Dear Reader,

There will be a short break while we move house but letters from Cynthia will continue as soon as possible.As you can read in the header, these letters are printed by openwriting.com, kiwiboomers.com and are broadcast over 3RPP radio on the Mornington Peninsula. Some of my shorter stories are broadcast by 4RPH Queensland and Vision Australia Victoria. My self sustainable articles go into 'Grass Roots' Magazine available from all good newsagents.

There will, in next year or so, be a book available with a selection of the 'Best From Cynthia'.

In the meantime why not listen to a few of my pod-casts.

Thank you for your constant support and to all who just listen or read my work.

Elizabeth. M.Thompson

Letter From The Other Side from Cynthia.

Dear Del,

How did a couple of young things who started their lives in a tiny flat with two chairs, a table, a second hand couch and bedroom furniture end up forty six years later with so much stuff?

After packing for weeks and spreading large items of furniture, such as our piano, an old Indian overmantel from my grandparent’s home, coffee tables and bedside units around the countryside amongst family and strangers alike, we still have far to much waiting to be packed.

We’ve made many trips to the local Salvation Army op-shop and yet, because of sentiment or just a particular fondness for some things, we still have enough to fill a very large truck.

So far, there has been little affect on our everyday lives. We can still telephone people, send emails and watch our televisions cook our meals and do all the daily things with hardly a hiccup in the proceedings. So why is it we, and by this I mean so many of us in the world, feel the need to be surrounded by so many objects?

Most of our possessions sit in cupboards undisturbed for months or even years, gradually being affected by the vagaries of weather and time. We keep accumulating objects we like or are given. Occasionally liking and being given coincide.

Some of them I have come to believe procreate in the privacy of our darkened cupboards in the same way the things in the boot of our car increase without any help from us.

We have never been avid shoppers, in fact I rather dislike veering away from my planned sprint through the shopping list to divert into clothing or giftware places. I shop because I have to, not because I want to wander about aimlessly waiting for some assistant to drag her cell phone from her ear and come out from behind her counter to ask me if she can be of help or if I just want to browse. The botanical gardens and plant nurseries are about the only places I can be caught browsing with any enthusiasm.

We seem to be living through a time when shopping has become a national means of entertaining the children during school holidays.

Instead of being told to ‘go out in the yard and play’ as we were. Parents seem to feel they must constantly entertain their offspring by going to every holiday movie that is produced. The standard and content or the escalating costs of the entry tickets don’t appear to be a consideration. They also take them out to the shopping malls to wander aimlessly around the various boutiques and fast food outlets. They drift about disturbing carefully arranged displays in the variety stores and as they become footsore, bored and tired, screw their faces into a variety of heart rending efforts and whinge in a way designed to induce their mothers to spend yet more money on more things.

I have asked my family many times not to give me any more dust collecting gifts, but it seems to have fallen on deaf ears.

So despite the culling we made when we last moved, we still have enough crockery to feed a crowd.

Next week, we shall begin to cut ourselves off from the world as we disconnect our computers and televisions prior to packing them.

If the signals in the hills have not improved since we were there last it could take us some time to get them all tuned into the correct stations again.

It took Teddy almost eighteen months to find our favourite classic music radio station. He walked around the house with his rod and aerial looking like a confused Water Diviner for some time until he at last found the right spot to fix it. Fortunately they stream their programmes on-line now which will make life easier.

We only ever did tune into two television stations because of the large hill in front of our house blocking the signals from the north.Most people use satellite T.V.

There are a couple of valleys where mobile phones are quite useless and it can be a source of amusement for the locals to sit in a pub and watch the frustration of the tourists as they keep trying to dial out.

The last box I packed was to take the Christmas decorations. Now, ordinarily I would have given them away and begun again because we don’t go in for a great deal of Christmas decoration since the children left home. However our daughter gave us a large round wreath for our front door. It has the merry face of Santa complete with gold rimmed glasses, a very long beard and lots of stars and decorative bits and pieces. It weighs quite a lot and is a nightmare to get into any sort of box to pack in a way which will not have him arrive looking dishevelled and sad with his beard and tinsel in disarray. Just another of those things, we would happily do without, but should she arrive for Christmas and Santa isn’t smiling at her from our front door she will be very disappointed. Perhaps we’ll ask them to come for Easter instead.

As a little bit of respite, Teddy has discovered a computer site which gives instructions for making Native American flutes. I wish he hadn’t. But there we are.

It would have been so much better if this particular obsession had not raised its unwelcome head until after we arrived up there and then he could have gone to sit on a mountain far, far away and practice ‘Scarborough Fair’ and ‘Blowing In The Wind’. Individually the notes are lovely; it is the combinations he makes that I am having problems with at the moment. Our spaniel sets up a mournful cry each time he begins and sits looking at him with big round eyes pleading for him to stop.

Oh no, ‘Blowing In The Wind’ is issuing from the shed and Walter the spaniel has joined in.

I used to like that song……. once. To think I’ll have this for a few more months combined with Teddy’s favourite sport, a Federal election as well.

I think I’ll put my boots made for walking on during the next few weeks.

Cheers from the head of the local union of domestic house packing, your ‘flower child’ friend,

Cynthia

Letter From The other Side from Cynthia

Dear Del,

We are well along with our packing.

I think if Teddy stood still too long contemplating some knotty problem his mind is working on, I would have him wrapped in bubble wrap very quickly.

The house is gradually being placed in boxes which in turn are filling up the spare rooms that used to be Teddy’s studio and our spare bedroom. Most of them are large and look as if they are is readiness for one of the building sites for a pyramid. Some feel almost as heavy.

The rooms are losing the personality our belongings gave them and as we walk around or call out to one another there is the beginning of a faint echoing because the sounds, once absorbed by furnishings, now bounce unmuffled from the bare walls.

Now the initial excitement has turned into the busy preparation time. Lists of people and utility companies we must contact regarding our new address etc are being made and we have reached the very middle of the packing and leaving phase.

We are still happy to be going, but as we take things apart and remove them from the places they have been for a few years there is a small part of us which, when we look around at the empty spaces where photographs, favourite knick–knacks or books have been, there is an odd feeling of discomfort. It is hard to describe but it is a vague sense of disloyalty toward the house. After all, this is the place which has given us shelter and pleasure as we turned it and the arid gardens into our idea of a haven.

We know the next occupant loves the look of it and thinks the gardens, once so empty of birds and greenery and now so full of both, loves what we have done. However we can’t prevent ourselves from wondering if she will appreciate the thought, planning and toil which went into creating it or will she just accept what she is paying for and take it all for granted.

We have some work ahead of us in our future home but not as much as we faced here.

I suppose we can only hope that in a few years we will look around our next place and feel the same sense of achievement.

As I write, Teddy is out cycling along the river and gaining a little normality time.

I suspect Kevin Rudd our former prime minister may be doing something similar. At least we have enjoyed the luxury of being able to make our own decisions. The blood sport of politics in Australia has certainly outranked the interest in soccer this week.

We have enjoyed a few outings with people we have hardly seen since our return and who are now I suspect, realizing they haven’t been in touch for some time.

Others, the type of old acquaintance who says vaguely, ‘Oh we must meet up for a coffee before you go,’ we don’t find time for.

We understand that as we age the lives of friends drift apart onto differing avenues and interests. Some of ours who don’t really know us well cannot understand our need to move so far away from our family. I suspect that is simply because it would be the last thing they would contemplate. Many familles have a very strong need to feel they belong to a clan.

Teddy and I began the story of our lives meeting in a city far from both our homes and families. He arrived on Australian shores alone and I had arrived a thousand of miles away from my southern home in Victoria in Brisbane, alone.

The adventure of our lives together began there and we feel we still have other chapters to live, together, in our favourite place.

We are sensitive to the fact our decision will not only alter our story as it was being played out these past few years, but it will also alter the life stories of our children and grandchildren.

We don’t expect regrets or recriminations from any of them or from one another other. It really just means that on our final days on earth, there will be a different ending.

It is late at night Del. There is a clear sky and a full moon so bright the street lights of our road are almost unnecessary.

To-morrow will come quickly with more people to contact and things to pack.

My mother once told me to enjoy your life you must always have something to look forward to, no matter how trifling it may seem to others it will give you reasons to look forward and not back.

From the head of the packing department,

Your ‘flower child’ friend,

Cynthia