18 days to Sydney (Vol.5, 1983)

*** Content note: mention of hard drug use; violence+Part 2, following on from episode 7.It's early May 1983 as Mum reads on from her diary. She wakes from another late night with a wrecked throat (not remarkable) and mentions that she's using a 'Safeway Bag' as a handbag (which needs some unpacking lol see what I did there). She goes to see SCUM at the Ballroom, and talks about the girl who has a $20,000 'contract out on her'. Words like 'scrag' are used, and there's a fight outside the Ballroom. Between two girls. I talk about how I've never seen a fight in my life - at school there was one time when two boys were going to fight but a teacher walked by and nothing happened and the guys looked relieved haha.Then we're back at the 'Punt Road squat' - to me this feels so squalid and punk. Mum notes in her diary her three favourite actresses: Meryl Steep, Katherine Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe. Meanwhile she's smoking and reading at work and - oh- types two invoices!Then it's off for a date with this mystery Rod from Yarrawonga. Wait til you hear how they 'met'.Mum's still doing the computer course, still checking real estate. She falls out of bed head first - remember she's on the top bunk.There's Irene's psychedelic party to get ready for, and reading Dennis Wheatley's The Satanist, and ongoing planning for Sydney in 18 days!!! +Follow us on Insta @mumsbaddiaries and thanks for listening.We'd love to read your comments or questions! Send us a text!

What is Dramione, you may ask? If you don't know - and it's reasonable that you don't - it's a mix of Draco (Malfoy) and Hermione (Granger) from Harry Potter. And Dramione is specifically a genre of fan fiction that has proliferated online and which we talk about in this side chat. +Follow us on Insta @mumsbaddiaries and thanks for listening!We'd love to read your comments or questions! Send us a text!

Here we are with Episode 7, part 1 of a 2-part recording on a Friday in early May. Yes we're a bit behind but will be catching up soon! We know how important it is for people to be hearing our current-day news close to real time. The 1983 readings? Well, they are timeless. But these days when we record we seem to go for hours and so have to split the gold! As well, I'm all over the place (Seattle-London-Antalya) while Mum is actually bed bound. We're not up to that yet in the podcast. But yes, another horse fall but this time so uncanny and ridiculous; did not match the injury! She's fine but we'll talk about that at a later time.)To the episode!We talk about a new passion of ours: line dancing. We talk about eating Nepalese food in Brunswick. We talk about how triggered I used to get during the Lion King Mufasa death scene and we'd have to ffwd.Then it's onto a SIDE CHAT about Dramione - Harry Potter fan fiction, or more precisely Draco-Hermione fanfic. We've taken it out of the main episode so you don't have to suffer through it if you're not into it. (We stand for consent even if the fanfic often doesn't.)Into the diary reading, it's 1983: mum's talking about restarting something called Image Fix Fanzines with her new friend Sandy (Mum's had a look online, can't find anything about it). There's a gig at the Aberdeen Hotel in Fitzroy to take some photos of (guess who) No Nonsense. She's still house-hunting with Sandy, and Dee might also move in. There's a mysterious call from 'Rod' in Yarrawonga and for a minute we think it's skinhead Rod (spoiler: it's not), and there's a fight with my uncle that results in spilled apple cider, whatever that means. Was there shoving? We don't know.Mum banks a $500 cheque - woo hoo and we talk about how cheques worked. She tapes the punk show on PBS, plans the Sydney trip with her friends, and talks about the 'new space-age phones with press button dialling' at work.We marvel at how technology has changed since the '80s.+Follow us on Insta @mumsbaddiaries and thanks for listening!We'd love to read your comments or questions! Send us a text!

In 1983, Victorian pubs didn't have pint glasses, it was just a glass or a pot. Who knew? Not me.This is part 2 of the previous recording, where Mum just carries on reading her diary from 1983. It's her first Friday at home for more than 3 months and I'm kinda impressed. Though her reading is funny: she toggles between Sex Pistols books and Jill's pony series. Cute.Simon seems to have vanished off the face of the earth and we think mum maybe sent another letter, and she worries in the diary that she's 'scared him off'. But not to worry, there a Triple Ska night at the Ballrooms, and a 'fight' between Skins and Mods versus Yobs at the Scene Club. And if that wasn't enough: No Nonsense are going on Hey Hey It's Saturday, a show with an ostrich puppet that mum insists wasn't for children. I don't get it.+Follow us on Insta @mumsbaddiaries and thanks for listening!We'd love to read your comments or questions! Send us a text!

Enormous warning about SPOILERS. But if you've seen the second season of SEVERANCE, listen in and see whether you agree with Mum or me, as we disagree on several points!+Follow us on Insta @mumsbaddiaries and thanks for listening!We'd love to read your comments or questions! Send us a text!

This is part 1 of this recording session, with part 2 (Episode 6) to follow in a fortnight.We start our chat with a catch up on Life: but I start out by saying how good mum is at Garage Band, and she tells me how she fixed the family kettle back in Ashburton years ago, one of the old ceramic Hecla electric kettles. (In the ep we don't know the name but we Googled since!) I also hear about a yacht problem-solving time at Lakes Entrance, and we mention the Bennington College podcast, which we're listening to on our morning walks. Mum catches you up on her latest horse fall and a CT scan. Also a pocket knife story from when she was about 10.Alma has had a lion cut and it was traumatic for everyone, and we talk about Severance and the finish of the season (in fact we get testy with each other as we totally disagree about it. SPOILER warnings obvs, and you can hear that little argument in the SIDE CHAT). Put it this way: I was burned by LOST.In the reading, mum has a drug talk with granny and Paddy (or probably they talk to her, because she is coming home at all hours and going to parties where people are doing heroin... fair that granny might be worried!)She's also hanging out with people who steal cigarettes from the Prince of Wales, so there's that as well. Seeing more bands, at the Chevron, still on apartment hunt, and I do feel sorry for my aunty as mum was climbing into her top bunk sometimes at six in the morning, when the poor bottom bunk girl had school!+Follow us on Insta @mumsbaddiaries and thanks for listening!We'd love to read your comments or questions! Send us a text!

Content note carries over from the first part, which was Ep 3 (food, weight, eating, diets etc)+Welcome to the second part of the diary reading, where Mum continues on with her 1983 life. She cooks a roast, she likes Rod, she goes to another party, in Lygon Street. Getting into punk: there's bands called Justifiable Hatred, Depression. You get the idea. She goes to Smear's house in Caulfield and Spike's house too, and we wonder whether these are private school boys just going through their own punk phases, PROBABLY! And to top all that off, there's Rat's 21st party to look forward to.And with plans to go to Sydney at the end of April, it's just all happening.Woo hoo.+Follow us on Insta @mumsbaddiaries and thanks for listening!We'd love to read your comments or questions! Send us a text!

Content warning: LOTS of food and body and weight talk. Also a lot of jacket talk.+Mercury is in retrograde and we're grumpy, but we make it work!! I talk bone brother and village soup recipes while back in 1983, mum is obsessed with getting rid of the matted bits in her hair ('dreadlocks' she calls them. Sure.)She's thinking about Simon a lot. There a day of car trouble. We talk '80s cheque and banking conventions as well as the virtues of a leopard skin dressing gown. Oh and there's a $1 deposit on a 'fab Strummer* jacket' at another op. shop.Lots of looking for flats and there's one in Kew that has caught mum's heart, while she also tries to do computers, which means reading a BASIC programming book and going to a night course.Fun times in 1983!* Joe Strummer from the ClashFollow us on Insta @mumsbaddiaries and thanks for listening!We'd love to read your comments or questions! Send us a text!

What can we say. We hate watched some episodes. Those of you who know us know we don't love the Meghan. Follow us on Insta @mumsbaddiaries and thanks for listening!We'd love to read your comments or questions! Send us a text!

While MAFS was one of grandad's shows, we'd never watched it until recently! Here's our chat about it, after pounding through most of the episodes within a week.Follow us on Insta @mumsbaddiaries and thanks for listening!We'd love to read your comments or questions! Send us a text!