Visions
Posted: December 31, 2020 Filed under: Self improvement | Tags: 2020, 2020 vision, 2021 here we come, banned words, cancelled, hindsight, New Years' Eve, pandemic, self helpless, Self improvement, single mother wisdoms, words to live by 2 CommentsI wrote this list of predictions for 2020 on the 31st of December, 2019:
The Pollard definitive guide to enjoying 2020:
Pat puppies and kiss kittens
Don’t vote for morons
Eat, drink and be merry
Don’t buy ‘beauty’ products
Stay off the internet
Help a refugee family
Read books
Unsubscribe
Stop buying plastic crap
Thank firies, ambos and nurses
Check your emotional baggage
Get fresh on the dance floor
Support the Uluru Statement
Be kind, even to dickheads
Don’t use the words onboarding, textural or disruptor
Buy the Big Issue
Sing every day
Bring home the facon (don’t harm piggies)
Love your friends
Swim in the ocean
These words are still accurate, but I’m adding:
Thank teachers, wear a mask, donate to your local food pantry, talk to a wise creature (preferably a furry one) stay home (if it’s safe), become a pirate and beware of deep, dark internet rabbit holes. Tell your people you love them. And please don’t use the words unprecedented, pivot or disrupt ever again.
Shiver me timbers
Posted: September 19, 2020 Filed under: Birthdays, LOVE | Tags: birthdays, George Cadbury, International Talk Like A Pirate Day, Lou Pollard birthday, Mama Cass birthday, Pirate queens, pirates, single mother birthday treats, single mum celebrations, Twiggy birthday 2 CommentsToday is International Talk Like A Pirate Day and also my 450th birthday. In order for my day to have meaning, I’m harnessing the power of celebrity (raising teenagers and eating their two-minute noodles will do that to your brain). Growing up near Crows Nest I was obviously born to plunder. Yo, ho, ho and a bottle of rum, hoist the mizzen.
I share a birthday with Twiggy, Mama Cass and my spiritual guru, chocolate maker and philanthropist George Cadbury. I work for a charity that was sponsored for years by Cadbury chocolate. As Oprah would say, I found my destiny; I was born to consume chocolate, preferably the expensive stuff.
aaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
“I’m no longer a child and I still want to be, to live with the pirates. Because I want to live forever in wonder. The difference between me as a child and me as an adult is this and only this: when I was a child, I longed to travel into, to live in wonder. Now, I know, as much as I can know anything, that to travel into wonder is to be wonder. So it matters little whether I travel by plane, by rowboat, or by book. Or, by dream. I do not see, for there is no I to see. That is what the pirates know. There is only seeing and, in order to go to see, one must be a pirate.” Kathy Acker
Arch child
Posted: November 29, 2022 Filed under: LOVE, Raising Hell | Tags: birthdays, Homage to single mothers, mothering, parenting, Single motherhood, single mothering, youngest child 2 CommentsYou are 18.
I didn’t leave you at the supermarket or lose you at the beach; you didn’t bolt so far that I didn’t track you down eventually.
When you became a teenager you sprayed enough deodorant to kill an elephant and when I complained you replied,
“What does it smell like?”
“Like a teenage boy trying to hide odours in their room.”
“That’s exactly what I want to smell like mum.”
What a force of nature you are cyclone Arch. In the womb you kicked the shit out of my ribs. You couldn’t wait to get out. Now you enjoy staying in bed.
A few months ago when you screamed late at night, I said,
“Did you have to do that?”
And you said,
“Did I scare you mum?”
“Your whole life.” We laughed.
I raised my baby to adulthood.
Happy 18th birthday my Menace. I’m glad the pill didn’t work

Ay Corona
Posted: March 28, 2020 Filed under: AUSTRALIA, Politics, Self improvement, Thought For the Day | Tags: auspol, climate change, corona virus, covid 19, death to trickle down economics, human behaviour, pale stale male Australian politicians, pollution, single mother dreaming, single mother struggles, wake up call 6 CommentsCall me a bloody hippy, but much good will come out of this time of corona madness. A whole new world is waiting to be born
We have stopped buying plastic crap we don’t need that is shipped here from overseas
All children may get access to good schooling and new technology
We will stop working in jobs we hate to buy crap we think we want
People have stopped injecting their bodies with botulism toxin
Maybe we will finally close the gap and have good health outcomes for our first nations people
Kids who aren’t neurotypical and don’t fit into our one size fits all school system will have other options for learning
Neighbours are looking after lonely, elderly folk because they’re not at work all the time
Billionaires and foreign companies who make massive profits may actually have to pay some tax to put money back into society.
People have stopped adding plastic to their fingers and breathing in solvents painted on their toes
Foxtel may go bust with no live sport being played; good riddance Rupert
People will wake up and realise that housing is a human right, not an investment opportunity. We may get rid of over blown rents, negative gearing and have housing that is fair for all
Families will spend quality time together; eating, arguing and singing
The planet will breathe while we’re not stampeding through every river and canal throwing plastic bottles into the sea
We finally appreciate and give thanks to doctors, ambos, nurses, teachers, garbos, shelf stackers, child care workers, aged care lovelies, check out chicks and roosters and start to honour how they keep our society going with their hard work
We will stop buying too many clothes, and not prop up an industry that exploits too many underpaid workers in countries that have no labour laws.
We will grow our own food, share with our neighbours, distribute goods according to need
We will live according to the seasons and honour the ebb and flow of mother nature
We may start to fund our scientists and actually listen when they impart their knowledge
We will swap clothes with our friends, mend and repair broken bits and bobs and remember that compulsive shopping doesn’t fill our hearts
We will crave our connection to nature and appreciate every blade of grass once it is safe to be back in the world
Without organised religious gatherings, people will start to question their beliefs and maybe not hide the paedophiles
We may realise that we don’t need the latest technology to be happy
200,000 poker machines are now sitting idle
We will discover we don’t need to pollute the planet with balloons at gender reveal parties, we can actually live with surprises
We will wake up and stop listening to and voting for greedy mad men who can barely turn up to do their job and finally decide to elect visionary leaders
We can no longer queue and panic buy phones and shoes and other stuff that we really can live without
Huge floating Petri dishes have been stopped from polluting precious cities and oceans across the world
We will have time to dance and sing together (online) and tell our stories and have time with our babies without having to rush off to feed the planet destroying capitalist beast
People will find out the real value of a dollar or a euro and realise that the share market is a house of cards, favouring only the fortunate
And the dolphins and the fish and the worms and the birds will come out of hiding and say ‘what took you so long silly humans?’
This revolution will be televised
Appetite, a universal wolf
Posted: March 22, 2020 Filed under: FOOD, Single Motherhood | Tags: budget cooking, cheap and cheerful cooking, corona virus, covid 19, handy hints, self helpless, single mother advice, single mother sanity, single mother tips Leave a commentDear corona peppers, welcome to the world of living on a very tight budget AKA single motherhood.
Even though I’m busy preparing burnt offerings and microwave friendly salads, I’m offering you my FREE tips on feeding your family on a VERY limited budget.
Suggested menu:
1. Take it or leave it
2. ‘Imaginative’ recipes from ‘150 Ways With Baked Beans cook book
3. Repetition is king; 16 year olds love the same boring dishes; I’m a monster of the mash, a shaman of the sauce bottle, a magician with mince.
4. Tell your kids your family has been invited onto a reality TV cooking show, then vote yourself out of the kitchen. Hide.
5. Now is a good time for your kids to learn to cook
7. Like it or lump it
9. Remember the child standing in front of the microwave gets the most.
10. It is not a crime to send your 16 year old to the local RSL with a fake ID to win the meat tray because the slab of dead animal will feed your family for a week. Do it tonight before the government closes all clubs.
Vive le revolution