Wine, Wine, Wine - taking the edge off suburbia

I love a glass of wine at the end of the day.

Somehow it feels grown up and a little bit posh.

It feels like I'm doing something for myself.

And most importantly it takes the edge off the tension of the day and makes me a more relaxed Mum and wife.

And all of that is fine but, as we all know, having a huge glass of wine every night isn't good for your health or for your waist line.

Why are the divine things in life always a bit bad for you??

I was chatting a with a lovely lady the other day who is about the same age as my Mum. I made a comment about wanting a glass of wine and she said:

"Not for me thanks. I try not to drink too much now to make up for how much I drank when my kids were little."

Which made me laugh until I cried (possibly that was partly hysteria and sleep deprivation!).

Certainly when my step-sons came to live with us at the same time that I got a huge and very stressful promotion I used to have a glass of wine or two every night.

It was honestly the only way I could cope - I was so tired and overwhelmed and without a glass of wine I was either too exhausted to talk or just really, really cross with everyone.

And I've certainly drunk my fair share of wine since I had Wild Man - as it turns out I'm a coffee in the morning, wine in the evening kind of Mum.

The uppers and downers of suburbia.

But just at the moment I'm doing Weight Watchers (why are those last five baby kilos SO hard to lose?) and wine is a lot of points so there isn't much drinking going on in our house.

And it turns out that I don't NEED a glass of wine in the evening. I just WANT one.

And I'm kind of relieved to find that out, to be honest.

As it turns out, what with the irritation of having small kids and tonnes of housework to do every day, I wasn't sure whether it was a need or a want any more. Phew!

Do you drink much? Do you spend the afternoon hanging out for 'wine o'clock"? Do you feel guilty about it? 

If you think you might have a drinking problem you can find more information and help at Drink Wise Australia.

My suburb is a village in disguise

I don't actually live in a village. I live in a suburb, same as everyone else in Sydney.

But where I live feels like a village.

When I used to work at a university there was a really interesting academic there doing research into how modern suburbs make people feel isolated. Overwhelmingly she found that it was our dependence on cars that stops us having a sense of engagement with our community.

That is certainly true for me.

Before I had babies I was worried that I would be lonely at home with kids ... not so far!

I walk so much with the pram and am often at the park, and the more I go outside in our area the more people I seem to recognise and/or know and it is really nice.

In fact I'm struggling to think of many nicer things to be able to give your kids than a sense of community and the knowledge that all around them are friendly people. How could that not make them feel save and connected?

My children are seriously early risers so we do a lot of early morning walking (usually in the direction of the local bakery which sells coffee and is open at 5.30am). 

Everyone we walk past says hello - the earlier it is the more friendly the people are. There is a real sense of camaraderie before 6am!

Possibly they feel sorry for me pushing the double pram with yesterday's mascara smeared across my face and a coffee hungry glint in my eye.

On Sunday morning we met a lovely guy at the local bakery. His wife and kids had gone to church and he was locked out of the house. While he drank his coffee he and Wild Man had a long and involved conversation about dinosaurs while I tried to stop Princess running on to the road.

We'll probably never see him again but it is so nice to think that you can just meet good, nice people like that.

People talk a lot about isolation in suburbia, and I really do believe that that is the case for many people. It must be awful to feel alone while you are surrounded by people. But that definitely isn't the situation that I find myself in, and I truly think that if you want to know the people who live near you you need to get out of your car and walk.

And smile and say hi to the people who go past ... being friendly costs you nothing.

Do you feel lonely or are you finding that your suburb is actually a village in disguise?