About the Mamma

Welcome to my blog - I'm so glad you've found your way here! My name is Elizabeth, but depending on who you are talking to, I am also known as Liz, Lizzy, Lizina, Bet, Betty, Betsy,  Bet-Bets, ‘miss’, mummy and several other unprintable names.

I am the (recently singled) mamma of two children, Ben (nine) and Annalisa (one). We live in a cottage under a hill by a river, where we play, read and cook together and plant pretty things in our garden.

In 2010, Ben and I traveled to Sicily together where we then spent the better part of the next two years, soaking up the culture and learning Italian.  Before that, I also lived in Darwin, Sydney, Perth and Sweden and travelled to many different places in Europe and Asia. If I could have things my way, I would live in a caravan and travel every inch of the globe, but these days I pretty much just travel to the supermarket, the school and the service station. In my next life, I plan on being a gypsy.

I'm a full-time mum turned high-school teacher turned full-time mum all over again. I mainly taught English, but I have also taught Italian and History. I used to be quite athletic, but in the teacher race at an athletics carnival I tripped over not once but twice over the grand distance of 100m and both times nearly fell flat on my face. I wrote about that dismal day here. That’s not the most embarrassing thing that’s happened to me as a teacher though. One day I might tell you that story (like when I’m convinced no-one is reading my blog anymore!).

When left to my own devices, I like to read. Whenever I go clothes shopping, I come home with a book. And just when I think I’ve compiled a comprehensive list of all the books I want to read before I die, someone goes and writes another one that has to be added to the list. How inconsiderate.

One day I’d like to become a doula, go to Madagascar and learn how to play more than four chords on my guitar. I also have a secret life goal to run a marathon at some point in the future. I know, I know: I fall on my face an average of once every 50m (that’s why it’s a secret).

I'm a pisces, a coeliac, a youngest child, a daydreamer, a closet poet, a natural medicine enthusiast, a misadventurer extraordinaire. I still bite my nails, still can't spell very well (even though I'm supposed to be an English teacher) and I still don't really know what I want to be when I grow up.