork on the offer we’d just made. The trip, the offer and the surreal events that characterised the entire process deserve a post all of their own. They couldn’t have been scripted better in a movie. Stay tuned for tactics, tears and the tango.

After having decided a few months ago that I was over jobs that were slavishly people-focused, I eventually felt ready to start thinking about possible career alternatives:

• Astronomer and discoverer of a new planet which I would name Vitamin Paul
• Test-driver of high fashion-label shoes
• Owner of a multi Michelin-starred underwater restaurant (like this, but better in unspecified ways)
• Electron microscope photographer specialising in subjects that are ugly and boring (unlike these)
• Dominatrix (people-focused but in a beating-them-up sort of way, therefore acceptable)
• Matt Damon
• Inseminator of giant pandas (well, someone’s got to do it)
• A shaman. Any shaman.
• World curling champion (follow this link only if you must)
• Dictator of a small banana republic (see qualifier for Dominatrix)
• A concubine, but a different concubine to the one I’d considered being on 13 August 2003, this one being quite anti-social and not often in the mood

The conclusion: something to do with animals or plants. The latter won; they don’t shit everywhere or make a lot of noise. And I’ve always loved gardening. It’s been years since I’ve been able to have an outdoor garden of my own but I’ve always had houseplants, even though I invariably give them away every time we move.

So then began the long process of sifting through various distance education horticulture courses, weighing up their relative merits and trying to work out if I possessed sufficient funds and discipline to see any of them through. That’s when and how I discovered permaculture.

The absolute conviction that this was something I had to pursue was so immediate and powerful that I feel a little embarrassed talking about it. There were bells, whistles, sirens, fireworks, neon signs, punches to the stomach and a great deal of throttling. This wasn’t revelation or epiphany; this was GBH.

Like every good convert to every path of righteousness in all of history, I immediately looked for someone else to hook in. And there was my beloved Dreamboat … innocent, unaware, just in the door from work, all pleased to see his mental wife.

“I’ve enrolled in a course,” I told him. “Come and see.”

It was surprisingly easy to convince him. Permaculture design is based on observation and common sense. It also requires knowledge of many different disciplines. The Dreamboat loves all these things. It wasn’t long before he was downloading mini-documentaries and telling people, “It’s the way of the future.”

A lot of things became surprisingly easy after that. They just seemed to start falling into place. A community garden group started in Karratha and I signed up, with the idea of designing the garden for my final assignment. Then I was offered some casual work at a local nursery. I even started dreaming about our settling in Karratha and my starting up some kind of business …

Until this came along …

And we bought it.

Back in February, Your Correspondent lost her marbles. She burnt out, had what amounts to a breakdown, left her job and spent a couple of months hanging out in her living room, gibbering.

Since then, assisted by amazing and supportive husband, The Incredible Dreamboat, she’s been working hard to win back her mental and emotional stability. Her progress towards this has been marked by a series of milestones, which she has chronicled on her blog. She is now rushing to finish off the last few milestones because she’s fucking sick of the whole subject. So, to continue …

Milestone #8 came in the form of an invitation from the Shire of Roebourne (local government) to MC the 2009 Cossack Art Awards — Australia’s richest regional art award and the most isolated art exhibition in the world.

The Shire knew I was no longer working in radio — not a “media personality” anymore — but wanted me anyway. I can’t tell you how much this meant to me.

I had the MC job over two nights: the Sponsors’ evening and the Awards night itself. I worked so hard on my prep and scripts … had my hair styled two days running (ah! the extravagance!) … the Dreamboat bought me a new dress … and when I stood on that stage each night and asked people to take their seats, it was one of the happiest and proudest moments of my life.

I guess because of the abrupt way I’d left my job, I thought of the Awards gig as my “swan song” — my farewell to any kind of public life. On both nights, people walked up to me and said, “Come back to the radio. We miss you!”, which was nice. But what made the Awards job different and special for me was that it was quite obviously all my own work. No-one else could claim it or take credit for it. So when a young woman approached me on the second night, took my hand, squeezed it and said, “Of all the people who got up and spoke tonight, you were my favourite”, I walked on air for days afterward.

You know that revelation thing I mentioned a couple of days ago? That’s next.

That’s why there’s been such a proliferation recently of Dog Whisperers and Supernannies and all those other TV straight talkers — they’re there to sort out the dumb shits who’ve never disciplined their dogs and their kids because they’d rather be “friends” than responsible owners or parents. They’re scared their dog won’t love them any more if they set boundaries. They can’t bear the idea of their sulky four-year-old yelling that she hates them for forbidding her to scribble on the living room walls.

If you’re not sure which camp you fall into, here’s a simple little guide I came up with recently, while drunk:
People who’d rather be liked say “yes” to things they shouldn’t;
People who’d rather be respected say “no” to things they should.

I didn’t enjoy the realisation that I’d been a dumb shit myself, and that working to be liked rather than respected had done me a lot of damage. But I count it as Milestone #7 nonetheless.

So my advice unto ye, oh superheroes is this: go ye now forth and be ye respected, even though thy vengeful hound doth piss on thy footwear and the child of thine loins, upon reaching adulthood, doth sue thee for “mental cruelty”.