I had been lying awake in bed for quite some time, still with my eyes shut but aware of the light of the new day pervading through the curtains. My hopes of getting back to sleep again had long gone and instead of fretting I lay there, lovely and comfy in my soft cocoon of fresh white cotton, thinking about the past weekend. One day soon I’ll recount the tale of how Henry and I nearly didn’t make it to Gemma and Blake’s wedding on time (a journey into the unknown reaches over the border into New South Wales!) but I shall need a little more time for the telling than I have now. Suffice to say, Saturday was a day of both terror and delight for at least two people attending the sumptuous wedding.

So, as the sun gained strength outside, I thought about the wedding and then I thought about yesterday and my meeting with Jan and Neil at Birkdale – they are the lovely couple for whom I shall be house-sitting next week. I was thinking how pleasant it will be to stay there when suddenly… I heard the screech of brakes and a crash.

“Oh my God!” I shouted and jumped out of bed. I donned a pair of harem trousers and thong sandals, grabbed my mobile phone, met Lita on the landing, and I rushed down the stairs and out of the house (time was of the essence).

Sure enough, there at the busy intersection was an injured ute (one of those half car/half truck vehicles); happily the driver and had managed to get the ute off the road and onto the pavement.The other car was just around the corner and the two drivers were stood together talking. A young woman, dressed not dissimilarly to me, had arrived on the scene.

“Are you alright?” I asked.

“Yes, I’m okay,” he said and we all turned to look at his ute, which was smashed in the front and bleeding profusely.

“Want a cup of tea?” I offered.

“No, I’d better phone the police,” he said tapping at his phone and he smiled bravely, “I needed a day off anyway.”

The other chap smiled (he didn’t need a cup of tea either) and the pretty blonde said she’d like to go back to bed. I had long since given up any idea of going back to sleep, and now, after writing this, it really is time to get up!

(And here are a few shots of the blushing bride!)

In the early hours of yesterday morning I awoke with a picture of Lily the cat in my mind. There she was, looking very fat and fluffy, sat on the concrete floor of the carport (here at Bill and Lita’s place in Tingalpa) and Freddie Mercury was singing “Can anybody find me somebody to love?”. Jetlag? Well maybe, that would certainly have accounted for the hour of waking but the rest is down to something Lita’s mum said to me the day before.

In case you don’t know, Celing (not to be confused with ceiling), who originates from the Philippines, is an avid gardener and great help around the house; she is also one of the cutest, happiest little old ladies you could wish to meet – always singing or whistling about her tasks – but her English is fairly limited.

“Lily is my company,” Celing said smiling as I stopped to stroke the cat in the carport.

Bill was working in the garage, the boys were out at work, Lita was helping the girls with Gemma’s wedding preparations for this Saturday, I was in and out doing my own thing – everyone was busy – and Celing, having just hung out the washing, was sitting in the half-shade where the carport edges onto the lawn. Lily the cat preferred the full shade but, of course, she would feel the heat with all that fur.

Maybe Lily has a bit of Persian in her, yet she manages to look more tabby than exotic. Some years ago, in a heatwave, William and I decided to give Lily a hair cut – an occasion we still laugh about… My nephew held Lily and coaxed her with soft words (he’ll make a good husband one day) but she didn’t like being cornered (who does?) and she didn’t like the look of those scissors. I’m afraid we didn’t have any hairdressing scissors, and we couldn’t use the kitchen scissors, and the shears just pulled (we tried), so we had to persevere with an old pair of the stiff and blunt variety. I felt so guilty when the fur got caught in the scissor action and the poor cat tried to make a dash for it – it reminded me of the days when Chris and I were first married, and I didn’t have hairdressing scissors… Ah the good old days! Don’t worry, William and I gave up and Lily sported a punk hairstyle for a while.

So, back in bed, I counted my blessings and thought how lucky I am to have a wonderful family and friends, and good health; although it had been my birthday the day before, I had managed not to think even once about the actual number of years. I went back to sleep and awoke at six-thirty – a much better time – to a beautiful morning. And a little later, when on the phone and pacing around the garden, I noticed that Lily the cat was following me. When I stopped she stopped. She may not be the most attractive of cats – she’s certainly no pampered Persian – but she’s rather nice to stroke and not bad company. Definitely somebody to love.

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Read more: Queen – Somebody To Love Lyrics | MetroLyrics

My flight to Brisbane may not have been the most thrilling of journeys but it was certainly the most boring! And it was dark (although this extra snippet of information has nothing to do with the subject of my blog post and serves only to set the picture in your imagination). Not long before the day of my departure a friend asked if I would be flirting on the flight – well I wonder where she got that notion? – fancy that! Sadly, I didn’t fancy that at all. The thing is that you don’t plan these things, they just happen.

Truth to tell, as I had slept but little on the two preceding nights I was far more interested in sleeping than flirting, which was a pity for me because I didn’t manage to do much of that either; besides, “chance would be a fine thing”, as they say, for neither Brad Pitt, nor Rocky, were in evidence on either of the flights.

On the first leg – Heathrow to Dubai – I was in the aisle seat of one of the central rows and I relished the sight of the empty seat next to me; my pleasure would have been further enhanced had the dour man in the third seat along to my left moved into the the vacant aisle seat on his side. The man, who was around forty, didn’t budge. He just sat there, motionless with eyes shut tight, without speaking. He acknowledged me only once during the entire seven hours – a wave of disdain because I asked him if he would like the drink that the stewardess offered. The stewardess and I looked at each other and smiled; it was her first walk through the aisles after takeoff. Nobody bothered him again. I talked to David – the man from Sydney, who was married with four children, who had been to university, who was one of those specialists who are sent to investigate the causes of building site disasters, who writes reports, who is a thoroughly good egg and pleasant chap – until my neck hurt and I had to change position (how I would have loved to stretch out… if the miserable one had moved along!).

The long leg to Brisbane was fully booked; the seats were even narrower (a different plane) and my aisle seat was at first occupied by a large young man who resembled Genghis Khan (except for the baseball cap).

“I believe you’re in my seat,” I said.

His big blank face looked at me dumbly and he didn’t move.

“I paid extra to have that aisle seat,” I explained.

Still no word or movement, not a glimmer of recognition.

“He’s in my seat,” I told the stewardess.

“Sir, your seat is the other one,” the stewardess pointed to the next seat.

Young Genghis took the hint and, without speaking, soon filled the correct seat. In fairness, he chose to let me use the skinny armrest between us and he crossed his big arms over his stomach, resting them there for most of the fourteen hour haul. But that was the limit of his good manners….

“Would you like a drink?” asked a hostess.

“Cook,” came his reply.

“Cook?” repeated the astonished Aussie.

“I think he means Coke,” I translated and he nodded.

“Thank you!” I said pointedly to the stewardess.

Genghis was impervious to the pointer.

After several hours of eating, sleeping (a little in my case) and watching movies in such close quarters, I felt I ought to initiate some kind of conversation.

“Are you Russian?” I asked with a cheery smile.

Blankness.

“Not Russian then”, I thought.

“What country do you come from?” I asked slowly.

Nothing.

“What language you speak?”

“Dutch,” he said abruptly and that was it.

“That’s strange,” I thought to myself, “the Dutch are usually so gifted at languages.”

Later on the Aussie stewardess came around with more beverages.

“Tea, or coffee? Or perhaps a cold drink?” she asked looking at Genghis.

“Wasser,” he said.

The Aussie looked blank.

“I think he wants water,” I looked at him.

He nodded.

I had a little laugh to myself – he must have said Deutsch, not Dutch. He was a German. I know, I was inordinately amused but when one is terribly uncomfortable, tired and bored one must make the most of the slightest of ironies. Yes, fancy that!

Not Russian then?

Do you fancy cold fish? No, neither do I. Actually, I didn’t know what it was when I took it out of the freezer; it was something white and shrivelled, with a touch of grey for good measure. It could have been chicken breast – a very old chicken breast that had languished in the freezer unnoticed for several years – but, as it began to thaw, it seemed more fishy than chicken-like. The other plastic bag plucked from the lowest drawer in the freezer at the same time definitely looked more like chicken. Before deciding what to cook for dinner last night I held up the ‘lucky dip’ bags of thawing frozen animal parts and plumped for chicken on the basis that, although rather small for a dinner for two, at least it didn’t smell fishy.

So I sliced the small portion of chicken breast into four slivers (to make them look less identifiable, aswell as more plentiful) and popped them into the griddle pan (that gives those attractive barbecue-style stripes) along with sweet chili peppers, onions and tomatoes. Done that way the chicken “goujons”, as I called them, were quite nice (for two dieters) and in my mind’s eye I already had the idea of cooking the fish in the same manner for a light lunch today.

~~~

“It would have been better deep fried,” I said two hours ago. At the time I was putting the plate on the table before Chris.

Chris eyed the fish suspiciously. Being bereft of batter or breadcrumbs, the fish appeared to be rather naked, white and unappetizing.

“Would you like some toast with it?” I asked, as if toast was a perfectly normal thing to accompany barbecued fish strips.

“No thanks,” he answered, so I didn’t feel able to have any either.

“At least it doesn’t smell too bad,” Chris held the plate up to his nose for inspection.

“No, it can’t be that old.” (Earlier Chris had suggested that it was two years old.)

“It must be the cod we put in the freezer a few months ago. It’s funny how nice it looked before it was consigned to the freezer,” Chris’s mouth turned down at the corners.

“Isn’t it?” I agreed and we both nodded.

At last, after the chit-chat and prevarication, we each took up a knife and fork, and I waited a moment longer to watch Chris cut into one of his pallid goujons and bring it to his mouth. Seeing as he didn’t spit it out I decided to do likewise.

“Does it taste right to you?” I asked after swallowing my first small mouthful.

“It’s not the worst thing I’ve ever tasted.”

“Oh, no, certainly not. My attempt at Chinese cookery – without using a recipe – was much worse; and my beetroot soup was the foulest thing I’ve ever tasted! My cakes without sugar weren’t very nice either,” I concurred.

“But it’s one of the nastiest fish dishes I’ve ever seen,” admitted Chris as he pushed a water-logged ashen flake of nude fish with his fork.

“Let’s not eat it then, if we don’t want too…” I said perkily.

“And we don’t want to,” my husband was already closing the knife and fork together on his plate.

“How about a nice piece of toast?” I rallied.

“But not on this plate please,” Chris laughed.

So Chris had toast and lemon curd from a clean plate and I had toast and honey. The cooked cod goujons went into a bag and back in the freezer, just for a short spell longer… until I go to the farm again. I wonder if Rosie’s dogs will like a bit of a cold fish? Think I’ll bring along a tin of tuna, too, just in case!