I love the smell of Lynx in the morning

Published on 30 September 2016

We’re well into the first week of the school holidays and therefore deeply immersed in the murky cloud of parental guilt and anxiety that always descends as we leave our children behind unattended and set off for work everyday. While the texture and colour of our guilt has varied as they’ve grown, it never fails to cosy up to us as the end of each term approaches.

These days we’ve left behind the fragrant meadows of Holiday Camp Valley where the primary concerns were taking out a second mortgage to pay for the camps and meeting the accusing gaze of your solitary child and the camp staff as you hurl yourself through the door for pick up at 5.59 pm. Late. Again.

Now we’re deep among the Treacherous Teenager Swamps where the fetid air drips with testosterone, the gorges pound with gangsta rap and every time you glimpse a clear path ahead it disappears in a puff of smoke, leaving a lingering smell of Lynx and unwashed socks. Surviving holidays in this place means accepting that from now on, as your darlings roam Sydney shopping malls in pungent packs or spend days glued to screens downloading the wisdom of SnapChat, you will never, ever again really know what they’re doing, where, when or with (or to whom). Because even if they were prepared to tell you what they’ve been doing, Teenagers are unintelligible so you will still be none the wiser.

I find there are only two ways of dealing with the waves of guilt and choking anxiety that assault me when I consider all this.

First, alcohol. Equal measures of gin, Campari and vermouth laced with Katie Swift Blood Orange cordial, to be precise.

Second, bribery and extortion. Specifically, expensive trips to exotic locations and overpriced Nike footwear.

Coughing up for the second is much easier after you’ve indulged in at least two of the first…

Of course October school holidays aren't all guilt and penance. There are lots of lovely things to celebrate about this time of the year - the AFL Grand Final, the start of daylight savings with the heady promise of long, summer days to come and the arrival of all those gorgeous spring and summer fruits and vegetables we’ve been craving for the last six months like asparagus, broad beans, celery and fennel.

All of which will be available tomorrow morning at our place courtesy of Gorgeous Georgie’s fresh fruit and vegetable stall. From 8.30 am til 4.00 pm.

Have a wonderful long weekend!