Bless My Old Friends
Without Prejudice
It was such a beautiful day in Melbourne today. Spring seems to have sprung at long last. The daffodils are out and sweet magnolias spread their mauve and white blossoms on the ground. All the trees are in blossom and the sun warms and exhilarates as I drive to Skye.
There is a nostalgia in the air that makes me shiver in anticipation of something. I am out of my gardening scruffs and dressed instead in a floaty pretty chiffon skirt in hues of blues, greens and pinks. I feel light and kissed by the sun as I leave my arm outside the car as I drive.
The Eagles are harmonising on The New Kid In Town and a man gives me a toot and a wave as I croon along with them, stopped at the lights. It feels good to be alive, Talk about Spring putting a spring in your step. I feel like a new born creature unfurling and stretching from under the dark cloak of winter.
I am headed for Frankston first to pick up my Sister In Law who used to be married to my older brother. She is five years remarried and just returned from a cruise on the Rhine, Paris and the U.K. Lots to catch up on.
I get lost as usual and drive around Frankston with the smell of the beach in my nostrils. I drive through tree lined streets in Franston East and we call in at the IGA to get chicken and rolls. A man in a faded tee and Billabong huge shorts that reach to mid calf is standing outside yelling. A lady from the store is angled over yelling back at him while two males stand back in the shelter of the doorway.
" I haven't gotten anything from your fucking store" he yells,
" And I am up on an attempted murder charge, so if I were you I'd back off"
The woman tells him not to come back as he takes off around the corner, quite nimbly for his bulky frame. The two men have been swallowed back up into the dark of the store and the woman follows them muttering to herself.
We get our chicken and rolls and line up at the till. The young girl snaps a wad of gum in her mouth and fills us in on the thief without us even asking.
" He's done it before ya know, shoves things in his shorts pockets and thinks we don't notice."
We smile and nod and don't reply in our hunger and our haste.
We head off to Skye in the sun and naturally I get lost again and we drive around dead ended roads looking for Gayle's place. We heft out our bags of food, me with the Boston Bun filled with apple and custard and iced with coconut frosting that I woke up at 5 am to make.
Karin follows me with the chicken and rolls and we admire the freesias dotted around the front picket fence. Skye. A pretty place with pretty beachside houses, the warm sea breezes making the freesias dance, it all looks so suburban and normal.
Australia on a good day.
But this picket fence is patchy and is in desperate need of a paint. I remember it needed a paint two years ago when I came to the baby shower. Kerry was here then, pregnant, Gayle and Harry's daughter and so was Harry. Now Kerry is gone, and so is Harry. Kerry to drugs, leaving her baby behind with her Mum, and Harry has Motor Neurone and resides in a Nursing Home.
He was there at the baby shower, a former member of the Outlaws, joining in with our female gossip and baby shower games. He was like a child then and Gayle called me aside and cried.
" He's been a tough man to be married to for forty years and now he's ill and am I going to be nursing him for the next thirty ? she asks me as I hug her.
Shortly after he fell unconscious at the club house and he was hospitalised. His heart they thought. They then thought mini strokes. And he had all the tests. He hated being confined and managed to wrestle in rage so much he burst the mesh from the heart surgery and punctured his lung. He can sometimes recognise people and sometimes not.
He recognises Gayle always however and wants her there every day or he acts up for the nurses. She has to take her grand daughter with her as she has had custody of her since birth and she's now two and a half. Gayle answers the door and although delighted to see us she looks tired. We bustle in past the photos of the family and Harry on his bike. One head and shoulders portrait painted by a guy from the God Squad.
I've organised this lunch for Gayle as I thought she could do with the break. Robyn arrives and we all eat and catch up. We haven't had a get together in a long time and there is much to catch up on. Trips and kids and gossip. And then suddenly we are the child brides and Mothers we always were back in the seventies.
Robyn's daughter has just had her first baby after 7 IVF treatments and the baby a little boy is shown off in photos.
" God, Janette, you were a Grandma at 37 and my daughter has just had her first child at that age"
We reminisce about the old days and it's great. Scandals and deaths and people who went mad. Gayle is relaxed and making thin base pizzas which take two minutes and we fall on them like starving children. We wander out into the garden and pick lemons and rhubarb. Robyn wants lemons for fresh lemonade and I want it for old fashioned Lemon curd.
The lemons are almost orange in colour and sweet Gayle tells us and she picks me a knob root of rhubarb so I can plant it. The back yard is huge and pristine. The club maintains it for her and I remark that is so kind. Big hairy bikers maintaining it for two years for their former treasurer. Harry.
All too soon we have to go and will do it again.
We wave goodbye to Gayle and gather out the front, by the picket fence, the home makers dream picture. And we all realise that we are all free to have " our time " in life and seeing Gayle tethered with sick husband and two year old grandchild is not.
Later I receive a text from Gayle and it's a thank you, she had a ball. Old friends are just so special aren't they ? And I am blessed to have mine as they knew me when I was young,
It was such a beautiful day in Melbourne today. Spring seems to have sprung at long last. The daffodils are out and sweet magnolias spread their mauve and white blossoms on the ground. All the trees are in blossom and the sun warms and exhilarates as I drive to Skye.
There is a nostalgia in the air that makes me shiver in anticipation of something. I am out of my gardening scruffs and dressed instead in a floaty pretty chiffon skirt in hues of blues, greens and pinks. I feel light and kissed by the sun as I leave my arm outside the car as I drive.
The Eagles are harmonising on The New Kid In Town and a man gives me a toot and a wave as I croon along with them, stopped at the lights. It feels good to be alive, Talk about Spring putting a spring in your step. I feel like a new born creature unfurling and stretching from under the dark cloak of winter.
I am headed for Frankston first to pick up my Sister In Law who used to be married to my older brother. She is five years remarried and just returned from a cruise on the Rhine, Paris and the U.K. Lots to catch up on.
I get lost as usual and drive around Frankston with the smell of the beach in my nostrils. I drive through tree lined streets in Franston East and we call in at the IGA to get chicken and rolls. A man in a faded tee and Billabong huge shorts that reach to mid calf is standing outside yelling. A lady from the store is angled over yelling back at him while two males stand back in the shelter of the doorway.
" I haven't gotten anything from your fucking store" he yells,
" And I am up on an attempted murder charge, so if I were you I'd back off"
The woman tells him not to come back as he takes off around the corner, quite nimbly for his bulky frame. The two men have been swallowed back up into the dark of the store and the woman follows them muttering to herself.
We get our chicken and rolls and line up at the till. The young girl snaps a wad of gum in her mouth and fills us in on the thief without us even asking.
" He's done it before ya know, shoves things in his shorts pockets and thinks we don't notice."
We smile and nod and don't reply in our hunger and our haste.
We head off to Skye in the sun and naturally I get lost again and we drive around dead ended roads looking for Gayle's place. We heft out our bags of food, me with the Boston Bun filled with apple and custard and iced with coconut frosting that I woke up at 5 am to make.
Karin follows me with the chicken and rolls and we admire the freesias dotted around the front picket fence. Skye. A pretty place with pretty beachside houses, the warm sea breezes making the freesias dance, it all looks so suburban and normal.
Australia on a good day.
But this picket fence is patchy and is in desperate need of a paint. I remember it needed a paint two years ago when I came to the baby shower. Kerry was here then, pregnant, Gayle and Harry's daughter and so was Harry. Now Kerry is gone, and so is Harry. Kerry to drugs, leaving her baby behind with her Mum, and Harry has Motor Neurone and resides in a Nursing Home.
He was there at the baby shower, a former member of the Outlaws, joining in with our female gossip and baby shower games. He was like a child then and Gayle called me aside and cried.
" He's been a tough man to be married to for forty years and now he's ill and am I going to be nursing him for the next thirty ? she asks me as I hug her.
Shortly after he fell unconscious at the club house and he was hospitalised. His heart they thought. They then thought mini strokes. And he had all the tests. He hated being confined and managed to wrestle in rage so much he burst the mesh from the heart surgery and punctured his lung. He can sometimes recognise people and sometimes not.
He recognises Gayle always however and wants her there every day or he acts up for the nurses. She has to take her grand daughter with her as she has had custody of her since birth and she's now two and a half. Gayle answers the door and although delighted to see us she looks tired. We bustle in past the photos of the family and Harry on his bike. One head and shoulders portrait painted by a guy from the God Squad.
I've organised this lunch for Gayle as I thought she could do with the break. Robyn arrives and we all eat and catch up. We haven't had a get together in a long time and there is much to catch up on. Trips and kids and gossip. And then suddenly we are the child brides and Mothers we always were back in the seventies.
Robyn's daughter has just had her first baby after 7 IVF treatments and the baby a little boy is shown off in photos.
" God, Janette, you were a Grandma at 37 and my daughter has just had her first child at that age"
We reminisce about the old days and it's great. Scandals and deaths and people who went mad. Gayle is relaxed and making thin base pizzas which take two minutes and we fall on them like starving children. We wander out into the garden and pick lemons and rhubarb. Robyn wants lemons for fresh lemonade and I want it for old fashioned Lemon curd.
The lemons are almost orange in colour and sweet Gayle tells us and she picks me a knob root of rhubarb so I can plant it. The back yard is huge and pristine. The club maintains it for her and I remark that is so kind. Big hairy bikers maintaining it for two years for their former treasurer. Harry.
All too soon we have to go and will do it again.
We wave goodbye to Gayle and gather out the front, by the picket fence, the home makers dream picture. And we all realise that we are all free to have " our time " in life and seeing Gayle tethered with sick husband and two year old grandchild is not.
Later I receive a text from Gayle and it's a thank you, she had a ball. Old friends are just so special aren't they ? And I am blessed to have mine as they knew me when I was young,
