church road

A monstrous blue spruce grows outside 7 Church Road in Menzies Creek. The church in question, St Jude’s, is now a wedding chapel. For nine years my kids and I live two doors from it. During our time there they finish primary school and my son finishes high school as well.

The house itself is an ugly little box. Clothes mildew in the damp cupboards. A tank of heating oil round the side fuels a cantankerous old heater in the lounge, the only room with any warmth. Plaster flakes off the bathroom walls.

The layout of the rooms is a joke. My son lives in a bungalow out the back, my daughter in a room with a nice window looking into the laundry and back passage. Behind the garage is the train room, where the previous elderly owner had his train set. I decline his offer to keep it.

When enough money accrues from my job as principal of Berengarra I get Leon the builder to erect a covered deck  across the entire rear of the house linking most of its disparate elements. From the deck I watch Puffing Billy pull into and out of Menzies Creek station.

I have an on-again off-again relationship with Carol; we get on much better not living together, but we never really establish what sort of relationship we have and it falls over regularly. The need for sex keeps it hanging on, dangling.

The heelers, Fleck and Miss Meg, and I wander the Creek, up and down the railway line, up to the oval and back. For a couple of seasons I open the batting for the firsts, make one fifty. They invite me to captain the twos and I reckon I do all right. My final game brings the best score I ever make at any level, 78 not out. Michael Riedel gets a ton and he and I get us over the line for an unlikely victory.

Both my kids play soccer. Sherbrooke Rangers home ground is the same ground where I play cricket. Away games are as far as Hoppers Crossing and Somerville. Neither is a soccer star; my daughter excels at netball. Neither excels at school, though both are capable of better. My son leaves after year ten to take up a farm traineeship.

Nine years I live in that awful little house. It serves its purpose. Finally driving up and down the hill, as I call it, gets to me. I put the house on the market, expecting it to take months to find a buyer. It sells in weeks, no haggling over price.

I start hunting round Croydon, East Ringwood and Heathmont. On 16 July 1999 I move into the house where I sit tonight writing this post.

Rock on.