Mamalade

My neighbour over the back phoned me this morning. “Are you still there?” she asked. “I thought you must have gone to America or something!”

I guess I haven’t been home much lately. I’ve been giving Frances some moral support. Baby Hayley is a bit of a handful – literally. She seems to get a lot of colic and will only settle if she is held upright. Yesterday, though, she surprised us and slept in her bassinet for four hours! Maybe she’s settling down at last. When she woke, she stretched and smiled – twice -when Frances spoke to her. No, it was not wind! She had a genuine look of recognition in her eyes!

Miles beamed in delight when I arrived the other day. “Meemar! I magicked you here! I was wishing you would come – and here you are!”

He closed his eyes tightly. “Abracadabra, I wish Meemar would go home!”

I stepped around the doorway out of sight.

Miles chortled, “Abracadabra, I wish Meemar would come back!”

I reappeared.

Miles jigged excitedly. “Abracadabra, I wish Sharon and Verity would come!” (They are his friends.)

He didn’t really look surprised when they didn’t appear. Great magicians know their limitations.

“I don’t think your magic is strong enough for that,” I told him. “See if you can magic Alex into the kitchen.” I had just seen Alex the cat slink in through the kitchen door.

“Abracadabra, I wish Alex would come in.”

He was delighted when Alex strolled over to brush against his legs in response to hearing her name.

He knows his magic is not real, but he loves to pretend.

Speaking of magic, Relle and I went to see “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” last week. I took a train into the City and met Relle after she finished work. We just had time to grab a Chinese meal at the Myers Centre. (I can recommend the Chicken and Almonds.)

“We’ll have time,” said Relle. “The cinema is right here on the ground floor.”

Well, that’s where it used to be. When we rushed there with just a few minutes to spare, we were confronted with a sign, “Movie Cinema on Top Floor.”

“Come on,” said Relle, “Up the escalator!”

We rode one escalator after the other till we reached the second top floor. “Looks like we have to take the lift from here,” said Relle.

We raced into the glass lift. I grasped the rail and was careful not to look down while Relle pressed the button.

“Oh, no!” Actually, she used a stronger expression as the lift went down instead of up!

We made our way back up again and found some stairs leading to the top floor. (There was also another lift that went all the way up, we discovered later.)

There didn’t seem to be anywhere to buy the tickets. (You can tell we haven’t been to the movies for a long time.) Then we found that the tickets are sold from the same counter as the drinks and popcorn. What a stupid idea! We waited impatiently while the family in front of us quibbled over a choice of soft drinks. We just wanted to get in before the movie started!

We made it. As we sat through the previews of coming movies, I muttered, “We could have gone down to the bottom floor again and still been back up in time!”

I didn’t know what to expect after all the hype about Harry Potter, but I enjoyed the movie. It was fun and easy to watch.

I’m reading the book now. I prefer something more realistic, but it’s well written and I can see why kids like it. Not just kids – Relle said she sees a lot of adults reading it on the train.

Phew!! That was close! A big hailstorm demolished houses on the other side of the city last night. We just had heavy rain but no damage here.

I received this in an email this week.

You know you’re in an Australian Summer When…

The best parking place is determined by shade instead of distance.
Hot water now comes out of both taps.
learn that a seat belt buckle makes a pretty good branding iron.
The temperature drops below 35C and you feel a little chilly.
You discover that in February it only takes 2 fingers to steer your car.
You discover that you can get sunburned through your car window.
You develop a fear of metal car door handles.
You break into a sweat the instant you step outside at 7:30 a.m.
Your biggest bicycle wreck fear is, “What if I get knocked out and end up lying on the pavement and cook to death?”
You realise that asphalt has a liquid state.
Farmers are feeding their chickens crushed ice to keep them from laying hard-boiled eggs.
The cows are giving evaporated milk.
The trees are whistling for the dogs.

It’s not too far from the truth! This is our hottest summer on record since 1903. The last few days haven’t been too bad, but last week we sweltered again in 40 degree heat. (Celsius, that is – I think that’s about 104 Fahrenheit) At least we don’t have the bush-fires here. There are still about 50 burning in New South Wales. It’s hard to believe that while people are desperately trying to fight the fires, there are others deliberately lighting more.

“How did we manage before we had electric fans?” I ask Dad one day. I grew up without one.

“We must have been used to the heat,” says Dad.

Or is the world really getting hotter? The sun seems to have a sting in it these days – quite early in the morning, too!

I seek relief under my shady pine tree on one of the hot days. My poor plants are drooping and gasping for water. I resuscitate them with the hose, then decide to hose the dog’s bedding (Nelson’s gone home again) and clean out the laundry.

I finally stagger wearily back inside the house, flop into a chair and press the button on the electric fan with my big toe. (P’raps I’d better explain, the fan is on the floor!)

Nothing happens.

I check the clock radio. It’s not working. The fridge is ominously quiet.

I unplug all the appliances and check out the safety power switch. It’s off. Each time I try to turn it on, it clicks off again.

I must have been too enthusiastic with the hose and got water into one of the power-points.

It’s too hot in the house without a fan, so I go back outside and potter in the garden, till the fruit bats start making their nocturnal flight overhead.

The power is still off. I phone Frances. “How much room have you got in your fridge?”

I take round the meat from my freezer. Miles is sleeping blissfully under an electric fan. Joel is under the table with a tangle of computer chords. (Don’t ask!) Frances is feeding Hayley.

“Did you have anything to eat?” she asks “There’s some mince left…”

“No thanks,” I say, “I had some Weetbix. But I’d love a cup of tea!”

“You could stay here tonight.”

“No, I think I’ll sleep better in my own bed, thanks, even in the heat.”

It’s still unbearable in the house when I return. I sit on the front patio, slapping mosquitoes and listening to the night sounds.

There’s the continual chee-eep chee-eep of crickets and the occasional yip, yip yip of a ghecko lizard. A dog barks. Out on the highway, I hear the faint thump, thump of the cars going over the big bridge. Television sets flicker and murmur in neighbouring houses and I imagine the soft whirring of their electric fans – the lucky devils!

Fruit bats are squabbling in the big mango tree at the top of the street. I remember how my elderly friend who used to live there would bring me mangoes by the bucketful. The Christmas card I sent her this year at her new home was returned “no longer at this address.” She was in her nineties.

The orange house across the road looks better in the dark. There’s a cat silhouetted on the window sill and singing emanates from inside the house. The man who lives there has a nice voice. I like to hear him practise.

I hope the Englishman living next to him appreciates it. I often hear classical music on his car radio when he pulls into his driveway, so I know he likes good music. But he’s just gone down the street in his baggy shorts and singlet. He’s taking his two bluey cattle dogs for their evening walk.

I can see under the Frangipani branches, and right down the hall of the elderly couple’s little house. There’s a vegetable rack in the kitchen and a cat sleeping in the hallway.

A lanky teenager emerges from the next house and strolls up the road. He’s been working all afternoon on an old car in their front yard. It doesn’t seem long since he was a little kid. I remember the day he and his brother set up a stall on the footpath and sold straw hats. They were so funny, shouting out their sales pitch to all the neighbours. I went over and bought a nice lavender hat. I wonder what I’ve done with it!

There’s a light on in the front bedroom of the stucco house. The gardening couple next door to it must be out.

It’s a peaceful neighbourhood.

I go back into my hot house. Two of the cats, Olive and Ingrid clamour to come inside. “You’re crazy,” I tell them. Oscar has more sense. I take a cold shower and go to bed with my hair still wet. I fan myself with a bamboo fan until my arm drops down and I doze.

After a while a slight breeze comes through the window and makes the night bearable.

Next morning, I try the safety switch again. It clicks on! The fridge purrs. Whatever would we do without electricity! Now for a cup of tea….

Right when you think Christmas is safely over, the birthdays begin.

“It will be Grandma’s birthday tomorrow,” I told Miles on Friday. “Then Relle’s next week, then your daddy’s…”

“It’s not going to my birthday!!” wailed Miles. (His is in March.)

“Not for a while,” I said, “But sometimes people get a little present when it’s not their birthday. Look what Relle left here for you!”

Relle had called in earlier to show me the delicate figurine she had bought for Mum and to leave a whoopee cushion for Miles. “It’s going from the sublime to the ridiculous!” she laughed.

Miles was thrilled. He had badly wanted a turn with the big boy’s whoopee cushions at Christmas.

“It’s just like Robert and Callum’s! You blow it up, Meemar and then you say ‘I think I’ll sit on this nice cushion…’”

I did and said all I was instructed to. Miles fell about laughing. “Do it again, Meemar!” We did it over and over with the same reaction each time.

Relle sure knows the way to a small boy’s heart.

We celebrated Mum’s 80th birthday with a meal at “Spinnakers.” It’s one of those smorgasbord – eat as much as you want places.

It was a challenge, finding a suitable gift for Mum right after Christmas. I finally settled on a soft leather handbag. Jan gave her a lovely gold necklace. Lea gave her perfume.

“Try it,” Mum told me.

I sprayed some perfume on my arm. “Mmmmmmm….”

“It’s ‘Opium’.”

“Opium!” I sniffed my arm reverently. It’s an expensive brand. “I won’t wash that arm tonight. I’ll hold it out when I get under the shower!”

I could still smell it on my arm at bed-time.

Then I called Joel’s corgi, Nelson to come inside. (Nelson has been staying with me this week.) He came straight away.

I rewarded him with a pat. “You’re a good dog!”

Nelson gave me an adoring lick – right on top of the “Opium”.

Yuck!!

Frances came home with baby Hayley on Sunday. The hospitals don’t keep new Mothers in for long. Three days is really not enough. I’m glad Joel will be home this week to help.

Hayley is like a little doll.

“She’s too small to sit on a whoopee cushion,” I had to tell Miles.

It was a hot day when Hayley finally came into the world – 10 days late.

I had spent most of the day trying to keep big brother Miles cool. The electric fan helped as we watched Fantasia and played Pajama Sam on the computer. (It was too hot to do anything else.) Miles also played water games in the bath and during the afternoon we hosed one another in the shade of the big pine tree.

I was cooking sausages for our dinner when Joel phoned with the news.

“It’s a girl!”

“Ooh, that’s what we all wanted! How’s Frances?”

He handed the phone to Frances and we talked excitedly for a few minutes. Then it was Hayley’s turn.

“Waaaaah!”

“Listen!” I held the phone to Miles’ ear. “It’s your new baby. It’s arrived!”

“My baby!”

“It’s your little sister!”

Miles was so thrilled. Our sausages grew cold while I phoned family members and let Miles make the announcement, “I’ve got a little sister. It’s a girl!” We even phoned Ben and Agnieszka and got them out of bed at 1 a.m. in freezing California.

Yesterday we went to the hospital to see Frances and baby Hayley. Frances was radiant.

Hayley is like a little pink rosebud. She looks very much like Miles did when he was a new baby.

“She didn’t take long to be born once she got moving,” said Joel, who had been present. “The time just flew!”

“I thought it took forever,” said Frances.

Miles kept saying, “This is my little sister!” He proudly introduced us all to the nurses. “My name is Miles. This is my little sister. This is Meemar. This is my Daddy. This is my Mummy. I’ve got “Bob the Builder” sandals.”

We watched Hayley have her first bath. She yelled when she was being undressed, but she liked the warm water. Miles laughed at the Anne Geddes photos on the walls. “Look Meemar, two babies sitting in a lettuce!” He danced and pirouetted around the large room.

On the way home we had lunch at McDonalds. Miles received a wind-up cat toy with his Happy-Meal. Later when a friend phoned, Miles told her, “I’ve got a little sister and a purple and green cat from McDonalds!”

Relle and Mum saw the baby last night. “Her hair is softer than a pussy’s belly,” said Relle. “Just think …dolls …fairies …tea-parties …frilly pink dresses …”

Name: Hayley

Date: Wednesday, January 2 at 5.34 p.m.

Weight: 8 lb. 5 oz.

Characteristics: Mop of dark hair, very strong lungs.

Stay tuned for more details.