No wonder!

Experts talk about juggling family and paid work. But nothing prepared me for the vastness of time once the roller coaster ride of raising children ended; abruptly, three years ago.

I have spent more than half my life juggling my full-time paid work with raising three children.

From the very start, when I ducked out of work to breastfeed to the cacophony of school, after school, holidays, assemblies, concerts, rehearsals, hockey, netball, rowing, violin, art exhibitions, school productions, the Competitions, sleepovers, birthday parties, racing to family day care, university, leaving home, and overseas gap trips; I’ve been going at 200kph for 34 years. These activities times three, PLUS their amazing friends who were regular invaders of our space.

It took me three Mothers Days to understand why a commercially-constructed, one-day-of-the-year left me in tears.

That is:

Year one: Cried all day. Planted pansies. Cried. Roasted chook. Cried. Spoke to kids. Cried. Heard John Williams’ Cootamundra Wattle (thanks ABC radio Chris Wisby) sobbed.

Year two: Husband made sure he had the day off and took me to out to an autumn lunch at Iron Pot Bay, superb. Only cried for an hour before breakfast.

Year three: (last week) walked the dogs, read the papers, roasted a chook, baked a Sicilian breakfast cake (pear and chocolate) and didn’t cry till 7pm when decided I need to start knitting or get pregnant.

Of course there’s a hindsight solution for young mothers. Get a hobby.

Really? Where’s the time to learn a leisure activity when you’re mid-roller coaster?

I’ve come to understand that my tearful reaction must be a little like the traditional bloke challenges of stopping paid work for retirement.

I’m a work in progress; but knitting and Spanish movies help.

I woke early last Saturday.

It was Mothers Day Eve (note, name stolen from the AFL’s heinous cash grab, Anzac Eve).

I’d been secretly excited that a yet-to-open business was holding a sneaky little pop up.

The Bread and Butter pop up came after the Harvest market was cancelled, due to last week’s insane weather.

I’m not really good at early Saturday shopping and generally not often at Harvest, for two reasons:

It’s biologically too early for me to food shop and Saturday mornings I have a work-week hangover and generally can only proffer vague interest in being around other people.

Last Saturday I was up early, crusty but excited.

Two of my very favourite foods were aligned - butter and bread.

Nowhere in the warehouse were those other food groups, meat, fish and veg. In their stead, bread, butter and coffee.

I left HAPPY with two breadsticks, a slab of butter and a piccolo latte.

Up the road, a few hours later, was a “hello, I thought you’d left us” from Jeanette, referencing my recent overseas holiday to Wagga, as I bagged oranges, carrots, spinach and bananas at Ye Old Green Grocer.

Next door I went in for a quick “hello” with Paul at Mondello.

“How’s Richard…at work…? Do you want me to zap your (takeaway) raspberry muffin?” Paul understands my 20-year, hospitality widowhood.

A leg of wallaby from Rose and a chat about her recipe for veal escalope and I headed home to wash the dogs and install my gift to self, our first electric blanket in 20 years!

But that’s a whole other story.