MY JOURNEY TO OZ (in cockney rhyming slang) by Lissa M

From my earliest days as a basin of gravy,

Through a mucky stint as a dustbin lid,

Courting Barney Rubble at the light and dark

What were the chances I’d make my mark?

Short of a sheet with no bangers and mash,

Chased round the streets by a bottle and stopper,

Fronting the court and his grace once a week.

Let off with a caution, but life was bleak.

So, I bade farewell to my skin and blisters,

Packed a suitcase with my Alan Whickers.

And hailed a sherbet to St Katharine’s Docks.

Full steam ahead for the Sydney Rocks.

Sailing across the fisherman’s daughter,

A rum currant bun triggered nature’s palette.

Oh, the joy of escaping the pleasure and pain,

Never to stalk those grey streets again.

basin of gravy - baby

dustbin lid - kid

Barney Rubble - trouble

light and dark - park

Short of a sheet - on the street

bangers and mash - cash

bottle and stopper - copper

once a week beak - (magistrate)

skin and blisters - sisters

Alan Whickers knickers

sherbet (dab) - cab

fisherman’s daughter - water

currant bun - sun

pleasure and pain - rain

A WORK IN PROGRESS:
THE ADELAIDE v YEPPOON TALLYBOARD by Robyn B.

“Well cut off my legs and call me Shorty.” If my sister was here she might laugh but we certainly would both wander back into that deep place of shared memories. You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til its gone and I do miss my family and old friends. Those feelings of

familiarity, of home, of belonging.

But enough sentimentality! How goes the ledger thus far?

I know I wasn’t careful and, taking photos of the bush turkeys in public places, was clearly recognised as alien.

But as they say, nothing ventured nothing gained. Take the road less travelled. I didn’t want to be that skeleton on the park bench waiting for the perfect man so instead here I am with a man, in Queensland, which, being God’s own country, is beautiful one day, and perfect the next. Its very nearly the same. But what a carrot! I did not realise that God placed mosquitos quite so highly on the food chain, nor that my belief that humidity was great for the complexion was based on alternate truths. So I continue to age, to wither, at a rate though unbecoming, has not, as yet, left me totally breathless.

So I continue to walk down this merry path, stopping to smell the roses, gathering some local knowledge and alternate ways to be, but mostly feathers, pumice stones and plastic from the beach. My brief encounter with a sea turtle doomed as a flotation device left its

mark. I much prefer the eagles suspended in the sky, independent, majestic and intent. I seek consensus on whether it is safe to swim in the local beaches. I talk too long to the check-out operators. Decorating domesticity. Making new memories is exciting, even if they are only going to be available on short-term consignment.

But still a time to grow and experience new things and new people, and become adept, nay, a role model, a pillar to that truth, that the older I get the less I know.

The narrow concept of the road trip has been expanded to now include the mandatory Qld. quest, ‘hunt for a specialist’. A rite of passage. Local theatre has new expressions: the billboards line the passage to Rocky, and Pauline Hanson always has an evocative

production.

Mmmm, I did have a jumper once. And actual shoes that tied up and held my feet.

I miss that deliciousness of being held, of pot belly fires, of the warmth that can be felt in someone’s presence rather than in a persistent ambient temperature. The three second rule, previously only implemented to regulate dropped food, now signposts the time before sweat and sticky air contaminates the joy felt in another’s proximity.

Stepping out into winter and autumn always brought an element of surprise, cold air enough to remind your body you were alive. It could be argued of course that caffeine is an adequate alternative and true the inventory on that score tallies well here.

I’ll keep chalking up.

COMING TO YEPPOON by Ron D

I sat on a beach on North Keppel Island watching the waves gently rolling in and lapping at the beach as if offering a lover’s kiss. It was an idyllic moment. The sun warmed my soul, and the mild breeze kept me cool. The city of Yeppoon was visible across the bay.

I had flown up from Adelaide to take part in the annual writers’ conference held on the island. The other course participants were banana-bender friendly and welcoming to a Mexican from down south. The course sessions were interesting, and I was having the time of my life. Writing was my bread and butter, my reason for being.

I make the decision right then that I would retire in Yeppoon. This became my mental mantra…’Retire in Yeppoon, Retire in Yeppoon…’ How I would achieve that dream was a complete mystery, but I was sure the Celtic Fates that guided my life had heard and would find a way to make it happen.

I left that decision to my Fates who hadn’t disappointed me in the past and my mind drifted away with the clouds as I contemplated my writing history.

* * *

I was born in the land of the croweaters.

‘Why are we called croweaters?’ I asked my Grandpa as I sat on his lap.

He stroked his beard and let his gaze wander around his farm in the Adelaide Hills.

‘Well, boy, it’s like this,’ he began slowly as he cut another chew off his tobacco plug. ‘In the early days people in our state often were so hungry, they would catch crows to eat. They plucked them and put them in a pot with some water and some stones. When the meal was cooked, they threw away the crows and ate the stones.’

‘Why did they do that?’ I asked in surprise.

‘The crows were too tough to chew. That was where the saying “Stone the Crows” comes from.’

‘Did you ever do that?’ I asked.

‘No. I ate underground mutton.’

‘What’s that?’ I queried. ‘Sheep that hide in holes?’

He laughed and replied, ‘Rabbits.’

My love of words and their varied meanings and interplays was born that day.

When I was in Grade 3 at that country school, I wrote an imaginative story about rabbits and the tricks they got up to. The Headmaster was delighted and read my story to the whole school.

‘This is how I want you all to write,’ he announced to the other students.

I hugged myself with pride and knew then that my future as an author was written in stone.

In later life as a teacher, I wrote stories for the children in my classes.

As a University Lecturer in computing, I wrote and published computing texts for primary and secondary students.

As a Technical Writer I wrote many user manuals and training courses for staff in large businesses.

By sheer luck, or was it my Fates intruding? I won a technical writing post with Ergon Energy in Rockhampton in their control room.

Packing up a home was the price I had to pay for letting my Fates make decisions for me. I was as busy as a one-armed wallpaper hanger. So much to do!

Once settled in Yeppoon, I began my job at Ergon. I enjoyed it and set to work designing training courses for the controllers on topics such as ‘SCADA’, ‘Switching’ and ‘Load Management’.

One day I discovered that Yeppoon was home to the Capricorn Writers Group. All my Christmases had come at once! I immediately joined that group and watched it grow. In time we produced several anthologies that were printed and sold, a great achievement for a local group. One of these is still still available for purchase in the local Paint Pot Gallery.

Not once in those far off days, did I imagine I would later have the good luck to find a most enjoyable and challenging U3A Writing group. When I found it, I was happy as a pig in mud.

Fair dinkum, I had come to Yeppoon for the writing, and it was intent on keeping me here. I’d be up a gum tree without it.

AGING by Valda

Aging has been very traumatic and a long slow event that has an impact on my life.

I have just decided to make tuna pasta but can’t get the tin open despite all the fancy gadgets to help the arthritic wrists, and that new chilled bottle of Cab. Sav. refusing to be unscrewed adds to the frustration. Just as well the sherry is decanted.

Granddaughter just left after suggesting we play hop scotch on my front paved area. I once prided myself at being the athletic active sort  but now can’t even hop on one leg. Not even a strong G and T will fix this.

And then there’s the matter of quickly changing clothes when one leg doesn’t cooperate and an ungainly stumble occurs. The necessity of the long shoe horn and constantly searching for your glasses which are pushed up on your head all the time,  and forgetting why you walked into a room, is annoying to say the least.

Being aged does have some benefits though, when one is staring at the overhead locker on the flight and many hands rush to assist. Asking for assistance at an international airport where you are whisked through immigration smiling at others in the long line when you are quite capable of queueing up. Jumping the queue is very acceptable and meekly asking for a better allocated seat on a flight usually pays off.

Oh well there have to be some benefits of having white hair and a strapped wrist from playing too many computer games when you should have been sleeping.

Never admit to drinking alcohol to medical staff especially when you are in hospital as whatever amount you say, they will double it on the form hidden from your eyes.

It’s certainly good to be prepared for your annual driving test. Learn the eye chart ahead of appointment, prepare the sentence they will ask you to write, check today’s date, don’t forget who is prime minister of the day (was more difficult a few years ago when they were changing on an almost weekly basis), and if possible learn the months of the year in reverse. Doing all this will ensure you drive for another year.

Not a time to discuss lack of libido or other more personal issues.
Will end now as it’s time for my afternoon siesta.

LIFE ON THE CAPRICORN COAST by Malcolm

As I stood on the beachfront at Yeppoon, I stared at the vast expanse of water before me. How could anywhere have so much water. I thought our dam at home had a lot of water, but this was unbelievable.

“Dad, how can there be so much water. Does it really go as far as I can see?”

My dad smiled and my uncle and cousin chuckled.

“Much further than you can see, darling,” Dad said.

I sighed. “Wow, I have read about the sea in books, but I never realised it was so huge. Where does all the water come from? It can’t be from rain. Nowhere has that much. Does it come from an underground artesian basin like the water in our dams?”

Dad smiled. “It’s a mystery, darling but it has always been there. No one knows where it originally came from, certainly not rainfall.”

My cousin, Judy laughed at me and teasingly said, “Come on… you’re 10, how come you have never seen the sea before? Besides, haven’t you seen maps of the world? They show how big the oceans are.”

I put my head down to hide the blush that covered my face. We lived so far away on a cattle and sheep station outside of Barcaldine, and it was always busy. We didn’t get down to Rockhampton often and this was the first time we had visited Yeppoon. “Yeah, in geography we have maps, but I guess I never really thought about how the sea would look,” I muttered.

“Come on, let’s go for a swim,” Judy said and dashed down the stairs to the beach.

As she ran across the sand towards the water, another memory from a book I had read flashed into my mind. I moved closer to Dad. “Are there sharks here?” I asked quietly. I didn’t want any more teasing.

“You can never be sure where the blighters are, Laine, but the lifesavers’ flags are out so they must think it’s safe.”

My mother pushed my youngest brother towards me. “Go on, take your little brothers and go down. You don’t have to go too far in. You can have a paddle in the water together.”

I grimaced. Can’t I even go to the beach for the first time without having to look after my brothers? I looked at Dad imploringly.

He smiled and said, “I’ll come too. I’ll mind the boys while you join Judy.”

My brothers, Colin, 6, and Bill, 3 raced for the water. Dad and I jogged through the hot sand to keep up with them, but we didn’t have to be concerned about them going in before we got there. As soon as they reached the edge of the water they stopped. The waves were strong that day and as they rushed towards the boys’ feet they squealed and ran away from them.

I laughed and stepped into the wave. The sensation of the water washing over my feet and pulling sand from under them was a little overwhelming at first, but I stood my ground to show my brothers there was nothing to be scared about. After a few minutes, I enjoyed the feeling and wriggled my toes with pleasure. I called, “Come on, boys, it’s okay.”

Bill rushed in and grabbed my hand. He pressed up against my leg and clung on with the other hand while the waves broke over our feet.

Dad walked in and encouraged Colin to join him. Colin stood staring anxiously at the water rushing towards them, lifting his feet, and glancing at Dad for reassurance. It didn’t take long for them to get used to the sensation. Soon they were splashing around and sitting in the waves as they covered them in foam.

I stared out over the waves trying to see Judy, but the waves were quite high, and she was nowhere to be seen.

“Go on, love. Just go out a little way. Judy will be out there close by,” Dad said.

I took a deep breath to get the courage I needed to go deeper. I was a strong swimmer, so I wasn’t too worried. But we had learned to swim in our nice calm dam. This was another world.

I waded out past the first high wave and dived through the next one. As I came to the surface, something grabbed my leg. I squealed in fright and kicked frantically until it let go.

Dad heard me and came charging through the waves towards me. Terrified, I started towards him. Suddenly, Judy popped up in front of me spluttering with laughter.

“Was that you?” I demanded.

“Yes, scaredy cat,” she spluttered, hardly able to speak for laughing.

Dad arrived just as she popped up. “Judy, that wasn’t funny. You know this is Elaine’s first time in the sea. I would expect you to be trying to help her. Apologise,” he said frowning.

Still laughing, Judy said, “Sorry, Elaine. Come on, I’ll swim with you.”

Annoyed, I said, “I’ve had enough for now. I’m going back to the boys.”

Judy put her hand over her mouth to stifle her laughter and turned away. Dad and I headed back to the boys. We took them up on the sand and started building sandcastles. Judy finally came out and joined us. In control now, she sat beside me and whispered, “I am really sorry I scared you.”

Sure! I thought but smiled at her. Then she looked at what we had built and said, “That’s great, but I think we need some shells to decorate it. Come on.”

We followed her up to the tide line and collected shells as Dad waved and wandered up to where Mum and Aunty Nellie were laying out a picnic lunch at one of the tables. Soon we were called to lunch.

As we ate, I stared out at the sea and fell in love. It was many years before I was to see it again, but I have never lived far from it since then.

FROM CAWARRAL TO YEPPOON
IN MANY CLICHES by Cindi B

Here’s hoping that perhaps clichés can help me talk through

difficult times by somehow distancing me from real emotion-

slick, run of the mill sentences describing real happenings

but making them mundane. So here goes.

My husband of 49 years seven months and ten days (but

who’s counting?) dropped dead. We married ”Till death us do

part”, and sadly, it did. There will be other more interesting

clichés, but I don’t want to go there. My family, shocked to the

core, closed ranks and we suffered in silence. For me, it was a

tale of two cities, not London and Paris, but two different

worlds. Him first and I really could move; foremost in my mind

and yet absent in reality in every other way.

The two of us had restored the house of our dreams on God’s

little acre in country Cawarral. Keeping everything together

had been a piece of cake for the two of us. Come hail, come

shine, everything had been hunky dory in our neck of the

woods.

Suddenly, fighting for balance and with a hole in my heart I

picked up the tab alone. After months of mindless walking,

leaving home at the crack of dawn and returning ready to

drop with exhaustion, my neighbour, a friend in need, brought

me back to earth. She had mowed for me when I couldn’t care

less. No rash decisions under stress, she said, take things

day by day, life goes on. And it did.

Then came the steep learning curve. To this day, Cawarral has

no reticulated water. I had to launch myself into the unknown

world of pumps and pipes and tanks. No longer the two of us

to tango (or more specifically, to mow) I bought, and

borrowed and stole old ride-ons to stop the local Firies from

seeing red when they took one look at my grass. Risking life

and limb and terrifying hell out of myself, I became adept at

climbing my four cement tanks to check water levels. Always

hoping for a rainy day in more ways than one.

So, from the sublime to the ridiculous. Early on in the piece I

managed to fire the wood-burning heater enough to blow the

failsafe. It rained boiling water that night, not cats and dogs.

Another lesson in life, there seemed to be no end of them in

sight. No gain without pain, I told myself. However as a

creative artist I had lost my zest for life in my work, but I

needed to be working creatively to keep my shit together!

(That cliché was kindly donated by my Grandson!)

Then came the cyclone, which really sorted the sheep from

the goats. Battered, but basically unscathed, I reasessed my

life.

Just keeping my head above water with two thirds garden and

a third natural bush, but running on the spot achieving

nothing new just keeping the status quo. Pointless, beating

my head against a brick wall, coping, just. Well, there had to

be a lightbulb moment eventually.

I could move.

I really could move! Get rid of fifty years of accumulated stuff!

Where there is a will there has to be a way. At last there was a

will. In the final analysis I was on a one-way street to old age,

so I needed to do it while I was still able, strike while the iron

is hot. So I did.

Never again, please God. If I had known then what I know now

I might have cut my throat instead, but all’s well that ends

well.

Here in Yeppoon water arrives at the turn of a tap. The shops

are just a stroll away. There are great walking tracks. Like-

minded people get together at the drop of a hat. What on earth

kept me away so long?

FROM TREECHANGE TO SEACHANGE by Sallie

Of all the places in this beautiful country why pick Yeppoon? Let me start at the beginning, a very good place to start.

Whilst 35 acres was great when we were much younger, it started to get a bit hard as our bodies, not our minds, started to age. It became very hard to chase the lambs to mark them, keep up with the wood for the very hungry fires, the slow combustion cooker in the kitchen and the fire in the lounge which was needed when the overnight temperatures in winter often dropped to below freezing.  The weeds grew and the gum trees in the home paddock dropped bark and leaves which accumulated and needed to be raked up and burnt ready for the bushfire season. So we decided to sell and move to somewhere which needed a little less maintenance.

We had a very spacious home with four bedrooms and a study along with a separate dining room, kitchen family room and a huge lounge.  We filled it to overflowing with possessions.  We loved it but with the children having left the nest, and scattered to three of the four winds, the two of us rattled around in it.

We decided to put our home on the market thinking it would take quite a while to sell.  It didn’t.  It sold the first weekend it was open for inspection.  Now the rush was on.  So much to do and so little time to do it. With no idea of where we should go, we started  to sort through all our possessions, well not only ours but also lots of things that the children had left for storage when two of them decided that overseas was the place for them.

We looked at places not too far away but nothing seemed right.  Melbourne?  We had a son there but houses were very expensive and did we really want to go to a huge city?  No we didn’t. 

Remembering a lovely holiday in Yeppoon in 2021, we thought we’d look at places for sale there.  QUEENSLAND said the nay sayers?  We were told “people don’t last up there for more than two years.  You’ll soon be back in Victoria”.  Another comment was “just rent for a while and find out if that is what you really want because you’ll hate it”.  Well they were wrong, weren’t they?

At first we thought of buying land and building but where would we stay for the duration? Caravan Parks didn’t seem to want to take long term residents and we were sure it would have taken a new building quite a few months from go to woah.

Then we started to look at houses for sale.  The prices were o.k. but too often there were a lot of stairs involved leading to lovely sea views and whilst stairs might be great for younger legs, and sea views great for any age, we knew these types of dwellings weren’t for us; particularly as Richard would not have been able to manage stairs on a daily basis.

Then we saw what we thought was almost perfect and rang the agent to put in an offer. He told us that it was going to be open for inspection the very next Saturday and he wasn’t accepting offers prior to this inspection. Really!

The long and short of it was that we did put in an offer on the day, probably over what we should have, but we did want this house. It turned out that nobody else did so the house was ours, subject to building and pest inspection.

We knew we had to downsize and so began a frantic culling of things. Nowhere for books in the new house so off to the op-shop went huge numbers of books, I think it was about 20 boxes. Other things so lovingly collected over the years had to go too. Winter clothes, well we wouldn’t need them in Queensland would we! That was a mistake.

The moving van came and “off went the cart wif me ‘ome packed in it”, we spent the next couple of days cleaning windows, cupboards, bathrooms, carpets and floors. I just wish the people that we bought from had done the same. Cockroaches ran amok and the bathrooms were disgusting.

Never mind, we got there in the end and love being here. What a fantastic place to spend our later years.

THE LONG AND THE SHORT OF IT by Melinda