Daily happenings

The kids are in bed, ex is at work and it's time to sit and catch up.

I'm glad to say that business in the pub is picking up. Perhaps people are over being scared about the global economic downturn and things are returning to normal. Perhaps not, I really don't know.

I signed up with my two friends here today to go to a health farm. You stay for a week, they give you 3 vegan meals a day, give you some cooking lessons, I can get a massage, they let you sit in their spa and generally enjoy the quietness and then you come home. Am I interested in vegan-ism? Not really. Am I really going as a way of getting away from the kids for a bit and perhaps I'll lose a kilo or two? You betcha! I need a holiday, I need exercise and I need a good kick up the arse about my health, which is not too bad but I worry about the effects of getting no exercise at all. 4 nights and 5 days will make me RM 1000 poorer but I think it will be worth it - and not having to hear the word Mummy for a little while is rather appealing - just a little while mind you. My daughter will be fine, my son will cry, but be OK.

Went out for breakfast this morning with my mum in law. We had roti chanai (flat bread, fried and eaten with a chick pea curry) and drank teh tarik like real locals. All for of us ate for about AUD 5. The breeze was pleasant and the sky was bright. Very pleasant, although my MIL did find it necessary to tell me that I should be using moisturiser with an SPF of 30 - why? I don't know - maybe I'm looking dry and old.

The kids followed her home and I stayed home and did some serious housework, like cleaning floors and drains and shit. Yuk. Really sweaty, smelly stuff, but needed to be done because the lovely girl that cleaned for us has run away. Yep, she's absconded from her employer.

These girls (they do call them maids here) come from Indonesia and work in Malaysia on two year contracts living with families as a live in cleaner/baby sitter. They can earn as much here in two years as they could in ten years back home. So it's a good deal for them if they have a good employer. We had a live in maid once and she ran away after I'd left for Australia. After she left, we decided not to employ another one, so we got this girl to come clean for us twice a week. She lives with a family who contracts her services out to people like us who don't want someone living with them. She was really good, too. She'd have the whole place clean in 5 hours. I felt sorry for her because these girls work so hard, sometimes 3 5-hour shifts a day and they don't get any extra money - no such thing as overtime for them. I tried not to give her too much work to do.

Anyway, she ran away because her employer reneged on letting her go back to Indonesia to see her mother and children. Her contract was up and she was due to go back anyway, but her employer wanted her to stay back and work. She must have felt like she didn't have a choice but to run. She'd been preparing for this trip for months, collecting clothes and things to take back to her kids and then at the last minute, someone tells her she can't go. I think I would have run too. I feel for her and hope she's OK and with her children now. But, truth is, no-one knows whether she got back or not.

My head hurts and my hands are dry and itchy from something I ate or touched today. I don't know which one it was. But it's time for bed. Tomorrow is another busy day, got the kids chinese tutor coming in the morning and I'll be busy preparing some materials for the autistic centre and getting the kids stuff ready for school and trying not to stress out.

'Night.