Adelaide, Australia

Hello, again from Mem Fox. Remember me?

It’s sad, isn’t it, when websites are left to rot. They look so unloved, poor things, so dusty and so horribly faded. I’m so sorry.

Daily bloggers (how do they do it?) put me to shame but, hey, my long absence from this Hot News Space is good news, not bad: it shows I have a life after all.

Last time I wrote I still hadn’t been to Italy on vacation. Now I have, and I came home with excellent memories, a serious chest infection, and brilliant food ideas.

Italy teaches a lifestyle that the entire world could copy: family and work seem nicely balanced; and food takes ages to prepare, and ages to eat, and ages to rave about, and it’s healthy and delicious and interesting. I’m crazy about good food so for me Italy is food heaven. (So is my house, mind! I adore cooking slow food that tastes sensational and reeks of good health.) My bother-in-law Giuseppe is a sublime cook and I learnt a lot from him, such as using a sprig of rosemary instead of a commercial brush to drizzle olive oil, chopped sage and garlic on to aubergines slices before they’re grilled. Mmm mmm.

My sister Jan and I often sat around talking from breakfast through to lunch in that typically holiday way, lazing through the hot days as though work had disappeared forever. Divine.

Back to reality, and to Australia, in late July with a hacking cough that took eight weeks to recover from. The cough made me tired and grumpy (I hope no one noticed except Malcolm, who complained a lot, I have to say!) at a time when I was excessively busy.

For six weeks in August and September I felt as if I were giving a presentation every second day in one corner of the country or another, and on my days off writing new presentations for the events that were yet to come. My brain creaked from overwork, frankly, especially as the audiences I was speaking to were very diverse, from switched on teachers in New Zealand to the nursing staff at the old people’s home where my parents died (about my perspective as a “child” of demented parents); from community health centres to fund raising for Chloe’s political campaign; from a children’s hospital nurses’ conference to a parents’ evening at a bookshop; and from teacher workshops to the local school. (The only schools I’m energetic enough to visit these days are the two that are four minutes from my front door.)

I was explaining to the children at the school that my name was in fact two words, not one: Mem Fox. In the streets around the neighbourhood, in the local shops, and on the beach I’m always called “Memfox” as one word, which is adorable. “Hello, Memfox! Is that your husband, Memfox? Memfox, are those your dogs? Are you going for a run, Memfox?” I said I didn’t mind at all being Memfox but that they should know the name appeared as two words on all my books. A five year old boy put up his hand and said: “Memfox, why don’t you put Mem DOT Fox, then everyone would KNOW it was two words.” Brilliant child! Why not?!

On Tuesday this week, when the hectic run of work was over for a while, I went out to get the paper before breakfast, before my shower, before I’d brushed my hair, before I’d put on my makeup (and I wear lot of makeup) and before I’d dressed. The paper had fallen behind a large oblong plant pot, made of cement, with rather jagged edges. I walked right into it. AAAAAAAAARGH!

Malcolm was the Saint of Calm in Dire Circumstances and rushed me to hospital. I now have twenty stitches in my right leg (it took over an hour to be stitched) and we had to cancel a five-day break in far north Queensland (Australia) because I can’t get my leg wet for two weeks, and what’s the point of going to far north Australia if you can’t swim?

Kids, remember the book Tough Boris, where I say: “All pirates cry and so do I”? I didn’t cry when they put iodine on my leg, even though I felt like screaming. I didn’t cry when the six local anaesthetic injections went into my leg, even though I felt like screaming. And I didn’t cry when the doctor was very slowly stitching my leg, even though I felt like screaming again. But I did cry when our five-day break was cancelled because I was SO tired and so longed to lie around reading and swimming and sleeping. So you see I do cry, even at the age of 58. Crying is seriously OK. I feel better after I’ve cried, much better. I just LOOK terrible.

My leg is not a disaster but Iraq is, of course, and our Prime Minister pretends that it isn’t which makes my blood boil. We are in the middle of an election in Australia, with two weeks to go. Both Malcolm and I are voting for Chloe, amazingly. She is the federal Labor candidate for the seat of Boothby in Adelaide, where we have lived since 1971, a seat held by the Liberal party since 1949, so it will be hard to make a dent in it, although she has run an excellent campaign as well as continuing to teach full time. I’m so proud of her. She’s as tired as I am but still running. I have come to a halt.

Happily for both of us, Malcolm, in semi-retirement, had been a fantastic support. He refuses to accept any of the limelight, won’t appear in TV programs, and won’t be interviewed or photographed. He can’t bear all that stuff. I don’t mind. Two egos out of three are probably enough.

Nothing to report on the writing side of my life, except a few ideas percolating as the result of sitting meditatively on my sister’s terrace in Italy one evening while day became night and the surrounding mountains were folded slowly into the dark. A book may appear in the next seven years or so with the title: Where The Giant Sleeps. Or it may not. You know how I loathe writing picture books. It’s so hard. We’ll all just have to wait and seeÉ

I am off to the USA again in October/November to seven different places, or it is five? Either way, it looms as a lot of work and travel and exhaustion and fun.

Thanks to all the lovely Australians and New Zealanders who have given me so much support and such wonderful reactions to all the talks I have given since July. You make my life hilarious and fabulous and rewarding. I’m so lucky.

Lots of love, Mem Fox (and all the best to Mark Latham!)