Catfacehorse

When I was a kid, I used to take playing very, very seriously. My sister and I would make up games, then spend hours making all the components necessary. In fact, it was the making that was usually the most satisfying. I decorated the dollhouse my dad built for me with little carpet offcuts, I painted tiny little cardboard landscape scenes for the walls, and using a trick my cousin taught me, made little loaves of bread from carefully shaped corks cut with my pocketknife. We would get out our little family of bears (me) and rabbits (my sister) and put them into the miniature environments we had created. If one of us happened to get bored and slip out of character, the other would whinge ‘be serious’, and the game would continue.

Owen and I went for a picnic in the park near our place a few days ago.  A twenty minute bike ride through the sunshine and (thankfully) cool air and we were at the bend in the creek. After a small spread of thermos tea, bread, cheese, olives, orange cake and homemade lemonade, we lay in the grass talking about how great it was to be on holiday.

I picked up a selection of fallen eucalyptus leaves around us on the ground, with gorgeous rusty reds and blushing browns.