I’ve been away on holiday, in case you were wondering- our last fling before the baby arrives. We had to cancel the grand tour of Turkey and Italy because of the impending baby, so we went much lower-key and opted to spend a week or so on a road-trip around the south-west of Western Australia.
It’s amazing how much there is to see in your local area when you actually take the time to go looking. We’ve been to wineries and breweries, and DH thinks he’s onto something here, since normally we have to share designated driver duties… Hmm… I’m trying to decide if there’s anything on earth more annoying than going to a lovely winery and not being able to sample anything more than the bouquet. Grr. We’ve been to meaderies, chocolate factories, art galleries and artisan jewellery studios. We’ve been to ice-creameries and cheese factories and mini-golf. We’ve walked kilometres along the Busselton jetty and wandered around the Cape Leeuwin lighthouse. We’ve stayed at bed-and-breakfasts, the hotel we used to visit as a pair of lovestruck 20-year-olds, and the best spa retreat in the whole world. We’ve spent long mornings in bed and evenings at lovely restaurants. It’s been very, very nice.
And you know what? I’m seriously glad we didn’t go to Turkey. Right up to this week, I was still feeling all mopey and depressed about the fact we weren’t going. This week? Well, this week I’ve struggled to drink all the water I need to drink each day; as a consequence I’ve discovered every public toilet in the south-west. I’ve been too sore to move the morning after a very gentle four-kilometre stroll. I’ve had a tough time trying to make sure there are no nuts in the food I’m eating, even in a country where everyone (theoretically) speaks English. I’ve found that a four-hour car trip practically puts my back into spasm.
I’ll be very much looking forward to our trip to Turkey in a few years time, I’m sure. But in the meantime, I’m not going to complain one little bit about what we’ve got so close to home instead. I’m very glad we did this trip.
Up next: another week off, this one spent at home. I have to sort out my tax, go to the dentist and a few other un-fun things, but otherwise I get to do whatever I want.
Excerpt from Between the Lines
A memory wavered into his mind, shimmery as heat rising off the road in summer.
He was six years old, and he’d been in Stonehaven no more than a week. He was hollow and lonely, confused. He missed the bustle of Melbourne. He missed the other kids on his street, the whole gang of them and their scampy games. He was stuck out in the bush, all of a sudden, with nobody but Lionel for company. Lionel had spent the first day ignoring him completely, and the last few beating the stuffing out of him whenever he got the chance. So that day, he’d wandered out to the back garden, if it could even be called that- just a scrubbed, flat expanse of hot red dirt with a veil of tangled trees and shrubs behind it.
The bush.
On impulse, he’d taken a couple of steps toward it, bare feet burning on the hot ground. The air was filled with the lemony scent of eucalyptus and the fresh tang of the distant sea. He'd filled his lungs and the two steps had turned into six, then ten, then before he knew it he was running headlong toward the wall of whispering green and brown, pushing all his mother’s warnings about snakes and savages from his head. He barrelled between the first spicy-scented leaves and, to his surprise, popped out on a sort of beaten down track, hidden from view of the house. After a moment’s pause to wonder how many strokes of the belt he’d get for this, he set off down the track toward the most interesting noise he’d heard so far- the babbling giggle of flowing water, and laced in with it, the high, clear notes of a girl’s voice, singing.
He stepped off the track with his heart hammering in his chest, suddenly terrified as he caught side of the wide river bank and the rolling mass of glassy green water.
She was standing there, all right- a girl not much taller than him, skinny as a rake, skin the golden brown of tree bark lit by sun. A cascade of golden curls rolled over her shoulders to skim at her waist, tendrils flicking out here and there as she drew back her arm and lobbed a big rock into the water.
He watched it go, traced the arc with his eyes until it hit the water with a loud splash and was swallowed. She was singing, still, her voice high and clear. She was wearing a white dress that finished at her knees and puffed into short sleeves at her shoulders. He looked down at himself, his grey shorts and jumper coated in jam, dirt and everything else he’d been busy with that morning. He stared at her back with suspicion. She was pristine. The only dirty bit of her was her feet, bare as his.
If it hadn’t been for those feet, he might have thought she was an angel. Or a ghost.
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