27 August

My grandmother died this month. My last remaining grandparent. Nanna. Because of Covid she got no funeral, though at some point we’ll get together and commemorate her. That’s her on the left, holding either me or Mike (hard to tell which, Mike is usually the ugly one). Same age as the Queen, always the way to remember her age. A good innings. Florence or Flo was a lady. Very proper, she had a calm about her, and liked to do things properly. She used to remind me of the Queen, actually. Fabulous cook and seamstress, and loved her garden. Had very large and delicate hands, which i remember curled around a lawn bowling ball, her passion later in life. A leftie, lefties always do things a certain way. And also around a beer or wine glass, also a passion. She’d correct our ocker ‘yeahs’ on the phone, and of course we’d play them to the max. I think she knew that. When visiting she always brought a galvanised tin full of cupcakes, with hundreds and thousands on top. Or sometimes lamingtons. She introduced me to grated carrot in spaghetti bolognaise, and also to cold toast. I once made her hot-buttered Vegemite toast and she corrected me, it must be made cold. I came to love the taste of cold Vegemite toast. Her’s and grandad’s house in Dundas was a window into a Sydney that is now gone. Only a tiny house really, by modern standards, in fact I’ve never quite figured out how they and their 3 girls actually fit in it, they may tell me now! Fibro, cosy. Carpet in the bathroom, that was a revelation to me. The first air conditioner I ever saw, back when they were a box in the wall that made as much noise as a combine harvester. And I think an Art Deco kitchen table, all of folded steel and laminate, with padded chairs, where grandad would sit and read the paper. And a clock that chimed every quarter hour, morning and night, which mum would affectionately call ‘that fucking clock’. In later years the growth in traffic in Sydney, and the proximity to one of the main roads there, meant traffic noise was a constant in the house. She got so accustomed to it that when she moved to Coolamon in her last years she told me she missed the racket, it helped her sleep. Dundas was farmlands in the Sydney of her youth, and you could still feel that history. Flo was skinny, legs like a budgie. If you saw the driveway and garage, this made sense, so narrow that she’d have been marooned in the car if she’d put on any weight. The yard had that brutal sort of buffalo grass that felt under your feet like (I assume) kissing a guy who hasn’t shaved for 5 days feels like. A chook shed, a veggie garden, that grandad would tend every morning with his low-tremolo whistling. And a sort of lean-to shade house with orchids, at the back. And an outside dunny, and incinerator. The Sydney that no longer exists. I sometimes watch old TV shows from the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s and think about the world the people at those times lived in. That was her world, as a young woman. Long gone, but her house and garden a tiny reminder of it. People who lived through that second world war, and whose lives were shaped by it. Who knew hardship and suffering, and the grace of getting through it. You often meet your grandparents when their working lives are already over. You often don’t really know them as people, just as grandparents. But just so you know, if you’re watching, that the impression you left was deep, and will always be with me. The last time I saw you you didn’t remember me in your words, but in your eyes you did. I hope you’re rolling that jack out onto the green, wherever you are. RIP Flo. Nanna. Love ya.