01.06.2010

some remarkable things

~ walking to the theatre in Armidale. Along a dirt path. Really dark. Could see the stars. What a great way to get to work.

~ driving to Narrabri, we see white puffy stuff on the side of the road, lots of it, for kilometres and kilometres. We debate in the car: is it cotton or is it wool? Then we debate whether it just fell out of a truck or whether it came from the fields…’cos there was none to be seen in the fields. Finally we stop the car, get out and pick some up. It is cotton…and very fluffy, sort of like a cotton wool ball. And then a few kilometres further on we pass a field, all white…cotton, cotton everywhere.

~ being in Narrabri, where the streets are wide and empty and lead out into the cotton fields and the hills beyond. Quite surprisingly, a lot of people came to the theatre to see the show. They loved it, laughed, sighed, and one sweet lady down the front even spoke to us a few times she was so involved. It was fantastic. We stayed afterwards and spoke to people and there were all sorts of folk there, farmers, workers from a coal mine, students, teachers and others. Not many shows go to Narrabri apparently, and they were very grateful. One man said to me, “Oh I can see us all laughing about this together tomorrow…there were some great jokes!”

~ it is possible to: boil eggs very successfully in a kettle in a motel room; make espresso coffee by turning your iron upside down, wedging it with your towel and placing your little espresso machine upon it; steam vegetables in a sieve on top of your kettle.

~ going on a bush walk up Bald Rock, an amazing granite rock in Tenterfield, apparently the largest exposed granite rock in the Southern Hemisphere. Kind of like Uluru, only grey. Majestic and wonderful. Eating my mandarine, way up there, looking at the carpet of green all around. The only problem was some baby boomer was talking, far too loudly, on his mobile phone about his kitchen renovations. Mamma mia. If looks could kill I’d’ve been in a lot of trouble with the law.

~ the kangaroos featured in the pattern of the lace curtains in my motel room in Glen Innes.

~ how ugly your standard 3 and a half star motel room bedspread really is, and how crap it makes you feel.

~ the joy of arriving in Port Macquarie and being put up in beautiful apartments with kitchens and a pool and a sauna and a spa. Going for a pre-breakfast swim. Cooking up a storm: scrambled eggs on crumpets, coissants with jam, toast and avocado and tomato and basil, poached pears, minestrone. Watching the footy on a comfortable couch with a flat screen tv.

~ the sounds of audiences laughing and laughing and laughing.

~ the entire weekend in Quirindi. Started out inauspiciously with a general gloom about the motel, but there was karaoke, a family barbeque and the privilege of performing at the opening of the newly renovated theatre. The audience were SO EXCITED. They’d been preparing for weeks. They’d cooked up a storm. Many of them had worked very hard to make it all happen. One woman told me about which doors and walls she had painted! It was fabulous. And then they loved the play. They really listened, went on the journey with the characters and laughed and laughed. One man confessed to me that he laughed until he cried. “I had to wipe away the tears before anyone saw them,” he said.

~ and finally, one of my tour highlights so far was Bessie and I being invited out to the house and farm of Doug and Laurice McGilchrist just out of Wallabadah. The drive out there was fantastic, meeting cows and horses along the way. Then when we arrived at the house we walked along a track for a km or so to their “hut” where Doug had lit the fire and set billys on to boil and we had tea and a delicious orange and poppyseed cake which Laurice had made. It was still warm in the middle! Then we climbed into the back of the ute and stood up in the trailer and held on tight while Doug took us on a drive right up high to see a wonderful view of the hills and valleys all around. It was magnificent. Particularly as the sun was just starting to go down. There were all the blues and indigos of the sky and then the gold of the hills, and the grass and then all the different shapes and colours of eucalypts scattered everywhere. We also saw lots more cattle and calves and a mob of about twenty kangaroos. It was a real treat. Another example of wonderful country hospitality.