resolutions slid deep underneath warm doonas. Football season. My walks with Georgie and Lola were now punctuated with the alluring smells of hot pies and sausage rolls and the less alluring smells of Deep Heat and sweaty bodies. I noticed that unlike the summer cricket season on these ovals, the rain didn’t halt the football, rather, it brought a tide of puffer jackets, umbrellas and closely huddled bodies. The cold wet winter days in my umpiring career were always the ones when I questioned if the money was worth it (they were also the ones that taught me about the dangers of wearing coloured underwear beneath white clothing - you only make that mistake once!)
Winter running was always my favourite (once I got past the drawn-out process of convincing myself to brave the cold and just get started). I’d always loved the feeling of the warmth in my lungs and my heart when running through the bitterly cold air. Now, as I ran around the ovals each night, the tingly feeling of my nose and hands was the same as every other year’s winter running, however the smoky warmth emanating from the surrounding houses was missing. (As were the stares from the wallabies and the roos who would look at me, surely wondering why I had chosen to be out there in those temperatures.)
Flames blowing hot air into colourful patterned balloons above Macleay Park marked one of the first signs of Boroondara’s spring. Protruding through the last of winter’s foggy blankets, the balloons rose high into the warming skies. [3]At the ovals, I noticed people’s routines picked up pace again at this time of the year; walkers returned with their dogs and evening play dates became more regular. Runners started afresh with new resolutions. Hands on park benches slid closer together as nature itself modelled fresh starts and new possibilities (albeit with a lack of golden wattle blossoms). Delighting in the naive misconception of the swooplessness of city bike riding, I was crushed to learn (through vicious attack) that magpies can quite happily adapt to a life of concrete and car fumes. Unfortunately for me, it appeared my long-standing enemy would continue to stalk me, irrespective of the landscape. (What a shame, it would have been such a selling point for ongoing life in the big smoke.)
Next up was cricket season. Summer. The initial team meeting was followed by ‘the burning’, a ceremony of sorts that apparently signalled the birth of a new season’s pitch. An exclusion zone popped up around the newly marked hallowed turf. And then the tending began. Oh, the tending! The cutting, the watering, the air rating, the unconditional love and care. I[4] was oblivious to the nurturing relationship that existed between a club and its cricket pitch, until we moved to Boroondara. (Coming back in my next life as a cricket pitch is now something I look upon favourably- there are certainly worse fates!) A pattern for the cricket games emerged- the quiet arrival, the nervous start, the chatter, the crack of bat on ball, the vocal mind games and the celebration of falling wickets. Cheers from the top oval followed by cheers from the bottom. I listened to all of this unfold as I lay in my bed across the road, predicting the next line in the repetitive script of weekend cricket.
Summer was also hot nights, late dog dates and even later walkers. It was Christmas Carols; a whole community coming together to celebrate. The intersecting patterns of different backgrounds, religious beliefs (and indeed singing abilities), weaving together with the same goal of peace and joy for all. January was new puppies and new dog owners to meet, the re-emergence of the resolution runners (always more after New Year’s) and the bats. The Balwyn bats. They’d come back. A warm flush of familiarity arrived when the silhouettes returned crossing the suburbs in various formations, wings flapping down and up, down and up, down and up, eyes searching for the last of spring’s goodness in the trees of Boroondara’s suburbia.
Sitting on the back step watching the bats fly over again, I reflected on the fact that I’d survived a year of my new city life. And, just like the bats, I realised that I too will cycle through another. And as I do, I will slip deeper into the ongoing rhythm and mosaic of Boroondara and its people- our new home.
A NEW COUNTRY Greta Walker
In 1960 my family arrived at the Melbourne Docks in a luxury liner called ‘The Orange’, a large Dutch vessel. My then husband’s company in London had requested our transfer to Melbourne so that he could run their office in Collins Street. The company had a house waiting for us in Glen Iris. Our children were two and four years old and after our arrival they continuously asked where their grandparents were. They missed them dreadfully.
After unpacking and getting accustomed to the company house I set about getting to know neighbours and shops. At first, I was in shock and dreadfully homesick for the UK but I had to ‘think positive’ and made a great effort to settle in. My children were fortunate to have a kindergarten in the street and when they were there, I got busy getting organised. It was hard and although people were friendly, I was sad and missed home.
I decided to organise a luncheon day once a month for the other mothers with children at the kindergarten. It worked well – they, too, were mothers from other countries such as Germany and Holland. I also offered my help to an antiques shop in Glen Iris which helped me greatly.
People were kind and thoughtful including my husband’s business friends and families but despite my concentrated efforts, it took a very long time to feel a part of the local scene. Although I have great affection for Melbourne I still have very deep roots in the UK and I don’t think that will ever change.
A LIFE PUNCTUATED BY DANCE Pamela Stewart
It was an inauspicious beginning to my lifetime of intermittent, non-professional dancing. I was seven or eight when I was placed in a tap-dancing class in nearby Ashburton, though it wouldn’t have mattered where I’d been taught, nor by whom. I faced a problem which I couldn’t overcome. I had what was termed `loose joints’, affecting my ankles and my elbows. I also had fallen arches resulting in flat feet.
I didn’t care too much. I disliked all that tap-dancing entailed. Back and forth you stretched your feet, making a noise every time – a sort of clickety clack. The noise was coming from a piece of silvery tin it seemed, under the tips of your shoes, every time you tapped the floorboards of the big hall where the class was held.
But it may be that my mother was disappointed with my failure to achieve much in that class. She may have hoped that I would become a Shirley Temple look-a-like, a little Miss Temple. I had an inkling of Mother’s wishes for me, because of what she did to my hair. She would tear strips of very old linen sheeting and then she’d sit me down on a Saturday evening, take thick strands of my slippery, fine-textured blonde hair and twist one strip of old linen around each little bunch of hair. Each time I prayed that this time I would awake in the morning with Shirley Temple curls. Fat curls that shone and bounced about. But the miracle never happened. Instead, there’d be a long straight strand of hair that had eluded Mother’s wrap and was now poking out to show the world that I was a fraud. I was no Shirley Temple. What to do with my hair? It was a ridiculous mix, as usual, of funny curls with straight ends. I always wished I’d had either dead straight hair or curls, natural curls. I had neither. My hair had a kink, Mother said. I felt very disappointed. Still, I never took to the perfect little Miss Temple with her singing about `The Good Ship, Lollipop’. Ugh!
My Sundays were spent at Glen Iris Presbyterian Church where many elderly women were Scots. Perhaps it was they who inspired my friend Wendy and I to learn Scots poetry and songs and to read Scottish literature. Though I didn’t try Sir Walter Scott’s stories, after checking their contents and the formality of the language he used, our enjoyment of Scots’ literature was long-lasting.
My mother’s ancestors were from the Scottish Cairngorm mountains, who’d arrived in Australia to work on farms in late 1838. I loved her stories about life in New England back before her marriage to my Sydney-born father. I was especially proud of my Scottish ancestry.
My cousins lived in Sydney and in the Northern Tablelands of New South Wales. Sybil McLachlan stayed with us on holiday, once.
