My husband always says give me a book & the kids could swing of the chandeliers & I'd never notice. Being mine they would have thought that's why the chandeliers got put up in the first place. Hyperactive & then some! The real estate agency doesn't know how lucky they were.
Isolated is one way to describe our place. It sits in solitary splendour on 50 acreas. Unfortunately we don't own all the 50 acreas & eventually the real eastate mob noticed the exquisite water views, the unspoiled scenic beauty of the bush, & that most of the land was for sale. They moved an observation post (for the exquisite water views) onto a vacant block & bused in the sort of city dwellers who have more money for spare change than I am likely to see in an entire year.
They chose a glorious day for it. The bay sparked like a dark sapphire. A little breeze sent the gold dancing amongst the new green leaves. The earth smelt lushly green & the sky was high & cloudless.
It was a great day for washing. I had a triple line of nappies dancing in the breeze, t~shirts, shorts, little dresses. I also had the neighbours 4 little girls, & the two farm kiddies from further along the bay. They were scatterd through the yard & bush with our 4, & the dalmation & the neighbours husky X as protection from snakes. As the bus chugged down our dirt road & ground to a stop in front of the house every child & both dogs miracleously appeared. ( Strangers were a real novelty & worth coming to watch.) They formed a long unsmiling line along the grass verge, a big hairy dog at either end. Our dalmation lifted her upper lip & 'smiled' at everyone. The tourists climbed down & of one accord swiveled round & started counting heads. Then then they stared in consternation at the overfull clothesline, eyed the size of the dogs with growing alarm & hastily headed back into the bus. In vain did the real estate agent seek to lure them towards the observation post. He was braver than he knew. It had been turned into a fort against red indians since last he saw it, booby trapped to within an inch of its life & the 'indians' had lit a fire under it in order to smoke out the citizens. A large scorched patch of eath showed where my oldest had come screaming for me terrified his bright idea was about to get away on him & we'd beaten his fire out with gunny sacks. Only that morning I'd busted the Dinosaurus putting somebodys discarded beer can under the platform. Enquiry revealed it was middle son's newest 'pet'. He'd watched it crawl into the can & then carefully carried it into the fort. Closer inspection revealed he'd captured a small eyed snake (very poisonous) & all the children were temporarily banned from the fort or it would no doubt have been occupied when the bus arrived.
The observation post was removed shortly after that. Now it is the number of surfboards littering the yard & late night cars that keeps potential neighbours away though houses have sprouted up like mushrooms all about us. People just count heads & never stop long enough to learn that our teenagers are remarkably civilized human beings. It's just that they believe that life is for living & they are not wasting any time about it.
No comments:
Post a Comment