8 September 2020

‘I call them beach flowers,’ my grandson says as he and his sister pick the squat flowers in every shade of yellow. We make roads in the white sand, looping around each other. A choppy wind is blowing, the waves splashing inelegantly. ‘Why are there even beaches?’ my grandson asks.

7 September 2020

Last night’s news reported the survival of the glow worms in a damp tunnel near Newnes, spared, unlike the devastating three billion animals killed or displaced in last summer’s fires. ‘They’re like nature’s Milky Way,’ one person enthused. In these circumstances, you’ve got to get your laughs where you can.

6 September 2020

A dinner party! How extra ordinary. So much good food, gaiety and laughter, catching up on years of being too busy for this, remembering the importance of that simple connection of friendship. We lose track of time and leave way after midnight, promising to do it again, and meaning it.

5 September 2020

I saw that man yesterday too, headphones on, towel slung over his shoulder. Back from the pool already. Soon new leaves will cover the street trees, cutting me off from the dog-walkers and pram-pushers, joggers and coffee-carriers. Maybe the butcher bird will return soon, its voice as pure as Callas.

4 September 2020

These voices calling through light rain and grey sky remind me of Rome, that apartment behind Campo dei Fiori, the windowseat, the window onto trailing vines. They remind me of that agriturismo outside Agrigento, those children calling from the hillside, across the valley, running their goats down along the fences.

3 September 2020

Opening the window for the first time in months, the warm air is unseemly. The beep of a backing truck, the whirr of a starting car, the voice of a person squabbling – all strangely unfamiliar as they burst into my bubble. Someone plays the drums, badly, petulantly tapping the cymbals.

2 September 2020

The telegraph wires are mysterious at night, loops and stray pieces of wire forming shapes of enigmatic language. In the morning they shine like innocent children, laughing at my fancies, displaying their true twists and accretions. But a spider’s web, seen as a gauze in the streetlight’s slant, has vanished.

1 September 2020

The aquarobics music pumps and the teacher bounces, booming to her bobbing class. Lane markers, dark blue in the aqua pool, pucker on their edges, serrated like a breadknife, rippling like ric-rac. As my grandson learns overarm, the water surface melts. I sit in a Hockney with a Motown soundtrack.

31 August 2020

Combining Dharawal and western concepts of time, it’s the last day of Tugarah Gunya’marri here. Tomorrow Murrai’yunggory starts, when Ngoonungi, flying foxes, gather. I love this: they are ‘sky-dancing’. Miwa Gawaian, waratah, will start to bloom, its magnificent red flower demanding your attention whether you know its significance or not.

30 August 2020

I braced myself as we landed in London, sure that the past would dog me with its scaly wings and noxious smells. But 35 years had transformed the place beyond recognition, and my memories with it. Instead of harassing, they looked up at me with limpid eyes, wanting a pat.