Copyright © 1999 Midustouch

STOCKHORSE SAVIOR


I was still cook and general factotum out on the cattle stud. Still working my ass off, still not getting enough sleep.

Oh, bye the way, did I mention to you that my pay was seven pounds a week (that was pre-decimal days) and keep? I found out later that a cooks wages then were 17pounds a week and all found. They sure as hell got their monies worth out of me!

Enough gripesIn those days, properties used to keep a certain number of beasts as meat for the house. When meat was running low, theyd slaughter a beast and hang it. The properties had their own butchers shop and a butcher, usually an itinerate, would call and turn the carcass into something you could, sometimes, recognise on your dinner plate. The rest of the scraps were turned into sausages (mystery bags) and mince.

On Fridays, I had to produce a meal out of tins for the Missus and the boys, they were staunch Catholics and wouldnt eat meat on Fridays. It was usually something disgusting, like curried herrings. We couldnt get fresh fish where we were, so tinned it was! They didnt seem to mind, just got on with it and left me to clear the table. The governess and the bookkeeper, wisely, headed for town for the weekend. The Boss and I, on the other hand ate in the kitchen. We had T bone steak an inch thick! We even went to the Anglican Church together on Sundaysreal partners in crime.

Anyway one Saturday dinnertime, I dished up Shepherds Pie, sort of mixture of minced beef and diced vegetables and thick gravy, topped with creamy mashed potato, baked in the oven until the top was golden brown and a little crunchy. The meal was going down really well when disaster struck!

Have you ever seen a diamond cut? They make precise calculations, set the diamond in wax and proceed to tap in just the right spot, voila a perfect stone. If they slip up, a pile of worthless chips. Well what happened was more in the direction of the later. I was busy talking to one of the kids and I took a mouthful of food, bit down and immediate, earth shaking, excruciating agony! I think I found the only tiny sliver of bone that the butcher missed. One of my back teeth, perfectly good up til that point, shattered into a hundred pieces. All that was left was a little of the enamel and a very exposed nerve.

By this time, I was out of my chair, dancing around in circles holding my face and crying. Mrs. H, perceptive soul that she was, asked me what was wrong. Through sobs I explained. Oh well, I suppose you will have to come into town with me on Wednesday, when I get my hair done, and see the dentist! She made it sound like I was intruding by wanting to go on a personal jaunt of my own! Mustering all the dignity I had left, which by this time wasnt much, I told her that I didnt think I would be able to wait that long. She started making irritated clucking noises. The Boss, bless his little cotton socks, said Ill give me mate Nev Ford a ring, hes the dentist in at Miles. We can give church a miss. So I only had to get through the night now.

I think, maybe, I spent the night out at the kitchen table, dosed up with codeine, holding a wad soaked in oil of cloves over the remains of my tooth. One of the boys would come out now and then to check that I was all right. I told you before they were good kids! It rained on and off. Actually, most of the time you couldnt hear for the sound of the rain hitting the iron roof. At least the rainwater tanks would be filled.

Next morning, early, the Boss and I started out in the Land Rover for the trip to the dentist. Well we started out.

The Balonne River flowed through part of the property. You had to ford it at a shallow part to get across to the road to town. Not today you didnt! I reckon there must have been one doozie of a storm up in the headwaters, because by the time we got to the ford, there wasnt a hope in hell of getting the truck across. It was running a banker!

The Boss looked at me and made a quick decision. OK matie, just lets go back to the house and Ill make a quick phone call. You pack a change of clothes and ask Margo to do the same for me. Wrap them oilskin and meet me at the stables.

By the time I got to the stables, hed saddled the two biggest stockhorses and was leading them out. We rode down to the River, took us a while but I wasnt feeling too much pain, the codeine was still hanging in there. When I looked at that river, swollen by floodwater, debris sweeping past, Wednesday didnt seem such a bad deal after all!

We slithered down the muddy bank into the water, the horses fought for footing and then started to swim strongly. Both of us slipped off the wrong side, to keep the horses between us and the debris, (well they were bigger than us!) and swam along side holding onto the saddle. I think it was probably one of the scariest things Ive ever done. It seemed like an eternity, until the horses scrambled up the opposite bank. Lord I said a prayer of thanks to you!
We changed into our dry clothes behind the bushes. About 20 minutes later, a car pulled up and it was the dentist, come to pick us up. Id heard of doctors making House Calls, but this was something else again!

It took about half an hour in the dentists chair and I was the most grateful patient he had ever had! Alec even paid my bill. Alec and Nev spent about an hour talking and left me to recover. Our friendly neighbourhood dentist then drove us back to the wrong side of the river. The horses were still there, cropping grass and waiting where they had been left, no need to tether horses like these. We saddled them again and repeated the whole, nightmare return trip. When we eventually reached the barn and had rubbed the horses down and given them a good feed, I gave the Boss a hug and thanked him. Its alright little mate, I couldnt let you wait that long, besides Margos trips can take in overnight and I like the way you cook! He gave me a grin and we went into the house.

Madam met us, complaining that she had missed Church. Well, said the Boss you could always have come with us!

Copyright © 1999 Midustouch

ANY ONE FOR TENNIS?


Here it was Christmas again! It was 128 degrees in the shade and I was cooking my little heart out on a bloody wood stove! It was so hot outside that the water in the storage tank on the roof was actually boiling and overflowing onto the iron roof of the kitchen. I didnt exactly class my kitchen as being in the shade either!

I was up at 4.30am getting the stove going and the turkey in the oven. It was going to be Christmas Lunch for twenty-two and guess who was handling the catering! I hadnt even gone to Midnight Mass because of having to be up to get the show on the road.

I was just serving up the breakfast, when the Boss came up behind me and spun me around, kissed my cheek and slipped an envelope into my pocket. The boys came into the kitchen and gave me a nicely wrapped parcel with my name on it and I got a kiss and a hug from each one of them as well. The parcel held some really nice Talcum powder, a lipstick in my favourite colour, a packet of cigarettes, a box of chocolates, a new diary and from their cousin, who was my age, a pair of cheeky blue bikini briefs. I actually blushed! Something from each of my boys! My parents had sent me a card. I opened the envelope from the Boss later and hed slipped 10 pounds into it for me. Hell that was more than a weeks wages!

Mrs. H appeared and wished me a Merry Christmas and sat down with the others while I put the breakfast on the table. I tell you what, for a lady, she sure could eat. I had to cook more bacon and eggs so that there was some for me! She then proceeded to tell me exactly what she wanted for the luncheon menu. Fortunately, Id already asked the boys what they usually had and was well ahead on preparation. Imagine eating a full English Christmas dinner in the middle of a heat wave! Then, everything that woman did, had to be traditional. Id bet my last penny that shed want a Haggis for New Year!

Margo wandered into the kitchen at 10am.still in her robe. Vickie, we are having a few friends over for a tennis party later this afternoon. I thought it would be nice if we put on a buffet of cold collations, salad and Christmas Pudding with brandy sauce.

I looked at her in total disbelief. Mrs. H, how many is a few? Without loosing a beat, she said oh about 50, Vickie. I sat down in the nearest chair with an almighty thump. Fifty for a buffet, how the hell was I going to manage that? Then she said the magic words Ill give you a hand. I envisaged her pitching in and cutting up the meat and salads for me. Her next statement put things back into perspective. Ill make the mint jelly, it always goes down so well at these parties! I knew what I wanted to do with her bloody mint jelly!

She must have been planning the thing for weeks, to know that fifty people were coming. Not one word to me though. Merry Christmas Vickie!

Luck the pantry was pretty well stocked, Id at least got most of the things Id need. The huge fridge in the butchers shop held a couple of cooked hams that Id got in for the holidays. There were also 3 chickens. I put another baking dish in the oven and enlisted the boys to help make even more stuffing.
Stuffed and tied, the chickens joined big brother turkey.

The Missus started on the mint jelly. I had plenty of mint in the kitchen garden and she laid waste to that while I put the rest of the ingredients out for her. She started to chop the mint and the next I knew, the knife went flying and she was holding a bleeding finger in front of my face. I got the first aid kit and put a bandaid on it for her. She said That knife was far too sharp for cutting up mint. Why did you put that one out for me to use? I muttered something about using a butter knife. She flounced off into her bedroom and I finished the mint jelly. If Id had any sense, I would have done it myself anyway.

Christmas Dinner was a blast. The boys were in high form and kept everyone in stitches. Twenty-two people! Id thought 13 for nearly every meal was pretty good going for an eighteen-year-old! Some of the younger ones cleared the table and washed up, which I thought was really decent of them. It was now 2pm and the Tennis Party was due to start at four!

I chopped my way through a mountain of salad veggies. It was like being a robot. Lettuce by the head was shredded; tomatoes cut in wedges, cucumber into slices and onion into rings. Potato salad by the gallon and rice by the bucket. I was just about stuffed myself!
The guests started to arrive right on the dot of four. No true bushy ever missed a free feed! There they were then, all dressed in white tennis togs and wielding racquets. A lot of the younger ones I already knew from a couple of dances Id been to, with the older boys in the family.

I set the food out on the trestle tables on the verandah and had visions of crawling into my bedroom to hide, when Margo said Vickie, go take a shower and change into your white shorts and blouse. I wont be able to play with my injured hand, and youll be needed to take my place in the doubles.

I thought she had to be joking, but no, the woman was dead serious. You could have knocked me over with a feather. Thats probably all it would have taken too, because I was knackered! I did as I was told, like the good little Lady Help I was.

When I reappeared the party was in full swing. The food was disappearing like there was a pack of starving dingos on the loose! I helped myself to a plateful and sat on the steps to get my wind back and talked to the son of the Station owner from next doorwell twenty miles away. He was a pretty good sort and I think he had a soft spot for me, because he asked me to the New Years Eve dance in town.
His mum was talking to Margo and she said Margo, I must get your secret for making this mint jelly, its even better than last year! Fair dinkum, I thought the Missus was going to have a stroke. She said Thanks Doris, nice of you to say so. I think I saw her head for the bar afterwards.

The tennis courts were down near the dam and the Boss had set up a generator so that there was light to play in the cool (?) of the evening. The boys set up smudge pots all the way around the outside of the four courts. You had to have them, because the biting midges would pick you up and carry you away at that time of the evening.

Well the smudge pots were fuelled up and set up their little smoke screen and we slapped on the citronella oil to try to keep the midges off. The tournament started and everything was going OK but then the smudge pots seemed to loose their punch and we were attacked on every little bit of exposed skin. I think they liked the taste of the repellent! The boys arrived with a wheelbarrow full of cowpats. Theyd been sitting in the sun and were real dry and good for burning, even if they didnt smell too nice. Little mounds were set up around the perimeter and ignited. They seemed to work pretty well.

After a while the fire died down and we were hopping around slapping ourselves and the midges and taking wild swings at the tennis ball when it came our way. It looked like a demented Three Stooges movie! The lads got more cowpats and set them out. I noticed, when they lit them that they moved away from the courts and over to a group of their mates. I soon found out why! The stinkers had put some fresh pats in the middle of the dry ones and as they outer ones burnt, the fresh ones cooked. Oh my! The acrid smoke billowed all over the courts and we choked. My eyes were streaming and the smell was revolting. The Boss started cussing those boys so hard he had to get a drink. I ended up sitting on the court laughing my fool head off and coughing at the same time!

You know something? That was the best Christmas I ever had.

Copyright © 2000 Midustouch

Hot Spell & Dreadful Smells.

Got to thinking about the hottest place I've ever lived, think I may have mentioned it before..little speck on the map of Queensland, right out in the Far North West called Cloncurry.

When I was a 98lb slip of a gal, yeah I was only 20 then..I worked at the local Holden dealership. (For the uninitiated a Holden is a make of Australian car put out by GM.) Building had a corrugated iron roof and was as hot as the portals of Hades.

Well, our mechanics worked out the back of the place and it was even hotter there than where I was..if that was possible. Temperature used to climb to 128o and Cloncurry held the record for the hottest place in Oz. Don't know if its ever been beaten.

We used to have a regular customer, an old gal by the name of Mrs. Lucas, who owned a property even further out in the scrub than we were. She'd come into town about once every three months, leave her car, a very nice Mercedes sedan, with us to service and then head off shopping. She'd come back for it about 4 or 5 hours later a little worse for wear but still sparkin on all 8. Not bad fer an 80year old!

The old gal was loaded cash wise but never spent a penny except on essentials and her Mercedes. The only trouble was she used her vehicle like I'd use a ute (pick-up). She would drive it across the paddocks, picking up sick or orphaned calves and put them on the back seat! Of course being sick and babies, they'd do what babies usually do. Mmmmm

This was one tough old lady. Always had a rifle in the car and if she saw a dingo, that dog was history. Seeing as there was a bounty on dingos and never one to throw good money after bad, the old biddy would take out her skinning knife and scalp it. (You had to produce a scalp to get the bounty.)
These scalps would accumulate in the boot, sometimes as many as 20 at a time, before she'd get into town to cash them in.

If you can imagine the way that vehicle smelt then you'd have a pretty good idea of how pleased our mechanics were to see it pull into the service bay! Soon as it arrived the apprentice was sent a running down to the store for some air freshener cans. They would spray and leave the car for a good hour before they'd go near it again. Me...I kept as far away as the boss would let me.

The cost of the air freshener always went on her bill, usually used two full cans over the course of the service. Say this for her..she never once questioned us about it. She'd demand to see replaced parts, but never even asked about the spray! Maybe she thought they did it for her benefit!

I got an invite out to her place once. I went too, but that's a whole 'nuther story!

Copyright © 2000 Midustouch

DOTTIE’S WALLPAPER…A whole ‘nuther story!

I received an invitation to lunch from the 80year old owner of the smelly Mercedes. Trouble was that the ol’ gal lived about 150miles out of Cloncurry, where I lived, at a place called Delta Hills Station. "Hell why not!" I thought .

I owned a really nice 1948 or 50 VW beetle, the last of the model imported from Germany. Not many young girls owned their own cars in the early 60s and I thought I was just it! I’d tackle just about any trip in that vehicle.

The road was bloody awful, full of corrugation and potholes, but I made it, only having to change two spares on the way. I wasn’t too grotty for a luncheon date.

There it was ‘Delta Hills’. "Good Lord…how could anyone live there! The homestead was a corrugated iron building, more like a shed really, with the same for the roof. The kitchen was out the back in a lean too. Outside bathroom and a thunder box down the back. Basic living! There weren’t even any windows, just sheets cut out of the walls, hinged with leather strapping and propped open with bits of 2"x 2" timber!

So there I was, all set to judge a book by it’s cover!

Dottie met me at the door, dressed in a floral cotton dress and tennis shoes. Her feet were too broad and hard from going without shoes, to fit into normal footwear. She welcomed me with a big hug and told me I was too skinny. (Well, I was then!)

Lunch was on the table waiting. Corned beef and hot veges. All this and a temperature of 112o! She’d killed the beast herself and her son Lionel had helped her hang it and dress it. The vegetables came from the kitchen garden. There wasn’t much that Dottie couldn’t do for herself.

We got to talking over lunch and she told me that she had lost her husband, Dick, in 1915 somewhere in the fighting in Europe. She was left with the property and two young sons, Teddy and Lionel. She’d worked the property herself, hiring help for the mustering and drenching and that sort of thing. It always ran at a profit and she left the money side of it to her accountant in town. She just drew a small amount of spending money when she needed it. I don’t think she had any idea how much money she had and I don’t think she really cared. Just as long as there was enough for the occasional trip to town and to keep her beloved Mercedes running. She’d never remarried, "didn’t have time to get dressed up to go looking".

She put both of her boys through boarding school in Charters Towers, hoping, one day, they would take over the running of the place. That never happened.

Teddy was thrown from a horse and killed when he was 25. Lionel married the daughter of the cow cockie next door and took over the running of that property. I guess he figured it was easier to leave Dottie where she was, seeing as she could be a bit cantankerous if the mood took her. He could always come over if she needed him, after all, he was only 50miles away.

I t was after lunch, when I was sitting on a beat up old sofa drinking tea, that I noticed the wallpaper.

It wasn’t your conventional type of wallpaper. What I was looking at, was probably the finest commentary on Australian living that I had seen or have seen since. The walls inside had been plastered over, must have taken forever to do. On to them, had been pasted pages and pictures in random patterns. I found pages from the Ladies Home Journal dating back to the 1920s, pictures of fashions through just about every style for the last 40years, articles from newspapers, pages from mail order catalogues, brochures of farm machinery, you name it, it was there.

There was one small section, set aside for postcards and greetings cards from her family and friends. I found an area with family snap shots. In the middle of these, was a photograph of her husband, handsome, in uniform, about to embark on the ship that was to take him to France. It was the last time she ever saw him. The photo was surrounded with flowers, cut from the pages of a Yates Seed catalogue. The wallpaper was yellowing with age, but at least, in that climate, mould hadn’t taken hold.

"Dottie, didn’t you miss having your man around?" I asked.

"I still do ," she said "but most of all I miss the sex!"

Absolute stunned, gob smacked, amazement from me! Then we both started to laugh………

"You should see my bedroom wallpaper!" said my friend.

And I did!!!

Copyright © 2000 Midustouch