Collective Nouns

My sister Kate from Fox's Lane is this week's theme queen for My Place and Yours. The theme she has chosen is My Collection.

Whenever I think about collections, a line of comedian Steven Wright's comes to mind: 'You can't have everything. Where would you put it?' Which is why I just collect red things; it narrows it down some.

I have been waving my red flag high for the past ten years, during which time I have accrued a lot of great treasures. Here are some of them:

Thank you Kate for the great theme!

Now, I'm going to put the kettle on for a nice hot cuppa while I drop by Meet Me At Mike's to see what everyone else is collecting.

I Dream of G Knees

OK I admit it, I am partly posting this picture because I like the colours and layers and partly because I came up with the title and thought it was pretty damn funny.

The excellent G is a kid who goes to school with Z. His mum told us that when he first started going to school he used to ask to stay home because he wanted to hang out with his chickens all day. If I wasn't able to and I had a genie, I would be asking for exactly the same thing.

Adrian's Garden

Adrian lives in the street next to ours. He has two sons who have grown up. He has a trampoline that he says we can play on any time.

While Z and his friend Kit jumped, I walked around the beautiful garden

where I took this photo of my Yayoi Kusama shoes and

where I found this seed pod. It looks like a rusty metal screw, don't you think?

Rednesday

This year marks a decade since I first became attracted to the colour red. 

In 1999 I returned home to Melbourne from travelling through Asia to settle down for a while; find a job and a home. Regular life seemed so colourless compared to the cities and villages I had travelled in.

I don't remember if I sought out these clogs or if I saw them in a store window and just knew I had to have them. All I remember is that I was home from travelling through countries where red is the colour of prosperity, and I bought these shoes.

In those days I wore them wherever I went, though these days they sit by the front door – easy to slip on when I go outside to empty the compost bucket, check on the chooks or pull the flying fox rope back up for Z.

The Lucy Boot

Our town awoke inside a wintry mist this morning.

But when I opened the front door at 7am to go and let the chooks out of their coop, I realised that it wasn't fog at all but the frightening smell of smoke from the bushfires.

In the city on Wednesday my relationship to the fires was about the individual people who had died or were effected. Now I am back home it is about the people still, but in relation to their families, communities and to the land – the practicalities, not just the emotions.

O came over last night and we talked about fire behaviour and CFA recommendations and what we are going to do if our dry surrounding bush goes up in flames.

So many shops have charity tins for the bushfire appeal, so many local venues are having fundraisers. Momentous events such as this tend to bring out the best in people in the most surprising ways.

Since my grandmother died I have received emails and messages from people in similarly unexpected ways.

My friend Gil for example who runs a successful leather goods business came over with her man on Saturday. She reminded me that a few years ago she named a boot Lucy after my grandmother. At the time that range came out I knew, but didn't think twice about it. 

Now I see though that the individual ways people experience the world affect us all.

Guest Blogger: ETG

A fortnight ago I invited a reader of this blog, ETG, to be the inaugural Guest Blogger in the Land of Meg. Ladies and gentleman, without further ado I present to you her post:

We have been cleaning out my grandfather’s garage. He died five years ago and now we live in the house that he shared with my grandmother. The garage has to go, being a relic of the age when Asbestos was considered the wonder product.

There was so much stuff in there to sort through. Sure, some of it was ours and a lot of our stuff was pretty easy to quickly assess and discard (unused paper plates from our engagement party in 1998??) but grandfather’s stuff was another matter altogether. As well as holding the sentimental value of things belonging to the only grandfather I got to know, these were the props of his story, the backdrop to his territory.

Where would you find grandfather? He was either in his armchair reading the newspaper or in the garage. This multitude of jars, tins and boxes were his collection. He had plans for this stuff. Who knows how many jars full to bursting with different sized nails, different sized screws. A 1920s fire extinguisher. His RAAF duffle bag. A shoemaker’s last, a paper bag of rubber soles, a jar of shoemaker’s tacks. Then a smaller paper bag of smaller rubber soles—for Grandma’s shoes. Who knew he repaired shoes?

It is all now amassed in the driveway. Some of it will just have to go to the local recycling centre being either unrecognisable or unusable but a lot of it will be kept, refashioned or reused by my father and me. Or just placed somewhere in memory of a man with plans.

Wabi Sabi

I was in a rush, I can't remember why. And I whacked my elbow on the clear plastic lid of the butter compartment on the inside of the fridge door, and it fell out. A small piece of the plastic broke off and now the lid won't stay on.

I tried again to fix it today, but to no avail. Small bit of plastic; high traffic.

This here is a photo of my everyday ring. You can see where it has broken a dozen or so times. PJ wanted to buy me a new one for my birthday, but I said no. I love that he presents it to me afresh each time he repairs it.

And here too, my everyday boots that a friend made me, worn through on the heels, now patched asymmetrically and more Meg.

Getting a Grip

On Friday we had another meeting at Z's school to talk with his teachers about his bad behaviour.

In my opinion, the school isn't setting enough boundaries. They are telling him what to do and what not to do without showing him the consequences of his decisions. It's as though they have forgotten he is six.

Here is Z this morning with new footy boots before he muddied them at Auskick. 

Co-operation and team playing, responsibility for self, listening, learning, watching, a safe environment to run and tackle, and now, a better grip on the earth.