Half time oranges and Tee Vee Snacks

The crisp dark night took me back. The scent of the frost settling on the orange tree picked me up and gently eased me back into the old lounge with its well-used green chairs, open fire and stripe shag pile carpet. countryhorizons_oranges1

State of Origin football night was a family affair, complete with oranges at half time. After a hearty meal of meat and three veg the first of the children would get a seat on the lounge, the last spreading on the floor in front of the fire. Mum with her knitting and dad commanding the TV to watch the weather and then settle for the football. No remote control to flick through the stations – but we only had two channels to choose from so it wasn’t such a chore.

Out the front of the house was a prolific orange tree, the envy of many visitors and travellers. Every year we waited with patience for the first frost as the fruit always seemed to be sweeter once the bite of Jack Frost heralded in the winter air. We enjoyed fruit on tap for months.

At half time in the footy we were sent out in the bitter dark cold to grab a few oranges off the tree for our dessert. Mum would sit with a towel in her lap and lovingly peel the oranges to share as we settled in for the finish of the game. She had a knack of keeping the peel in one long length that snaked to her lap as she unwrapped nature’s vitamin C offering.

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No wifi, no checking social media status, no idea what our friends or other family were doing at that very moment. We didn’t care. We were engrossed in capturing the sweet juice as it slipped down our chins, savouring the sweet flavours that tingled our buds in the warmth of our family home and writing memories for later.

That warm family lounge sparks another jolt in the memory banks and one I still recall every time I see Tee Vee Snacks in the shopping aisle. To this day they are a special treat, almost a forbidden sweetness. My dad had a routine many years ago of buying the afternoon newspaper and a box of Tee Vee Snacks on his way home of an evening. For those who don’t know they are a plain crunchy biscuit, about bite size that has been dipped in dark chocolate. Just enough chocolate to satisfy the taste buds and allow you to think you haven’t been too naughty! CHN_0209_tvsnacks3

My dad would wait until we went off to bed before settling in to enjoy the quiet of the evening while reading his paper and savouring the Tee Vee Snack biscuits…except for the last few. I never knew whether he left them on purpose or he had his fill but there was always a few left. Left for my brothers and I to sneak in and find the next morning. We felt so secretive, whispering as we cautiously investigated the discarded box hiding amongst the well read pages of yesterdays news left beneath his chair.

Oh how naughty they tasted, eating the forbidden sweet biscuits while mum stirred the porridge over the wood stove in the kitchen. They were too special to crunch, you HAD to leave in your mouth until you sucked the dark chocolate away from the biscuit, making the illicit discovery last for as long as possible. All while keeping watch to make sure we weren’t caught, though I’m sure they knew what we were doing!

Like all children I thought I knew it all. I appreciated the magical tastes of forbidden biscuit and chocolate and the sweetness of a freshly picked orange, peeled with love and enjoyed in family warmth. What more could there be?

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It was then I was introduced to the ultimate sweet flavour sensation found in a packet. I am sure most have enjoyed a freckle at some time – those little round disc of heavenly chocolate sprinkled with 100 and 1000’s.

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Have you ever tried combining them with a raspberry sweet?

Or sampled a raspberry – freckle sandwich?

It is superb. The crunch of the little coloured round pearls of pure sugar, the creaminess of the chocolate combined with the squishy flavour of the raspberry.

Gee Whillikers! A naughty explosion of heaven that dances on your tastebuds. Just try stopping at one.

You are welcome 🙂

Hard Timers

I don’t know what made me think of them or even remember what I was doing at the time. Was it when I spotted the rusted cake tin for sale in the antique shop as I was whiling away the hours waiting for mums operation to be over? The tin with the faded white flowers, dented from wear, stained from working men sweat and dust interspersed with the rusty red of time.

If I could see the fingerprints embedded in its crust who would I see? The shearer grabbing the last of home baking as he pulled the next burr filled, fly blown whether from the pen? The farmers wife filling the tin to feed the drovers as they made a camp on their way through their land. They will keep searching for small morsels of feed for their hungry mob? Or would I see the generous neighbour delivering baked goods to the man bereft with grief at the passing of his lifetime companion and she deciding to quietly leave the tin…she had others, she didn’t need this one anyway.

It may have been the smell of the cold winter winds that whipped around the geraniums along the footpath as I made my way to wait for mums return. No matter where I pick up the woody smell of geraniums I am whisked back to my grandmother’s small garden where geraniums seemed to be the only plant to prosper. Geraniums and a prolific crop of tomatoes at the back door each summer.

What it was, wherever it was, whenever it was I found I had a desire for Johnnie Cakes. Another recipe from my childhood memory vault. Another recipe that I have recently realised may not be what the rest of the world knows as Johnnie Cakes, so I had better call these Tunn’s Johnnie Cakes.

A google search tells me Johnny Cakes are American cornmeal flatbread. I did not know this.

My mum tells me she had never heard of these until she met her future mother-in-law – Tunn. They maybe from a CWA recipe book as Tunn was a very active Country Woman for many years. Or she may have just made up the recipe from what she had in the cupboard at the time. Yes, its another of those recipes that can be made from staples in your pantry, though these days many would not have half a pound of butter at the ready. Unless you have a milking cow at the back door!

Others refer to these flat-scone-like-damper-buns with fruit as Hard Timers. I do know they do get a little hard after a few days, but there is nothing like dunking them in a good strong black cup of tea (made with the billy if you can!) to soften them for a treat.

It makes lots. Mum usually halves the recipe, though her notes to the side say to keep the 2 eggs, even if you halve the recipe.

So let me share with you Tunn’s Johnnie Cakes. For authenticity I suggest you cook in a wood stove and make sure you wear an apron as you prepare, as my grandmother would have done.

Here goes…

countryhorizons_hardtimers_ingredients1 - Copy

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Ingredients:

½ lb (225 gms) butter

1 cup sugar

4 cups self raising flour

2 eggs beaten with 1 cup milk

1 cup of chopped dates or sultanas

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countryhorizons_hardtimers_ingredientsmix

Method:

Add sugar to sifted flour. Beat eggs and milk and add to melted butter.

Add butter mix to flour and sugar.

Rollout onto a floured board and cuts as for scones

Bake in hot oven. (~180 fan forced)

There was no time on the recipe. Thank heavens for a window in the oven door. Try cooking for about 20 mins.

Serve hot with butter if you can but they do keep.

You are welcome

Breadcrumbs from Yesteryear

Like most days for the past six months she had been trying to keep busy. Being industrious kept the mind from wandering to depths of sadness and loneliness and would tire her weary body in the hope sleep would come easy each night. She has yet to experience the deep sleep she yearns for but she remains optimistic the time will come soon.

And there was always something to do.

In the first months the task looked enormous and they all struggled to find the start let alone a path through. Bit by bit she was making progress. First around his chair, going through the piles of papers, medicines, bills, notes. Then giving some order to the pile on the cupboard near the dining table. She is trying to downsize the freezer and cooking up whatever is next when she opens the heavy lid, knowing she is now cooking for one.

The farm will have to wait until her children and grandchildren can help. Her joints are frustratingly arthritic, her weakening limbs burn with pain, her resolve is fragile. She can work her way through each room of their house while she waits.

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Today she decides to sort through the bookshelf in the back room. Decades of school textbooks fill one of the shelves, novels from last century another. She pulls off The Web of Life Biology textbook. Its cover is faded and scruffy, the corners of the pages curled and marked.

She is taken back to a winters evening in the old kitchen, father and daughter pouring over the book together in front of the warming wood stove. Teacher and student solving the mysteries of the plant kingdom together while she hovered close and kept a check on the vegetables for dinner. His rich, authorative voice gently explained the intricacies of the plant flower while she absorbed and trusted his teachings. Cherished times now locked away as memories.

As she leaned to place the learned book on the ‘donate’ pile a yellowing sheet jutting from the heavy pages caught her eye. She steeled herself, not sure what this glimpse from the past would tell her. Families tended to keep a few secrets hidden in the back of closets, or books. What was this breadcrumb of life from yesteryear about to reveal?

The envelope was friable, almost crumbling as she gently pulled from hiding. She could still make out the post mark, sent from Tamworth in 1933.

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It was addressed to

Mr Clem Tunningley

Clemisha’s Line

Via Gunnedah

The bookshelf was now forgotten as she was swept back to bygone days.

99 Belmore Street

West Tamworth

November 13^th 1933

Mr & Mrs C.B. Tunningley

Dear Nephew and Niece

We received your venerable little packet in due course, & we now tender our sincere thanks for same, & at the same time offer you congratulations & best wishes for success & happiness in your new sphere of life. I daresay you are quite settled now to your happy conditions by this time & enjoying the very nice season for a good start off in the way of crops & stock! I know what a lot depends on the weather to make a success of things on the land, & I trust this is a run of a few good seasons now in store for the chaps on the land. I have forgotten the name of your place, but I will chance this little scrap to reach you some day. Trusting you are both in the ‘pink’ of health as I write this, & I will now close. With all the best of wishes from your affectionate Aunt and Uncle

E.H & Will Donaldson

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In the quiet of the afternoon she takes time to relish the long curves of the hand-written letters, the gentile language of the note. She smiles at the time taken to pen a thank you note to her in-laws after their wedding in 1933.

As if on cue her mobile phone beeps and breaks the repose. She is bought to the now, the books spread across the bed in various piles of keep – maybe – donate – recycle.

She smiles to herself as she reflects what this letter would be these days, in 2017. More than likely not even a letter but a simple text on a phone

Something like…

Hey there! Got yr parcel. Thx. Congrats on the wedding. Good luck with harvest. Hope alls good, catch-up soon. Cheers!

Footnote: The farm books from Bellevue show that 1933 was indeed a great year for wheat – Clem’s income for that year much higher than others.

countryhorizons_Income_Book_Bellevue

Golden Syrup Dumplings

I recently had the joy of all three of my girls home to visit. Before they arrive I tend to ask if there is anything in particular they would like to eat? I know the standard answer is “Gran’s jam drops” – that’s a given. My mum has them baked and ready in plenty of time for their arrival. If they arrive on different days then there is another fresh batch on the doorstep.

Food does indeed bring back childhood memories. For our birthdays we chose the dinner for that evening. I used to ask for a roast chicken and chocolate cake. That was before my mum mastered her sponge cake! I promise I will share this recipe soon – I just need mum to give me some notice to be ready with the camera and capture some of the steps as my mum tends to get up and cook in the wee tiny hours of the morning light.

My middle daughter has a huge sweet tooth. Dinner was never complete until dessert was served. Sometimes it wasn’t much but we HAD to have dessert every evening. My grandfather Clem was the same. I remember my dad saying he would have been happy with dessert for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Yet the same man never liked to mix his courses. He disliked fruit with his main saying “I will save that fruit for dessert, no need to eat with my meat” Oh how he would struggle with current food trends!

My girl’s habits have changed a little as they moved away however when they are home the desire for some home cooked desserts is hard to fight and they do succumb. The evening my mum came for dinner was a great example. No one was expecting or needing dessert – we had been foraging on chocolate eggs throughout the day. Until Gran showed up, as usual never empty handed.

“I whipped up some dumplings for dessert, thought we should have a treat now the weather has turned cool” CountryHorizons_GSD_therecipe

Oh My Goodness! My own childhood memories of sitting around the family table with the wood stove warming the kitchen as the winter winds rattled the glass louvres behind us came to mind.

Golden Syrup Dumplings. Passed down from grandmothers recipe book.

Note the use of words such as “good cup” and “large” tablespoon. In other words don’t scrimp and measurements are approximate.

Are your taste buds watering?

They should be.

It is a cheap easy dessert, with staples from your pantry. The sauce can be made ahead of time.

My mum makes the dumplings and then as you sit down to eat she pops the dumplings in the boiling sauce. By the time the meal is eaten the dumplings are ready.

Golden Syrup Dumplings

The Dumplings

Rub 1 tablespoon butter into a good cup Self Raising Flour (I think ‘good’ means heaped)

Mix to a dough with 1 egg, beaten with a little milk (1/4 to ½ cup)

Roll into balls, approximately a bit smaller than a tennis ball.

The Syrup

(I have doubled here to make sure there is plenty of liquid and moist dumplings)

Mix 2 cups water, 1 tablespoons sugar and 2 large tablespoon golden syrup in a saucepan over heat.

Bring to boil.

Drop in the dumplings, cover and boil for 20 minutes.

Serve hot, best with ice cream and/or cream.

——-You are welcome!

Salt on your apple, milk in your soup?

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I always like to have a few bananas on hand. They are such a great little package to feed a sweet tooth moment or satisfy the hunger until dinner is cooked. The recent heatwave of summer has seen the fruit quickly turn brown and not quite attractive to eat on its own. I know there are multitudes of recipes for old bananas from banana bread, muffins or smoothies and yes they can be frozen for another day.

In a moment of reminiscing with my mum (which happens quite a bit these days) my memory was taken back to cold winter evenings growing up, to Sunday nights where tomato soup and bananas fritters were a standard fare of our household.

In winter our routines and meals were the same most weekends. Living out of town meant that we headed off to Saturday sports for the whole day. My brothers to football or soccer while I played and umpired netball and my mum manned the netball ‘tent’ or helped in the canteen. We left home by 9 and arrived back as the sun was revealing its final wintry glow in the late afternoon. As we raced to complete the farm jobs before dark a pot of stew always seem to miraculously appear on the stove – that was our Saturdays.

Sundays, like many Australian families was a bake (roast) meal in the middle of the day, with something lighter for the evening as mum ironed the pile of clothes and we all prepared for the week ahead. In our house soup and fritters was a common menu. Banana fritters. CH_fritters

I used to think we consumed our food like everyone else. It wasn’t until I left home that I realised some family traditions seemed a little weird to others.

Probably one of the first to be revealed was salt on my cut apples. Doesn’t everyone do this? I was reminded that this might not be the norm just recently in our tea room at work. I absent mindedly quartered an apple, grab the salt pot and sprinkled over my plate. One of my co-workers stopped the conversation mid-sentence and ask…”Did you just put salt on that?!?!” “Um, yes?” to which there a small pause and a dumbfounded silence.

Growing up we always had a tin or two of tomato soup in the cupboard. Just one of those staples in an out-of-town pantry at a time when supermarkets were not open 7 days a week. While my father loved his bowl of Bonox I could never quite come at the bitter yet salty brown beef extract and we tended to cook up a pot of tomato soup for the rest of us.

And then you always added a dash milk to your soup before you ate it, no matter the flavour of soup…Don’t you?

Apparently not. That is another one of those weird family traditions that I thought was standard fare. The reason? I think to cool it down? Or maybe as my mother’s family struggled to make ends meet after her father died adding fresh free milk from the farm cow added nutrition to satisfy the hunger of a growing family?

As our family settled in front of the fire, all bathed and hair washed to watch Sunday Night Football we shared banana fritters. They are like a pikelet with mashed banana stirred in, though I recently found out the original recipe from my mother’s family was with chopped apple. Dad didn’t like apple so the next generation of tradition knows them only as banana fritters.

Banana fritters topped with a sprinkle of sugar and lemon juice. CH_cookingfritters

What? I hear you ask. This is another family fare that I assumed everyone enjoyed, only to learn many years later that this is a family secret.

Over dinner a few nights ago as I was probing my mum for the recipe I asked where did the sugar and lemon idea come from?

The sprinkle of sugar is my mother’s family tradition – that is how they used to enjoy the apple fritters as children.

The lemon juice was an addition from my father. His family used to have lemon CH_geranium everything. My grandmother’s garden could produce two things – geraniums and lemon trees. Even now the nutty, dusty scent of a geranium will take me back to running barefoot on the small bit of lawn of Bellevue with a multitude of cousins, the sound of laughter and family percolating through the air.

There was always lemons overflowing the fruit bowl on the kitchen table and scattered under the trees that lined the driveway – small, withered and tart enough to make any modern sour lolly taste sweet.

So now I impart a family recipe to you.

If you are wondering what to cook on a cold Sunday evening how about you throw a pot of tomato soup on the stove and whip up a batch of banana fritters? I will forgive you if cannot do the dash of milk in the soup, but the sugar and lemon juice on the fritter is a must try.

Banana Fritters

Combine a cup of self-raising flour, a tablespoon of sugar, 1 egg and about 2/3 cup of milk in a bowl. Whisk together. You may need to add a little bit more milk to make it ‘sloppy’

Add 2-3 sliced bananas and stir through

Pour small amounts mixture into a heated pan. Cook until bubbles appear, then flip.

Serve warm with a sprinkle of sugar and lemon juice.

You are welcome

CH_rawingredients

Farmers Friends

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A message popped up to our family group from Daughter 1 “Hey, does anyone have the recipe for farmers friends?” While my mum tried to work through why she would want the recipe in New Zealand I took a photo from the flour stained well-worn pages of my recipe book and whisked it to her.

And prompted me to share with you.

I have found out today that the actual name of the recipe is Farmers Favourites. Either way this is one of those handy recipes to have in the library. You can have a batch coming out of the oven for unexpected guests or for a morning tea that slipped your mind in about 30 minutes.

ch_sheepyards As I baked a batch today my mind was taken back to watching my grandfather Clem’s nicotine stained fingers with salient twisted knuckles reaching into the dented cake tin to grab a freshly baked Favourite to dip into his black tea. The smoke from the hand rolled cigarette clasped in his forefingers swirling with the dust of the sheep yards as he takes a break under the pine trees of the sheepyards.

I can almost see him as he has a joke with his sons who have come over to help with the crutching, the grandchildren’s eyes peeping over the sides of the ute, hoping there will be some left for them.

With the last biscuit laid out on the baking tray I recall a time when my three girls would EPSON MFP image be vying for the beaters and bowl. The unbaked dough was always a treat with cooking, particularly with their grandmother. Today there was no-one to lick the bowl as they have all moved away, though I did treat myself to the wooden spoon.

This recipe was found in the Emerald Hill Country Women’s Association cookbook quite a few years ago. They don’t sound like much but we know when the temperature soars into the 40s, particularly around harvest time these will still be fresh in the lunch bag. The recipe even said “great for harvest” – and the CWA know what they are talking about when it comes to cooking for the people on the land.

ch_mumsrescipe My mum had hand written it in her recipe book, I copied to my own a few decades ago.

When my girls were younger I used to sprinkle with hundreds and thousands to dress them up a little. Somewhere along the family folklore these have become Famers Friends. Either way I hope you will enjoy.

Farmers Friends

4 ounces or 120 grams margarine ¾ cup castor sugar

1 egg 1 ½ cups Self raising flour

vanilla

Beat margarine and sugar, add egg and vanilla and beat a little longer. Stir in flour.

Put dessertspoons of mixture on a greased baking tray, sprinkle each biscuit with sugar.

Bake in moderate over for 20 minutes, turning from front to back after 10 minutes.

That is it! Enjoy with a cup of tea.

You are welcome.

Part 2: The letters home

In Part 1 – The Burlington Hotel I penned a story about a newly wedded country couple honeymooning in Sydney in 1933. The story was based on two letters I had found amongst some family treasures. This post is the letters. I hope you find them as interesting as I did – a wonderful connection to our past, our history.

Clem:

(This letter is to his new ‘in-laws’, not his own family.)

“Hotel Burlington”

Hay Street

Sydney

13^th September 1933

To All at Home,

Well I am, & Ellie is also very happy. Many thanks to you all for making and giving us such a lovely wedding.

We are doing fairly well down here so far, haven’t got lost or anything like that. Everything seems a bit strange to Ellie tho’ I think altho she don’t say so.

We had a rest & sleep until dinner time yesterday, of course we needed it. We saw Athol Cawood(?) at Central yesterday he came off the same train as we did.

The weather is not the best here cloudy and showery with a cool breeze blowing. I hope it clears up a bit soon.

Well folks I am not much of a news writer but we have more to talk about when we get home. Most likely we will take a day train home so as to have a look at the scenery etc.

With love from your knew Brother etc.

Clem

For the Sisters and Mother ——— xxxxxxx

We will be leaving here early next Tuesday morning I think but don’t know when we will be back home

Ellie:

Hotel Burlington

Hay Street

Sydney

13^th Sept 1933

My dear Home folk.

We arrived here yesterday morning, we met Jo at the Creek she was very pleased to see us & was telling us about Bub & his poor old Ell – now my big boy don’t you worry about poor old Ell – there’s not a happier creature alive & you all have helped to make me so.

We slept till 12 on Monday & then had lunch & went to the Capitol till 5 & had tea & went to Haymarket theatre. I feel as tho I have been here a week – we are going shopping – Furniture – (first time) this evening – & theatre to-night & Harbour trip Thursday & more theatre.

Well my dears if you feel like sending the snap to the address we’d love to see them.

Hope you are all well. Clem is wanting to write.

Cheers with love from Ellie

ch_family_weddingday — The family at home – a ‘snap’ possibly taken on the wedding day

Part 1: Hotel Burlington

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Ellie flipped through the morning paper as she finished her cup of tea from breakfast. Such a luxury to have the paper and breakfast delivered to her room! She scans the cinema pages to see what other great shows they could attend while in this bustling city. There is a talking picture “The Good Companions” premiering tonight or maybe “Tugboat Annie” at St James theatre in Elizabeth St might be fun too. So many choices in this fine town.

Noises from the city street drift from below. She could discern the trams smooth clack as they made their way down George Street mingling with the horns and purr of diesel engines as the trucks delivered to the markets across the street. The city was coming to life on this September morning in 1933. The new bride enjoyed watching the daily performance from her window overlooking Sussex and Hay streets, their honeymoon getaway. ch_clem_letter

She looks up as her new husband chuckles to himself. “How does this sound Ellie – I’ll sign off the letter From your knew
brother and put kisses for mother and sisters at the end – that should give them a laugh!”

She smiles and nods “Yes that will make their day”.
Oh how lucky she feels at this moment. Here she was honeymooning at The Burlington in Sydney, enjoying theatre most nights and shopping for furniture to fill her new home with Clem. She knows she has quite a handsome catch there, the envy of her sisters and other young ladies back home.

They first met at a dance at Emerald Hill. The north west sky was a glow of orange and red with the sunset that evening she walked into the hall with her sisters. She spotted Clem and his brother Alan on the stage playing the recorder and tapping out the beat with drums as a few locals stand in small groups around the edge of the hall catching up with friends and the latest news of the district. Girls were giggling and teasing while trying to fill their dance cards. It would be the last dance in the district until after harvest so the hall was quickly filling with people from across the district, keen to have some fun before the hard work of gathering in the grain. She caught Clem’s eye and he winked back as her sister Ursula nudged her in the side.

“Ooh we should try to get a dance with those characters tonight. I hear they have bought the property Bellevue on the Clemisha Line” she suggests, buzzing with excitement.

That was a few years ago now and she is momentarily saddened as she thinks of Alan, dying unexpectedly of a burst appendix and never realising the dream he and Clem had for Bellevue. Clem instead had been left to clear the land and plant the first crops alone. She halts the thoughts and shakes the sadness away. This was their honeymoon, it was to be enjoyed!

“So my Ellie, are you going to write to the folk at home too? Let them know we are doing fine in the big city?” interrupts Clem. “I’ve told them we will head home about next Tuesday. Thinking we might go home on the day train if that suits you. Well, I might go downstairs for a bit now and see what the locals are doing”

Left alone in the suite s ch_courting_tennis he reminisces about their courting. The countless games of tennis on Sunday afternoons and group events over the last few years. She had not made it easy for Clem, she wanted to be sure he was the right one. Plus she had to compete with her sisters for his attentions– one of the down sides of such a big family.

As she grabs the paper and pen to compose the letter home she smiles at the thought of Ursula. After a night out at the cinema Ursula had questioned Ellie

“I’m not sure which one us Clem is keen on, he seems to be courting both of us”

“Well did he hold YOUR hand at the cinema tonight?” admonishes Ellie

“No, he didn’t.” Ursula had replied sullenly “Well I guess we know”.

As she begins her letter with “Dear family at home” she reflects that her Da seemed very pleased with her choice of husband. There was some doubt for a short time, until Clem agreed to become a Catholic to marry her. Her heart skips a beat just thinking about the time Da announced he had to change religion first as no daughter of his was marrying outside the church. She didn’t want to be like Stella who had lost her love as he refused to change for her. It had broke Stella’s heart and she still has a sorrowful appearance about her.

Ellie fills the letter home with news of cinema and shopping. She is excited for their trip tomorrow down to the harbour and hopefully a walk across the new Harbour Bridge that opened last year. Wont that be a story to tell when they arrive home!

Clem bursts into their honeymoon suite just as she is signing off her letter.

“Well I’ll be Ellie” he exclaims “you know those workmen we saw yesterday, down on the corner of Kent and Market Street? Just went down and had a yarn to them. They are installing traffic lights, first in Australia. I gather cars will stop when the lights are red and drive only when they turn green. That will be a sight to see if we come back down another time”

“It will be indeed. Maybe I will be able to drive by then” she laughs.

“You will, cant have my farmer wife not being able to help on the farm. Come on my love, grab your hat and gloves we have exploring to do”

His rugged hand reaches for hers, a sparkle in his eyes, only for her and their long happy future. Together.

Next: Part 2 – The letters home

Image sources © Can Stock Photo / washtay; http://www.visitsydneyaustralia.com.au/ and newspaper.com (Sydney Morning Herald September 13^th 1933)

A pilgrimage

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It was meant to be just a drive from point A to point B to share Christmas with the family. It had been one of those years that was best left behind and I was excited to spend time with special family members. Away from ghosts of the past.

Along the Newell Highway this drive took a turn. No longer was it just a means to travel the thousand odd kilometres across 3 states. It was my pilgrimage. One final trip with you across the land we treasured and admired its changing tides.

You would have been impressed with the miles and miles of golden paddocks. The grain now harvested and its gilded hue slightly fading as the stubble turns to earth. We would have both been intrigued with the individual wheat stacks across the Riverina as farmers were wrapping their wheat in plastic to store on farm. A clear sign of a very prosperous year.

My mind was taken back to driving the same road with you in the early ‘80s and how you wished you had travelled at night as the track was profoundly depressing with the ravages of drought – bare paddocks blowing in the summer winds, the sparse starving stock seeking water and feed to survive, the skies clear with little hope of saving rains.

I know you would have appreciated the difference now and noted the numbers of sheep, fresh off shears that roam the knee high pastures. I noticed. You had taught me to see.

We could have chuckled together at the farm mail boxes as we scooted down the Newell, many decorated for Christmas. You would have pointed to the water filling swampy low areas, now a wetland haven for multitudes of birds that chorus as we break for road works along the stretches damaged from the floods that now bring life to the region.

ch_forbeslagoon_duckps Ducks and turtles forage in the evening stillness as we stop for the night at Forbes. A few Willy Wagtails sing an evening lullaby in the fading light. A single tear trickles down my face as their song takes me back to the night not so long ago when the Willy Wagtails warbled a midnight melody calling in a sadness that settled as you took your last breaths. I knew I needed this pilgrimage to bid you farewell.

The story you told me on another trip a few years back springs to mind as we take the long stretch from Forbes to West Wyalong. I still find it hard to imagine how my grandfather Clem rode this same track on a horse in the 1920s. It seemed such a long expedition to buy another horse! I try to imagine the dusty tracks now replaced by sealed highways, the cleared cultivated land that would have been pristine and untouched, and the stars overhead as he rested his weary body and horse each night. I’m thankful you shared this piece of family history with me.

The West Wyalong truck stop is a welcome sight, not just for us but for many travellers on similar journeys to loved ones for the festive season. I strike up a conversation with a family eating their cereal in the carpark, the children’s hair still woolly and eyes still cloudy from the night sleep. In years past that was us. I have recollections of getting dressed in town parks, eating corn flakes from plastic cups as you and mum tried to get some miles in before we woke. Having had children of my own I appreciate how precious those quiet miles were.

You would have wandered around the busy carpark and struck up a few other yarns with fellow travellers. I only watched this time and envisaged the stories of voyagers along the Newell.

I smile at the football ovals in each town with the four posts at either end. I’m not sure you ever played Australian Rules in your time in the south of the state? As we continue through Narrandera I seemed to recall you did play ‘proper’ football games out this way as you sought some Rugby League comps in the heart of Australian Rules country. I guess you spent some time in these towns along the Murray River and Riverina district and probably broke some hearts as a young single graduate in this area.

Stories from you faded as I crossed the swiftly flowing Murray River and headed into Victoria. I continued on this pilgrimage with a heavy heart, knowing that you would have truly relished in the changing landscapes as we zoomed towards Melbourne. ch_readytosailps

I have no doubt you would have repeated the story of trying to drive in Melbourne with your mother-in-law and her strong opinions in the back seat and how you unexpectedly ended up on the steps of Parliament House. I think the roads are better now – or at least with technology we made it the port in plenty of time for our passage across Bass Strait, where we gathered to make new memories with one less seat at our table.

You can rest. Our land is in good hands.

“I wept because I was re-experiencing the enthusiasm of my childhood; I was once again a child, and nothing in the world could cause me harm.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Pilgrimage

ch_forbeslagoon_seat

Spellbound Sunday

psschoolgrounds

The music drifted through the bus windows and silenced the passengers. They had been admiring the manicured gardens and grand buildings as they approached the church, a contrast to village constructions they had been travelling through the last few days. As soon as the bus stopped they scurried into the church in a single file to their assigned seating towards the front.

It was only then she allowed herself to relax and scan her surroundings. To her right were almost 1000 school boys dressed in their Sunday traditional white uniform with ocean blue Ta’ovala and sandaled feet. The choir master stood in front of the boys guiding voices and brass band as they offered their Sunday prayers.

psChurch_inside To her left was the fine timber pulpit of orange grains polished and treasured by its congregation. Overhead the curved soft timber struts were covered by a watertight thatching that had absorbed over 150 years of Tongan song and prayer.

She sat motionless. Calmness washed over her, the fine detail of the surroundings fading from view. She closed her eyes and let the music envelope her.

For a time she tried to fight the sensations stirring within her. She curled her toes tightly, her breathing shallow as she struggled to remain composed and professional. Tears started to well in the corner of her eyes, her stomach tossed, her throat burned.

She could hold it no longer.

She let ‘it’ in. psbluewaters

The thousand strong tenor voices blended with the capacious brass melody and percolated into her inner core. The chorus evoked images of coconut trees gently swaying in the ocean breeze, before skipping her over the waves of the azure clear ocean. The chorus and whale song held her spellbound as tears freely flowed unchecked down her burning cheeks. Her skin quivered, her hands trembled.

The song swelled, the brass melody deepened as the majestic polished ebony whales glided through the blue waters in her mind. And then the final crescendo of voice and instrument filled the church to call the regal ocean mammal from the water towards the tropical sky in a final show of splendor as if one in the island Kingdom.

Her emotion showed freely, the power of the song in prayer captivated her. She didn’t need to know the words, the hymn had penetrated her very core.

It had been a long time since she had felt this much at peace with herself.

She had found a new place to re-energise her, to take home with her.

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