Crimson Rosella

I'm Here Again!



Letter From The Other Side from Cynthia

Dear Del,

We left the day the heavens opened. The road ran small rivers across it and the spray and splashing from the passing vehicles on the highway made for a difficult drive. There were patches of fog, sleet and fierce winds when we crossed the Great Dividing Range. After months of packing it seemed a fitting and dramatic finale to a very stressful time.
Eventually we arrived like two blots on an already soaked landscape and the downpour hardly stopped for the next two weeks.

We had been aware of potential flooding in the area and had chosen a house high enough above the river not to be worried by its level which was rapidly rising as the ground became water logged and the run-off from the mountains started to gain momentum.

Soon the river overflowed its banks and the surrounding paddocks in the valley became lakes which eventually cut the roads. Rural fences were washed away; bridges were broken by logs floating down the torrent. Landslides and fallen trees blocked some roads in the mountain areas and homes and businesses were inundated as the waters met with other rivers and slowly made their way down onto the lower plains.

After more than a decade of drought most people were philosophical about the damage and inconvenience, because they knew how much the people and animals were in need of the replenishing waters.

The water reservoirs have more of the precious liquid in them than we have seen for years and because we are only just into spring after a long and heavy snow season there should be plenty more to come in the next month or so.

People are hardly daring to hope they may have seen the last of drought for a few years. They live in the moment, savouring the greenness and the renewal of life.

Our only inconvenience was a shortage of some staple foods such as milk and bread and we were advised to boil all drinking water because the pumping station of the local water supply had been compromised……….. I knew all those extra things I stored in my pantry would be handy one day.

After about two weeks the waters had gone down sufficiently for us to be able to drive to the next town down the highway to do some shopping. Our village has quite a few shops but as it is largely a tourist resort we often have to take the twenty minute drive down the valley.

We stopped to enjoy a lunch in one of the pubs. All the time Teddy was eating his meal he kept remarking how nice it was and he must have it again when we next visited the pub.

Less than two minutes after we returned to our car I told him he wouldn’t be having that meal again because he reeked of garlic.

‘Really? I thought that was caramelised onions through it, must have been garlic if you complain that much.’ he replied rather crestfallen.

A friend of ours who lives alone on a property half way back to our village asked us to call in on our way home.

However he warned us not to attempt driving up his drive to the homestead as it was still too wet. He would come down in his ‘Ute’ when he saw us at the bottom of the hill.

We arrived at the farm gate and Teddy gave me a short respite from the garlic by getting out and opening and shutting the gate. Naturally I was driving because we were using my small car. There wouldn’t have been a problem if we had used our four wheel drive. I thought I had sufficient room to be able to turn around to face the gate to make it easier when we returned to it to go home. I misjudged and made my turn too wide with the result I sank into the gluey mud and the car became bogged to the wheel trims and any effort to move it resulted in a spray of red mud but no movement.

Mathew arrived shortly after this in his battered old ‘Ute’ and greeted us after four years absence with ‘What did you do that for you silly pair of Galah’s?’
Before I could think of a reply he turned to his two Kelpie dogs which were standing on a pile of hay bales in the tray of the ‘Ute’. ‘Shut up you noisy blighters.’ The dogs obliged and sat down, panting with glee, their long pink tongues flapping about as they awaited his next command.

‘I’ll pull you out when we get back. Hop in, I just have to go and unload this lot in the cow paddock.’

We obeyed and hopped in the front seat of the ‘Ute’, not really designed for three reasonably large people. It was very snug as garlic from Teddy, blood and bone or some sort of high powered fertilizer and probably a dollop of cow pat from Mathew’s gum boots filled the warm air of the cabin.

The dogs began barking noisily again once we were on the move and the men chatted just as loudly over my head about the weather event and probability of an impending locust plague during the early summer. They talked on about the damage to the farms, the extent of the number of trees down and the time it will take to repair everything.

I sat between them listening and smiling to myself as I tried not to inhale to much of the garlic and whatever it was which covered much of Mathew’s clothing. The discreet little spray of perfume I had used that morning would have very little chance of improving the state of the air for the next fifteen minutes.

As we bumped along splashing ever more layers of mud onto the duco of the ‘Ute’ my mind wandered to the table in our house covered with ‘welcome back’ cards and messages and the gifts for our garden which is already filled with flowering spring bulbs, camellias, rhododendrons, azaleas, dog wood trees, maples and magnolias. When we sit beneath the trees which are just coming into leaf, we can see from every angle the seemingly endless views of the mountains and hills covered in eucalypts and the highest peaks covered in snow.

Home means different things to everyone. It doesn’t have to mean where a person in born, or grew up and went to school or spent much of their life. Instead home can be the one place you find at some time during your years when your heart and soul quietly settle into a space which completes the jig saw puzzle that a certain restlessness which may have followed you like a shadow for many years has created. It can be a place of challenge and work or a place where you feel a peace and calm seeping into your very soul and gives your mind and emotions a sense of well being that nowhere else has ever been able to reproduce.

I thought of our dogs enjoying the warmth in front of the fireplace while we were away for the day and the pleasure with which they would greet us. I thought of the people we would have as new neighbours to enjoy good times with and with whom we will share the times of trouble and hardships ahead as well. I am yet to learn of their various talents, quirky ways and humour.
Yes, this is where we belong. Between the calm blissful days there will be the rain, flood, drought and fire and this is my home.

We are even further over the other side now Del, far away from the city and its glitzy pleasures, far away from the shopping malls and sleazy alleys, a long way from many of the amenities that the city provides and I couldn't be happier.

Some of the family have already visited. Our eldest grandson found the excitement of being here during the flooding just, ‘cool’ and other members have been enjoying a week skiing. So we think we shall not feel neglected by them even if at times we are the reluctant ones to make the trip and return down to the coast.

I think I shall have to sit through a football match this evening as Geelong is once again in the season’s football finals and Teddy, our son and his wife and probably our grandsons will want to see it. I’m outnumbered by too many to win an argument over the television remote. Yes, we have better reception here than we had in our previous home; Teddy has even found the radio station we like. It only took a week to find the right place for the aerial. So Chopin, Brahms and Dvorak are still with us.

The music I am listening to at the moment as I write this is the chorus of Currawongs in the garden. It is the birds evening social club and choral society yodelling their greetings as they meet before bedtime and the sun goes down.

Once again the Kookaburra's are our alarm clocks. Their batteries never run out and their time keeping is impeccable.

Your soggy but flourishing ‘flower child’ friend,
Cynthia.

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

Letter From The Other Side from Cynthia

Dear Del,

We unwittingly caused some consternation to our neighbours by not sharing the information we were to go on holidays and also, that we were thinking of selling our house.

While we were innocently lounging about in the high country autumn sun a group of estate agents, all dressed in their dark business suits, arrived en-masse to asses our house. It is the practice of our agents to send a team,

each one to make their individual assessment and then return to their offices where they compare notes and opinions and banter back and forth until eventually they come to an agreement over what they consider to be a fair price for the property.

Well, some of our neighbours saw these men arrive, park in the street and make their way into our house. It was quite a long time before they all returned to their cars and left.

The neighbours after much discussion and analysis of the men’s business at our home, which evidently ranged from writ servers to a crime or murder squad, came to the eventual assumption one of us had died and the funeral directors had paid our home a visit.

When we returned home everyone was busily checking the death notices in the local paper to ascertain when the funeral would be and which one of us had fallen off the twig. I suspect some had even bought cards for the bereaved spouse.

On the evening we arrived back, we unpacked the car unobserved and Teddy, with his habitual forgetfulness, left it standing in the drive with the lights on.

The neighbour opposite saw the car sitting for some time with its lights on and wondered if she should come across the road. Eventually she plucked up the courage to cross the road but now she was convinced the spouse who had not died a few days earlier had possibly suffered a heart attack and was now sitting stiff and very dead in the car!

Teddy and I have been under an obviously false impression that we look quite young for our ages and because of my constant walking and gardening and his cycling we were sure we had been demonstrating to everyone we knew we were quite fit and healthy…evidently we were wrong.

It must be one of the many drawbacks of ageing…...everyone expects the worst.

The packing proceeds despite the bank messing up our prospective buyer’s papers and putting her in a dreadful dither. We understood her predicament because we are old enough now to have been messed about by our bank enough times to know it can happen and will probably keep on happening.

We keep being asked by friends what our family think of us going so far away. It is only 400 kilometres after all and as we tell our inquisitors the children would think nothing of going to the other side of the world if a lucrative job offer came their way or they felt there was a better life so why shouldn’t we be free to do the same?

I suppose if we lived in England 400 kilometres would put us somewhere in Europe but here, it is still in the same small state.

Monica and her husband are off to Kathmandu next month to attend a wedding, they didn't ask us if it was a good idea they should go because they know I definitely would have said it is a stupid idea for someone with bad knees and feet to be going somewhere with so many steps and a reputation for a less than adequate health care standard than she would have here at home. So why would she bother to ask, I wouldn't expect her to. She is an adult, free to make her own decisions and take her own risks just as we are.

I have always said I would not like any of my family to take care of me in my old age. Firstly they are too bossy and secondly you can dismiss an employee who doesn't do the right thing by you but, it is much harder to dismiss one of your families.

Teddy and I have decided if ever they suggest having us too close we will stay with them for an extended holiday and develop really irritating behaviours when they take us out in public. When in their home we will make sure we get up at least three times a night, bump into as much furniture as possible during our rambles to the bathroom and flush the toilets each time to make sure they remain sleepless for our entire stay. We shall also hide or hog the remote controls of their televisions. There is a host of irritating possibilities we can think of which should put them off the idea of having us too close fairly quickly.

We shall be kind and loving to our daughters and sons-in-law and patient and generous to our grandchildren so that as they wave is good bye they will all sigh and say, 'they are so sweet but we just couldn't live too close to them...EVER'

We have, after all had enough training from Aunt Alice and Uncle Rodger who, by the way, will be closer to us when we return to the hills and we shall have the pleasure of their company more often.

Uncle Rodger when we last saw him was in need of having his nose cauterized because he keeps experiencing profuse nosebleeds. He greeted us at the door with his nostrils plugged up with so much rolled up cotton wool he looked like a walrus that had been in a nasty fight with a rival and he had come off a very bad second best. It wasn't a pretty sight.

I must get back to packing the study’s books and papers. The shredding machine has been working as hard an outgoing government’s office machine works when there has been a change of leadership.

I have developed ‘packers stoop’ this week

Cheers from your slightly bent ‘flower child’ friend,

Cynthia.

Letter From The Other Side; from Cynthia.

Dear Del,

We have ceased being sensible.

As I said in my last letter we were heading off on holiday.

We spent two weeks in the North East amongst our beloved hills and have decided to move back despite the problems the distances bring and the vagaries of the supply of some amenities that suburban people take for granted.

As we drove around the long slow hill and looked down at the valley where our two favourite towns are settled our hearts leapt at the view of the mountains and the gold, amber and dark plum colours of the autumn foliage amid the greenness of the paddocks. Our minds were made up.

Because the villages in the valley are so small there were not many houses for sale which could suit us. Some were in dangerous wooded areas, others on steep sloping sites which would have been impossible to walk around with ease and many were far above our price range. Eventually, on our last day of searching we found what is to be our new home hidden behind a coloured curtain of crab apples, alders and crepe myrtles.

There is a river nearby which is fed by the mountain rains and snow. Parks, cycling and walking tracks criss-cross the town in all directions.

We met up with old friends and enjoyed their unpretentious company.

Many of them have Italian heritage and so we ate home cured olives and olive oil, sun dried tomatoes and capsicums. Some folk had been making this year’s supply of salami and hams and others continue to make their own wines. There are probably a few stills for grappa production around as well.

These hills have become the home to many people from all over the world whose forbears rushed for the gold buried in their depths or easily panned from out of the rivers.

Others came with the great flush of immigrants after WW2 to help build the dams and hydro electric turbines which supply so much power for the state.

It is the place where bushrangers terrified wealthy travellers and robbed them of their hard won money as they travelled in the crowded stage coaches while making their precarious trips along the narrow mountainous roads between Melbourne and Sydney.

Many of the pioneers lie buried in unmarked graves, others at least had the dignity of a cemetery burial. The number of children and young people who died from illness or as the result of accidents gives testimony to the hardships the early settlers endured.

Some of the towns also have Chinese cemeteries. The Chinese people trekked vast distances overland to make their way to the area and became suppliers of vegetables and very often rich merchants.

When one stands in the forest and listens to a whip bird echoing his call through the bush it is hard to feel alone. The spirit of the original aboriginals is still so strong here it would not surprise me to hear a Didgeridoo.

The cattlemen of the high country have always been an iconic breed of people. Sinewy, expert horsemen riding strong sure footed steeds, many of which are the progeny of the horses the soldiers took with them to the Boer War and WW1 and died far away in foreign lands.

Certainly there are fine restaurants, deer farms as well as cattle and goat farms, vineyards, olive groves, chestnut groves, apples and cherry orchards.

The tourists rush to the hills in their shiny clean cars to enjoy the short winter snow season. Some of them oblivious to anything other than having a good time and many of them only aware of the wildlife when they run into one of them along the road.

In spring the cyclists arrive around the same time as the blow flies and cause much muttering behind the steering wheels of cars as drivers become annoyed by them straying our of the cycles lanes. It takes a little while each year to become accustomed to the sight of Lycra clad men and women clip clopping down the footpaths in front of the shops in that peculiar bowlegged walk cyclists have when wearing cleats.

The whole place has an air of unhurried life amid enormous space.

Teddy is delighted he will be able to find open areas where he can once again test his water rockets without having some busy body ringing the authorities complaining about a terrorist threat in their midst.

We heard about a friend of ours who was badly injured in a car accident and has been in rehabilitation for eighteen months. She owned a small second-hand bookshop which despite her long absence is still being cared for by her friends and neighbours because that is what you do in this part of the world.

The towns have unfamiliar names for strangers to pronounce, there is Mudgegonga, Barwidgee, Yarrawonga, Yackandandah, Nug Nug, Wangaratta and so on. All of them have larger than life characters, hermits, eccentrics and also the just plain dangerous types who are best left alone because it is easy to disappear in the forest.

One wag written about in the Yackandandah tourist guide was…. ‘Bill Newton was known as the “Yackandandah Kid” He had a finger in every pie….drove a taxi, owned a shoe shop and a funeral parlour, all at the same time. He was especially known for accidentally locking his customers in his shop at night’

There are stories everywhere about the personalities which have helped forge the special character of this vast and still largely untamed area.

As we were driving back home our selling agent rang to tell us he had sold our house. We stopped by the side of the road for a little while feeling stunned. Two weeks had resulted in our lives making a complete U turn.

Our present house is full of boxes and packaging and our garden has been pruned within an inch of its life. It will have a family living in it next.

It is a comfortable home but for us it is not in the right place.

I will need to travel the one hundred and twenty miles to the specialist which will be a bit of a nuisance at times for us and our nearest bank is forty miles away but I don’t care. The thought of breathing the air filled with the smell of the vast eucalypt forests and enormous pine plantations again is wonderful.

We won’t try and be brave and fight any summer fires which are sure to threaten us again. This time we shall hitch up our caravan and travel to the nearest place of safety. We will try and be sensible in some ways even if our decision has dismayed some of our more careful and conservative friends and family.

Teddy says he never did get around to paragliding while we were there before and this time he intends to. I have requested he do it first then come home and tell be afterward.

He is scraping cream paint off an area in the bathroom at present and each time I see him he looks as if he has an acute case of dandruff.

The family all expressed their support and echoed my sister’s words in various ways by asking what took us so long to decide suburbia was not our glass of Shiraz.

Back to the boxes, bubble wrap and paper now Del. Each day as I pack I see more of ourselves withdrawing from this place and August will come quickly.

I will keep you up to date with our exploits,

Your lighter hearted ‘flower child’ friend,

Cynthia.