Looking out the window of my bedroom at Anglesea, I could be in the 1920s, just after the first instalment of this little place was built. All I can see is old stuff.
Straight ahead, facing east (fabulous watching the sun rise) there is the tiniest glimpse of ocean, but mostly it is trees – tossing or still – all eucalypts, big and old and twisted and muted greeny-grey. A wall of limbs and leaves.
To my right, there is evidence of humanity, but ancient and rustic. Out a tall sash window, salvaged from an old chapel, I can see one half of a circular driveway. I take care to park my car on the other half, so that I can’t see it from bed, so that there is nothing modern and shiny to break up my view.
I like to see what my grandparents would have seen when they were here. Other people might like their car in view, to make sure it was still there or to remind themselves that although this place feels turn of the last century, in fact there’s a modern world out there, with ambulances and supermarkets and the internet, that they are safe. I like being safe too, but aesthetically, the modern world isn’t that pleasing.
The sea of gum trees continues out this south-facing window, bracken growing under them and, this time of year, lush grass. Either side of the drive way are thick stands of agapanthus, much despised by my son-in-law, but the colours in late spring are irresistible.
The centrepiece of this southern view is the old woodshed. It started life as a garage, where my grandfather parked his model T Ford. (When Mum was a kid in the 20s, they knew when their dad was arriving from Melbourne because they could see the lights of his car approaching the tiny township. There were no other cars.)
At some stage, it was transformed into a woodshed; as long as I can remember it has had a sturdy wooden pole running up the middle of the front, holding up the peak of the corrugated iron roof. The wood shed – rough weatherboard construction – has fallen apart and been rebuilt so often that not much of the original is left. Inside, it is stacked with the extravagance of wood we have from our rambling bush block. Eucalypt, wattle, ti-tree and a whole bunch of random, crappy stuff that we cut down in our endless battle to keep the block reasonably fire safe. On the floor of the shed are piles of twigs and bark, old and new: perfect kindling. An old Singer sewing machine table doubles as a small workbench.
There is fauna too, of course. So many birds – the sounds of magies carolling greetings to the morning, the cackling kookaburras and screeching sulphur crested cockatoos that make a mess of all the local lawns as their sharp beaks and claws dig for insects. There are currawongs too, rosellas, and bright red and green king parrots, all arriving imperiously on our verandah rail and squabbling, not so imperiously, over the birdseed we scatter there. Best of all, in early summer there is a gloriously ugly tawny frog mouth, raising her chicks in a dead gum tree near our veranhdah.
Most days there are kangaroos on our block; they gather on a grassy spot that catches the sun, next to the woodshed and yes, I can see them from my bed as well. Sometimes, one will hop right round the drive and past the bedroom window.
It’s like being suspended in a Fred McCubbin painting – all bushy drab greys and greens. Okay, so we do have electricity and an indoor toilet these days. And there is a snappy computer on my lap. Apart from that, this is as close to my parents and grandparents world as I can get in this lifetime, and this is the place I feel them most powerfully all round me.