My Lucky Country
Without Prejudice
New Years day and I am not hungover for once. I have given up the demon drink and most everything else like the sensible older woman should. Well, not always sensible as then life would hardly be worth living. It pays to always have something to look forward to.
Its the lazy hazy days of Summer, here in the magical world of Oz. My lucky country, my land of purple and reds that streak the skies in places in the outback. The land of sunburn and sunscreen and fresh home grown food and vast open spaces. I realise I am blessed to live here. I know my parents made the right decision to emigrate half way around the world from a cold Edinburgh.
I love my British heritage and no one gets more proud when watching The Edinburgh Tattoo than I but Australia is my home, my love, my passion. I live ten minutes from a bayside beach. We can pack up the kids and let them run and swim and feed their chubby faces with fresh fish and chips. And warm lemonade drunk from the bottle and shared with everyone else and not caring about the hygeine.
And bring them home tired out, sand encrusted that has to be washed off and pack them off to be bed, contented.
I love the feel of a slight breeze on sun kissed skin, causing you to shiver ever so slightly. I love the drive home with singing, yelling kids and the turning around slightly from the front seat and telling them to behave or else. I remember my Dad, red faced and sweating doing exactly the same. I love the tiny white caps on the bay and the boats far out going places foreign and exotic. The big ships moving slowly and gracefully in the far horizon.
I love the shock of the cold water as I finally let go of the pier and plunge into the salt water, the chaos and rush of the water and the bubbles like champagne that rise. I love the lazy sleek feeling of the water around me, the stretching of limbs and feeling as one with the water. I love the sand bars that are reachable and the dark water, deep and cool between.
I love leaving footprints in the sand, the water rushing in to cover them and the friendly faces of families at the beach. I feel alive and happy and want the sun on my skin so long hidden under winter clothes. I love the changeable weather in Melbourne as today could be 33 degrees and tomorrow it may be cold and rainy. Melbourne can never stay hot for very long.
But the long hot sultry days of Summer are made for backyard pursuits. This year we have a decent size pool from Clark Rubber and a Slip and Slide. We position an old curtain over the Hills Hoist rotary line for shade and the littlies are happy. They play and slide and bathe in the pool for hours, covered from head to toe in Sunscreen and still get tanned.
Bellies are full as we have picnics on a rug with sandwiches and cookies and Cottees Cordial, orange and lemon poured into metal cups that feel cold without being refrigerated. We pour the cordial from the Cottees free jug with its lid to stop flies and insects getting in. We tickle fat full bellies and watch out for the pruny skin which means they have had enough, but they never ever have enough of the water and the slide.
When we decide they have had enough and we are covered in striped indentations from our plastic caned banana lounges we empty the pool and I retreat into my dark and cool unit and shower off the Hawaiian Reef Oil that smells like coconut. Wrapped in a loose Ken Done Kaftan and my hair towelled dry and worn loose I pick up a book and retire to my Freedom couch and read to my hearts content.
No one to tell me to stop reading, no one to tell me to stop being a lazy thing and get up and make a cup of tea or dinner. Nothing to do but read and as I do I wonder how many Summers are left for me. 30 or 40 ? They say we know approximately in our brains how long we have to live
I hope I live long and am adored like my gorgeous Auntie Betty, aged 91, she of the one child and the one grandchild. She lives in Wakefield In Yorkshire and still dresses up smartly and goes out daning on a Monday night. I think of England and how it must be over there at this time of year. My Sister offered me a trip there recently and I refused nicely. I couldnt miss Summer here. I hate being cold and the greyness of a cold winter would soon send me round the twist.
I would love to hit the shops, though. Marks and Sparks and Monsoon and Next and Top Shop and Boots The Chemist and have a proper fish and chip supper with my Aunt and beg for the "bits" and mushy peas and Hp sauce and a decent cup of tea made in a pot. And to take her for high tea somewhere and spoil her and kiss her and just look at her as she is my long dead Mum's Sister, and the older Sister and the only one surviving out of 4 siblings.
I would want to go to Wakefield Market and find decent shoes and bonfire toffee and reject wine gums and walnut whips. A decent winters coat and gloves and underwear from Marks and Spencers that is sexy not the least bit sensible. A froth of lace and silk. Maybe a quick trip across the channel to buy Simone Perele bras, hand stitched and Parisian Parfums that we don't get here. Have a cafe au Lait in the outdoor cafe and fell all french and exotic, a croissant, crumbly and buttery, dropping crumbs all over me.
It so close from England and so far from here and I realise I am day dreaming. I would have to take at least a small bucket of valium to get me back in a plane for a 22 hour plane trip. So boring and so long. I always feel like I am living in a broom cupboard for 22 hours and eye the screen in front of me that shows the landscape below me, (Frozen Steppes, usually) with horror and wonder how any one can live there.
But here I am in good old Oz with the sun beating down outside and tomorrow will be 33 and the next day 39. I always rise early and get things done so I can relax in the afternoons. I write mt stories and shop, do my housework and relax. Summer is a time for sand on the floor left un swept until late at night. Its the time for Paddle Pops and scoffing them before the sticky milk runs down your arms. Its the time to be finding ants inside and yelling at them, which is pretty futile.
Its the time of left over ham from Christmas day with salad and salad dressing made from Nestle condensed milk and salt and malt vinegar and a dash of mustard and so thick you can stand a spoon up in it and thin it out with more vinegar. And chopping of the vine ripened tomatoes and Iceberg lettuce and a lebanese cucumber, maybe some cheese grated and a hard boiled egg sliced in one of those wire slicers I so love. Perhaps some avocado for the creamy texture. A big wooden salad bowl with wooden salad servers.
And some KFC coleslaw as its the best apart from some my Slovenian friend makes that has cabbage and carrot and vinegar and spices and is also wonderful. And she makes Keffler and stuffed cbbage that are also divine. That would involve a trip in my twenty year old corolla which came with no air conditioning and besides I am being deliberately lazy. I had six weeks of bronchitis, injured back, depression and cold sore, thrush so my body and mind needs to mend.
I have people to visit and projects I want to get done but I'll save them for the winter months. I am an organised person so all the things I wanted to get done by Summer were done when I returned from Queensland. The blinds are hung, the guttering cleaned, the Christmas tree dragged out from the shed, the red backs sprayed in the shed,
New Years day and I am not hungover for once. I have given up the demon drink and most everything else like the sensible older woman should. Well, not always sensible as then life would hardly be worth living. It pays to always have something to look forward to.
Its the lazy hazy days of Summer, here in the magical world of Oz. My lucky country, my land of purple and reds that streak the skies in places in the outback. The land of sunburn and sunscreen and fresh home grown food and vast open spaces. I realise I am blessed to live here. I know my parents made the right decision to emigrate half way around the world from a cold Edinburgh.
I love my British heritage and no one gets more proud when watching The Edinburgh Tattoo than I but Australia is my home, my love, my passion. I live ten minutes from a bayside beach. We can pack up the kids and let them run and swim and feed their chubby faces with fresh fish and chips. And warm lemonade drunk from the bottle and shared with everyone else and not caring about the hygeine.
And bring them home tired out, sand encrusted that has to be washed off and pack them off to be bed, contented.
I love the feel of a slight breeze on sun kissed skin, causing you to shiver ever so slightly. I love the drive home with singing, yelling kids and the turning around slightly from the front seat and telling them to behave or else. I remember my Dad, red faced and sweating doing exactly the same. I love the tiny white caps on the bay and the boats far out going places foreign and exotic. The big ships moving slowly and gracefully in the far horizon.
I love the shock of the cold water as I finally let go of the pier and plunge into the salt water, the chaos and rush of the water and the bubbles like champagne that rise. I love the lazy sleek feeling of the water around me, the stretching of limbs and feeling as one with the water. I love the sand bars that are reachable and the dark water, deep and cool between.
I love leaving footprints in the sand, the water rushing in to cover them and the friendly faces of families at the beach. I feel alive and happy and want the sun on my skin so long hidden under winter clothes. I love the changeable weather in Melbourne as today could be 33 degrees and tomorrow it may be cold and rainy. Melbourne can never stay hot for very long.
But the long hot sultry days of Summer are made for backyard pursuits. This year we have a decent size pool from Clark Rubber and a Slip and Slide. We position an old curtain over the Hills Hoist rotary line for shade and the littlies are happy. They play and slide and bathe in the pool for hours, covered from head to toe in Sunscreen and still get tanned.
Bellies are full as we have picnics on a rug with sandwiches and cookies and Cottees Cordial, orange and lemon poured into metal cups that feel cold without being refrigerated. We pour the cordial from the Cottees free jug with its lid to stop flies and insects getting in. We tickle fat full bellies and watch out for the pruny skin which means they have had enough, but they never ever have enough of the water and the slide.
When we decide they have had enough and we are covered in striped indentations from our plastic caned banana lounges we empty the pool and I retreat into my dark and cool unit and shower off the Hawaiian Reef Oil that smells like coconut. Wrapped in a loose Ken Done Kaftan and my hair towelled dry and worn loose I pick up a book and retire to my Freedom couch and read to my hearts content.
No one to tell me to stop reading, no one to tell me to stop being a lazy thing and get up and make a cup of tea or dinner. Nothing to do but read and as I do I wonder how many Summers are left for me. 30 or 40 ? They say we know approximately in our brains how long we have to live
I hope I live long and am adored like my gorgeous Auntie Betty, aged 91, she of the one child and the one grandchild. She lives in Wakefield In Yorkshire and still dresses up smartly and goes out daning on a Monday night. I think of England and how it must be over there at this time of year. My Sister offered me a trip there recently and I refused nicely. I couldnt miss Summer here. I hate being cold and the greyness of a cold winter would soon send me round the twist.
I would love to hit the shops, though. Marks and Sparks and Monsoon and Next and Top Shop and Boots The Chemist and have a proper fish and chip supper with my Aunt and beg for the "bits" and mushy peas and Hp sauce and a decent cup of tea made in a pot. And to take her for high tea somewhere and spoil her and kiss her and just look at her as she is my long dead Mum's Sister, and the older Sister and the only one surviving out of 4 siblings.
I would want to go to Wakefield Market and find decent shoes and bonfire toffee and reject wine gums and walnut whips. A decent winters coat and gloves and underwear from Marks and Spencers that is sexy not the least bit sensible. A froth of lace and silk. Maybe a quick trip across the channel to buy Simone Perele bras, hand stitched and Parisian Parfums that we don't get here. Have a cafe au Lait in the outdoor cafe and fell all french and exotic, a croissant, crumbly and buttery, dropping crumbs all over me.
It so close from England and so far from here and I realise I am day dreaming. I would have to take at least a small bucket of valium to get me back in a plane for a 22 hour plane trip. So boring and so long. I always feel like I am living in a broom cupboard for 22 hours and eye the screen in front of me that shows the landscape below me, (Frozen Steppes, usually) with horror and wonder how any one can live there.
But here I am in good old Oz with the sun beating down outside and tomorrow will be 33 and the next day 39. I always rise early and get things done so I can relax in the afternoons. I write mt stories and shop, do my housework and relax. Summer is a time for sand on the floor left un swept until late at night. Its the time for Paddle Pops and scoffing them before the sticky milk runs down your arms. Its the time to be finding ants inside and yelling at them, which is pretty futile.
Its the time of left over ham from Christmas day with salad and salad dressing made from Nestle condensed milk and salt and malt vinegar and a dash of mustard and so thick you can stand a spoon up in it and thin it out with more vinegar. And chopping of the vine ripened tomatoes and Iceberg lettuce and a lebanese cucumber, maybe some cheese grated and a hard boiled egg sliced in one of those wire slicers I so love. Perhaps some avocado for the creamy texture. A big wooden salad bowl with wooden salad servers.
And some KFC coleslaw as its the best apart from some my Slovenian friend makes that has cabbage and carrot and vinegar and spices and is also wonderful. And she makes Keffler and stuffed cbbage that are also divine. That would involve a trip in my twenty year old corolla which came with no air conditioning and besides I am being deliberately lazy. I had six weeks of bronchitis, injured back, depression and cold sore, thrush so my body and mind needs to mend.
I have people to visit and projects I want to get done but I'll save them for the winter months. I am an organised person so all the things I wanted to get done by Summer were done when I returned from Queensland. The blinds are hung, the guttering cleaned, the Christmas tree dragged out from the shed, the red backs sprayed in the shed,
