Grockles and thrip...

... for Knots in the String.

Dec 20, 2022

(Written a couple of days ago…)

How beautiful the day was today – taffeta blue and unsullied above, vibrant emerald throughout the garden and a rip-snorting seabreeze that arrived mid-morning, bringing the sound of waves breaking (I can hear them now) and the odour of weed washed onto the beach. I wore shorts and waded through foam and thought how it’s been an age since we could do this, what with the Big Wet. It’s tantalising, wondering if the water will clear and if we will be swimming in our normally blue crystal summer sea. The water’s warm enough but just a tad more coffee and tea than blue sea.

Share Knots in the String

As Christmas approaches and our summer unfolds, I’m conscious of shacks (holiday cottages to the uninformed) being opened and aired, the growl and roar of lawn mowers, dogs barking in response, men and children shouting, peewee bikes being raced around the streets. Caravans roll into town and set up on muddy, grassy blocks, parking in rings around firepots. They remind me of an old-time western movie without the Stetsons and guns.

In various parts of the world such incomers are called thrip, holidaymakers, shackies, the great unwashed, grockles, and no doubt many other colloquial names. All I know is that the previously quiet and settled little town vibrates with (in my mind) unwanted energy.

I can’t help but think back to my own children’s (now almost middle-aged adults) Christmases. Often in the Victorian country, sometimes on the Tasmanian coast or in Hobart. Small occasions that were filled with family love and laughter but never that sense that suburbia had moved in. Beautiful food – roasted birds and crisp roasted veg, mouth-watering stuffing made with bread, fresh parsley, sage, thyme and stewed apple. Mum’s spiced Christmas pudding – always served with whipped cream and brandy butter and filled with the few remaining imperial silver coins we have – a small collection left to my husband by his grandmother.

My children had wonderful Christmas’s with their paternal grandies interstate – every Christmas night, the whole extended clan would race from the farm down to Melbourne to the great aunt’s house for a spread the like of which I have never seen since. Cold boards, salads, frozen icecream pudding, trifles. Laughter, games and folk coming and going. And all this after a hot dinner in the middle of the day!

In my own childhood, despite that Christmas dinner might be shared with all the cousins of the time (8 children plus 9 adults), this little coastal enclave was even less populated, the roads were dirt, there were no gutters and footpaths and heaven existed outside the gate. My grandmother, great aunt, mother and her sisters all cooked in the same homely vein. But the money in the pudding was shillings and florins, the tree was an Oyster Bay pine from the beach edge with sharp-edged ripple tinsel and old-fashioned baubles that reflected the room. Our families gave us gifts that harked to the times – clothes that would last, solid toys like Meccano and wooden boats, and for me, books and Derwent coloured pencils. One Christmas, I received 13 books. It was one of the best Christmas’s ever!

Before Christmas dinner (always about 1PM) we would swim, dive off the mid-river diving tower into deep seagreen water, play round on lilos, and then head home to eat, the adults pleased that we were out from under their feet. Then we would lie around for the obligatory hour to ‘let the food go down’, and then head back to the beach. Or on rare occasions, if in Hobart, visiting my father’s cousins – drinking Coke (such a treat!) and receiving homemade quality gifts and chocolate.

But that was then.

This is now.

The coastal town will hum and buzz with money, entitlement and ‘thrip’ (microscopic damaging insects that descend on gardens in the thousands!). Think Scottish midges…

So be it.

Apart from Christmas with my own precious family, when we will eat turkey, roast veg and a rich Christmas pudding with brandy butter and my husband’s silver coins, I will just become more introverted than normal. The terrier and I will seek out further places where we can walk together in bush or sea silence, far from the madding crowd.

Or we will stay behind our tall black fence, venturing to the shop rarely and being in a pocket of retreat and calm.

It works…

My Time:

Stitching needed hearts (of course) and searching for a challenging summer stitch project. I’m rather taken by famous American designer Betsy Morgan’s Tasmanian etui. I haven’t done cross-stitch for 40 years though and my eyesight is not 20-20. Still, the word ‘challenge’ resonates.

The editor’s report on the first part of my latest novel (a fantasy) arrived back from the UK a few days ago. Apart from continuity and vocab glitches, he said:

‘Do you have a story? Yes, of course you do. You never fail. And it’s a damn fine story.

Settings, as usual, are magically drawn, so many beautiful visuals carry the story along with page-turning ease as the two main characters, their threads paced and structured perfectly, soldier on with their mission…

Pace is indeed a satisfying ride.

Settings are sublime in true Prue style.

Structure – not a thing missed as we jump between neatly twined threads.

And empathy is high for our characters and their cause, reader engaged, hooked, pages turning with hunger for more.

Yes, this is great storytelling with no major issues at all.’

Thus, I’m motivated and excited to get back to the manuscript and move my characters on. Something I can readily do whilst ‘in retreat’.

What else has happened this week?

Oh my gosh! I made THE best Christmas Rocky Road ever! From the Hebridean Baker. This is so deliciously decadent, with nothing of common Rocky Road which explodes with Allens’ and Cadbury’s sweets. This is refined and bittersweet, flavoured with brandy (I had no whisky) and topped with finely grated orange. I scattered mine with gold leaf as well, for some Christmas glitter.

Yesterday, I sat on the floor, surrounded by gifts, cards and paper and spent an afternoon with the terrier, wrapping gifts and writing cards and having an argument with the sellotape, whose end I kept losing. The presents are all silver paper and silver ribbon – I love the glister and sparkle of silver…

Reading:

On audio – Sheila Hancock still. Old Rage and maybe because of my age, I find myself going out in sympathy with her repeatedly and laughing and shouting ‘Yes!’ as I drive along the road or clean the bathroom. What tremendously courageous views of the world she has.

On Kindle, I’m so tired at the moment that I struggle at night to even turn it on, but with The House at Mermaid Cove by Lindsay Jane Ashford, I jumped in from the first page. I think this will be enjoyable – set in Cornwall (I’m a sucker for anything coastal) during WWII.

Watching:

Being so tired, it’s been easy viewing – back to back episodes of The Great British Sewing Bee (2021) filmed during Lockdown. We love Joe Lycett’s humour, the little witticisms from judges Esme and Patrick, and the enviable creatively dexterous skills of the contestants. Soothing and undemanding for my husband when he would come home from the farm, exhausted after three days of lamb shearing (he was the rousabout this time, sweeping the board, gathering up the wool and pressing up, and making sure the pens were full for the shearers).

We’re currently watching Death Comes to Pemberley (PD James’ murder mystery based on Jane Austen). Terrific cast and enjoying it greatly.

And so here we are. Full circle to the almost-end-of-the-year … Christmas (with its demands) and shacks again.

On Instagram, I came across the most beautiful poem about shacks, posted by internationally loved Australian author Kate Forsyth, and written by Australian poet Caitlin Maling. It’s from a book of poems called Fish Song which I knew instantly I must have on my ‘needed’ list.

The words perfectly encapsulate my children’s, my grandson’s and my childhoods on the coast: