like to come for a cuppa in my mess? texted Cheryl at 8am this morning.
love a cuppa in yr mess, I text back, be there in a sec, long as I don’t get washed away.
I pull on my last pair of dry boots (two pairs of Blundstones being soaked through to the socks, and my long serving gumboots now taking on water) and dash out to the car, cursing the gate across the driveway that must be opened and closed again to keep the lambs in. Mud everywhere, I’m already saturated. Rob’s flats are covered in fast moving brown water – looks like it’s over the bridge down on Olsen’s Road. The troughs are overflowing, the creeks have broken their banks and the cows are dejected. It’s been raining relentlessly for 24 hours, non stop, punctuated by hail and lashing winds.
I make another dash through the rain and now hail onto Cheryl’s verandah, piled high with life’s comforting necessities; a delivery of chook feed, a reserve stash of firewood yet to be hauled inside, countless muddy shoes and boots, a few good dogs. Her kitchen is dark and warm, and always intoxicatingly full of the good things from the night before – a huge wineglass still half filled with a good red, now covered with a bead edged lace doily, saved for later, a casserole of half eaten confit homegrown duck.
We love the same things, Cheryl and I, and the same things make us miserable. It’s been a tough few months for everyone – money is tight, winter has been, well, winter, and the list of things we want to do, have to do, dwarfs the list of things that actually get done.
But out her kitchen window is a cumquat, bent over with fruit, and the plum trees in the distance are just starting to bloom.
We talk about kids and writing and love, the animals that didn’t make it through winter and how can we secure our futures, and share a cuppa that we drink from delicate bone china tea cups. We take our tea the same way. Strong with the barest hint of milk. Muddy water.
Our conversation comes back around to where it always ends up, where it must end up, to the things that nourish us, that get us out in this weather, the things that release the joy. Gardens, food, our green hills, neighbours, friends, family, unexpected drop ins, picking our beetroot, sowing our seeds, edible dahlias, laughter and spontaneity and generosity around a big old table. It’s why we’re here, and it’s what keeps us going and sometimes it’s very important to tip our lids to that.
I drive back home, and stop on the driveway to watch one of the late calves, born during this terrible weather, feed from his mum. Worrying about them has kept me awake at night but this one is strong and healthy and full of spirit and once the sun hits his back he’ll be off and away. I pick a sprig of wild plum blossom through the car window and think of Christmas, when the bright red fruit will be ripe. By then the song thrush baby will be fully fledged, and the corellas will be back to eat the early peaches while we shake our fist at them through the kitchen window. The seasons march on, and we march on with them. We walk on through the year, and it enfolds its familiarity around us. It is comforting.