Remember when Christmas and birthdays took an age to roll around? Now they fall on alternating Thursdays. Tempus fugit as my mother would say in her dementing years when she took to dropping contextually appropriate Latin phrases into conversations. My memory seems to have somewhat fugitted as well as my tempus but let's try and recall a little of the year, shall we?
We kicked off with a small Drummond reunion of sorts. That was my now defunct college at the University of New England and I suppose the departure of our select little group was a key element in its demise. Sheree came down from Armidale, Cate and Brian up from Batemans Bay and The Hun joined us for lunch on Sunday. A good time was had by all and unlike years gone by there were no hangovers next day. Everyone seems to have either learnt or died.
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| Hun,Sheree, Pete, Cate & Brian |
And speaking of the latter, Pete and I helped scatter my cousin Des' ashes a couple of months later. That was the culmination of a weekend away at Jervis Bay. We went down two days ahead of the others and had a lovely time in Booderee National Park with its friendly marsupials and white sandy beaches. In fact nearby Hyams is one of just 397 around the planet which claim to have the world's whitest sand. Simply stunning!
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| Peter, Glenn & Skippy XXXVII |
Des was passionate about a family shack and the creek behind at Old Erowal Bay on St Georges Basin so decided to have one final and perpetual dip there along with Buster the dog who predeceased him. Scattering Des was simple enough, although we did all have to hang onto one another to stop from toppling in, but Buster had to be busted out of the urn the pet cremie had glued his ashes into. Fortunately Des' best mate came prepared for all eventualities with both screwdriver and hammer at hand.
The family shack is indeed just that. I remember going there with my parents and grandfather when I was no more than 4, my mother immediately launching into a frenzy of cleaning to get rid of all the dust and cobwebs. I also remember the creek although my mind's eye sees a pond with goldfish both having been lifelong obsessions of mine which probably began with whatever I imagined I saw in the water that day.
Our next sojourn was to beautiful Mayfield Gardens out near Oberon, home of The Big Trout which in itself is entirely worthy of a visit. It's just a shame the water in its pond has long since evaporated leaving the trout quite high and quite dry. But never mind, the gardens themselves were well worth the drive as the bevy of Thai, Korean and Vietnamese marriage scammers who were using the colourful foliage as background for their portfolio shots will all tell you.
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| The Big Trout at Oberon |
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| Autumn leaves at Mayfield Gardens |
And speaking of things Asian, Jan and Tony's garage took on the appearance of a rather smart Japanese tea house around this time as the roof began to sag but unfortunately the concrete block side walls also bulged correspondingly outwards. In short, it was falling down.
Now let me take you back to post-war Australia where the housing shortage was worse than it is now. It was common for people to buy a bush block on the urban fringe and put up a garage to live in while they built a house which was usually a fibro majestic because nobody could afford brick or even weatherboard. This was the case with J&T's place although the garage was concrete and the house brick, both built by the original owners in the late 1950s. But time and too much stuff packed into the rafters will take a toll. Tony is a collector and the garage, which has never housed a car due to its rotten wooden floor, finally called it a day under the weight of his many treasures and quite simply suicided.
And there went most of the rest of the year, shoring it up, clearing it out, demolishing it, removing the rubble, having concrete laid, putting up a new shed and landscaping what was left. Now there's a valuable lesson I think we can all take something away from!
On a happier note, there were visitors. Jenny from Auckland in March and again in December; Lara, Nikos and Yiannis came from the UK in April; and a return visit from Cate and Brian in September when my best mates from high school and beyond, Mick and Al joined us for dinner.
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| Jenny, Glenn & Peter |
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| Lara, Nikos, Yiannis & Glenn |
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| Peter, Brian & Cate |
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| Alison, Glenn & Michael |
The end of September saw us at Fran and Trevor's 'Chateau Raines' in Shell Cove for a weekend long house party with Gwennie's Gang. That's the name of the WhatsApp group we have for the staff survivors of the Croydon Park Public School Infants' Department from the early 80s. We're been thick as thieves for years and are even closer now than we were back then. It was a lovely weekend with 11 of us in all. Pete and I took the scenic route down catching up with old friends Allan and Ian for lunch in the Southern Highlands en route and it felt like a little holiday, another of which we enjoyed the very next weekend.
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| Pete, G-Man, Chazza, Droog, Sister Janet, Frannie, Dawnie, John, Trevor & Brother Ian |
That was Andrew's 70th birthday weekend and yes, they are all rolling around. The Reverend Foy hired a bus to take several dozen of his nearest and dearest on a magical mystery tour of the Megalong Valley with lunch and tastings at Dryridge Estate winery which is an utterly unbeatable location. Their salmonella smorgies (grazing platters) were excellent and the wine rather nice but best if all was the company.
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| The Reverend Principal Foy (emeritus) middle of shot (not wearing mustard) |
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| Glenn and Kathie, ever hopeful! |
Pete is now using a white cane when he goes out and that's made a big difference. His vision hasn't deteriorated any further but other people have become more stupid, especially those with mobile phones. The cane is long enough to trip them up before they do any damage then I abuse them because my gentle husband is far too nice to give anyone the sharp edge of his tongue.
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| Pete having white cane training with Viv from Vision Australia and his amazing support worker Lori |
Life has cruised on apart from that with the usual medical and dental appointments for the usual complaints, all manageable. Bruce was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy earlier in the year and now has his own kitty cardiologist. So far, so good. Our flock matriarch Truganini has suspected throat cancer so is undergoing palliative care. At almost 10 she's too old for anything invasive and is happy as a pig in muck anyway. If you didn't know what to look and listen for you would suspect nothing so I'm not anticipating the green dream anytime soon - touch wood. Gorgeous little Cilla Black & White the silver laced Wyandotte developed a particularly copious chest over the last year so was fitted with a crop bra which she seemed rather proud of. It lifted the whole business up higher than her digestive tract so the food went down rather than building up and turning sour which is a less than ideal situation. Sadly though, she died of an unrelated condition a few days ago. I suspect she was egg bound and went before I could get her to the avian vet. Not all of our fur and feather family are special needs but those who are enjoy extremely generous healthcare and retirement plans.
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| Bruce chilling on Dad's legs |
Our beautiful 4x4 metre lotus pond which is a fairly critical design element of the house in terms of both appearance and cooling has developed a leak about half way down its 500mm depth. That's where the level has stabilised so I've turned off its water feature and consigned the whole problem to autumn. At least it's the lotus pond not the long pond which is home to our fish. Everything is going to have to come out so we can drain it but in the global scheme of things that's completely insignificant. Imagine just how much worse it would be to have a leaking lotus pond in Gaza or Ukraine!
Which reminds me, I haven't made any political comments thus far so here it comes...
Federal opposition leader Peter Dutton is a divisive, scaremongering, ultra-negative cunt who refuses to work and play well with others unless there's something in it for him. And there you have it!
So don't be a Dutton, think about others. Consider the planet and all that live within its embrace. I know for a fact that some of you have children, grandchildren and even great-grandchildren who might need it someday.
Peace, love and solstice mung beans
Peter, Glenn, Bruce and everyone else at number 5
Footnote: My brother-in-law Tony will be in anything but a shit sandwich (as Mother used to say). It's impossible to prevent him from assisting tradies and so it was when the water heater blew up a fortnight ago. Lachlan the plumber had almost finished replacing it when Tony took a header into the garden and cracked his head on an edging stone. The outcome: cuts, bruises and a broken wrist which is in a cast for 6 weeks. All kudos to the NSW Ambulance Service, the Emergency Department of Hornsby Hospital and the home nurse who comes to dress the wounds twice a week.
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| You've gotta love the ambos! |
