Our house has been quiet during the past two weeks while Miriam is in respite care at the McGlynn Centre in Mornington. We visited her several times and she seems happy and well-settled in. After a few days I seem to get more settled too, that heavy tiredness is not so noticeable and I see things around the house that have been neglected and that I now give some much-needed attention.
In her own way Miriam asserts her presence, not in a demanding yet in a quite subtle way. Television and meals have to be regular and I try to do this but it doesn't always work out. Lately I've noticed she's gobbling her food because of not wanting to miss a TV programme.
While Miriam was away, our friends Sally and Donald invited us for a few days to their farm in Central Otago. A very warm welcome, log fires, a bedroom with a view of green paddocks with just-shorn merinos, large trees with room to spread out, in the distance snow-covered hills. The photo shows only a few of the thousands of sheep on the farm.
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| Merino sheep grazing. |
Sally cooked a roast dinner the first night, the second night a huge brown trout caught by Donald on the West Coast. Such treats in such a beautiful area with special friends.
Another highlight which even inspired me to write a poem: we were invited to watch merino sheep being shorn. What an activity, music blaring, men working at top speed relieving the sheep of their fleecy load; women, strong as amazons, lifting those fleeces and sorting them. The whole team in unison to prepare the wool for packing into bales. After these bales arrive in foreign lands the wool will be processed to give us (and millions of people) our stunning merino clothes, so light, so warm. We all love our merino clothes.
Donald reminded us again what happened when Miriam stayed with them in the early nineties. Miriam wanted to watch Lotto results so she installed herself in front of the telly in the sitting room while Sally and Donald stayed in the dining area. Donald decided to check up on Miriam, he'd heard some muttering and, as he later told us, Miriam did not have the right numbers and so aired her frustration and disappointment in a very unlady-like fashion. I won't repeat the words she used! As Donald said, such a refined young woman, always polite and respectful, but he heard strong words he found hard to associate with the Miriam he knew! Of course, we still chuckle whenever we hear this story. Another special treat is to see one of Miriam's paintings on the wall in their dining room. She produced so many in the years before her stroke.
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| One of Miriam's paintings in Central Otago. |
We had a lovely break, it's always a treat to drive from Dunedin to Central Otago. Twenty minutes after we set off from home we reach the Taieri Plains with paddocks full of quiet sheep and darting lambs. After Lawrence the scenery becomes interesting in a different way. More green hills and paddocks but gradually grey rock formations are dotted at random in the rough landscape, the sun highlighting some barren hills while other parts stay in shadow. Later there are snow covered mountains, farm tracks sometimes dividing the whiteness.
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| Spring 2012 Central Otago. |
This time the water in the Clutha River is green but we've seen it teal-blue or brown depending on the amount of silt in the river and the flow of water coming from the mountains. Every time I drive through this area I remember the hot holidays in Central Otago when the children were young. Stopping for morning tea, boiling the billy away from the road, enjoying home-made baking, the children excited, anticipating fun ahead, swimming in cold lakes, drifting on lilos, taking picnics and going for long walks. In our old 1952 Ford Prefect it took a while to negotiate the steep hills but it never deterred us from going. Stopping at fruit stalls and stocking up on apricots and peaches, juicy and warm with the heat of the sun still inside them.
Oh, yes, those memories keep coming back.
We also had nourishing respite care.
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