Hours. I’m spending way too many hours awake lately LOL! Last night I had about 2 hours sleep. The night before I pulled an all nighter, and got a couple of hours in the morning. Insomnia – I cannot wait until this bout passes. It will, it always does. But I’m feeling pretty good regardless.
Hours. I spent 3 of them last night replying to a most beautiful piece of correspondence. Can you believe that? (yeah I know what some of you are thinking haha!). It wasn’t THAT big. I was not capable of blogging last night. No indeed 🙂 No my mind was totally involved elsewhere.
And I’m still not in a space that I can write that entry on abuse. I’m too bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, though a bit spacey considering how little sleep I’ve had 
! Too soft, warm and fuzzy. Mmm 🙂 
So instead I’m going all nostalgic again and evening the scales – reminiscing about stays at my maternal grandparents’ house. I’m enjoying getting the memories down, as much for the memories themselves as the process of getting them in words for later on when my memory starts to decide to slow down 🙂
Grandma and Grandpa lived at Port Macquarie, reasonably close to where I currently live. These days, it’s only a 3 hour trip from Newcastle (the town where I grew up) to Port. In those days it was considerably longer, because the Pacific Highway has had a lot of rebuilding and rerouting since then. As a child it felt like it was an all day trip, but I’m sure it can’t have been any longer than 5 hours. We always knew when we were close to our destination because of the brilliant red volcanic soil and the lush emerald green of the grass. Port always had a feeling of exoticness about it when I was a child. With the soil, the greenery, the patches of rainforest, the palm trees in town and the Norfolk pines at the beaches.
Flynn’s Beach
Town Beach?
I only remember being at the beach one time … a memory forever engraven, a memory of a link between childhood and womanhood. But there must have been other times. The beaches at Port are spectacular. Again, Port used to be a small seaside town. Not, perhaps, as small as Terrigal was, but definitely a lot smaller than it is now. Now, it is a large regional centre, and of course has a tourist trade.
Port Macquarie’s main street
I was always on the lookout for koalas. There were roadside signs everywere. There was a big population at Port, sadly decimated by dogs and road kills. Even in those days the locals were very aware of the issue of the koala population and dogs. I never saw one though – I looked continuously in the trees in the back yard and never a koala was seen 🙂
There are smells that I connect to Port. Grandpa was an eccentric old tyrant 🙂 He was a cabinet maker by trade. His workshop was a converted garage. We weren’t often allowed in there, and ONLY when Grandpa was in there. I was entranced by the place. The woodshavings all over the place – the works in progress, watching the turning machine. And the smell of wood and varnish. I can close my eyes now and remember that smell with clarity and a smile. He used to sit me well away from all of his equipment and give me a big pile of laminate card samples to play with. He left a legacy of a spiral staircase in the local Catholic Church, which of course was the church they attended (and us too when we were up there).
Then there was the smell of the wine cellar. Grandpa used to make his own wine and store it in a room he kept underneath the house. Again, we were only allowed down there with him. He made wine out of fruit. Banana wine, passionfruit wine … pineapple wine … I’m very glad I never got to taste any as Dad used to complain mightily every time we went up there that he would be pressed into tasting the latest batch of whatever disgusting brew he had recently made. 
Apparently it was that awful.
And the house … the house was soaked in the smell of cigarette smoke. When I was child I had no idea what that smell was, just that it represented the absolute comfort of my grandparents and their house. I didn’t mind it at all. I spent a lot of time pouring through my Aunty Anne’s ballet books and magazines – I wanted to be a ballerina when I was a little girl. I think most little girls do, at some stage. I don’t remember music in that house.
When I was in kindergarten (5 years old) I was sent with my sister Christine who was then 6 weeks old, to live with Grandma and Grandpa for a while. My other two sisters stayed at home with Mum and Dad. I guess Mum was dealing with Post Natal Depression, but of course it went unrecognised back then. I have vague memories of being very unsettled and knowing something was wrong. I was put into school and I remember being terrified .. it was all new and I didn’t know anybody. I was also terrified of the ‘monsters’. Blue tongued lizards that sunned themselves on the back concrete steps. To me, they were as big as goannas LOL! I would not … could not … go up or down the steps when they were there. I stood there and screamed instead. With the adults all yelling at me in very frustrated tones that they wouldn’t hurt me and just to do it. I remember that clearly. Poor harmless blue tongued lizards LOL they are beautiful creatures.
As I grew into puberty our summer stays at Port turned into holidays at Lake Cathie (pronounced Cat-eye) just south of Port Macquarie. I think by that time Grandpa was getting increasingly more ornery and Mum and Dad preferred not to stay at their place anymore. It was a lovely place – so called because there was a tidal ‘lake’ there. Warm, shallow water perfect for kids to play in.
NOT MY KID!!
This is some random kid – a picture I nicked to show how pretty the place is.
And then the visits just stopped. Grandma left Grandpa when I was 18 or 19 I think, and came to live down in Newcastle. Grandpa got himself a Philippino bride and got multiple piercings. He got weirder and weirder. When he eventually died and we all went up for the funeral, it was a very surreal experience. Here we are, in a house we virtually spent time growing up in, but a strange Philippino family was in it. People we had never met before. We felt like intruders in Grandpa’s house. Not the fault of Grandpa’s wife or family at all, it was just bizarre. I don’t know what happened to the house … I presume they sold it and moved on. Strange to think of it. And sad.