I’ve been meaning to write but lately haven’t had the time to scratch myself. I initially started this whole blog deal because I thought it would solve my problem of not having enough time to write ‘proper’ articles. A blog is way more casual and less structured, meaning I could waffle on for a bit, maybe find an interesting pic to illustrate my ramblings, and then whack it on the net and call it ‘writing’.

For some reason I also thought that once I stopped work and stayed home to look after a baby, I would have more time to do stuff like be creative and write.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha, ha, ha, HA!

Ahhh… that was a funny one. Excuse me while I wipe the tears from my eyes. What was I thinking?

On top of my usual housewife/mother/farmer commitments, this past month I’ve been unusually busy with a sick baby, a foggy brain that refuses to churn out productive outcomes like it is supposed to, and thus my time has been consumed by some black hole of necessary duties. So yeah, I haven’t had time to scratch myself.

It does seem a bit extreme to say that - I mean, who literally doesn’t have time to scratch themselves? Everyone scratches themselves. Men, in particular, do it all throughout the day.

It’s one of those actions that can be done while doing a variety of other tasks, like driving to work, watching tv, stirring a wok, or even sitting on the toilet. Of course, being perched on the porcelain throne is a fine opportunity to scratch yourself because everything is way more accessible. I mean, you can scratch your ankle so much easier when you are sitting, and your body is bent.

So okay, maybe I should qualify my statement. I have been busy, but not quite so busy that I couldn’t fit in the odd scratch here and there. And since we’re sharing here, I have been doing even more scratching than usual. You see, my bed seemed to have some residents move in a couple of weeks ago - little grass ticks that hatched out and picked me to be a juicy host.

I blame our cat, as she can’t talk and defend herself. But also because living in the bush means we have lots of parasites around in the vegetation, helpfully transported into our garden by bandicoots, bettongs, echidnas and wallabies. Then the furry darlings (our cats, not the marsupials) bring those parasites into our home. This is Disadvantage Number 29 of owning a cat in the bush. Well, like they say: a cat in the hand is worth two in the bush. (Does that mean a cat in the bush is worth half that of an indoor, palm-held cat? In which case, it is good we have two cats in the bush.)

To cut a long story short, I’ve been itchy… very, very itchy. And I guess I’ve devoted more time to scratching than it is polite to do so. But since spraying the place with ti-tree oil, scratching a bit more, stripping the bed and spraying with hazardous chemicals, I think the problem is sorted.

Whatever will I do with those extra moments I had devoted to scratching? I’ll have to write a list… when I find some time.

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