Month: January 2022

Just in case you were curious about the photo on the top of my page. It is the front of my studio where I paint and experiment with my herbs. A Sharman in the Amazon Jungle told me to build a jungle inspired place where we could communicate on a level which I did not understand until I built it.

(I’ll explain all about that another time.)

I made it with the high pitched thatched roof to use the jungle theme but as I live on a steep slope bit of land, I had to carve into the sloping land to get enough room. So the back wall is actually dirt! My 8 year old grandson thought I was building a Hobbit house. I made a Hobbit inspired door to give him credit. I made cobblestones for the floor and had a small waterfall flowing over a Mayan calendar plaque. Being open where the waterfall comes in, I have a clay Chiminea fire pit in one corner and it is surprising how good it warms up the area in the winter. It’s really quite a special place, very soothing to just sit in there especially when its raining and I have the fire burning. I spend a lot of time in there, I think it is very important for a woman to have her own space. A kitchen is definitely not a woman’s space – it is everyone’s. Since having it, I don’t know how I managed without it. I guess I was busy raising kids and working and studying but now I am retired and the male in the house is home all the time I reckon I would go nuts without my Hobbit studio!

Here’s a few photos –

Yes, we have had a week of 40+ degree Centigrade! I mean one or two days in a row is bearable but this is ridiculous. The birds and animals are desperate for water so I have many dishes and buckets scattered around my garden for them. The kangaroos come in early but the bandicoots are here all day. The birds are funny to watch – they have a hierarchy like the African animals with the water ponds. The large Black Cockatoos rule, everyone steps back to wait for them to finish. The Rainbow Lorikeets are next, they take longer because they have a bath as well. The different varieties of honey eaters have an unwritten rule – first in best served! The parrots and magpies are very sociable and and hang around all day. And then there is me! I get out of bed early, water the garden and get inside before the heat fries me. I am an artist and writer so even though I don’t like the extended heat waves, I have lots to keep me occupied. I am a Game Of Thrones fan so as a last resort I just watch that (AGAIN and AGAIN). Here is a photo of a kangaroo in my garden just before sunrise.

Here I was contemplating old age approaching and WHAM!! COVID smacks us in the face! My mother was in aged care when this all began. She was 91 years of age and could still get around with a walker, loved her breakfast and many cups of tea every day. She beat cervical cancer at the age of 47 and had a busy life enjoying her passion of gardening. At the age of 75 she fell and broke her hip and she recovered with a limp. Then she had Ovarian cancer – yes you guessed it! She recovered from surgery and chemotherapy! THEN …. at 91 she fell and broke a leg while in an aged care facility! She had surgery but finally succumbed 3 weeks later. The pain after surgery was just too much and she called it quits. My father died 40 years earlier.

What a tough old bugger Mum was! Due to COVID, we could not have a full funeral because of crowd restrictions so we had her cremated with the ashes of her cat Tabby, as she requested and kept her ashes to wait for COVID to ease off. But 12 months later no changes so we had a small family picnic at the cemetery she requested. We scattered her ashes as far away as possible from the grave of a family she did not get along with and played John Denver’s “Country Roads”. She was a typical country raised girl, raised us 5 kids with no electricity or running water. She had 4 of us kids under 6 years of age. Can you imagine the washing all done by hand – all those soiled cloth nappies having to be boiled up in a wood fired copper outside after having to cart buckets of water from the well! She had to have a dedicated washing day. They bred then tough back then!

Anyway, here we are January 2022 – over 2 years of COVID restrictions, rules and regulations and no end in sight. I am now 73 years of age and sometimes I am glad I am this age. I am glad I travelled overseas quite a bit not having to worry about viruses and pandemic restrictions. I am thinking I may not get my passport renewed in 6 years time – being an old fart. And to tell the truth, I am happy to stay home where I feel safe. Besides COVID, the world appears to be going stark raving mad!! The violence, drug use and greed seems to be getting uncontrollable. Not to mention politics and the media!!

Yes, I’ll stay home and become a hermit!

Talk to you soon.

Halle