Can you hear the garden singing?

When the world closed back in March, and the us of our familiar communities, neighbourhoods and even entire nations was reduced to the surprising smallness of the we, or me, that inhabited each of our individual homes, Nature welcomed us like a mother hen.

We tended seedlings on window-sills, pruned back overblown autumn branches, and finally learned how to pronounce the names of our house plants. (It’s Monstera Deliciosa, not Monsteria). I would rest my palms on the soil beneath the Japanese maple tree, fingers outspread, and imagine the way the soil connected me to the trees and through them the root systems and through those root systems all the other root systems that spread across my yard and my neighbourhood and beyond the closed borders, all of us belonging to one giant ecosystem, even while we were apart.

At night I would look up at the moon and imagine all the other people alone in their houses, looking up at that same moon.

(Outside our tiny lockdown worlds, Nature didn’t weaken her embrace. Ducks swam in the Trevi Fountain. A herd of wild goats wandered through a Welsh town. The skies above some of the world’s most polluted cities shone clean and clear.)

Nature, and in particular for many people their gardens, became a place of solace. Even more so than usual. For me and my children, our tiny garden became the one place where we could go outside for as long as we wanted to. When the weather was warm we’d carry their schoolbooks into the garden and read on the grass. We’d eat out there when we could, and together tend to the plants: pruning the roses, netting the fruit trees to protect them from marauding possums, and planting rows of tiny carrot seedlings, celery, and Brussels sprouts.

Now spring is here and though my garden was late to bloom this season, it is well and truly making up for lost time now, showering us with an abundance of colour and perfume. For a little while I congratulated myself on a gardening job inadvertently well done, until I began to notice the roses blooming in front gardens and over fences and along road-edges, all over my city.

Nature is having a moment.

I don’t know if it is the extra love and attention, the cleaner air and water, a sign of resilience after last year’s climate disaster, or something altogether different, but right now, it seems to me that the gardens of Melbourne are singing.

I shared this thought on Instagram recently and was surprised by the sheer number of people - not just in Melbourne but all over Australia and the world - who are noticing the same thing.

There is such sweet solace in a garden. Even in the tiniest of gardens, just a pretty pot with one happy houseplant growing, changing, reaching up and out - ever toward the light - and I have never been more grateful for my little pocket of green-and-rainbow than I am right now.

Can you hear the gardens singing?

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It's just a carrot

Except of course it was never going to be “just a carrot.”

Last weekend when our Premier announced that hairdressers could start working again, my husband booked a haircut for the very next day. “It’s symbolic,” he joked. “My curly hair is a symbol of our oppression.” I laughed at him, but I could also relate. Here in Melbourne we have been locked up for so long that everyone is starting to lose perspective, and the little things can feel very big indeed.

My husband has out-of-control hair. I have shingles. My kids are most probably illiterate.

And we are the lucky ones: we have steady incomes, we have each other, and we have our health (although just between us, shingles suck).

Not long ago I bought a take-away coffee from a cafe around the corner from our house, and the owner started to cry. She said, “I don’t know what I’ll do if we’re not allowed to open soon. I haven’t been able to pay my rent for seven months, and I’ve put everything I have into this business. I’m in my 60s and I live alone. What else am I going to do?” She said that if her landlord insisted she pay the missed rent she’d be sleeping “out there,” and gestured to a park bench, still wrapped in “Do not cross” tape because we were not supposed to sit down in public places.

For my part, ever since our second-wave lockdowns tightened in July, I began nursing a fantasy of going out for a walk, and not stopping. Not stopping when my one hour outside allowance was up. Not stopping when I reached the five-kilometre line that we were not supposed to cross. Not even stopping after the nightly 8pm curfew. In my imagination I just kept on walking, and strangers spoke of me as “that crazy, middle-aged lady who is walking her way around the world.” Kind of like Forrest Gump (except that I wanted to walk, not run, because I’m not that crazy).

I almost called this blog post “Run, Forrest!”

I ordered carrot seeds from the Diggers Club back during the first lockdown in March and, when they arrived about two months later (since everyone else seemed to have had the same idea at the same time), I popped them into soil in old egg cartons, and hoped they’d germinate.

Those baby carrots had to survive the entire winter outside in the ground, having their feathery tops battered by winds and munched by marauding possums, overcrowding one another because I didn’t bother to separate the seeds the way I was supposed to, and being generally neglected as my every waking hour was consumed by fitting overdue work commitments in around school-at-home for two children, while indulging fantasies of going for a walk and not stopping.

Yesterday I pulled the carrots out of the ground to make room for snapdragons (priorities, my friend!). Most of them were still small, many of them curly or split in two or twined around each other like lovers. But a few were long and straight like this one here. The children said, “Those look like they come from a shop!” in awed tones, as though this was the highest of possible achievements.

If my husband’s hair is symbolic of our oppression, my carrots are symbolic of our resilience. We can grow, even when the conditions are not… quite… ideal. And we might not all be big and strong: some of us feel very small. Some of us feel split, or wonky, or twisted. But we can still grow, and we still have the capacity to nurture and nourish each other.

The news isn’t looking great here, and the optimism we ventured to feel a week or two ago that things might open up quickly is starting to fade before it even had a chance to bloom, but tomorrow I’m going to make a Sunday roast. I’ll sauté the carrots (straight ones, baby ones and curly-wurly ones all) in butter and orange and honey. And when I serve them up I’ll tell my family they are not just carrots. They are a reminder of our capacity to survive, and grow.

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What if we walked?

It is a ten kilometre walk to the children’s farm and back, and we don’t have a car today. Before France this would have been out of the question. But now, with the resilience they brought home in their suitcases alongside the medieval Papo figurines, sweet little jumpers from the Monoprix, and a collection of Barbapapa books, the children say, “What if we walked?” 

So I pack a lunch box of chopped apple and pear, crackers, and these banana muffins, and we set off. 

Follow the route towards school and then turn off at the park, sticking to the paths because the long grass is soaked with dew and the day is bright but only three degrees right now. Our breath forms clouds in the air to guide us, and nobody wants cold, wet shoes and socks at the start of a day (the end of the day is a different matter, apparently). 

At the railway crossing, we stop to let a train go by. The children put their hands through the railings and wave to the train. Before the train hurtles past, we can see the driver stand up in her cabin and wave back: a big, whole-of-body, over-the-head wave, and a beaming smile to go with it. 

We see a beautiful but decrepit old house, one that once probably nurtured families and echoed to tiny, thumping feet and the laughter of children. A long time ago, a colour-loving person had planted a pink-flowering geranium beside the front gate. But now the windows are boarded over, the paint is peeling, some of the cladding has fallen away, and the posts that support the verandah are rotting. 

As we walk on, we make up a story about its haunting. I try for something chilling and deeply tragic, but the children are convinced the demise of the house had been hastened by hungry monsters, aliens and flying dogs. They build their outlandish story with relish, growing more ridiculous by the sentence, giggling and shouting over one another with excitement. I blame Captain Underpants. 

Under the overpass and onto the Main Yarra Trail, where water is tumbling over rocks in a happy gurgle and bellbirds are calling everywhere. I tell Ralph to move to the left if he hears the ding of a bicycle bell, but he says he can’t tell which ones are the bikes and which ones are the birds. He makes a good point. 

We tell ourselves, this could be Dinan! Here we are, walking alongside a river again. We climb out onto a wooden lookout and say, “These are the ramparts at the ruins.” Further on, a wall stretches up, up, on the other side of the path, as tall as the Dinan chateau beside the wild apple orchard. This wall is covered in graffiti but we try to ignore that, and tell each other, “Those are the castle walls.” A road bridge up ahead plays the role of the viaduct that connects Dinan to Lanvallay. 

We are chevaliers again, and tired legs discover a last burst of energy before we reach the children’s farm. 

In fact we are so excited to reach the farm and find our friends that we don’t notice the oak tree but, on the way home, we stop at it in wonder. 

It is ancient, and most of its golden leaves have already dropped, set in a circle of stones and stretching its branches almost all the way to the river. The children climb over the stones and play in the fallen leaves but I am overcome with a powerful sense of stillness. 

The sun is turning golden as we make our way home along the river, the children collecting leaves and nuts, fanning them out in their hands like cards at a poker table, to inspect the intricacies of Nature’s design. Ralph finds a giant fern frond broken on the ground, and holds it aloft like a sword. 

Back on the back-streets, they discover a small pile of smooth, round pebbles, so we start a game of Hansel and Gretel, counting out steps between stones and taking turns. That game lasts a good kilometre or two, all the way back to the railway crossing. 

The day is warm now - 17 degrees! - so Ralph takes his shirt off and struts those streets as though he’s at the beach. (I am carrying jumpers, shirts, hats, gloves, picnic lunch, water bottle, and other various accoutrements in my back pack. Thankfully a friend has taken our coats in her car, and drops them home for us.)

We find a park we’ve never seen before, rows of trees glowing in the late afternoon light, and promise one another we’ll return one day because there is a playground in the distance “that looks awesome!” We also pass a bakery that we hadn’t seen on the way out, so Scout suggests that next time, we should pick up a baguette. 

The children say, “We feel sorry for our friends who drove in the car, because they would have missed all of this.” 

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Pop-up in Melbourne: free twilight cinema by the bay

Listen up Melbourne friends, there is a pop-up open-air cinema in town for February, and it is FREE. Head down to Docklands on a Friday night this month (every Friday EXCEPT this Friday) to watch some classic 80s movies from the comfort of your own picnic rug.

Have you been to Docklands recently? We wandered down to catch a movie last Friday, and prior to that I had been to Docklands exactly NEVER. It's like a completely different Melbourne down there! Reflections, reflections: all glittering high-rise and glimmering water and shining lights. And so quiet! And so clean!

The park for our movie was fully booked, but there was still loads of space, and we found a parking spot right away. Let me just tell you, you wouldn't get that where I live in the Inner North.

Anyway if you want to catch an old movie at the twilight cinema this month, go here to reserve your space. I think they're playing The Dish, and Back to the Future next. We watched The Wedding Singer, which was even funnier than any past times I'd seen it, mainly because my friend Tonia roared with laughter the whole way through, usually about five seconds before the actual funny bit was due to happen.

Pack a picnic if you think you'll be feeling peckish, but I recommend picking up a box of salumi and formaggio and a coffee granita to wash it down from the super-friendly folks at Saluministi, the Italian street-food spot next door. I will dream about that coffee granita.

Top tips for enjoying the pop-up twilight cinema:

* Bring a picnic rug and some cushions or bean-bags to lean on * There's a lovely, gentle breeze coming off the water, but that can make it a bit chilly. Bring some warm clothes or better still a rug to snuggle down * This is a family-friendly event so you can bring the kids (there's even a playground for the little ones) * There's no alcohol in the park, but there are plenty of bars along the wharf so you can go for a beverage before or after the movie (or both) * And speaking of alcoholic beverages, the park is on the 48 and 11 tram lines, so you can leave the car at home

Full disclosure: this isn't a sponsored post and all opinions are (obviously) my own, but I was invited by the kind people at Victoria Harbour to come along to this movie, and they generously supplied our picnic rug, bean-bags, and the delicious Saluministi fare. We are super grateful, it was all fantastic. Thank you!

Playing hooky

I found a forest!

Well, not really, it was more like a tiny clump of trees. Jane Austen would probably have called it a copse, or something. But in any case it was green and gloomy in the best of ways, and the pine-needles that softened my every foot-fall were made maculate by patches of sun blossoming over the shade.

Yesterday Winter played dress-ups as Spring, and it was the most glorious day you could ever see. All morning, I kept leaving my tiny cupboard of a windowless office to see what the garden was making of this gift of a day.

(Here is the tally: two more daffodils burst into bloom, bringing the total to three; tiny buds appeared all over the once-bare pomegranate tree; the daphne bush tossed perfume willy-nilly into the temperate air; and the snowflakes? the snowflakes burst into bloom by the hundreds.)

And then I would go back into my study and work some more. Read, research, write. Carefully crafted words, self-editing, crafting some more.

But my heart was in the sunshine, in the unexpected warmth of the breeze. And, by mid-afternoon, I couldn't take it any more. I hit "save" on my unfinished story and stepped out into the day, into that false, imaginary spring, and went exploring.

I let my feet take me wherever they would, following parks linked within parks like chains, all over north Melbourne. I foraged wattle and snow-gum leaves and gumnuts, and then I walked some more. When I found the tiny forest, I sat down on the soft, dry pine-needles, closed my eyes, and breathed in the silence.

Breathed it in, breathed it out. In again, out.

As I walked home, carrying my basket of leaves and flowers, it was with a lightness that would suggest I, too, had put on Spring for a day. Even the work that was waiting for me at home, which endured well into the night, could not dampen my spirits. I put my botanical bounty into a big old jug, and got typing.

The climb

"Let's climb!" shouted Ralph. And so we climbed, free of foreboding.

In the shadow of those great rocks was no ominous hum, no sudden chill, no tingling premonition of hidden watchers' eyes. Instead, there was sunlight trickling through old bracken and ferns. Filtered water splashing out of rocks. A tiny boulder in the shape of a love-heart, wedged between two giants and framing a window to the bottom of the world.

"Let's climb!" said Ralph again. So we ventured off the pathway and scrambled over rocks and in between narrow passes and under natural bridges and, all the while, we found sunlight and clean air and great beauty... and no ghosts.

When you come alone to a place as ancient and spirit-filled as Hanging Rock, secrets whisper at you and watch you from just inside the other plane, and goosebumps come as naturally as breathing. The boundary between imagination and experience is blurred, and you are at the mercy of Place.

When you come in the company of two small children, however, it is hard to hear the spirits over the coughs and sneezes and "My legs are tired!" and "Let's have a race!" and giggles and kisses and "Can I have a banana?" and "Can you carry me?"

I thought the spirits had left Hanging Rock, at least while we were there, retreating into caves to find silence away from our relentless noise. But as I prepared these photographs last night to share with you, and I realised the ghosts had been there all along, watching, as we climbed.

Can you see them? In the strange shadows and sometimes-odd light, and in the many, many faces in the boulders?

Ahhhhh, tread lightly!

Mother's Day

There are two pairs of tiny, mud-covered wellies in the hallway by our front door. And if you are aged two or three, you will know that that is a sign of a day well spent: muddy wellies suggest explorations, rain-soaked adventures, (Ralph's curls gone wild), and, of course, the time-honoured joy of jumping up and down in muddy puddles.

Yesterday was Mother's Day and, do you know what? Call me Hallmark but I felt the love. It started with both children on our bed in the morning, Ralph asking "Can you let the cat in?" and Scout squeezing me around the neck, saying, "Ahh my Mummy. I love you more than me." You could have stopped the day right there and it would have been complete for me.

We had brunch with a friend at Bebida on Smith Street and, alongside the best eggs I've had in a longggg time, they also managed to give me the best Mother's Day brunch that money could buy, being a really great (grown-up!) atmosphere, without any member of staff skipping a beat that we had brought two small children with us. They were super friendly, super helpful, super cool and the food was super good. This, combined with the fact that both children were preternaturally well-behaved, made it a stress free and thoroughly enjoyable meal. We followed up with a scoop each at Gelato Messina, and the kids didn't even make a mess of their clothes. Because, Mother's Day magic!

As I carried Ralph back along Smith Street, I whispered into his curls, "I love you." "Can you say it louder?" he asked. "I love you!" I announced, in my big voice. "I love you Mummy," said Ralph. "I love you I love you I LOVE YOU!" A lump formed in my throat. (And then he continued, "I love that red car, I love that light, I love that wall." But I will take my wins where I find them).

Scout woke first from her afternoon nap, so she and I went out together to CERES (more jumping up and down in muddy puddles) to buy some plants for our garden, as well as a particularly lovely monstera deliciosa for inside the house. Because apparently, on Mother's Day you actually TURN INTO your mother. I swear I could feel my mother approving of my choice of Mother's Day present, even all the way from Poland, where she and my father are adventuring right now. (I miss my mum! Happy Mother's Day, Mum!) Scout carefully selected a fair-trade Bolga Basket woven out of elephant grass by mothers in Ghana, which will serve as a 'pot' for the monstera in my bedroom.

When we got home, the children and I spent an hour playing "babies." This is a great game to play when you're tired because, as a baby, you get to lie down on the floor and not do particularly much. In this iteration of the game, both Ralph and I were the babies, and Scout was our mother. It was bedtime, and she gave us toys to cuddle in bed. But we were (upon instruction) 'naughty,' and insisted on playing instead of sleeping. If you are a particularly wily mother (ahem), you can learn to work the system of this game. For example, crying "Wah, wah! Mummy this baby can't sleep because she needs a foot massage!"

Let's just say that Scout is a very attentive mummy.

At dinner Mr B and I decanted a lovely bottle of red wine and lit candles in the dining room, with a bad/hilarious/great record from the 1960s on the old Blaupunkt, featuring popular classical pieces from Mozart and Beethoven and other similar composers, set alongside some wonderfully tacky drum beats and guitar 'fillers'.

And that brings us up to my right now (your last night). I am sitting on the couch, watching some renovation show or other on the TV. Both children and Mr B are upstairs, probably snoring. Our cat Ruby is beside me on the couch, purring and also keeping my feet warm. Soon she and I will join everyone else in the family in slumber. Mother's Day 2016, over and out.

ps. Me and my mum, a very long time ago...

Image credit: Sarah Boyle, licensed for unlimited use under Creative Commons

Long weekends

Long weekends are for slowing down. For simple pleasures. Feeding Cornflakes to friendly ducks and soft, black moor-hens. Learning how to row a skiff. The splash of oar in water, a silent oasis, a bubble of river and bush inside the big city.

Long weekends are for equally-long walks in sunshine. For getting lost somewhere in a highway underpass, but it doesn't matter because nobody is in a hurry: this is a long weekend.

Long weekends are for cooking and housework, giggles and cuddles, red wine and friends.

I think long weekends may be my favourite. I'd like to order another one, please.

(Photos from this long weekend brought to you by a family visit to the Fairfield Park Boathouse, which was super touristy and even more super fun. Ralph didn't make it into any pictures because photographing him would have meant having to let go of him, and letting go of him would have meant Ralph fulfilling his heart's desire of diving head-first into the water, to "pat the ducks")

Scout says Ralph says

Scout (rubbing her belly): These pancakes are delicious. My tummy says yum-my.

Ralph (rubbing his belly): My yellow t-shirt says YUMMY too.

At bed time...

Scout: I love you to the aliens' planet, and a million.

Ralph: I love you to my rocket ship and I also love the aliens' planet.

At another bedtime, when their father was overseas...

"I love you past the aliens' planet and all the way to Daddy!"

During a book photoshoot...

Me: This photo is supposed to tell a story. It is cold and rainy outside. But inside, the person is all cosy and warm, snuggled into blankets on the couch, drinking tea and reading a letter from a friend. Maybe they have just gotten up to make some toast...

Scout: Can I be that person? (pause) And can you make me some toast?

Scout (cuddling her dolly): Do you wish you were as good at Mummying as me?

Me: Yes!

Scout: It's ok, don't cry. You did TEACH me how to do it.

Scout: Ring ring! Hello moon? Moon? Can you come down please?

At bed time...

Me: Thank you for a really good day.

Scout: Thank you for being a really good Mummy.

Ralph: Can I bounce a ball on your head?

Sickle moon

It was a sickle moon last night. Did you see it? Wavering and watery, paper thin, I stopped to greet it on my way back across the road, with a $12 bottle of rosé in my hand. "Good night moon," I said (good night stars, good night air*). That was a little bit embarrassing because it turned out I said it out loud without realising, and two people coming out of the bottle shop with wine that probably cost a lot more than $12 looked at me kind of funny.

Anyway I have been absent from this little blog for the past few weeks, while I finished the photography for my book (eek!) and the illustrations for Wendy's book (woot!) and another big pile of letters to send to you folks (coming soon!). I always miss this space when I am away, but I have learned to (try to) be more realistic with my time and with what I can and cannot do.

But then I saw the moon last night and I thought of you.

I thought about how strange and magical it always feels to learn that people are reading my blog, reading it from all over the world... Melbourne and Bendigo, New York and Illinois, Russia, the Ukraine, France, Germany, Portugal, Singapore, Mexico, Argentina, and so many other places. Last night, when I looked up at that sickle moon, I thought about how maybe you were looking up at that same sickle moon (or that you would, in just half a world's rotation's time), and I felt strangely close to you.

(*Good night noises everywhere)

Image credit: sickle moon by Nousnou Iwasaki, licensed for unlimited use under Creative Commons