Category Archives: Personal

Moonlighting

A moody moony Monday evening on the water with my pair partner Orla. Photo: Steve Yanev

So yeah I’ve been writing for someone else. About rowing. And not even my employer (although I did get permission).

My sister-in-law Lara, she of The Junk Map fame, has started a new website to help us navigate life after kids. It’s called You After Kids.
It is basically EXACTLY what it says on the tin and she asked me to write about my experience taking up rowing as a (nearly) empty nester and how it has led to firm friendships and fabulous FOMO induced fun.

Here’s the article: Could Rowing be Your Path to Fitness, Friends (and Dolphins!)

I would like to share some of the lovely comments I’ve received on Facebook since it was published from rowers all over the world and here in Perth.

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And this lovely DM:
Hi Sarah, i row at FRC and having read your article felt compelled to send you a message. Something I wouldn’t normally do. But what you wrote is exactly how I feel about rowing and to know that others feel the same too was really quite lovely. I’ve had a smile on my face since.

I’m so chuffed that my little article was so well received. I hope you check out Lara’s website. Maybe you’ll be inspired to write something too in which case post a link below so I can check it out! Here’s some guidelines.

Or… you could come rowing?

morning light on a perfectly still river, the clouds reflecting in the water.
You cannot get the smile off my face when I show up and the water is like this. November 2021

I am a curly girl

I’ve always thought of myself as someone with straight hair. Mostly straight.

Which is a bit odd given my mother and son both have ringlets and my daughter has also got soft curls in her long hair.

So this weekend I thought I’d try the curly girl method and see how curly my natural hair is.

The CGM as it is known was developed by Lorraine Massey (Interview) and has a few principles that anyone can follow:

  • No shampoo
  • No sulphates
  • No silicones
  • No alcohol (apart from certain fatty alcohols)
  • No brushing or combing when dry
  • No cutting when wet
  • No blow drying or irons
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Hugo has been using the CGM for some years and is a master.

He told me my expensive hair treatments are riddled with banned substances and recommended his supermarket conditioner.

Hugo has spectacular curls. Note my straight (blow-dried) hair.

Of course I had already washed my hair with my expensive and naughty products.

Even so, it turns out my hair does have quite a lot of natural curl.

My natural curls

Not ringlets but definite curls.

So watch this curly space. I am going to keep going with the CGM and see how curly I go.

Stand by for silk pillowcase.

The All Consuming Life

Sunrise at UWA Boatclub

This my friends was the day that the world found out that little Cleo Smith had been found alive. Some good news after a week reeling from some of the worst.

It was such a beautiful sunrise, full of hope and promise.

I thought after my last post that I would be back every day… well at least once a week… but it is harder than I thought to get back into the habit and well, life has been distracting consuming every second of brainspace.

Remember Brain Space with Tim and Debbie? I used to do a fair impersonation of Debbie when I was 14. I digress…

I have been educated in Jewish funerals since we last met. And I’m impressed. I like the fact that the coffins are basic and everyone gets the same. Fancy shiny coffins that cost thousands of dollars make me feel slightly ill. What a waste. I like the fact that people are given mandated space to grieve. I like the thought of carrying a square of cloth for a week so that you are carrying your beloved with you. I appreciated the beautiful singing of the rabbi and the message that we carry the legacy of the passed by acting as he would have acted. There were eulogies but no flowers, no photos, no video montages, no sometimes dodgy music selections.

I don’t want to be buried but I liked the way the congregation was invited to help fill in the grave. Three shovelfuls. Put the spade back in the earth between people. Standing in the dirt, it felt real.

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Vale Russell. You will be missed.

Selfie corner

So this could become a regular segment. Last time I added a selfie with Elizabeth, today I bring you Jen who I caught up with for the first time since school back in 1983. Yes we had what I call school back in those days before the internet.

Me and Jen

My memory of Jen was that she was one of the cool and a bit naughty day girls. Way more cool than me. She remembers me as brainy. Not sure where she got that from. Oh wait. She must have heard my Debbie impersonation.

I’m afraid she couldn’t tell any of my work colleagues any incriminating stories. I mean my nickname was Doris Day and you can’t get straighter than that. Very boring for them, and me.

But it was lovely catching up and finding out about nearly 40 years of each other’s lives and how they intersected.

Putting the red in redsultana

Meeting Elizabeth
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Oh yeah. You noticed the hair?

Well my friends my hair has been on a journey. From long, dark brown, round-brush-curled locks, to light-brown shoulder length bob, to fully grey, you find me now, a ranga. Fully ginge. A matchhead. Red.

I’ve always loved red hair but never really thought about it for me but we were in lockdown and the day it lifted I had a hair appointment.

But I can’t blame the one week lockdown (yes, I’m in Perth, Western Australia).

Really it was a combination of sustained lobbying by my husband (who really didn’t like the grey) and seeing myself in videos and photos.

The day I changed my hair


At my greyist

Reaction has been mixed. The husband says he likes it. The parents are wondering when I’m going to change it. I’m also not sure. Some days I love it. Some days it’s too much. Those days I avoid mirrors.

Mostly I forget that it’s red.

Elizabeth

You might also be wondering why I’m posting when my last post was 2017. You might be wondering why I bother renewing the hosting. I know I do.

Well last week I was at a function in Midland and Elizabeth came up to me and rather than talking about work, said she had enjoyed reading my blog!

This has NEVER. HAPPENED. BEFORE.

Sure back in the heyday of 2008 I’d get the occasional lovely message. At the blogging conference in 2010 sure people said nice things. But an out of the blue complement at a non-blogging event. Nope. Never happens.

Elizabeth you might be my only reader these days and I thank you for it and for reminding me why I used to love this space.

The tale of the emergency underwear

photo of the emergency underwear I bought - comfort bra and briefs

So I’m riding my bike to work and it takes about an hour.  I was listening to the Radiolab podcast about American Football and it was surprisingly interesting.  I mean, Radiolab is always interesting so that wasn’t a surprise but it was a surprise that I was interested in American Football.  Anyway it got to a cliffhanger moment and then my new bluetooth headphones ran out of juice.  (yes you told me that would happen Rory)

As it turned out that was lucky.

Left to the whistling static of the wind rushing past my ears my thoughts turned inward.

I went over my morning so far, and then started thinking about my day at work and what I needed to achieve…

Roster changes, program development, campaign monitoring… which led to what I’d be wearing at work and I thought about the dress I’d popped in my bag and how easy it had been to pack this morning and how streamlined my organisation was and then goldfish like I went back to how I packed my bag and I realised that I might have been a bit too streamlined.

Now I blame Pia for this.  She is the one who sold me her Rotto bike.  A brand new bike with suspension and more gears than you could possibly need.  She’s a serious cyclist.  To underline how different we are as cyclists – I REALLY like the basket on the back of my bike.  I would choose to have a basket.

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Apparently they are specially designed to wick away sweat so if you wear undies you just end up with soggy knickers.

So there I was undie-less on my way to work suddenly aware that when I got to work I would have NO UNDERWEAR.  And my little dress, well let’s just say it’s not a dress you can go commando in.

I was about half way to work so then the dilemma – do I turn back?  Nah that would really delay me getting to work.  Do they sell undies at the local IGA?  Dare I risk it?  Could I get away wearing my sports bra and no undies?  Keep the bike shorts on all day?  Ewww.

Luckily I still had to go through Subiaco and I remembered there was a supermarket that I was pretty sure opened at 8am which would be the time as I cycled past.

Mission Emergency Underwear.

Actually the comfort bra is pretty comfortable.

Collegial hair


the hair style

 

This is my colleague Gill’s hairstyle today.  Classy.  Neat.  Effortless.  According to her.

Here are the instructions:

  1. Put your hair up in a high pony (make the lacky quite tight – my elastic broke on the third circuit)
  2. Make a hole in your hair between the elastic and your head and thread your pony through from back to front so that you end up with a weird backwards ponytail at the front.
  3. Pull tight
  4. Take the ponytail and roll it over front to back and tuck in the tail in the back.  You might need a pin.
  5. Voila!  Looking gorgeous.

Ummm….

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me and my new style

Hello cocky!

Hmmm your hair is quite springy…

Maybe this is an end of the wash cycle hairdo for me?

Maybe the ponytail was too high?

Requires a little more work methinks.

 

Hip to the Groove

Hip to the Groove

This story begins in Bali in 2011.

We were walking along the road with my teenagers and Abi’s teens and we were discussing (I think) how “up with it” Abi and I were.

I said.. “C’mon, I’m hip to the groove…”

Thereby proving I wasn’t and they all fell about laughing.

Fast forward to 2014 and Imogen has been heard using the phrase in conversation to mean “trendy”.

Which is why at a screenprinting course I decided to immortalise Hip to the Groove in ink.

I went to the day long session with my brother Michael (an artist) and the aforementioned Abi who, in her spare time, themes events.

Both fair to say, artistic.
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Me, I’m in radio, not a visual medium, unless you count spoken word pictures.

To say I felt a bit intimidated is an understatement.

Anyhow I was pretty happy with my freeform Hip to the Groove design and very happy when the teacher showed me how to do a rainbow print.

Until.

Until I showed this photo on my phone to a colleague.

“What’s Kip to the Groove?”

Sigh.

 

Fluoro fetish

It all started back in summer when I noticed a fellow at our rowing club in a fluoro shirt.

Hard to miss him actually.

fluoro

We could see him clear across the river.

In summer there are a lot of boats on the river and when you’re in a single you’re hard to see.  So we thought… why don’t we make a zootie with a fluoro top.

As you do.

So we did.

Well we got it made and as we swanned around the club in our new fluoro zooties more and more people followed suit (zoot).

So then we thought… fluoro beanies.

And then I went to a fluoro themed party…

Fluoro Party

And then I thought well to get a bit of extra bit of fitness I’d try and ride to work once a week = more fluoro.

Now I own a lot of it:

  • Zootie
  • Beanie
  • Shell
  • Raincoat
  • 2 vests
  • Turtle shell
  • shin guards
  • socks
  • cap
  • tech shirt
  • hair bands
  • sports bra
  • kit bag

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I just see fluoro and immediately think I have to buy it.

I suspect I may have to exercise some self restraint.

Maybe.

The death of blogging?

My hair has grown, I have new glasses.  Yep it really has been a while since we chatted.

this is me

Back in 2007/8 I was a daily blogger. No detail of my life too boring or mundane to inflict upon the world… and you dear reader.

My opinion on who should go in Big Brother.  Things seen on walks around the burb.  Book reviews.   Random comments.

Sometimes there were photos, sometimes there were not.

But there ALWAYS was something.

Then Facebook happened.

Yes of course I blame Facebook.  Is that lame?

All those little things that caught my eye are now on my FB profile.

The photos so easy to upload.

I can share the bits I want to with the people I want to and they don’t have to come searching for it.

All the comments.  All the likes!

It’s… seductive.

So my blog has been neglected.
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Reserved for the important things.  Things that are worthy of more than a sentence, a photo.  Which means… nothing gets posted at all.

And yet.

And yet I see others still blog.  Where’s My Glow?  Karen Cheng.  The Food Pornographer.

What’s their secret?  Are their lives so much more interesting than mine?  Is it having a theme?

My life is all eat, sleep, row, repeat.

Well that and work.

I feel like I’m boring you when I write about it.

And now here comes the epiphany:  In 2007/8 when had enough material to blog everyday, I was doing practically the same as I am today.  (just replace rowing with bridge)

I didn’t go on particularly interesting trips.  I didn’t have so many more fascinating encounters.  I wasn’t any more interesting than I am now.

So… it must be Facebook.

Has social media killed the blogging star?

 

(obviously I’m not referring to myself as a star… simply referencing that old Buggles tune)

Obsessed

I fear I have become boring.

Really boring.

Apart from Groover who is not backward in coming forward with jokes about how long it’s taken me to bring up the ‘R’ word, most people humour me and to them especially I apologise.

It’s just that… I think I might be in love… with rowing.

That’s a bit sad no?

Well of course it’s not just rowing.

I love being part of a sporting club, wearing the ugly uniform, hanging out with people who don’t think I’m weird for getting up at 5am in the middle of winter to get wet on the river.

I love the kit… the cute light for the bow, the special waterproof socks (hopefully to arrive any day now), the thermals, the custom made zootie I wear at training, the polo fleece headband, the videos on good technique…

I like the feeling of getting fit – of not needed to reach for a puffer at the end of a race.  Of feeling the oar grip the full length of the stroke (doesn’t happen that often).

I love the coaching tips – really the first time I’ve been coached since I did ballet in my pre-teen days.

Sure.  It might wane.

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The honeymoon will soon be over.

Until then, I apologise.

I will try not to bore you with rowing tales.

And family – thank you for your patience.

In the meantime – funzies with imovie trailers:

And this is one of my races… turn your volume down!

*Exhibit A