Not totally convinced ...

Twice a week, usually, my grand-daughter, Alannah, comes over to Ma's place to play. It is a good arrangement. Ma thoroughly enjoys it, for starters. But Ma has a courtyard attached to her small apartment. The entire place just flows. So, outside we have a sandpit, and steps to sit and play Duplo, together with a gate, past which flows a cornucopia of vehicles and peoples all day long. People with coffee. People with prams. People with dogs. And even some people who pause to chat. Oh, scarey that. So we hang over the side gate. Last week, I was the one suggesting we 'people watch'; yesterday it was Alannah. She gets very loud when she sees something she recognises, like a taxi, or a truck, or a big, blue bus.

Yesterday, I introduced her to painting. Painting at Ma's place. Alannah has painted at her home, and Alannah has painted at Kindy. I need to finesse the routine a bit. She is not in the least a fan of the smock you see in these photos: I suspect it is too big, too heavy, and too hot. I will see if I can find an old shirt for her for Wednesday. A backwards shirt held together with a peg. Hah! Also, need one brush for each paint-pot. I expect there to be a mess, but need to have a method to clean it up. Alannah does not like mucky hands. Hah! Mummy that was another word Alannah learnt yesterday: 'mucky'. Vegemite toast often results in mucky hands.

So, back to the 'people watching' at the gate. I lift her up, she places one foot in this side of the wrough iron, and the other foot in that side of the wrought iron, her little fists wind around the top member of the gate, and she eases her bottom back onto my shoulder. Of course, this makes her much taller than Ma, much to her delight, and mine, as she bends down and nuzzles my head with hers! In case you panic, I do have hold of one leg and my arm around her middle. She is a bundle of energy though. Oh the perturbations: is the van going to go down the hill or UP UP UP! And what is that thing on the roof of that van? Ahha, that is a ladder.

Blank stare.

So, into the shed we go (a laundry in reality) and drag out Ma's ladder. THIS is what some of those vans and little trucks have on their roof, Alannah. This is a ladder. And then 'WHOOSH' ... a flash of grey is past us, and up up up the ladder. It is Sellie, who adores ladders! And, I can hear you thinking ... that little girl will be up that ladder, too. So the images are on the run, from the camera poised on the buffet just inside the door, keeping on eye on the next move from either or both of them.

As the afternoon wore on, and the storm clouds built up in the west, the white cockatoos joined the chorus in the skies, a chorus of helicopters mostly until the weather turned. We packed the painting away into the sunroom. We packed the Duplo and the Matchbox trucks away into the toy box. And we played cooking. With copious bowls of water from the tap, and sand everywhere, and a makeshift cooktop. And Alannah singing (no sotto-voce with this lass)

Pat a cake
Pat a cake
Bakers man
Bake me a cake
As fast as you can
Pat it, and prick it and mark it with B
And put it in the oven for baby and me.

Well, the first line of this favourite at any rate ...

Hello, Daddy. Ma and I have been cooking cakes. I am mucky.

Brer Jools and the Veggie Patch

When I was a kid, in the middle of last century, I lived on a farm with my two brothers. I am in the middle. I aged from eight to thirteen on that farm. Sorry, Jesuits, your maxim zeroed out with me. It was the second seven years that were crucial to my formation. And during that seven years, I had a vegetable patch. Correction, we all had a vegetable patch. It was the corner of the house paddock closest to the dam. Between the dam and the well. It was fenced. Yes it was fenced - a real fence and a virtual fence. The real fence outlined Mum's 'holding' and the virtual fence our three individual holdings. A bit like running yer elbow down the school desk and glaring if her shirt sleeve dared so much as to flap over the boundary!

So, the boys and I grew veggies. Mum grew flowers around the house, but they were weedy things. And had no purpose. And there was no competition. Who gave a damn if my petunia was bigger than Barry's pansy! So, veggies it was. We had paths between the beds. We had gullies around the beds. This was before the era of the raised bed. Oh, golly gosh yes. We dug DOWN. We had to use our shoulders. And then we had to take the barrow out amongst the rabbit burrows and wire grass and prickly pear to collect the cow pats to make our own compost. But we helped each other. I think. Anyways, we had wire strung between posts to help our beans run. And our tomatoes climb. We had fingers to nip out the suckers - in the days when that was still de rigeur.

So, here I go, with my first veggie garden since 1977 when I was overwhelmed in Canberra with tomatoes and zucchinis and capsicum. Hah! The poor man from 'Woolies Online' when he had to deliver 10*25 litre bags of potting mix plus two bags of blood'n'bone. Now I need two more black bins and some more plants. I have two tomatoes (Russian Reds), nice leaf lettuce, and a tiny pumpkin. Also some rock melon seeds, but not convinced by them.

Hunting and gathering

Maybe five years ago, I stumbled upon a film, a French film, entitled 'Hunting and Gathering' ('Ensemble, c'est tout'). It stars Paris, Audrey Tatou, and Guillaume Canet. Not only, but also, it features Francoise Bertin, as Paulette, the frail grandmother. And I fell in love. With Paulette's garden.

It is a cross between a junk-yard and a briar-patch. It uses all three dimensions. It divides the area, as entreated by landscapers the world over, into 'rooms'. In this case, des toilettes!


The film was based upon a romance by Anna Galvalda which I read in translation. However, I had seen the film too many times, and the real interest was in the briary. The poor writer was not to know that.

Should I admit to scouring the laneways of Paddo for orphaned crates, yes plastic milk crates suffice. For empty wine boxes. Wooden trays. Anything upon which to pose a plant, or a hunk of chain. I am seriously looking forward to 'Second Hand Sunday' on 18th September when I can come out of the closet, hold my head high and storm the bastions in search of treasure.

The blobs of jelly surrounding this custardy text, were taken in (and above) my courtyard prior to my camera being purloined last Wednesday morning early. The deckchair sling I purchased at 'Ici et La' (free plug).