Hey winter, thanks for coming

Hey winter, thanks for coming, fineliner ©jb

Hey winter, thanks for coming, but, well, I think it's time for you to go. The blossoms are starting to show and I don't want to use the heater anymore. If only I could put you inside this snowdome until I needed you again next year.

I served mouldy cake to my friends

I served mouldy cake to my friends. Accidentally of course. I had some too. Even then, I’m not entirely sure it was mouldy when I gave it to them. Brought home from the local patisserie in a crisp white box. It tasted fine, looked great. Glazed and glossy with pear slices and almond meal. I think I ate two pieces.

There was some left over. The next day, I admired the leftover cake sitting quietly under the glass cake dome. I love the sight of a beautifully presented cake. It makes my heart sing. With my cup of tea freshly brewed, I took the knife to cut off a slice of moist pear cake. Lifting the dome, I didn’t notice at first, but as I looked down deciding where to place the knife, there it was. Alive and robustly growing outwards like tiny little caterpillar fur. Mould. Lots of it.

Well. Into the bin it went. My cup of tea tasted slightly sad after that. Disappointed that the cake had let down it’s end of the bargain. It was meant to be in my mouth, not the bin.

So, sorry to my friends, hope I didn’t make you sick. Next time you come around, I’ll open a packet of biscuits.

(Although, you never can be certain of anything. I once unwrapped a chocolate bar only to find it had a bite taken out of it. But that’s a story for another time…)

Someone's in the fishtank

Aquarium, fineliner ©jb

Sometimes the strangest things happen and no one blinks an eye. We just get on with things. Or we stop, stand still and wait for something to happen, taking cues from each other before we decide to react.

A siren went off in the shopping centre. Sharp, sickening, the sound filled the air leaving no room for anything else but fear. We all looked to each other for clues. A white haired woman read my face just as I searched hers for answers. What the hell is going on? Is it a fire, a gunman? What should we do, what should we do?

The noise went on and on. I had stopped still near a doorway, pram handles tightly gripped with my little boy looking around apparently unaffected. A female voice spoke through the loudspeakers. This is an emergency, please stand by for further instructions. What? Stupid loudspeaker lady. Give us the instructions now! 

I looked around. Some people were still shopping, walking around like they were in a nightclub, used to the oppressive noise. A woman and her young daughter wandered backwards and forwards nearby and asked me what was happening. I told her that it was best that we stay near the doorway, just in case. But to myself, I wondered if the threat was inside or outside the doors.

So I stood frozen to the spot and waited, prepared to run with my boy if I needed to. The loudspeaker lady spoke again. Attention, the emergency has been resolved, repeat, the emergency has been resolved.

Immediately, as if we'd melted, my fellow frozen shoppers and I moved off our spots, joining the flow of carefree shoppers once again. With no explanation for what had happened, some looked slightly embarrassed, as though they read the situation too seriously. Others, like myself who had children with us gave each other a practical smile as if to say, 'Just doing our job, paying attention and keeping our little ones safe'.

My quiet little fox friend

A fox in the forest, pen and ink ©jb

The last time I saw a fox was a couple of months ago. I was parked in my car in the early hours of the morning. It was dark and so, so very cold. The street light was showing me the shape of the road and the concrete gutters seemed to glow silver against the bitumen black. Everything was still. As if the air had been sucked out of the suburbs. No leaves, branches or blade of grass moved.

And then there he was. Bounding out between two trees like he’d always been there. Sure footed yet with a cautious gaze, it seemed that his amber coat glowed and warmed up the still air around him. He knew he had to careful, that he wasn’t usually greeted with a happy smile. Crossing the road in front of me, he foraged around in a bush or two and then as quickly as he had appeared, he slipped away out of sight.

I started up the engine, it was time to go. My quiet little fox friend had broken the stillness of the morning and I drove away with a smile on my face.

We planted two apple trees

We planted two apple trees like sentinels beside the path, pen and ink ©jb

At the market it was sunny and clear. Not a warm, sparkly sun, but a cool winter glow. We felt cheery and relaxed as we went from stall to stall. One stall had beeswax candles, another had delicate orchids in shades of pale yellow, watery greens and mottled reds.

Someone called for their dog, ‘Apple, Apple, come here.’ My head spun around but through the moving crowd I couldn’t see the dog with the sweet name. At the fruit and vegetable stall we bought tiny little green apples. We spoke to a man selling apple trees and bought two on impulse. You need two, did you know that? So that they fertilise and produce fruit.

We planted the two apple trees like sentinels beside the path. I look forward to walking between their blossomed branches in spring and in a couple of years’ time, picking fresh apples for us to eat.

What's so great about a pile of dirt?

Pile of dirt with its very own puddle, pen and ink ©jb

Everything was neat, neat, neat. The houses in a straight, clean row. The pocket sized gardens manicured as if to say, 'It looks like this all the time, with no effort at all.' Walking along the bitumen coated footpaths, I caught glimpses of the lives inside. In one front room, a piano with a slick modern pendant light hanging above. On the window sill of another house was a wonky clay pencil holder in the vague shape of a tree. I thought about the child who lived there and what it was like for them living in such tight spaces.

Environment effects me in ways that I don't often recognise at first. When I lived in a small apartment, I spent hours walking or riding my bike just to get some space. On the other hand, I could spend days at home when I lived in a large, warm and cozy house. So this is why I was so curious about how people felt living in these houses where walls and noises were shared.

It seems the more we intrude on each other's personal spaces, the greater the need to ignore each other. Walking cobblestones in the inner city, we avoid gazes and keep our eyes ahead or down. Even if we live in the same street. In the suburbs we may say hello to a fellow dog walker or pram pusher, maybe followed up with a chat with someone we may have seen a few times. It seems more space = more chats.

So about this pile of dirt. When I saw it in the neat inner city park, it looked so reassuringly solid. Like a mini mountain with a cool, still lake at its base. The track marks left by the dump truck were like arrows, drawing our attention. Come on, come and play. Get messy. Make some space for yourself. Breathe.

After I had noticed this pile of dirt, I started seeing them everywhere. On the side of the freeway in various shades and sizes. In the back of a ute in peak hour traffic. In suburban driveways, ready for landscaping. Each pile a funny little reminder of the need to get some space in nature now and again and to get some dirt under your fingernails.

I don't really know if anyone else had noticed the pile of dirt in the way that I had, but I hoped so.

Ducks can talk, you know

Forest swim, pen and ink ©jb

We walked and walked and realised that we had lost our bearings and didn't know how to get back to the carpark. Round and round we went, past the impossibly green, grassy field and the woman walking her big dopey dog. We stopped to watch the golden leaves flutter down from the oak tree as the breeze picked up. On the bridge, gazing down at the ducks swimming in the lake, we made quacking sounds and the ducks replied, 'We don't sound like that!'

Ok, they didn't really say that, just like these ducks weren't really swimming in a nest perched on a tree branch. But that's the beauty of drawing. You can make life be any way you want it to be with the stroke of a pen.

Oh, and we did eventually find our way back to the carpark - the ducks gave us directions.