WonderWoman

What is the right (kid) age to learn to ride a bike? WonderBoy is 6 - have we left it too late? Well, I guess it could be a topic for him, when in psychotherapy to decades from now…

He has a scooter; actually, he’s on to his second scooter. Just so easy. I wonder though whether we have left a gap in his general education by neglecting bike skills.

Fish and chips is getting a little tired I reckon. How about Pizza on the north side of town? I like Frankie’s (Ascot Vale) but Carosello’s (Essendon) is good too. Of course Meine Liebe (spelling? Northcote) is special.

I’ve actually never been to a La Porchetta restaurant - are they pretty good? Any other perfect pizza offerings, you think?

Do you want to know a secret? Surely the answer is yes. I know I do.

What about we make a deal? I’ll tell y’all one of mine and then y’all tell me one of yours. OK? Here goes:

It was obvious from the date of mariage and the date of my mother’s birth that my gandmother was pregnant as she skipped - or, perhaps, waddled - down the aisle.

She married a man, Bill Jones we’ll call him, with whom she was deeply in love. “I always wanted to be Mrs Jones,” my grandmother has recounted on many occasions.

Years after my father had died and just days before my mother’s 54th birthday, a nurse in a neo-natal intensive care ward commented that my mother and her sister looked nothing alike. She even asked: “Personal question but, same father?” They both laughed and said yes and then told the humourous story to my grandmother. My mother also recounted this story to my great aunt, who said, “Actually, you’d better have a talk to your mother.” That is, my grandmother.

It transpired that while my grandmother was indeed pregnant at marriage, she was not pregnant by the man she was marrying. And he knew. She had been “sent away” to where unmarried mothers went in the 1950s. He had contacted her, pledged love - and marriage, which of course rescued her… from forced adoption, poverty and/or the humiliation of being an unmarried mother.

In case you’re wondering, by the time “all was revealed” both men had died.

Nooksters - got one to beat that? Do tell!