What started off as dinner round the fire (the evenings are decidedly chilly up here) ended up with Al and me sitting over copious amounts of wine, talking and giggling into the night. I finally crawled into bed in the early hours after what was one of those lovely evenings where anything and everything was discussed - life, loves, politics, friends, films and so on. Without wanting to go into the personal details, suffice to say my friend has been visited with profound loss in recent times, so it was quite special to learn more about someone who passed away a year or so ago, and made me realise that I would have very much likied to have known him. I think talking about people who have passed away keeps them alive, somehow, sharing memories and stories and descriptions.
Personal histories. In the end that is what I am researching, the personal histories of men and women who, regardless of what occurred in their lives after the event, shared this great journey, this madcap run through eleven countries, encountering everything from suspension collapse, through collisions with army trucks and double-decker buses to brushes with bandits! To listen to someone recount stories of their life, told with humour or sadness or astonishment or even anger ('we were sabotaged!') and be witness to the changing facial expressions as memories bubble up to the surface is a rare priviledge indeed and something I hold very dear. To listen to an eighty year old man explain in such a matter-of-fact tone how he refused to let childhood polio stop him achieving his dreams, or witness the wistfulness of two women as they reflect how the third of their number is no longer there to tell her side of the tale is something I am so very blessed to have been afforded the opportunity to do. Again I am aware that as I have pursued these stories around the world, I therefore have a responsibility to 'do right' by those stories. Today I have begun writing Minnie's and Jenny's story, to be further enhanced once I have transcribed our 'interview'.
I have also decided to set myself a deadline - I am at the point where I must exert discipline, regardless of whatever else intervenes, especially 'work'. I know lovely Rob will help me with this, as he will gently remind me or encourage me to go, sit down and work for an hour or two on the transcriptions or manuscript during the weekend. So much still to do, but it will not be done without effort from me, and given that Minnie quietly made her suggestion on Friday, I really do have a target at which to aim.
A rather lovely 'domestic' day today - I actually slept until 9.30am, unheard of for me, and emerged sleepy eyed to face a beautiful blue sky again, all traces of the heavy rain and cloud faded away. Thought it probably best to have a shave as I was beginning to look like a vagrant, and then Al and I wandered up to the supermarket via a sweet little coffee shop in Katoomba. I am cooking for the guys this evening and had made a list of what I need. Then, as we sat sipping our 'flat whites' and munching on cupcakes, he confessed how he often dreamed of the classic English Victoria Sponge he used to have as a boy growing up, as he did, in England. One thing led to another and I decided to give him a lesson in baking! Up and the down the aisles of Coles the supermarket, and as well as the ingredients for dinner, we gathered all the pre-requisites for cake! Now writing this, I have just taken them out of the oven and so they are cooling ready for dollops of jam and whipped cream. Have written out the recipe and instructions (with many thanks to Sally David), so Al is determined to experiment from hereon in. Suffice to say the house is filled with the smell of baking.
Off to Sydney tomorrow to spend the day at the State Library and their fantastic collection of digitised Aussie newspapers from the 20th century, finished off with meeting up with someone I worked with in England a few days ago.
I think the weather will hold!
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