“Look at me,” she said, “look at the shadow I’m casting, have I let myself go?”
I replied to her that it was an unfortunate angle the sun was at and that she looked fine to me. We walked most days, we spent a lot of time on our feet, but we also ate well at night feasting on the local fare that was always more than tempting.
“I think people look at me and say, there’s a woman who’s let herself go.”
“Nonsense, for your age you are doing very well, we put in a lot every day.”
“I think I’ll cut back on the croissants and start on the fruit platters like you.”
“It’s our constitutions,” I pointed out, “no point in punishing ourselves.”
She gave my comment some thought and turning led me to the bakery where the smell of fresh cream buns wafted through the air.
I’d been walking in the Dundunara National Park for years and had heard many stories over the years of the hidden caves and the amazing markings on the cave walls.
They stayed elusive to me until I met and befriended, Billy Awada an indigenous man who prided himself as being the unofficial guardian of the park.
Billy told me the caves were a sacred Indigenous site and as such non-Indigenous folk were kept away. But for my sake and that I had long proved I was a conservationist and respectful of his heritage he agreed to take me to them.
I soon learned why I had never found them. They were well of the track, down a rocky gorge and across a flowing stream. But it was well worth the effort to follow Billy into a part of the Park very few white people had been.
As it was a clear day there was plenty of light cascading into the cave. The light played a significant part in the gasps I made as I looked at the cave walls. Around me was the most magnificent of sights. The entire cave wall was adorned with the most amazing paintings. Some appeared to be hand-prints, some figures I assumed were humans and others that were obviously animals.
What got me especially was the colours on display. The ochres used were ones I had not seen before. Whoever did them had great knowledge of the availability of the ochres needed and when I thought about it, it didn’t surprise me when I reflected on the richness of the park.
“Emu,” stated Billy pointing out the fading yellow print, “not so many round here these days but once they were very plentiful.”
I sat back on the ground and took in all around me. I had my camera clicking away as I wanted to record what I was seeing as it was very unique in terms of Indigenous sites.
As we were leaving Billy asked me to keep the location secret as if the location got out there would be tourists in droves all over the place and as not all appreciated what they would be seeing the temptation to leave inappropriate messages and deface the cave walls would take away the sacred nature of the place.
The secret would be safe with me, this place was indeed sacred and I felt honoured to have been allowed to see it.
At first, I thought it a mouse as I only gave it a cursory glance.
But its movement gave me cause to look more closely.
A small but cheeky looking monkey looked at me from the fork in the tree. His brown fur blending in against the trunk of the tree.
He appeared to be chewing something and his concentration was on the object in his mouth.
How cute I thought to myself.
I stood and watched as he descended the tree and sat on my shoulder.
Within seconds he was in my pocket helping himself to the loose change I was carrying, meanwhile his mates who had been hidden in the tree appeared and pilfered my wallet.
All this happened within the space of a few seconds and left me flabbergasted.
So much for the cuteness factor, the thieving little rascals quickly scurried away into the overhead foliage, richer than me at that moment.
What should have been a mundane Sunday morning turned into something entirely different.
It was a funny thing that happened on the way to the kitchen. Though at the time it wasn’t funny, disaster never is.
My brother and I had decided that as mum had gone out to do her weekend shopping, we would surprise her by doing some baking.
But our enthusiasm was what brought us unstuck.
Before we knew it, there was a mess, and with messes, there is always a lot of finger-pointing.
It went back and forward, ‘your fault, no your fault’ and all the while the mess was congealing on the floor looking more and more unsightly by the moment.
It was with the benefit of hindsight that we eventually saw the funny side of the situation. Two boys looking down at a mess they were not feeling responsible for and determined to make the other shoulder the guilt.
Eventually, with the sound of the car in the driveway, they decided enough was enough and that they had best clean up for they knew their mother would hate the sight of a potential omelette spread on the kitchen floor.
“Here we are,” I announced, “the steps to the last medieval temple left standing. See how worn they are. Tells us how important this place is.”
“Well I’m worn out I know that,” she replied. “This was supposed to be a leisurely holiday viewing the ancient ruins of the country but no one said each one of them was up a confounded flight of stairs.”
“All part of the adventure,” I said, “Look this is the last one for the day, come on you won’t regret it I know you won’t.”
With great reluctance she took a step forward and with head down began trudging up the stairs mumbling to herself something I was glad was inaudible. Eventually after a lot of whining and moaning we reached the top.
“Well look at that,” I exclaimed.
“I’m looking,” she wailed. “It looks just like the four other sites we looked at today.”
“But this one dates from 63BC. Think how old that is!”
“Right now, I’m so stuffed I couldn’t give a rats arse how old it is as I’m feeling even older than that. On top of that I can’t feel my feet and that can’t be a good thing.”
“Oh, come on we are on a twelve day holiday and it’s only day two!”
She looked at me with one of those looks that suggested I had best shut up and lead the way home. So off we went with her hobbling down the stairs and once again mumbling about whose bright idea this whole holiday thing was.
“It should look decrepit,” said Crisp my aged companion. “Everything else is, look at the poor old fence struggling to stand on its last legs. The windmill is looking new.”
Crisp was in one of her fault-finding moods today. It all started at breakfast when the waiter served her coffee lukewarm, and it was the one thing to antagonise Crisp, ‘half baked coffee’ as she’d call it. From then on, there was nothing the poor fellow could do right.
I was glad when we got up and left, and I bet so was the waiter.
Now we were out on a walk admiring the countryside, allegedly, and Crisp was still finding fault.
“What’s the point anyway,” she exclaimed, “I can whinge all I want and never get a rise out of you, I sometimes wonder what good you are!”
“Somedays,” I replied, “I’m more your fence than your windmill.”
Thankfully it arrived every morning, sunrise that is.
It took over from the darkness and heralded a new day.
There was always a sense of relief to know the long night was over and more importantly, that he had survived.
He didn’t enjoy the night alone and freely admitted that to himself.
The splendour of the morning was never lost on him. No matter the circumstances, be it rain or shine, he was always pleased to see it.
The winter months had been long and arduous. He looked forward to the coming spring and the longer hours of daylight. So often the first glimpses of sun each morning gave a hint as to the day ahead.
The magnificent red sunrise as shown above gave rise to a beautifully sunny day, warm temperatures and the promise that today he would get out and do a few things in his yard.
It was getting harder to get out. He found umpteen reasons for staying in and sitting, reading a book, watching the TV and on occasion spending the morning in the kitchen cooking and baking.
He knew he needed to get out as his body liked being exercised, and even though it hurt in places he didn’t want it to, he always felt better for the effort.
It looked a good day coming up.
Later, once the dew had dried off the grass, he’d get out his lawnmower and spend an hour pushing it around the yard. He quite liked that activity. There was an obvious sense of accomplishment when you looked back over the mown lawn, and to him, that was important.
Right now he looked forward to breakfast at his back window where he would stare out over the farm, some mornings the cattle would be grazing outside his back fence or the ducks would be perched on the fence surveying the paddock and the creek as if they were the landowners.
He would haul himself out of bed and see what the day had in store for him, as so often his plans and reality were two different things.
The evening news finished and he closed his back door with a thud.
The news had been appallingly depressing and he wanted to be as far away from it as he could.
Another three hundred infections and ten more deaths were added to the ever-growing list of deceased.
It was now a case of stay at home and don’t go out unless you had to and when you did to wear a mask. The authorities were getting more and more concerned about the deteriorating situation.
Staying at home wasn’t such a dreadful circumstance for him as he spent most days alone as it was.
It was having it imposed on him that was the biggest issue. He liked to shop on-line, he went to the shop in the early morning and he had all the TV he could possibly watch plus a stack of new novels to read.
He felt a sense of negativism overcome him. What if I catch it he asked himself? Who would care for me? Where would I go for help?
He had relatives but they lived out of town and he didn’t care much for them anyway. They tended to look down their collective noses at him and returned his lack of interest in them upon himself.
There were always plenty of things to do around the house. The spare room needed a good clean up. The back shed hadn’t been sorted out in years and his yard could do with a did more attention than the cursory mow every so often.
Each morning he watched the morning news, shook his head at the rising number of cases and wondered how the state premier managed so sleep at night when the death toll was rising and he seemed unable to quell it despite his best efforts.
It was obvious fear was building within the community, the lockdown was proving taxing on everyone, people out of work and confined to their homes. He was starting to hear more and more the sound of raised voices coming from the couple next door. It seemed inevitable that domestic violence would escalate in the coming weeks.
He checked his cupboards, he had plenty of food, his book supply was well stocked and he knew he could stay at home for as long as it took.
A knock on his door alerted him to a policeman announcing a neighbor had tested positive and it was now more important to observe the rules of the lockdown to stop the spread of the virus.
He shut his door and turned on the television.
With a cup of tea in hand he settled into his favourite chair to watch the grim reality.
It hadn’t rained in so long the little kids were in danger of being terrified when it did come.
Each morning before breakfast, dad was up and looking at the forecast to see if there was any promise of rain. His downcast look told us the answer.
He’d sold a lot of the stock and shot a lot others as he was unable to keep them fed and I know those actions broke his heart.
So the day the dark clouds appeared on the horizon, and the weather was predicted to bring rain had him sitting on the veranda watching the build-up away to the south as that was the direction our weather came from.
By mid-morning, it had become unusually dark. Dad had a call from a neighbouring property to say rain was falling and we all held our breaths hoping it could come our way.
By lunch time, the downpour had reached us. It was like the biblical story of manna from heaven. Within an hour the parched paddocks were awash, and little lakes appeared around the homestead.
Dad grabbed a towel and soap, jumped in the ute and drove down the track away from the house, stripped naked, and from the kitchen window, we could see a way in the distance dad’s bare bottom standing in the rain as he washed himself clean of the dirt and misery of the preceding months.
Morpethroad 