Happy New Year? Definitely!!

My son asked.

She said yes!

What a grand way to begin a new year.

(the ring can be seen here)

I'm still here - just!

I've been extremely slack about updating here. I've been a little on the busy side.

I've armed myself with paintbrush/saw/sewing machine/secateurs/rake/wheel barrow/hammer first thing in the morning and, by the time I put them down at night, I am too bloody knackered to type an entry. My inbox is bulging, the number on my google reader is probably at maximum and my back is a million years old but the inside of Mum's room is ready (or will be once the glassier comes this afternoon). The outside (we are making her an enclosed courtyard garden) is still only about half done but it was a lot more work than I thought it would be.

She arrives in four days.

I shall catch up on all my buddies when the work is done (or when it rains). I might even put in some pics!

Until then, my shovel is waiting. I have fence post holes to dig.

a prickly present

When we moved to this town (nearly 19 years ago), the neighbourhood welcomed us in different ways.

The woman next door came in as I was lugging boxes around only a few moments after the removalist's truck had left. She introduced herself and her three daughters (then aged in their early teens). She had obviously been watching the unloading because she asked how many kids I had and how old they were. She then offered the services of her daughters as babysitters.

It was about three o'clock in the afternoon and they were all freshly bathed and in their nighties (and brunch coats!).

I met the bloke on the other side the next morning. I was hanging out a load of washing (at about 6am) and saw movement over the fence. There was a (quite good-looking) young man standing on the back verandah. He was stark bollocking naked, bugling a longneck and pissing over the verandah edge. When he saw me he gave a nod and grunted "morning". He then shook his drips and went back inside.

The neighbours were interesting so far!

The neighbours across the road introduced themselves in the person of their youngest son. He hung over the gate one morning and asked if he could play with my kids. He and my son were best mates within a week. I didn't meet his parents for another couple of months (although I did see them drive off to work in the mornings and heard them bellow for Wayne to come home in the evenings).

We gradually met most of the town over the first few weeks. There was the weird yank who took great pride in is tanned scrotum collection (and was the one and only person I have ever heard say "god damn motherfuckering son-of-a-bitch"). There was the elderly couple that lived in the only weatherboard house in town and drove a lime green Valiant. We met Darby who was the local wood merchant and Bo, the local sculptor. Ina introduced herself when she rang to complain that my kids were walking the dogs around town in their pyjamas (the dogs were wearing the pjs, not the kids). There was Nelly, who ran the local servo and knew all the gossip (and pumped every customer for information, which she embellished and shared liberally).

There was Mike, the Welsh truckie, his wife and their ever expanding brood of red headed daughters. There was Rosemary and her roo-shooter husband. There was Drew, the local stud muffin. Ted, at the pub, who drank all his profits. John the mechanic (with a glass eye).Old Mrs B who got lost all the time going to visit her mate Beryl and Old Mrs Wills (as opposed to Young Mrs Wills) who used to sit on her front porch and watch the traffic all day. The local Headmaster (and his teacher wife) and his gang of delinquent children. We met Fiona (the dike) and her brother Glenn (who was later jailed for kiddie porn).

It was a typical small country town, full of long-time families and imported weirdos. Within a few months, we knew them all.

But, on that first day, we only met two. There was the next door lingerie clad neighbour and Mr Driscoll.

That first evening, after I had eventually herded the kids home from their exploration of their new turf, we ate a late dinner and I sat the older kids down on the back verandah to read them a story while M put the baby to bed. It was heading for dusk and we were nearly finished our chapter of The Once and Future King when one of the kids noticed and elderly (and very scruffy) man walking up our drive. He greeted us with a huge smile, and in a strong Somerset accent, undimmed by decades of living down here, he introduced himself as Albert Driscoll.

He was so short and stocky, he almost looked dwarfed. He was unkempt in a manner only found in elderly bachelors living in the country. His feet were covered my well worn carpet slippers and his trousers looked as though they had once been part of a brown suit (probably de-mob). He wore a jacket from a charcoal grey suit (well patched), a frayed once white shirt and a holey blue jumper. His head bore a flat cap with a frayed brim. His age I guessed at somewhere in the mid 70s (I never found out an accurate number).

Against his chest was clutched an enormous misshapen root ball. It was his welcome gift .

I made him tea and found some biscuits and he stayed and talked for half an hour or so. Before he left, he helped M plant the root ball next to the front gate.

That first summer, very little happened to the root ball. A few straggly shoots let us know that it wasn't dead and that it was a rose.

The next year it really got going. It produced a lot of new growth and a brief crop of tiny pink button-hole blooms.

Once it got going, it went feral. It sent up shoots as thick as my thumb. It rapidly covered the whole fence and wound it's way across the gate.

It swamped the crepe murtle and blended with the honey suckle. It crawled across the wood shed.

Wherever it touched the ground it grew roots and started a new plant. Except the new growth had single white flowers instead of the pink.

Despite my constant pruning (no, actually, it was hacking), it grew into an enormous mat of foliage and flowers.

Today, I bit the bullet and attacked it for real. I have chopped and hacked and rooted-out and generally massacred. Some parts were so thick I had to use the loppers. I have an huge, ginormous pile of cuttings (and mangled, much prickled fingers).

I have managed to disentangle parts of the crepe murtle and uncovered some lilies that I planted years ago (that are, remarkably, still alive).

The sad thing is, all these pictures were taken today. After I did my hacking.

It might take me a week (and several blood transfusions) but I'll get there.

Mr Driscoll's roses will be tamed.

Or I'll be pricked to death trying!