The Second Step's a Doozy

Did I say that the journey began with a single step?  As true as that is, the next step can easily be a detour not imagined when the first one was taken - and so it has turned out.  This has been a year filled with side-tracks, diversions, and unexpected busyness.

 

When our government announced Covid lockdowns and restrictions on mingling with other people, my wife and I looked at each other and shrugged.  

"Not keen on crowds" we said to each other "and always happy pottering in our own garden and doing our own thing - sounds like we have been handed an excuse to live our lives in a fashion most congenial to us"

Within days, we found ourselves "in loco parentis" to grandchildren who had been sent home to do their studying online for an indeterminate period.  What fun!  What wonderful mental exercise for us as we reached back five decades or more to our own long lost schooldays, in search of discarded bits of geometry and algebra - it was amazing just how many forgotten formulae surfaced from the depths.  What wondrous new skills and words did we acquire as we grappled with the many and varied types of software chosen by the many and varied teachers who, only the previous week, had the pleasure of close daily learning experiences with those grandchildren, but now had to find, on short notice, ways of teaching them via the internet. Everyone involved found themselves on the proverbial "steep learning curve" - a trite business cliche that, for once, was deadly accurate.

 

 

 

So much has happened since then - in our family, our community, our country, and the wider world - and we have, like so many others, been busy just keeping up with it all.  Somehow, the time allotted to matters creative was nibbled away by the effort involved in keeping ourselves afloat, and helping other family members in worst straits than us - until the inevitable happened.  The long lapse in creative work began to feel inexcusable, and recommencing the work seemed almost impossible - the creative impulse was swamped by a sense of guilt and failure.

 

 

 

Now, the warnings of the scientists are again proven true, despite the wishful political thinking that had gained the upper hand, and Christmas is to be held under restrictive conditions, due to the virus once again slipping through our defences. 

 

The garden is soggy, but productive, as La Nina helps us recover from the horror and dessication of last summer's drought and bushfires - our creek is busy with minnows, crayfish, and small perch (who are growing fast) but no trout - the cicadas have had a bumper year, and the night is full of frog song. Clutches of ducklings, baby magpies, and parrots have visited our garden with their parents, learning which of the neighbourhood humans are soft touches for a bit of extra tucker. One of my 18 year old Apple Tree bonsais has flowered for the first time, and set tiny fruit.

 

 

 

The human grandchildren have resumed normal schedules, and we can allow the trigonometry and calculus to slip back into the oblivion of ancient memory - and now, with time on our hands, there is no excuse for not picking up the frayed threads and setting to work again.  Let's see what next year brings.  Ours has turned out pretty well, in the end - I hope it all comes good for you, too.

Rivulets of Gold

Despite recent snowfalls, this has been the driest winter I've seen here in our little valley on the mountain - but today the rain began falling.  As I crossed the carpark behind our little library by the pine trees I noticed this.....

My phone camera doesn't properly capture the soft gold of the pine pollen being gathered by the first runnels of water, but gives an idea of just how much pollen has drifted to the ground in the recent winds of late winter.....

Soon tiny rivers of gold were swirling across the tarmac and down the hill.  How much of it will become high protein food for all manner of worms, beetles, ants and other creatures, and how much of it will go back to the soil that the pines drew its components from, is a mystery.  Some windy days I have seen vast sheets of gold blowing from the wind-shaken pine trees beyond the creek, and it easy to imagine that many, many tons of pollen are settling all across our Blue Mountains.   I know the bees have already had their turn at this bounty, as I've seen them busy everywhere as the days grow longer.

The lichen looks happier too - at last, spring is making its entrance.....

Over the veranda rail

Ice wind breaking on

Moon silvered plateau

tearing branches

from tree top surf

that breaks wildly over

pale sandstone heights

Sheoaks singing and 

pale Gums twisting

wild wind clutching at

weatherboards creaking and

roof iron rattling

White Cockatoos sleeping

deep in darkness at

waterfalls bottom

dreaming of sunrise

while Possums play

Today the icy, wintry winds are gone, having failed to stop the burgeoning green haze of spring

Alder, Apple, Oak, and Cherry are all streching leaves into the sun's warmth

Waratah brightens the creek-side shadows, while Grevillea and Rosemary bask in the sun

giving nectar to the honey-makers

Spring is coming at last to the Blue Mountains, and while we bask in the milder days twixt Winter's ice and Summer's fires, our thoughts go out to all those on the northern side of the equator who are suffering the floods and hurricanes and fires of Autumn - stay safe, and watch out for your neighbour.

Pindraig

Is Winter Coming?

The onset of winter in Australia - those parts that have a winter the rest of the world would recognize as such - is often a tentative dance between autumn and spring.  The first light frosts have appeared in the upper Blue Mountains, delicately sparkling crystals decorating the leaves of the violets.

Yet, on the same morning, the roses are preparing to open,

the jonquils are flowering,

and the grapes are feeling like they might be ready to greet the spring, unfurling soft green leaves.

Summer is gone, swept away with the torrents of falling, flying leaves.  Winter, officially due to arrive on the first of June, has already charged up from its Antarctic home and spread snow across the southern Alps, only to stage an early retreat and cede the field to these balmy, spring-like, autumn days.

It is a feint, of course, in the manner of the feigned retreat that helped William overcome Harold at Hastings, all those centuries ago - winter is coming, but when?  Will it greet us with scenes like the ones we saw  at Blackheath only two years ago?  We live in hope - snow and frost make next year's crop of cherries a sweeter one.

Distractions

Distractions are all about me as I write.  The leaves are fading and falling from the fruit trees beyond my study window, allowing me to glimpse the smear of autumn colour on the Japanese Maples on the other side of my little valley.  A few minutes ago the biggest of them was glowing red and orange against the white boards of the house behind it, and the dark green of pines and eucalypts beyond.

Excited, shrill piping drew me to the other window to find a flock of silver-eyes celebrating the food they were finding in the vegetable gardens.  Watching them carefully inspect the underside of each cabbage leaf in search of caterpillars and aphids made me wish they would live there full time - but, like all the life in the Mountains, including mine, they are seasonal.  Tiny nomads on an endless round, the silver-eyes, robins, and finches, with their larger cousins, the doves and quail, all pass through my gardens twice a year.

A magpie's fleeting shadow sent them scurrying to hide among the thorns of the rose bush by the front steps.  Magpie is harmless to them, I think - perhaps they mistook the flash of black and white for her cousin, the butcher bird.  After a few minutes pillaging the aphids on the rose shoots, they were off with the rising breeze.

They wouldn't sit still for my camera, and I could only capture what may be the last rose of autumn, fading as wintry clouds stole the blue from the sky.

Within minutes of the sun's disappearance, the picknickers come down the road from the lake, striding towards warmth and shelter.  The visitors and tourists are dressed for the warm autumn day that was, while the locals are equipped with scarves, mittens, beanies and coats - they know how swiftly capricious the Mountains weather can be.  Weaving through the walkers are the first of the evening joggers and cyclists, hurrying to complete their appointed miles before the threat of rain is fullfilled. The chilly gusts and prematurely fading light adds weight to that threat.

When the sunlight left, so did the small birds.  If I leave my keyboard and walk through the garden to the forest, or perhaps down to the creek, will I find them there?  Or are they deeper in the shadows, hiding from the hawks and butcher birds who like to cruise the valley as the light fades?  It is tempting - but I have been there twice already today, when the sun was shining, and I owe my novel-to-be at least another half a chapter before I can leave the keyboard again.  There are shadows enough to be explored there, as I hunt for the truth about my characters.