Love in the Time of Corona

I have just read my last blog, written over a year ago. I had intended to finish the story, including the effects of the chemotherapy and my eventual recovery. Maybe one day. In the meantime, I’ve also had a hip replacement just before everything shut down in WA and I was isolated for two months – Covid 19, plus not being able to drive until my new hip healed.

I expected to do lots of creative writing in that time, but my Muse went on strike. I was told by other creatives in the family that they had the same problem. Artists and writers enjoy the silence of their own space, but it seems we also crave human interaction.

Once the worst was over, for us in WA, I started writing again, initially inspired by that isolation. My partner and I couldn’t get together for several months. This was my response, written for a poetry competition with ‘Love’ as the theme.

LOVE IN THE TIME OF CORONA

Now I wake to an empty space beside me

to the absence of your smile

your eyes alight with love

the gentle caress of your hand

on my thigh, my breast

the touch of your lips on mine.

I miss your greeting,

‘Good morning my darling

I love you my darling.’

Will I ever hear your voice again

so close beside me,

and know that for you

I am the most beautiful

most treasured woman in the world?

My Breast Cancer Journey cont: Finding a Lump

Again I want to state that my reason for publishing my story is to help others understand the importance of continuing to have mammograms as we age, regardless of what the medical ‘experts’ advise.

If you missed the first chapter, please scroll down and read it, to make better sense of this one.

I hope that by going public with my breast cancer journey I will help others who might also be somewhere on this journey.Continue reading→

The Joys of Modern Technology

Amazing isn’t it? Just when you need the computer to work, the printer to communicate with the computer and all that incredibly clever modern technology to just get on with the job, that’s when they have a breakdown.

This coming Sunday is a big day for me and for a group of my writing friends. We will meet at my house at 7.30am, ready to start writing a book for 10 – 14 year olds when we are given the parameters at 8am, via the computer of course. ‘Write a Book in a Day’ raises funds for The Kids Cancer Project; the money goes to research into childhood cancer and the books (written by lots of different groups like us) are given to children in hospitals all around Australia. Each writing group is given a different set of characters, a setting and an issue, plus five random words. By 8pm on Sunday our book, complete with illustrations, must be emailed to the organisers and the hard copy has to be posted on Monday.

I’m telling you this so that you will understand why I panicked last Friday evening when my laptop did a meltdown. I couldn’t actually read the message because the screen went dark blue, then black in seconds, but it was something like ‘There is no link.’

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Getting To Know My Dad

Born at the beginning of the Second World War, I have memories that are unique to an Australian child of that era. Many of us didn’t know our fathers because they went off to England to help the British fend off the Germans, or to places like New Guinea to fight the Japanese. For several years I have been writing my memoir. Not having a father in my life for those first few years meant that when he did come home, I had great difficulty learning to relate to him. In this piece I have tried to portray something of that feeling.

This is the photo, which I think shows my fears on that day when a ‘strange’ man came back into my life.

Because this is a very personal story I’m not sure how it will be judged by others and I don’t know if it is suitable for anyone other than my family to read. I will greatly appreciate feedback from you, my friends and family.

This chapter is an introduction to my memoir which I have called ‘A Child of the War Years.’

Please let me know what you think.

GETTING TO KNOW MY DAD

As a small child I thought ‘Daddy’ was a photo on my mother’s dressing table. When other children had real, live fathers to kiss goodnight, I had only that photo, of a man with bushy eyebrows and ears that stuck out below a dark blue cap. He had kind eyes and a wide smile that showed off his straight white teeth. I wanted to know why he had a picture of a crown on his hat and wings like a bird sewn on the pocket of his jacket. Mummy told me that I should be very proud because he was in the Royal Australian Air Force and he was flying airplanes in a place far away, called England.

The one occasion when I was aware of a man (hopefully my father) visiting our home in Floreat, he arrived at the front door with a broom and flowers for my mother. They hugged and kissed, then raced off into my mother’s bedroom and I continued playing with my doll behind the lounge room chair.

The visit was probably when dad had short leave from Cunderdin or Geraldton, although, even when based in Subiaco he would have had to stay in barracks most of the time. I must have been about two, because in the June he was in Victoria and New South Wales, leaving from there for the UK.

I was three and a half when my father returned home. Mummy, Granny, Grandpa and some of my aunts were at the Perth Railway Station to meet him. My big cousin, John, rescued me from a forest of legs—more legs than I’d ever seen—running past me, making me turn around and around searching for the people I knew.

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Sometimes I Think I Live In Paradise

Morning view from my back verandah

Only two weeks ago I was raving about the wonders of autumn. I took this photo from my back verandah, thinking how blessed I was to see this as I stepped outside each morning.

Then in the late afternoon, with the sun accentuating the pale bark, my large gum tree (I didn’t plant it, don’t know the name) stood out like a sentinel, towering over everything.

Parrots love these red blossoms

I’m sure the weeping specimen in front of it is not supposed to be flowering yet, but, before parrots denude it of colour, I rushed again for my camera.

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Autumn and Liquid Amber

Crepe Myrtle

Autumn is my favourite time of the year in the Perth hills. Morning air is crisp and dew is often present on the well established plants in my garden. In the last two years I’ve added a few trees for the colour of their leaves, when the summer flowers have finished. This Crepe Myrtle is only a year old, but already it brightens the little court yard, giving me a lift when I open the curtains each morning.

Chinese Tallow

My Chinese Tallow will eventually grow tall, but already it glows in the setting sun as the leaves slowly turn from green to this amazing red.

Then there’s my Liquid Amber. I have grown one of these in each of my gardens over the years, but the cooler nights up here have made this specimen the most stunning of all. A few years ago, when compiling my poetry collection, ‘Friends In My Garden,’ I wrote this poem for a friend who was an excellent clothing designer, creating gowns for weddings and balls.

I hope you like it and as always, please share it with your clever designing friends.

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I Have Found My Desk

This must sound like an odd title for a blog, but I’m sure most of you know that feeling of wading through papers every time you want to find one thing. I’m talking about the papers that stay on your desk, initially in some sort of order, which probably only you can follow, but they have to stay there until you can get around to dealing with them. Once they’re filed, or put away somewhere that makes the desk appear tidy, you forget about them – at least I do – until a nasty bill appears, or you receive an email from family, a friend, the tradesman who gave you that great quote which you promised to follow up and meant it. I mean the kind of quote that will increase dramatically when you ring again, or the tradesman will be overseas for six months if he hasn’t gone out of business.

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Getting Lost in Google

I can’t stand it anymore, the frustration of trying to find information on the internet. I guess you, too, have spent hours, wasted away a whole day at a time, or at least an afternoon, with Google, investigating sites that disappear as soon as you try a tangent, or once you’ve started on a path, lead you off to another one that is actually in Russia, or Lapland and has absolutely nothing to do with the information you seek.

Yesterday I had that sort of afternoon. I want to enter a couple of my stories in Australian Writing Competitions. Why don’t the promoters of such competitions give you the closing date, up front, in clear print? By the time I have investigated heaven knows how many sites, almost invariably finding that the closing date was yesterday or last week, my head’s in a mess. The one good chance that I did discover allowed me to read the winning entries from the last ten years. WOW! I can actually see what sort of material they want. Great. Now all I need to do is find the story which I’m sure will gain me the next prize if they would just let me know the closing date for this year’s entries. And if I can just remember what title I used for the last version so that I can find it again. Maybe it got lost when my laptop had a meltdown, but, a few deep breaths, quick prayers to whoever or whatever might be the patron saint, guru, karma of budding writers, and I’m sure I will have that little treasure resurrected and ready to enter.

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Favourite Books From The Last 12 Months

This weekend I am at the Writers’ Festival in Perth, so I thought it would be a good time to review some of my favourite reads since the last festival. I had the pleasure of listening to and meeting Louise Allan, a lovely, natural lady, who seems surprised and perhaps a little overwhelmed by the success that has come her way. I hope you will all read this, her first novel, and love it as much as I have.

I think all of my choices are excellent reads, but would love to hear your opinions and comments. I’d also like to know what your favourite books were.

The Sisters’ Song: Louise Allan

I am reading this book for the second time, partly because I recommended it to my book club and we are meeting to discuss it next week. I’m enjoying it even more the second time.

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Spring in the Hills

Spring is here again, and my camera has been busy, so today, instead of York in England, I have to write about my garden in Glen Forrest.

The view from my bedroom, into a private courtyard which is now finished, is already a delight and in a few weeks, when everything blossoms, it will be heavenly. From my study, where I write these blog posts as well as my short stories, poems and the latest novel (about halfway there), I am inspired by nature, which often includes a friendly goanna and lots of birds.

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