Mamalade

I haven’t written anything for three weeks. Some things are just too hard to write about.

Dad is in hospital. He hadn’t been well for some time. He had an upset stomach when every one else had flu last month, so we thought it must be flu. It was something far more sinister.

Two weeks ago an endoscopy revealed that he has a stomach tumour. A very aggressive one, the doctor said. An operation is out of the question.

He has got very weak. My sisters have been taking Mum to visit him twice a day.

I’ve been totally useless - I went down with another dose of flu and have spent most of the last ten days in bed with it. I’m hoping to be well enough to visit Dad later this week.

We had some interesting customers at our jumble sale last week.

An elderly woman bought a flowering Pointsettia in a pot. Her face was radiant. “I’ve been wanting one of these for my friend,” she beamed. “I don’t know what it is, but I call it the ‘Holy Spirit’ plant.”

“Oh, yes, the tongues of fire,” I knew what she meant. “It’s a Pointsettia.”

She browsed through the bric-a-brac and her face lit up again when she found an egg poacher.

“I know someone who want’s one!” she said. “The Spirit is really leading me today!”

Another woman told us about the trouble she’d had with her new false teeth. “I was on a bus one day,” she said, “and they annoyed me so much I threw them out. I don’t know what became of them!”

A young girl bought a warm jacket and asked, “Have you seen the woman who walks around the streets - the one they call the bag lady?” There is a homeless woman who walks around the shopping centre with all her belongings in a big striped bag.

“Do you think this would fit her?” asked the girl.

“Yes, I think it would.” I said.

“I’ll tell her someone gave it to me and it didn’t fit,” she said, and off she went to find the bag lady.

Then there’s the middle-aged man who comes in regularly and looks hopefully around for a well-endowed woman who flirts with him.

Someone brought a striped jacket to the table. “This hasn’t been priced,” she said. We sold it to her for two dollars.

I was sorting shoes and wondering why we had so many odd shoes (Is there a one- legged shoe bandit at large?) when one of our customers asked “Has anyone seen my jacket?”

“What does it look like?” I asked.

“Like a thick flannelette shirt. It’s striped.”

“Uh, oh!”

Luckily the woman who bought it was still in the room and she willing returned the jacket to its owner.

Someone picked up one of the odd shoes and said it was just what she wanted and where was its mate?

That’s what I’d like to know.

Another mystery is the kitchen sink. It’s zapping us again. I unplugged the electric jug and the hot water system, but we still get a tingle when we touch the steel sink. An electrician checked it last year and couldn’t find anything. The caretaker said its probably static electricity, but he’ll get it tested again.

I hope he does.

olliecuddle

The temperature has dropped way below normal this week. I’m wearing a thick jumper, a jacket, and I’ve put my dressing gown on as well. I don’t know how I’d exist in a cold climate. Sunny Queensland can get quite cold enough. I shouldn’t complain though - the days have been clear and sunny. And my furry friends are cuddly this weather.We didn’t tell our mother everything!

My little nephew Matthew was four this week. He was so thrilled to receive mail addressed to him. Lea said he held it for about an hour before he opened it. Isn’t it funny, if you give a kid a card with his birthday present, he’ll just cast it aside with hardly a glance while he unwraps his parcel. But if he finds the card in the letter-box, it becomes something special!

Matthew had a party with some of his kindy friends on Sunday morning. Mum, Relle and I went to visit him (and the rest of the family) after lunch. Matthew was excited to see us, but once he’d opened his presents, he was happy to run off and play with his friend Jared. Robert was playing games on the computer, so we were able to sit and talk with Lea and Jared’s mother Maree over afternoon tea. It was so peaceful, looking out at the sunlight on the tall gumtrees and bushland around Lea’s house.

“Look at the sunlight on those trees,” I said. “You couldn’t put curtains in a house like this, could you? Just as well there are no close neighbours to look in.”

“Like some of those houses along the beachfront,” said Lea. “You can see right into them when the lights are on, but it would be a shame to put up curtains, because of the view.”

“Ooh, I love looking into houses at night. I walked along the beachfront one New Year’s Eve. It was safe then, because there were so many people about.”

“It was like that when we were down the Gold Coast.” said Lea. “I walked along the beach at midnight looking for Joel when he was staying with us. He’d gone for a walk with a friend and didn’t come back till three a.m..”

“He never told me about that!”

“There’s probably lots of things he never told you. We never told our mother everything!”

“We used to go down the Rifle Range road,” said Relle. “We’d hang over the bridge, catching yabbies and men would go by in trucks with dogs and guns…”

“I never went far down that road,” I said. “I’d go a certain distance, then it would be too creepy through all that bush …but my friend Grietha and I used to walk out to the cemetery …”

Now that was a lonely place, in the middle of thick bushland. I don’t think I would go there now.

“Remember how we used to wander around the river bank…?”

“You couldn’t let kids do that now.”

“Even when Lea was small,” said Mum, “It was starting to get more dangerous. There were strange people around…”

“We come from different eras,” I explained to Lea’s friend Maree. “There’s four of us, with seven years between each.”

“You know that fellow who lived up past the shop?” said Lea. “He was at the toilets on the beach front one day and he offered us ten dollars to go with him. We all just ran!”

“You never told me about that!” said Mum.

No, parents don’t know everything that happens to their children. I just pray that our little ones that are growing up now will be kept safe.