Visitors And Fish

By

Elizabeth M Thompson

The tourists, with the exception of a few wandering elderly citizens and grey nomads, had mostly left the village. The inhabitants could once again find parking where they wished, jay walk across the empty streets and saunter the isles of the shops. Even stopping for a chat here and there along the paths became possible once more without fear of being trampled by children or their parents as they barrelled along seemingly oblivious to where their feet were taking them.

During the summer, so many visitors appeared to wander along with their eyes permanently fixed on the hills surrounding the town.

Even the one-way street signs were once again being observed by the majority of motorists. The gentleman who lived at the end of Helen’s road and drove a large Mercedes on a restricted license was perhaps one exception, as were a few cyclists who held the opinion they were allowed to ignore road signs and knock over elderly ladies at will.

As usual, many of the locals had entertained visitors to their homes and for most this was an added pleasure, which living in such a picturesque place brought.

However Helen had learned it could be anything but a delightful experience.

While overseas during the southern winter, she had met a couple from Europe who expressed the urge to take part in an adventure holiday. She is of a generous and hospitable nature but confessed to her friend Del, as they sat chatting over a cup of coffee, that after having had time to reflect, she was most probably also under the influence of a very good red wine when she issued them an open invitation to come and stay with her.

She discovered to her chagrin that meeting and getting along with people in a hotel, could be a very different experience to having them under one’s roof.

The complaints began soon after their arrival. How untidy the bushland looked, how noisy the birds were, how the shops didn’t stock the right sort of food. She noted however they didn’t offer to do any cooking.

When faced with the reality of going into the wilder areas of the mountains, the idea of visiting such remote places where there were few people and little emergency help appeared to frighten the life out of them. It was patently obvious to her that any idea of an adventure trip could be completely thrown out of her ideas pool.

She could understand the culture shock someone who had spent their whole life in a large city could suffer when confronted with Australia’s great outdoors. Many possibly found them greater and less inviting in reality than on film.

For instance the wildlife all around had certainly not been trained to think it should stay well away from tourists. So when a brown snake about a metre and half long sidled past as they strolled along a bush track, the terrified couple refused to venture out again unless they were shielded in a vehicle. The snake Helen assured Del was going about its business entirely oblivious to the panicking couple. She surmised it had probably already enjoyed a meal and was simply trying find a warm spot in which it could take its afternoon nap.

Her temper began to really unravel when the complaints became more personal and hurtful.

She had grown up in her large rambling home. The house grew each time her family grew and her father built it section by section. She admitted that the plumbing had never really been changed and it was known to have idiosyncrasies which took some time getting used to. It could on occasion make a body feel as if it was a lobster about to be boiled or a pack of peas being deep frozen. They complained bitterly of these occasional spasms.

The neighbours came to visit. Being ordinary not very well educated folk with less than perfect grammar but possessing hearts of marshmallow, they tried to welcome her guests to their home for a traditional barbeque. The offer was met with disdain and the conversation gradually petered out.

It was about this time she remembered an old saying of her mother’s. One she had never fully understood until now.

Following each of the dreaded visits by her father’s unruly and enormous family, her mother would survey her usually neat and dusted living rooms which had been left by the guests looking as if they had been refurbished by an army of wombats, and mutter quietly.

Outside, her eyes would harden as she gazed at her carefully tended garden, now beaten by children who had thrashed about with cricket bats and flattened the herbaceous borders while searching for lost balls. The muttering would become audible and voiced with great emotion. ‘After a week, visitors and fish begin to smell the same.’

Helen’s patience had dried up along with her housekeeping money. With nerves twanging she watched them do as they had done each morning while drinking coffee through pursed lips. The cups would hover in the air and they would look into the liquid as if suspecting her of adding a pinch of foxglove or hemlock to the coffee beans. It was she had mused, not an unwelcome idea to her.

The days dragged on a little longer while she racked her brain trying to make the signals plain it was time they moved on……..preferably a long way on.

She decided to ask them to leave. It seemed the only sensible solution. It was after all, her own fault they were there at all.

Full of resolve, she planned to give them a pleasant day and after they returned home ask them to depart, begone, farewell, whichever word sprang to her lips first or if her resolve dissolved and she became the vacillating coward she now believed herself to be, think of a sick relative she needed to visit, without delay.

They left after breakfast for a local deer farm with magnificent gardens, views and a top class restaurant. A few miles out of town they passed an elderly gentleman walking along the rough gravel side of the bitumen road. He was a well known old ‘Bushy’ and lived in a shack in the hills. His plumbing for all anyone knew was non-existent and he was best conversed with upwind and from a distance. He shared his shack with his dogs and they probably shared their fleas with him. But he was known to be a dear old gentleman who had lived a very hard life.

It had been a particularly trying few days for Helen. The stifling heat made the effort to cook appetizing meals irksome and she swigged at her indigestion medication while she tossed salads and sizzled steaks; poking them savagely and too often in an attempt to ease her frustrations.

As they passed the old chap a brilliant idea occurred to her. She pulled up quickly, throwing her shocked backseat passengers forward in their seat belts with a jolt. While her guests straightened their hair and clothing she executed a quick three point turn and drove back to the stoic figure as he steadily crunched along the gravel in boots which seemed to be ill-fitting and filthy.

“Hello Arthur’ she called, hoping her bright manner would give her a positive response, ‘would you like a lift this morning, I see you are limping a little?’

A lift was a rare treat for Arthur because most people knew it took a good week and a can of air freshener and insect repellent to rid the inside of a car with the evidence of his presence.

His cracked lips spread out under about five days of bristle on his leathery face. The few yellow teeth he had left went up and down with pleasure.

“Would I Helen? You’re an angel, you bet I would!” He opened the back door, smiled happily at the appalled couple sitting in the rear. ‘Well, move over.’ he grinned at them, breathing heavily in his haste to make himself comfortable and filled the car with his special aroma.

They moved over, pressing against one another as they tried to avoid making any actual physical contact with Arthur. Helen observing their reactions in her rear vision mirror surmised with satisfaction that they appeared not to have entertained anyone like him in their vehicle at home.

The following day after much frantic repacking of their immaculate clothing into their immaculate and expensive suitcases they made very insincere farewells to her and she expressed the most insincere disappointment at the thought of them leaving.

After telling Del her tale she giggled girlishly, “I must take Arthur some scones next week, and wrap up some bones for his dogs.’

Del, smiled and suspected Helen hadn’t done very much for the tourist trade but felt it wouldn’t weigh on her conscience very much either.

THE END.

King Parrots Feast on the Chinese Pistachio

Letter From The Other Side; from Cynthia 2011 No 4

Dear Del,


You will remember that Teddy has been making an Inuit canoe.

He has kept it as close as he could to the original design. No screws, just wood, string and instead of animal hide, he used an old canvas painting drop-sheet bought in 1976 which like many things in his shed was kept because it might come in handy one day. Well with the advent of the canoe, the day arrived.

He experienced a few minor setbacks of his own making along the way.

Eager to demonstrate it to one of our neighbours he put it onto the grassed area outside his shed and stepped in and sat down. A sharp cracking noise came from one of the wooden ribs so that had to be repaired. Then in another rush of enthusiasm he demonstrated the repaired canoe to our son-in-law and flung the paddle too vigorously during the display. It broke in half.
Another delay while a new paddle was shaped amid yet more wood shavings which seemed to blow, walk and creep their way across the verandas, lawn and into the house, infest his socks, the carpet and eventually the washing.
I hoped by the third demonstration he would remember it was actually being made to go into water.

At last the launching day came and with much care the Titanic as I had unimaginatively named it was ready to be launched onto the large and deep lake a few kilometres from home.
It was still the busy tourist season and so the lake was swarming with holiday boats, jet skis, old fishing tinnies, and all manner of floatable objects that would support children and the big grown up children more commonly called men and fathers.

Many of the boats arrived on bright shiny trailers, because they were expensive beautifully painted fibreglass or lovelingly cared for painted wooden sailing boats which would have originally made enormous holes in the sailors bank accounts and probably put a shiver up the spines of many accountants as they paled at the thought of justifying the gross expense their clients had indulged in.

Teddy turned up with his old painting drop sheet, wooden and string canoe and placed it on the waters edge.
Someone in the crowd noticed the ugly duckling sitting at the waters edge and soon the word passed around and a few dozen pairs of eyes watched with interest, bemusement and uncontrolled mirth as Teddy sat in the fragile structure and using a branch lying in the water pushed out.

To the amazement of the majority, Terry and his canoe floated and stayed upright. In fact as he pointed the bow at the wash from a larger boat which had passed him to get a better look, he flicked across the small wave without a problem.
He paddled his way out and across to where the mouth of the river which feeds the lake enters and received a shock as the change in temperature against his legs from the cold mountain water made it feel momentarily that he was, to quote him in seafaring terms, ‘taking on water’, or as I would have said, sprung a leak.

Not so, it was just the thinness of the drop sheet between the water and his legs allowing him to have such a quick reaction to the changing temperatures. His confidence grew which is never a good thing with Teddy, it makes him rash. I know, I have been married to him for forty seven years and rash and Teddy are a bad mix.

He paddled into faster water and forgot a basic rule of canoeing, he grabbed at a branch that was in the way. Naturally, this overbalanced him as the canoe kept going and he staid with the branch. Next thing he was upside down. Not a good way to be.

I had given him two choices while the canoe project was in progress he could take a course with the local canoe school or, he would find during one cold day, a large axe through the bowels of his project because I begun to use it for kindling. He knew I wasn’t kidding. We Aussie girls are not to be messed with. He took the course.

Now that he was upside down he realized the course had been a good idea because he did really need to be able to breath. He had practiced righting himself or getting out so that he could right the canoe.

He admitted later after he was washed and warm that the ‘Dad’s Army’ prase which became immortalized in our generation of ‘don’t panic! don’t panic’ came into his head.

After what seems a very long time he resurfaced, took a great gulp of air and recovered some of the objects which had been flung out of the canoe. The cricket hat which one of our boys wore for years and Teddy has worn ever since our son left home now lies at the bottom of the lake and I suspect during the next few months there will be further litter from his canoe which will join the hat.

He came back to his launching site, nonchalantly put the canoe back into the trailer and came home feeling he had done the sea faring blood which runs in his mothers side of the family proud.
The escapade did show up a few ‘minor adjustments’, another phrase I remember a bloke called Frank used a lot. The opening had to be enlarged to accommodate his body and long legs so that the next time he upends himself he doesn’t removed a layer of his shins as he abandons ship in a hurry.

Also, he has fixed a watertight jar to place a camera in so he can take a video of himself upending. This will be a great memento for me and the family if he doesn’t resurface at some time. Very thoughtful of him. Something we will play a lot.


The other thing is I have to rename it because it didn’t sink on its first voyage. Let me think on it for a while, there is the Marie Celeste or the Bounty, or The Bismarck. No nothing there. I’ll give it more thought. Maybe ‘The Ugly Duckling’, at least it floats.

Of course his sons and son-in-law are thrilled to be told he is going to make a second canoe so they can go with him when they visit.

I wonder how long it will be before we see any of them? It could be quite a while and most probably during very bad canoeing weather.

He mentioned he might take it down to the beach when we visit them. ‘After all, the Inuit’s built them as sea fairing craft’. He said.

I won’t write what I said, but the gist of it was NO!

As my neighbour remarked when we watched him disappear around the corner dragging the canoe on a set of wheels he has made to allow him to take it to the river nearby, 'He's not quite like the rest of us is he?'

'No' I replied 'no, never has been really.'

I need to do a little gardening therapy but before I go, a quote from ’The Little Book of Crap

Advice’ by Michael Powell ‘Experience is something you don’t get until AFTER you need it!’

Cheers for now ‘your flower child’ friend,

Cynthia.

Letter From The Other Side; from Cynthia 2011 No3.




Dear Del,

After all the rain and humidity Teddy has just finished following the lawnmower around once more. No self respecting groundsman would ever call the assortment of clover, grasses and various unspecified weeds we have a lawn but when they are all cut to the same height they can masquerade as a lawn for a few days. This summer we have had little respite from the constant mowing. There has been none of the usual browning off and arid appearance of most years. Instead every four days or so the green mown areas have become a ragged tangled assortment of plants looking as scruffy as Walter, our long haired spaniel, does after he has spent an afternoon rambling in a paddock.


Since we have been back, Teddy has become especially keen to keep our place looking neat and even to go so far as to remember to trim the edges of the grass and beds after each cutting. Quite a new innovation for him.


Ours is a tidy town………. ask anyone who lives or visits here.
The Shire council and the citizens are proud of this fact and work hard to maintain the public gardens, walkways, bike trails and anywhere within the boundaries that people like to stray. There is not a trace of graffiti in sight and no local youth would risk their personal reputation or that of their parents by daubing anything mindless about.


The citizens are equally fastidious and woe betides anyone who shows an inclination to allow their garden or lawn to resemble a grassy meadow or a miniature jungle.
Many visitors murmur vaguely of their love for gardens as they enjoy the green and colourful displays each season brings and express the wish that they too could retire to live in such a lovely place. They need to be aware that to actually move here may come at the price of missing out on a game or two of golf or perhaps giving up the afternoon naps lounging about in front of the television during daylight hours.

It is frowned upon to become complacent about the appearance of milk thistles, uncontrolled ivy and any other plants considered a pest in this region and should a person be so negligent as to allow them to multiply, it will bring the wrath of their neighbours upon them.
Many of our visitors are young sportspeople, cyclists, skiing enthusiasts, long distance runners etc and not really interested in horticultural matters. Some learn of the unwritten rules of behaviour very quickly and painfully if they ignore the obvious pride and floral artistry which is on show all around them.

Not far away from us lives a gentleman I have always privately called Mr Rottweiler. He is a short, stocky gentleman with a square face, square glasses with thick lenses and a large overbite to his square jaw. I have always found him pleasant to converse with and during the singing of the carols last Christmas admired his clear bass voice.

It seems I was quite accurate with my nickname for him because he was telling Teddy of his fury one morning not long ago when a cyclist peddled past him as he was putting the finishing touches to the large grassed nature-strip in front of his home.

The cyclist appeared to be having problems with something on his bicycle and in his attempts to fix the problem he freed up his hands by throwing a half filled aluminium can of drink onto Mr Rottweiler’s newly cut grass. The can landed right on Mr Rottweiler’s left boot. Without thinking about the size of the cyclist, the fact he was about thirty years his junior and could possibly do him some pretty bruising harm, Mr Rottweiler bent down, picked up the can containing what was left of the contents and threw it back. He is obviously not only a one man vigilante ranger against litter, but could also qualify as a candidate as a pitcher for the local baseball team because he hit the cyclist on his right shoulder. It made a satisfying thud and the cyclist made an even more satisfying yelp of pain.

The surprised cyclist looked behind him, yelled some abuse as he turned around and peddled back to the seething elderly gentleman who was now hopping about with anger with his grass rake at the ready in his hands.
‘What did you do that for you silly old bugger? You could have hurt me!’
‘Well!’ barked back our canine look-alike friend, bouncing a little higher in his agitation. ‘Come here,’ he challenged ‘and I’ll finish the job!’

We suspect the cyclist rode off thinking what a mad lot of old fogies live in these parts and enjoyed the telling of the tale over dinner that evening about the grandad who had the effrontery to challenge him to a fight

So I guess the lesson here is that appearance may not always be deceiving when we assume something about someone and also I would ask you Del, if you know anyone who loves this place and would dearly wish to live here, warn them they must also be prepared to love their gardens and be ready to keep them in a certain state of neatness. Especially if they buy a home near Mr Rottweiler’s end of town.

From your particularly neat, garden happy ‘flower child’ friend,
Cynthia

A New Year. A New Adventure,
Letter From The Other Side; from Cynthia No 1 2011


Dear Del,
To begin my first letter of 2011 after such a tumultuous start to our country’s year is difficult. Where does one begin?

Should it start with the torrential tropical rains and humidity which reached thousands of kilometres to the south bringing enormous butterflies and a few birds we rarely see? Then as people raised their periscopes to view a land which at this time of year should be waving fields of golden grain, green orchards laden with fruit, bananas, mangoes and busy tourist towns full of gallivanting and frolicking tourists, the periscopes instead showed them a very different view.

The raging floods eventually covered a part of Queensland an area the size of Germany and France. For Queensland, that is not such a large chunk of their total land area but to those affected and the rest of the nation, it is a very vital area because it contains the beautiful city of Brisbane and the food bowl of the Lockyer Valley.

We have heard and seen the stories of tragedy and sudden death, the heroism of ordinary people; such as the man who stood on a railway bridge and caught a woman being washed down the river as she balanced precariously on her car’s roof. She jumped into his arms and he ran from the bridge before it was washed away. His reaction wasn’t to brag of his bravery but sorrow at not being able to save her husband.

There were the helicopter pilots who risked their lives flying at night amid live electricity wires as they used torches or any light available to rescue forty-two people from their roofs.
There was an elderly fellow who saw the plight of some thoroughbred horses and cattle frantically swimming and trying to gain a footing onto a tiled homestead roof. He took his small dingy out into the torrent to bring the injured and terrified animals to safety. He and the owner of the animals had never met before the flood, but are now firm friends.

People from safe areas gave homes to animals from pet shelters and to those who were at risk in their own home or paddocks.
Strangers helped strangers, giving beds and food to those whose homes had been swept away or made uninhabitable.

As the flood subsided, leaving many thousands of kilometres of roads damaged, bridges wrecked, coal mines flooded and industries large and small ruined…who amongst us will forget the sight of the riverside restaurant floating down the river and being crushed by the bridge, taking with it the sixty thousand dollar grand piano to the bottom?

Amongst the tragedy there was the humour of people standing in a metre of filth in their front gardens remarking about it being the first time they had experienced waterside views.

As soon as it was possible, an army of people arrived equipped with shovels, trucks, anything that may be useful to help remove the stinking poisonous silt lying in a thick layer over everything. They came by canoe, bicycle, bus, even surf boards. Bakers brought free bread; others brought freshly prepared food from their own kitchens if they were lucky enough to have power. The local politicians rolled up their sleeves and got to work, carrying sandbags giving a hand where they could. People did anything they could to enable them to assists the massive effort which will be needed to put some semblance of normality back into their towns and city.

Where does one begin? As one man said, ‘Just get stuck in mate and work.’ said another.
The army moved in to help and a navy mine sweeper is working in Morton Bay, which is a marine sanctuary, trying to locate hazards such as trucks, shipping containers, sunken yachts and enormous amounts of household goods.

Queensland isn’t the only state to have suffered this year. Western Australia also experienced vast floods, taking peoples homes, stock and livelihoods and in the south others suffered the scourge of our southern summers and lost their homes in bushfires.

Here in Victoria, our valley has been beset by a mould which has devastated the ten million dollar chestnut harvest and in other places locusts moved methodically devouring the first few green tinges of the best crops farmers had grown after eleven years of drought.

Now, following heavy rain in Victoria, there is a stinking black sea of water fifty kilometres wide and ninety kilometres long sweeping across the flat plains of the west, taking everything before it.
The smell from rotting vegetation, dead stock and wildlife can be smelt by the journalists as they fly over to make their reports. To walk or venture into this thick foul liquid is taking your life in your hands because of its toxicity.

Today, it is forty-one degrees Celsius and it will help to dry some of it up but the land will remain waterlogged and possibly toxic for a long time. Organic farmers will be devastated. The rivers will run with the toxic water for a long time resulting in the death of millions of aquatic creatures and give mosquitoes the opportunity to breed in clouds, potentially carrying disease such as Ross River virus.

As I write this letter, there is the biggest cyclone Australia has ever experienced bearing down on one thousand kilometres of Northern Queensland’s coast. It is expected to affect an enormous area inland as far as Broken Hill. The storm surge alone is expected to be up to nine metres high is some low lying areas. All patients in the hospitals in Cairns are being evacuated south and a large proportion of the population of the state has been told to move to safety while they can. Children have been evacuated south and once again people are trying to save animals. Everyone is battening down and waiting to see what Yasi, as the cyclone is named, is brewing up for them. Airports will be closed and emergency teams and volunteers are being prepared all over the country. It is too late for people to make the decision to move out now.
As their courageous and stoic state premier Anna Bligh said yesterday, ‘We are in for a terrifying twenty hours. Someone seems to have a grudge against us this year.’

A tourist remarked to one journalist that, ‘It seemed kind of exciting to stay’ I have a feeling if she survives, she will not want to be so excited again.

One sensible lady was roasting a leg of lamb while she still had the power and time to do it.
It’s a harsh land we live in and to add salt into the wounds, those rotten Poms took the ashes from us! There’s no justice at times is there?

I have to grudgingly admit they have been very generous with their donations to the flood relief and I was amazed the Brisbane grounds actually dried out enough for them to play a match there.

I also think that if the selectors; using the revolving door policy they seem to have adopted with their team selections, had chosen eleven grandmothers from a few local retirement villages, the old girls couldn’t have played any more ineffectually than our team did at times.
I might try out for wicket keeper next year. Not much gets past me.

I’ll be in touch after Yasi, passes through and we have all stopped worrying about and for the people of Queensland.
Keep the shutters down, during the heat,

Your wilting ‘flower child friend’
Cynthia.

A New Year. 2011

Letter From The Other Side; from Cynthia No 2 2011.

Dear Del,

I think if this time last year anyone had expressed the opinion that they were tired of constant rain, someone would have grabbed them in a headlock and dragged them to a suitable place to be lynched. These aggressive actions would have perhaps attracted a cheering crowd to watch the unfortunate person’s discomfort.
I would have been front and centre at the spectacle with my knitting to maintain the best traditions of bygone days.
But I think today after yet more flooding, anyone could feel free to voice the words loudly while standing among the biggest crowd without being throttled by any irate farmer.

The tourists, with the exception of a few wandering elderly citizens and grey nomads, have mostly left the village and we can once again find parking where we wish and walk the isles of the shops without fear of being trampled by children or their parents, oblivious to where their feet are taking them as they stroll along peering up at the hills. Even the one-way street signs are once again being observed by the majority of the motorists. The gentleman who lives at the end of our road and drives a large Mercedes and is on a restricted license is the one exception, as are a few cyclists who think they can ignore road signs and knock over elderly ladies at will.

At one stage during the summer we were inundated by three thousand Lycra clad cyclists who spread themselves out over the countryside in swarms, clogging the roads and weaving into the motorist’s lanes without a care in the world as they sweated up the mountain roads in pursuit of being first to the top. There must have been a very good prize to encourage them to make the struggle and lose so many litres of fluid.

Many of us entertained visitors to our homes and for most this was an added pleasure which living in such a picturesque place brings.

To one of our friends it became anything but a delightful experience.

While overseas recently during the southern winter, Helen met a couple from Europe who expressed the urge to take part in an adventure holiday.
She is of a generous and hospitable nature but feels now, when she has had time to reflect, was most probably also under the influence of a very good red wine as she issued them an open invitation to come and stay with her.

She discovered to her chagrin that meeting and getting along with people in a hotel, is a very different experience to having them under one’s roof.

The complaints began soon after their arrival. How untidy our bushland looked, how noisy the birds were, how the shops didn’t stock the right sort of food. When faced with the reality of going into the wilder areas the idea of visiting such remote places where there were few people and little emergency help appeared to frighten the life out of them. It was patently obvious to Helen any idea of an adventure trip could be completely thrown out of the ideas pool.

She could understand the culture shock people who had spent their lives in a large city would find when confronted with our great outdoors. Many find them greater and less inviting in reality than on film.

The wildlife is all around us and certainly not trained to think it should stay away from tourists. So when a brown snake about a metre and half long sidled past as they strolled along a bush track, they refused to venture out again unless they were shielded in a vehicle. The snake Helen assures me was going about its business entirely oblivious to the panicking couple. It had probably already enjoyed a meal and was simply trying find a warm spot in which it could take its afternoon nap.

Her temper began to really unravel when the complaints became more personal and hurtful.

She grew up in the large rambling house she lives in. The house grew each time her family grew and her father built it section by section. She admits that the plumbing has never been changed and is known to have idiosyncrasies which can take time to get used to. I can on occasion make a body feel as if it is a lobster about to be boiled or a pack of peas being deep frozen They complained bitterly about these occasional spasms.

The neighbours came to visit and being ordinary not very well educated folk but possessing hearts of marshmallow, tried to welcome Helen’s guests to their home for a traditional barbecue. The offer was met with disdain and the conversation gradually petered out.
It was about this time she remembered an old saying of her mothers. One she had never really understood until now.

Following each of the dreaded visits by her father's unruly and enormous family, her mother would survey her usually neat and dusted living rooms which had been left by the guests looking as if they had been refurbished by an army of wombats. She would mutter quietly.

Outside her eyes would harden as she gazed at her carefully tended garden, now beaten by children who had thrashed about with cricket bats and flattened the herbaceous borders while searching for lost balls. The muttering would become audible and voiced with great emotion.
'After a week, visitors and fish begin to smell the same.'

Helen's patience had dried up along with her housekeeping money.

With nerves twanging, she watched them do as they had done each morning while drinking coffee through pursed lips. The cups would hover in the air and they would look back into the liquid as if suspecting her of adding a pitch of foxglove or hemlock to the coffee beans. It was she had mused not an unwelcome idea.



The days dragged on a little longer while she racked her brain trying to make the signals plain it was time they moved on.....preferably a long way on.

She decided to ask them to leave. It seemed the only sensible thing to do. It was after all, her own fault they were there at all.

Full of resolve, she planned to give them a pleasant day and after they returned home as them to depart, bbegone, farewell, whichever word sprang into her head first or, if her resolve dissolved and she became the vacillating coward she now believed herself to be, think of a sick relative she needed to visit, without delay.


They left after breakfast to visit a local deer farm which boasts magnificent gardens, views and a top class restaurant.
A few miles out of town, they passed an elderly gentleman walking on the rough gravel. He is an old ‘Bushy’ and lives in a shack in the hills. Quite illegally of course because it is Crown land, but no-one worries about that. His plumbing for all anyone knows is non-existent and he is best conversed with upwind and from a distance. He shares his shack with his dogs and they probably share their fleas with him. But he is known to be a dear old gentleman who has lived a very hard life.
It had been a particularly trying few days for Helen. The stifling heat made the effort to cook appetizing meals irksome and she swigged at her indigestion medication while she tossed salads and sizzled steaks; poking them savagely with a fork in an attempt to ease her frustrations.


A brilliant idea occurred to her as she passed the old chap. She pulled up quickly, throwing her shocked backseat passengers forward in their seat belts, executed a quick three point turn while they straightened their hair and clothes and drove back to the old fellow still steadily trudging along in boots which seemed to be ill-fitting and filthy.

“Hello Arthur’ she called, ‘Would you like a lift this morning, I see you are limping a little?’
A lift is a rare treat for Arthur because most people know it takes a good week and half a can of air freshener and insect repellent to rid the inside of ones car with the evidence of his presence.
His cracked lips spread out under about five days of bristle on his leathery face. The few yellow teeth he has left went up and down with pleasure.

“Would I Helen? You’re an angel, you bet I would!” He opened the back door, smiled happily at the appalled couple sitting in the rear, ‘Well, move over.’ he grinned at them, breathing heavily in his haste to make himself comfortable and filling the car with his special aroma.
They moved over, pressing against one another as they tried to avoid making any actual physical contact with Arthur. Helen surmised they had not entertained anyone like him in their vehicle at home.

The following day after much frantic repacking of their immaculate clothing into their immaculate and expensive suitcases they made very insincere farewells to her and she expressed the most insincere disappointment at the thought of them leaving.

As their bus rounded the corner out of sight she executed an impromptu Highland Fling.

After telling me her tales she giggled girlishly, “ I must take Arthur some scones next week, and wrap up some bones for his dogs.’

It’s soggy, but fun living in the country especially during the times we make our own simple fun.
I don’t suppose Helen has done very much for the tourist trade but I don’t think that will weigh on her conscience very much.

The mosquitoes are about in great swarms following the rain and humidity so keep yourself safe from the nasty things they may spit into your bloodstream Del,
I am smothered in citronella oil and lavender so I am very much

Your flower child friend,
Cynthia.

Letter From The Other Side.

It is possible to become an unexpected expense for your friends when you are a writer.

Dear Del,

As you know I have my stories read on a few radio stations as well as your own. It has unexpected results which until I received a telephone call from a friend last week I have never dreamt would be possible.

The phone bleeped for attention and as soon as I answered it her voice bellowed out at me, ‘You cost me a fine yesterday!’

Rapidly my mind went through my actions of the day before and nothing leapt from my short term memory bank which I considered could have caused anyone a problem, especially a fine. I hadn’t left the house or even spoken to anyone except Teddy all day.

Taking a deep breath I answered, ‘I’m at a loss Fiona, how on earth could I have had you fined yesterday?’
‘Well,’ she continued in full flight as only she is capable of doing. ‘I was on my way home from work and turned the radio on in the car. There was a woman’s voice speaking and I thought ‘I know that voice, that’s Cynthia speaking. What on earth is she doing on the radio?
I turned up the volume and began to listen. You were reading the Christmas story they play every year on the local station. I hadn’t heard it before.
I must say it really got me in and I became very interested wanting to know how it was going to end.

When it was almost at the end, something attracted my attention in my rear vision mirror. To my dismay, there behind me was a big four wheel drive police car with lights going like a Myer’s window display and then of course the siren frightened the life out of me. I glanced down at my speed and to my horror I was fifteen kilometres over the speed limit. I pulled over to the side of the road all of a dither which increased when I saw the giant of a policeman getting out of the vehicle. He looked the size of a walking wheat silo. My palms became all sweaty as I lowered the window. Thinking I could maybe talk him around, I explained to the big impassive face peering in at me that I had been listening to my friend on the radio and hadn’t realized I was going quite so quickly.

You see I thought maybe mentioning you being on the radio might impress him and make him think I had friends with some sort of influence. Well it didn’t. He wasn’t the least bit impressed and gave me quite a lecture about concentrating on my driving and not on the radio etc, etc. He made me feel about seven years old to be truthful.

Then he fined me two hundred and forty dollars and took three demerit points off my licence. After turning me into a quivering lump, he rolled back to his car to drive off waving with his great cottage loaf hand in such a friendly way one would have thought he had just successfully saved a damsel in distress.

I sat where I had pulled over for a little while until I stopped feeling shaky and as though my third grade teacher had just chastised me in front of my friends. I can tell you Cynthia my weakness for men in uniform took quite a pounding and to make matters worse I now have to watch for the postman like a hawk to stop Tom (her husband) from getting to the notice of the fine in the mail before I do. He’d never let me forget it and I’d have no ammunition left in my arguments when I want him to slow down when he is driving.
By the time I had started the car again and turned the radio back on you had finished telling the story.’

I held the phone having listened to her tale of woe and wondered what on earth I was supposed to say. Although it was silly of me, I felt guilty and stumbled out an apology.
‘Oh don’t apologize’ she said ‘It wasn’t your fault. It was mine I should have pulled over to listen.’

Relieved I laughed and thanked her for not being cross.
‘Oh I’m cross, but not with you, I’m cross with myself.’
I understood her feelings but what did she expect me to do, pay half her fine?
I suggested this because the guilt lingered on. After all it had been my story which caused the problem.
‘Don’t be daft you silly woman’ she yelled loudly. ‘Just tell me how it ends or else I’ll have to listen again next Christmas and maybe get another fine!’

Writing has some peculiar outcomes doesn’t it Del?
Our parish market is on next week. I had thought of selling a few of my C.D’s with narrations of my stories but I think I’ll make dog biscuits instead.
Hopefully they won’t cause problems. If the dogs don’t like them they will just bury them and won’t ring me up to complain.
Cheers from your expensive ‘flower child friend’
Cynthia.