Nostos Algos
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Veggie Garden

30th June 11

We just turned a bland patch of earth on the side of our house from this:

Into this:

And now we have our own organic veggies

like lettuce and tomato

June

9th June 11

It was only when the temperature dropped below fifteen that I realised it was June, it was winter and suddenly half the year has slipped behind us. It’s been a year since we lived in Montreal and four months since I got back from Canada for the second time. And maybe it’s the cold weather that has me reminiscing all over again, but I still feel like I’m getting over that time abroad. I feel like we all are still a little drunk on the nostalgia and trying to get past the slight disillusion that 2011 is shaping up to be.

But it’s not all cold, early mornings, nostalgia, memories and regrets. This year has been really good too. I got engaged! Which was amazing, exciting, exhausting, dizzying and still takes me by surprise every day. It takes me back to Montreal of course, and three words written in the snow on a cold February morning. It makes my heart beat a little faster every time I think of it.

We’ve started making engagement party invites and my desk looks even more chaitic than usual!

Winter also means cheap citrus fruits from the markets. Brisbane Square has  a market on every Wednesday no matter how cold and windy the weather is. I stock up on citrus and cheap apples for the week so our fruit bowl usually looks like this: (I also have some amazing lemons but they don’t fit!)

Even though it’s supposed to be the dry month we’ve had a few last showers/down pours. But the pots of herbs on our deck are happy and our garden looks so pretty in the rain. Which reminds me, we also moved house. And although it’s smaller we couldn’t be happier. We even have our own avocado tree and apparently, tis the season the season for avos!

So it might be freezing outside, but we’re all warm and fuzzy inside and excited about what the rest of the year has in store for us.

8th July 10
Carley I’m thinking of you tonight because it’s one of those nights we used to love. Those overly warm evenings when we’d get light-headed and giddy on chilled white wine before heading out. The countless tequila shots we downed and shoes we broke on the dance floor. The laughs we shared waiting in line for cabs while the sun rose. The pizza from New York slice that we would crave right after lock down. The back and forth drunken texts when we lost each other somewhere between bar one and bar fifty. I want to drink cold white wine with you and get plastered tonight.

Carley

I’m thinking of you tonight because it’s one of those nights we used to love. Those overly warm evenings when we’d get light-headed and giddy on chilled white wine before heading out. The countless tequila shots we downed and shoes we broke on the dance floor. The laughs we shared waiting in line for cabs while the sun rose. The pizza from New York slice that we would crave right after lock down. The back and forth drunken texts when we lost each other somewhere between bar one and bar fifty. I want to drink cold white wine with you and get plastered tonight.

7th July 10
Arrival We arrived in Australia delirious and dizzy, after almost a week of travelling. Despite our stop over in Dubai, where we’d been able to sleep in beds instead of upright in plane seats, I could barely see straight. We arrived in heat that felt impossible even after eighteen years in South Africa.As the plane circled the air port I stared at the country spread out beneath us. The neat little monopoly sized houses, the blue of the sea bright against the brown of the land. Everything was clean and ordered. This was nothing like the townships you flew over when arriving at Johannesburg airport. I knew that I should have been happy or excited to be arriving in this place after so many years of planning. But nothing felt real. The world was suddenly both smaller and larger than I’d imagined.My memories of that first week are blurry, broken and shaken up like the shards of glass and mirrors in a kaleidoscope: the house devoid of furniture except for the tv in the kitchen, sleeping on the floor waiting for my bed to arrive, the orange and red ‘swim between the flags’ signs, watching Jordan chase cockatoos thinking they were some sort of chicken, the smell of eucalyptus, my fingers and toes swollen from the heat.It was never meant to be permanent. For me, anyway. The country was so different I could never imagine my life there when I had already planned it all out in South Africa. So, at the end of every year we’d plan our trip home. But somehow we would never make it. There was always something more important and so we would push it back to the next year.It’s been four years now and my childhood in South Africa seems far off, distant and almost dream like. My friends that have left and returned tell me that this is normal and should I ever go back, it will feel like I never left. They say it will feel like Australia was the dream and not South Africa.

Arrival

We arrived in Australia delirious and dizzy, after almost a week of travelling. Despite our stop over in Dubai, where we’d been able to sleep in beds instead of upright in plane seats, I could barely see straight. We arrived in heat that felt impossible even after eighteen years in South Africa.

As the plane circled the air port I stared at the country spread out beneath us. The neat little monopoly sized houses, the blue of the sea bright against the brown of the land. Everything was clean and ordered. This was nothing like the townships you flew over when arriving at Johannesburg airport. I knew that I should have been happy or excited to be arriving in this place after so many years of planning. But nothing felt real. The world was suddenly both smaller and larger than I’d imagined.

My memories of that first week are blurry, broken and shaken up like the shards of glass and mirrors in a kaleidoscope: the house devoid of furniture except for the tv in the kitchen, sleeping on the floor waiting for my bed to arrive, the orange and red ‘swim between the flags’ signs, watching Jordan chase cockatoos thinking they were some sort of chicken, the smell of eucalyptus, my fingers and toes swollen from the heat.

It was never meant to be permanent. For me, anyway. The country was so different I could never imagine my life there when I had already planned it all out in South Africa. So, at the end of every year we’d plan our trip home. But somehow we would never make it. There was always something more important and so we would push it back to the next year.

It’s been four years now and my childhood in South Africa seems far off, distant and almost dream like. My friends that have left and returned tell me that this is normal and should I ever go back, it will feel like I never left. They say it will feel like Australia was the dream and not South Africa.

3rd July 10
Splash Last year summer came early. By August we were easily hitting the thirties and I was risking shorts and t-shirts. At the time I was already fantasising about spending my December in the snow rather than the sticky Brisbane climate. I arrived home from work early one day to find Dominic and Jordan playing with a tennis ball out by the pool. They had both stripped off their t-shirts and Jordan, a mass of endless energy, was running circles around Dominic as he casually tossed the ball into the afternoon air.I watched my two brothers from the shade of the veranda for a few minutes. Fifteen years separates me from Jordan and only two from Dominic. Yet, the two of them interact as if there is no difference at all. Jordan swung from Dominic’s arm, one leg looped around his waist as he tried to grab the ball and their laughter echoed in the silence of the suburbs.After reluctantly pulling on my bikini and a pair of shorts, I joined the two in their ball game. Some how we landed in the pool. Although the air had warmed up, the pool was still freezing. Dominic and I had gone in together, a tangle of long limbs and laughter. I came up for air gasping from the cold at the exact same time Jordan canon balled into the water. His little body flew through the air and he hit the water with a shout. I had just taken a breath when I felt his arms around my neck, pulling me back under. We resurfaced together, spluttering, coughing and wiping water from our eyes.“That was crazy!” he yelled for our neighbours to hear.“You’re crazy!” I yelled back, pushing him through the water to Dominic in an attempt to get out and get warm again.Neither of them, however, were about to let me out so soon. Jordan grabbed my ankle with a shriek of delight. “I got you! I got you! I’ll never let you go!”We spent the rest of the afternoon in the swimming pool, despite the cold. We laughed and played and swallowed water and got so much chlorine in our eyes they turned pink. That day nothing could have mattered more.

Splash

Last year summer came early. By August we were easily hitting the thirties and I was risking shorts and t-shirts. At the time I was already fantasising about spending my December in the snow rather than the sticky Brisbane climate.

I arrived home from work early one day to find Dominic and Jordan playing with a tennis ball out by the pool. They had both stripped off their t-shirts and Jordan, a mass of endless energy, was running circles around Dominic as he casually tossed the ball into the afternoon air.

I watched my two brothers from the shade of the veranda for a few minutes. Fifteen years separates me from Jordan and only two from Dominic. Yet, the two of them interact as if there is no difference at all. Jordan swung from Dominic’s arm, one leg looped around his waist as he tried to grab the ball and their laughter echoed in the silence of the suburbs.

After reluctantly pulling on my bikini and a pair of shorts, I joined the two in their ball game. Some how we landed in the pool. Although the air had warmed up, the pool was still freezing. Dominic and I had gone in together, a tangle of long limbs and laughter. I came up for air gasping from the cold at the exact same time Jordan canon balled into the water. His little body flew through the air and he hit the water with a shout. I had just taken a breath when I felt his arms around my neck, pulling me back under. We resurfaced together, spluttering, coughing and wiping water from our eyes.

“That was crazy!” he yelled for our neighbours to hear.

“You’re crazy!” I yelled back, pushing him through the water to Dominic in an attempt to get out and get warm again.

Neither of them, however, were about to let me out so soon. Jordan grabbed my ankle with a shriek of delight. “I got you! I got you! I’ll never let you go!”

We spent the rest of the afternoon in the swimming pool, despite the cold. We laughed and played and swallowed water and got so much chlorine in our eyes they turned pink. That day nothing could have mattered more.