Interview With Ben (age 10) About Saving Forests
Today, we had an interview with Ben, aged 10, a school boy in New South Wales who is doing a project on rain forests and the need for conservation. Ben sent me his questions by email and we hooked up with Skype, so he could record the interview.
I would like to share his questions and my answers with you – along with some of the photographs I sent to him by email for his project. The questions were all set by Ben and I simply answered them as I saw fit. His mother was present during the interview and was very pleased with the information Ben received.
1) How can we best preserve our rainforests?
It is very important that we understand the depth of their bio-diversity and that habitat is not just trees. Many people overlook little things about habitat: it is the fallen leaf litter and the decaying logs in which the lizards and the beetles live, as much as the beautiful butterflies in the tree tops.
I have been to Cairns in Northern Queensland and to Sabah in Borneo, to visit rainforests and to try and understand how we can ignore their value as part of our environmental health.
Rainforests need to be preserved in large areas, not little pockets here and there because our wildlife needs a lot of space in which to live.
2) You do something pretty special to preserve forests in Western Australia – what is that?
I am a blogger – because I believe the pen is mightier than the sword. If we want people to understand why we need to save forests and the unique creatures that live there, we have to tell people about them. We need words that describe how they live, why they are important and what is happening when we cut our trees down.
Sometimes, words are not enough. People need to see you taking action so last week, I drove down into the high value conservation forest of South West WA at Warrup (Block 6) near Bridgetown, to stand with other protestors against the logging of old trees. The devastation caused by the bulldozers clearing just an access road for the logging trucks is terrible enough.
I was so lucky – I saw a Numbat in the forest the first night I was there and when I got to the camp, I heard that another had been seen just up the track, on Parrish Road. We were right in the middle of a Numbat colony – that is being logged! It is terrible to think about.
3) When did you start protesting, and why?
I have been a protestor for the environment for many years. I started getting more vocal about four years ago when I started blogging and protesting about the dolphin slaughter at Taiji in Japan. I began writing stories about the environment as long ago as 1994 and putting them on the internet. I have written about whaling and had a story about whales published on the ABC Environment website.
4) How does protesting help preserve forests?
It helps preserves forests in several ways:
It makes people sit up and take notice of what is happening which would otherwise not be reported- It helps to actually stop the logging by us physically being there – in the same way as Sea Shepherd being in the Antarctic helps stop the taking of whales
- It adds to people’s education about what lives in the forests. Lots of people didn’t even know the Numbat is the official animal emblem of Western Australia until these protests started
By highlighting bad forest practices, we can get better management of our natural resources
5) Another way that you’re helping our forests is by writing children’s stories about them. Can you tell me more about that?
My stories are written under the name of “Stories My Nana Tells” and I can write a story about almost anything. I write for the 7 – 12yo market and all my stories are written so the children who read them find them interesting and help them learn something new. One of my favourite stories is “Where Have All My Spiders Gone?” and it combines a personal experience I had with a very clever spider and the idea that disturbing our natural environment upsets the food chain – causing species to disappear or become highly endangered. I wrote that story in 1994!
My goal is to get younger children thinking about how the environment is all interlinked – everything relies on everything else. Sometimes, life is a bit harsh. I saw three really beautiful orb weaver spiders get eaten right out of the middle of their webs a week or so ago – but, the bird that ate them had her own babies to feed. On the other hand, one of my friends sent me a picture of her orb weaver’s babies that had just hatched. Hundreds of them. So, there will be more next year.
We have to get people to understand that Sid: The Silver Skink who lives in an old log on the ground is just as important as the black cockatoo in the tree tops, dropping the marri nuts on the ground. I have seen little grass parrots picking up the marri nuts after the black cockatoos have been and getting the last remaining seeds out of them. It makes a great story.
6) What can kids do to help keep our Australian forests?
- Let their parents know they are concerned about having our forest preserved
- Get their schools engaged in projects about forests and having them declared as “hands off” areas
- Learning about the bio-diversity of their own local areas, who and what lives there and how that wildlife interacts with one another. Who lives there all the time; who migrates in from time to time?
- Writing to local and federal politicians, with their parents’ consent when there has been something in the news – because politicians are very sensitive about getting letters!
- Helping raise funds for local preservation and conservation programmes – which helps spread the word about the forests and our animals.
7) If someone wants to read your stories about the animals in the forest, how can they do that?
- They can join our mailing list – by contacting us through our website at http://storiesmynanatells.com We have some free stories we can share
- They can become a subscriber – by signing up on our website at http://storiesmynanatells.com and getting a new story every two weeks. We write about lots of different topics.
Sasha – Mum’s Huckleberry Friend
By September, 2010, Sasha had just turned 16 and was as beautiful as ever. While she had gotten a little thin under her magnificent Persian fur coat, she had mellowed very little. You could scratch the top of her head, if you were very quick at withdrawing your hand before she swiped you. She liked to head butt you, too, but you stroked her at your peril. She was not above giving Mum’s leg a quick slash if she was displeased about something.
She shared Mum’s bed while Mum read and slept and sometimes insisted, as cats do, that she was more deserving of attention than the book. It’s very hard to read with a large, furry Persian sprawled across the pages of your book, hair tickling your nose and two huge blue eyes staring at you, daring you to move her while her tail twitched almost imperceptibly.
She liked her fresh green grass every day and both Mum and Dad prowled the fence line picking a handful for her, of which she ate a little. But, it had to be fresh. We potted up some cat grass bought especially for her. Would she eat that? No way! She liked the garden variety, thank you.
She had afternoon tea with us every day, licking a little butter from Mum’s finger before ensconcing herself in her armchair. She sat in the bay window in the morning sun every day, warming her old bones and contemplating life, as all cats do. She never shared those thoughts with me and I doubt that they were idle.
She was a great companion to Mum. They had been a pair of gypsies together for many years – from North Perth to Rockingham, from Pinjarra to Rivervale. Sasha was even taken in at Archbishop Goody Hostel in East Perth, where she captivated the residents and staff alike. That was such a funny day. We had warned everyone about how savage “Sasha The Slasher” could be; that she was not cuddly and should not be touched. We brought in her carry bag, put the bag on the bed in Mum’s new room in the midst of a small throng of staff and residents, and warned everyone to stand back.
Did Sasha live up to those dire warnings? Of course not! She nonchalantly lay in the bag, and then allowed herself to be lifted out and touched by absolute strangers. Damn cat! Made us all look so foolish and the whole time she and Mum lived at Archbishop Goody Hostel, she was the perfect guest. In no time at all, she had the run of the lovely enclosed garden and a couple of times, when Mum had to go to hospital, a willing team of volunteers cared for Sasha.
Once, after they moved to East Vic Park, she got out of the unit, ran down to the back fence and as quick as a flash, she leapt over the back fence into the laneway. She was so agile, in spite of being 15 years old, that Mum was completely astonished. Mum had to run down the driveway, up to the corner and down the side of the neighbouring houses to get to the laneway and then along the laneway to find her. Mum was horrified at what Sasha had done. Luckily, Sasha was equally horrified at her daring and had gone to ground by the fence. She was an inside cat – outside in a world she did not know. It was the work of a moment to pick her up and carry her home – Mum telling her off all the way back about how naughty she was to do such a thing.
One day when we were at afternoon tea with Mum, she bolted out the front door that Dad had left open. I saw just a flash of fur as she headed down the side of the unit, towards the back yard and I was out that door and after her equally as fast. I picked her up behind the shoulders, held her at arm’s length and brought her back inside. She sulked with me for several days after that.
We had to take Sasha to the vet, for the last time. She had a large mass on her tummy, most likely a cancer, and had had pain relief. The vet has been very helpful and Sasha has had the best of care. She will be going up to Lawnswood Pet Cemetery and will be in good company with many of our past family pets. We bought a beautiful blue box with a blue and silver lining for her journey. She has had a good life with Mum and it was Mum’s decision that Sasha be treated with dignity as she came to the end of her life. I am very proud of my Mum – that she had the strength and courage to make the decision to part from her closest companion of the last sixteen years.
They have been “two drifters, off to see the world, there’s such a lot of world to see.”
Two drifters off to see the world.
There’s such a lot of world to see.
We’re after the same rainbow’s end–
waiting ’round the bend,
my huckleberry friend,
Moon River and me.
As Frank Sinatra sings it, she has indeed been my Mum’s Huckleberry Friend You can hear this beautiful song song here:
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Why Are You Always So Growly, Granddad?
“Why are you always so growly, Granddad?”
Those few simple words from our grandson, Michael, created a ‘tag’ for Robbie that became a badge of honour, affection and warning to the uninitiated or foolhardy!
It was a family gathering – birthday, Christmas, Easter, wedding – not sure which! Our blended family (which closely resembles a bowl of spaghetti in terms of sorting out relationships) was gathered together to celebrate whatever it was. In fact, it might just have been, “let’s do lunch”. It was a hot day. With his emphysema Robbie found the heat much more trying than the cold – thus generating Michael’s questioning observation.
Michael was about six, I think. There were at least six or seven younger ankle-biters as well as Michael – running inside and out – screaming, splashing with the hose, demanding drinks and chips, taking a endless supply of clean towels from the linen cupboard. Young brothers and sisters, cousins and friends – coming and going and leaving a trail of half-empty chip bags and chicken wings threaded across the veranda. Parents, friends and grandparents were enjoying themselves as we socialised on a hot Sunday.
Sometime in the early afternoon, Granddad finally found the squealing, the yelling was too much, and his bellow brought a sudden silence. Into the void stepped Michael, bearing the innocence of all children that saves them time and time again from any fearsome dragon they confront.
“Why are you always so growly, Granddad?” he asked, his earnest little face quizzical. We waited. Robbie looked at his grandson – his first – and perhaps saw himself, at six. He started to laugh and reached out to grab Michael and hug him. “Because that’s who I am,” he said. “I am Growly Granddad. So, watch out for me, young Michael!”
The other children came quickly to the fray and start dancing about and name-calling – “Growly Granddad, Growly Granddad” – and there was much laughter amongst us all. It was also a wonderful opportunity for some venturesome boys to be able to poke fun at their prickly granddad without getting into trouble. So, Robbie quickly becomes “GG” or Growly or Growly Granddad and I am “Nana Lesley”. For my granddaughter Jade and her brother Robert, I am Nana Stone. – from Stoneville. To children under the age of, say, five or six, all we oldies need to be identified in our own special way.
At a later time, we were at the airport waiting to meet Robbie when he flew in from Bangkok on a weekend’s leave. After the hugs and kisses, Annette’s son, Robert firmly positioned himself in front of Robbie with his hands on his hips and his expression earnest. “Excuse me, Growly Granddad. Was it my turn for you to forget my birthday?” A hug, a handshake and the laughing reply that “someone has to take a turn each year to have their birthday missed” saw Robert respond to his grandfather with great affection. It was a rite of passage between the man and the boy.
Many times in the years to come, we would gather ourselves around the long table that Robbie later made as a gift for his daughter, Christine. Unlike the table of the Neil Diamond song “The words he carved became his epitaph…For my children”, this table was greatly loved and highly prized. We could easily seat twenty people at this table, which took him many months to craft for her, just a little at a time. Emphysema does not allow you to do anything, quickly or easily.
I remember most of the day of his funeral, but in sort of flashes, pictures, rather than as a sequence of real events. I placed a photo from our wedding under his jacket pocket as he lay in his casket – his familiar “Imperial Leather” after shave scenting the room. I placed it face down, towards his heart, and whispered “I will go sati with you, Darling”.
I walked alongside the hearse holding a grandson’s hand and then gave out red roses as the mourners followed us into the Chapel. I sat close to Christine, watching sons, brothers and husbands carry in his coffin. Nearly fainting, as I stood by the coffin alone. We were numb with grief because her sister Karen, Michael’s mother, and my own daughter Annette had already died before him. It is a great pain to have to bury your own children.
We held his wake at Christine and Terry’s house. Most of all, I remember standing alongside that great table and hearing the words of Neil Diamond’s song playing in the background:
Morning light, morning bright.
I spent the night with dreams that make you weep.
Morning time,
Wash away the sadness from these eyes of mine,
For I recall the words an old man signed:
“For my children”
Neil Diamond sings “Morningside” (You tube) video)
How glad we would be, this Christmas, to hear him growl once more
Epitaph For A Growly Granddad
Soldier, taxi driver,
Construction supervisor,
Builder of bricks and of souls.
Companion of Pepper and Tung.
All the days of my life
I will love you.
Robin Purves Dewar
9/12/1936 – 8/6/2002
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The Getting Of Mao Tse Tung
Mao Tse Tung was a scrawny, battered, stray Devon Rex cat who appeared one day on the roof of the carport while Robbie was washing his red van. We had never seen her before, in the six months or so since we had moved into Onslow Street – behind the Zoo in South Perth.
She had soft, dusky pink fur – that looked like she had had a bad perm. Curly and disheveled, she hung her head over the edge of the carport and meowed at Robbie. “Help, I can’t get down,” she said in a most plaintive voice, rubbing her chin against the edge of the guttering. “Well,” said Robbie, “and where did you come from, young lady?” He put down his chamois and moved the short ladder over towards the roof, stepping up to pick up the stray. She did not move away in that infuriating way that cats always do, when they ask for rescue, only to retreat backwards and out of reach. Robbie picked her up, stroked the back of her head and placed her on the ground by the ladder. “Off you go, then” he said. “Go home, wherever that is.” The scruffy little cat wandered off.
About ten minutes later, her cry came again from the roof of the carport. “Help, I can’t get down.” Robbie looked up, laughed and again reached to bring her back down to ground level. She rubbed herself against his boot and then walked away behind the fence, her tail aloft and stiff. We had no idea where she lived or whose cat she might be, but she certainly had a way of making her presence felt.
As he was finishing drying off the red van and putting away his cleaning bucket, a face appeared on the roof of the carport. “Help, I can’t get down,” the little cat called. “No way, Jose!” said Robbie. “If you can get up there, you can get down as well.” He finished up in the carport and came inside, leaving the back door open just a crack. In a few minutes, a little pinky brown face appeared peering through the opening he had left, but after a minute or so, she decided not to enter and wandered away.
At that time, we had Pepper 1 (our first Dalmation), Muggins, Colin’s cat who caught river rats and brought them home, and Burt, the pink and grey galah whose cage was on the patio, living with us in our ground floor apartment. We really did not need any more pets and we assumed that the little curly cat lived in one of the other units in the complex of eight. I laughed as Robbie told me how she had conned him twice but not the third time, into being lifted down from the roof.
Through the summer and autumn months, she wandered by every now and then, and I took to putting some dry cat food and milk out for her. She was very thin and unkempt and did not look at all well cared for. She kept her distance from me and she would not let me stroke her nor could I lure her inside with food or milk. Soft words would not bring her to my door. Yet, for Robbie, she would appear unbidden and she would sit and watch him working on his van anytime he was home from his country work. He would give her a rough rub on the back of the head and she would climb on the roof, hoping to be “rescued” again.
Winter came and one night, a fierce storm broke around us. The rain came down in sheets, lashing wildly against the windows. The front patio was awash and a river of leaves and debris ran under the side gate and down the driveway. The carport gutters overflowed and the back door rattled in the wind. When I opened it to check to see if it was likely that the water would overflow into the kitchen, a sodden little creature flew in the door and right past me, into the unit. I was so surprised I lost my grip on the door handle and the back door blew right open, letting the rain and wind drive me back into the kitchen. I quickly grabbed the door and shut it again, putting on the deadlock to secure it. I was wet from head to toe and the kitchen floor was a mess. Somewhere, there was a small, scruffy, sodden cat – hiding from the storm in our unit.
After I cleaned myself up, and the kitchen, I went looking for her. I suspected she would be under a bed or in a corner somewhere, perhaps behind the lounge or the TV. It took quite a while to find her, secreted away in the bottom of the walk-in wardrobe in the spare bedroom. We had always thought that she lived in one of the nearby units and the way that she had bolted straight to the spare bedroom and into the wardrobe made it clear that she knew her way about the units. She was busy cleaning herself, drying off her drenched fur and took no notice of me at all. I left her to her own devices, quietly smiling to myself and thinking that I finally had my new cat. I put food and milk in the room for her and let her be. I closed the bedroom door behind me. “Tomorrow,” I told myself, “she will be so happy to stay here.” Whether she, Muggins, and Pepper would get on together was not a consideration, because they had become very aware of each other over the past six months or more and had shown no signs of not accommodating one another in a very small territory.
The morning dawned fine and dry – the storm well past. The back door was hooked open on its latch and the rubbish bins retrieved. When I had swept up the small amount of rubbish lying about, I went to the bedroom, opened the door and looked into the wardrobe. The scruffy little cat, dry but still looking much disheveled, looked up at me. I started to crouch down, speaking softly to her, only to have her launch herself between my feet, bolt for the door and disappear out of view. She literally hit the floor running and did not stop until she was through the lounge room, down the length of the galley kitchen and out the back door. She had eaten well during the night and she had no intention of being caught inside. I had simply been “any port in a storm” and she didn’t give a fig that I wanted to adopt her.
When Robbie next came home, I told him the story and we started to make enquiries amongst the other people who lived in our complex. Gradually we pieced together a tale of an oriental lady (maybe Chinese) who had lived alone with her cat; who had moved; who had returned many times to try and find her cat; who no longer came looking. Our rough and ready lady was indeed a stray. One who seemed to have decided that she definitely liked life on the streets, apart from the occasional winter storm.
By the end of the winter and into spring, we came to terms with each other: she and I. My job was to leave food out for her and to stop trying to catch her or lure her inside. Her job was to turn up when she felt like it and when Robbie was home, to keep him company in the carport.
So it went, until we had to move. We were going to live in a caravan, to save money to build our own home. We packed up our belongings, put most of them into the railway wagons on the block on which we were to build our house and took the rest to the caravan. We had already moved Burt’s cage and put him in it. Pepper and Muggins were in the van. It was the very last day.
“Robbie,” I said. “I don’t want to go without the cat. She is a stray and no one is caring for her. But, what can I do? She will not come to me. She will not let me cuddle her or stroke her. What can I do?”
“Go and stand by the divider at the end of the kitchen and don’t move,” he said. “And be quiet!” I did.
He squatted down on his hunkers, about one third of the way up the kitchen. He waited. Within a minute or so, the little cat appeared at the back door. He clicked his fingers. She walked in. “My missus wants you, you know that,” he said. “So come on here and stop messing us about.” I watched her walk up to him and lie down at his feet. He picked her up, ruffled the fur on the back of her head and stood up as he turned around. “Here is your cat,” he said. I took her from him and she settled against my shoulder, purring into my neck. He lifted his hand from the back of her neck and smiled at us. “Can we go now?” he said.
She stayed with us for many years and gave me great joy. That was The Getting of Mao Tse Tung.
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Splinter – Bedraggled
Teng Sing Tung, the elegant Tonkinese, was my heart’s delight and his accidental death devastated me. At that time, in late March 2006, I was going away overseas and I could not leave my Dad (Nono) home, alone without a cat. So, on a sunny Saturday afternoon, I put a cardboard box onto his lap and said “This is for you!”
Splinter - High and Dry
Nono was gob-smacked to find the tiny, tabby kitten I picked out at the vets. He was very aloof, with big eyes and ears like a bat. I explained that this tiny creature (hardly bigger than the palm of Dad’s hand) was his own cat and that he would have to take care of him.
He climbed up onto my Dad’s chest, licked his face and neck and settled down on his shoulder. They bonded instantly. My Dad (who was just about to turn 88 ) had never had a cat of his own. I cannot remember our family being without a cat – but they had all belonged to someone else. Never Nono. He called him “Splinter” – being too small to be a chip (off the old block).
We were sitting outside and in a little while, Dad got up to start watering the garden and the pot plants. He put Splinter down near me, where he started to explore: the bricks, the sand, the gravel and then the garden bed on the outside right hand side of the shade house, in which there was a pond and water lilies. On the left hand side of the entry to the shade house was a big blackboy grass tree.
Splinter showed no fear of anything: not Pepper, the old Dalmatian nor Burt, our Pink and Grey Galah. He is part Bengal and he loves water, including the spray from the pond pump. I found two good sized logs of wood and put one into the water lily pond and the other into the second pond around the corner. He was investigating everything he could find and see (which meant it could be no more than three inches off the ground) and if he did fall into either pond, he would be able to climb onto the log and get out. I was taking no risks with this little adventurer.
Within half an hour, he was dragging himself out of the pond by the front of the shade house, bedraggled and sopping wet. He was soon dried off, Dad went back to watering and I was reading my book. As the afternoon shadows lengthened, we realised that Splinter was nowhere in sight – although he had last been seen trying to catch some little moths and insects hovering around the roses, growing in pots. We looked for him everywhere – in the garden, the bushes, the house, the shade house. Amongst the jungle of plants including the giant birds’ nest fern – with no success.
I searched under the big blackboy, with the old dead fronds sweeping on the ground and even broke them all off back to the point where the trunk was clear for up to a foot from the ground. Nothing. No kitten. No big eyes or white whiskers. Only a big motorbike frog!
Endless calls of “here, kitty, kitty” and “puss, puss” brought no response. We agreed that it was not likely he would have wandered too far away into the real bush – he hadn’t drowned – so we would try and flush him out of his hiding place with the hose: wherever it was. Dad started gently hosing every possible hiding place we could think of, in the garden and the shade house, and after an hour he decided that the only place Splinter could be was in the blackboy. That was where he was last seen and so Dad started letting the hose run down through the spines, saturating them until the trunk was running with water.
Blackboy spines grow very close together and curve back towards the trunk, so any water on them runs back down to the centre of the plant. There was a veritable waterfall coming down from above and running down on to the gravel bed.
Suddenly, there was a little flash of movement in the fast fading light. “Keep hosing,” I called and went down on my hands and knees under the dripping plant. Sure enough, a sodden, miserable scruff of a kitten was scrambling down the trunk of the blackboy. He had been there the whole time we had been looking for him. In less than half a day, he had already had lost two lives: one in the pond and one in the blackboy.
Splinter and Nono
Inside, dried and cuddled, warm and safe, he purred and looked at us with his huge eyes and ears pricked and I could read his mind: “Well, now we know who the boss is!” Nearly five years on, my Dad is still besotted with the little terror and I idly wonder what life might have been like without him. Rather boring, I think.
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As a footnote: blackboy has been a commonly used name for Australian grass trees – also known as Balga. The botanical name is Xanthorrhoea preissii
I believe the name “blackboys”originated from many years ago, when aboriginals were seen to stand on one leg in the bush, motionless for hours at a time, and it was very difficult to distinguish them from the surrounding bush. This is the story my grandmother told me; she was born in the 1890′s and lived many years in bush country. When we first went to Stoneville amongst the “grass trees” in the 80′s she was scared for me, of the aboriginals coming out of the bush and not being friendly.
Nono, Bluey, Nana’s Dad
One of the people you will meet in Stories My Nana Tells is Nana’s Dad – variously referred to as Nono (from when her Mum was learning Italian), Bluey (his nickname all his life) and probably never by his real name, William James Nancarrow.
He is a huge part of fabric of Stories My Nana Tells – as you will learn. Nothing sums up his role in the lives of the people and pets in Stories My Nana Tells better than this letter sent to him in 2005 – from Canada – for his birthday. He is still just the same today – caring, helpful and totally in the thrall of the pets.
Thank you, Dad
Dear Dad
Just a quick note before we go up to Montreal tomorrow, because we haven’t forgotten it’s your birthday. You won’t get to read this until well after the event – the pigeons are pretty slow between Canada and Australia at this time of the year. But before we go, I wanted to write and tell you how much you are appreciated and loved. When we phoned you tonight (March 26 for us – March 27 for you) to wish you happy birthday, Colin and Pauline were a bit teary because it has been so long since they have seen you except in photos. And Mum, too.
We are so pleased that Warren, Lisa, Gordon and the rest of the family took you out to Chapel Farm, in the Swan Valley, for dinner. And what a co-incidence that my Nana & Pop lived in that house so many years ago. I used to feel as though I knew that house but didn’t know why. Then, one day when Robbie and I were bringing Mum up to Stoneville for a visit, as we went past the old house, she remarked that Nana and Pop had lived there and when we came down from Big Bell we stayed there.
I knew that I could rely upon my excellent son and his lovely wife to make sure the event of your birthday was not missed. 87 years old, and an old Midland boy, at that. Bluey (William James) Nancarrow.
We are all very indebted to you for the way you help us take care of our families and homes, especially when we want to go away on holidays. Warren and Lisa at Christmas time were away around the world for six weeks. Every day, you watered the garden, through the heat of the summer. Morning and night you either let out or locked up the chooks and the cats.
Amber (she is a naughty girl, that cat) would often keep you waiting until nine or ten at night, before she would come sashaying home and throw herself on the dining room floor.
Neurotic “Kitten”, living behind the TV for six weeks and then coming out on the very last day to let you cuddle her.
You are a wonderful help to me – and have been for years now, even before Robbie died. It is so lovely to be able to plan to go away on holidays or just to stay out overnight at Mum’s and know that you are there to take care of Pepper and Tung. I suppose I will have to come clean at sometime in the future and admit that it is more you taking care of me, not me taking care of my old Dad. After all, it’s you who makes sure I have breakfast every morning at 7:00!
For me, personally, you are good company and a good friend. While we have our moments of disagreement, you have made my life so much easier than it might have been after Robbie died. You take excellent care of the garden and the yard; you are pretty good on getting down the cobwebs and we really do enjoy a good game of footy together on the TV. You fix vacuum cleaners and make excellent rice pudding. I really enjoy our walks around in the bush, while you show me all your new plantings.
Pepper II and Tung have you wrapped around their little toes and it’s so funny to see you pandering to that little, blind Tonkinese cat, who eats his dinner with no fuss at all, where I give it to him, when you are not here. No running about to put it in his sun lounge and all that stuff, when Tung and I are on our own. And Burt will always respond to “Where’s Bluey” with a whistle or two.
A drink or two in the Sawyers Valley Tavern is about your limit and you are always up to being the skipper, which is probably a good thing for me (and Warren, if Lisa is singing with WASO or the Opera Studio) on a Friday night. I might be on the other side of the world, Dad, with one of my excellent sons and his wife, but we all want you to know that you are an excellent father and grandfather and we appreciate and love you very much.
Happy Birthday, Dad (Nono) from your family away overseas,
Lesley, Colin and Pauline
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