Sunday, October 26, 2008

Wild October

Being the last Sunday of the month, and therefore curry pie day, I bounced out this morning into the warm stillness. It had been the warmest night for many months. I couldn't help but admire two paulownia trees in full bloom near the corner of Le Seouf Rd. Huge masses of pale violet. Beautiful! But I can't recall ever seeing them as such before.

We may well be in the grip of drought and the global environmental crisis has been large in the news during October, but the trees and local gardens are oblivious. I have never seen a better spring in terms of bloom, and new leaf growth. Lilac, viburnum, dogwood, cherry, crabapple, waratah, mintbush, magnolia, azalea, camellia, rhodo, I've gathered armfuls of blossom of all of them. The armfuls became van loads to the farm. From there the harvest left in wholesaler's trucks for shops in Melbourne. It will help keep our heads above water for another financial year.

Five inches of rain in August set it up, and the mild dry weather of September and October meant the blossom was unspoilt. But the dry spring means we are well down on aggegrate rainfall, and, shortly going into summer, if we don't get late spring rain, we'll be in diabolical trouble come February/March. This could be the cruncher for Melbourne's water supply, and businesses which rely on water. It's in the lap of the Gods. The spring at the farm that trickles out of the hillside has ceased flowing.

The curry pie was good. 'Snowie', refreshed by the haircut Lib gave her on the warm day last Thursday, and 'Pip', were tied to the post outside the baker shop where I sat at one of the tables. They looked up at me imploringly, waiting for their sausage roll to cool. I thought of Ricky Ralph on holiday in Bali. He emailed me during the week describing full body massages, lounging by the pool under coconut palms, elephant rides, and feasts of paw paw which he shared with the elephants. The little dogs snaffled up the sausage roll, I looked out toward the Warburton ranges and said to the dogs, "I'll take this any day, I never was one for airports and plane trips."

October's been a big news month. Reports on the global environmental crisis said there were huge ice melts in Antarctica. We've had the global economic melt down, the disappearance of Britt Lapthorne and the finding of her body, and the 'Muck Up Day' biz. The American election was pushed into the back seat. I've been busy with the spring harvest and gardening jobs but I've had one ear on the news on morning radio. Also, I heard the repetitious advertisements for the 'Ron Hotshot' Real Estate Investment Co., cajoling me to attend the seminar on the history of St. Kilda Rd. property values.

Now, you may be thinking that my mind is a bit of a jumble today. How could it not be, after such an eventful month? I'm trying to combine the many thoughts I've had and tie them together with a common thread, after weeks of frustration at not having time to blog.

'Ron Hotshot'(substitute name of course), Ricky Ralph, and me, were, once upon a time, about forty years ago, all at the same school. Fortunately I was expelled from the dreadful institution before I lost all remnant of sanity. Ricky Ralph stayed on for another year or so. He told me a story when he visited one Sunday morning, about 'Ron Hotshot', after I asked him had he heard all the radio ads.

Rick works for one of those companies that cuts vegetation away from power lines. A few years ago his crew was working in Wellington Rd. near a driveway at the entrance to a riding school property. A shiny Mercedes turned into the driveway and pulled to a stop. A man in a suit got out of the car, went to the mail box, collected his mail, returned to the car, then drove to the big house and went inside with other people.

"I know that bloke", Rick said to his mates in the truck. "Matter of fact, I've got a score to settle with him." When smoko came Rick walked to the house and knocked on the door.

Now Rick is a lovable ratbag, and in common with type, has an inbuilt injustice sensor. I recall, a few years after we left school, he settled a score with a sadistic music teacher whom we bumped into in the lobby of the Lorne picture theatre. This teacher had a unique method of punishment which consisted of making an errant student choose between a week's daily detention, a severe penalty indeed, or take the steel ruler. Most chose the ruler. The lad had to bend over far enough so that the trouser material was stretched tight across his buttocks. The sadist, of questionable sexuality we believed, looked at the lad's arse from various angles with great pomp before taking up a postion side on, like a sword wielding executioner about to behead his victim, except at the arse end. With a practised flourish he'd bring the ruler down and clip the buttocks, just connecting with the outside quarter inch or so. Three strokes of the ruler and the pain was unbelievably excruciating.

'Ron Hotshot' came to the door. "How can I help you?"

"Would you be 'Ron Hotshot?' "You may not remember me but I think we went to the same school many tears ago, ABC Grammar."

"Yes, I am Ron Topshot. I did go to ABC, but I can't place you."

"I'm Rick Ralph, we were in the same year."

"Rick Ralph? Oh yes, I have a vague recollection. Were you a star tennis player? Would you like to come in and have a cup of coffee with my friends?"

Rick could see the other people in the living room, within earshot. "No thanks, Ron. I just wanted to satisfy my curiosity that it was you. But now that I know it is, I have to say that I have a bone to pick with you. You were a prefect. You dobbed me in to Kanga Cordon for farting in the library. And it wasn't me. It was Waghorn."

Rick told me Peter Waghorn did this stinking rotten foulest of all foul farts in the library, and when the librarian went nuts he couldn't stop laughing.
Later he was called in to see housemaster Kanga who demanded he confess to the fart, and when he refused, saying it wasn't him, but not dobbing in Waghorn, Kanga suspended him from the school.

Ron Topshot was on the backfoot, embarrassed in front of his collegues. "I have no recollection of any of this. If you have a grievance over something that must have been a total misunderstanding, please let me offer you some compensation in good faith. How could I make this up for you?"

"You got me into a lot of trouble, dobbing me in. I was suspended. It was only Waghorn, to his credit, going to Kanga later and owning up that got me out of it. All because you were a dobber."

Ron Hopshot went to a drawer near the door and came back with a wad of free tickets to the riding school. "Here, take these Rick. Any time your family or friends want to go horse riding, it's on me."

Rick took the tickets, he told me he never used them.

It makes me think of 'Muck Up Day'. All those 16,17 and 18 year old lads at Grammar schools, having endured years of constraint, browbeating, and mind bending spin about success and money, it's no wonder they lose it. Half of them shouldn't be there at all, they should be outside somewhere learning about the natural world and skills to let them live in harmony with it, as humans are meant to.

Saturday, October 11, 2008

Flux

Walking every morning the same route, you notice things and get to know people. Lib says I'm a snoop, which I deny. I see things happen. Houses are built, renovated, trees die, are removed, people change cars, get new dogs, sell houses, move, there's roadworks, weed control, garden plantings. Flux.

Richard and Sandy struggled the hard way to establish their garden. The acre block was treeless at the start, mowed by a ride on. I was pleased to see a host of shrubs go in, first on the boundary with what was Olive's place. (About a year after Olive died, the new owners removed most of Olive's shrubbery screen along the fence). Then followed plantings along the boundary with Quinn Rd, probably to give them some privacy from the road, their house being set quite close to it, maybe twenty metres.

Many of these first plantings died for want of water. With the succession of dry springs, gardening is more demanding than it was when we seemed to spend a lot of time in gumboots and raincoats. Richard, an ambulance driver, and Sandy, a nurse, both work shifts, busy with demanding work schedules, always looking for extra shifts to help with the mortgage. A 'working family', parents like a tag team shuttling kids to and from school, and doing chores.

I'd become friendly with both, often saying "hello" and having a quick chat as one or the other, and sometimes both, had a cup of coffee and a smoke on their front porch after a night shift or before an early shift. A great dane pup named 'Merlin' joined the family, became friendly with my 'Snowie' as we went past each morning, and played hell with everything in the garden, ripping out plants dead or living. After a few months a section of about a quarter acre was fenced off for 'Merlin' on the other side of the house, and planting resumed.

I never saw anyone working in the garden, I went past too early, but progress was made slowly but surely. Either Richard or Sandy was painstakingly weeding around each plant, and many were mulched. Still, the searing heat of summer and prolonged dry spells took toll and many more plants died. At times I was tempted to make suggestions and offer some plants I had in pots that were looking for a home, but I resisted, knowing, from my own experience, that people like to do their own thing their own way, and they may well have resented my intrusion.

A black poly watering system went in, camellias, photinias, hebes, standard lilly pillies, more and more plants. There was no lack of determination. Merlin would bark from his pen at the back as I walked past. Grass grew in the spouting around the house. One day last spring, a year ago, Sandy had the day off and was enjoying a coffee before taking the kids to school. I asked her if she had anything planned on such a nice day.

"I'm going to clean the spouts out."

"Bugger of a job. Shouldn't Richard do that?"

"He's scared of heights. On the other side of the house where the ground slopes down it's really high."

I'd like to offer to do it for you Sandy but I don't really have the time and I should clean our's first, if I did have time."

"No, don't worry about it Carey, I can do it, I've done it before."

The next day I noticed all the grass growing out of the spouting was gone. The fire season arrived. More plants died. By March gardens were hanging on by the skin of their teeth. A late extreme heatwave knocked the hell out of everything. Finally, some autumn cool, there was more hand weeding, more mulching, and more planting at Richard and Sandy's.

I was suprised, when driving up the main road one day a few months ago, to see the 'FOR SALE' agent's sign out front. I supposed that perhaps the maintenance had got too much for Richard and Sandy and with the soaring fuel prices, they'd decided to move closer to their work and to a smaller block.

I saw no one there for a couple of weeks, till one morning Sandy was on the deck with a coffee mug in one hand and holding a mobile phone to her ear with the other. I waved and kept walking. The next morning was the same. I waved again and as Sandy waved back she lowered the phone from her ear and called out something which I didn't hear.

"I won't stop and talk, I can see you're on the phone."

"That's alright, it's only me mum. She won't mind."

"No, I'll catch you another day Sandy. Have a good one."

The next week Richard came into view on the deck while I was still 60 or 70 metres up the road. He too had a phone to his ear, and when he saw me he quickly put the phone in his pocket and darted inside. In the three years I'd been walking I could not recall seeing Richard or Sandy on the phone on the deck, as if previously the phone was a no no that would disturb their coffee break, and Richard had never avoided me before. Something had changed. I hoped there was nothing wrong, but suspected there was.

A week later I was letting the dogs off the leads as we came off the main Road and on to the gravel, just past the 'McMansion on the gouge', when a car also came into the gravel road. I held the dogs and waved at Sandy who stopped her car and wound down the passenger side window to talk to me. I said "Gidday," but before I could add that I was sorry that we were to lose them as neighbours, she burst into tears.

"Richard and I are separated. We're selling the house. He's gone already. He doesn't want counselling. He has another woman." She cried almost uncontrollably for what seemed a couple of minutes while I tried to offer some hopeless words of encouragement and consolation.

"I thought something might be wrong. I hadn't seen Richard for ages then when I did last week he was on the phone and avoided me."

"He would have been talking to her. He's always on the phone to her. He just wants out. Keep it to yourself, I haven't told any of the neighbours."

A few weeks went by before the 'sold' sticker went up. Every day as I walked past I wondered and worried how Sandy was faring. Then she stopped on her way home after a night shift at the same spot we'd talked a few weeks earlier. She was sad she was losing the house and garden after all the work but was coping quite well with everything. She said she'd be better off without Richard anyway, he never did any work around the place and she had her nursing career, she was determined to do well. I was greatly relieved and impressed.

"Why don't you keep the house, I'd would think the court would let you stay there as you have the kids."

"No. There's a huge mortgage, and the fuel cost and travel time would be too much on my own."

Sandy moved out on 29 September. She kept up her spirit. I gave her my email address and I hope she keeps in touch. She knows I blog, largely about my morning walk, and she said she didn't mind me writing about her once she'd moved out. I hope you read this Sandy. It was my pleasure having you as a neighbour and I wish you well.

As of the date this post was drafted the new owners had not moved in.

Friday, October 03, 2008

Rosie's Wedding

Off we gaily on we go,
Heel for heel and toe for toe,
Arm in arm and row on row,
All for Rosie's wedding.

A week ago today Rosie was married at St.Mary's Anglican church in Glen Eira Rd., Caulfield. It was a conventional wedding. The day was warm. My tie was tight. The photography session that followed in the church gardens seemed to go on forever. The official photographer was a lady. I would guess she was of Italian extraction, with a booming voice. She organized the throng into various group photos with the command of a drill sergeant. Another pro, a man with an impressive movie camera, roamed among the gathered friends and relatives taking "best wishes Matt and Rosie" type comments for posterity.

The church, opposite Shelford Girls Grammar School, was built in 1871 according to the date stone above the front entrance. A feature of the garden is a magnificent cork oak, Quercus suber, of almost perfect spreading form. I found a church official who told me the tree was older than the church - there's a painting somewhere, he said, of the site before construction of the church which showed the then young tree already there.

We'd booked a two bedroom apartment at the Carnegie Motor Inn, where we had a little ziz before the reception, which was 'The Gables', in Finch St. East Malvern, commencing 6.00pm. 'The Gables' was built in 1902 as a private residence and was occupied thus till 1938 when it was first used for receptions. When a private residence, it was a well known hang out for underworld figures including 'Sqizzy Taylor'. An upstairs room was for gambling and a concealed shute was used for the crims to jump into and escape to the garden if police arrived. So said the Maitre d' who was in the garden for a smoke when I went outside with Lib, who needed 'some air' for the same reason. It crossed my mind that there is no concern about gambling and speakeasies now, the casino is open 24/7 and the grog flows all night in Melbourne.

By coincidence, Elvie and Lyle's wedding reception also was at 'The Gables', on 4 Dec 1948. Elvie Lived in nearby Ashburton and Lyle in Hartwell. Elvie's father Edgar paid for the reception. There were 90 guests, 75% of them from Lyle's side. Nanna Myrt, Lyle's mum, approached Edgar saying they wanted more of their people to attend, and that they would stand the extra cost. Edgar turned them down, saying it was his daughter's wedding, he was paying, the guest list was final, or there'd be no reception. Good on him. It must have been a huge cost for a humble, hardworking grocer, way back in the post war years.

Elvie said it was 104 degreesF on her wedding day. They were married at the Gardiner Church of Christ where Lyle played for the football team in the Eastern suburbs churches comp. This was another point of contention for Lyle's family, they wanted the wedding held at the Brethren Gospel Hall a few doors up. Elvie's mum Annie had a migraine attack on the day. It's a pity Lyle is no longer with us, to have seen Rosie and Matt marry. Rosie was his shining star.

Rosie's day had no hitches. The newly weds are honeymooning in Port Douglas and Dunk Island. The was a suggestion in the invitation that a wedding present of cash could be made to a travel agent so the guests contributed to honeymoon cost I suppose. We didn't like the idea of an anonymous gift via a travel agent so we gave Rosie and Matt cash, in person. She bought a camera with it, and took a group photo of us and her with it before she left the reception. We took another wrapped gift to the reception, a plate handpainted by Jennie Smith in 1982. (Keith and Jenny Smith are friends of mine from Gembrook and run the Camellia Range wholesale nursery) We wrote on the back in marker pen. 'To Matt and Rosie, from Libby, Carey, Gordon and Robbie, 26 Sep 2008'.

Jod didn't come to the wedding. He wasn't comfortable about the distance to travel and losing a day's work, it being a Friday. He looked after the farm and did what he could for Foxy's Sunday order. When I saw him on the Monday after, he spoke fondly of Rosie saying, "She didn't turn out too bad in the end." His eyes softened and a grin came to his face as he went on. "Isn't it strange? 26 September is the same day Daniel Boone died. In 1820. One hundred and eighty-eight years ago." Jod has a book about Daniel Boone and knows everything about him.

It never would have crossed my mind, Daniel Boone that is. But I clearly remember Rosie's birthday, June 20 1981. Meredith and Reg didn't make into the hospital. Rosie was born on the seat of the cabin of the Toyota one ton tray truck, in the hospital carpark, ten days after Lib and I moved to Gembrook from Wangaratta, 27 years ago.

Off we gaily on we go,
Heel for heel and toe for toe,
Arm in arm and row for row,
All for Rosie's wedding.