This weekend NSW residents will flock to primary school halls to buy an over priced sausage and draw on colored paper with pencils. It’s time for us to vote in the state elections. This will probably surprise you but when it comes to voting in my local member I will probably lean a lot more towards the conservatives than I would in a federal election. In fact kind of polar opposites, in the last federal election I voted Green but on Saturday my vote will probably go to one of our local independents who up until recently was an active member of the Libral party.

Our current local member who is retiring this weekend has been a great advocate for the people in this area, so good in fact that most of the time you would not have known or cared what party she represented, she was always out supporting people in the community who had concerns. Old people who formed a committee to lobby for better bus stop structures, there was our member supporting them, towns rallying to get connected to mains sewage, there was our member. She seemed to have a real and deep love of her community and a strong sense of obligation to actually find out what local issues are and be a representative in the parliament for us. If she was standing for this election I would probably vote for her.

Her replacement will probably win the seat but he won’t get my vote because he has way too many posters of his face in my street.

But I probably will vote for the non crazy independent who has served as local mayor and also seems to have a genuine care for this community.

The issues that sway my vote in federal politics like climate change, immigration and development are mostly federal issues so in a state election I say just vote for whoever is gonna do good stuff in my local area.

In the supermarket today I noticed that you can buy a chain of paper people.

Back in my day you made them yourself, cutting up your parents bank statement.

Not kids these days, the little fatties get some baby in a sweatshop to do all the cutting.

If money was no issue, or at least if money was somewhat available even if that meant a morgage this is what I would like to live in.

I would like to buy a block of land that backs onto bush, then on that land I would like to build this:

This particular design is called ‘Parkland’ and it is buy a company called Eco System Homes.

I really really like it. You can look at the floorplan here

Their houses are designed to reduce need for heating and cooling and make use of natural light etc.

The olny problem is that this particular design costs around $311,000 plus land although it does include a lot more than just the shell of a house.

As you may know, our little guy is kind of toilet trained.

He seems to have gone backwards a bit in that if we are out and about he will say ‘wee wee’ and we then know we have a couple of minutes to find a toilet, shrub or Libral Party election signage. But if we are home he rarely says ‘wee wee’. It’s only when Jenny and I notice crutch related dampness that we run to the toilet and sometimes we make it. It’s getting a wee bit annoying! (Get it? ‘wee bit annoying’ gosh I’m good). the problem is how do we coach him to be like he is when we are out?

Segue to an event a few days ago.

The other evening after dinner at the inlaws we got in the car for the 10 minute drive home and about 1 minute into the trip Oscar said ‘Wee Wee’.  We where on a major road and not sure what to do, Jenny asked if he could hold until we got home. There was silence for a few seconds then “wee wee” followed by some anxious sobbing. So Jenny quickly pulled in to a side street and I jumped out, got Oscar out of the back seat and pulled his pants down hovering him over the ground next to the footpath. He did his wee and then without any signals followed his wee with a nice big poo that fell less than a centimeter from my shoe. Jenny was still in the car watching this event unfold through the open car door. She began to laugh uncontrollably as I stood completely still holding a hovering 2 year old just above his puddle and log.

Thankfully Jenny pulled herself together enough to get out of the car and come over with some wipes to clean the small ones bum. Mid wiping and with Oscar still hovering a lady crossed the street and said quite loudly “Oh…………………I know you from church!” Luckily my big bushy beard covered my increasingly red face.

She kept on walking and I manged to relocate hover boy back on to terra firma and Jenny put him back in the car, after pulling his pants back up of course.

I very carefully moved my foot and turned to Jenny who had got back in the car and was still laughing. No verbal correspondence was required to realise neither of us wanted to pick up the poo and take it home with us. So I covered it with leaves and got in the car and we continued home singing along to playschool songs.