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.