For Grandma's Memoirs

My memories of Grandma include - running through the waves when the other members of the family were in deep discussion on the beach.
Grandma said, "Would you like to run along the beach with me?" Of course I said yes. It was freezing but I loved it!
I still love running along the beach and take my grandchildren as often as I can.
Grandma took me on a beach outing once and offered to buy me an ice-cream. An ice-cream! All to myself.
We could never afford that. I was so cheeky I asked for a double one, but I couldn't eat it all!

Grandma helped me cut out and assemble a 'Muffin the Mule' puppet with movable joints.
She found some split-pins (don't ask me where!). The picture was on the back of a cereal packet.
Mums don't usually have the time to do these things, but grandmas do! I help my own grandies with craft and they love it!
She even had a writing desk with paper and pencils in a special drawer for me to use when I visited their place.
Every time we visited I checked to see if it was still there and it always was.
That made me feel pretty special.

I remember visiting Grandma in hospital in Melbourne when I was a teenager.
I told her not to die as I loved her so much.
She was the one who encouraged me with first aid badges when I was in the Girl Guides,
even buying me a Nurse's manual as I thought I would like to be a Nurse.
I have kept my First aid certificates current from 1974 as I have needed them for my various jobs
in schools and welfare work.

So you see Grandma is still influencing me today and I am pretty sure I base my grand parenting style on hers.

The Beautiful Blue Wren

THE BEAUTIFUL BLUE WREN

My husband Ernie loves to work in the garden – especially in the front, as the morning sun shines on our north facing home.

We bought in Metung twelve years ago. Holidaying here so frequently meant that inevitably we would settle here one day.

The Blue Wren is Ernie’s favourite bird, next to the Crimson Rosella. He knows each one by its markings and personality. Yes, they do have their own personalities. (Real little characters, some of them!)

Recently there has been a little Blue Wren with a stumpy tail hanging around. Ernie called him ‘Short tail’.

Short tail followed Ernie while he worked in the garden and sat on his shoe when he had a cuppa on the front veranda.

This morning, when we were having breakfast, sitting in the beautiful, East Gippsland winter sun, Ernie saw a little Blue Wren on the driveway. He was not looking very well and was a bit wobbly on his feet. We noticed with dismay that it was our friend, Short tail.

Other Blue Wrens gathered around him as if they were concerned about him and wondering why he couldn’t fly.

I went down and picked him up gently - a tiny ball of fluff in my hand. He was breathing hard, opening and closing his beak.

Then he stopped, stretched out one wing and lay still.

His time had come. My eyes grew misty (over a bird I didn’t even know very well.) Such beautiful colours – indigo feathers under his chin and those distinctive, iridescent, pale blue markings on his head.

I wondered that a God, with so much to do, would bother to bestow such magnificent markings on one so small. Who would know if He had chosen not to?

A bit like us – He knows how many hairs on our head and when each sparrow falls.

I lay Short tail down in a dappled, sunny spot and covered him with an oak leaf.

One little, feathered friend came and visited him to say goodbye. I don’t know how he knew where I had put him.

Such comradeship and compassion between them.

Would that more humans would follow their example.

The End

Fearless Freddie

This is a story I wrote a few years ago when I brought home a wind-battered and disoriented Rainbow Lorikeet from the local school where I worked. I had found him in the carpark and as I approached, he hopped onto my foot.

Fearless Freddie (a true story)

Once upon a time there was a Rainbow Lorikeet called Freddie.

He lived high up in a tree with his mother, father, brother and three sisters.

He remembered how he was nice and warm in his egg. Then he got a bit cramped and got the urge to peck his way out.

Freddie was just skin and bones when he was born, but soon he grew some small feathers all over his body. Soon all the children started to look like their parents.

Each one had a beautiful blue head, with a light green collar.  Their chests were orange and yellow, their bellies were blue. Their wings were green and they were just starting to grow their tail feathers.

Then one day a terrible thing happened. A strong wind blew Freddie out of his nest.

He landed on the ground with a ‘Thud!’ He felt a bit dazed. Then he wandered about looking for his mother and father (and his brother and three sisters).

The wind had blown him about and he felt too weak to walk. He had landed in the carpark of the Metung Primary School.

Someone was coming his way. She was walking straight up to him! He wasn’t sure what to do, so he stood still. This person kept walking slowly up to him. Then she stopped. Freddie thought she looked a bit like a tree, so he hopped onto her shoe.

Thoughts for today

Hi there! At least one person is following and noticed that I spelt Storey incorrectly! Good work! My Auntie Helen is ready to publish Grandma's memoirs so I will write my thoughts and memories of Grandma and post them next time.
Take care beautiful people
Jac

Legoland

We went to the Omeo Show on the weekend and the Lego display reminded me of a poem I wrote when the children were little.

Here it is:

A trip to Legoland in Denmark they promised us,

So into Myer Dandenong we went by bus.

No easy fear I must confess,

But in we went never the less.

Two children, a toddler, a pusher and me,

into Dandenong it cost a dollar fifty three.

It was strange that it cost so much to arrive -

'cos coming home it was only sixty five!

Nimbly dodging the dashing cars,

We finally reached Myer's doors of glass (sorry!)

Up in the lift - none left behind?

Not one of ours so never mind!

Legoland, we're here at last!

Half an hour early I learn aghast!

Well never mind we'll have a drink,

I have enough money left I think!

While the children were busy in the building area,

I had a cup of coffee in the cafeteria.

None of them won that particular heat,

But came away with a hat and a nice certificate!

It was worth the trip in the rickety old bus -

The certificates, the pusher and four of us.

Halfway home the littlest fell asleep,

And we had a day that was relatively cheap!

storey stories

Hi there,

let me know what you thought of Izzard the Lizard.

Here is a piece I wrote a few years ago:

CHINESE WATER TORTURE

I used to think that the mean words people said were like drops of water landing on a stone. One drop is not much in itself, but over time can wear the stone like many centuries of sandals stepping on it. In the ancient water torture, the victim learns to dread the next drop. Each drop comes at the exact time, each time. Relentless. In an otherwise quiet room, the sound is deafening, and the wait – torturous.

Recently, I was thinking as I drove along the water’s edge near home, if I can’t change other people, I can change the way I think about the situation. I don’t have to picture myself as a rock. I’m not that hard anyway. Why don’t I think of myself as a bowl of water? A drop will then fall into it and cause ripples to spread outward. There is no ‘wearing away’ and it is only a drop.

Driving a little further along the road I thought, why not a lake? An ocean? Yes an ocean. A drop in the ocean. Even if it was a drop of dye, it would make no difference to the ocean really. Even a freshwater drop would not make the sea less salty.

Then I thought of those words in the bible that exhort us to be like the salt that flavours the meal. Maybe it is a spiritual battle after all.

I will thing of an ocean with the waves rolling in and I will relax …

Jacki Walker

 OK if you have been waiting for the ending - here it is!

Hope you enjoyed it and I will post some more tid bits soon ...

 “I suppose it is the ‘Survival of the Fittest’,” she said to herself. “The big lizard must have eaten all the food.”

Izzard sat under a leaf and cried. Gussie had been so unselfish and had not once complained. If only he had known he was eating all the food too quickly for her to get any.

He absentmindedly munched on the fly in front of him. Lifting his head thoughtfully, he wondered where his next meal was coming from….

Written by Jacki (McClimont) Walker

Copyright 1983