Dad is in residence gently snoring when I come out to the kitchen this morning.

I light Stanley – the wood pops and shifts in the firebox – my bread slowly toasts and the teapot warms waiting for the kettle to boil.

Smoky again smoky yesterday the day before and the season when all the ‘……. ‘ do their hazard reduction burns has not even started yet.

Some say it is Victorian fires others say Brogo.

The sun appears on the other side of  an orange filter and it is all pinky peachy tones. for our throats and lungs though  the air is thick and challenging. driving out to the coast today the hills on either side of the valley are hidden.

This is what we have seen.

A goanna a good two metres long eating Camembert.

It discovered the cheese  in the garden nestling in a hole that Kingston had been excavating with the garden trowel.

John had turfed it there. It was from  Johns latest cheese making enterprise . the funny thing about  cheese is , it is all about ‘off  ‘ he said to me after he threw it out.     But in the case of this particular Camembert it was the wrong off.      The others  went into the fridge and whenever we open  the door  a smell leaps out into the kitchen.  is it the right smell or the wrong smell?

hard to say when we are talking about cultures and bacterias and fermentations . The last batch of Camenbert John  made at Christmastime was excellent and loved by all.

This time he has done a Haloumi and it is perfect.  the feta is as good as any Bulgarian feta  says Elsie.

in the esky the blue vein increases in blueness.

The goanna hooked right in, its long tongue hoovering up every last bit.

the anomaly in all this cheese business is that after John went to see  Ken he came home and said Ken told him no eating cheese no dairy. he didn’t say not ever ….just not now.      This confirms Johns view of how the universe likes to tease him.

The skink that hangs around our sink will eat anything. John has taken to putting crumbs out for it on a plate as if there aren’t enough leftovers stacked on the dirty dishes that it likes to trawl over -lickedty lickedty lick.

We are often rescuing it from the sink or the metal bowl – the sides being too slippery to climb out of.  it is a big responsibility living with skinks  . We have to remember to leave sticks in buckets of water , a branch in the huge water pot so they can actually get themselves out. Not nice to come along and find a drowned one.

The wallabies are summer tripping – whatever it is they are eating at the moment is zoning them out. maybe it is the heat or maybe they are super relaxed or maybe this is their  natural state.

in and around the yard most afternoons and early evenings nibble nibble  nibble scratch and dream  – coming to the water pot for a long drink and snaffling up any fresh shoots of chives that have dared to poke their  heads up.

the curling yellowy peach leaves that have left the tree and fluttered to the ground are consumed  diligently. no need of a leaf blower here.

They watch us go about our business without much need to run away.  their black eyes remind me of  button eyes on an old teddy bear except ted never looked as stoned as these fellas do.

John and Dad have a got themselves a BMW project. some part fell out the other day when he was giving it an oil change.

don’t ride it was the advice from Munich Motorcycles . so… a has to be done job and while John is trying to psyche himself up for it Dad is rubbing his hands together and can’t wait to get stuck into it.

he is nearly 87 for goodness sake.

great isn’t it? great that he gets up and leaves home at 3.30 am in the morning – into a car up to Auckland airport on a plane to Sydney – off the plane find your way around the airport onto a bus and round to domestic  –  onto another plane landing at Merimbula and then into the car with me and Elsie and Chloe and finally arriving here some 12 hours after he left home.

Dad  likes to sit on the verandah and watch the skinks play at his feet and the wrens noddle around after crumbs and the yellow eared honeyeaters wash in the tank and the gums sway in the breeze and a few errant clouds sail across the sky.

so good to be here he says

and so good to have him here too.