It's Never Dull

I walked my way through the forest in Gembrook Bushland Park on Monday to pick bunches of forget-me-not flowers where they grow prolifically along an edge. It was a warm day, the first in quite a while where I'd put on a short sleeved shirt and no T shirt underneath. The forest was still and the treetops glistened in the sunshine, birds chattered. I thought to myself how lucky I am to have this opportunity, this wondrous place on my doorstep almost. To see a place that has not changed much since white settlement. There's concrete brick and bitumen all over the place and cleared land and changed landscape, but here in Gembrook Park there's 65 acres of remnant bush that's never been cleared.

I picked the bunches and was about to make way back when Pip and Snow started barking at somebody moving along the track. I walked towards him in case the dogs intimidated him but when I got there he was happily patting them. He was a big bloke with a camera with a big lens, around his neck. We exchanged pleasantries about the lovely day and I apologized for the dogs to which he said was no problem, he liked dogs. He said he hadn't been in Gembrook Park for eleven years, but he loved the place, and said something told him to go there today and he was so glad he had, he was feeling so much better after being crook for a long time. I had noticed he walked gingerly, not a limp, but carefully and slowly.

I asked him where he was from, he said "Italy", but then corrected himself and said, "My dad was Italian, but I've lived in Berwick since leaving Gembrook. We went on to explain that his dad bought a property in Maisey Rd in about 1970 if my memory is good. It had an old house on it, and Rudy, he said his name was Rudy, and his wife moved into it around 1980 and raised their kids in what were very happy times with few modern luxuries. They were pretty isolated, but it turned sour after noisy neighbours spoiled it with motorbikes roaring up and down and wild parties going all night. They'd built a new house and turned the old one into a woodwork gallery and his wife ran yoga classes. I'm not sure when in this story, but Rudy's wife became ill with cancer, and died fairly recently. He has two boys at University. He spoke of his own recent illness with some uncertainty and a foreboding tone.

He gave me his card, 'Rudy Azzola  Contemporary Artist', and said he also writes poetry. His father had an interesting history he said, coming to Australia when twelve years old after being placed in an orphanage in Italy when his father died, then when his mother remarried and relocated to a sugar cane farm in Nth Qld. she went back and got him and brought him to Australia. Rudy wrote up his dad's story and visited his home village where he received much publicity and appeared on a TV show there telling his father's story.

I think Rudy said the new owners of the property in Maisey Rd neglected it for a decade and it broke his father's heart before he died, as he loved it. It has been sold recently he said to a young couple. The penny dropped. I was stopped in the street by a young bloke recently who asked me how he would find out about the history of a place he and his wife bought in Maisey Rd as it's a fascinating place and he and his family just love it and they are doing it up as it was a bit run down. I told him I'd keep my ear to the ground and come out one weekend and have a look but I'd ring him first. His number has been sitting written on an envelope in front of my computer for a few months, I just haven't got around to following up. Now I think I may have something to tell him, if Rudy's old place is his place it is a nice coincidence. I told Rudy I'd email him to establish e contact in the hope he can tell me more of his father's story, and to suss out information for the young bloke.

Now today, I picked bay foliage at a farm house in Gembrook, a friend's parents' old place. The old timber house is there too, and a third house very small, where I was asked to get rid of a beehive some months ago so they could finish knocking it down, must have been the first residence. With the very old sheds and assorted machinery the history of the place steeped into me.

I then took the dogs to JAC Russell Park so they could have a wander and saw AJ sitting on a bench enjoying a "Gold". He brought my attention to crimson rosellas nesting in the hollow of a messmate tree, quite low down. Mum and Dad came and went and occasionally you'd see a little beak stick out of the hole. AJ said he's watched them rear young there three years in a row.

Tonight I was determined to make some head way on a talk on the history of Emerald I've agreed to do shortly for the Ringwood Historical Society, but the file on the UBS stick wouldn't open so I couldn't access the power point slides I'd done at computer class. A problem to solve at class tomorrow night, but I was hoping to have more of it done tonight. Instead I watched a DVD compiled of old movies made by Bill Ford of life in Cockatoo in the 1950's. It was great and has helped my mood to prepare for the talk. I'm so glad to have watched it as Marg Treloar lent it to me last January and it's high time I returned it.