A Week In The Life

Welcome to a new regular Mamamia post. Are you ready?

One of my favourite parts of my friend Louise Bell’s more-ish blog Table Tonic is her “Day In The Life” posts where she just shares what she’s wearing and eating and doing and reading and thinking about and being inspired by. I could NEVER be as visually brilliant or creative as Lou (I like my WORDS too much dammit) but she has inspired me to write a weekly look into my world and the world of Mamamia. For you.

Start your engines. And let me know what you think……

THE HOSTESS WITH THE MOSTESS

Bec Sparrow came into my life last year soon after she lost her precious baby girl Georgie who was born in September. Shockingly, Georgie never  got to go home with her loving parents Bec and Brad and her beautiful big sister Ava. She was stillborn.
Life really is an inexplicable, gut-wrenching, world-changing bitch sometimes and this was one of those times.
However, if ANYTHING can be taken from the loss of a beloved, wanted baby, it’s that it somehow brought Bec into my life and I will forever be grateful to Georgie for that.
Soon after I met Bec, literally within days actually, in late December last year, the flood crisis began to unfold and I watched in awe from the sidelines as Bec catapulted herself into action. She just wanted to help.
Still deep in grief, she dropped everything and put the broken pieces of her own life aside so she could mobilise everyone she knew (and many she didn’t) to raise money for flood victims. Along with the Queensland Writers’ Centre, Bec organised Writers On Rafts and The Ultimate Girly High Tea to raise money for the Premier’s Floor Relief Fund.
Her will was unstoppable – stronger than the rain. And the love and determination with which she organised dozens and dozens of people was truly something to behold.

The day itself  – last Sunday up in Brisbane – brought some challenges.
The loss of Georgie is still raw and there were many people Bec hadn’t seen since she’d been pregnant. But after a few understandable wobbles where she was physically and emotionally held up by just some of the women who love and admire her, Bec got up on the stage and she owned that room.
She was funny and charming and poignant and bossy – all the necessary qualities of a brilliant MC. There were many of us there to host tables, including Jess Rudd, Caroline Overington, Paula Joye, Robin Bailey, Frances Whiting, Dr Anita Heiss, Kate Hunter, Kate Morton and so many others. We were humbled to be there and Therese Rein gave an incredible speech, reminding us all of what it was like to be a Queenslander during those biblical floods and their (ongoing) aftermath.

THE FUTURE WALKLEY WINNER

I was fortunate to have a great table at the Ultimate Girly High Tea. Wait, that’s not true. I wasn’t fortunate. EVERY table was great. Every woman there was great. But meet the fabulous Abby. Her mother called Bec Sparrow in the weeks prior to the event to ask if it was appropriate to bring her 12 year old daughter. Bec said “hell to the yeah” or some such endorsement. Abby wants to be a journalist. She’s writing a book with her mother Wendy. I introduced her to Caroline Overington and they had a lovely chat.

You’ll be hearing more from Abby. She’s a remarkable girl. Watch this space.

THE DRINK

I flew up to Brisbane with two other women I adore, my beloved Paula Joye and the magnificent Caroline Overington. We shared a room. It was many shades of hilarious. Caroline and Paula were appalled at how untidy I was, even in a hotel room. Well, Paula wasn’t surprised. She knows too well how I roll. Caroline, however, had not shared a confined space with me before. Now she knows.

On Saturday night, after we’d all arrived, Bec organised for us all to meet at the Sofitel (where we were staying and where the Ultimate Girly High Tea was being held the next morning) for a drink.  And here’s what Paula and I drank! Mine is the girly drink with the strawberry – a champagne cocktail. Hers is a beer. In a wine glass. She is so chic and I say that with 100% sincerity. She can make anything look cool. Even a beer!

MY FAVOURITE LOGIES LOOK

Speaking of cooool, I saw this, again, on Table Tonic. How brilliant do they look? We were talking about Fashion Crushes yesterday. These girls are MINE.

THE FUNERAL

On Tuesday afternoon I was meant to be preparing for the show but instead, found myself conducting an intimate funeral for a mouse.
The kids had found it dead in the garden yesterday and we sort of got side-tracked and forgot to move it.
So today, I decided we should bury the poor little guy. My daughter took to the idea with gusto just as I knew she would. She’s always on board with a ceremony of any kind.
“Remy can get the spade, you get the mouse and I’ll pick the flowers” she commanded.
That’s my girl. Excellent delegation. I get dead mouse. She gets floral tribute.
And so, Curly-tail was quietly laid to rest with three mourners in attendance and some lovely flowers.

THE SHOW

I decided to take a totally new approach to the show this week (you can watch the results of my new approach here and decide for yourself if it worked). Last week was fine but it was a HUGE amount of preparation and I think I actually over-prepared. I know this because one of my TV presenter friends sent me a lovely long email with lots of great feedback and one of her points was: “Less autocue!”.
Except there was no autocue. I’d just tried so hard to memorise all my bits that it sounded like I was reading.

So this week I thought, look. I need to chill. I need to be more me and less Me-Trying-To-Host-A-Show. So I did virtually no preparation and arrived late to Sky News and just mucked around with Rick and Lana and the guests when they arrived.

THE PRE-SHOW HIGHLIGHT

Before we went on air, I took Caroline, Kate and Bettina to the Sky kitchen to make ourselves some tea. The sight that greeted us was one to behold. Every surface full of disgusting coffee mugs with grime stuck all over them like concrete.

No clean cups. After fluffing around looking for something disposable for as long as we could, Kate said “Right, it’s time to do some washing up”. With that, she rolled up her leopard print sleeves and started washing up other people’s dirty cups. All of them.
It was really quite heaven.

THE MM KITCHEN

Speaking of kitchens, look what’s still left over from Easter/Passover……

THE BEST LINE

I am a huge Chelsea Handler fan. MASSIVE. On the whole Donald Trump-demanding-Obama’s-birth-certificate story, she said this on her show this week: “Just shut UP. Two of your three wives aren’t American and the forth isn’t even BORN yet.”
Love you, Chelsea.

THE SPECIAL GUESTS

It was fashion week in Sydney this week and with most of the action taking place not too far from the MM office, Paula Joye and her team were our special guests as they swept in and produced The Joye Report between catwalk shows. We fed them well with Lana’s chocolate cheesecake and we took note of what they were wearing. You can get the The Joye Report delivered straight to your inbox via LifeStyled here. I highly recommend that you do.

THE OUTRAGE

I don’t know about you but when I was watching the Royal Wedding last Friday night, all I could think was “Gee, Kate Middleton really needs to lose some weight.” The folks at UK Grazia magazine obviously thought the same thing and they used Photoshop to make it happen, carving into her waist for the shot they used on their cover. And some people wonder why magazine re-touching exasperates me….[You can see the ‘before’ shot, side-by-side with the ‘after’ in our Week In Pix gallery, here]

THE MAMAMIA READER

More and more lately, I am having the slightly surreal experience of people recognising me when I’m out and about. This week, I may have been *cough* doing a spot of shopping at Ginger and Smart and was half nude halfway out of the changeroom when a woman said “I love Mamamia!” and then I made her tell me what she loved about it. I do this a lot. It teaches me stuff. Kim introduced me to her cousin Molly and we had a lovely chat. Turns out she even once had something posted. How about that.

So. That’s me. You like? Want me to do it again next week?

Your turn now. What have you been talking about or buying or eating or doing or loving or loathing this week?