Favourite Places - Then and Now

As a child I had a place I liked to go to escape from the world into another world. I had two worlds that I could visit, sometimes at the same time. I would take a cushion and my current book and away I would go, preferably when nobody was watching so they didn’t know where to find me. I was selectively deaf as well when I didn’t want to be found, although the consequences always caught up with me. I considered the scoldings and groundings to be small penalties though for the solitude and peace I craved.

My place was way up at the top of a big old Moreton Bay Fig tree with big branches that I could lie on and watch the clouds battling for supremacy in the sky. The cloud shapes were a constant source of wonder and led my fertile imagination down wondrous winding paths as each new shape evolved. There was everything up there from rabbits to dragons and castles and each had its own story to tell me.

Some were mighty chariots drawn by lines of strong

fluffy horses that the high winds whipped into a frenzy

till they flew to pieces and morphed into smaller and smaller morsels of themselves only to regather and come back as dragons and monsters to challenge the wind again. They never won, but the battles were a feast for my wondering eyes.

The old farm dog would sit at the base of the tree for hours waiting till I came down again, and it was that habit of his that finally led my brothers to discover my secret. He had a habit of chasing possums up trees and my brothers thought that was why he was waiting under the fig tree, so the more agile of the two climbed up to find the possum and found me instead. He kept my secret for a long time, but I had to do some of his more mundane chores to ensure his silence. Thus ended my peace and quiet!!!!!

To this day, nearly sixty years on, I still love to watch the clouds, but alas, I can no longer climb trees – or anything else for that matter.