Category: Life of Mayet

The Day I Ran Away

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My fourth grade teacher was Mr. Syer.

Mr. Syer was in his late twenties or thirties (to a kid he was just old) about 5 foot 3, with thick black framed glasses, a Beatle hair cut and he always wore long socks, shorts, a checked shirt and a tie. I didn’t like him. In fact I hated him. He was my first example of a male teacher in my life and unfortunately he left scars that remain to this day.

Mr. Syer was a cruel nasty little man that got his kicks out of corporal punishment upon his students and unlike many of the teachers of the 70′s, he didn’t restrict his physical punishment to the boys. He wasn’t one for discrimination, he hit all of us.

Looking back now I can see Mr. Syer had Hitler fantasies. All that was missing was a bottle of black hair dye and a cheap fake Hitler “stouche” glued to his top lip and he would have been his hero all packaged up and sent down through time to haunt ME.

Of a day whenever a bell rang for break time, he would stand at the doorway with a monster wooden ruler and his arm would shoot out randomly to slap us kids hard on the back of the legs as we exited the room. Of course me being me, the kid that didn’t fit and didn’t “get it” I was always the target of his punishment.

At first.

As with anyone I had an issue with, even at such an early age I would retaliate, my behaviour would get worse, I would refuse to do what I was told. So most of my time would end up being spent sitting at a little desk outside the headmasters office or I would be sent to the library for punishment. That one would have worked on any other kid except me. I devoured books faster than a starving child devours food. So in the end, I would act up just to be sent to the library.

I guess this punishment suited both Mr. Syer and I. He didn’t have to put up with me in class and I got to read whatever books I liked all day, so we had this type of unspoken truce. My friends and classmates weren’t so lucky, without me as his target he soon turned his fascist attention elsewhere. He soon began to slap around the quiet girls, the shy ones, the ones that wouldn’t fight back like me.

I would walk out of class of a day without a mark on me, without needing to feel the fear of the “lineup”. It always seemed to me like running the gauntlet and I would watch the fear in the other kid’s eyes as they slunk out of class, trying to avoid eye contact with him in case they raised his attention and his long ruled arm slapping away hard at the back of their legs as they passed him in the doorway. I would see the other kids limping with tears in their eyes and it hurt me inside just about as much as it hurt them.

As time went on Mr. Syer’s fury at us kids seemed to grow and his violence got worse. I would sit with Sue at lunchtime and we would count the bruised ruler marks on her legs and back. Then something began happening that terrified me. Mr. Syer started throwing his chalkboard duster at the kids when he thought they weren’t paying attention. My classmates were walking around with bumps and lumps on their heads and in constant fear mode. We all dreaded going to class of a day, who would be his next target? It could be anyone.

I soon learned to act up about 9.05 am, about five minutes after class convened but there were times that I just couldn’t be bothered, and that was how I witnessed the most horrid event of my young years.

I can’t remember which kid it was that he hurt so badly but one day he spun around from the board and just pegged his duster at the class, it cracked one of the children on the head, causing them to fall to the floor and nearly pass out with a huge massive lump on their forehead and concussion.

I don’t remember whether there was uproar from the parents but there was uproar from me. Some parts of me have always been there and a deep awareness is one of them. I was aware this was wrong, I was aware of what this was doing to my classmates. I was aware of something new in their eyes that shouldn’t be there. I was aware of their fear and I was aware of them sinking slowly and silently into a shell to hide from what was being inflicted daily upon them.

I complained to my parents and was rather shocked at the response.

 ”He is your teacher, you do as you are told”.

I went and climbed the Figtree in the backyard to ponder that one. I still didn’t get the idea of having to respect someone that hadn’t earned it. I still don’t. I didn’t understand the idea of adults being right just because they were adults. I believed in truth even back then. Anything less just didn’t cut it. I guess that is why I could never negotiate the undercurrents of etiquette. I couldn’t understand fake smiles that didn’t reach the eyes. I couldn’t understand why someone was saying one thing and their body language was saying something else.

I was so finely tuned into nature around me at that young age that I could sense so much unsaid. Why are you smiling and saying you would love to come to morning tea, when your body language is screaming “get me away from this person”?

Of a morning I would catch the school bus to school, as mum never knew what time dad would start work but of an afternoon she would always pick me up from school along with the other mothers. This was a source of endless entertainment for me in my introspective way and it gave me a chance to observe human rituals and behaviours at close range. It truly amazed me. Mum had a group of friends who all had kids in my class. We pretty much stayed the same class of kids all the way through our primary years so the parents ended up doing the holidays together and the weekend BBQ’s trip.

What had me puzzled was that inside a classroom, out of sight of these parents, a mad man was venting his frustration about life on these peoples kids and all they were worried about was the colour of the wool they were using to knit items for the upcoming school fete. The kids would slink silently up to the parents after school with sad look on their faces, nursing limps from being never-endingly slapped about and all jumpy and scared after constantly being on the alert for flying dusters aimed at their heads. It was ignored, everyone pretended it didn’t exist. The parents would glance at the red marks and bruises, I saw them look, I would watch their eyes and then they would grimace and turn away and change the subject. This was a teacher, this was then and this was ignored.

So I decided to go one step further. One day at lunchtime not to long after the duster incident and injury I was sitting talking to the other kids and the subject of Mr Syer came up as usual. I think it was universal, no one liked him. Me, being me told the girls of my big bold plan. I was going to run away from school.

I had it all planned, I would catch the bus to school with extra food in my lunchbox and then I would not go in the gates, I would keep going. Of course fine details like “where” I was going didn’t cross my mind. I was going and that was that. One of the other girls stated that she had once heard (they were teen girls in training after all, good goss is good goss) that if more than one person runs away from a teacher, that teacher then get fired. We all thought we were so smart on that one and another girl Pauline and a few others volunteered to accompany me on the “Great Escape”.

We whispered together for the rest of the lunchtime and by the end of the lunchtime it was looking like Mr. Syer was going to be girl-less very soon.

The next day dawned a tad overcast and drizzly but that did not deter me. I snuck into the kitchen and found the match tin and poured a whole heap of matchboxes into my bag and I hunted around until I found some packets of tic tacs and threw them in with my lunch, picked up my raincoat and I was set. I don’t remember feeling excited or over adventurous, it was just something that had to be done to get rid of our teacher.

Off I set to the bus-stop. I was rather surprised to see one of my class mates missing when I got there and was further surprised when I jumped on the bus and found two more missing. I guessed by that stage that they had chickened out and taken the easy route and begged sick for the day. But Pauline jumped on at her stop and we sat together planning what we would do.

The bus trundled along it’s merry way towards school with many of the others looking at us with strange looks on their faces. Will they do it or won’t they? They didn’t know me to well if they thought I was going to chicken out. We arrived at the bus-stop and all climbed off and without a second glance back Pauline and I turned right instead of left and we set off down the side street. Off on an adventure to freedom.

Looking back it’s funny how my mind worked even then, to escape detection we stuck to the side streets and crossed the backstreet pathways, headed to the big dipper of Robsons Rd ( a street of up and down hills) and then ultimately to the base of the mountain.

By that time of my life I knew the entire area like the back of my hand. I spent my days exploring my environment so I was familiar with all the laneways and shortcuts that made our trip even quicker. All I knew was that I was headed for the mountain, what I would do next after we had arrived there hadn’t crossed my mind or even been thought off in any way shape or form.

Pauline whined a bit on the way, I don’t think she was as used to traveling as I was but in her defense, the hills were pretty tiring for an eight year old. Up hill, down hill, get to the bottom, cross the road and start climbing up hill again. It seemed never ending but eventually civilization petered out and we were surrounded by the foothill mansions that dotted the escarpment along the coast. We cut through a track behind one of my uncles houses and kept climbing up the mountain, the scrub getting thicker and greener every step we took. I was in my element now and I relaxed as the sounds of nature poured into my head. The birds singing around me in the trees drowned out the cars on the freeway which was now a faint ribbon stretching along far below us. I felt alive again.

We found a creek and I once again marveled at the differences between others and myself as I taught Pauline how to cross it without getting wet and where and how to get a drink from the running flow and not drink from the stagnant ponds.

We were hungry at this point and we devoured our lunch. It soon started raining so I climbed further in the scrub and found us a sheltered spot from the rain. I got my matches out and started a tiny fire and that is when I came up with what I thought was my best invention to date.

Roasted tic tacs.

 

Yum.

 

By this time Pauline was starting to get scared and feeling rather guilty about the whole adventure. Mind you I don’t think I helped much when instead of telling her it would be ok when she was discussing the most likely punishment her parents would meter out to her that night, I told her instead that they would probably ground her for life and she wouldn’t be able to sit down for a week.

I just thought of mum breaking more wooden spoons on my butt and I envisioned piling on and burning all of mum’s wooden spoons on my little fire as I pondered what punishment I would warrant for this huge one.

I figured by this time that it was getting on to early afternoon so we decided to set off back down the mountain. The weather cleared and the sun shone warmly on our faces, drying our thin uniforms out and our wet socks. By now I had long tossed the cumbersome raincoat off me and it was sitting back in our little shelter where it had protected us from the rain.

Every now and then there was a break in the trees and the whole coastal plain would come into view stretched out before us as far as our eyes could see. There were many big coal tankers anchored out to sea near the five islands, all waiting to be cleared to come into port to unload coal or to pick up steel and be off again on their journeys to China and South America and other such exotic places. I always wished I could stowaway on those ships.

Way down below was the sprawl of development creeping further and further up the mountain towards us, reclaiming more and more of the green and replacing it with concrete and tiles, a mat pattern of dull red roofs and various shades of grey. In the far distance, the steelworks belched it’s thick grey clouds of polluted smoke over the city and the air was thick with smog.

I shuddered but kept climbing down anyway. I wanted to get home for the afternoon cartoons and I was hungry again. We soon reached the roads again and by this time Pauline was tuckered out. Her sister worked in a pharmacy near where we appeared from our bush hideaway so we made our way there, after deciding it might just be the best way to introduce ourselves back into society again with minimum yelling in our direction.

I was still full of the day’s adventures, I hadn’t quite come back to Earth and I had left a part of my head back with that never to be forgotten yellow plastic raincoat up the mountain. My shoulders slumped again and we made our way in to Pauline’s sister to face the wrath.

Pauline’s sister knew we were missing, apparently things had gotten rather frenetic in our absence, the police had been called, everyone had been out looking all day from 9am onwards when our classmates, who didn’t really believe we were going to do it, went and told all the teachers of our plans. The teachers promptly contacted our parents and a search squad soon set out. Which we had been completely oblivious to until that point.

Her sister drove us back to the school, it was end of day and the other kids had left but the police and all the teachers were there waiting for our return.

I had been informed by Pauline’s sister that Mr. Syer was running around like a headless chook having a nervous breakdown and that was enough for me to have a little smile on my face as I got out of the vehicle. Serves him right the asshole.

I was crushed by mum, who was beside herself and I just looked at her and told her I was fine. I sort of pushed her away from me and stomped up to where Mr. Syer was pacing up and down the footpath.

I looked at him with my hands on my hips and legs apart. He asked me where I had been and why had I run away and scared everyone. I peered back at him and said “What are you still doing here, Haven’t you been sacked yet. Don’t hit a kid again.”

With that I turned and tossed my stubborn little head and went and climbed into mum’s valiant, staring straight ahead with my arms crossed.

When we got home the lectures started. “Didn’t you realize the danger”, “What if you had been snatched”, “What if something had happened to you”. I endured the experience of being sat on dad’s friend Mr. ex Police Officer’s knee, while he lectured me on what could happen to children.

I just looked at him, I couldn’t understand what he meant.

“If someone grabbed me, well let them try” I thought.

What danger? I knew where I was going, I knew what I was doing and besides couldn’t he see that I had a reason. I shrugged and switched off, parents would never get it.

What I guess I couldn’t understand most was the contradiction. On weekends I was allowed to wander and explore where I wanted. I knew to avoid danger. If I walked along the road I would walk on the side with the traffic coming towards me, so no one could sneak up behind me. I was acutely aware of Myspace and never allowed someone to come within my circle unless I allowed it.

I knew where I was and where I was going. I knew just how far and how fast that object was coming towards me. I knew just where that invisible bird was, singing from the treetops. I was just aware. I knew how to clear undergrowth and how to make a break around my fire. I knew to put it out by covering it with earth and waiting until I was sure it was totally out. I had been taught that already on my many outback trips. I knew how to get water and to find food, although my roasted tic tacs rocked and I still say that to this day.

So I couldn’t understand why my protest and “great escape” went down with the adults like a ton of bricks. Why was a school day different? Why was I being trodden on for something I believed I was right in doing and that I did every other day anyway.

 *Sigh* Always the why, with my in the thick of it asking.

Perhaps the desired affect was achieved; it sure lit a fire up Mr. Syer’s butt. I don’t remember him hitting anyone after that for the rest of the year. He wasn’t sacked though, I don’t even know whether he was ever spoken to about it, I’d say it was just put down to me being so naughty again.

I don’t know how the kids following our year into fourth grade faired with the ruler either, I can only hope the lesson he learned was big enough never to hit a child again but sadly I think it was his nature. A cruel little man..

Of course the parents all made the kids stay away from me all the more after that one and I was even more “Nigel no friends” than before. Always the weird outcast, which I couldn’t understand.

I knew why I had done it and now you do.

Two Black Sheep

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I woke to find my mother shaking my shoulder. Opening my eyes, I blinked to focus in the morning sunshine which was streaming in my bedroom window.

I didn’t wake peacefully at the best of times so to have mum shaking my arm until it felt like jelly was unusual to say the least. I groaned and peered at her with a look of bewilderment on my face that became even more confused with her next statement.

“Get up and go and have a look at what your father bought home for you in the backyard”. She muttered between gritted teeth as she proceeded to throw my messy clothes around on the floor in a fit of temper.

A million possibilities raced though my head at once. I knew my father had returned from his latest outback tour in the middle of the night but I hadn’t got up to greet him as I was still steamed that he hadn’t taken me on the trip with him. It was a few weeks into my first high school year and so mum wouldn’t let me go and miss out on all important schooling. Hence I wasn’t speaking to anyone, I hated school.

I climbed out of bed and narrowed my choices down.

“Is it a puppy mum”? I asked hopefully.

“No, it’s not”, Mum snapped back, already tearing into my bed and turning my sheets into exact neat hospital corners. “Just go and have a look. He has out done his bloody self this time”.

I jumped, ooh Mum swore, it must be bad, she’s real pissed at dad. I almost ran through the house in my rush to go and see what this mystery was that had made my mum so mad. I banged open the back door and stopped dead in my tracks. My mouth dropped open.

There standing in front of me, in my suburban city backyard, was a live sheep, a fully grown wooly white Merino sheep, which turned, peered at me with rheumy red eyes, then Baaed balefully and loudly before turning its attention back to the grass in front of my old swing set.

Mum appeared silently behind me. She stood as stock still as me, hands on her hips with a look of complete disgust on her face. Of course by now, I had a look of complete awe on mine.

“It’s a lamb”. She said sarcastically.

I turned and looked at her with an expression of pure puzzlement on my face.

“It’s a bit big for a lamb mum,” I said rather matter of factly, “and what the heck is it doing in our backyard.”

The sheep continued to munch the juicy lawn of my dad’s picture perfect back turf as we both continued to stare in silence, lost in our own thoughts at this intrusion into our lives. It baaed loudly again and I was shocked to hear an answering baa in the distance, coming from a few houses away.

I spun back to mum, even more curious now. “What is going on mum, the neighborhood seems a little bit alive with the sound of sheep this morning”. The baaing back and forward continued as mum answered.

“Well your bloody father”, she started on. “was on his way back home yesterday and saw a sign out at Harden that said “Lambs for sale. $1 dollar each. So in his brilliance, because he knew you were upset with him for not taking you, he decided to bring a lamb home for you.

I sat on the step and just burst out laughing at the whole situation. Poor dad, he was a real softy. Out West they were in the middle of a huge drought, one of the worst on record. The bottom had fallen out of the lamb meat and the wool market and the price of good quality stock Merino lambs had fallen to $1 per head.

So dad and his mates in their city bred glory, bought four lambs for a total of four dollars and were soon rather stunned to find that they had purchased four fully grown sheep, not four tiny bottle fed cute lambs that still had tails wagging behind them like in the fairy stories. So the “lambs” were trussed up and tossed into the luggage bins of dad’s coach for their journey east to the big city and their new homes.

Mum went on to explain that John Martin, my school deputy principal who lived four doors down from us was also on the trip and the source of the answering baa was from his new “lamb” that was busily munching the back turf down the road a bit.

This made me laugh harder, I hated Mr. Martin and called him Koala Bear owing to the tufts of hair growing out of his ears, surrounded by a strip of frizzy hair wrapped around his bald chrome dome.

Mum stomped inside at this point, leaving me sitting on the back step in my nightgown, watching the sheep chewing away at the lush lawn quite indifferent to my presence. I stood up slowly and approached the sheep. I had guessed by now that my new “pet” was a girl. As I walked towards her, she bolted to the corner of the yard and watched me warily out of one eye, continuing to obliterate another area of neat turf and dropping little green round pea shaped nuggets behind her.

I ran inside and hunted around in mum’s cupboards. Grabbing the bread and honey I smeared some honey on a slice of bread and went back outside. I approached her slowly again but stopped when I sensed she was getting read to bolt. I stayed still for a minute then slowly broke off a piece of bread and tossed it in front of her. She was straight on to it. I had found her weakness in one.

She loved bread and honey.

The bread was gone in an instant and for the first time she turned her attention to me, looking for more. By this time mum had called me in to get ready for school, so I regretfully left my new friend and went back in the house to get dressed for school.

For once that day I didn’t play up, I skipped last period as usual to be the first over to the bus stop and I ran all the way home when I jumped off the bus around the corner from my house. I went straight to the bread and grabbed half a loaf and the honey and went out and sat on the back step. So began a ritual that continued for quite some days. I would smear the honey on the bread and toss the pieces to the sheep, tossing them closer and closer to me each time. In the first few days, I just let her get used to me and wouldn’t touch her but by about day three she was eating the bread straight out my hands, by day five she was waiting for me of an afternoon when I arrived home and by the time a week was up I could pat her and scratch her around her neck and she would follow me everywhere, nudging at my pockets for a titbit.

I loved her. She was mine. Of course no one else wanted anything to do with her, my sister hated anything that slobbered or was bigger than a cat. Come to think of it, remembering back to Cathy and her experiences with mice, she hated anything smaller than a cat too.

Mum just complained loudly every chance she could get. She would whinge about the her fast diminishing lawn, stamp her foot about the amazing pile of dark green peas that were multiplying at a rapid rate and yell about her squashed garden and half chewed on vegetables.

I soon christened my new pet. One afternoon I was playing with my lego on the floor of my room, when I heard mum scream loudly out the back yard. I dropped everything and ran to find out what was killing her, only to find mum standing in the middle of the yard shaking in fury and pointing toward the vegetable patch. There right smack bang in the middle of the garden was my sheep, demolishing the final stalks of what was once mum’s pride and joy, the rhubarb.

Dad loved rhubarb and mum would pick the stalks fresh of an afternoon to cook up for his dessert at night after dinner. Not anymore, the whole patch was now the contents of my sheep’s stomach. She baaed and looked around for more rhubarb. By this time mum had taken her slipper off and she began chasing her, cursing and screaming at the sheep over the loss of her prize patch of juicy ripe rhubarb.

Of course I stood there and laughed, and laughed and couldn’t stop laughing. It was such a sight. Mum had no chance of catching the sheep in a pink fit and she seemed to get crankier every time she lunged at the sheep with her slipper, to find the nimble footed sheep jump sideways out of reach and bolt off again.

Dad arrived home around this time and walked out the back only to burst into laughter himself at the spectacle in front of him. The sheep still had the last stalks in its mouth and was trying to get them chomped and swallowed at the same time as running away from this screaming yelling mad woman that was chasing her around the yard with a  fluffy pink slipper.

So the name stuck. Rhubarb she was from that moment onwards. It was apt.

“Rhubarb” is a stage whisper or the word used for a crowd talking in the background. We had done a crowd scene in a school play and we all had to whisper “rhubarb rhubarb” over and over as the crowd background noise and talking in faint conversations.

Rhubarb and I became great mates at the same time she raised the wrath of both my sister and my mother more and more as each day passed. She ate my sisters bra that was hanging on the clothesline and then she ate all mum’s flowers. Rhubarb had a real thing for flowers. She would stand up the back out of sight of mum at the kitchen window and chomp away on mum’s camellia flower heads and buds, only to skip merrily away when mum came bulldozing out of the house with the fluffy pink slipper off the foot and raised to strike her wooly rump.

That year we had no flowers, no lawn but plenty of fertilizer and I had a friend.

I soon discovered another of Rhubarb’s weaknesses. Of a morning mum would drive dad to work and I would use that time to feed rhubarb her bread and honey. One morning she followed me back in the house and I only half heartedly stopped her. I wanted to see what she would do.

She walked in and slipped around the polished kitchen floor before following me into the loungeroom where Cathy was watching the morning cartoons. Of course all I then heard was “Get that sheep out before mum gets home. You will be in real trouble this time”.

I shrugged. I was always in trouble, it was just the depth that varied.

Then the most amazing thing happened. Rhubarb spotted the TV. She turned, sat down on her back and hunches and just stared at it. So I sat down beside her, shocked at her reaction. She was mesmerized and entranced by the TV. She never took her eyes off it of moved an inch.

It wasn’t long before I heard mum’s car in the driveway, so it was a mad rush for Cathy and I to push the sheep out the back door and clean up the pea poops. We were both sitting quietly and innocently watching the cartoons when she walked in.

It became a daily ritual, as soon as mum drove off, Rhubarb would kick at the back door to be let in. I would open the door, stand aside and she would wander into the lounge, sit down on her hunches and just stare at the TV with us until we heard mum’s car arrive back home.

She caught us once. Rhubarb didn’t want to leave and even with both Cathy and I dragging her out we were not quite successful. Of course I was chased with the wooden spoon and warned never to do it again. The next morning Rhubarb watched the cartoons with us again.

Life went on for a few months. Mum began complaining louder and would not go outside without gumboots on. Rhubarb kept eating the flowers, chewing the underwear on the line and leaving her pea poops all over the now torn up turf.

One afternoon I came home and there was no Rhubarb. She was gone. In great distress I went screaming in to mum.

Mum informed me that she had to go, we couldn’t keep her in the backyard in the middle of the city. I stamped my foot and asked why not. Mum was adamant. I asked where she had been taken and I screamed louder at the response.

“Uncle Neville took her”.

I yelled at mum. “how could you”. Then I stormed off to my room to throw myself on the bed sobbing.

Uncle Neville was my godfather, my parent’s best friend and dads fellow church choirboy who owned our local friendly neighborhood butcher shop. I cried and cried. Rhubarb had been saved only to be given to the butcher.

Mum soon came in and gently explained that Uncle Neville was taking her to his house up the mountains, to feed on his spare paddock of grass and live out her life in peace and tranquility. I wiped my tears and looked up at her, for the first time having some hope that something nice had happened for my Rhubarb. I made mum take me straight up the mountain to their house that very afternoon, to check for myself that Rhubarb was indeed fattening herself up on the rich mountain grass and not hanging as a carcass on a meat hook in Uncle Neville’s smelly coolroom that I was always exploring in fascination.

I often visited Rhubarb after that. Instead of being bored at the thought of visiting my godparents I would excitedly jump in the car with my bread and honey and when we arrived I would spend all my time down in the paddock with my Rhubarb. She always came running up to me, every time she saw me and it mattered not if I didn’t have her treat of bread and honey. She would stand beside me for hours and I would talk to her and pat her or we would just sit in silence and enjoy the views, perched high on the mountain paddock, looking down at the coal mines far below.

I would think about the circumstance thought bought us both here. Rhubarb from the dusty dry barron paddocks of drought ridden outback NSW, brought all the way to this lush mountain meadow. A life that had a price on it of $1, who shared so many adventures and fun times with me. We grew together and were bonded for life.

My wooly sheep was saved by a soft hearted city slicker in a comedy of errors. Just like me. Saved by that same city slicker all those years before when they adopted a little black sheep who had been born in a morgue.

She lived there in peace and tranquility for many years. About a year or so after she left the city for her mountain paradise, I visited to find her plump and round. She had been mated with one of my Uncle’s friends Ram. Not long after my visit she gave birth to twins.

I was once again overcome with joy. One tiny lamb was fluffy white, just like Rhubarb and the daddy ram and all the previous generations of pure Australian Merino before it. But the twin was Black. A real live black sheep. Just like me.

To Endure

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This is the first time I am publishing this piece publicly.

It was written in 2009/2010  and placed on private journal entry.

At the time I could not share my pain. I couldn’t share anything. i could only wrap myself within myself and scream inside.

Today in some ways i am still screaming inside

I have learned one thing. one very important thing

to endure

 

it is a deep despair inside, a restlessness borne of not knowing but a the same time having to bear the contemplative thoughts of what will be and even worse what can be.

It is the realization that nothing, not even your children are truly yours, they belong to the state to banter and pass around like marketable goods.

These are my children, I chose to be a mum, I chose all that came with being a mum. I am not perfect and perhaps in the God’s eyes I have failed, or found to be lacking but to be judged by a stranger?

to have society and some one far away from the realities of our family, sitting in such high judgment of us who holds the ability in his hands to take all from under us, to take from us all we have , all we have built, and all we have planned and all we are is I guess to feel the ultimate loss. The loss of life, the loss of freedom, the loss of hat should be

The pain is unbearable, every minute I stop and heave a deep sigh, as if something is trapped and held within my very soul,  bursting to tear it’s way out to cause the ultimate pain a mother can bear. The loss of a child or the threat of the loss of a child.

I just tucked Kahleah into bed …I do feel my heart breaking with every breath. I watch their angelic faces as they begin to bloom again, only to face that it all might be ripped from us again. The tranquility and healing shattered, our family fragmented and forgotten.

My babies.  The pain is too much too keep writing, my tears beg annoyingly to be wiped away as they run in a constant stream down my cheeks unheeded. My vision is blurred. my heart is so heavy. I can’t  stop the waves of pain that rip through my soul.

it is the worse, it is rock bottom, it is the devastation that only a parent could dread. The memories flash like replay in full Technicolor windscreen through my mind of our life together, of our dreams, our hopes, and of our fear, of our nightmare.

Yet that nightmare, it was nothing, it had nothing  on this nightmare. This is the ultimate pain, the ultimate sequel to end the saga. The final control, the final cut.  and yes, it is the deepest, far deeper than I have evr endured from him before. Far worse than too much, it hurts so bad.

what registers is my babies, of my bond with them

of B as he says, “I hope you bought a hug with you mum” or “I know what you bought me home from the shop mummy, you bought me a kiss”.

Of listening to S’s operatic tones pierce my head in perfect pitch as she merrily dances around the house and her smiles at

me the love the bond between us as mother and daughter. Of K, my little sunshine, Her earnest blue eyes looking deeply into mine as she tells me one of her stories.

We are just now only beginning to find each other again. We are just beginning to mend and learning to walk all over again and now it is threatened with a destruction that i am powerless to stop.

and it hurts ………. bad….

I’m sorry i just need an outlet for this pain and I can’t publish this publicly….. I hurt

Lost

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It’s funny. I am such an optimist. My motto in life is “the sun willl always shine tomorrow. Even if it is cloudy and stormy now, the sun is still up there shining and sooner or later those clouds are going to rain out and a big wind come and clear up the skies”.

 

 

 

I really live by that motto.

But after picking up one of my diaries today that was written in 1982 I see now that it wasn’t always sunshine and puppies for me.

I had a hard adolescence. I was confused and sad and lost. I had no sense of identity and I was always searching for myself. Many of my readers know I was adopted out at birth after being born in a morgue and that struggle and search for identity seemed twice as hard to me than to anyone else.

I drifted from scene to scene, searching and looking for the place I belonged, with others who were like me, with people who could understand how I was thinking and why i was thinking it. They weren’t there. I was alone and lost in a world that was strange and alien to me. I would lie on my roof at night and look up at the stars, wanting to be out there amongst them and waiting for the aliens who dropped me off to realize that they had left me in the wrong place. This wasn’t my place, this wasn’t my life, this wasn’t my time.

Some of you know how much “trouble” I got into as a kid. I’m not going to go into details today about that but I am pretty open on it all. Looking back at my old journals though, I realized something.

 

I was a fucking emo

Everything was so dark and dire and it was. I grew up too fast. I was a very old and deep thinking head inside a 15 year olds body with heaps of juvenile hormones running around. I was a loner and unable to find that sense of belonging or identity that seemed to slide so easily over the shoulders of those around me. I was very deeply introspective.

Nowadays I have a neat little label for myself. I don’t use it as I don’t feel even that label fits comfortably tagged on me. But having said that I do understand now and can in turn give that gift of understanding to my own children in order for them to make a much smoother transition from child to adult than I ever could of dreamed of.

No one understood me but in my search for understanding myself. I now understand my children.

See Now I know this is my life and I know this is my place and I know this is my time.. and its all good.

Did you have a hard time as a teen? Or was your transition smooth and easy flowing ebb, into the world of an adult.

42 reflections

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The Meaning of Life is 42
I damn well hope so as I have waited a long time to get there..42 years to be precise.

Apparently Tom missed my birthday on the 21st of November so many of my friends also missed my huge event….

I finally made it .. 42 years old…. the meaning of life.. and truly I can say the meaning of life is closer than it ever has been for me.

 


Mt Keira taken from my favourite Mountain the world. Mt Nebo-
I grew up on the foothills of Mt Keira and Nebo. Keira is one of the twin sentinel mountains of Wollongong.

This years going to be the year of changes for me. Plans are in the making for me to leave the farm and to travel many more miles back home. It is easy said than done and there is quite a few walls and obstacles put in front of me. Ultimately I want to be home with my family. I want to be near my parents so they can spend more time with their grand-kids. I want to be near my daughter.

I want to be near my children’s families so that they can spend time with their cousins and aunties and uncles. I want to be near to my friends, the friends who have been there for me for many many years. I want to be near the sea again. I want the sea breeze in my face and the mountain at my back. I want to feel the sand between my toes at the “magic beach” I want to be able to go and buy milk at 3am. I want to drive to the beach. I want to sit by the harbour and eat ice Cream or fish and Chips with my kids. I want to go swimming iwth them in the rock pools. I want to go fishing off the jetties and rocks, alone with my thoughts. I want Shayla to start Opera lessons and take steps towards her dreams of being an Opera singer. I want Kalean to find his niche in life. I want Brodie to get his help to get through life a little less alien for him. I want to go out to dinner at a Mexican Restaurant. I want to be a part of the city but still retain the country. I want my children to share the magic that I experienced. I want my children to learn and see the beauty of this land.

I want to visit my sister’s grave and sit in the peace and quiet of the lush green hills surrounding it. I want to ride on the back of a Harley again *grins* and possibly buy my own Harley. I want to explore. I want to have fun. I want to enjoy my family and friends. I want to be free from hate and hurt and sadness. I want to be free from tears of terror.

 


The city of Wollongong and the ocean from Mt Nebo

My mother’s recent crisis slapped me in the face. I do not want to dwell on regrets so the best chance I have is to make my life what I want to make it. It is my life, the only one I have got. I can’t get another chance at it all and I figure that a happy life is much better than being sad and down all the time. Or even dragged down.

 


Mt Kembla From mt Nebo. Mt Kembla is the other twin sentinel. The two mountains with Mt Nebo in the middle overlook Wollongong

I can’t ever go back to that crisis point where I made the choice that I did that polarized me through the gates of hell but I do now have the chance to move forward with some special people back in my life. I can’t take back the last 16 years but I can certainly make the next 16 years happy and content.

 

Wollongong Harbour and Lighthouse with fishing fleet.

Mum is out of hospital. She has two blocked arteries to her heart and her blood pressure still goes up and down like a yo yo. She is too weak to operate so the heart specialist is hoping that medication can help unclog the arteries. Mum’s kidney are damaged but still working.. to an extent..

 


My Sister’s Grave – It was 20 years this month since she died. it feels like yesterday. I took that photo of her that is on her grave. Krystal was in her arms

The doctors couldn’t understand why mum didn’t have a stroke last week. They said she had the highest blood pressure that they have seen 300 over 160. Mum is still weak and finds it exhausting to carry out the simplest tasks.

 


Swan Lake – An hour south of Wollongong

So yeah.. I want to be closer to mum….

I want I want I want.. selfish ain’t I ……
There is so much I still want to see and do.

42 is the point where I look back and reflect and use everything I have learned to move forward into sunshine.


Wollongong Harbour with Mt Keira visible in Background
Wollongong Taken From Mt Keira Lookout
Thank You to everyone for the kind wishes to my mum. She read all the comments and thanks you all. 

and thanks for all the birthday wishes..

It made my day..literally

Can You Put The Moon In My Room Mum

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Written November 2007
I turned the light off in the kitchen before and was holding my three year old daughter Kahleah Celeste in my arms, admiring the full moon that was rising straight outside the window.

We talked about the ring surrounding it and how bright the moon was and how stunning the clouds looked crossing the moon’s path.
All of a sudden she turned to me, grabbed my face between her little fat hands, peered at me earnestly from the tip of my nose and said

Can You put the moon in my room mum

I laughed my head off and we then seriously discussed how I could put the moon in the corner of her room so that it wouldn’t get dark and the scary shadows would go away. So my baby girl and the rising full November moon inspired this simple little children’s night time poem I just wrote.

 

Can you put the moon in my room mum
can you put the moon in my room
it is bright and shiny and full of light
can you put the moon in my roomIt is hanging out there in the coldest night
The glow of a beacon that turns dark into bright
With a blue ring halo that is such a delight
surrounded by flickers of colours competing in fighta meteor streaks across, in a fast flash of white
Oh look there’s a spaceship on a galactic flight
I wonder at the heavens and the universal might
it scares me a little, I hold threadbear real tightCan you put the moon in my room mum
can you put the moon in my room
It will banish the shadows and give me sight
can you put the moon in my room

Kahleah Celeste means “Clear Bright Heavens”

Seth, the Ant and Love.

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Please Read this With My  Blog –
Brodies World – Living With Aspergers Autism.
I am doing this Blog A Bit Backwards today and posting the nighttime before the daytime.
Somehow that seems fitting for this family.

 

Prequel Story

I went to pick Kahleah up from daycare early to get them all ready for the town’s Christmas carnival. I walked in and the kids were down the back. I spotted Seth, Kahleah’s “boyfriend” playing on the ground in front of me. Seths a handsome strapping three year old lad with Celtic dark red hair and hazel eyes. When his daddy and I are in the supermarket you will hear the two kids yelling from one end of the supermarket to the other, like a scene out of Romeo and Juliet meet buying groceries.

Seth : Kahleah Kahleah
Kahleah: Seth, its Seth. Seth where are you Seth
Seth: Kahleah I can seeeee youuuuuu
Kahleah: Look mummy it’s Seth, it’s Seth, it’s my boyfriend I have to go and say hello.
Me: But darling we just said goodbye to him at daycare five minutes ago…

Kahleah pouts until I go up to Seth and his dad, we both sorta stand back looking uncomfortable.  (small country town, not good to be seen chatting (*rumours you know*) We just watch and wait until the two little ones are finished  gossiping about everything under the sun.

My mummies buying some milk
My daddies buying some bread…….
yadda yadda … do adults sound like that to kids?

Anyway when I spotted Seth today at daycare, i bent down in front of him. he looked up and shoved a tupperware container bowl at my nose.

“Look it’s an ant”.

“Yes Seth it certainly is an ant”, I answered, when I finally focused on the microdot climbing around the bowl towards my left nostril.

“I think it’s a mummy ant, what do you think”, said Seth seriously, staring into my eyes and shoving the bowl closer to my nose, so that if I breathed in Seth wouldn’t have an ant anymore and I would be well, choking on ant.

“Hmm it might be a mummy ant indeed.” I say watching as Seth bends down and put his bowl on the ground then get down on his hunches peering over the bowl.

“Do you know where your girlfriend is?” I asked, both of us still watching the microdot ant.

“Oh Kahleahs down on the slide near the sandpit” Seth answered without looking up, while raising his hand pointing down to where I could now see Kahleah, busy bossing some little blonde girls around.

The daycare girls were standing behind me watching and listening quietly and they all burst out laughing at the exchange.

Its so It is funny to them all that Seth and Kahleah have this unbreakable bond at such a young age. To me it is just my kids. My special kids seem to pick up other speical kids.

Kameruka The Meeting Tree 2008

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Today I am sitting at the farm on the edge of my bed drinking a fresh aromatic cappuchinno coffee and daydreaming. Once, a few weeks ago I would daydream about the future work I would put into the farm and the animals, today I daydream about tomorrow, whatever that will bring.

I love sitting here. I look out directly at “kameruka” the meeting tree, with the bird feeder standing proudly at the foot of it. Behind Kameruka I can see all the way down to the dam in the back paddock and I can just see the top of the water from the bed. Over the next week I am going to introduce the ducks to the dam (duck dam) and build them a little *portable* shelter down there. I can see the bright blue sky and steadily darkening pink tinged clouds through the branches of the tees. All around me is the sounds of “the bush” with bird tweetering and calling each other, mixed in with the occasional calls from the roosters. I can not see a sign of hooman development out my window. Only nature and the joys and wonders it has to share.

  • Midnight my adorable billygoat who ate his lead and came knocking at the door for "midnight snacks"

The yard is sprinkled with various animals all over. The chickens are pecking for juicy fat grubs in small groups around the bird feeder and water tanks and the bantams are poking their fluffy heads out from the branches of the willow tree nearby. Arnold and Elwood are sprawled out down near the pen, catching the last late afternoon sun’s rays shining down from between the trees.

Apostle Birds, Parrots, doves and pigeons are scattered amongst the chickens and ducks, all  fighting over the seeds I have strewn along through the grass. Not far away, Terrance the turkey is all fluffed out, whoom’ffing every minute or so while standing guard over his wives Thelma and Louise along with his daughter Teresa as they peck around the compost heap. The goats are all down between my window and the dam, they are starting to all lie down and position themselves for the cold winter’s night ahead. Snowy is looking like she willl drop her baby any minute now.

The animals all roam around the yard during the day now. There is no need to keep them penned. They choose to stay with me and they are free, freer than me …….I know. Everything is calm and peaceful as they all gather the last feed before sleep time.

Yesterday I sat down in the grass above the dam after I had moved the goats and given them fresh water in their troughs and I relaxed, possibly for the first time in years. I sat watching the goats gallovanting around with each other and feeding on the green stubbly weeds in the paddock. Dora was reaching up on her hind legs to nibble at the juicy young gum leaves off the trees and Toffee was standing on her tree stump above everyone else, surveying her domain.  There was a grunt behind me near where Glen was untangling little Glen the goats rope from the latest mess he had got himself into. I swear when they cut his balls out his brain went with them. I turned to big Glen and watched behind him as Arnold and Elwood the pigs made their way noisily towards us.

The pigs have quite fascinating unique personalities. They scare me a little after seeing them kill one of the chickens when she was injured and then tear her apart. I see the dangerous possibilities there. Maybe they have a fair bit of feral (wild) blood in them because they could turn quite ferocious I think.

Arnold, the spotted pig is the leader of the pair. She is much larger and fatter than her black sister and much more extroverted. They still don’t like human contact or to be touched, even by me and they express their displeasure very loudly in grunts and squeals if you reach out to them. If the other animals get in their way at the food trays they shove them aside with their snouts and stand on the trays, hoof deep in slop food, pigging away.

The water trough is funny to watch. All the chickens line up along it drinking from it. When they have all had a good drink and the ducks have had a wash down, Arnold and Elwood come and have a bath. One at a time they climb into the trough and roll around in it having a grand old time.  The water trough is made out of a 44 gallon plastic drum which has been sliced in half so when the pigs jump in, the whole trough rolls from side to side with them. They seem to have more fun than most people at a waterpark.

They showed another side yesterday though. They trotted noisily up behind Glen towards me and Arnold came and sat down beside me. She stared at me. I stared at her. I wish I knew what was going on in her mind at that point in time… It was probably something like “where’s the food bitch, I’m hungry”. After all Arnold is a real pig and a constant food shredding machine.

I stayed still but still talked to Glen while me and Arnold sat there enjoying each others company. Elwood looked at Arnold and I with a look of disgust and she soon squealed loudly and went and buried herself in some soft dirt over near midnight the billy goat. Arnold just sat beside me, seemingly enjoying the tranquility as much as I did.

They say pigs are intelligent. I see that in many ways but I would more call it cunning. I have watched them walk up to a barrier I have just erected and put their bulldozer snouts underneath to lift it up. Then they just walk on through. “Pig Proof” is hard to achieve. They are great at digging gardens, if that could be controlled in the area I want it, then I wouldn’t need a rotary hoe. They bury their snout in the ground and just furrow along with brute strength and force, not unlike a mining machine. Whenever I walk down the yard with the blue feed bucket now I feel like the pied piper of Hamlin. I am followed by two pigs at my heels trying to trip me up, 8 goats, 5 ducks, 4 and a half turkeys, a sprinkling of roosers, various silkies and bantams and 11 Rosemary’s (the brown layer chickens are all called Rosemary because you can’t differentiate between them. *sigh I really need my camera back)

*interjection.. I hate running out of coffee halfway through a cigarette while writing a blog….I’ll be right back…

That is better where was I.. ah the dam and the pigs…

Arnold sat with me and enjoyed the tranquility a while longer before she decided I had no food for her so with a grunt towards her sister, she trotted slowly down into the dam. Elwood wiggled herself up and followed. Soon the two pigs were in the dam together having a fantastic time “mud bathing” They made sure they were both smothered in mud before they came back up the bank and shook themselves like dogs do. They wandered off back up towards the pen.It is quite amazing to watch the connection between the two pigs. They flow together in movements, turns and speeds and always seem to head in same direction. When they are separated they squeal to let each other know where they are.

As I sat there I realized how content inside I am. How relaxing my environment has become. How much at peace I am from a turmoiled soul.

It is all so relaxing. It is calming and peaceful. I feel at peace. No matter what “murphisms” are going on around me, I still feel calm and at peace inside. I know its the farm and the atmosphere I have built here that is responsible for my inner peace.

A tiny piercing sharp pain runs through my heart as I think about how soon it will all be taken from me. I have my garden seeds ready to plant out but no desire to do so. Will I be here to reap what i sow? Literally…..

What will tomorrow bring?

The stillness surrounding me calms my soul and allows me to carry on. I have dreams, I have goals I have plans….I have hope and aslong as hope remains……. life is good…

Footnote 1

I will answer comments on my prior blog shortly. As I am writing this my net is down once again. It went down for three hours late last night as well. I don’t get to spend much time on here and so I was rather piffed that it did it when I did have the time to sit down and “surf” myspace.

Footnote 2

To update everyone about the goats. I have partially solved the mystery. After speaking to the council and raising my concenrs that this was a “nuisance call” over my “nuisance goats”, it was tracked down. At first the source of the mystery couldn’t be found but after a few hours and a call back it was explained… Someone drove passed my house and “apparently” saw my goats near or on the road so they rang council. Council came straight out and could find no goats anywhere near the road but saw my goats way down near the house. So the paperwork was generated because they had come out here.

We both remarked how strange the whole thing was and I had previously explained that the goats never went anywhere near the front, the front fence or out the front gate. They are scared of their own shadow, let alone traffic and noise. They have never been near there. As she said… council found NOTHING when they came out straight away so yeah…. hmmm. it was around the same day that the first house inspection happened…. co incidence or funny peculiar I don’t know. But at least the council knows now that it may be a troublemaker. They admitted it didn’t come from any neighbours. In fact they didn’t even have a name of who did report it.. sus eh..

Footnote 3..

Frankenfish and his four wives are doing great. Of an afternoon they all gather near the top of the pond waiting for the girls to come out with their daily feed rations. Frank is still about three times the size of his wives but they are all growing and thriving in the pond. They are quite pretty to watch swimming around and nibbling at the food.

Footnote 4

I can’t do much other than sit here on the bed and grimace or cry out every now and then. I pulled my back out rather badly when feeding the animals so I am enjoying the rest while I am forced to endure it.. I hate being ill or injured.. I tried lifting the feedbags this morning and now I can barely move my right leg.. argghhh .. I’ll be right in a coupla days.. nothing keeps me down long..

True Blue

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I have often been asked about my wicked sense of humor and fun and where it came from. Many of you will know about my Dear old Dad and the rolling pin so you can guess where much of it comes from but it is more than that.

It is a cultural and nationwide way of looking at life that is uniquely Australian.

Australian’s often are labeled “laidback” and “casual” with the ability to laugh at ourselves as a nation as well as finding the fun things and the humorous side of events. We are indeed in general very casual and laidback, especially when it comes to our own selves. Maybe it is a part of our proud convict heritage. Every Australian proudly claims at least one first Fleet convict as their own anscestor. We are honest and forthright.. perhaps a non political correct species but we say what we think.

On the other hand Australian’s are also courageous, loyal and strong willed. We make great friends and the word “mate” is a valued part of our vocabulary. Australian’s will walk a mile for their mates when the “chips are down” and will be there for them when called. We help others and do not turn our backs on people who need help. Although sadly once again as time marches forward in the new millenium people everywhere are becoming colder and more heartless.. concerned with the chase for the dollar rather than giving a person a hand up

Australian’s have a built in “Bullshit detector” and do not suffer fools gladly. An Aussie will tell you that you are full of it without a blink of an eye. We are an straightforward little quirky species that sees beyond what is presented to us and that allows us to take away a full color pallete of events.

We are a multicultural race of people.. Australia is only a few hundred years old so an Australian’s anscestors can come from anywhere in the world but we are all Australian.
We treasure our leisure. We used to find enjoyment in the simple things.. beer and barbeques, a drink down the pub with our mates, footy on weekends, camping and fishing in the bush. All that is changing as hi society, technology and urban pressure starts to prevade and overtake our lives.

But we still stand on our colonial roots. We have an expression for something that is Australian and is REAl ..
that is

“True Blue”

I was raised in a “True Blue” environment. My Dad made sure of that by showing me so much of our beautiful land as a child and by introducing to to just about every single “Aussie Character” that ever lived in the “Real Australia”. I lived the aussie dream as a kid. I was so lucky to have such a wide variety of experiences and such a deep introduction and education of this beautiful land and the unique peoples.

I remember being nine years old and camping in the middle of Australia’s central desert at a place called Devils Marbles. I hadn’t bothered pitching a tent as experienced had shown me that it was impossible to hammer tent pegs into rock ground, so I had laid the tent out as a ground sheet then inflated my matress and “bob’s your uncle” … I was ready for bed .. sleeping under a blanket of stars in the outback..That night I will never forget and I still see the sky that night clearly in my min

I have related earlier the story of assisting the guests to try and pitch their tents by showing them the softest ground possible but being “noobs” as they were, they kept trying to hammer into solid rock.

There was another side of this event that is typically Australian and True Blue. Later that night the team leader and my dad got everyone together and held a “kangaroo court” around the fire. This was a mock court trial where all the guests were put on trial for their “crimes”. My mum was up first. Mum’s crime was to fall asleep in the Coach with her mouth open snoring. her Kangaroo Court punishment was to have her mouth taped up with duct tape for three hours that morning while traveling. When it got to me, my crime was talking to much all the time so I got the duct tape treatment too.. except I kept dissolving in a fit of giggles and ripping it off. Another older girl and guy on the trip had gotten real “close” to each other so they were sentenced to be tied by the arm to other partners for the day and another couple of guys who hated each other were sentenced to be tied together and to sleep in the same tent. Then it came the turn of the little group of guests who kept pitching their tents in the solid rock. What a travesty in Australia. What a crime.. Aussies who just can’t “camp out” proper like. Their punishment was to have to be the first out of the coach every night for the remainder of the trip and have their tent up ready for inspection within five minutes with everyone watching and cheering them on. Considering they had never pitched a tent within an hours time this was quite some challenge for the group and a hell of a lot of laughs for all of us….It was all a riot of laugh

Thats just Aussie humour.. and laughing at ourselves…. True Blue
Australian Comedians Writers Poets and artists of all kinds have influenced our way of thinking immensly over time just as society at the time has been reflected in these peoples work. I grew up around campfires and in “aussie pubs” listening to these people perform and laughing my ass off the entire time. These people made us as a nation, laugh at ourselves, at our oddities and quirks and at the things that differentiated us from the rest of the world.

Legends like Kevin Bloody Wilson and Rodney Rude paved the way for a unique style of comedy that is totally Australian. Every Aussie over the age of 30 can recite and sing these and other Aussie legend’s songs when drunk and disorderly. It is part of our culture and the popularity of these guys helped a nation have the ability to laugh at themselves.

Entertainers like Steve Irwin and Crocodile Dundee would not have made sense to the world and especially to Aussies, if these pioneers hadn’t blazed a trail of “Aussism” across the world before them. These Comedians and entertainers had totally politically incorrect material but all True Blue Aussie. So what do we do today with this work of the years that have passed that is so politically incorrect?

Do we as Australians toss out and ignore an important part of our heritage because it is so politically incorrect? Do we now “act” embarrassed about our prime comedians and entertainers like Kevin Bloody Wilson and Rodney Rude and pretend they never existed? Do we now whisper their names in shame or scratch their names off our famous people lists?

Do we stop laughing now because we are told we are not supposed to think that it is funny anymore? Were we as a nation wrong to think it was funny in the first place?

I freely admit it.. These guys inspired me…

I Did It My Way

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Yesterday morning I woke up and it was pouring rain outside. This distressed me greatly.

I now have three and a half turkeys in amongst my menagerie. Terrance and his two lovely wives, Thelma and Louise and little baby turkey Theresa.

In my “pen” I have two shelters from the rain for the animals but the problem was my turkeys wouldn’t fit under it. I need to have them protected from the elements.

Now Glen is better, much better (blog coming) but he is still not in shape to be hauling roof sheeting around and banging nails in so I decided to create a special project and to build the Turkey shelter myself with some help from my junior apprentices.

Only one problem there, I have never really “built” anything in my life and the only time I have really banged nails in is to put picture hooks up on my walls to hang paintings on. Hmm big project indeed.

I wandered up to the “bits” shed to see what materials were lying around that I could use on my mission and found some nice planks and support poles along with enough roof sheeting for the roof and side.

So with everyone looking on rather curiously (especially the goats) I started gathering my bits and pieces and dragging them down to stack outside the workshop.

I then spent half an hour arranging the bits where I wanted them and finally I was ready to begin. Glen passed me the hammer and nails out with a funny look on his face as he peered at my assembled pieces. He decided to watch as I started to join my bits together. So with an audience of one Earlydog, Five Children, One husband and four goats, I set about my task.

  • Caileen Greer

I asked Glen to hold a couple of bits while i nailed it together and he still had this rather weird look on his face. I shrugged and kept working. Finally I had two bits of frame completed.

Glen still had the weird look on his face as he walked back inside to finish what he had been doing and I then enlisted the children to help me carry my newly assembled frame down to the chicken coop. We all marched down the yard with our “Bits” to the surprise of my curious critters who didn’t know what the heck was going on.

The kids held my two bits up which they sooned realized were the sides of my new frame, as I hammered in the cross supports. Halfway through doing this my son turned to me and said.. ahhhh now i see what your doing mum, it looks great and you had to build it in here because we wouldn’t have got it through the door otherwise. Yes Sometimes my son has my logic… sometimes…..

To my credit I only hammered one of my fingers once during the whole exercise and it wasn’t long before I stood back and surveyed my work. At this point the children bought me down the roof sheeting from the “bits” shed which i sooned banged up in place on the top and back of the shelter as a wind break.

Then we moved the shelter over to utilize the temporary wind breaks I had already put in the pen for the animals.

We all stood back and admired the new shelter. Terrance was first to investigate his new shelter. He stood under it looking quite pleased. I had made the cross beams so that the chickens would be able to roost on them at night with plenty of room for the turkey family to sleep out of the elements.

Of course as I was building the pen it stopped raining and the skies cleared. Probably won’t get anymore rain for a month but when we do.. my turkeys will be ready for it.

I called out to Glen to come down and see the finished product. I watched as he walked down the yard and looked at my new shelter. Suddenly a big smile broke out on his face. “That looks great” he said.

I nearly burst with happiness. I was so proud of myself. I had pictured something in my head and then built it out of scraps. The best thing was..it worked. It was sturdy and strong and unlikely to fall apart so easily.

Glen then went on and said “when I was up holding it for you, i had no clue as to what the heck you were doing but now I see and you did great. They won’t get wet anymore”.

I hugged him and said oh well..it’s a big crooked.

He laughed at me and said, “its a chook pen, its not supposed to look perfect, just be practical and that one is practical. You did a fantastic job”.

I stuck my puny chest out and beamed. I was so happy with myself and had a real sense of accomplishment and achievement. I did it myself. From my plans in my head to building it myself.. and the best thing..it worked and will work for what it was designed for, for a long time.

I am still all proud like.. everytime I wander down to the pen and see a bantam chicken on my new shelter roof, or a line up of hans perched on the cross beams… and the best reward i got was when i walked down to the pen after dark to check on the animals to find Thelma sitting under the new shelter with baby Theresa peeping out from underneath her wing where she was sleeping.

I did it myself.. my plans, my ideas and my own hands that bought it to fruition…. such a tiny thing.. to build a raggy old turkey shelter.. but a special event in my life indeed…..

I am going to tackle the pig pen next and build them a pen, as my pigs…. well they are pigs… and because they are such pigs they steal all the chicken’s rations so they need a pen of their own.

Eventually i want to build separate pens for all my different animals…. Rome wasn’t built in a day indeed.. but I’ll get there……It’s not much..it prolly looks really simple and ugly

but I built it and it didn’t cost a cent 🙂

So when have you stepped out of your comfort zone and done and acheived something totally different and new?

Did you feel pride in your success?

I Made Him Join the Priesthood – Mr Gaunt

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In my second year of high school I had a maths teacher, who was the endless source of amusement for me. I was a terror back then with a strong sense of social justice which made for some rebellious acts against the “system” even then.

 To describe Mr. Gaunt to you is a tad difficult. My only description of him gets rather confused because every time I think of Mr. Gaunt, Mr. Bean pops into my head and I crack up laughing. To this day I can not differentiate between the two. I am telling you now, Rowan Atkinson modeled Mr. Bean from My Mr. Gaunt.

I had always been put in the top class but I hated it. My friends were in the lower graded classes and the other kids in my class were stuck up snobs. So I made it my mission to be put in the lower classes with my friends. Hence not long after the start of my mission I was moved down into Mr. Gaunts lower math class with all the cool people and all my friends.

 There was only one problem with that.

Mr. Gaunt was stuck teaching the lower classes because he was well, Mr. Beanlike dumb.

He wore long socks, long shorts with a short sleeved shirt and tie and I really think his face was more Mr. Beanlike than Mr. Bean. He was a confirmed bachelor who lived in a tiny flat and the thought of him with a woman was the source of many laughter outburst by my friends and myself in class. Mind you he didn’t rate as high on the idiot scale as  Mr. Freame, the Latin master but Mr. Freame and my detention stories are still to come.

Mr. Gaunt had no control over the class. He would turn to us and ask us if we thought we should have a math’s test the next week. Well hey, back then everything had been sorted into lots of life already. He was asking every potential deviant over the years to come in our home if we WANTED a math test? Somehow we managed to persuade him every week that we were not quite ready.

Mr. Gaunt had many peculiarities other than having his shorts hitched up to his ribcage and a way of walking that at best could be described as Emu Like. He had a weird habit of waiting until we were all seated quietly in the class before making his entrance and he would EMU into the room and up to his desk, pulling his chair out and turning it to face the class. Then he would stand behind it and swing a leg over it, placing his foot on the seating part and begin rocking it back and forward leaning on his knee as he talked. He would proceed to waffle on for forty minutes about nothing. Or preach sermons on the greatness of math. Coming from a class where we actually did math, this was all new to me but got boring real quick. It seemed to drone on worse than the minister on Sundays, day after day, week after week.

One day it got too much for the imp in me. I waited until everyone was in class and watched Mr. Gaunt EMU his way up the corridor and then I made my entrance. I EMUED, myself along the corridor past the tiny glass windows and into the classroom and the rest of the class burst out laughing at me as soon as they saw me. They were used to my imitations and I had my Mr. Gaunt act down pat by this stage. Before I even got to my desk he called to me so I got to my seat and pulled it out as I threw my bag down and swung my leg over the back of it in an exact imitation of his own daily morning ritualistic actions.

“Yes Mr. Gaunt, present and accounted for Sir.” I said with a cheeky grin on my face as the rest of the class sat in silent anticipation of what was to come.

“You are late young lady” He said pointing his finger at me and puffing his chest out.

I pointed my finger right back. “So I am sir” I took at deep breath and stood there grinning with my own puny chest puffed out too.

He started rocking his chair back and forth as he did when he got nervous.

“If everyone was late we wouldn’t have a class” He said, his hand still pointing at me.

My hand still pointed at him and my own chair started rocking in time with his. “It’s not like I missed anything important sir”.

 At that point he dropped his arm across his knee and kept rocking, just staring at me. I had shocked him. He was speechless. His mouth opened and closed like a fish.

I stood there silent too, my own hand now dropped into position to match his and I watched him as I rocked in time to him.

“That is beside the point.” he exploded. “You are supposed to be here present in the class to get an education”

 One of the other kids spoke up at that point. He was one of the sporty kids that I didn’t have much to do with.

 “Well Mr. Gaunt, it is the point really. You never teach us anything. You just stand there preaching all lesson”.

A voice from the back of the class piped up with “and swings on his chair all day doing it”. That set everyone off. The whole class started laughing out loud, letting go of all the tension build up from the confrontation.

Mr. Gaunt started shaking as his face turned bright purple. I was still rocking in time with his motions and he turned to me, pointed and said

“YOU!!! outside in the corridor now, everyone else silence” He stepped off his char and went and stood uncomfortably behind his desk.

 I pointed back again and stepped off my chair in time with him. “Yes sir, at your command”. The hum started around me as I stepped into the aisle and EMUED my way to the front of the class. It got louder as most of the class took it up and I stepped out into the corridor where the door was ajar and I could see in.

The moment I stepped out the hum stopped. It was our thing, our little call of unity when one of us got into trouble to let them know it was ok and everyone was behind them. Full credit to Donna Askew for inventing the hum in detention with Mr Freame.

I stood against the wall for a minute cursing myself for not grabbing my bag with my cigarettes in it. As I debated walking back in and grabbing my bag I pulled out a lump from my pocket. It was my little round grey plastecine ball (like play dough) . I always had it in my pocket to keep my self busy while Mr. Gaunt droned on day after day. I stated modeling shapes and then sticking them on the door where the rest of the kids could see them but Mr. Gaunt couldn’t. Each new creation bought a fit of stifled giggles as they tried to keep straight faces and pretend they were absorbed in his speech.

By now he was lecturing again on how if we all learned our math we could become rocket scientists and accountants. I, being me, of course began to model the obvious shape. A penis and balls. I carefully arranged them into a shape that looked a bit like a face and then revealed to the class what I had created on the door.

They erupted into a fit of laughter again. All of them were in hysterics, not so much by the “penis and balls” concept, but at the positioning because they could see what was going to happen next…. And it did……. Classically…..

By this time I was innocently standing on the other side of the corridor minding my own business. When the class erupted into giggles, Mr. Gaunt EMUED his way over to the door and threw it open yelling as he did so, “What is going on out here”.

The class lost it at this point and absolutely squealed with laughter because what Mr. Gaunt didn’t realize was, that as he opened the door my new molded shape was dangling right in front of his mouth.

Suddenly he looked down and saw it in horror. He froze and then screamed himself and went running off down the corridor which made everyone crack up even more. Just then the bell rang for end of class. Everyone was still laughing as they made their way out. We didn’t see Mr. Gaunt around the school for a week or so after that and things were never the same but that was a good thing.

We got a new maths teacher who actually taught Math. A few weeks later, Mr. Gaunt left teaching and joined the priesthood. No I am not joking he seriously did join the priethood and that made perfect sense to me because he didn’t cut it as a teacher…. And as for me.. I am always in trouble… just the depth varies

The Lion Sleeps Tonight

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Catherine Frances Honey 31.07.1963 – 16.11.1988

The 16th of November 1988 dawned a sunny warm spring day and I woke up around 7am feeling fresh for once. Jumping out of bed, I wandered out to the kitchen to make a cuppa of coffee to liven me up. I stood there listening to the birds singing in Dad’s aviary out the back as I waited for the jug to boil, little realizing that the day would turn out to be the worse day of my life.

It was five days before my 22nd birthday and the house was empty, mum and dad were in Sydney at dad’s heart specialist, as dad had only been released from hospital the week before after having a near fatal series of heart attacks. I sat reading the paper and shortly afterwards there was the sound of a key turning in the front door, my sister Cathy had arrived for her morning cuppa on the way to work.

Cathy lived half an hour south of us in Jamberoo with her husband Trevor and worked about ten kilometres north of us in Fairy Meadow so it was logical for her to leave home earlier of a morning and stop in for a cuppa with mum and dad before work. I was usually fast asleep at this time and missed seeing her. I started work at 10 of a morning and my nights were full of partying so lazy late mornings were the norm for me.

But this morning my body clock decided different for me and my sister sat down and drank her coffee with me and we talked. We really talked, for probably the first time in our lives we talked, as two adults, as sisters. We talked about me starting uni in Wagga in the new year and how excited I was that my life was going where I wanted it to go, that the confusion of my teen years and relationship with Zoran, Krystals father were behind me.

We talked of Cathy’s inability to conceive and how it had hurt me that nobody had told me about it. My parents and sister were very closed in “private matters” and felt that it was something not to de discussed within the family. So I never had a clue there was a problem and just thought that they hadn’t decided to have kids yet. Me being me, was a “stirrer” every time I would see her I would tease her about her extended wait to have children, little realizing the pain and torment I must have visited upon her each and everytime I “stirred it up”. Why hadn’t mum quietly taken me aside and said hey there is problems. I ended up finding out through one of my sister friends.

My sister and I discussed this for the first time. I told her I was prepared anytime to be a surrogate mother for her and she was over the moon. I told her if she had told me prior it would already be happening, I would have done it anytime. She explained that she had an appointment later that morning with her gyno and she would tell him what I had said and see what we had to do if her current treatment didn’t work.

I had two jobs at the time, one at the fraternity club as a cashier and bar wench and during the day I worked at the TAFE food school which was also at Fairy Meadow as a chef’s assistant. Mostly I worked with the pastry chef and at the end of the day I would take home delicious cakes that had been baked, chocolate cakes, tea cakes, butter cakes, birthday cakes, Christmas cakes, cupcakes, cream sponge cakes, buns and slices, biscuits and cookies every single goodie and sweet imaginable.

So before Cathy left that fateful morning I handed her two giant cakes for her workplace’s morning tea. I walked her down to the car, still chatting a way, a pleasant relaxed feeling inside and a hope that our relationship would be little easier from now on. I watched as she placed the cakes on the floor of the car then she climbed into the drivers side and drove off. I stayed standing there long after her car had disappeared around the corner in Gundarun street.

It was 8.35 am 16th November 1988.

A little while later when I had gotten out of the shower there was another knock at the door. It was Lisa one of my friends who had come to take Krystal-Leigh and babysit her while I was at work.  We chatted while I continued to get ready and then she said “Oh by the way, don’t go your usual way to work today. There has been an accident on the F6 and someone died.”

I froze, my blood froze, I knew at that point, I just knew I didn’t know how I knew I just did. I looked at Lisa and said “where”. She explained it was about 200 metres south of the Gipps road overpass, a silver car had gone under a truck.

The blood drained from my face as I pictured myself not 40 minutes earlier waving to the back of a silver sedan as it cruised down my street. I shook my head and sensibility set in. “No, thousands of cars travel along the expressway each day, hundreds of those cars are silver”. The thoughts raced around in my head, a million scenarios.

I explained to Lisa my fears and we both found a hundred reasons for our imagination getting away from us. Lisa left soon after and I fnished getting ready and jumped in my car for the journey to work.

I just had a “bad feeling” I couldn’t explain the pit in my stomach or why I felt the way I did. It felt like the sunny day was overcast by a grey shadow. I drove off and as I turned into Robsons road down towards the expressway onramps, I could see to the north the flash of red and blue lights. The traffic was banked up on the southern side traveling north only, way back as far as I could see past Figtree, the next suburb to the south.

I went straight ahead instead of attempting the onramp and drove along the parallel side road amongst the housing estates. When I got to Gipps Road, the fear and curiosity got the better of me, instead of keeping on going the direction I was going, I detoured again, driving along the road that would take me over the overpass. I got to the bridge and slowed to a crawl, many other drivers were stopped and there was a crowd on the bridge looking towards the accident. I craned my neck to see amongst the people towards the accident which I could see about 150 metres to the south of me. Then I saw it. A silver sedan that looked so familiar.

“I had to keep driving, there was cars behind me and I had to get to work. Once again the sensible fairy sat on my shoulder chattering away. Don’t be silly, there is hundreds of silver cars, many many silver cars, beside you are as blind as a bat, you haven’t got your contacts in so you couldn’t see what it was, It could be a Ford or Toyota and even if it was a Holden, it could have been a commodore”.

I reasoned with myself the rest of the way to work but always at the back of my reasoning was this awful pit of fear and knowing.

I walked into the food school in zombie mode, I don’t remember arriving in the staffroom but when I arrived I found I couldn’t bear it anymore. The bells were chiming loudly and I ran upstairs to the Head Teachers office to ask If I could use his phone. I dialed the number to Cathy’s workplace and shook as it connected, expecting to hear Cathy’s voice and then having the sensible fairy slap my face and tell me to go lie on a couch somewhere and talk about my Histronic personality disorder. But no, one of the other girls answered “oh no Cathy’s not in yet”.

Thud, my heart hit my feet as I replaced the receiver. I looked at my bosses secretary who I knew lived at Figtree to the south of the accident. I asked what time she had left for work and she answered “oh about 8.40”.

I asked her if she had been held up and driven passed the accident and she nodded and said she had been held up about 20 mins but still got to work only a little late. By this time the alarm bells were deafening but the sensible fairy kept running around with cottonwool and silencing the sound.

While this was going on some my fellow staff not working in classes, had gathered and two of them asked me what vehicle she was driving and then left to drive back passed the accident to check it all out. My boss rang the police and hospital only to be told there was no details. I dialed my brother in laws number and was relieved when he answered the phone. I asked him if Cathy was going anywhere else before work that morning. He said no and told me about the appointment later that morning that he was meeting her for.

He asked why I wanted to know and once again the fairies came out arguing but I felt I should say something.
“I don’t want to scare you or alarm you Trevor but there has been an accident on the F6. It’s a silver car and Cathy’s not at work yet”.

Silence and then Trevor said “Hang on a minute, it’s 10 am the news will be on”> He dropped the phone and I could hear the radio faintly in the background reporting the accident as the top headlines.
“The sole famle occupant of a silvr grey Camira has been fatally injured in a head on collsion on the F6 this morning at Gynneville”.
All of a sudden I could hear Trevor keening in the background, “noooooooooooooooooooo”

He came back on the phone after a minute and I told him to calm down and that we didn’t know for sure. I relayed the hundred sensible points I had argued with myself over all morning to him and told him I was ringing the hospital again. He said he would get ready and come up to Wollongong immediately, earlier than he was going to.

After I hung up I turned to see Vivian and Troy arrive back from their drive to the accident with what I can only describe as looks of pity, commiseration, empathy, on their faces. Looks I became familiar with very quickly.

They whispered to my boss and strangely enough his own face began to mirror those same looks. Meanwhile I rang the police and when I finally got through explained I was worried about my sister. “We don’t know anything Ma’am you are going to have to ring the hospital”. Frustrated I slammed the phone down and dialed the hospital. After a wait on hold I was put through to four or five departments before I finally got the response. “I am sorry ma’am you will have to ring the police for information”.

Back in the eighties there was no mobiles or cell phones, I couldn’t dial her cell to find out if she was ok. By this stage I was frantic but the voice of reason kept me under control. I was still reasoning in my head that this was a dream, it was surreal, that I was going to turn around and look like a ripe fool for wasting everyone’s time and concern.

I was afraid I was causing drama and being a drama queen over nothing and I really wanted that to be so. The pit of despair, the knowing, the reaching out in my mind knowing she wasn’t there were all pushed to the back of my mind, to hang like dark shadows, by that same reasoning.

I just knew. I didn’t know how I knew but I had known a week before and I knew now but I refused to accept that I knew. I didn’t want to know this one. This one was too much.
Vivian approached me and offered to drive me to the hospital to see if we could find out more info, it all felt so surreal. We drove in silence, I was locked in an inner battle of wills. “Yes or no, Don’t be silly. What a drama queen. Snap out of it Margaret. You do KNOW, so now accept it. Nah, what an imagination, aren’t you going to feel the fool tomorrow”. The thoughts and fears ran around my mind in scattered sequences.

We arrived at the hospital and made our way to emergency. By this time after umpteen diversions and detours I just wanted to know the truth. We explained our story yet again to the woman behind the counter and she disappeared off to find yet another diversion for us. I leaned back against the wall and the thoughts drifted once again around in my head. It was fairly dark in the waiting area and I turned towards the corridor and the emergency theatre itself, to see four doctors in white coats striding purposefully down the polished white, tiled floor. The first one came up to me and asked me my name. he then said that he didn’t know anything and that the police were on their way to the hospital to take my details. Oh great I felt like such a criminal. Everyone in the waiting room was staring at me by this time and the doctors ushered Vivian and I into a room at the very eastern end of the hospital wing.

We sat on a chair in the tiny room and waited. I got up and looked out of the tiny window towards the sea, I could see the police car snaking its way up the emergency entrance drive and I went back and sat in silence opposite Vivian.

Not long after three officer came into the room, the two male officers beckoned to Vivian and took her outside, leaving me with the female officer. I stood up and said “look I am sick of this shit, I have been sent everywhere and told nothing all morning I just want to know the truth”

She sat there and looked up with her big blue eyes into my own pleading ones, the answer I didn’t want to see was plainly written there. She sighed and hung her head and said “we think it is your sister, I am so sorry, she died instantly”.

I spun around and punched the wall, standing there stunned, the mornings events crashing down on my shoulders like a ton of bricks from above. The reasoning fairy was triumphantly squashed by the voice of doom……….all my nightmares all my fears, all the horror. Any moment now I would wake up and be back at work planning which cakes to take home for the days to be eagerly consumed by my parents and sister.

I took a deep breathe, pushed it all away and turned back to her. “What Happened?”

She explained that Cathy had been driving in the right lane near the medium strip (think driving left hand side of road) and she came to a spot that had a gushing riverlet of water running across from the night befores rain. The pipes hadn’t ben build under the road to contain the rainwater flow and it flowed across the road in this one “dip” point. The car in front of her had slammed his foot on the brakes to get into the left lane to take the Sydney offshoot and she in turn had braked hard, just as she was driving over the flowing water. Her car was front wheel drive and it belonged to her husbands brother, it wasn’t her usual car so she wasn’t as familiar with it as she was her rear end drive holden.

She skidded and went over the medium strip straight into the path of an oncoming truck. The seating area of the car where she was had not sustained any damage, the left front side had gone hard up against the truck and under it’s cab. Cathy’s head had snapped to the side and she broke her neck on impact with the window.

I sat there for a minute trying to absorb what was being said…. I finally spoke. “and what about the idiot who decides to brake on an expressway to change lanes way to late to be ready for the offshoot”?

The policewoman shook her head. He had gone in a cloud of dust, never to be seen again, possibly never realizing the tragic devastation and catastrophe he had left behind. The truck driver was sedated, he had no time to avoid the collision.

The policewoman looked at me and spoke again “We can’t find your parents and your sisters husband is sedated as well now. Thank you for calling him, he called his parents after he spoke to you and they arrived just before the police wagon pulled into his street to tell him the official news. I need to ask you, we can wait for Trevor but the media already has the details and we need the body identified, do you feel up to it.”

I nodded slowly although every fibre of my being was screaming no, no no . I don’t even like horror movies and this was real life shit. But I didn’t want my parents in any morgue identifying her body and Trevor too, the wife he loved and adored so I made my way down to the morgue with Vivian and the three officers.

We stepped inside. It smelt of disinfectant. This was the second time in my life I had been inside such a place, the first time was my birth in a morgue and now this, 5 days shy of my 22nd birthday to identify my dead sister. I was taken to a room with a glass screen covered by a curtain on the other side, Shortly after the police officer came and stood beside me and warned me that my sister had died of head injuries and it would not be pleasant.
I didn’t want to hear her, I just wanted to do what I had to do and be out of there, I wanted it all not to be real, I wanted to get a hug off my mum and her tell me it would be ok.
The curtain slid back and my eyes lifted to slowly take in what I was seeing. It was my sister but it wasn’t. She was lifeless, purple, swollen and bruised. Her eyes were closed and there was dried blood around her mouth. A sheet covered her up to her chest but I could see the massive bruising on her chest. She didn’t look asleep, she looked dead, white gray swollen dead.

I turned away and walked out of the room, saying yes that’s my sister as I left. As I walked out I asked the officers if they had managed to get my parents at the roadblocks up the mountains and they shook their heads.

I turned to Vivian and asked her if she could drive me to Gran B’s. Mum and dad would go straight there for lunch on their arrival back from Sydney and pick my daughter Krystal up to take her home. We pulled into the street and I gave a sigh of relief to see my parent’s car out the front. All emotion was locked down, there were things to be done. I got out and went up to the wire security door. I looked down the hallway to my father sitting there in puzzlement at my arrival in my pink work uniform.

Grandma came and answered the door and took one look at my white face, asking me what was wrong. I floated past her into the dining room where my parents were sitting, obliviously enjoying a salad lunch.

The radio was on in the background, the strains of the 12 oclock NEWS broadcast runin music already blasting into the room.

Dad stood up. “whats wrong”.

“Cathy’s been in an accident I said, without a flicker of emotion in my voice and on my face.”
Mum jumped up. “Is she ok”.

“No she’s dead,” I answered and sat on the sofa staring straight ahead. “she was in an accident on the f6 and she was killed instantly. Oh mum I am so sorry”.

Mum and dad looked at each other in horror. Grandma jumped up and turned the radio up only to hear it broadcast at that exact moment

The body of a woman killed in the head on collision on the F6 Freeway today has been identified as Catherine Frances Honey, 25 of Jamberoo”……………………

Mum Screamed, Dad placed his head in his hands and dropped to the floor rocking, no no no, Grandma sat there with her mouth open in shock.

This has been the hardest Blog I have ever written. I promised all year I would write this event today on the anniversary of my sisters death, the 16th of November. Today the emotion has run free and I have relived those events as if they were only yesterday. The pain is as strong as it was then. The tearing apart. The never getting to say goodbye. But I like to think I did say goodbye that morning. I had told her my hope and dreams and plans of the future, we had talked, we had said sorry, we had reconciled our childhood, we were adults. One with a path that’s was tragically cut short in her prime, and one whose live was about to change forever that day.

now I have to go outside and smell the roses… and remember my butterfly.. my sister.. the golden pure one…

R.I.P. Cathy 16.11.88
The lion sleeps tonight