Manna from heaven

It has rained steadily all night and day. Not the heavy torrential type of rain but the soft, calming mizzle that settles on gently on leaves. I woke to the sound of rain pittering on the window and instinctively pulled the blanket around my shoulder. Cozy and snug, I lay listening to that blessed sound, so tranquil and serene.

The past couple of months have been savagely hot and dry. Scorched earth comes to mind. Burnt and withered plants have not survived the heat or ferocious winds. I have pulled out many of them and have limited pot plants on the balcony to four survivors. I had to get used to walking on tufts of grass that crunched underfoot, strangely reminiscent of snow. If I closed my eyes, I could imagine being rugged up and walking along snow covered paths in Europe. Then as I opened my eyes all I could see was tufts of brown baked native grasses stretching ahead of me.

I had been watering a small section along the side of my house where I planted citrus trees. This little patch of green is where grass and weeds have thrived over the past couple of months. As the long dry and heat persisted, I began to notice kangaroo scat close to the trees I had been watering. There hadn’t been much for them to graze lately.

The rain has been a blessing. When I walked the dog, people commented on how wonderful it was to have everything smelling so fresh. No-one grumbled about getting wet. The heady smell of eucalypts was what I noticed first. The rain releases the plant oils together with organic matter in the soil to give that wonderful fresh slightly lemony smell. I took deep breaths, letting the cleansing aroma fill my lungs.

Then the sound of frogs bouncing off the pond like popcorn. I hadn’t heard any for weeks! Even the lone shag on a dead branch overhanging the water seemed to be more alive. Muted birdsong could be heard as they came out looking for worms. A slight drizzle never stopped a hungry bird from foraging!

At first, the paths were filled with puddles as the compacted earth was unable to absorb the water. As the day progressed, the ground became softer and the rain began to seep in more easily. By day two, everything looked refreshed like a house after a spring clean. The dust that had settled everywhere has been scrubbed away. Sometimes, all we need is these small acts of grace.

Surely next time it will be different

Throughout the year, there are many jobs I put off until the holidays. My excuses stretch out like the Eyre Highway. ‘Now is not the time, it would take too long, I’m not in the mood,’ excuses ad nauseum. When the holidays arrive, I will miraculously turn into a person of great action and all the jobs that have been screaming for my attention will be completed without much effort. I will also have time to put my feet up and relax.

Every holiday brings with it the resurfacing of The List. I know I didn’t get it done last time, but this time I will. The stars have aligned, my calendar is empty and I am unstoppable. Until I stop. Or fail to get started. I stare at the list and realise it is impossible to get it all done in the time available. I’ll be lucky to get through a tenth of the jobs.

What did I get done in the last five weeks? I read two books, thoroughly cleaned and reorganised the balcony, made inroads into weeding the side of my house, tidied and sorted through the kitchen cupboards and my wardrobe AND finally edited all 172 pages of my memoir. I have visited friends, seen a movie and attended several medical and dental appointments. Did I get everything done I wanted to? Of course not! The list feels just as long as it did before the holidays!

How to solve this conundrum? Either I accept that there will always be a never-ending list, or I break tasks down to make them more manageable during the year. Or some combination of the two. This isn’t going to be some belated New Year’s resolution, but I am flirting with the idea of doing one small task each week to keep the momentum going. It might be putting up those hooks on the front door or sweeping the back courtyard. Nothing monumental. These modest wins will help me feel a little more on top of the tasks and put less pressure on the next set of holidays. Surely next time it will be different.

Love, Without Anaesthetic

Over the past year, I have replaced all my amalgam fillings. My dental visits from now on would consist of a clean and polish. Or so I thought.

I became aware of a rough edge on a back molar. No matter how much I tried to stop my tongue from exploring the area, it always returned to it like a homing pigeon with poor judgement. On closer inspection, I saw it was my favourite filling.

In December 1987, I was living in Berlin. I had met the man who would become my husband in August of that year, just before I was to fly to Germany for a year. We wrote to each other daily on blue aerograms, as thin and brittle as onion skin. Back then, the postal service worked and I received my replies within a week.

Peter was coming to visit! I began to count down the days. He was taking a train from Frankfurt and would arrive at Bahnhof Zoo in the evening. Unfortunately, I had a scheduled appointment with my dentist, Frau Dr Quast that afternoon. When I arrived with my throbbing tooth, I explained that I would be seeing my lover for the first time in months that night.

‘You can’t arrive numb and dribbling!’ she said. ‘How will you kiss him? We’ll do this without anaesthetic. Tell me when you need a break, Ja?’

Frau Dr Quast kept her word. She drilled, took a break, drilled some more, took a break, until she could finally fill the tooth. It was meant to be a temporary solution until I could go back to have it capped. I thanked her for her forethought and gentleness. This was to be my first non-metal filling. Then, as the tooth stopped hurting, I never went back. That temporary filling has lasted 37 years.

Last week, I kept the appointment with my current dentist, Dr Park. That filling needed replacing. I recounted the story of that December afternoon appointment with Frau Dr Quast. He was impressed. ‘That’s the best dentistry story I’ve heard in twenty years,’ he said, ‘but the love filling will have to go.’

The Hurdy Gurdy of Summer

Black Prince Cicada on a wall

The sound of summer in Australia is the ear-splitting drone of cicadas. On a hot day, different species may be heard, each with their unique song. The sound they make with their tymbals creates the characteristic rhythmic drone. On my walk the other morning, the sound reminded me of a hurdy gurdy used in medieval music.

The closer I listened, the more sounds I heard, including a lower rhythmic quack that punctuated the drone. Intrigued, I recorded the sound and headed home to do some research. The quack quack sound belongs to Red Eyed Cicada and the high pitched deafening drone comes from the cicada affectionately known as the Greengrocer.

The common names of cicadas in Australia are often comical. Here are some of the ones I have come across: Double Drummer, Yellow Monday, Floury Baker and Razor Grinder… They sound like nicknames acquired down the pub after a few beers.

Some years ago, I worked at a school where classes were named after a theme. One year, the whole school was named after insects and I chose for our class to be the cicadas. We collected their shells from trees and learnt about their life cycle. Children often brought in cicadas they had found and after studying them, released them in the playground. At the end of the year, each child was to receive an award which I read out aloud at an assembly. I found 25 different cicada names which I assigned to each child with a sentence or two about their personality. Parents laughter echoed in the hall as I read amusing anecdotes I had collected throughout the year. The kid who liked to tap his pencil on his desk became the Double Drummer, the Black Prince was our Star Wars aficionado. I haven’t thought about that for years.

This year we have had a strange summer. It arrived somewhat late and while there are stinking hot days, the temperatures have also plunged into the teens. It is pretty unpredictable at present. I am not a fan of the hot weather and much prefer autumn and winter, especially in Canberra where temperatures plummet to negative numbers. Yet the sound of cicadas cutting through the summer heat, loud and insistent, brings a measure of joy to even the hottest days.

One word to guide me

We had a little laneway gathering just before Christmas where a good many of neighbours came out and mingled, bringing food and drinks for everyone to enjoy. There were people I knew reasonably well but also neighbours I had only seen from a distance. The ones I knew were the dog owners whom I had met at the park or had been introduced to previously.

We blocked off the lane so kids and dogs could run up and down to their heart’s content. When an unexpected downpour threatened to end our gettogether, we simply moved into one of the garages and continued there until the rain stopped. We visited each other’s gardens to see what people had planted and admired some clever renovations. It was a convivial and relaxed celebration of the year we had traversed.

Most of the conversation was small talk, focusing on questions such as how long someone had lived in one of the two streets that abut the lane, and whether there were animals or children in the household. There were pets to adore and babies were passed around that we cooed over. About an hour into the festivities, a neighbour’s son initiated a conversation with me. He asked whether I had chosen a word for 2026. I admitted that I hadn’t thought about it and we continued to chat about a range of subjects. He moved off to talk to other people but I kept coming back to his question and began to wonder whether a single word may not be a better talisman than a new year’s resolution.

I thought about choosing a word for the next few days and realised that I had in fact done something similar in the past. The difference was that I always chose three to five things to focus on and unsurprisingly, I’d forget by February. The only time I remembered was one year when my phrase was ‘Just do it’ and this was ruined for ever when Nike adopted it as their slogan. It doesn’t help to jump up and down and cry ‘I used it first!’

I tossed around quite a few words, synonyms for words, words that focused on intention and words that act as a charm. I remembered a bracelet I was given for Christmas years ago that had the word ‘fearless’ etched on the band. The colleague who gave it to me recognised that I was often acting out of fear and she wanted me to learn fearlessness.

I played around with this word but recognised that it wasn’t quite right for me. It is not so much an absence of fear that I need but the courage to face it. That’s how I came to my word for 2026.

I want to have the courage to speak up for myself and others, the courage to initiate instead of waiting, the courage to say no and the courage to say yes to what I want out of life. One word held lightly, to guide me through the year. Surely, that is enough.

Tides, Trees and Time

I have lived away from Sydney longer than I ever lived in that city, yet it keeps pulling me back like the tide along its shores. After living elsewhere for twenty five years, I can still find my way around the inner suburbs. I know the backstreets and shortcuts and have even kept up with the new motorways. In contrast, I often get lost in Melbourne, where I grew up. But it isn’t the streets, or their familiarity, that draw me back to Sydney.

This Christmas, I was greeted by flowering frangipanis in a friend’s garden. Their heady, tropical fragrance carried me back to past summers, to easy, carefree days spent on the beach at Nielsen Park or Bronte, inhabiting what seemed like endless summers. We would lie under the generous shade of Morton Bay fig trees, admiring the large, eel like buttress roots that extend several metres from the trunk. These trees are gigantic, with canopies that can reach up to fifty metres. They offer the best escape from summer heat in Sydney, and their large, often gnarled branches allow for endless adventures for children.

Blooming jacarandas are another Sydney hallmark. Every student at Sydney University knew that when the jacaranda bloomed in the Quadrangle, exam time had arrived. It was a favourite place for graduation photos, and I have one of my husband standing beneath the old tree. That tree collapsed in 2016, but it has since been replaced by new jacarandas to continue the tradition.

Southern Sydney suburbs are known for their jacaranda plantings. In the 1950s, Sister Irene Haxton, who worked at the Jacaranda Hospital in Woolooware, gave jacaranda seedlings to new mothers, who planted them in their gardens. Now there are suburbs where almost every garden hosts a magnificent jacaranda blooming in November. The purple flowers form thick carpets along driveways, a stunning sight, even if not always so welcome to the people who live there.

One of my all-time favourite flowers, which grows easily in Sydney, is the gardenia. Like the frangipani, its heavy, sweet perfume is intoxicating. I bury my nose into one of its creamy flowers and swoon, giddy with the pure pleasure of its scent. Unfortunately, gardenias do not cope well with frost, which precludes them from gracing my small garden in Canberra.

I used to return regularly to Sydney for cultural events, concerts and exhibitions, fleeting overnight visits that rarely allowed time to notice the flora I once took for granted. Now I tend to return to see friends, people who have been there through life’s highs and lows. Sydney is where I met my husband, where my daughter was born, and where many loyal friendships were formed.

I have no desire to move back to Sydney, with its stop start traffic and planes roaring overhead. I am much more at home in the slower pace of Canberra. I love its distinct seasons, with vibrant autumns and bracing winters that sharpen my senses. So, it isn’t that I miss Sydney as much as the memories that come alive whenever I visit. Each street, each smell, each tree reminds me of the path I have trodden, the life I have lived, and the friends who have shaped me. Sydney will always be those heady, fecund years of my thirties, when I sowed seeds of love and friendship. Now, in my sixties, I can return and enjoy its full florescence.

A shared flame

Photo by Sixteen Miles Out on Unsplash

In the Christian tradition, Jesus is referred to as the light of the world. His birth, which is what we celebrate at Christmas, is heralded by a bright star showing the way to Bethlehem. During Advent, the four weeks before Christmas, a candle is lit on each Sunday in anticipation of Christmas. In Scandinavian countries, the Feast of St Lucy on December 13 is celebrated with the wearing of candle crowns, bringing light into the Advent season. Similarly, Yule, the pagan festival marking the return of light, is celebrated in the Northern Hemisphere at the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year.

In the Hindu tradition, the festival is called Diwali and it occurs at the beginning of winter to symbolise the triumph of light over darkness, good over evil, and knowledge over ignorance. Buddhists celebrate Vesak, marking the birth, enlightenment and death of the Buddha, with the lighting of lamps and lanterns. While there is no official festival of light in the Muslim tradition, lights and lanterns are prominently displayed during Ramadan and Eid.

And so we come to the Jewish celebration of Hanukkah. The eight days and nights of Hanukkah commemorate the rededication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem and the miracle of the oil used for lighting that lasted eight days, while the temple was fought for and won back from the Greek Syrian Seleucids who had defiled it. Over the years, Hanukkah has come to symbolise resistance against injustice and oppression or, to put it another way, good vanquishing evil.

As humans, we are drawn to light for safety, warmth and the provision of food. Is it any wonder that light, especially candlelight, is a shared symbol across cultures? Light has always been a metaphor for all that is good and just in our world. This is why the murderous acts at Bondi Beach were such a shock for us all. Both secular and religious Australians wish each other joy and peace for the year ahead. We believe that good will triumph over evil and, as Martin Luther King Jr. said, ‘darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.’

This Christmas, let us all light a candle for our brothers and sisters as a sign that we will not allow darkness to prevail.

Dawn, Dusk and the Dangerous Crossing

When friends come from overseas, they often bemoan that they only ever see dead kangaroos on the side of the road but never live ones. I share their unease about this road toll that seems to be accepted as a fact of life in Australia.

Until I moved to the country, I didn’t realise just how many animals are killed daily. Now that I live in Canberra, known as the bush capital, I encounter dead kangaroos, birds and wombats almost every day on my way to work. People in cars drive by, drive over, or drive around the carcasses. The animals decompose on the roadside, are eaten by crows or become odd-shaped patches on the bitumen.

According to a conservative estimate, ten million native animals are killed on roads each year. This doesn’t include foxes, rabbits or mice. As there is no national database, this figure is extrapolated from reported cases to wildlife rescue organisations and insurance claims. Many animals would simply disappear into the bush and die there.

In some places, efforts have been made to reduce this carnage. There are rope bridges for possums to cross over highways, and I’ve seen tunnels under sections of road for wombats, echidnas and other animals. However, these measures are few and far between. High fences have been erected around some roads to stop kangaroos accessing them, but these are extremely expensive to build and maintain.

Most wildlife is killed at dawn or dusk when our native animals are on the move. They’re often attracted to the greener grass at the side of the road or they’re crossing to reach water, food, or they may be looking for a mate. Their territory is often fragmented, which forces them to attempt crossings simply to get where instinct tells them to go. Barriers in the middle of the road may protect cars from oncoming traffic, but they also trap animals on the roadway with vehicles whizzing past.

My heart aches every time I see a dead animal on the side of the road. I’m shattered by the sight of a dead mother kangaroo and a joey a few metres further along, and I think about a dead bird’s mate waiting for its return. It’s easy to become desensitised when you see carcasses every few metres along a stretch of road. It becomes part of the everyday experience of driving to work or going on a road trip. But I don’t ever want to get desensitised or accept that this is how it has to be. We are needlessly putting endangered species such as the Tasmanian Devil and koalas at further risk of extinction.

While I don’t have an answer, I can only plead with drivers to slow down when animals are most likely to be on the move. If safe to do so, stop and let that echidna cross the road, or move that turtle in the direction it’s facing. If you happen to see an injured animal, call Wildlife Rescue Australia on 1300 596 457.

There are no roadside memorials dedicated to this daily slaughter. But I have my own small ritual when I see a dead animal on the road. I put a hand to my heart and breathe a breath or two in acknowledgement of their life and of the destruction we humans continue to bring upon them.

Wind struck days

Winds have cut through last week with an invisible scythe. The billabong is covered with dust and debris and smells putrid. Tiny flies swarm around the water’s edge. As I look at the devastation around me, I am surprised there are no trees down. Plenty have fallen in surrounding suburbs.

Leaf litter lies ankle deep, mixed with bark stripped clean from trunks. It is as if Mother Nature has sandblasted her children bare. How did young chicks in those swaying canopies survive wind gusts of 80 kilometres an hour? I’ve not heard a peep from them this morning.

The accompanying storms were short lived but the wind continues to rumble and roar like a road train. The little rain that came with it evaporated within hours, leaving the ground just as compacted and impenetrable as before. Any loose soil has been spun around and around like whirling dervishes in a trance. I am transfixed by the spectacle of dozens of whirly whirlies, small rotating whirlwinds forming across the denuded field.

My walk in town yesterday was miserable. The wind fired bullets of grit at my face and eyes. Its fury whipped up loose items on the ground and hurled them at unsuspecting passers-by. Women tacked their skirts as they leaned into the wind, slicing through the air. Children clung to their parents’ hands, wondering what might happen if they let go.

Back home, windows rattled and walls were buffeted. Further north, roofs and even lives were lost. I never felt any immediate danger, only awe at this force of nature completely out of our control. These past few days have been a reminder that nature is not something separate from us but an integral part of our daily lives. We need only to pay attention to it.

Summer Pudding

Summer pudding

I discovered summer pudding many years ago at my mother-in-law’s place. It felt as if the dessert had been invented just for me. Cherries and berries are my favourite fruits and from the moment they come into season, my hands and lips are stained red and blue. I have been known to eat a kilo of cherries on a long car ride, with disastrous consequences to follow. Still, I can’t help myself. ‘Just two more,’ I tell myself, and then 2 kilometres later, ‘just another two and I’ll stop.’ These days I only buy 500 grams at a time. Self-control has never been my strong suit.

Summer pudding combines all my favourite fruits in a simple, almost humble dish. It originated in England, and I expected it to have a long, storied history. Surprisingly, the recipe dates back only to the late nineteenth century. In my mind, I had imagined a tradition going back hundreds of years. I pictured young girls wandering through fields, gathering wild berries for their mothers to turn into a cheap pudding. In reality, those girls probably ate the berries as fast as they picked them.

Nowadays, berries are expensive unless there happens to be a glut. Mulberries, raspberries and blackberries can be wildly expensive. Early season cherries are a luxury not many people can afford. Even strawberries, the most reliable and affordable of the berries, fluctuate in price. Making a summer pudding, at least without access to free fruit, ends up being more expensive than baking an elaborate cake. So much for my fantasy of it being a poor man’s pudding.

The trickiest part of making it is leaving it to set overnight. Patience is another virtue I lack. Every time I open the fridge, I can see the pudding with my cast iron teapot on top, pressing the bread down over the fruit. It will be ready by tomorrow afternoon, I remind myself. Less than twenty-four hours to go. And besides, I don’t even have clotted cream. Yet.

If this dessert sounds like heaven to you, here is a recipe. The quantities aren’t exact. Use whatever fruit you have, however much of it you can get your hands on. You could make a summer pudding entirely from raspberries, but I prefer a mixed variety.

Summer pudding

Stale sliced white bread to line the bowl
1kg mixed summer berries such as strawberries, cherries, blackberries, mulberries, raspberries
¼ cup caster sugar
A splash of liqueur such as Kirsch if you like
Clotted cream to serve

Cut the crusts off the bread.
Wash the fruit and remove stalks, stones and pips.
Cut the strawberries into pieces.
Place all the fruit into a pot with the sugar and about ¼ cup of water.
Cook for 2–4 minutes, until the sugar dissolves, the fruit softens and the juices run.
Drain the juice.
Brush the stale bread with the juice and line a bowl, juicy side outwards.
Slightly overlap each slice so there are no gaps.
Cover the bottom of the bowl too.
Pour the fruit into the bowl with a little juice and cover the top with bread.
Press the pudding down with a saucer and some heavy items on top.
Refrigerate overnight or longer.
Run a knife around the edge of the pudding and pour a little juice around the outside.
Invert the bowl onto a plate and ease the pudding out.
Serve with the remaining juice, clotted cream and extra fruit if desired.

Thank you dear Margaret for sharing this recipe and memories they evoke.

Post script

I bought clotted cream, invited a neighbour and a friend, and we attacked the pudding. It was delicious. The cream had to be scooped off the spoon, it was that thick. If you think the cream is unnecessary, you’d be mistaken. The pudding is quite sweet and needs the richness of the cream to balance the flavours. As scrumptious as it was, none of us could fit in seconds.