Impromptu lobbying

Today we went to a local Catholic school fete. Guess who was there? Our local member, the Premier of Queensland.

L said, 'I'm going to speak to her, come on!' I trailled after her, trying to look confident; after all, she doesn't look like a lesbian unless she's with me.

Anna smiled at her; after all, she looked like another fete mother, child on hip. Then L introduced herself, and me, and the babies, '...and I'd just like to say how much I support the surrogacy reform and how we're really hoping that same sex couples in Queensland will be brought up to speed with the rest of the country in terms of parenting rights.' (I'm paraphrasing but she was impressively articulate at such short notice).

Anyway poor old Anna. You could just see her face freeze over. She must have been thinking, Jeez, can't I even go down to the fete and get myself a tray of coconut slice any more? She smiled politely and said, in that well-practised non-committal politician-speak way, 'Well, you're very welcome to make a submission and we look forward to hearing from you.'

At the time I was disappointed, but really, what was she going to do, get into a conversation about our children? She has to say nothing, even though I suspect that actually she personally is supportive. And as L pointed out, she was with a gaggle of well-dressed women; they could well have been influential local Catholics and it could have been quite an awkward moment for her.

For a Catholic school fete, it was really quite catholic - we bumped into four other lesbian families we knew, and I spotted one other suspicious two-women-plus-child combination, and a couple of men who I'm willing to bet had a very nicely decorated apartment and a small white fluffy dog.

And we have some very nice lime and coconut fairy cakes for dessert.