The words of that John Denver song were well and truly in my mind when I reached the top end of Quinn Rd. on my walk this morning. 'Hey it's good to be back home again'. I watched more than twenty galahs feeding in the paddock next to Leo and Pat Buckley's house. Seed eaters, they're often here, as are Eastern rosellas and white cockatoos, moving slowly through the grass and beaking the ground picking up what must be ripe fallen grass seeds, or maybe sprouts.
The fence between that paddock and the one adjacent is a favourite perch of these birds. Lately, a number of black pegs have been placed in the paddock where the galahs forage and sadly I realize that these pegs are marking out the location of a house soon to be built. The two paddocks I refer to front Quinn Rd., each about an acre in size and until last year when they were fenced off and sold, were part of a much larger paddock of say 20 acres extending well back into the valley which each year, for many years, grew a crop of potatoes.
So, soon the galahs etc., will lose their feeding site, and I will lose the pleasure of watching them, and the vista to the west into this scenic valley. Dare I say, the house will likely be a Mc.Mansion, like the four others that have gone up in Quinn Rd. in recent years, and indeed like the one next door to us, built by our neighbours Tom and Kath behind their existing cottage, which presently still stands bravely, albeit temporarily, in front of the new monolith.
But I'm not getting maudlin about it, things change, the galahs will find another feeding site, and it's still great to be home again.
Our week away was unusual and eventful, a real mixed bag. The first day was spent cutting the grass, cleaning the house, and exploring to find the reason for the water entering and damaging lining and paint right along the rear wall. The house needed cleaning because whoever had been there previously had left it untidy, including not washing the sheets in the bedroom where we sleep. (There were lots of hair in the beds--black visible hair, enough to deny sweet dreams, but this we didn't discover till we were retiring, too dog tired to remake them with clean sheets.) The water coming in was caused by a badly fitted new spout put on some months earlier. Find a plumber was now on my list of things to do before we left. And the spinner on the old twin tub did't work but we managed to fix that by tightening a belt.
Days two, three and four were bliss. Our friend's John and Raylene came down for the weekend and a highlight was a pod of dolphins playing at the entrance right at the time we got there on our walk. They were up close and stayed for half an hour giving us a thrill to be long remembered. Then at the tressle bridge a large red bellied black snake spiced the afternoon with its nonchalant basking and slow graceful movement about the frog pond under the bridge. On Sunday morning I took a solitary walk to Lake Bunga and back along the beach. I felt as close to God as ever I have watching the surf lap at the ninety mile beach with majestic grey/white clouds billowing above and zillions of shells and fragments underfoot. A timeless scene that probably hasn't changed since before white men came here and maybe thousands of years before that. On the way back at the head of the Cunningham arm there were two black swans with four cygnets about the size of small ducks, their baby feathers looking frizzy and the colour of soft suede(?).
On Monday night Lib fell down the steps. Broke her wrist badly and spent the night in Bairsdale hospital. Next day about midday after many x-rays, we were told the operation could not be done there as it needed an orthopaedic surgeon and they transferred Lib to Dandenong. I raced back to the Lakes house, about half an hour in the other direction and packed up as quickly as I could. We then drove to Dandenong, arriving at 5.30pm and starting again at casualty. She was admitted at 8.30 pm. and I went home to surprise the boys by getting home a day early. Lib was operated on the next day and came home yesterday with a titanium plate and seven screws in the wrist.
I'm back working, picking lilac, dogwood and viburnum blossom. And loving it.
'I said hey it's good to be back home again.'
