Weathering...

... for Knots in the String.

After putting fear of the worst into all farmers and graziers, we waited for the apocalypse. Son and husband had rushed around putting extra windbreaks in the paddocks for the lambs and we lay in our beds as the cold wind battered our eaves. With the alleged potential for snow (not by nature a snowy country but who would know these days?), we girded our loins for the inevitable.

The lambs are born into the open air and know nothing but the open air. One hopes they’ll acclimatise from mother’s womb to the world very quickly. But these white bundles of short wooly kiss-curls had days of sun after birth, and whilst the nights were cool, mums and bubs nestled together and all was comparatively well. There are always deaths, it’s nature after all. It would be nice to be phlegmatic about the deaths but it upsets me that they try so hard to survive, that the ewes have been nurtured to the highest level by my son and husband. However, it’s unfortunately the way of it - nature, no matter nurture. Someone once said that merinos spend their lives trying to die – probably a farmer who was tired of seeing breeding stock keel over in the paddocks.

So we held our breath, because lambs can lose 30% of their body heat in rain and wind, and it was very chilly…

But the weather forecast fell completely flat in our neck of the woods. Thankfully. By Saturday, a mild airstream had settled and by Sunday, any cold weather was done and dusted. And because its officially spring this week, we’ve had days of 16’s-18’s. Lambing is almost finished. We have dozens of lambkins growing and forming gangs, looking for hillocks and fallen trees to climb on, jump off and race around. It’s a beautiful time full of hope – our little ‘parenthesis in eternity’ (Paul Coelho).

***

This week, my brother was given a very early surprise party for his 70^th birthday with friends coming from far and wide, all ably organised by one of his closest friends, Sami Lukis, from Sydney.

As he entered the specially reserved lounge at the back of The Shipwrights’ Arms, he froze with shock, and we wondered if we’d have to rush for the defibrillator! But then a delighted grin spread over his face. Our joint birthdays (we were born on the same day, 4 years apart. I’m the old blister…) are actually in October but his friend will be overseas, so it was now or nothing. I suspect that after healing from a double knee replacement a month ago, this was the icing on the cake.

I met up with friends of my brother’s that I haven’t seen for 50 years, and it was a pleasure. So many memories of a world that was young at heart and where freedom blew on the breeze and where surfing and skiing (my brother’s forté) were the thing. And where most of the chaps had shoulder-length hair.

Bit different now!

There were other people at the venue (not with our mob) and I thought to myself that it was a writer’s goldmine – watching, digesting, noting detail. I wondered if I needed to become a pub regular, sitting with notepad and pen because I love people-watching. Everyone has a back-story, and my husband complains that some of the stories I invent for that woman over there under the weather from too much wine, or the morose man alone in the corner, nursing his beer, are always too dramatic. But, my friends, we know there’s ‘so much scope for the imagination…’, don’t we?

However, becoming a pub regular is way beyond my purview – I don’t drink alcohol and I dislike the way pubs smell. Others might find it attractive – the odour of yeast, barley, malt and the smell of smokers who go outside to have a puff and then drift back in with the smell of tobacco on their breath and clothes. And that’s fine, whatever floats their boats. The world is made up of many predilections. It just doesn’t float my little craft…

***

Contrary to the skin specialist’s instructions I’ve been having long walks with the Fluffball. The walks are never fast because he stops to sniff every little thing. If he puts in a spurt between smells, I just beetle as fast as I can behind as a way of getting a smidge of cardiac exercise.

This week he spied his first echidna and was at first intrigued, but then the hunting instinct kicked in and despite my best pleas to go gently and leave it, he strained to tackle the creature that represented nothing in his nine months old memory bank. I kept him away – not just for the wild one but for the sake of the pup’s nose and paws. The Late Terrier knew well the damage from an echidna’s spines, frequently appearing at the back door with a bloody nose. But echidnas are benign creatures with gentle eyes and long noses who just want to dig for ants in peace. The spines are their protection against the world.

In the bush, the air is laced with pollen from acid yellow native trees and shrubs (allergic) and the aromatic fragrance of eucalypt (not allergic). So many trees are flowering that the bush is aglow with dandelion yellow (lellow). The sea air is crisp and salty, and bubbles tickle up the spine and down the arms and legs, and suddenly every little thing feels right with the world – solvatur ambulando.

***

As I write, Spotify plays ballet music. Tchaikovsky’s Don Quixote, then the waltz from Eugene Onegin, Eugene Doga’s Gramophone followed by Abel Korzeniowski’s It Has To Be With You (from The Courier with Benedict Cumberbatch). It’s hard to sit. My feet twitch and stir. I point and flex. Arms want to wave instead of being positioned over a keyboard. I toddled off to a full ballet class wearing a floaty navy chiffon skirt because this week I like navy. And I padded the crossed elastics of the left shoe so it wouldn’t disturb the stitches on the top of the foot. I tried to relevé and glissade, perform frappés, and soutenus – all the things I couldn’t do last week because the stitches were fresh. I managed… kind of. Just a couple of hours ago, I had half the stitches out, the rest next week and according to the biopsy, the offending freckle was indeed another squamous cell carcinoma. You’ve got to love the Australian beach life!

So let’s think about music. Perhaps this week it should be ballet music. Oh but then perhaps not.

Perhaps this week, in honour of long hair, surfing and good memories:

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