Christmas Eve/ The Massage

Our 5kg organic free range turkey from out the the back of Byron Bay is cooked and in the shed fridge, wrapped in alfoil. Lib, who's working today, and Christmas day, cooked it yesterday with Robbie as assistant chef. The house has been spring cleaned and bedrooms reorganised for our guests. Food and beveridge fills fridges and pantry for two or more days of feasting.

Hughesie's grass is last to cut today to finalize work for me for the time being. It'll be nice to have a rest. A highlight of my pre-Christmas was a session in Vilma's massage chair. Vilma is a lady who lives nearby. I do her lawn and garden. Gord and I mowed her place last Saturday. I said I'd come back on Monday to pull a few weeds in her front garden and plant some roses she'd bought.

Monday turned out hot. I cut and poisoned several elm suckers in the garden bed in front of the house and Vilma helped me weed a row of mini agapanthus I'd planted some months ago as a border on a bed at the back. She said Ralph next door wanted a hand unloading furniture from a trailer into the new house he'd just moved into and asked me would I help him. So we left planting the roses for a cooler day and went in to rouse Ralph.

Ralph is an opportunist. A builder of sorts but entering his twilight years as far as building goes, he has made use of my services a number of times during the house construction. We muscled the heavy furniture into the house, Ralph slipped me $20 for a previous job, then Vilma said to Ralph, "Maybe we could do the fridges while Carey's here?" There was an old fridge sitting outside the back door that needed moving to the laundry under the house and another one that was to go further down the road to Vilma's friend Rosemary-Beth.

Off we all went in Ralph's Suzuki Vitara with the fridge in the trailer behind. Rosemary-Beth opened her shed where the fridge was to go and Ralph and I inched in carefully through all the paraphanalia, trying not to trip over a blue heeler dog chewing on corncobs. I told Rosemary-Beth what the vet had told me recently, that in his experience of operating for bowel obstruction for dogs, 80% of them were caused by corncobs. She thanked me for the tip and took away the cobs, adding that the dog was her daughter's, and yesterday her daughter's partner had kicked her out and locked the house so she couldn't get in again, and there was nowhere for the dog to go, and unless she found a home for it it would have to be put down. Ralph and Vilma didn't offer, nor did I.

Back at Vilma's, having by now spent far more time than I intended, Vilma offered me a sit in her massage chair while she made me a fresh squeezed juice. Forgetting for a moment that I had yet to pick tricolour beech at Huit's and was therefore short of time, I accepted quickly, thinking the massage may loosen up the tightness developing in my upper back.

Vilma sat me up in her chair and clicked the remote control. Her son, a bloke about my age, but very sick with a terminal illness Vilma has never specified, made conversation. The juicer whirred busily in the kitchen.

The chair closed around my calves ang gripped and squeezed. The seat and back of the chair vibrated and moved and kneaded me all the way up my legs and body including the neck. It was sensational in the extreme. If you've experienced one of these things you'll know what I mean. It was a surprise to me. When Vilma told me months ago she'd bought a massage chair on ebay for a figure in excess of $3000, I thought she was batty. Apparently they are usually considerably more than that and after a session myself I don't doubt it, given the amazing engineering that must be involved to make a machine do such a thing. It seemed to have a brain.

Vilma came in with a big mug of juice each. Carrots, three fresh pineapples, garlic, I recall she said, God knows what else. She bought the chair and makes the juice to help her son in his last years. I sipped at the juice and enjoyed the chair. It was a half hour of heaven. Vilma showed me the jewellery she makes. I bought a red jasper necklace for Lib for Christmas.

"What do I owe you for today?," Vilma asked as I was leaving.

"Nothing today Vilma. A fair swap for my go in the chair."

"Have a good Christmas, and come back anytime if your back needs a go in the chair. I'll call you when the grass needs mowing."

I left feeling fantastic with a little Christmas pudding Vilma gave me and a bottle of orange marmalade, made from oranges from her tree.