Our house-sit in Belrose has two great advantages. Firstly, it’s proximity to the relatives and friends that we have in this northern area of Sydney and second, it’s proximity to the gorgeous northern beaches, Pittwater and Kuringai Chase National Park. While keeping Cookie happy, we take full advantage of both.
On Monday we’re invited to lunch with my cousin, Dale, and her husband, Roy, who live high on a hill overlooking Narabeen lagoon, in the lovely split level house where they raised their three boys and now entertain their grandchildren. Aunty Betty, Dale’s mother, is my mother’s adopted sister who had no idea that she was half of a pair of twins until she came to my mother’s family at the age of fourteen.
The other twin, born Leah and renamed Beryl, had been adopted by my grandparents at birth. The reason for this discrepancy is something I’ve never been able to discover, but the arrival of Betty was a blessing for Mum, who’d felt marginalised in the family by both her own mother and Betty’s twin. Betty and mum immediately got on and remained close for the rest of their lives. Dale and I, who share an interest in dancing, see each other when we can, but that generally means years go by between meetings. We eat a delicious lunch on their deck, surrounded by national parkland and chat for four hours!
Then, the following evening, we have dinner with the son of one of Adrian’s cousins and his wife. As Adam and Sarah are busy lawyers in the middle of a working week, we’re doubly chuffed to be asked to their large, very smart Federation era house with its open verandahs, high ceilings and pretty stained glass windows. Adrian is very fond of Adam who he’s known since he was a small boy living in Adelaide (Adam, not Adrian).
We talk a little about his mother who’s suffering from Alzheimers and the sadness of this vital, energetic head of the family no longer recognising him. We also touch on the role of his father, a retired lawyer who has forsaken his golf days, his committees and his social events to take on her day to day care with a level of patience and domestic competence that impresses (and somewhat surprises) us all.
We’re given barbecued lamb, green beans, tomato salad and crisp roasties followed by a wonderfully moist almond flan. I’m in awe of their ability to produce such a delicious meal at the end of a working day. We enjoy ourselves enormously and just about manage to remember to leave early enough to let the workers go to bed.
And then there’s Kuringai Chase National Park. This isn’t just ‘another’ area of bush, but is quite unique with its steep descents towards its many coves and inlets and abundance of native plants and animals. The beaches are gloriously picturesque and quiet, while Pittwater is full of marinas and sailing yachts. Standing at West Head, we look east to the Spit, Barenjoey Lighthouse and Palm Beach, south to Pittwater and north across the Hawkesbury River and Broken Bay to Box Head, Ettalong Beach and the little Central coast village of Wagstaff where we’ve recently been walking.
Our explorations link up a part of the NSW coast that we’ve only previously driven past. We clamber up the rocky paths, through scribbly gums, Banksias and grass trees, immersing ourselves in this glorious landscape. It’s an added bonus to see Wallabys bounding through the bush and view the ancient Aboriginal paintings and carvings on caves and rocks. It’s only a small stretch to imagine that this is the sort of landscape that the first settlers would have encountered.
My final visit before we leave the area is to the nursing home where Aunty Betty, now 95, has spent her last few years. She’s confined to a chair bed and has some dementia but she makes a huge effort to engage in social chat, only occasionally interrupting the conversation with a rendition of her favourite song: ’I’m twenty one today!’ I’m delighted. She’s so much more engaged than I’d expected and we spend a happy half hour together.
In the meantime, Cookie has become more and more affectionate and now appears regularly for strokes and curls up with us when we relax in the evening. But although she looks like a fluffy angel, she also engages in regular fierce and very loud altercations with an aggressive local moggy. Eventually, Adrian convinces this quarrelsome cat that it isn’t welcome in our garden and it disappears . . . much, it would seem, to Cookie’s annoyance. She isn’t a bit grateful and spends hours prowling the garden perimeter searching for it.
