Author: Veronica

I bought a new vegetable peeler – spotted in Coles, identical to my old beloved one. It made me incredibly happy, right up until the necessity of it made me sad. But, it peels vegetables like a goddamn dream.

I also bought a new potato masher, but we are NOT going to talk about that fucking atrocity of a thing. Sure, it’s sturdier than the last piece of kmart shit, but I feel my potatoes were more “beaten into grainy submission” rather than mashed, and the stupid little holes took forever to wash.

SO. We’re still on the lookout for a good masher.

In other news, everything remains exhausting and hard work. We spent Friday turning the one large middle room in the studio shed into two smaller rooms, because now that we’re the proud owners of a tiny bit of ‘leccy, Isaac couldn’t stand to sleep in the bus anymore.

And that’s fair – the kid beds in the bus are definitely “small child” sized, and Isaac is very tall and was sleeping squashed up like a pretzel.

It was A LOT of fucking work, but Nat and I moved the wall (honestly, moving the wall framing was the easiest bit – it was moving everything else that nearly killed me).

And then Isaac got home from school and looked at me and went LET’S BUILD A BED AND GET THIS SHIT SORTED and I died a little, but remember, pretzel sleeping.

So we built Amy’s new bed and I died about seventeen more times from exhaustion, and my hands wouldn’t work, but SUCCESS I have two teenagers sleeping in the studio bedrooms and one (almost) teenager still in the bus – but at least Evelyn still mostly fits into her bed. I think. I should ask her about that.

I found some excellent books at the op-shop the other day, and they continue to make me happy, even as I mourn the loss of ALL my books. I swear, half the burned ashes of our house were books. And y’know. All my other stuff.

We’re in a bit of limbo at the moment – Insurance is almost ready to pay out (FINALLY OMFG IT’S BEEN ALMOST FIVE GODDAMNED MONTHS) but we’re waiting for our mortgage holding bank (commbank) to work out whether insurance needs to pay out the entire sum of our mortgage first.

Messy, exhausting, and I do not like it. The property assessor will be out Wednesday to decide whether there’s enough market value left in our land to make the mortgage “safe enough” for commbank to hold onto.

Very fucking annoying, and exhausting, and stressful. Our insurance amount was small enough as it was (hideously underinsured, because running a business from the property involving oils made us a fire risk – which hahahahafuckingha it wasn’t even the business that started the fire, and I was still paying $300/month to insure less than half of our shit) and I really don’t want to attempt the rebuild with even less money.

Of course if that’s how it all plays out we will still rebuild, it will just be harder and tighter, and I will be much grumpier.

ANYWAY.

We have the electricity on, and we’re just waiting for TasNetworks to inspect and sign off on the initial works. We have a toilet and shower for the winter – even if I’m super mad that I am having to walk through the outdoors to pee AGAIN, I thought I was OVER that stage of my life. We have a new gas hot water heater to install, so hopefully the wind won’t make the hot water turn off repeatedly anymore – again, cold showers are not my idea of fun.

And the bus has heating, so here’s hoping we don’t freeze to death over winter. Hurray for not being in tents anymore.

In the meantime, go buy soap. I’ve been working (fairly) solidly (when I’m not exhausted from teenagers making me build beds) and (some) things are restocked pretty well.

Yay, soap. Also we ship to the US, UK, New Zealand and Canada now, even if the postage prices are eyewateringly grim. Sorry about that.

And thus passes another Friday, without Insurance finalising anything. I’ve been hearing “you’ll hear from us by the end of next week” for so many weeks in a row, the saying has lost all meaning to me.

I rang them today to chase things up, and was told they needed more time because they’d had to request an updated scope of works? Very annoying, and very frustrating. We’ve been back on the property for three months now (as of yesterday) and we’re more than four months out from the actual fire.

However, excitingly, we DID have the Aurora contractor come and install our electricity meter today, which means we are ONE STEP CLOSER TO ‘LECCY!!

I’ve let our electrician know we have meters now, which means next week he can make the magic juice flow through the power lines into my studio shed/bus!

Sure, half the light wires are still a little melty in the ceiling, so it’s not exactly a *small* job, but we might have power soon! SILENT POWER (well, as silent as electricity ever is). No generator noise, omg. Also no generator fuel bill (also OMG).

In other news, my gorgeous lovely foster kittens, Elsa and Yelana, are doing beautifully, and the cat netting arrived so I can rig up some sort of entrance to my studio from the cat enclosure, which will allow Tom and Crumpet to move inside.

In other other other news, my house insurance premiums are set to rise to $467 a month as of April, so omfg, I think I need to shop around. I hate to lose any insurance, but we cannot afford that.

Blech.

The grief comes in waves, and it’s always triggered by the small stuff – the things that ought to not be upsetting – not in the wake of something as enormous as this. But there it is. Today I am missing a potato peeler, as I struggled to peel potatoes and it took me 10 minutes longer than it normally would to peel potatoes for dinner.

Amidst everything, it’s that stupid white potato peeler which was consistently good and sharp for more than ten years. It’s my knives, some of which I’d had for more than twenty years, my hands worn into their handles. My space, my life, my rhythms.

I organised two new foster kittens last week, and they arrived yesterday. My husband worries I am doing too much, have too much on my plate, that I’m not resting enough. And he’s right, of course (don’t tell him) but it’s kittens or a nervous breakdown, and at least now I have hissy babies to kiss on their little heads, and something else to keep my hands and brain busy.

++++++

I can feel the seasons changing, in the bite of the wind despite the sunshine. Autumn is here, and Winter is coming and I still don’t have mains electricity. It’s been twenty one days since insurance rang and said “we will probably have an answer for you early next week”. More days than it probably should have been since TasNetworks said “within five business days”. But hey, people are BUSY you know.

++++++

We spent last week moving my mother in law into her dementia unit – early onset dementia is a bitch of a thing, and it’s breaking my husband’s heart. The transition went relatively well, considering, and some judicial application of sedatives helped a lot, but it meant no one else saw her at worst. That was a special kind of hell, saved for Nathan and I, as she begged not to be left, demanded to be taken home, told us she wasn’t staying, no thank you she was done now. And our hearts broke, but we did it anyway, because sometimes life is a bitter pill to swallow.

Sometimes you just have to do the shit things, even when you don’t want to.

But no, “she’s settled so well!” and “she’s so calm and relaxed” is all anyone else saw (not the nurses, never the nurses and doctors and the helpers and hand holders, not them). Thank god for transitional medications.

And we’re not dead yet, no one is dead yet, so onwards we go.

Edited to add: I’ve just mashed potatoes with the worst potato masher ever and now I’m mad about my burned potato masher too.

It storms. The wind howls and we say things like, “let’s hope we don’t lose power” while smirking, because there is no losing power right now – there’s either fuel for the generator or there isn’t. And maybe that’s one nice thing about this whole mess – not being beholden to a grid we cannot control. Maybe.

It’s been 15 weeks now, and I know I said a week ago I was hoping Insurance was ready to settle, but apparently “you’ll hear from us early next week” means: You’ll get a text update, saying we need to do four different things still, and get quotes and sign offs from three different people, and oh, yeah, it’s definitely normal to string things out this long…

Early on, when we were still in the airbnb, with twitchy fingers and bored brains, we started cleaning up the fire mess. Pulling down burned studio shed ceiling, and ripping out the burned insulation. This was after the asbestos clean was done, and we had a bare patch of dirt left where the house once stood, but the damaged shed was still standing.

People asked us, “but aren’t you insured? Insurance is the one who fixes everything! Why are you cleaning it up yourselves?” as we hired a skip, and sought out an electrician, and weighed our tiny budget against our needs.

and FIFTEEN weeks later, we know that nothing would have been done if we waited; our spaces would still be full of ash and debris and water damaged mess, growing mould and getting gross. Because absolutely nothing happens fast when you’re dealing with insurance. I wouldn’t be back able to work – to make and ship soap and fulfil wholesale orders. It’s just exhausting, and frustrating, and really fucking annoying to have everything move so slowly.

And yes of course we know this is a “major loss” and we’re all “doing our due diligence” but omfg. How are people meant to return to normal life?

But hey, at least we were insured.

I keep dreaming I’m home, in my own bed. Half awake in the half light of dawn, imagining a solid murky pink wall to my right, the perfect cool temperature to press warm legs against at 2am. A solid bed, and a solid floor and a solid life wrapped around me.

And then I wake, a little further, and there are windows surrounding me, and I’m high up, and there’s no comforting hum of electricity running through the walls, or the glow of a nightlight through the hallway. No one likes a pitch black house. Or a pitch black bus, temporary living, are you going to rebuild…

Life really can change in an instant, and we say this, as a prayer, as a psalm, mostly in hope of good things coming for us (a lottery win, a new baby, a good decision) but here we are, our lives changed in slightly more than an instant, a long hot burn through the dawn light, coals, embers, fire retardant in my hair, my elderly dog trying to hide in the coals, waiting to see if we could find the bodies of foster kittens.

And then thrust into real life still – trying to talk to insurance at 7am, but there’s no phone numbers, why are there no phone numbers? An online application, but I can’t find my ABN, and the grass is wet, and my feet are wet, and my heels are bleeding and my daughter can’t breathe – but what do we DO? What do you even DO.

Watching everything burn in the half light, when the unreality hasn’t fully set in, when you might still be dreaming, hope you’re still dreaming, except you’ve got covid – you’ve all got covid and surely no one dreams of ash in their mouth, ash in their eyes, covid filling their lungs along with smoke and desperation.

(what do you even DO)

And then three months later, trying to process everything, keep the family together, keep the teenagers brains functional, move us forwards forwards forwards, because there’s no going back.

Maybe insurance is ready to settle, but we’re in that half-light/half-life of waiting for them to call me, because there’s a notification saying “your claim has progressed!” all cheerful, but this is still merely the beginning. Three months later and we’re still at the beginning

(what do you DO)

Day to day, minute to minute sometimes, and people count the costs, count the dollars, like that’s what matters. Like I can’t still taste the ash in my mouth, the frozen horror in my heart.

“but at least you get…”

no thank you. i do not want it. i just want my life back.

…

(with apologies to Jen Buxton, Linc LeFevre, and probably Deb Talens)