Once More Around the Sun - 2022

Glenn, Susie & Peter with the evidence.

It's Jacaranda Time in the Heights of Hornsby which means Chanukah, Solstice, the Feast of Saturnalia, Christmas, Kwanza and whatever else you choose to celebrate or ignore is fast approaching or may have already passed.  So happy/merry/drunken whatever to you all.

We kicked off the year with a visit from Sara, Mags and 20 month old Tessa who is gorgeous and remarkably quick.  Bruce was quicker though because she never managed to meet the pussycat but did get to pat the chooks and collect their eggs.  We went to Clareville Beach one day and I was reminded that's it's a piece of Paradise just a 45 minute drive away.  That was a bittersweet day though because whilst we enjoyed the calm of Clareville we also discovered that our favourite lunch spot in all the world, hole in the wall Thai restaurant Chilli Sha Sha, has morphed into a handbag boutique as if Newport didn't already have enough of those!

Peter, Glenn Sara, Tessa & Mags.

 

The main event for 2022 took place on 25 January, our 25th anniversary and the day Peter and I chose to marry.  So many had fought so hard and long for that basic human right, as had we and the date was perfect so we sealed it with a little help from an old colleague and good friend.  The irrepressibly exuberant and ever so funny Susie is not only a fantastic teacher but also the best ever marriage celebrant.

We kept it simple and did it at home.  Only a few people knew before the announcement was made later that evening because we'd known one another for 30 years, been together for 25 and were nudging 70 so who do you invite and who do you offend?  In the end we went with just Susie, my sister Jan and brother-in-law Tony as witnesses and our terribly special friend Kim as grooms' chick, photographer and caterer extraordinaire.  It was a perfect day in every single way.

Cutting the limoncello wedding cake.

 

The honeymoon was to be a weekend at the more shabby than chic Hibiscus Motel right by the channel at Budgewoi but we had a crook chook to care for so Jan and Tony took our Flybuys booking and went instead.

We are both big fans of Jeffery Smart and there was a retrospective of his work at the NGA as well Shakespeare to Winehouse at the Portrait Gallery.  The National Portrait Gallery in London, which we thoroughly enjoyed in 2015, is closed for an overdue tart up so many of their works are on tour.  Both exhibitions were just fantastic, so good in fact that there was a time I'd have driven back to Canberra to see them again but not this time, we were off to Melbourne a few weeks later and we'd be running on a tight schedule.

Jeffery Smart - Cahill Expressway.

 

But before that we headed on down the escarpment from Canberra for a weekend with Cate and Brian at beautiful Batemans Bay.  We arrived just in time to listen to the auction of Peter's family home 400km north at Saratoga, something we'd only discovered was happening a week earlier.  Just like everything else to do with the hijacking of Peter's immediate family the cousins got their fingers into that one as well.  They even stripped the house of all they wanted after Debra died leaving scant worthwhile keepsakes for Peter who already has a fractured memory.  Anyway it's done now and everything to do with them is buried along with Debra's ashes.

Brian, Peter & Cate at Tomakin.

Life's Regrets #978...  Whilst driving home from Batemans I spotted a farm that sold chooks and knowing that we needed two more DeDe the Lesburu did a U turn at the next safe place and took us straight back to the gate.  So in I went, full of hope and out I came with a Light Sussex and a Speckled Sussex - both 18 week-old hens, or so I was lead to believe.  Of course they turned out to be 14 week-old roosters.  They were lovely lads but you can't keep roosters in urban areas so there began the search to rehome them.  A Gum Tree ad brought a tsunami of offers most of which were clearly sinister but Colin and Barry are now living happily with a young chap out at Maraylya who keeps their specific breeds.  I've visited them and all is good.

May saw the adults finally back in charge again in Canberra and what a relief that was!  Give me a lapsed Catholic over a lying, cheating, Seven Mountains of Self-Worship 'christian' any day!

One of my oldest and dearest friends Lin and her partner John arrived from Durham in Northern England in early June, an impromptu visit because John's brother down in Caringbah was in a bad way.  Unfortunately they only got to see him the day they arrived and the day they left because they picked up COVID from some unmasked hacking bastard on the flight from Dubai to Sydney.  Peter and Jan then both came down with it but having had the same several weeks earlier I got to play Nurse Ratched to everyone as #5 went into iso while tough as nails Tony sailed right through the whole thing unscathed.

Lin & John.

Earlier in the year we were invited to my late cousin Russell's grandchildren's bar and bat mitzvahs by their mother Tanya so it was off back down to Melbourne.  I reconnected with Russell's wife Zelda several years earlier after having met Tanya and the kids in Sydney through Russell's sisters Rae and Nancy and thus the Northern and Southern Cawthornes were reunited.

Following Liev's bar mitzvah with Amalia's bat mitzvah was apparently a first for the shule and certainly for us.  We'd been into synagogues before but never to a service so found it immensely interesting and also a great privilege.  Next morning was a family brunch which included my cousin Richard and his daughter Ami who we met for the first time the previous evening and it was just such a lovely gathering.  Rae, her daughter Annalisa and son-in-law Tim had also travelled down so it was all warm and fuzzy although that might have been the two glasses of mulled wine I rather enjoyed.  It was winter but I was glowing in my shorts and Hawaiian shirt which I love to wear in Melbourne where people dress like they're going to a big fat Greek funeral.

The Northern & Southern Cawthornes.

 

We were also able to spend some time with the illusive Uncle Russell and Princess Leia whilst in Melbourne.  He's unrelated in any way to late Cousin Russell or in fact to us but holds pride of place in our personal pantheon of friends.  A night in Tumut on the way down and Wagga Wagga on our return sealed it as our best ever six nights away.  Who can pass though Tumut without buying at least six brooms and our visit to the National Art Glass Gallery in Wagga was a real treat.

Uncle Russell & Princes Leia.

But then it was home to appointments and more appointments for Peter, Jan, Tony and myself.  I accompany people to most because I ask questions that they don't which is rather critical in certain situations.  Anyway we seem to have survived another year albeit with the odd minor procedure and in my case a great deal of physiotherapy.  Jan has to have to have surgery on her lower back early next year and Tony a bit of laser work on his eyes but touch wood and on we go!

I spotted an ad for a cruise and heritage rail package in October and we sailed out of Circular Quay aboard the COVID Princess on the first Wednesday in November bound for Melbourne, a 1934 suburban mystery rail tour and not one but two heritage trains from there back to Sydney.  It promised to be 6 days and 5 nights of whirlwind fun and frivolity if only because of the included onboard premium drinks package and a good many margaritas, all of them completely necessary if you ever travel on the Princess Line.  Nothing glamorous there, just bad food and a shitty smell around the stairwell at the forward end of the ship just like on the Novovirus Princess in 2019.

But the hotel in Melbourne was lovely as was another catch up with Sara, Mags and Tessa. Unfortunately I overdid the walking that first day and 5 hours aboard a restored 1934 Tait set in 2nd class seats the next day unknowingly compounded the problem.  Russell visited us the morning before we headed north on the old Spirit of Progress which was one of the two trains that used to ply the Sydney-Melbourne route back in the day.  Unfortunately he failed to put his mask back on prior to descending in the tiny lift where he was forcibly joined by Humpty Dumpty and the Woman Who Ate Cruella de Vil, the most unpleasant couple in our entire group of 184.  Then he had to battle through a foyer full of baggage wheeling and wielding older folk, some coughing and others just bewildered.  Two days later Russell came down with COVID after having avoided it for almost three years now.

The 1934 Tait set at Glen Waverly Station.

 

We arrived downstairs to the news that two of our happy band had tested positive overnight but were assured they would be kept in isolation for the rest of the trip home.  So off we set with me reminded of just about every overnight school excursion I've ever taken kids on although this time I could move faster than the rest of the group even with my bad back.  Of course the 3 week respiratory business half of them were coughing up hadn't yet incubated in me.  That happened the morning after we returned home just like Novovirus on our last cruise.

But let's forget viruses for now.  When we arrived at our overnight accommodation in Albury my back suddenly screamed in protest and both of my feet stuck to the floor.  I was frozen on the spot unable to more as much as a millimetre.  At this point I began to channel Edina from Ab Fab as I summoned Peter whimpering "Drugs trolley sweetie, drugs trolley!"

He thoughtfully responded by fetching our stash (all prescription) through which I dug in search of painkillers and anti inflammatories.  Twenty minutes later, after downing a cocktail of paracetamol, ibuprofen and Lyrica, I was able to sit on a chair.  Then I remembered the happy hour open bar that was about to commence and run for the next 90 minutes because an hour wasn't long enough for some of our group to get from their chairs to the bar and back.  Alcohol is a muscle relaxant so I shuffled out to the elevator and down to the bar where Peter propped me on a stool and very understanding staff brought me glass after glass of Sauvignon Blanc, six in all.

That enabled me to board the old Intercapital Daylight Express next morning for the trip back to Sydney although at a full 14 hours it was in no way express.  We finally arrived home at 1:00am then it all happened again next morning.  I was frozen to the bed with one very concerned cat lying across my legs.  Three hours on I still couldn't move (and nor had Bruce) so I dialed 000 and asked for an ambulance all the time assuring them it was not an emergency, I was not unwell, I just couldn't move although I did need to pee.

They asked me to ensure any animals were secured but I told them there was just a cat who would head for the wardrobe as soon as he heard the door cuckoo - yes, we have a cuckoo.  But when the cuckoo cucked Bruce didn't budge then when the ambos walked into the bedroom he stood astride my legs and growled at them in defense of his dad.  I was proud and embarrassed all at the same time.  So the Lyrica was continued, alcohol swapped for Valium and an MRI later confirmed it was all muscular so Andrew the physio and I are once again going steady.

That's it for the highlights of 2022 apart from the arrival of Cilla Black & White the Silver Laced Wyandotte, Anne van der Kley the Buff Sussex and Aunty Joan the Light Sussex.  All were sourced locally and at the point of lay so I felt much more confident.  They are gorgeous Girls with Anne being quite the snuggle bug who likes a cuddle before bedtime.  Interestingly enough Bruce and Cilla Black & White have become friends sitting quietly on opposite sides of the chook yards gate just looking at one another when Bruce has his morning stroll about the backyard.

So be like Bruce and Cilla, try to tread lightly upon the Earth and give back a little more than you take be it in kind or in kindness.

Much love until next rotation

Glenn & Peter

Bruce in the Box.

 

 

Aunty Lily's Latvian Easter Buns

Australia was once a kinder place.  There really were boundless plains to share with those who came across the seas and share them we did.  To be fair though, many of those who took refuge on our shores ended up in camps for a time but there were no high fences or guards and they were free to come and go as they pleased.

I was born during the years when Australia's post-war intake of refugees and migrants was at its peak.  With much of Europe deviated by WWII whole populations were on the move.  Some were searching for better homes and some just for homes because they had none.  Others searched for a country because theirs had ceased to exist or its borders had changed so drastically that it was unrecognisable and their particular ethnic, cultural or religious group was no longer welcome.  Countries were split, countries were fused, countries slipped behind a curtain of iron.

What was left of the Stepans family awoke one morning to find their country not only in ruins but absorbed into the Soviet Union so they started walking westward while they could.  They hoped to find their way to America but ended up in a displaced persons camp outside Bathurst in rural Australia.  This was the site of one of countless post-war miracles. 

When Germany invaded Latvia, Lily's son from her first marriage had just turned 16 which was a very dangerous age for a boy at that time and in that place.  He was conscripted into the German army and marched away.  That was the last Lily and her husband Nicholas saw of Leo until they arrived at Bathurst with their young son Ziggy and Nicholas' mother who I only ever knew as Grandma Stepans.  There was Leo, half a world away in the middle of rural New South Wales.

Reunited, they were transferred to the displaced persons' camp in suburban Hornsby which is where the connection with my family was established.  The camp was on the corner of the street where my parents and sister lived with my maternal grandparents.  Car ownership was not quite the norm back then so our whole family walked past the camp every day.  It wasn't long before my mother met and befriended Lily who I came to know as Aunty Lily as our families intertwined.

When the camp finally closed the Stepans found accomodation just across the road in a large house that had been divided into several flats.  Somewhere along the way Leo met Felicity and before you could say veiksmi there was a wedding and a baby on the way.  In fact there were two babies on the way, one in the Stepans family and one in my own with the latter being me.

Peter and I were born at around the same time but whereas my arrival was planned Peter's was not.  My mother had organised to take time off work and when she finally went back there were four eager grandparents ready to care for me.  Everyone in Peter's family had to work just to make ends meet and Grandma Stepans wasn't up to looking after a new baby.

That's where my mother and the Misses Abbott stepped in.  The Abbotts were single middle-aged sisters who lived next door to us, they were referred to as spinsters back in the day.  Between the Abbotts and my mother there was ample care for Peter who spent his days with us and his nights at home with his family.

As the interaction between the two families increased so did the exchange of language.  This was mostly a one-way street although I did grow up with a basic understanding of Latvian, especially where it involved food.

But then came a major change.  My parents had finally scraped together enough money to qualify for a War Service loan and build a home of their own.  At £11/10/6 a month that may have been a bit of a challenge at first but the repayments were fixed at 3% over 45 years so when my father died in 2003 he had only just finished paying off the house.  The highly memorable £11/10/6 had converted to $23.05 and was extremely manageable by then. 

As it happened, my paternal grandparents lived in a house with five spare blocks of land attached just a little over a kilometre from my maternal grandparents - a few hundred yards short of a mile in the old money.  They had, quite coincidentally, sold one block to my mother's brother before my parents even met although this ceased to be significant because he died a short time later and his widow sold the small house they built there.  Another was sold to Roma King, mother of Elizabeth and more importantly Diane who was my childhood friend; and my father bought the two blocks which ran through the middle of the site.  That left his parents with one dislocated block behind the house that late Uncle Jake had built.  My mother convinced them to sell that to Aunty Lily and Nicholas and the connection continued along with Ulli the dog which terrified poor Grandma Stepans who hated being left alone with him while everyone went to work.  She was afraid that she would die and Ulli would eat her.  In fact the only English she ever spoke were the words "Ulli eat me!"

Poor Grandma Stepans, she was a lonely soul who appeared much older than her years.  I don't recall much interaction with her.  She was usually in another room when we visited or sitting on a chair in the garden shelling peas but would appear on our doorstep at the first sign of rain because thunder was the one thing she feared even more than being eaten by Ulli.  And of course that would follow quite naturally after she was struck by lightening.  As it happened, Grandma outlived Ulli by years and never experienced a single storm related injury.

Leo and Felicity built their own modest home a short distance away and soon had a daughter who was a few years younger than Peter and I.  Aunty Lily, Nicholas, Ziggy and Grandma somehow arranged themselves in their tiny two bedroom house.  I think a Grandma had a bed in the lounge room which possibly explains why all my childhood memories of that house revolve around the kitchen and a table below a window.  There was always light and happiness and food.

Lieldienas or Easter was my favourite time in the Stepans' house because Aunty Lily made piragi which is a small sweet bun with a pocket of bacon and onion at its centre.  No matter how many she baked there was never enough because we all loved piragi and they never lasted very long.  She would also make traditional Latvian Easter eggs which I didn't want to break and eat as is the tradition because they were just too pretty.  There was always a special one for my father that would be Lily's impression of him transferred onto a hardboiled egg.  The one I remember most vividly was sitting behind a bar made from a Sunlight Soap carton with a beer in its hand.  Some kind of cultural fusion was clearly going on there!

But then came 1961, another year of change.  A new school opened close to Peter's house and after being in the same class since kindergarten he was now in a whole different school.  We saw one another when he visited his grandparents but Hornsby Heights had been divided by a wall, not an actual one like in Europe but an invisible school catchment area.  The line was a five minute walk beyond our house and the two populations simply ceased to mix.

Nicholas became a little touchy at about that time as well.  He'd been a bank manager back in Riga and had never adjusted to life as a hospital orderly in Australia.  Aunty Lily, on the other hand, simply accepted her lot and got on with cleaning other people's houses.  Nicholas' escape was his garden and when a neighbour's horse that was agisting on our back block ate some overhanging shrubbery he was not happy.  Overhanging though it was the horse had to go.

I felt sorry for Ray from down the road who owned and loved the horse but Tex hated me for some reason and I had to get past him to feed and water my chooks who were in a yard at the very back corner of the block.  Some days I'd walk right around to the street behind carrying a bucket of water and a feed tin then climb over the back fence to tend to my girls and return the same way.  It all depended on how I judged Tex's mood and if I could scrounge a few pieces of bread to fling in the furthest corner to distract the beast while I bolted to and fro the chook yard gate.

There was a huge storm a few months after that, the kind that sent Grandma Stepans running to our door crying "Ulli eat me!  Ulli eat me!"  She was followed a short time later by Nicholas who had just arrived home and was ranting about water from our yard destroying his garden.  I remember the evening well.  His rage appeared to have caused all of his English to evaporate.

What was happening had nothing to do with us or our garden, we were simply the conduit though which a massive dump of water flowed from the highest to the lowest point as water classically does.  If there was need to apportion blame the finger should have been pointed squarely at gravity.  But my mother, ever the drama queen, got out there with a mattock and shovel and dug a drain on our side of the fence in the darkness and rain to divert the flow through our property to the back street.  Dad watched television throughout the whole performance and then the lot of us had to live through the two weeks of Mum's migraines and "pneumonia" which followed.  We'd seen this all before and it didn't bother my father who simply took refuge at the local RSL club.  My sister was married by then and gone on all but Sundays so that just left me at home to tend to a woman I now know ticked a great many boxes which indicated a need for professional help and prescription medication.

That was almost the end of our amazing Latvian connection.  Nicholas erected his very own antipodean Iron Curtain along the fence line and Ruth reinforced it with an ephemeral moat on our side.  The gate between the two properties was padlocked so Grandma just had to tough it out during thunder storms and take her chances with Ulli. 

It must have been a weight off her mind when the cantankerous creature finally died but then so did lovely Aunty Lily who lost her battle with breast cancer but not before reconciling with Ruth.  Grandma followed a short time later then Ziggy and his wife moved in to care for Nicholas who went on to outlive a Methuselah. 

Despite all odds the Stepans' little house is still there.  It was extended when Ziggy's family moved in and is now in the process of being doubled in size by the loveliest family in all of Hornsby Heights.  Meanwhile my grandparents' house is long gone and my own family home was demolished by its new owners a few years ago.  And me, I came home after nearly 40 years.  My husband and I built on the block of land that was once home to Tex the horse, Lamby the sheep an undetermined number of chooks, a few ducks and a goose I have hitherto failed to mention.

Each Easter I make piragi, remember Lieldienas and think of Aunty Lily who was a most special lady that made a new life in a new land and held her family together as best she could.  Priekā.