Betty on a Box

So plenty has been happening over here but I’ve been a bit busy actually DOING that I haven’t had as much time to write about it. I’m about to finish my second term of pottery and it’s seriously the best handcraft I’ve learned in years. Between the day job, pottery, writing a memoir (not mine – more about that another time), hanging with Jeff and renovating the other house, it’s been fun.

We have so much growing at the moment. The herbs that I moved from the old veggie patch are loving the full sun in their new home. I planted lemongrass a few weeks ago and it’s going great guns. The tomato seedlings are not growing too well. I have no idea what that’s about because a compost tomato plant is doing well. The weather’s been so weird – we’ve had so much rain and it’s been a super-cold spring so I’m sure that’s got a bit to do with what’s happening in the veggie patch. It’s going to be ok though. We also have eggplant, lettuce, leek, radishes, snowpeas, yellow beans, potatoes and onions growing. I think I’ll mulch tomorrow and give the garden a drenching with blood and bone.

So here is a story, in pictures, of spring in the garden and some new pottery pieces.

Clockwise from top left: New pottery, the hard rubbish score have been cleaned and are ready to be painted, the first of the season’s hydrangeas, our very first cherries!

Clockwise from top left: poppies in the pond, wild figs from the tree in the gnome pond, the potatoes are coming, the first strawberry

You really can’t make this shit up…

My friend and neighbour, J’Red, who’s also a cop, calls out over the fence:

J’Red: Hey Betty!
Me (Quite concerned. I don’t like his tone. Something’s afoot): What is it J’Red?
J’Red: Listen, I just got a call from Fitzy that people have been door knocking–
Me (interrupting): Freaking politicians – it’s that damned election next week.
J’Red: No, not that sort of door knocking. Two people are knocking on peoples’ doors to see if anyone’s home.
Me (furrowed brow): Are they dressed as nuns?
J’Red (he and his misses, T’Red, are quite used to me and JJ now): What? They’re junkies or something. Fitzy’s called the cops. I just thought with JJ away–
Me: You’ve been talking to my mum, haven’t you?
J’Red: Seriously. What are you talking about? Just lock your doors.

I tell you, you just can’t make this shit up.

I’m a liar; a nun certainly did NOT walk into a bar. A very lovely, but dead, nun has become the first Australian Saint (we will now call her “Our Saint Mary”).

So JJ is currently away, eating his weight in fish tacos and cheese enchiladas in San Diego, and fitting in some work, of course.

Anyway, after a feed at my mum’s, I was pulling out of her driveway and she walked to the car quickly.

I try not to look in her direction but she ra-ta-taps urgently on the window and I can’t pretend not to notice. I wind down my window.

Mum: I don’t like you sleeping at home alone while JJ’s away. Why don’t you stay here?
Me: (Hahahahaha) I’m ok. Watch your feet. 

I inch out but, clearly, she’s not done.

Mum: Don’t be fooled by anyone knocking at the door. Don’t let them in.
Me (I’ve seen the bait, I can’t avoid it. I take it): Who’s going to knock at my door trying to get in, mum?
Mum: You know, some people pretend to be nuns. They dress as nuns and then they knock on peoples’ door wanting to get in to rob you and do whatever else. They pretend to be nuns.
Me (hook, line, and sinker): People pretend to be nuns to get in your house. Mum, when was the last time you heard of anyone who was robbed by someone pretending to be a nun to trick their way into their house? That’s ridiculous.
Mum: It happens.
Me: To who?
Mum: I hear these things.
Me: From Italian satellite TV?
Mum: You’ll thank me for warning you when a nun comes knocking at your door wanting to use the phone.
Me: Watch your feet!

Clockwise from top left: Fake nuns, fake (but very realistic) nun, real nun, fake nun

Writing is a long process that involves listening, often to things you don’t want to hear. I tell the stories that I know; not verbatim but, rather, a retelling of the ideas. Often these are tales that my parents have imparted and tales that they have invented purely for my amusement.

My father is fond of the wandering fable and that is how I like to tell my stories. It is a voice that always exasperated me for it meandered ever so slowly—“get to the point,” I would often say but, for him, there was no other way to tell a story. And as my mother says, “a story can be told in many ways, and sometimes, the telling is just as important as the story itself.” Hopefully you will agree.

Mostly I like to tell stories that I think I remember. To me, my childhood is always sunny, filled with the hopeful sounds of cicadas and bees, trails of ants making their way to their underground lairs, split figs and shiny loquat seeds discarded in the yard, boys riding rusty BMX bikes out the front of the school during recess and the thin black strap behind a nun’s oak desk. That’s what I remember.

Half truths.