What we did next…

Our first gig at the Narara Community Centre went so much better than I could have hoped. John Seed and River (his son) sang a couple of funny songs and then we were on. Everything starts early in Australia so it was only 7.20 when we started playing. We did a few songs on our own and then ‘the band’ joined us… It was brilliant turning round and seeing my nephew Thoma grinning as he remembered the tricky little things we had practiced, Rosa singing her heart out with the newly formed ‘Narara Eco-Village Community Choir’ who in only an hour’s rehearsal had thrown themselves in…and Mike, coming up with little moments of improvised brilliance which almost made me forget the words. None of us were perfect but it had energy and courage and that’s my favourite thing in any gig…

After a restful Sunday we headed South to stay with one of Ellie’s best friends. Ellie had known Lucy since she was at school and both of them had ended up living in Australia only seven hours apart.

The journey down there was a well worn path for Ellie and Thoma – each rest stop well known and with a bit of family folklore. I could feel Ellie’s delight at getting to show us this very different Australia…with wide open prairie like plains, softly swaying trees, and big, big skies.

We loved Lucy and her family – and their two farm dogs…we got to go for long slow walks along hot dusty tracks, we swam in wide meandering rivers, visited a beautiful waterfall and a gold mining town…Thoma got to practice driving up and down the farm track – Rosa, Hannah and Ellie did a really difficult puzzle over a few days and we even went to the movies one afternoon…and all the while I continued my search for snakes (there had been one of the deadly brown ones gliding through the back yard the day before we arrived – so close!), …it was peaceful, beautiful …and very hot.

One night Steve took us out to see kangaroos at dusk…and when we found them they were so many of them, everywhere we looked, and for the first and, as it turned out, only time in Australia, I got a sense of this being their country…

…I could leave out the next part of our story, and if Ellie wanted me too I would have …but death is part of life and the reality is that one of her dear friends, Naomi, died suddenly and unexpectedly while we were at Lucy’s.

As my sister clung to me that Tuesday morning when she heard the news, all the people she had lost as a child came gathering around us…adults make some odd decisions in the extremities of their own grief and my sister, aged six, had not come to her own mum’s funeral, or been told her mum had died for three weeks after the funeral – I am certain it was a decision made in the exceptional circumstances of our mum’s death – being in the middle of moving from Derbyshire to Weymouth with none of our support network around us, and me not there because I was staying up in Sheffield to do my exams…so, for three weeks my little sister walked into rooms with people grieving, no mum or sister anywhere to be seen and no idea what was going on… I’d say that has set my sister up for a life of dealing with anxiety, anxiety that she has done incredibly well to manage, and I’m sorry not to have known then what I know now and fought for her to come to the funeral and at least have a chance to understand the behaviour of the adults around her. I believe we all did our best, I’m just deeply sad that we didn’t know how, or have the chance, to face our mum’s death together as a family…

Back in the present I was grateful to be there to be able to hold my beautiful sister while her heart broke…

Ellie loved Naomi and she will carry on loving her – they texted nearly every day and had worked together as part of a team for eight years, fundraising for some of the worlds most deserving people with charities including Amnesty International and Barnardos, Naomi was only in her early forties and she is so missed…

It was good that Ellie had me and Lucy physically close in those next few days.

We carried on walking and allowing the beauty of the land that surrounded us to hold us…

Grief takes time and cannot be rushed…it always reminds me of the ‘Bear Hunt’ story, you can’t go under it, you can’t go over it, you can’t go round it…you have to go through it.

Thank you for your life Naomi.

We drove back the way we came with the same rest stops in reverse – time doesn’t stop for grief we carry it with us and our next adventure was about to begin…

We were off to Bartington Tops – a piece of wilderness, and one of Mike’s favourite places in the world – he heads up there regularly to camp out and on one occasion he and his mate realised the man standing in the river 100 yards up stream was a serial killer who had been on the run for five years  (that bit of info didn’t sell it to me I have to be honest – we’d already been travelling for over an hour off road when he told us that little gem).

I-so-lated!!

Still, he’d been caught eventually so I probably didn’t need to worry…

The off road driving was not for the feint hearted and it went on and on…who comes here? It was so far off the beaten track there almost wasn’t a bloody track… There was literally nothing near by, NOT a good place to get bitten by a snake.

It was so worth the journey though…a new landscape for us, a wetland, high up (the clues in the name ‘Tops’) and the place was teeming with life. We arrived in sunlight, but within an hour, the mist we had driven through had risen to meet us…

We put up our tents, gathered firewood for cooking and Ellie and I went for a walk around the marsh – hearing rather than seeing the red kangaroos bounding away up the slopes…wandering into what looked like a fully paid up committee meeting of red and blue rosella parrots – thirty or forty of them gathered in a clearing sitting on the branches of trees, on fence posts, some on the ground and some in the middle on a dead log – all of them chattering away – for ages. What do parrots talk about? (My best guess was which one of them would be on Strictly this year and how funny it was that England are so crap at cricket in Australia…) We spent some time looking for a feather after their meeting ended…and then headed back to help with dinner.

Mike was chief cook and we were eating barbecue stuff with roasted veggies …and a big dampa bread he cooked in a cast iron pot. Rosa learned how to make the dampa and Theo and I did the barbecue veggies…it got dark while we cooked and we sat chatting round the fire eating the best ‘bush tucker’ we’d ever had : )

Mike had seen wombats here, and tiger snakes, and there were often brumbys as well. (What are brumbys? They didn’t sound dangerous but then neither did blue ringed octopuses – were they small?, did they have wings? – did they bite?!)

I got up really early the next morning and headed out round the marsh…it was still misty and the air was soft and quiet.

I really didn’t think I’d see a snake in this weather but I had full protective gear on just in case (socks and long trousers) …after half an hour or so I got a sense that ‘something was going to happen’ (although I spend quite a lot of time out walking thinking something is ‘going to happen’ – I guess it was inevitable it would one day : )-

A few times I heard the rhythmic thud of the kangaroos bounding away through the forest …and then I heard a snorting and a squealing straight ahead of me… a wild boar and a baby were charging up the side of the valley and another bigger boar was stuck on the dead tree trunk branches that had been their home for the night… Mama boar eventually disentangled herself and bolted after the other two – it was so exciting I went back to the camp to see if anyone else was awake… time for a family adventure : )

Surprisingly everyone was up and we headed off again – no wild encounters this time but we heard what sounded like a car alarm – in the middle of the marsh! We recorded a bit of it and played it back to Mike who had stayed to look after camp (from brumbys?!) …he listened and proclaimed ‘Liar bird’. Liar birds can literally imitate any sound they hear, he played us a clip of one of them imitating a tent being zipped up…and it did sound exactly like a tent being zipped up…our world is so interesting!

When we got back down off the mountains (after a brief encounter with three brumbys and an hilarious visit to the world famous ‘cock rock’) we headed home…and Rosa turned twenty. She wasn’t super keen to leave teenagerhood behind – it really is a big deal going from 19 to 20, but time doesn’t stop because we want it to and the inevitable happened…

We had a little party and went to an outside crazy inflatable swimming place where you could hurl yourself along slippery rubber walkways and off tall bouncy pyramid structures, (and then spend fifteen minutes trying to haul yourself back out of the water) – the teenagers (and Rosa!) had fun…and I survived, noticing that Ellie had chosen to park the car and ‘take photos’ rather than ‘have fun’! It was lovely to have Ellie and Thoma there to celebrate with her…and Ellie’s pressie won the day!) (…see photo: Rosa in full shark onesie)

Two days later and it was time for Theo and I to head north.

We were going to stay with Kev and Lowanna Doye, friends we hadn’t seen for twenty five years, since they’d cycled (oh yes, CYCLED) to Australia.

The time we spent in Bellingen with Kev and Lowy was full of all the things I love in my life and gave me a glimpse of a future I had forgotten I could have.

The family home was full of light and comfort – the wooden cabin at the end of their garden became a little sanctuary for us…somewhere to watch the yellow robins in the day time and pademelons at night. It was peaceful and deeply in the nature that surrounded it… (pademelons are very, very small kangaroos for those of you who, like me, had never heard of them).

Lowy was away for the first few days and Kev was working in the wholefood shop he and Lowy first opened twenty years ago, so a pattern emerged; I would walk in the mornings and then write or play guitar, and in the afternoons Theo and I would walk again and then cook dinner for the family.

It was lovely sitting round the dinner table each night chatting. House rules were all devices went away at dinner and didn’t come out again…quite something with three teenagers and a busy couple living under one roof…I realised how much I loved those meal times – discussing the ‘apples and onions’ of the day (best and worst moments) the camaraderie and the gentle banter, the ease with which Edan, Juni and Skye asked us questions…and how they listened to the answers.

As a family they were all Arsenal fans and one morning I came up at 6.00 to find them all watching the highlights of a match before school, Kev had brought a bit of England with him : )

We learned a lot about Australia being there – about rural community life and the volunteer fire service that protects the forest and people’s homes, about the ongoing battles to save forests and about what life can be like when you live somewhere where Aboriginal family and leadership is more up front and centre. We learned the difference between ‘acknowledgement of country’ and ‘welcome to country’… welcomes can only be done by aboriginal elders, acknowledgements can be done by anyone.

We met the local choir and rehearsed a few songs with them and when the drum support fell through Kev stepped up, not only can he be dad to four incredible young people, captain a busy branch of the Rural Fire Service, cycle to Oz, and run a wholefood shop …he can drum as well, he wasn’t confident but he was brilliant : )

When Lowy returned she gracefully wove me into her life. Thinking about things she’d love to show us and things I might like to do…

We went out ‘spotting’ one night with a wonderful self taught spotting guru and his daughter – they had very bright head torches that could focus on a spot thirty metres away. He took us to a very remote piece of old forest and we walked in the dark for over two hours, a wonderful experience itself…listening for snuffles, grunts and slithers and looking up into the tree tops – the trick is to have the head torch right next to your eyes because you are looking for a gleam!

We saw a sugar glider, a tawny frogmouth (looks like an owl but isn’t) and a greater glider…the gliders were super cute and we absolutely would never have seen them without the head torches …we also saw a good looking frog who we decided was way better off staying a frog so no one did any kissing.

Lowy also took me to two yoga classes and the second one was on a Wednesday lunch time – I walked out wondering what I was feeling…peaceful, yes, connected to my body – definitely… and relaxed, but underneath it all there was another feeling …freedom. I’d felt it once before as a twenty-two year old when I went travelling by myself for the first time. I’d left my rucksack in my room and walked out through the guesthouse entrance into the streets of Kathmandu… freedom to do what I wanted to do with my life.

That was a precious gift and a wonderful thing to remember…

We came back from Bellingen refreshed and ready to see Grace and Lucy again… as is always the way in life some of the things you thought were a sure bet just don’t turn out.

Rosa and Lucy have their birthdays one day apart and in the quieter days of Covid Ellie and I would secretly plot and plan a joint birthday party for them one day, but Lucy and Grace’s mum had planned this year to be the girls first trip abroad – she took them to Vietnam for the whole of January…which was both sad for us and amazing for them… they arrived back during our time away and Rosa had gone up for Lucy’s birthday party (they get on soooo well 🙂 and now it was our first chance to see them again after the wedding and I had asked all three girls if they were up for singing with us for the Rising Tide gathering that weekend…?

I’m a firm believer in activity as a way of bonding and I knew Lucy was a singer before I left the UK but listening to Grace singing in the car on the way to the Blue Mountains I knew she would be great too…

Elaine picked us up from the bus in Newcastle and took us back to Mike’s, back to mad Molly the collie and the girls. After lots of hugs and licks (only from Molly – although Ellie and Mike have a disgusting habit of licking their finger and wiping it on each other whenever they see a land-rover…so gross : )

We drove down to Ellie’s that evening and moved back in – it was so great to be with Lucy and Grace and hear their Vietnam adventures and to catch up with Rosa again, after our first time apart in five months…

Theo went to the Rising Tide gathering with John the next morning and I rehearsed with Grace and Lucy, teaching them both the main lines and the harmonies. Mike, Thoma and I practiced in the afternoon and then headed over to the event…

It was full of people learning how to climb into trees and talking about strategies to try and deal with climate change…we set up, went out into the grounds and played on a zip wire, ate some great food and then it was time to play.

It was a storming gig; short, full of audience participation and with a group of mega enthusiastic teenagers sitting right at the front, loving everything Rosa, Grace, Lucy and Thoma did – in the last song I got them all up to sing with us…it was a great end to what ended up being our best gig (nothing was going to top playing with our whole family : )

The following week was a busy one…we moved in to live with John, Megan and River – as woofers. In exchange for food and board we worked four hours each day – Megan was in the middle of a self build and needed all the help she could get.

…it was good to do something physical and practical, sanding doors, choosing colours, cleaning tiles and painting samples on walls. Theo looked after River sometimes and we cooked food together – the week passed in a flash with another fund raising gig and a choir workshop thrown in for good measure. Julian playing drum with us expertly for the third time and the choir knowing the songs way better now, and wonderfully pulling off a performance of ‘wrong side of the road’.

We wanted to interview John and do another day of work with Megan so we made a plan to come back in the week before we left…it had been fun and busy and our fund raising tally was mounting.

On the Friday we headed back to Ellie’s to get ready to go up to Mike’s – it was party time!

We had a practical chat with Ellie about things we could do to help get ready for the party then we picked up the lovely Chaleigh from the station (close friend and work colleague who had spent the previous weekend running 100 miles!) and took her with us – we had a curry at Mikes and then Theo and I headed off to stay at Elaine’s.

The girls and Ellie were coming to us to get ready because all the dresses were stored at Elaine’s and she and I had a fun morning shopping for ‘lollies’ (all sweets are called lollies in Oz and Ellie and Mike wanted a bowl full on each table…we went a bit ‘sweettastic’, we even bought some that dyed your tongue different colours…)

We started getting ready earlier this time (lessons learned) and we all looked properly ‘weddingy’ when we left Elaine’s. We had persuaded Ellie and Mike that it would be good if there was at least an entrance and a ‘ladies and gentleman the bride and groom’  moment, managed very well by Theo. This meant we needed to arrive fifteen minutes later than everyone else, just adding to the relaxed feel of the day… it was lovely putting nail varnish on and watching the girls playing with their hair and make up  – remembering little details of the actual wedding.

Time to go, and amazingly no one was in the car park when we arrived – we managed to get Mike’s attention and we went through into the party room in the same order we had in the wedding with Rosa leading the way…

It was so much fun – Ellie and Mike were raising money for charity rather than asking for presents, so everyone had been encouraged to bring ‘gold’ for the games) We made and flew paper airplanes, threw coins…trying to get them on a bit of tape, and there was even a trivia quiz…(which despite assembling a crack team we failed to win)…the food was simple and delicious and we danced to Ellie’s absolutely rubbish playlist 🙂

It was such a good night and I met loads of people who love my sister from all parts of her life… The next day a bunch of us went for breakfast as a gang and then headed home.

…it was our first big goodbye, we wouldn’t be seeing Elaine again…she was Thoma’s ‘spare granny’ and my nieces actual granny and we had all fallen a little in love with her – she taught me how to make a delicious potato bake and I had rummaged through all her bags of op shop clothes on the Saturday morning so I’m bringing a bit of Elaine home with me as well – so glad we got to meet you, and even more glad you are now part of our family xx)

The clock was ticking now – in two weeks we’d be leaving. We wanted to make the most of every moment so, I looked up where the best place was to see wombats …and after a morning of work for Rosa and Ellie we headed off to Kangaroo Valley… and because I can,  I’ve decided to put our animal encounters in another blog so no details of that particular adventure here…

The next day we started our final week living away from Ellie’s – we were spending the last four days all together but in the meantime we were going to live in Zoe’s mum and dad’s annex – they had generously agreed to welcome us into their beach side home, overlooking the Pacific, and I went for a couple of early morning dips with Nerida (mum)…and one of my quotes of the trip was uttered by Terry as we headed off to Coledale for our last gig, ‘make sure you drive fast and dangerous’ – no one ever says that and I burst out laughing…

The gig in Coledale was brilliant, we stopped to do our thirteenth radio interview on the way publicity for the event and another opportunity to talk about climate change. The club was full and the choir all turned up in t-shirts with the choirs name in it, already knowing the words AND the harmonies : )

It was a great gig and huge thanks so much to Cath for her care for our planet and for us…

We stayed with a Peter and Pamela who had met each other in England, and Theo stayed up late talking politics with them. After a wonderful breakfast of avocados, toast and fruit we headed back to the beach…

It was good to connect with that vast ocean before beginning the long journey home…

Theo had put hours of hard work into trying to get us a berth on a cargo ship, sharing our press coverage and the opportunity for a ‘good news’ story for their company – he got some warm replies but cargo ships just don’t take passengers any more and the yacht season starts in April…it looked very much like we would be heading back to Darwin again and trying to find bloody Wayne with his propellor plane…!

In the meantime I got to walk ever more wistfully along the shore, staring moodily out to sea, contemplating the vastness of the ocean and the meaning of ‘all this’ until the emptiness of my stomach interrupted my slightly miserable review of the impermanence of all things and how everything must come to an end…My conclusion? …make the most of the guilt free avocados while you can…

For our last weekend with the girls we headed up Port Stephen’s – we went to the ‘shark and ray rescue centre’ and had an amazing experience standing in shallow water with sharks and manta rays swimming over our feet…the latter being one of the few species on the planet who can recognise themselves in mirrors – a sign of intelligence apparently (I wondered where some of the choices we human beings make put us on that list…)

We resisted buying a huge cuddly whale shark (…do you really have room for that in your rucksack? Come on Theo be realistic…) we went for a walk by the sea and then headed back to Mikes. I took Ellie and the dogs home so she could pick up Thoma from his dad’s, we wanted to stay at Mike’s so we could have another night with him and the girls…Grace came with me to drop Ellie home and I had a solid hour of absorbing the full joy of K-Pop – I was introduced to ‘Stray Kids’ and ‘New Jeans’, I nearly learned the names of some of the band members and got a full low down on the Stray Kids history, their current status as ‘best band in the entire world’ and the intricate and genius way they manage their music and dance routines…

It was actually brilliant fun – seeing Grace’s face light up as she told me another detail about the band leader, Bang Chan, and hearing her belting out the songs – half in English, half in Korean : )

We had a lovely evening all together and the next morning we properly cried our eyes out as we said goodbye to our Grace and our Lucy, and through all the tears there is the certainty that we have them in our lives now because we came to Australia – it was worth it – all these memories are going ‘straight to the pool room!’

We were quiet on the way back to Ellie’s – Rosa because she’d stayed up really late with Lucy …and underneath was the biggest goodbye, only a week away…

Thoma was back with Ellie that week and finally, FINALLY I got to take him to school – he had started back after the holidays when we were in Bellingen and we didn’t have the car when we were woofing, but this week was all mine!

I did every school run bar one and it was brilliant – random chats about different teachers and subjects …who his friends were, what things he was doing after school, what he loved and hated…we talked about loads of different things and we found a mad route back from his school that took us off road through the bush which we both loved…

I love that boys smile and his brilliant sense of humour, he’s so funny and when he shows you he loves you it’s the best : )

On our last morning I thought about ‘giving him my three top tips for getting through the next three years of his life and school’ and then I decided to switch it round. Adults are always giving kids advice so I asked him for his top three tips for me having a good life…

It didn’t take him long!

1. make sure there’s always something to look forward to in your life
2. Don’t do a job you hate
3. If you do the first two you won’t be any more of a loser than you already are…

I plan on following that advice fully.

On our last few days we did everything again, our favourite meals, walks with the dogs, games and bits of social time with Ellie’s friends – we went round to Michelle’s – had a breakfast party with Cheddar, Sooty, and Molly and their adults …and then it was the last day – we went to the beach and showed Ellie and Mike the dam over at Johns place – had a last swim there and went over to the beach for ice cream : )

Mike spotted dolphins – our first in Australia, on our last day…

We said goodbye to Thoma, Mike snd Louis, we said goodbye to Wilbur and Martha…

Ellie drove us to Sydney and our hearts were so full they were heavier than our rucksacks – I had managed to stay upbeat for the whole week enjoying every moment of actually being there but we were in total pieces on the pavement beside the Greyhound bus – and writing it now is no easier…

We had to face the fact that we might never come back… and all the things that will keep us warm when we are back at home… were things we didn’t want to let go of.

We hugged and whispered our love to each other, trying to remember to be grateful through the pain of saying goodbye… and then it was time to go, buses run to a schedule and ours was about to leave…

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you

I couldn’t have asked for a better experience of your life and this beautiful country, my beautiful sister!

(…maybe, just maybe, I might start saving up when I get home…)