A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to The Forum....

It was my Mum who got me into singing properly - she knew I had to do something with my voice because she knew I was talented. She was the one who pushed me into joining a choir all those years ago, when I was about 12. I remember she told me to start with the choir and just see where it took me. Susan Boyle.

Ditz was the cutest baby ever, a real huggable cutie, round & chubby & full of smiles for everyone but she had a temper! Boy did she have a temper & when Ditz lost it everyone within cooee knew about it. Ditz could hit pitches guaranteed to bend steel beams & she had an excellent set of lungs.

Ditz in the midst of a paddy would have the whole house begging me to do anything necessary to shut her up. In public she was embarrassing but on a boat it was unendurable. Ditz could clear space like nothing else but there are limited places you can go on a boat. In desperation I used to coo in her ear, a long drawn out hum & within minutes my funny girl would be screeching in harmony. I'd drop an octave & Ditz would follow me down until her screams turned into a harmonic, if extremely loud, hum. She never matched me; she always harmonised. It got to be quite a party trick but given Ditz's opinion of my musical ability she is mortified when I mention it these days. ☺

Ask anyone who actually knows Ditz & they always mention two things about her: she is incredibly noisy & she has the attention span of a fully~fledged gnat. This is not a good combination. It was one of many reasons to homeschool but extending Ditz's attention span proved more than a little difficult. It wasn't so much that she couldn't but that she was easily distracted & it was quite by chance I hit on something that seemed to work. Many thanks, Meatloaf.


Yes, I'm not too proud to admit I owned a copy of Meatloaf's melodrama, Bat out of Hell ~ or that I rather liked this particular album. Ditz liked it too. No the lyrics aren't the best but at the time neither of us was actually listening to the lyrics. We used to dance round the kitchen to this song & Ditz, being Ditz, made far too much noise for us to hear much of anything but the driving beat. It came in handy while trying to explain the vagaries of counterpoint to Ditz because I didn't really understand them myself but I pointed out it was a bit like the end where 2 singers are singing two different things & to drive my point home I got Ditz to sing one part while I sang the other. Not the best sound! lol.

But I discovered something. Ditz thought it was fun. It became our standard game as we drove round the island because Ditz could barely make it round once when we began but over time she learned to ignore what I was doing & focus on her part until both of us dissolved in giggles. Now Ditz rarely has problems holding her own part in choir & I must admit I get a dreadful glee out of that fact when I think of the 2 of us careering round the island screeching out Meatloaf at the top of our lungs. Just like I snigger every time Jan or Althea or Alison has Ditz doing a difficult part over & over & over because each & every time I have this mental vision of Ditz's first piano lesson : I can't, said Ditz. It's too hard'; I'll never be able to do that. And every time she got a new piece we heard the same sad refrain ~ until we pointed this out to her! Now she's not game to open her mouth no matter what she thinks.

Yep, it's been a funny old journey to the music forum but boy has it been a fun ride!

Just a little bragging on Ditz.

“The only thing better than singing is more singing.” Ella Fitzgerald

About 14 years ago I got given this little dynamo in a red~headed package & I must say the whole house thought she was just the ants pants & tended to spoil her terribly so it isn't a big surprise to find Madam is a supremely confident young lady. She got a large dose of smarts too & the bane of my life is dealing with a child who uses those smarts to pretend she's dumber than a dog's dinner. Frustrating? You have NO idea!

I'm still in a state of shock that what began as an adjunct to her math lessons has turned into the consuming passion of Ditz's life but I'm grateful, you know. I mean, what would I have done if she'd turned out to be a science freak or a math wizz? Actually it's the math component of her music that gives Ditz trouble. She spent her whole flute lesson counting yesterday. 3/4 time. I understand turning 3/4 into 4/4 but I'm blowed if I know how Jan could pick that extra note even from the other side of the room! He was onto Ditz every single time & every single time I suspect Ditz had temporarily spaced out. Then at the end he tells the child she's doing really well; she just needs to learn to count!

No matter how hard Jan is on her or how often he pulls her up she just nods her head & tries again until she does what he wants. If I tried that with her math there would be a flood of tears. Ditz was pretty pleased with herself by the end of her lesson & I was pretty pleased with her too because she had worked hard & 30 minutes is a long time for Ditz to stay completely focused.

I think I suffer from the general idea in western society that music is a nice enough hobby but not something you do for a *real* job ~ or something. I mean, we didn't do music for music. We did music for math & because of that I chose an instrument for Ditz to learn; piano because my dear friend, Sian, was prepared to teach Ditz & there wasn't another music teacher of anything on the island in those days. Surprisingly Ditz actually likes the piano. When Ditz declared she wanted to learn violin, viola! God provided a violin teacher. Ditto flute. What none of us ever seriously considered was voice.


Initially I baulked at Ditz joining the school choir & when the teacher changed Ditz opted out because Ditz has always taken her music very seriously.

Then we literally fell into the Strawberry festival. We thought it was for instrument. It turned out to be for voice & that is how we met Alison & got involved in Vocal Manouevres & all the time I had in the back of my head how good this all was for Ditz's math. Perish the thought!

This is our second year with Vocal Manouevres & both years when Ditz has auditioned she's made the smaller elit choir & I've blithely put it down to the fact that Ditz is well behaved & respectful & you know, can carry a tune okay. I'm an idiot.

Alison doesn't just teach singing. She trains *vocal artists*. She doesn't have an ensemble of choir singers. She has *vocal artists* singing as an ensemble. She is now well enough known that just saying Alison has trained you will get you an audition. It is a really exciting time to be a part of the ensembles & naturally I thought Ditz was a pretty lucky bunny all round, especially given she hasn't had a proper voice lesson in her life.

So I'm quietly reading away in my corner, as I do, one ear sort of cocked for the , Girls, we have to lift our game, lecture [so I can reinforce whatever it is Alison wants at home] when I hear, I don't just take on a singer for a term; I take them on for life! Ditz was looking pretty horrified. Alison is pointing out everyone [except Ditz] does a half hour to an hour with her every single week individually before going on to say Ditz is incredibly gifted & talented musically because she is keeping up with that ensemble [& outdoing some of the others] despite the fact she isn't getting the same advantages. Shock! Horror! Gasp! Ditz turned a brilliant & unbecoming red but she was pleased. Words of affirmation are Ditz's love language. Affirm Ditz & she will do anything you want & she will take full advantage of the ad hoc lessons I am scraping together for her this term.

Getting Ditz back after she'd handed in her application form for private tuition was like being handed an open bottle of Champange after it's been thoroughly shaken. In a burst of confidence Ditz confessed she's felt under a lot of pressure to perform well & keep up just because she doesn't get private lessons. She's ready for that stretch now. I can sense that she wants more & is prepared to work hard. Twelve months ago Alison roaring at her & telling her what's what would have dissolved her into pure mush but twelve months & Ditz has decided Alison is a paper tiger she can deal with.

I'm just hanging on for the ride. I didn't sign up for this, you know. I signed Ditz up for a math lesson. Funny the way God works things out, isn't it?

Whisper when I'm near her...

After a good heart' she said, 'the least a woman can do is pick a face she fancies. Men's so much alike & many so sorry, that's the very least.' Jessamyn West

My Liddy is absolutely gorgeous, both inside & out. People are attracted to her. That's just the way things are. Drives Ditz crazy but she loves Liddy too so she has a conflict of interest.

Boys have flocked like bees to a honeypot but my Lid is fussy & she took to heart [waaay back in grade 4] my lecture on *special* friends being for adults & not for children playing at being adults. She has waited for that special someone to enter her life.

I'm not sure I'm ready for this stage of life. It makes me antsy. Women's lives are so often determined for good or ill by the man they choose & I have some reservations ~ & not about the young man concerned. Nope, I know my Lid & the first thing to know about Lid is that she's as malleable as butter & as sweet as sugar until you run up against her foundational beliefs & then all of a sudden you find yourself shipwrecked on an iceberg & sinking fast.

The second thing to know about Lid is she's a debater. And she never backs down. And she's my daughter. The first rule of debate in this house is support your argument. Many an admirer has run aground on this one. I never debate Liddy unless I'm absolutely certain I will win because she never backs down & she never concedes defeat. Months after a debate she will resurrect it having found new evidence to support an untenable position. Like I said...Can you imagine living with that?

I have a stop in my mind but is it just the reluctance of a doting mama to let her grown daughter fly the coop or is that my 6th sense sending alarm bells ringing because something is not ringing quite true?

Frankly I wouldn't marry Lid for all the tea in China. Most of the time it's smooth sailing but there are hidden rocks, strong undercurrents & dangerous eddies. Liddy is nowhere near as sweet & indecisive as many people think she is. She does not bend. She does not give in. She does not concede defeat. In certain areas there is no such word as compromise in her dictionary. Ok, I know none of us are perfect but what do you do with the child who describes herself as the perfect daughter?

I feel for this boy, I really do. I'm not sure he's strong enough for Lid & living with perfection is a real trial. I should know. I've been doing it for 20 odd years.

I ♥ my doona.

Whoever invented teenagers, invented the Doona. Marian McGuiness.

I love my doona. These have to be the best invention ever for a busy mother with multiple children.

Firstly they do away with that annoying top sheet that has to be tucked in & which invariably gets kicked out during the night & needs to be tucked in again in the morning.

Secondly they are lightweight but warm, completely machine washable & no harder to launder [& usually considerably easier] than a standard blanket.

Thirdly, & this was the clincher for me, even a very small child can make their bed when all they have to do is wrest a doona into some sort of order.

Quilts come with eiderdown & can be a right royal pain in the whatsit to launder if you have a sick child but the modern doona, filled with polyester, is almost undestroyable. We have a variety of throws for those nippy winter nights when you want to drape something across your legs but my kids will invariably lug their doona out & snuggle under it. I know they're good. Given a choice between a rug & a doona Issi always chooses the doona!

So when Pillow Talk dropped the price of their single doonas down to just $25~ I took full advantage of it. Spare doonas are a must & these fold up into a large pillow & can be stored like that in their own pillow case.

For the first years of our marriage Dearest & I attempted to share a doona. As we both tend to wrap ourselves in our bedding we invariably spent the night fighting over the doona. Now our bed has two single doonas on it & we both get a good night's sleep. Well, I get a good night's sleep. Dearest invariably has a squabble with the cat who thinks the second doona is his.

Being an author is like being in charge of your own personal insane asylum. ~Graycie Harmon

INTRODUCING....

Arian ni Morrigu.

I love to write. It's my way of dealing with all the people who live inside my head. Some of them have been round a long time & I would miss them if they suddenly departed.

Writing is not quite ~There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein. ~Walter Wellesley "Red" Smith ~ but it sometimes comes pretty close. It's more a case of sitting down & describing the movie playing in the background.

Ari wasn't the first person in this saga & hers wasn't the first *picture*. C.S. Lewis describes seeing a faun trotting through the wood, his first *picture* of Narnia. Mine was of an old woman sitting by the fire having found something in the fire one doesn't normally find in fires ~ a song. I did not say that the movie was logical or sensible or even slightly sane but that's what I *saw* & I thought is was interesting enough to go looking for what this was all about. What I found was Ari.

What is interesting is Ari has been around for more than 20 years, before my first child was born, certainly before Ditz bounced into my life. So does art imitate life or does life imitate art because Ari is my redheaded bard, my rather clever, bad tempered bard. I wouldn't wish Ari on anyone, certainly not on her ollamh, Diarmuid. Their squabbling has stalked my dreams for years.

I know not all writers see things & I'm sure it sounds quite mad to anyone who doesn't live with a crowded house full of tenants who have taken up squatter's rights inside their head but as I can't remember a time when I didn't have half a dozen people stalking about in there, numerous conversations going on that have nothing to do with me & a bird's eye view of a landscape that doesn't exist in this or any other world it all seems perfectly normal to me.

I actually don't mind my uninvited tenants. Most have become friends over the years whom I know very well but my youngest brother had some very uncomplimentary things to say about people who keep such fun people to themselves. I see his point but I had a houseful of children & was homeschooling on & off for years before it became a way of life & the reality is there isn't a great deal of time, not to write, but for the much more painful process of rewriting & editing because that is the part of writing I loathe with a passion. I enjoy the creative process, spilling the rush of images onto pristine paper, watching & listening to where the story is headed but going back over it, plugging the holes in the plot, streamlining it, fixing glaring errors ~ that's plain hard work; exhausting work. It requires a clear head & uninterrupted time, 2 things rare in a busy household.

I keep scribbling away, often poetry because poerty was my first love, & year by year the children grow older. When Ditz finally flies the coop what excuse do you think I can find for not getting on with the business of hard work versus the creative process?

Tuesday Trivia.

"The time has come,"/ the Walrus said,"/To talk of many things:/Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--/Of cabbages--and kings--/And why the sea is boiling hot--/And whether pigs have wings." Lewis carrolBack in the days Dearest had an oyster farm & periodically our kitchen would be alive with blue~ringed octopi. Now my kitchen is no place for blue~ringed octopi. Despite the fact that my brothers used to keep these things in a salt water tank [whence they escaped & roamed the house to be found months later dried up & shriveled in obscure corners] I am not particularly fond of octopi. One of these little beauties can kill you in a matter of minutes & by the time you see the beautiful blue rings it is probably too late. There is no cure for the choice little chemical [tetrodotoxin] the blue~ringed octopus' salivary glands produce. Chances are you will never even see it until you've stepped on it. It's a rather dull brown colour normally. I believe tetrodotoxin is similar to the chemical in puffer fish ~ which is why you shouldn't eat them either.

However octopi are interesting. For one thing they are smart. They're up there in the chain of things that don't have backbones with a well developed brain. In California in 2009 an octopus pulled on a valve & flooded the Santa Monica Pier aquarium & they've been filmed opening jars that have food in them. They've got their priorities right; food first.

Certain things about octopi have become pretty well known ~ mouth like a parrot's beak, blue blood, & 3 hearts [1 to pump blood round the body, 1 each to pump blood through each gill.] but did you know each tentacle has its own brain, all co~ordinated by a centralized brain in the head? Gives a whole new dimension to multiple personalities!

A mature female Giant Pacific Octopus has an amazing 28o suckers on each tentacle, will mate just once [ really weird mating habits which are far too gross to discuss on a family friendly blog] & won't eat while guarding her 150 000 eggs ~ which may account for her then dieing. The blue~ringed octopus' clutch only contains 50 eggs, which is a pretty good thing. I know they're rare & they're pretty but they remain one of the most venomous & deadliest things on the planet. Strangely blue~ringed octopi aren't recommended pets for salt water tanks. Wonder why?

Monday Memories.

Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions. ~Oliver Wendell HolmesNew term. I have a desk bowing under curriculum & our umbrella school has a list of requirements that must be met. There are books to be read, maps to be mapped, diagrams & quizzes, outcomes to meet & goals that have been set & all just for Ditz but sometimes I wonder why I bother. I really do.

We should be unschoolers. I can't; I just can't, ok. Unschooling is way to scary but unschooling is what we should do because in amongst all the *required* stuff there is the other agenda; the Ditz agenda. You heard me correctly. That would be the school~is~boring~I~don't~want~to do~that~do~I~have~to? Ditz.

I actually sort of like this other Ditz. This Ditz is a mini~me with a lot more sass. I gotta wonder about this child though. In the middle of church the child turns to me & goes, 'This is what I want to learn about this term.' Not the time!

Besides, I think scratching my head over her *list*, we've done Roman Numerals. However I think when we did Roman Numerals Ditz didn't have a purpose for them & let them fall through the holes in her head. She's got plenty of those so they disappeared fast. Now, however, Ditz is cross because she can't work out which chapter she's in in all those books that use Roman Numerals instead of regular ones & naturally it is all my fault because why didn't I make her learn them back in the day? Why indeed? Couldn't possibly have anything to do with my student by any chance? Hm? Hm?

OK, so we get to learn about Roman Numerals ~ again. I can do Roman Numerals. It's algebra I think is stupid & incomprehensible but then I don't want to build things where I have to guess anything. Then my beautiful, wonderful, sassy, intelligent Ditz turns to me & says, 'And gypsies. I want to learn about Gypsies.' Not a problem. I can do Gypsies. I wait. There's always a catch to these things & one day, when Ditz goes, I bet you don't know, she will be right. I won't know...but it wasn't yesterday.

'I bet you don't know what Gypsies were first called?' Egyptians. Ditz is used to me & not about to be defeated at the first hurdle. She has armed herself with spare ammunition. 'Well, I bet you don't know what else they were called?' Zyganni. Romany. [Yeah, I know. It's sad the stuff I know.] 'Well, I bet you didn't know...' but what my bright, intelligent, witty, sassy Ditz hasn't quite fathomed yet, because the prospect is just too horrifying, is that her mind is very like mine; A small matter of genetics which belongs to that other field of little interest to Ditz, science.

I can probably tell her more off the top of my head about gypsies than she'll ever want to know ~ & for the same reasons as she's interested. It the thick [very think] A4 spiral~back notebook, one of several floating around this house & marked PRIVATE in large letters & decorated with skulls & crossbones & threats of what will happen to anyone who disregards the PRIVATE warning is The Book! This is Ditz's best seller a la Harry Potter [& probably derived from that source] & about to send me broke keeping my wanna be author supplied in lined notepaper. She hasn't worked her way up to the keyboard & ink stage yet.

People, I am drowning in paper but do you think I can worm one intsy~teensy tiny bit of creative writing out of Ditz to send in with her English work? Nope! Not a one. Boring. Dull. The sad thing is I get this. I actually really, really do. See paragraph 6. Actually, sadly, I get a lot of Ditz. Why should she have to do math she will never use because it is supposed to be good for her? Why should she write book reports when she will never write another book report in her life? Mind you I'm not allowed to nab one of her CV's [that she's put together all by herself] for the non~fiction aspect of her English either. Why should she share a work in progress? She knows as well as I do sharing an unfinished work kills it deader than a doornail. Frankly, Ditz's agenda is far more intrinsically interesting than the set curriculum ~ & far more useless. That's the rub, isn't it? All the really interesting stuff is completely useless. I mean, what do you do with a lot of extraneous knowledge about gypsies & the life cycles of dragons? Oh, right, you write best sellers. *smacks head* Silly me!

Blogitty~bloggity Blog, Blog.

“Yes, blogging is entertainment. It is performance. Each blog post a show, sometimes an opera, sometimes a 30 second commercial. Like a show, it may start with a bang, lead you along from song to song, have a great climatic moment, then leave the audience wanting more.” Lorelle Van Fossen

So why do you blog? What is it about blogging that keeps you posting, week after week?

I was thinking about this because, you know, all my friends live in the computer. Well, not quite, but that's how it seems sometimes. I log on each morning in happy anticipation of hearing from *friends* from all round the world.

When I began blogging 3 years & 2 crashed blogs ago, I wasn't expecting anyone at all to read here so I was writing primarily to amuse me, & only me, but against all expectations people do ~ read that is. I have been richly blessed by the lives, so different from my own, that I have had glimpses in to.

We live, from choice, in a very small, intellectually isolated community. Visually it is stunning; like living in the country in many, many ways but I miss being part of a university campus with the give & take of ideas, the easy access to culture & information, the library...! Boy do I miss the library. Our library is tiny so thank the good Lord for inter~library loans!

In the maze of years that compromise my life we began homeschooling & suddenly I found I had a computer. I had Internet. I had access to sooo much information. What I didn't have was a single other person I knew in real life who homeschooled their child. Seriously. Not one single other person. My kids felt like freaks. Ditz still suffers from freak syndrome.

Initially we used the State Distance program because that's all Dearest knew & I didn't know enough myself to convince him there were better choices out there but at my fingertips I had all this information: homeschooling forums & homeschooling blogs & curriculum suppliers & HSLDA ~ link after link after link & there was little old me sitting in my little island pond, overwhelmed, sifting through all this with my jaw dragging along the ground & not a little touch of envy.

Church too: suddenly I wasn't the only Quaker I could talk too. I could read what other Quakers around the world were thinking, the concerns on others' hearts, how the Lord was leading others. I became aware that the Lord was calling people out of mainstream churches into home churches, or small community churches or non~denominational churches & that amongst all the Christians being called to a plainer, simpler lifestyle there was a resurgence amongst Quakers to plain dress, plain speech, simple living & a Christ centered approach.

So blogging became my fishing line. I baited it with a little of this & a little of that because I have a flibberty~gibbert mind that skitters from subject to subject randomly & patiently waited to see what, or who, bit. I am quite shy & introverted ~ except in writing. Writing is my natural medium. I am very comfortable using the written word & so I never wanted one of those oh so worthy blogs full of good instruction & streamlined to cover one subject area in great depth. Things, meh. What interests me is people. I'm interested in what people are passionate about, the things that are important enough to them to write about, how they live their lives, what they believe, how they cope. Blogging is a way to reach out, make connections, share space. That it is such an international community is an added bonus for me.

It is through blogging I have got to know other homeschoolers, other Quakers & people so different from me I wish I could peel their brain like an orange & investigate it segment by segment. Don't worry. I'm far too squeamish to literally do that but the idea is there.

So why do you blog?

Just chit~chat.

Ssssh. We're still on holidays...but guess what I busted Ditz doing yesterday? Reading her poetry text! Be still my beating heart!

So our break is nearly over & Monday sees the madness start all over again. On the plus side the new math program arrived on Friday & I am overjoyed. Ditz should be able to knock this over in a week or so, freeing our schedule for more interesting things.

I actually feel rather at a loose end on break, especially winter break when it is too miserable to do anything much but attach myself intravenously to the computer. Our schooling schedule gives definition to my days & something interesting to do with my time. [Yes, I know the house could do with looking at but that is nowhere nearly as interesting as the gruesome things Nero did with Christians.] Ok, I sorted out the linen cupboard & the upstairs area for the next building project but it just doesn't give me the same sort of a thrill as finding my child knows what a metaphor is & can actually use one! It just doesn't, ok. I'm odd that way. Nope, shopping doesn't do it for me either despite the fact we did another trip & Ditz was actually getting into the whole, let's try stuff on thing ~ at least she was until everything she liked didn't fit & the largest size was in L womens. Even explaining it was Chinese sizing & meant for tiny little women without hips & busts did not mollify her feelings. She was mortified & the last thing I need is the child obsessing about a. her weight or b. her seize.

We got home from shopping to find Dearest in a tizz because Iss had lost the plot & had nearly killed him tangling round his feet because when we go out on a Friday Iss worries we're not coming back again & starts behaving in neurotic ways guaranteed to drive whoever's round completely batty. For some reason he was particularly psychotic this week. I'd like to know what goes on his brain sometimes because he wouldn't let Dearest into bed a couple of nights. Very funny. I woke up to Dearest trying to reason with the cat about moving over & sharing the bed! When Iss does finally move it's to plonk himself on top of me protectively & glare balefully at all comers. Not the brightest crayon in the box, that cat. He thinks he owns me, which couldn't possibly be true now, could it!

And true to form, now the holidays are nearly over the sun is peeking out, the mercury's starting to rise & the days are promising to be glorious from Monday on! If it wasn't for Ditz's music I'd shift our holidays to match the weather but we are tied to her music, even more so this term as I have lined up a couple of private voice lessons ~ which is sort of making Ditz nervous but excited at the same time. It's a delicate balancing act this not spooking my extroverted but very sensitive child while still encouraging her to take a risk & reach her full potential. She is very good at hiding her light under a bushel & must have a bit of Ostrich in her if she thinks any of us actually believe she's as dumb as she makes out!

Little House Longtime Passing.

Most of the story of Longtime happened before I was born. Yet, because Longtime made me whatever I am, it is my story; & that is the way I must tell it. I must tell it all, even to the earliest coming of the white man to this secret country. Hesba Brinsmead ~ Longtime Passing.Some writers have better publicists than others ~ or something ~ which is the only way I can explain why some books ever even get printed. Sometimes good books get printed yet others, equally good, do not receive the same acclaim or exposure. I guess the public is fickle.

Reading around, especially on homeschooling blogs, I hear again & again how great the Little House books are ~ & they are ~ but they are not the only books out there dealing with pioneering trials & tribulations so I am going to discuss the Aussie equivalent ~ Longtime Passing.

This may interest those who like a compare & contrast because exploration of Australia was a long, slow & painstaking process thwarted by one simple geological fact: The Great Dividing Range.

Without touching on the obscure & little known mishaps of European settlers who may or may not have preceded the founding of Britain's penal colony at Port Jackson in 1788, the first colony was built beside what is now known as Sydney Harbour & for quite some time settlements were built north or south because going west was nearly impossible. From north to south along Australia's eastern seaboard lies that formidable mountain range known as The Great Divide. Not the tallest mountains in the world. Not the most rugged. Not the coldest. Not the most impenetrable. But these mountains proved themselves formidable to would be intrepid explorers.

They may be the oldest mountains in the world. In practical terms this means they are well eroded & when rock is well eroded the soft stuff goes first & only the hard stuff remains ~ leading to deep un~navigable gorges, weird outcroppings, dead ends, blind gullies, & sudden sheer cliff faces. Going in a straight line is not remotely feasible.

Going in a straight line should not be a problem with a good compass but only some~one who has never had the Australian bush close in on them would think that. Long, long history of people lost in the Australian bush & very few are ever found again. For years the Blue Mountains were feared to be completely impassable. Anyway it took until 1813 before Blaxland, Wentworth & Lawson found their way across the Great Divide & things like roads & accommodation were still decades away.

Ah, yes, the Australian bush! Made up predominately of eucalyptus trees, commonly known as *gums*. I believe there are something like 2 000 different varieties though as one English visitor once tartly remarked, having seen one variety, why would you ever want to see another? lol. The thing with gums is they are mostly hardwood. Not easy to hack your way through a forest of eucalypt ~ & that's before you consider that choice variety known as *ironbark* ~ for a reason.

It is into these mountains, this terrain, the Truelance family comes to make their home. The Blue Mountains west of Sydney is some of the loveliest country in the world. The views are breath taking, the Candlebark country its rainforest heart. Just getting in or out was a feat in & of itself. The children, of necessity, did their lessons with mother at the kitchen table.

This story is semi~autobiographical, based on Hesba Brinsmead's own childhood & recollections, in the same way that Laura Ingallss Wilder based her books on her family history. This makes them uniquely authentic & though the time is round about the 1920's the Candlebark area was so isolated & the living conditions so difficult it actually has the feel of a much, much earlier time.

The books are out of print but still available second hand on~line for a quite reasonable price.