Category Archives: Lifestyle

Growing faith, hope and wisdom in the garden

Gardening like writing requires time and much of my time this year has been a rollercoaster of reacting to crises, sadness and responding to other people’s needs. There is no point in complaining; to be alive and to love; is to hurt and this year has been full of loving and hurting. There has been lots of laughter lots of loving and lots of crying.

I was reflecting on this recently when, coffee in hand I stood, soaking up the Spring morning sunshine, surveying my realm. I say realm but truly it is a very small inner-city garden and this year it is much neglected. The garden which always provides me with pleasure, exercise and joy has had to look after itself and it has done a spectacular job of doing so. Life doesn’t stop, it doesn’t even seem to slow down at the moment, so I am encouraging myself to pause, to observe and to smell the world around me. How absolutely appropriate I thought this week, as we said goodbye to our Queen, that my garden is a palate of flowers in shades of royal purple. The resilience she demonstrated right to the end has been reflected in my garden.

At some stage during the year I had grabbed a moment and haphazardly planted some annuals then completely forgot about them. This month I have showy fluffy petunias in many shades of purple spilling from pots and tumbling over the mulch under the pruned fruit trees. They are such delicate flowers that our tropical rain will bruise the petals yet more keep replacing these damaged beauties.

Each morning this past fortnight, I have stood in that early sunlight absorbing the delicate scents from the wisteria that surprised me with its strength in rebounding after a decimating attack by borer. New lime green leaves are sprouting from the tendrils already streaking along the wires with lacy droops of petals in varying shades from deep to palest mauve. We planted this hardy creeper to provide shade over the driveway in summer and I am so excited that this resilient vine is well on its way to doing just this.

I hear the loud song of the noisy miner where they are hidden in the leggy branches of a salvia. These long tendrils of deep almost black purple flowers are source of delight for the cheerful birds. Grown from a cutting, it has sent vigorous shoots across the garden.

I should have restrained it, pruned its branches, but how can you resist a length of blossom where the bees are feasting and butterflies landing, which give the flowers life of their own, as they land and lift off. Pruning can wait.

Under azaleas, roses and even the wisteria, I notice a profusion of intense purple violets standing high above the dark green leaves, appearing throughout the garden with more flowers than in previous years.

I have been giving away clumps of violet in a box on the footpath and picked lots of small posies for sitting in little vases on my desk. There are so many flowers, I have even resorted to coating them in sugar them which is proving a very messy task.

Under the magnolia trees, the French lavender planted to remind me of holidays in Europe should also have been pruned. All day its pale purple flowers are mobbed by bees so I cannot cut it now. It is far too tall for a lavender, but fortunately the pretty stalks are being supported by a white azalea. This year with all the rain we have had, everything is growing faster than it can be contained. This is the most challenging task in a garden, pruning. Not because of the time it takes but because I hate cutting a plant to discard it, even if it is only to put it into the compost or as mulch.

Prettiest of all, casting a blue haze over the garden, under the citrus, under the olives, in fact everywhere, is the blue Louisiana iris which have also thrived with all the rain this year. Its deep purple frilly leaves, streaked with white and gold, are a symbol of royalty, a constant reminder that this year is very special. The flower, named after Iris the Goddess of the rainbow is considered a symbol of faith, hope, wisdom and valour. Qualities that the Queen and my father displayed in ‘spades’.

Without me even planning it, this garden with its colour, scent and beauty has provided me with gentle solace as I quietly whispered farewell to my Queen and to my 96 year-old father, who died in June.

Spring Cleaning a Life – Decluttering Mum’s Wardrobe

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It was the ant world that pushed me into cleaning out or more precisely ‘decluttering’ my father’s wardrobe. Those pernicious insects propelled me into doing what 18 months ago grief couldn’t. With repulsion, I watched ants scurrying along shelves and up the walls of the walk-in robe that Dad had once shared with our mother. Following their trail, we discovered nests under books, boxes of old mobile phones, in the crevices of Mum’s ski boots and probably a lot of other places we didn’t look.

These nests were all new since the February, nearly 2 years ago, when we had started to clean out the wardrobe after Mum’s unexpected death. Back then, my sisters were wandering around the house, dealing with their sorrow and needing to be kept occupied so Dad gently suggested they clean out Mum’s side of the wardrobe. It was only a few days after she had died and so, while I wrote a draft Eulogy, they sorted the clothes into three piles: ditch; give away and keep. It was a time to remember our mother and the occasions on which she had worn these clothes. It was also a way of dealing with saying goodbye.

My daughters were slightly disconcerted at the speed with which their aunts made these decisions. They kept dragging clothes from the pile and hiding them in a cedar chest for us to go through later.

Although she loved fashion, Mum wasn’t a slave to it but her clothes were an integral part of her personality and she bought well. Tall and slim, she wore her clothes with a touch of elegance and style. Mum had an innate sense of what would look good on her and rarely bought something that she later regretted. Growing up, we girls often raided her wardrobe searching for something different to wear.

Sensibly, my sisters realised that not all the clothes should be removed immediately as this would have left a very empty wardrobe for Dad to look at each time he got changed. Looking around the wardrobe as he and I tracked the ants I realised what a sense of Mum’s presence these clothes still carried. The fabrics have absorbed her smell and her perfumes.

The magic of cloth has the memory of the wearer

Her blouses evoked the shape of her body as they hung from the soft padded coat hangers that she used. It is the magic of cloth that it has a memory and I could still see the creases at the elbow of the shirt that Mum had hung up to wear a second time. If I was considering a memento mori it would be one of my mother’s silk shirts that have started to fray at the edges and seams. I feel like that myself some days.

We looked at her shoes, none of which either I or my sisters and our children could fit. Mum had long slim feet and was justly proud of them. Now after a hot humid summer, mildew was forming on some of the shoes that hadn’t been worn for months.

I’ll share this task with you I said to Dad as I climbed a small step ladder to inspect the top shelf. This was where suitcases, carryon bags, satchels, pillows, rugs, etc had been placed. There were three carry-on bags and three large suitcases. I handed the first down to him which was light then reached for the second one, an early Samsonite, well-made but now superseded in design and materials. This needs to go I suggested pulling it off the shelf. Feeling the difference in the weight even he agreed that it might be surplus to requirements. Suitcases also have changed. Mum’s father had given her a crocodile skin suitcase when she first travelled to England in 1955 and she had kept it. It is a beautifully crafted piece of luggage and I cannot throw it out, despite knowing that none of us will use it when travelling. It is now the happy depository of our Christmas decorations.

‘At 94, I think it is ambitious to plan decluttering each year.’

‘We should declutter your shelves every couple of years,’ I suggested, looking at the wardrobe.

‘At 94, I think that’s a little ambitious,’ he responded.

The lower shelves were a clutter of half-read books, old and unused out of date diaries, wrapping paper and ribbons, and boxes. Boxes of old mobile phones both Mum’s and Dad’s dating back to their first Nokias. The backing on the old clamshell phone had melted the sides together. ‘I am keeping them just in case,’ Dad protested as I tossed them into the bin.

I gave him a scathing look. ‘Dad, you use a phone on which you can facetime my sisters and our children who are all interstate or overseas.’ Why do you want to go back to the dark age?’ I could feel my Mother whispering in my ear pointing out that she was not the hoarder in the household. ‘Keep going.’ I could hear her urging me.

We paused for a coffee then I departed with bags of lovely shoes and shirts for our local charity. Later that evening I found Dad distributing his clothes on the now empty racks. ‘I have found shirts I had forgotten I had,’ he said, proudly pointing to his shirts all hanging off quaint padded clothes hangers. ‘You know, I think your mother used to buy me a shirt whenever she bought her herself an expensive outfit as I have shirts I haven’t worn in years.’

Some of us just cannot see a clean empty shelf or space without filling it. Dad was always being accused of covering every horizontal surface in their home and I think Mum was justified as the next day, I caught him tying a rope around a wheeled pot plant stand on which he had precariously balanced a carton of wine. He declined my offer to help as he said it was the last carton from under the couches in the study where they had been stored for the past year.

‘You can’t have drunk it all so where are the rest of the cartons,’ I asked watching him shuffle down the hallway tugging his wine behind him.

I should have known. The once empty wardrobe shelves are now crammed with boxes of old files and cartons of wine. There was even a bottle opener. ‘Your mother loved her glass of wine and was happy to have a drink anywhere, anytime,’ Dad chuckled. ‘Do you think she’d approve?’

I have a feeling that it wasn’t thunder I heard overhead, but my mother stamping her feet, cross that she hadn’t thought of having a drink in her walk-in robe before he did.

The Covid-19 lockdown continues…

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Life in the Craig household continues as normal even though I miss the opportunity to go out for a picnic or have friends over for a meal. Chatting by video just isn’t quite the same as being with each other. We walk, read and play games, and listen to podcasts. I can tolerate this isolation but refuse to consider living in a world where isolating the over 70 year olds might become the norm; that is not a life it is a jail term!

Perhaps Covid-19 is good preparation either for retirement or for learning how to live with one’s chosen partner. Andy and I have been without full time work now for a few years so we have finally adjusted to a lifestyle where we don’t tread on each other’s toes or run out of conversation. We have started playing games after dinner, including scrabble and backgammon, and my 93 year old father is secretly hoping that we will start playing bridge together.

Colin the Cat has taken to hiding from us under the bedcovers, scunging up the sheets but at least he doesn’t have to tolerate his humans being at home so much. He appears at dinner time when he supplements his dinner with moth entrée as we have been inundated with moths, large and small, ugly and questionably beautiful.

Andy said he grew up calling these moths Widow’s moths because of the sharp v that their wings form when closed, but I think they are called Swift’s moths and there seem to be many variations. They divebomb our salads, splash down in our wine and singe their wings on the candles! Even the local newspaper is reporting these irritating invaders. I have to cover my glass of water on the bedside table otherwise I get a mouthful of moth in the middle of the night.

No-one really knows why they have arrived although it may have something to do with the long period of drought then rain. ‘Blame it on climate change’ – seems to have disappeared from the newspapers lately. I think originally there were too many larvae hatching into caterpillars which devoured my rocket, then they hatched into heaps of moths and there were insufficient parasitoid wasps to eat the moth larvae but there are a lot of bean bugs destroying the snake bean harvest. The grandsons and I have been chanting: Four green caterpillars sitting on a plate, out came the secateurs and then there were eight!’

I am torn between loving my other invader, the Swallow Tail butterfly and tolerating the caterpillars. It was fun watching a male butterfly dance and flutter its wings, casting its pheromone love dust towards the female who had perched on a particularly vicious thorny rose stem.

https://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/ILLUMIN.ASP?Size=mid&IllID=40296

I watched her perch gently between the thorns and wondered about the many times marriage is expressed as being a bed of roses with the occasional thorn (or nail as Bon Jovi sings) thrown in. Roses were on my brain as I had just listened to a podcast about the poem Le Roman de la Rose where a knight breaches the castle of jealousy and finds the rose.

So my garden has been an utter disaster this year other than the lime tree which as usual is producing far too many fruit for us to consume. I have been pruning it vigorously, even though it isn’t that time of the year to do so and after making two batches of lime marmalade, salted limes and limeade, I gathered the crop into small parcels and walked up and down my street handing them out to the neighbours. I even put a large collection at the front gate and asked passers by to help themselves which has removed some but only some of the surplus.

You are never too old to learn a new skill

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When do you get too old to learn a new skill? Never if you look at my parents generation who are playing bridge, mahjong, reading new books, golfing and taking up hobbies as well as exercising.

My grandmother when she was in her 80s, stopped cooking with her aluminium saucepans and refused to use deodorant that had aluminium as an ingredient. She was particularly insulted by our laughter when she told us that she was doing it to help prevent Alzheimer’s. Granny died when she was 104 and was alert almost to the end.

Now, my mother has returned from having a bone scan, jubilant that she doesn’t have dementia. Her bone density isn’t very good, but at least she doesn’t have Alzheimer’s. Judging from the number of days each week that she trots off to play bridge and have lunch with the girlfriends, there never was any doubt about her mental capability. However, both she and Dad are determined to slow the ageing process by all means possible.

Aged 92, my father is still playing golf three or four days a week and is irritated that 18 holes is almost too much for him. He comes back after a day on the course looking absolutely shattered. But as he says, ‘The alternative is to sit on the verandah and eat your mother’s cakes while watching the world go by.’

Mum’s hands aren’t strong enough at 87 years, to take up a new hobby such as quilting or knitting but she can still cook and her plan is to cook a new recipe every week. She says that deciding upon the recipe, shopping for the food and then preparing it fills in a lot of her spare time, that is if there is any after bridge, reading and lunches. She struggles to open the tops of jars and is tempted to ask the local shopkeeper to open the bottles of ingredients for her before she leaves the shop. Even the act of squeezing the petrol pump nozzle has become a challenge to her arthritic fingers. Dad complains his muscle strength isn’t what it used to be despite walking the dog and swinging a golf stick with a weight on it.

Keeping your body and mind does become more challenging as you lose muscle strength with age. You may be able to slow down the advance of Sarcopenia with exercise and diet but it eventually affects us all. Mum says the latest topic around the bridge table isn’t which erectile dysfunction drugs such as Viagra the old fellas should take, it is all about super foods and which source of omega-3 and protein powder is the best one to buy. Whey protein smoothies are popular whilst others sprinkle it onto their yoghurt and muesli at breakfast.

These oldies enjoy life and seem to be determined to live forever and if they can’t slow the body down they will try to slow mental ageing down with Brain Training. However, I think my father’s latest challenge is one of the best.

He and I recently went shopping at Apple and he bought his first iPhone and replaced his very old laptop with an iMac. He is refusing to be overwhelmed and is already becoming more sanguine about using these new machines. There are lots of hiccups and he is often asking me what command he should use, but he is tackling a new operating system with determination. We sit together at his desk while I guide him, letting him use the mouse and keyboard, then he writes these instructions down in his notebook for future reference. He is familiar with internet banking, he scans rental property documents, books his travel online and has digital subscriptions to many magazines. He already has his Bridge notes on his iPad, now his bedtime reading includes manuals for using the Apple iPhone and iMac. Within 24-hours my sister had him on a WhatsApp group, exchanging text messages and photos with his children and grandchildren who are scattered around the world. He is set to become a role model in my son’s business as an example of how not to fear learning a new system. The great-grandchildren love it when he FaceTimes them.

As this inspirational couple say, at 87 and 92 years of age, Brain Training is probably all the training they can do.

Love your bookshops

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It is a sad situation when a small group of individuals are so threatened by ideas they disagree with that they feel vindicated in ransacking a bookshop. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/aug/05/far-right-protesters-ransack-socialist-bookshop-bookmarks-in-london

Bookmarks on Bloomsbury Street in central London is the UK’s largest socialist bookshop. Photograph: Dave Gilchrist

1933 the German Students Union participated in burning books deemed to be ‘unGerman’. Strange new ideas are like bullets peppering your self-righteous beliefs. You see this attitude creeping onto our campuses where ideas deemed antagonistic to current virtue signalling concepts are vigorously opposed.

It could be of course, that the intruders limit their reading to social media and therefore cannot articulate their ideas in any way but through force. It is easier to break a door than support an opinion through rhetoric and debate. No-one is forcing them to buy or read these books but where is their respect for the right of someone to have a differing point of view.

I love bookshops even more than food markets which is saying a lot for me. I cannot walk past a book shop without browsing the display in a window, or better still picking up and perusing from a pile of books lying in a box outside as one of our local second-hand bookshops does.

The temptation is not worth resisting and so I enter sure in the knowledge that I will find at least one book that I have been wanting to read or one that will make me desire it. Even before I read the titles, the smell of the paper gives me a buzz of excitement and the thought of what the pages can show me is so addictive that I can spend a couple of hours drifting along the shelves, pulling books in and out, calculating how many I can justify to myself that I will read in the near future. Yes, that does mean I have a pile of books on my to read/unread shelf but who cares because they are a promise of a future pleasure.

I get excited just looking at the piles of books that clutter the corridor of a bookshop, the books that other people have pushed in on top of the ordered shelves and those left in the wrong place. There is even the joy of finding comments written on the pages and occasionally a letter or photo used as a bookmark. My husband uses his old boarding passes so one day when he goes to the great bookshop in the sky, someone will travel the world on his books. We have a book of poetry where the owner has written her comments beside her favourite poems. It is a joy to read the thoughts of a woman clearly well read and insightful. I wish I could sit down with her over a glass of wine and talk about the world.

Now I am enjoying the vicarious pleasure of introducing a grandchild to this rewarding hobby. I watch as his finger runs down the spines of the pile of second-hand Treehouse Series books, trying to remember which ones he already has. He is only 7 years old, but for the next two hours he sits, buried in the pages, bubbles of laughter erupting at the crazy ideas he is discovering on the pages, curling up in exquisite delight at the ridiculousness and taking pleasure in reading the story to me. This child will never be bored, never lonely and never threatened by ideas. This is an adventure for life.

I feel sorry for those vandals. They must have had a very boring and restrictive childhood.

The Dawn Chorus

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My morning visitors.

I heard something last week that was so addictive that I am happily waking up before dawn in anticipation of hearing this music again. You might be thinking, ‘Crazy lady’ and I couldn’t blame you but it is almost sufficient enticement to get me out of bed before dawn in winter and down to the nearby bushland to try recording it.

Are you a morning person? My early morning alarm is usually the cat leaping onto my bed, nudging me with his cold nose, and meowing in ever-increasing tones telling me that his food bowl is empty. I can ignore the yowls but not the nibbles on my toes.

Mohair blankets are purrrfect!

Last week however, my furry intruder was early and the sun’s rays were just lighting up the hills across the valley, immersing my bedroom in that half-light before dawn. Opening my eyes, I could see a sliver of pale washed blue sky through the linen curtains that moved lightly in the morning breeze.

Birdsong drifts across our valley.

It was a strange feeling, not knowing why all my senses were alert yet the cat was also sitting up, eyes wide, ears twitching quite obviously listening to something. It was as if the air around me was vibrating with song, and the room a tunnel with the notes bouncing off the walls. The dawn chorus was so clear and so beautiful it was like being submerged in bird song or in a painting filled with music and I lay there, trying to identify which bird produced which sound. It was early, well before the sun had risen so there was almost no traffic noise to compete with this chorus. It was also a very cool winter’s morning so this symphony dominated the airwaves.

Tempting the Rosella

I had forgotten how truly magnificent is the dawn chorus in Australia. Gloriously melodic notes floated on the air, a soft warble, a chirrup, a twireep, a trill and more and more songs. All these sounds cascading together to form one of the most beautiful natural chorus anyone could wish to hear. I am no expert but I think I could make out at least some of the following bird songs from the magpies, the grey butcherbirds, the blue-faced honeyeater, the common myna, the black-faced cuckoo shrike, the willy wagtail and of course the kookaburra. There were probably others I didn’t identify.

Shy Rosella feeding on sunflower seeds.

Listening to this music I tried to remember other dawn choruses and I think Australia does it better than anywhere else. They sure sound louder than other choruses I have heard. Perhaps this is because songbirds originated in Australia about 23 million years ago.

Although our dinosaur bones have survived, our very fragile bird skeletons tend not to, making it difficult to determine the migration of songbirds. Now a team led by Dr Rob Moyle from the University of Kansas, USA is using DNA to study the migration of these songsters. They are thought to have occurred travelled across the chain of islands called Wallacea that lay between Australia and New Guinea and the Indonesian archipelago.

Map of Wallace (Sunda & Sahul) Sourced: Wikipedia.

Australia has many eucalypts and paperbarks as well as grevilleas that bear nectar producing flowers which attract the honeyeaters and lorikeets. These birds which feed voraciously on the flowers and fight over their food patch, have become the primary pollinators of trees and shrubs.

The wattle flowers are like star bursts of fireworks.

At the moment my local park and bushland has lots of flowering wattles, eucalypts and grevilleas.

Ducking and weaving amongst the flowers.

Each afternoon when I go for a walk and I see the myna birds feeding on the Grevilleas and there was even a very shy Rosella munching on the last of the sunflower seeds. Sometimes it feels as if the trees are starting to vibrate with the bees feeding on the flowers.

In the Northern Hemisphere it is small birds such as the hummingbirds that act as pollinators and most trees are pollinated by wind or insects.

Bee raiding eucalypts flower.

On other mornings this week I have also heard the dawn chorus but it hasn’t been as loud or clear and I wondered why on that one morning it was like being in a tunnel of sound. Perhaps winter is the reason. I was intrigued to read a description using the same words in Nature’s Music: The Science of Birdsong by Peter R Marler and Hans Slabbekoorn. Apparently in winter you often get an ‘inversion’ layer of cold air sitting just above the ground and when the birds sing, their songs are reflected off the warm layer above them and beamed along the ‘tunnel of cold air’. Sound travels better in still cold air than warm air which may be why the bird song at dawn seems up to 20 times louder than in the middle of the day.

At least I have this beautiful sight every morning.

Morning chorus

I lost Autumn

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Autumn has eluded me. Occasionally when I wake, the western hills are cloaked in a thick, grey fog dampening the sounds of an awakening suburb. It fills the gullies and swirls around like a dancer clothed in a cape of moist air teasing me behind a mask of summery temperatures warm enough for a t-shirt when I work in the garden. Web_fog_9127
This morning, I heard, over the shrill squabbling of the lorikeets feasting on the bread, milk and honey mixture I put out for them, an unfamiliar chirruping outside my kitchen. Coffee in hand, I wandered into my front garden and squinted up into the early sunlight. Perched high in the spindly branches of the crepe myrtle, surprisingly well camouflaged despite its bright blue and yellow colours was a Rosella, visible only because the leaves have finally started to fall. This drought tolerant deciduous tree is a delight in summer with its bowl-shaped canopy of mauve crepe flowers attracting lots of bees and in winter its beautiful bark is a stand out feature. I think I lost autumn, I am not sure it occurred and now this elusive season has segued into winter.

Web-Lorikeets_9234-2 We get excited about the leaves dropping in our cooler months. I get excited as they are a useful dry leaf matter addition to the compost bin, but my gardening assistant sees them as a chore to be swept up. I have uttered serious threats to this individual, because after sweeping up the Wisteria leaves, he tends to toss them into the rubbish bin rather than into the compost. As punishment, I have set him a task to install a light under the Frangipani to highlight its sculptural bare limbs in the evening. Now the Birch has started to drop leaves around the garden, the yellow colours mimicking the yellow paint on the house. Suddenly there are enough leaves to scrunch beneath my feet, a true sound of autumn and winter. Web-autumn-birchleaves9475

The shorter days are still perfect for long lunches on the deck although we have dusted off the gas heater so that as the sun disappears below the hills we can continue the conversation over another bottle of wine.

Soon it will be time to bring out my collection of old rugs under which guests can snuggle to ward off an evening’s cooler temperature. I have an assortment of old tartan rugs inherited from various members of the family plus those knitted or sewn by myself. None are so precious that I get upset if a glass or two of wine is spilt over them. They need an airing to rid them of the smell of lavender that I store with them to dissuade the clothes moths. Web_blankets_9481

Now that the cooler evenings have arrived, we have moved from eating outside with tea lights for romance to dining under soft candle light at the dinner table. Our barbecue is still frequently used, but now I am beginning to plan meals around warm soups and casseroles accompanied by winter salads incorporating the delicious flavours of vegetables such as cabbage, brussels sprouts and beetroot.

I am impatient for the colder nights to arrive so that we can light the first of only about 20 fires that we have each winter. Our winter evenings are not really cold enough to warrant a fire, but I have been known open all the doors and windows to let in as much cold air as possible. My idea of bliss is to sit having a drink after dinner, feet encased in uggies, books and knitting beside me, soaking up the warmth of the flames. Web_pinecones_9470

If I am really lucky next morning there will be enough coals left, that with the addition of a few pine cones, the fire will reignite. This is definitely one of the pleasures of not having to rush off to work in the morning, because I will make a coffee and curl up under a rug eating breakfast in front of the flames.

This week in anticipation of a cooler night, I put a light winter blanket on the bed which was a total waste of time as it is still too hot to sleep under anything heavier than a summer blanket. This didn’t stop the cat who leapt onto me in the middle of the night pitter pattering with his claws, purring loudly and commandeering more than his fair third of the blanket. If I get tired of being squashed between the two males in my bed, and try to shift the hairy one, he digs his claws in and bites. Ouch!

I am however, the eternal optimist and have started on a list of tasks for the elusive autumn and winter: Web_kindling9472

Get the firewood and pine cones ready for the first fire. Set the fire in preparation. This can be a very competitive business in our household.
Buy more candles for the dinner table
Fill up the gas bottle for the heater on the deck
Wash the old rugs and give them an airing.
Start thinking about recipes for soups, winter salads and pies
Finish knitting the baby rug for number 11 grandchild before he goes to school!

An Anzac food parcel of love

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Can food speak as words of love from a mother? I certainly tried to make this happen.

Poppy Anzac Day always has special meaning to our family as we have had so many members serving here and overseas. I try not to let it pass without thinking of what it means to Australians and today as I was listening to a speaker talking about letters sent home by Australian soldiers in previous wars I started to think about the words and messages my son and I used in our emails during his two stints overseas and of how I tried to communicate my love to him.

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I remember sitting at an early morning Anzac Day service in Los Angeles, feet in thin soled shoes getting wet from the heavy dew on the grass, pulling a pashmina tight around my shoulders as a shield against the thick early morning fog that hid the gravestones surrounding us. Even the podium a few metres in front of us had swirls of grey mist clinging to its supports. I was still, tense, with hands in my lap, staring at the speaker without listening to his words, absorbed in my effort not to think of what my son might be doing on the other side of the world in Iraq. I looked with unfocussed eyes, beyond the speaker into the grey distance where urban shapes were emerging from shadows. Gradually one shape impinged on my consciousness and it was like being hit in the chest with a fist. A Bunya Pine, that tall untidy tree planted near Australian homesteads to act as a landmark to travellers and those who were lost and now would find their way home. I sat, tears sliding quietly down my cheeks, images of my son flooding my mind, reassuring myself he would be fine. ‘He is trained for this,’ was only temporary reassurance from my husband.

‘Hope the sandpit is treating you kindly. Take care, duck and weave when you have to. Love ya.’ xx Mum

As a mother there really isn’t much you can do when your adult child is serving overseas, other than write or send the odd parcel from home. And if I was lucky I occasionally had a few snatched moments on the phone and then I would pass the information on to our huge extended family voracious for news about G. These conversations were always hit and miss, because you could never return his phone call as his numbers didn’t exist.

‘Hi all, I just spoke with G, he’s good, his normal self, no news really. Work is keeping him busy enough but other than that he was more interested in finding out what is going on at home than talking about his side of things…’ Susie

So write I did, frequently, about nothing in particular, just the news of what our lives were like, about my work, people we were dining with, meals and recipes I cooked, activities with friends and family and places I visited. I tried to make them the most interesting and funny letters I had written. Every time I whinged about no contact, I would think about my Italian Grandmother writing from Proserpine to the family in Piedmont and that it might take 12 weeks from sending to receiving a letter. Italy was so far from Australia that after leaving at 21 years of age, she never saw her parents again. The only time I felt that living in Los Angeles and London was a long way from anywhere was when G told me of his postings.

‘Dear G, I woke up last night and decided that I needed to see you and K for a night before you go away to the other sandpit!!! … Therefore I think we will come home from London for about five days….’ Love ya, xx Mum

His two sisters felt his absence as keenly as I did and wrote as often. We kept each other in the loop which later expanded to include his fiancé. Food of course was an easy topic of conversation.

‘Mumsie, Just for future reference, you might already know (I didn’t), he says bring on nice cereals and antipasto-type goodies, …, and he has a small bar fridge so he can store jars of olives etc, just don’t send cheeses or anything similarly perishable. No other tips for care parcels, just make it edible. Typical, he’s not happy with boring digestives cookies, nah, he wants the fancy deli goods!!’ xx G

However, just because he wasn’t at home, didn’t mean that I wouldn’t occasionally ask him to provide brotherly guidance to a turbulent sister who had issues at work or disappointments in love.

‘Mumsie, Yeah yeah, I spoke to S the other night, usual brotherly thing, all sorted, I should probably give J a call and see how her job is going. I might do that tomorrow. I actually got a couple of little love packages from L and S the other day. These were absolutely great as food was starting to run low out here. It’s not that we ever run out it’s just that you get a very limited choice, not too bad but weird flavours, ie; Ham and onion sandwiches…’ xxG

I was curious about the people he worked with (on both sides), and would raise cultural issues that I had run across when living in the United States, such as the advertisements on television shows and in the Gourmet magazines that I read but got very little information other than…

‘The Americans do take a little getting used to, we’ve got a team working with us and there definitely is a bit of a culture clash, not too bad but it’s the little things. The radio plays ads supporting abstinence and lot’s of happy clappy god fearing stuff. Very bizarre.’ xx G

Desperate for any news at all, I would discuss politics at home and abroad but G was always the mastermind of reticence and self-censorship with a little cynicism creeping in…

‘Yeah life over here for the ordinary person might be better if we left, and I think there will always be conflict where respect is gained through firepower. Only now are we learning, yet again, that modern western democratic ideals cannot be overlayed onto all countries.’

And so I would go into great detail about my life of museums, art galleries, coffee with girlfriends and teaching at a Muslim girls’ school, keeping fit by swimming none of which I am sure he was particularly interested in but perhaps he was, as he did once say he had saved all our correspondence, and he would send me details of his day ….

‘Mumsie, Well I’ve finally got here and am starting to settle in. It’s one hell of a barren place, I don’t think the surface of the moon could look any worse than this, it’s dusty, rocky, mountainous, sandy, windy, and actually quite cold. … There’s supposed to be a ‘coffee shop’ of some description run by the Dutch and a local store run by some international company as well as a weekly local market which everything going to plan I’ll get down there soon enough and check it out.’

We knew he didn’t want or need clothing or books but food was frequently a subject discussed in our emails as he is a terrific cook. So my sister, my daughters and I all sent food parcel after food parcel, including Anzac biscuits and the heaviest fruit-filled cakes I could carry.

‘Dear G, Here is my latest offering. If you don’t need it, use it as currency for something you do. The lady at the post office in LA couldn’t believe how heavy the fruit cake was, but her eyes widened and she smiled in delight, when she made me unwrap its many layers of brown paper and alfoil and smelt its aroma…’

‘Mumsie, One good thing though… the food here is phenomenal, it is without a doubt the best food I have ever eaten during 11 years in the Army. We get T-Bone steak, Eye Fillet steak, curries, fresh Naan, fresh fruit salad, good cereal etc. That being said I’ll never turn down any home cooked goodies (or spicy stuff…).

Cooking the biscuits and cakes let me pour all my love into that food to nurture him and keep him safe. I felt I was contributing. Although after receiving that email, I did wonder if our gifts were redundant…

‘Dear G, Glad to hear the playpit is feeding you well. It sounds as if there is an opportunity for a good barista – what are your entrepreneurial skills like? Perhaps we could dip in chocolate and send you the cockroaches that are said to be hatching in plague numbers in Queensland due to the unseasonal heat. Unseasonal, in November, unlikely.

Today, full of memories of other cakes, after the Anzac service I came home and cooked a fruit cake as a message of love to my children. I found a recipe from my Grandmother, born in 1902, who lost a brother in France in World War 1. Flexible as always, I fiddled with the recipe a little because fruit cakes are like that, using whatever was in my cupboard and fridge. Into a large packet of mixed fruit, I added raisins, chopped apricots, a few figs and some dates. I didn’t have sufficient hazelnuts so I made up the mixture with walnuts and almonds as well. I had plum jam so used that instead of apricot jam.

I poured my love into this cake as if it was my children, I chopped the nuts and crushed their obstacles, added spicy ginger to give warm love to their life and sweetness with home-made plum jam. And as I incorporated the flour with Granny’s old spoon, and gently blended the fruit, I was whisked back to the many times they sat around my bench, licking the bowls, stirring the alcohol into the fruit and always helping to make and eat the fruit cakes for past Christmases, christenings and birthdays. As this cake rose it reminded me how integral baking and cooking is to binding our family together.

Granny Young’s fruitcake

Pre-heat oven to 180ºC. Butter and dust with flour a 25 cm (10 in) round cake tin.

250g butter

1 cup brown sugar

375g dried fruit

½ cup dried figs, chopped

1½ cups prunes, chopped

1½ cups hazelnuts, skinned and chopped

3 eggs

1¼ cups self-raising flour

1 tablespoon cocoa

1¼ cups plain flour

1½ teaspoons mixed spice

3 tablespoon apricot jam

1 tablespoon instant coffee mixed with 2 tablespoons water

web-cake-ingredients1 In a mixer, cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, then mix in the eggs one by one. Sieve together the flours and cocoa and mixed spice. Mix together the fruit and nuts. Add the coffee to the jam, mix together and add to the fruit. Add the flours and fruit in alternate batches to the mixture. If it feels a little dry, just add a small amount of milk to moisten the mixture.

Cook for about 1¼ to 1½ hours and remove when a skewer inserted into the mixture comes out clean. Allow to cool in the tin. For additional flavour, trickle a couple of spoonfuls of brandy or rum over the warm surface. (Great for when you send it to an alcohol-free base!).

Developing a child’s imagination and creativity

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ww_monkey-on-desk In January I decided I would be more organised but February (as you will learn later in the story) will be the creative month. I remind my husband that being organised needn’t equate with tidiness. However, I am hugely excited that I can see at least part of my desk’s surface. I celebrated by placing a new stack of books on my desk; my husband celebrated by decluttering his bookcase which is always a concern.

I watched his hand move in the space above the row of travel guides we have, hovering over some, stroking others as memories flooded in then pausing on the books deemed redundant or unwanted.

One of the books he decided to discard was a Lonely Planet guide to Libya. I picked it up, and flicked through its pages, reflecting upon how fortunate we had been to visit Libya before the Arab Spring movement and the removal of Gaddafi propelled this country into turmoil and unrest. This was one of those books that very few people if any would want but as he tossed it towards the bin I had an idea and grabbed it mid-air. An idea was already careering like a camel across the sand dunes of my mind.

Harry, my 5-year-old grandson was spending time with us and we had exhausted the usual activities I use to keep him occupied. I leafed through the book, examining the pictures of far-off places, people and exotic animals.

‘Your cousins are visiting the Canberra zoo soon, but why don’t we make our own zoo?’ I suggested. He looked a little puzzled but expressed interest. I tasked him to get the scissors and pencils, directed him to where the craft and brown paper was stored, while I made a paste of water and flour for glue and ‘a collecting we went.’

‘Just like Gerald Durrell,’ I told him and I had happy time telling him about this amazing man and how he had travelled the globe collecting animals for zoos.

We had a glorious time. An entire afternoon was spent discussing the places we would visit and the animals we might find. Harry cut out the images and pasted them onto the brown paper. As he did this, we talked about the animals, where they lived and what they ate.

ww_creating-the-zoo-with-harry After this Harry drew the zoo with an entry gate and pathways to visit the various animals. He wrote their names on signs then drew trees and plants to feed the animals and a café with tables and chairs for Nanna Sooz and Harry to have an iced coffee and a chocolate milkshake when we got thirsty.

This led to a ‘Zoo’ game where we visited the animals and talked about where they had come from. After that Harry wanted to continue the game, with him choosing to be a monkey and Nanna the elephant chasing each other around my small garden.

ww_creating-the-zoo-with-tom This game made me realise how powerful our imagination is. Using my life experiences, I could gently nudge him towards imagining a world he had never seen and create a story and a game that filled hours of our time. I have been reading a lot about brain development in children and how creative play and using imagination encourages a child’s cognitive development particularly in the areas of language articulation and self-regulation of emotions.

Recently a travel brochure landed on my desk, filled with beautiful illustrations for holidays to faraway places which for many reasons this year I am unlikely to visit. I couldn’t stop Harry from getting a brain tumour but I can darn well do everything a Nanna can do to help his young brain recover.

Harry in November 2016 I foresee some wonderful expeditions with Harry as we explore exotic lands, go collecting and meet strangers in other countries. Who knows what all this information will be used for later in life. He may study conservation and sustainability like his clever uncle, become a zoologist or scientist, be an explorer or spend his life travelling and writing. As Shakespeare said, ‘…the world’s mine oyster…’.

Girlfriends are so important

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ww_the-girls-backs-on-log We were off to Point Lookout on North Stradbroke Island which has to be one of the most glorious places to have a girls’ week-end away. A southerly was battering the boat and my girlfriend and I were struggling to stand upright against the swell that was tossing the passenger ferry around like flotsam.

ww_point-lookout Sea water was splashing against the windows of the lounge area where the passengers had crowded to avoid getting wet from the spray that washed across the outer deck. Bracing against the seat, I looked around the lounge and noticed that my friend and I were the only people chatting; our travelling companions were all head down, looking at their iPhone or tablet. This silence was broken only by giggles coming from the front of the sitting area where I saw two little girls playing with each other.

Version 3 I had seen the little strawberry topped hat looking out through the rain drops sliding down the glass as the passenger ferry rolled and splashed its way across Moreton Bay through the squall that was making our passage distinctly uncomfortable.

She was playing very happily by herself, running her finger down the wet window and drawing pictures. Occasionally she would turn to the child nearest her and play with her. I have no idea whether they were siblings or friends but when I asked to take her photo, she immediately wrapped her arm around the other little girl and gave her a hug, including her in the shot.

Version 4 My girlfriend smiled at me and I reflected that this is what I would experience over the next two days in the company of my girlfriends.

Some of our friendships have start way back when we were as little as these two girls, sharing simple pleasures, some started when we were thrown together as a disparate group at school or later at university when a common interest, subject studied or another friend brought us together.

At the beach house, as I sat sharing a glass of wine and laughing at our reminiscences of past boyfriends I realised how important these friendships are in helping you get through your life. We talked about our worries for our children and our hopes for their careers and love life and how gut wrenching it was when they left home. We mused over the sorrows and tragedies that have occurred hoping that our friendship acts as a barrier to despondency and loneliness.

ww_the-girls-sitting-on-log We complained about the incremental changes on our bodies that ageing causes and moaned of the challenges faced when dealing with our ageing parents. Although most of us are experiencing it, none of us could determine the best form of treatment for AMS (Ageing Mother Syndrome).

Some of us are married to our first husband, some onto our second marriage and others divorced but we remain friends. The wonderful thing about a friendship with our girlfriends is the acceptance of what you are. It is a liberating feeling to know that you don’t have to appear with make-up on each morning and who cares about the bulges that no amount of yoga or Pilates will tighten up and make disappear. We were content, sitting on the deck, sipping a coffee and talking about what interests us. We have all followed different career paths and there is no need for jealousy or envy. I am happy to delve into their experiences and adapt their strategies into my life.

Having a girlfriend as a friend means listening while she talks, trying to see her point of view and abstaining from being judgemental. We walked along the beach fluidly changing groups depending upon whose knees were stiffening up, discussing life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We exchanged opinions about people and politics and argued about how to make the country a better place for the next generation. We laughed at ourselves and each other. ww_the-three-girls

Sharing girlfriend time is as refreshing as a tonic and for me, more effective than meditation or a health retreat. I came away happy, knowing I am valued for whom I am and confident that I can deal with what the world might hurl at me this year because there is always a friend I can turn to. ww_frenchmans-beach-1