But not funny ha ha...

Isn't it funny, the things that you miss about a person when they're gone.

With M, I miss how his hair used to feel at the base of his neck. There was a little whorl of hair there that felt like it was just made for my fingers to rest there.
I miss how he used to make a soft little sigh, like a cat, when I snuggled up to him at night.
I miss resting my head on his chest and feeling the beat of his heart.
I miss how he used to say 'You could do that', like there was no obstacle to anything I wanted to try, like all I had to do was give it a go, and it would be mine.
I miss feeling like I was part of a team working towards a future together.

But I miss all these things so much because I know they are never coming back.

How far are you supposed to let another person in?

I threw all the doors open with him, and I allowed him to populate my dreams, my hopes, my plans. When he left, they all suddenly seemed as insubstantial as flimsy facades, swaying in the wind.

I don't know if I can ever do that again. When you let someone in, it's like you hand them all the tools to hurt you, and then all you can do is trust that they won't use them. It's like handing a lolly to a three year old and saying 'Don't eat it.'

So. I miss him, and I miss all that he gave me, and I miss all that we could have been. But it is all gone now, and all I can do is try to get through it.

Sniffle, cough...

I've been to the doctor today, a very forthright woman called Ivana, who I am sure has a previous life as a member of the Czar's bodyguard. She had the high heel boots and the authority - all she needed was some furs, and she would have been a shoe-in.

I have been feeling completely crap the past couple of days. The flu hit me Thursday night, and I dragged myself to work Friday morning, but every time I coughed it felt like my brain was going to explode out my forehead. Ivana tells me this is because I have an infection in my upper sinus cavity as well as the flu.

I was starting to feel better yesterday so I went to work, (how stupid was that decision?) at a different farm to where I normally work. I got rained on while getting the cows in, stood in a cold draft milking for two hours, got rained on again putting the cows away, and then drove home with blue lips in my non-heated car. So now I am off work for most of the rest of the week.

So I hope you'll forgive my excursion into self pity for a moment. My house is a mess of juiced lemon halves, dirty washing, clean washing, dishes and paperwork. My back hurts from coughing, I'm going to have no income this week because I can't work, and it hurts to move my eyes.

Whatever planets are dancing a little voodoo tango up there at the moment can just stop right now, because I've had enough!

Rainy day planning

The rain has rolled in again, so today I sat on the couch in front of the heater with the cats, watching True Blood on DVD and started planning my vegie garden.

The area of the vegie garden is a large rectangle shape, roughly divided into quarters, and at present it is covered in weeds of one sort or another. Between showers, I started clearing the weeds and rubbish out of the long rose bed that runs diagonally across the quarter closest to the house. At the moment it has six standard roses in it, and space for a seventh one, some very smothered looking strawberry plants, a gypsophlia plant and some bulbs.
My plan is to remove one of the roses which suckers continually, and then relocate the gypsophlia, strawberries and bulbs, and underplant the roses with chives. This will keep the black spot and aphids under control in the roses and mean I never run out of chives again! The purple flowers should look pretty too.

Sunny days

The chooks have definite names now - Mavis and Madge. They are very confident and (dare I say it) cocky. Yesterday I saw (and heard - she was quite vocal about it!) Mavis scolding an enormous Currawong for stealing some of their scraps. They are laying an egg each every day, so I'm looking at quiches and spinach and fetta pie with new eyes - I can't eat egg on toast forever!

A few sunny days in a row have lifted the spirits enormously here on the hillside. Being stuck inside when it's cold and rainy makes me feel like I'm stuck inside a computer game, where all my thoughts become projectiles that ricochet off the walls and hit me again.

On Friday I went to a cheese making class and learnt how to make Brie. Yesterday I completed the second stage, soaking the wheels in brine and culture, and now they are sitting in the pantry quietly growing, at least I hope so. Fingers crossed they turn out well.

I sat outside in the sun yesterday afternoon for a few hours and spun some yarn - an angora/merino blend from Ixchel Fibres. I haven't done any spinning in quite a while, so it wasn't the best yarn in the world, but it was nice to sit in the sun, hear the magpies warbling away and feel the fibre sliding through my hands. I find spinning very calming - whether it is the repetitive motion of the drafting or the tactile pleasure of the soft fibre, I don't know. It definitely puts a more tranquil glow on the world though.

New neighbours

I'd like to introduce two new additions to Chez Hillside - two Light Sussex chooks. I haven't decided what to name them yet. I'm leaning towards a retro kind of theme with 'Lil' and 'Phyllis' but I'm open to suggestions.

The way they bustle around, I half expect to see a CWA pin fastened to their breast, and I wouldn't be surprised if I came out one morning and they had started making doilies.

I'm hoping in among their good works they will find time to eat the kitchen scraps and keep the grasshoppers to a modest level this summer so I can enjoy some of my roses.

The second coming of the stove

Today my kitchen got its smile back.

I live in my grandmother's old house. It was built in the 40's by my grandmother's brother, before he took off for Queensland chasing racehorses and wild women. The slow combustion stove in the kitchen has always been the centre of the room, the centre of the house. When people come inside, out of the rain and cold on a day like today, the first thing they do is go to the fire, and stand warming their backs.

For five years, the stove has been boarded up, cold and silent, and the kitchen seemed lost without it. There was another, electric, stove for cooking, but it was in the room next door, which was irritating, to say the least.

The combination of encouragement from my friend Charlotte, and the arrival of an extraordinarily high electricity bill led me to the rebirth of the stove. Yesterday I pulled down the cardboard covering the fireplace, and Dad and I worked with wire brushes and elbow grease to bring the stove back to useable condition.

This morning we lit the first fire in the stove, and I watched the kitchen seem to join into a circle again. It seemed again a room with a purpose. I baked a cake to mark the 'second coming' of the stove. It was a packet cake, which my grandmother would have disapproved of, believing that they were inherantly inferior to proper home made cakes, but it was a cake nonetheless.

My grandmother, who most people called Nan, was a big part of my life. From her I learned the stories of my family. How my great grandfather and his brother turned the river back into its bed after a flood with horses and scoops. How my great great uncle learned his wife was having an affair when he returned from droving and found another man's shirts in his cupboard. How when she was a child, they had to cross the river 13 times in the journey to the nearest large town.

I spent hours in this kitchen as a child. Always there was the kettle on the side of the stove, simmering ready to make a pot of tea. Sometimes, there was a pot of soup, made with beef bones, carrot, celery and barley. At Christmas, there would be the stubbornly traditional turkey roasting, heating up the kitchen to a point where tempers would fray and homemade orange and grapefruit cordial with ice would be dispensed to all present like medicine in an epidemic.

In the last couple of days, I have discovered that the best way for me to conquer heartache is with hard work. Chopping wood, scrubbing, shovelling: all the aching of the long unused muscles of my arms and back has distracted me from the hole in my chest.

Perhaps all I can do at this point is move in the direction of my dreams, and use the callouses on my hands as mile markers along that road.

To watch the corn grow...

I have been introduced to the wonderful thing that is wikiquote today, and it has improved my day immeasurably. I'll share with you one of my favourites from English author, poet and artist John Ruskin

To watch the corn grow, and the blossoms set; to draw hard breath over ploughshare or spade; to read, to think, to love, to hope, to pray - these are the things that make men happy.

And how true that is. Whether your 'ploushshare' is a backhoe, or a desk, or a stove, to be happy you need to feel that you have expended your energy in a way that brings you satisfaction. My ideal has always been a more literal version of this quote - to make my life by the work of my hands, to see the hand of the goddess in the turning of the seasons, and feel the warmth of the sun soaked up by the soil, and at the end of the day, to relax in warmth, and read, laugh, make and sleep.

Winter sunshine

Days like these fill me with the urge to clean, to nest. Bright bright sunshine, bare branches, clean eucalyptus smelling sheets on the line, and a cool breeze with the breath of snow off the mountains.
The cats sit with squinty eyes basking in the warmth.

It has been a hard week. My boyfriend of 11 months broke up with me, and all I could feel was the rain of broken dreams pelting down on me. But my friends came to my rescue - kept me alive with tea, honey on toast, and sweet champagne. They reminded me that my dreams were my own, and always would be, and all I have to do is have faith in them.

And I am stronger than I think.