Mamalade

Last Thursday was Anzac Day

“What did you do in the war, Daddy?”

Dad didn’t talk much about the war when I was a kid. I suppose it wasn’t far enough in the past, then. I was 2 days old when he was called up. He was sent to Wewak in New Guinea. I remember him telling me about the Pidgin English the natives used - and how one of them asked him for scissors to “cut his grass” when he wanted a haircut…. that’s about all…

I used to ask why he didn’t have any medals. All the soldiers in the Anzac Parades wore lots of medals. Dad only had a bar pin with coloured stripes that all signified something or other.

A couple of years ago, my sister Relle found out that Dad was entitled to have medals. She wrote away and got them sent to him. Dad keeps them in a beautiful polished wood box that Relle bought him. I think he’s quite proud of them, really.

I remember watching the Anzac Day march when I was growing up in Gympie and how the big Memorial Gates in the centre of the town would be covered in wreaths. When we moved to Brisbane, where Mum and Dad had a shop, we had a grandstand view from the upstairs verandah as the parade progressed down the main street and into the Memorial Park. It was always a moving experience. Sometimes I would go over to the park and listen to the service.

There was a record attendance at the Anzac Day ceremonies this year. I didn’t go. I haven’t been to an Anzac Day march for some years now. There’s never anywhere to sit and I get dizzy if I stand for long.

My friend told me her daughter was marching - she’s in the cadets. “They have to keep perfectly in line,” she told me, “and all their arms have to be the same length…”

“Hah! What do they do if their arms are too long - cut off their hands?”

On Anzac Day morning this year, I woke to the sounds of a lone bugle on my clock radio, playing “The Last Post” at the Dawn Service. I wondered sleepily what it would be like to attend that solemn ceremony as the sun rose over the sea. Maybe next year…

A preacher began his Anzac Day message. He sang (unaccompanied and slightly off-key) a couple of verses from a hymn. It would have been better if he had just read it, I thought as I drifted back into slumber.

I dreamt I was standing in front of a group of people and I was singing,

“There’s a pawn shop on the corner
In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania…”

I have the weirdest dreams sometimes! I haven’t heard that song since I was 8. The amazing thing is, in my dream and for a little while after I woke, I knew all the words. Now, I’ve forgotten most of them again!

Dad was watching the march on TV when I went to their place. Mum’s sister Amy and her husband Bob came for lunch. So did Relle. During lunch, Bob dropped one of his tablets on the floor. Instantly, everyone (except Dad) disappeared under the table and groped around the floor to look for it.

“Is this it?”

“Nah, it’s just a crumb.”

“Hey, that’s my leg!”

I wish I’d taken my camera.

The conversation got rather ridiculous after that, as it does sometimes at our family gatherings….

“Ruth and Roland have gone up the coast…”

“So have Jan and Gary! They might run into each other..”

“They probably will. They often look up them.”

“You mean, look them up!”

“You mustn’t finish a sentence with a proposition.”

“You mean a preposition!”

“That’s what I said!”

“No you didn’t, you said…”

After lunch, Dad showed Bob his medals, then he got out a photo (which I hadn’t seen before) of his father’s younger brother Arthur, who had been killed at Gallipoli. He was only 19. Quite a nice looking young man, with a spray of flowers in his buttonhole. Dad showed us a copy of the letter informing the family that Arthur was listed as “missing.” That’s all the notification they ever had. We don’t know if he was shot before he got out of the boat, or if he was in the water or on the beach, or on that treacherous cliff.

I went to bed that night with a book I’ve borrowed, “A Celtic Childhood.” Not many books make me laugh out loud, but this one does. The language is rich and colourful. (The author, Bill Watkins says when he first heard the word “cursive” at school, he thought it meant his mother!) There are so many funny incidents in the book. Even after I turned out the light, I lay in the dark, chuckling. Goodness knows what my neighbour thought as he passed by on the footpath outside!

Our grocery shopping wasn’t so successful last week…

Mum had to go to the bank first.

I was still feeling weary after my expedition to the Valley. “I don’t need more money today,” I said. “I’ll just sit in the car - though maybe I should get a bun loaf for tomorrow…”

Nah, can’t be bothered, I thought as I settled back and watched the ducks on the lagoon.

Mum came out of the bank and went into the cake shop. After a while she came back to the car - with a bun loaf.

“Here you are,” she said. “It was free. They didn’t let me pay for it because I tripped over their doorstep and did a sugardoodle.” ( A fall.)

She had a big bruise beside her left eye that was swelling rapidly. She had tripped on the metal runner for the sliding door and fallen headlong into the cake shop. She must have got an awful shock.

A big bruise was coming up on her knee.

“You won’t feel like shopping,” I said. “We’ll just go home.”

“We could just do a bit.”

“I’ll just get the essentials,” I said. “You can sit in the car.”

“I’ll come and get the fruit. It might be better to keep moving.”

By the time Mum had selected her fruit and vegetables, she was glad to sit in the car while I dashed in to the Supermarket and bought cat food and a cooked chook for our tea. (No, we didn’t eat the cat food. Panther had it.)

Her knee looked very swollen. I was worried because she’s had both her knees replaced.

“I think we ought to let the doctor check you out,” I said.

“I suppose so.”

I stopped at Mum and Dad’s place on the way and told Dad where we were going.

“She’s alright,” I told Dad, so he wouldn’t be alarmed. “She went and got the fruit and veges after it happened, so she’s still moving around.”

We had to wait a while at the doctors. He said there didn’t seem to be any need for x-rays - he didn’t think anything had been displaced.

“But you won’t be going shopping for a few days,” he told her.

Not a very successful shopping trip.

I wish I hadn’t mentioned the bun loaf!

My sister Lea was browsing through the junk mail last time she was at Mum and Dad’s. She likes to catch up on the junk mail when she comes over, because it never gets delivered to her house - it’s too far out.

“If you’re wondering what to get Robert for his birthday, he’d love one of those,” she pointed to a page in the toy catalogue.

“Good,” I said. “I can get to that shop easily. I’ll just catch a train in to the Valley.”

So that’s what I did on Monday.

It’s ages since I’ve shopped in Fortitude Valley. There’s not much there these days - nothing like it used to be. Once you could browse through the big department stores all day, and at Christmas there would be crowds gathered around to watch the animated displays in the windows, but that’s all gone now. It’s mostly tacky discount stores, and the area has a bad reputation - not the kind of place you’d hang around at night, or even weekends.

But the toyshop is in the plaza near the station, which made it easy for me to get to - once I’d caught the train, that is. The only sure way of catching a train is to miss the one just before it, and that’s what I did. I would have made it if I hadn’t thrown out my old sandals- the ones with my pin number written inside them. I heard the train leave while I was in a long queue waiting to draw out some shopping money.

The man in the Valley toyshop was very helpful and found what I wanted. Then I remembered I had promised Miles I’d buy him another ball to replace the one Nelson (the dog) had chewed.

The man could only find one - but it wasn’t quite what I wanted.

I looked in the other shops and found a book each for two of my sister’s husbands. (Now, don’t get me wrong - that’s one husband each for two sisters!) They’re having birthdays this month, too. Then in one of the junky shops I found something I’ve been searching for. A feather duster. For Oscar. He loved the cat toy that Ben and Agnieszka sent him, but he’s pulled all the feathers out of it. Now I’ll have enough feathers to keep him entertained for months!

Outside in the plaza, a tall, shirtless man ran through, bouncing a big ball in front of him. I couldn’t help staring at the ball, wondering where he had bought it.

A security guard approached him and asked, “Will you put your shirt on, sir?”

Well, I thought, at least someone’s keeping an eye on the place.

And not just in the plaza. The public toilets had a sign on the door, “Under Surveillance.” That was a bit disconcerting as well as reassuring. Where do they hide the camera? And should I smile?

I remembered to wash my hands for as long as it takes to sing “Happy Birthday to you” right through. They say that’s how long it takes to wash away the germs properly. No, I didn’t sing it out loud, but that would have made my film clip more entertaining. Leaving the toilets always presents another problem. What if the last person to grab the door handle didn’t wash their hands?

I managed to get back to the station just as my train pulled in. Not bad.

Quite a successful shopping trip, really.

osunder

Oscar loved the feathers.

Sorting

My goodness, it’s almost the middle of April already!

I’ve been busy all week tidying my back shed - my jumble shed. I told one of my friends once that I needed to sort the junk in my shed. She said, “Why don’t you give it to World Vision?”

“It is World Vision,” I told her.

I use that shed to store all the stuff that people bring for our World Vision Jumble Sales. It’s a never-ending battle to keep it in order. Winter gear has to be stored during summer and vice versa. There’s a big bag for things that need to be ironed (and I’m so thankful for a helpful friend who loves ironing) a basket for things that need to be soaked and washed, then there’s toys to be mended, bags of stuff we can’t use to be passed on to other charities, Christmas decorations to be stored till December, things that could be made into something else, and lots more that I haven’t even had time to sort yet.

The reason for this latest big clean up was the promise of more stuff, which arrived yesterday. Lots of household goods and personal items that had belonged to a lady who had passed away.

I always feel I am on sacred ground when I am going through the belongings of someone who is no longer alive. I didn’t know this particular woman, but I can’t help wondering as I sort her clothes, what kind of person she was…where did she wear those dresses? Which of the books were her favourites? I stick prices on her pots and pans and wonder what kind of dishes she prepared in them. The old china plates from another era …I wonder what her family discussed when they gathered to eat off them. And how are they coping with their loss - now that she is gone?

What I do know is the sale of these items will make a difference in the lives of those who find it a struggle just to survive. That’s what keeps us keeping on…

We were kept busy all morning at our last Jumble Sale. I was amazed to see how well the plants were selling. It must be the weather. People are starting to think of gardening now that it has cooled down and we’ve actually had some rain. One man bought $41 worth of plants. I was about to say to him, “Make it $40″ when he handed me a $50 note and said “Make it $50.” I wish we had more customers like that!

Success always breeds more enthusiasm. The next day, I started potting more plants.

The most beautiful baby

I spent the afternoon with a friend who told me her little granddaughter is the most beautiful baby in the world. It would have been very rude to contradict her - and I’m sure her granddaughter is beautiful - but honest, you should see my little granddaughter, Hayley! She’s three months old now. She has the most gorgeous smile and she has started to laugh. Such a cute little chuckle!

I said to four-year-old Miles (who is also beautiful - he’s my grandson!) “Can you make Hayley laugh?”

“Yes,” said Miles. He leaned over her and asked, “Why did the chicken cross the road?”

Hayley just stared at him with her deep blue - might be going brown eyes. “She didn’t laugh,” said Miles in disgust.

Never mind, I did!