Nostalgic indulgence

I got to thinking that perhaps it was time for a little nostalgia….

I was driving with hubby to Miss nearly Independents’ Grad show for Uni, and the past just seemed to flash by in much the same way as the country side…I thought about when we arrived back in Australia from Samoa and The two older girls were 4 and 6…we headed to South Australia…where our parents were…bought a bus and travelled northish….the girls had grown unused to cities and even asked what ‘the little houses’ were, meaning letter boxes! We loved our bus and it was an adventure for the girls…

We somehow ended up in Nimbin…in a house about 15 minutes out of town on 150 acres…it was a rambling, tumbled down house with much wind blowing through it! We did some work to make it homey…and we all settled in. It was a child’s delight, with sprawling old and huge Mulberry trees, a Macadamia orchard and lots of Mango and Avocado trees. We had goats under the tree for our first xmas…little baby ones that ‘Santa’ brought for the girls, who eventually grew up and had their own little ones!! We also had ducks and chickens! We had some excellent times in this house …I particularly loved my veggie garden which was actually quite large and provided us with just about all our veggie needs ( just as well as we were pretty basic back then..). I got pregnant and gave birth to our Son whilst in this house and with Hubby working at home running an antique restoration business it was an easy babyhood with lots of support and company for me! Our son, who loved to be in the shed with dada, could hammer a nail almost before he could walk. He used to half crawl half toddle out to the big Mulberry tree by the back door and stuff his face full of them! We truly had purple nappies for some time!

The Older girls went to a Steiner school near by, where I eventually taught part time and Hubby looked after the gardens….and we loved to attend all the dance and play performances they were part of! They would go into Nimbin every Saturday and do creative dance class too…..I have fond memories of both girls dressed in teddy bear costumes for a performance of the Teddy Bears Picnic…and as seaweed or was it octopi for an under water show!

Our youngest Daughter was born when we were in this house too, during a heat wave of exhaustive proportion! It must have been over 37 degrees for ten days straight. I used to sit on the back verandah couch with a fan covered in a wet cloth blowing full on to us, whilst feeding her.

Hubby had meningitis here as well…I was pregnant at the time, not a good way to be to cope with such a drama…but we got through it and during his convalescence he drew some of the best sketches and did some of the best wood carvings ever…..

Later we moved to what we call ‘the little house’….not far away but closer to the old growth forest and part of a bigger dream…..( which unfortunately did not pan out ….too much to do too little money! And dual occupancy meant we needed a good partner, we didn’t have a good partner only a cheating one) still, we had some lovely times and interesting experiences here….like our poetry nights where friends of similar ilk would come one evening a week, drink red wine, eat cheese, and do poetry exercises and readings…idealistic, literary poems we felt with a deep passion. We'd celebrate all the pagan festivals under the clearest of skies and the brightest of stars too...and after all the sombre ritual the kids would be waiting indoors to share in the feast and merriment....there were games and charades and singing and dancing...

We saw the biggest, fattest, longest carpet snake I have ever laid eyes on, at the 'little house', too. It was like an anaconda from the Amazon…it came out of the old growth forest to feast on our chickens and we let it…because it was just too huge to argue with…I called the kids out of their little beds to see it because I knew it would be a once off opportunity! The older girls also lost their rabbits to it…we found them wet and flattened out one morning….obviously regurgitated due to all that unpleasant fur!

I also saw the longest brown snake I have seen, whilst taking water to the goats. Some inbuilt ancient instinct of mine bade me stop that day seconds before this snake crossed my path. I froze and watched it slide and slide and slide some more, with grace into the long grass. Thank goodness they are deaf and short sighted. My littlest girl, still toddling was spied one day trying to feed bread to a baby red-bellied black snake, whilst in this little house too. A heart stopper….but somehow I managed to pry her away unharmed.

In the wet season we had to leave our car at the top of the hill and don Gumboots to walk the half kilometer to our house at the bottom of the hill. Mud was everywhere and in everything. We only had solar power and a wood fire so it was hard to clean up in a hot shower…no sun no hot water….wet wood, poor fire……Hubby, I and the kids spent many a happy hour or two walking the woods path looking for fallen timber for our fire…we all used to make a game of coo-ees to each other across the forest.

I got back into singing during this time, and helped to form ‘No Strings’ with woman that are still amongst my closest of friends no matter how seldom we meet! We wrote our own music and they were often poignant, wild, tribal songs with lots of drumming….unleashing our inner Amazons I believe!!

I stopped breast feeding my last baby here and our son started preschool...from which he and his dad who was doing preschool duty ( since I am not partial to this parental obligation) and who always said NO DOGS,brought home a lanky dalmatian female who was in need of a loving home.......

Eventually we moved again, closer to town and to a house with electricity. It had acreage too, we had horses by then and the loopy Dalmatian, and so we needed sizeable land. Our lady Dalmatian found a clandestine lover soon after and had babies, all 7 of whom came out breach…our eldest helped birth every one of these poor little mites. We gave most away but kept one, a little boy pup…..who turned out to be quite a character… We soon became known as the place in the neighborhood to go if you had lost anything….our boy pup would cruise the surrounding properties and bring back gifts to leave on our front lawn every day…..a bowl, a thong, a handbag, whatever he could find! It was only a problem when it included the ducks and chickens from a neighbour’s farm…….The older girls had a pretty good time here, riding their horses in the creek on hot days and occasionally camping out over night with horses and the young boys from across the road…they would set up a fire and toast marshmallows and watch the horses graze near by…..

Hubby and I started to go out on ‘dates’ with each other again…(we were closer to town and the children were growing up)…we’d go to the Trattoria an iconic Nimbin Restaurant run by authentic Italians with ‘Mama’ who was a colourful and demonstrative character , her pensive partner and their various and loudly Italian kids! I have never tasted such good Italian food in this country, since.

Our son amongst other things, started school and got bitten by a red back spider in this house…or more properly in his sand pit at the back of the house. He was a sick boy for a long time…in Hospital for weeks and weeks and then still needing a visiting nurse to make daily visits for months after…..but eventually he got better and resumed riding his bike with no hands past my front window….eeek! He was and still is a bit of a daredevil!

Our littlest girl did a lot of growing here…she was a fairy child, with fly away pale hair and big brown saucer eyes, who adored romping naked in the backyard. The older kids were wonderful with her and spent a lot of time dressing her up in fairy dresses with wings! As I was working more, hubby used to take her to the same creative dance classes that that the older girls attended….mums generally would go along to support and help the littlies…..they would don tutus and whirl and tiptoe with them, acting out some fantasy…..God bless him, my hubby would too, without the blink of an eye…to be there for his little girl……..

Miss nearly independent started really showing signs of the artist to be whilst here….she wrote lots of quaint and arty stories…..she was always the child in a world of her own….full of strange ideas and dreams, but now those dreams took shape, in her horse drawings, crafty letter creations, stories and diary entrees! Miss independent took care of us all! She was always wise beyond years and she loved little children. She changed a lot of nappies for me! She was also a good story writer ( it runs in the family I like to think!)…for-runner to her career in journalism!

Hubby started Karate which eventually grew to a black belt, an Australian title, and his own dojo; it also grew to all children being a part of the journey, the older two especially...and so as not to be left out, me too!! I fell and broke my leg on the way to the dojo one night…..and this was a story in itself…my littlest were with me and I sent them to get dad who was instructing….they dutifully went, leaving me in agony on the grass in full sun……waiting and waiting and waiting some more…..of course we had always told them they must not interrupt dad while he’s teaching….so they waited for the hour long class to be over before alerting him to my plight!!

Hubby did some lovely things to the garden in this house….he understands plants and has an artists eye, so it was a fortunate mix of unusual and native plants, Tibetan rock sculptor and water features that took precedence over the house frontage..…..


Still, again we moved in search of an elusive ideal, buying a sprawling multileveled house on a community surrounded by rainforest, about 20 minutes out of town. This house was solar, but it reverted to electricity if our solar energy ran out! We felt we were getting back to the environmentally friendly ideal! Our son and his dad spent lots of happy times on the tractor clearing land…ostensibly for horse paddocks or to clear the fire trails…but actually I think because it was also fun!! All of us would go down to the very big dam on hot days and plunge in for a swim! The kids would jump off the jetty and scream with delight! I could even swim naked as no-one else was around……there was one big Saratoga fish in that dam…put there years ago when it was little slippery, thing…..and by gosh it would give us a scare when it would come up and nip some part our anatomy!!

We had a whole possum family that ate on our verandah…and occasionally out of the fruit bowl in the kitchen. If we forgot to leave out bananas for them they would turn up at the bedroom window late at night and half scare us to death as they scratched at the pane and peered in with their big soulful eyes…….I’d go down and get them some fruit and they’d leave us alone for the night! Mum possum was so…comfy with us she would breast feed her new born on the centre of our dining table during our dinner……we hadn’t the heart to disturb her!

There were lots of wallabies too and a big goanna who loved bread (well anything really) who would come to the kitchen for a tasty morsel or two and scare the sh…out of visiting friends! Land Mullets ( Big flat black Lizards) would sun themselves on our front steps, and a reasonably sized carpet snake would often join them...We had some trouble with dingoes eating our chickens though!

The older girls were nearly grown ups by then and boyfriends and parties started to kick in…we drove to some pretty far out places to drop our eldest off at ‘doof parties’ and pick her up again…just so we’d know where she was…….Miss nearly Independent met her present boyfriend at this time and he would come over and play footy with all the kids and allow me some well earned peace! She also found her artistic skills under the expert eye of a wonderful art teacher at high school and drew big beauitful flowers in pastel, which drew much acclaim, for her HSC....Miss independent was Head girl in her final year at High school, into Photography and the x-files... and eventually moved out to live with friends and go to University….( it wasn't easy letting this first child go, and I argued and pleaded for an alternative solution..but in the end she did know best and has had a successful time of it, winning awards and securing her dream of a journalistic career !)

The youngest daughter started school, learnt to love singing and playing the recorder and flute, (the older girls had been playing the violin and flute for some time by now)……she was earnest about her music and joined a performing group which went on to win many an eisteddford.... Our son began High school and renewed his babyhood love for making things in the woodwork classroom and in the treehouse he began to build on our property...all good except for the time he slashed his hand and needed stitches..... the youngest daughter needed some full on repair too when she put her arm through our antique glass front door......nasty, believe me

I sang in a local choir with my eldest until she left for Uni, and this was so…special…..I was also working at Nimbin Central school by this time, whilst doing an online degree in publishing and editing… and hubby was a Bar manager at the local hotel…..my how things had changed……

And now after soul searching and some inner pain…we have left the old dream and Nimbin’s new problems and are in Yamba in an apartment by the sea… Miss independent is about to go and work in America and Miss nearly independent has had her final year Uni Grad show……. our son is working as a chef , has his license, an old majestic car he is 'doing up', surfs, competes in surf competitions ...and is interested in girls; and our youngest is at highschool, writing startlingly deep and thoughtful poetry and showing the same flare for art and photography as her sisters…Thinking about a fashion design career, wanting to go to parties……and giggling about secrets and boys with her girlfriends…. hubby works at a local Hotel, surfs and paints and I write...for payment and pleasure... focus on my Astrology....sing with a new group of friends and battle the menopause, amongst other things.....

It has been some journey…but it’s not over yet!!