Mary

October is nearly done and dusted. I didn't get my wish for a wet month. I've had some highlights though, notably-

1. Picking dogwood and philadelphus (mock orange). I'll expand on this another time.

2. Watching young Ella (niece Annie's 3yo daughter) run to Jod and leap into his arms. Again, this is worthy of a blog post on its own another time.

3. Seeing the beech trees come into new leaf.

4. Calling on Mary yesterday and having coffee with her.

I had a phone call Sunday morning from Blossom, who'd had a call from Mary. Mary told Blossom that she hadn't seen me for ages and she missed me and she wondered if I was alright, and also that she had a friend who wanted to buy some honey. I told Blossom to tell Mary I'd call on her tomorrow, yesterday. Mary has never rung me direct. I don't know why.
Mary lives in Emerald. I have known her for some 15-20 years and I call on her every 3 months or so and give her a pot of honey. I first met her when I was picking rosemary in the front yard of a house in Kings Rd. A little lady walking down the footpath stopped to ask me what I was doing. She was dressed in black and wore a head scarf pulled tight over silver hair and spoke softly with a European accent. She explained that she used to pick rosemary where it protruded through the fence as she went past, but she didn't need to now, as she planted a cutting in her garden and now she had her own. I was welcome to come and pick some at her place if I wanted to, she said.
I next met Mary at Blossom's place. Mary was of Polish origin and both ladies had been married to Polish men. They were friends who supported each other over many years, a friendship forged by the harsh bond of having alcholic husbands. Mary was a widow, having escaped her violent husband some years earlier and hiding through winter in another friend's garage. Blossom's ex husband also died and she moved away but the two ladies, despite numerous grave health difficulties over the years, support of each other in spirit by phone.
The coffee was strong yesterday and the mug filled to the brim. A plate of ginger biscuits and two slices of almond bread was put in front of me and Mary talked, glad to have company. I gave her two jars of honey and, having more in the van, asked her who it was that wanted to buy honey. She said a Polish name, adding that there was not really an English equivalent, but it was like 'Joanee'.
I asked where 'Joanee' lived and Mary said Altona, and that she comes up to visit a couple of times a year.
"How do you know 'Joanee'?"
"She was on the boat from Germany with me in 1949. She's Polish also but we'd been in Germany for nearly ten years after being sent there to work in 1940. I was fifteen. It was no good going home to Poland after the war. Many who went back were packed straight on to trains and sent to Siberia."
As soon as I'd drunk the coffee my mug was refilled and Mary continued. I knew most of her story. She was sent initially with her three year old daughter to Bonegilla migrant camp and then Maribynong migrant hostel where she met her husband who was to father her other four children. Her eldest son, Joseph, followed in the footsteps of his father, also becoming alcoholic. Much to Mary's misfortune, after the father died the son came to live with her, which inflicted on her more than another decade of abuse. He drank himself to death two years ago. He was the same age as me, and a strikingly handsome young man studying phsycolgy at Monash when we first moved to Emerald. He took sister Meredith on dates a couple of times.
Mary showed me photos of Joey's grave in Macclesfield cemetery. The headstone was made by a family friend who worked at a stonemason's in Darwin. He grew up playing with Joey in Sunshine and was a lifelong friend. He too had a problem with alcohol but beat it, and he often asked Joe to come to Darwin and stop drinking, offering to help him beat it. When he heard Joe died he made the headstone and came with it all the way from Darwin at no cost to Mary.
I asked Mary once did she mind me calling her Mary when everyone else called her Maria (Blossom introduced her to me as Mary). She said no she didn't mind at all. She liked it. The father of her first child in Germany called her Mary, she said, and I reminded her of him. He was to marry her but his wife, thought dead, reappeared.
Mary found a photo to show me of herself and her daughter taken in 1950 not long after arriving in Australia. A photo of a pretty young lady with a ready warm smile, the same smile that still comes so easily. I'll visit her again soon.

Oh for a wet November!

Kids Fun Run with 'Thomas' (Get 'em Young)

When I reached J.A.C. Russell Park at 7.00am on my walk yesterday, Sunday, there was a hive of activity in progress. Barrier signs 'Road Closed' were placed across Inness Rd. and vehicles were unloading equipment such as an inflatable jumping castle and market stall tents.
The whole scene made me comment to Merle, who works for Puffing Billy, "I'll have to stay out of town today to avoid this lot."
"Why don't you come up about ten o'clock," countered Merle, "the kids love it, they have a great time." I walked off saying I had a lot to do but would see how I go, but had no intention of going anywhere near it.
Around the corner I met Norm Smith, as I often do, and I said to Norm, "Listen mate, am I getting to be a grumpy old stick in the mud, or am I right to be annoyed by this fun run hoo ha?"
Norm is not a big Puffing Billy fan, but he replied thoughtfully, "Oh Well, I suppose it's a bit of fun for the kids and brings a bit of business to the take away food shops and the pub."
This morning on my walk, with the benefit of a day to think about it, when I got to J.A.C. Russell Park there was a row of garbage bins lined up ready to be picked up and litter on the ground around them. I picked some up on my way past, including a number, dozens, of tickets printed 'Action Events Admit one'. On the back of the ticket in bold print, were the words, YOU ARE HERE AT YOUR OWN RISK. THE ORGANISERS ACCEPT NO RESPOSIBILITY FOR PERSONAL INURY OR PROPERTY DAMAGE.
Well, well, I thought, nice to see the organisers observing legalities.
I met Merle again and greeted her with the comment, "There's a lot more litter for me to pick up this morning Merle." As I spoke I was pouring coke, from a Coca-Cola bottle I'd picked up, into the garden adjacent to the station.
"Did you come up and watch?"
"No Merle, it's not my scene. I'm trying to get my head around it. I'm going home now to write down my feelings, while it's fresh."
"At least it gets the kids exercising," she came back.

So this is for Merle. It's not my habit to tip a bucket on do gooders like the Rotary Club, especially when 'proceeds are going to provide specialist medical equipment to Monash kids to help change the lives of some very special children', but I'm sticking to my guns.
I looked at the fun run website. Six fun runs, two for children 2 years and under, the other four graduating upwards in age to 9-12 year olds. The website showed scores of children with numbers across their chests running between plastic tape like sheep in a race, excited by a steam engine done up to look like the farcical British TV cartoon character and swooped on by by Puffing Billy for commercial promotion. Every fun run entrant, (entrance fee $15) receives a 'show bag' containing lollies and other 'goodies'.
If we need to do this to get kids exercise then something is terribly wrong. This is training children to behave herdlike. We are at risk of turning into a nation of idiots, that feeds unceasingly on big 'events' and entertainment.
As it said on the ticket, YOU ARE HERE AT YOUR OWN RISK!

Exochorda or Pearlbush

A couple of weeks ago I blogged about the brilliant yellow flowering forsythia. I would also have mentioned the pearlbush or exochorda which was also flowering at the same time, and still is, but I couldn't remember its name so I didn't mention it. I asked Laurie Begg, who gave me the plant in the first place.
Our house faces the northeast, on a gentle slope, and the forsythia is at the east end, say at about one o'clock from the corner, and the pearl bush at the other end, say at eleven o'clock from that corner. Just as I'd never seen the forsythia so spectacular, the same has to be said for the pearlbush. It's been a 10ft. ball of white for weeks. I remember cutting it back hard, to about 5 feet high, February before last. The flowers are on the new growth since, all the way along the 5 feet or so which has grown from the old wood in every direction, creating a spherical effect. I'll cut it back hard again soon, now it's almost finished flowering, and wait expectantly for a repeat show next spring.
Prior to this spring I had little regard for it, thinking it was in the way, a vigorous grower needing pruning, with flowers not keeping in water, so no good as a cut flower. I've changed my opinion, it's well worth the space, and the pruning, just for it's show. I looked it up in the book. It's a native of China, as is the forsythia. So many of our ornamental plants originate from China.

Cantaloupe

I bought a cantaloupe yesterday at the fruit shop, first one for months. They became too expensive for me during winter, reaching $7 or $8 each. I noticed they were $4.99 yesterday so I took one home as a special treat. I cut it up after my walk today and ate a good whack of it chopped up on my muesli. Man it was good! I store the rest of it in the fridge in a large snap tight plastic container and it will last me 4/5 days. Soon, as the weather warms and the season progresses they'll be cheaper and I'll eat cantaloupe everyday. I love it.
My cantaloupe habit began in 2005. On our way to Peru we stopped in Santiago Chile for two days and one night. We stayed at the Fundador Hotel in the city centre and breakfast was an extravagant buffet style with any amount of fresh fruit. The same applied throughout Peru, breakfast included loads of fruit and cantaloupe was my favourite. When we came home it was cheap in the fruit shops and eating it at breakfast reminded me of our wonderful trip. Still does.

Allan and Shirley Home

My friends Allan and Shirley returned after 3 months in Queensland last week. They go up most winters, staying with their daughter who owns a florist shop at Noosa. I've mowed their lawn at Avonsleigh for years and do odd gardening jobs eg. cutting back and pruning.
There was quite a bit of work to do this winter. They wanted a number of large rhododendrons in the front garden and a golden cypress in the the back reduced as well as the usual maintenance, so when it was done they owed me a tidy sum. An hour here and there adds up over three months.
Almost every time they go there's a drama of one sort or another, usually involving Allan's health. The only winter since I met them that they haven't gone up there was a few years ago when Allan was recovering from a brain tumour operation. The Queensland sojourns are plagued by heart attacks, respiratory infections, and other buckshees, the particulars of which escape my recollection.
On the weekend they were due to return, by train, as for two years Allan's doctors have said that flying is too risky for him, he rang me from Noosa to explain they'd be delayed about a week. This time Shirley had gotten sick with a chest infection three days after they arrived. It turned into pnuemonia, she spent several weeks in hospital where her heart gave complications so the whole trip was dominated, again, by medical drama. Shirley was not well enough to travel home by train so another daughter flew to Qld. and drove them home in a hire car.
After mowing the grass last Thursday afternoon I enjoyed a couple of glasses of red wine with Allan and Shirley as they ran through the whole story. We all agreed that Queensland is that sort of place, a land of extremes of climate and where drama and surprise is always close. Expect the unexpected.
Allan then said that when he first came to Australia in 1949 as migrant from England he landed first in Brisbane and stayed at the migrant hostel at Kangaroo Point under the Storey Bridge. He walked the streets looking for work and after a period of no success he landed two in one day. He took one as a stores clerk with the Queensland British Food Company because they offered to fly him to Rockhamton and, being an ex RAF man during WW2, a plane trip appealed to him. He spent most of the war attached to Australian units in England and Scotland and therefore had many Australian mates, which is why he chose to migrate to Australia. He was an armourer, which meant his job was to make sure the machine guns and amunition were in good order before the planes took off.
The Qld. British Food Co. was a joint government venture set up to provide food to help end the post war shortage in Britain. Allan worked at a large farm at Peak Downs where they were growing 96,000 acres of sorghum in the rich black central Qld. soil. Thirty tractors worked together to plant the crop which was to be fodder for pigs on another farm. As bad luck would have it, a big frost burnt much of the crop, then shortly after it rained solidly for a week, the first rain Allan had seen in months. The crop turned black, ruined.
Allan could not stand the humidity for one more day and took off, heading south to stay with a mate in Melbourne. The rest I know. In short, he went to Lorne for a brief holiday before looking for work and walked into the Pier hotel where he met Shirley, who was on holiday with two of her nursing friends. He worked for some years as a cost clerk with a fuel company before starting with BP where he progressed to area marketing manager, working in rural Victoria till retirement, which led him to Avonsleigh after a twelve month world trip.
He's 85 now. Despite his health troubles over the years he's sharp mentally, a great conversationalist. The 'gift of the gab', stood him in good stead throughout his working life. It's something he acquired in the RAF, he says, where he needed to relate to people from all walks of life.
I look forward to mowing the lawn and enjoying the odd glass of red through the season.