How about some photo’s of the pretty Albert River from the pedestrian bridge (not dull or boring – for walkers and cyclists!)? Chris hates the photo of himself in the black Germanic cycle-helmet and I hated seeing him in it so we swapped helmets during the ride!

It didn’t look much from the outside – just your usual one thousand and three hundred square feet edifice built on a commercial scale (without any twiddly bits or ornamentation) – but inside it was a footballer’s or pop-star’s dream residence. The house (coming up for auction soon) was full of light and glass, and water and space… and spectacular views over the range at Toowoomba, around one hundred and thirty kilometres west of Brisbane. We just happened to be driving by on a sight-seeing tour with Terry and Val when we saw that the house was having an “open day”.

“Want to go in for a look around?” asked Terry.

Dressed casually in our shorts, we wondered if we looked like genuine potential buyers as we made our way to the front steps to be greeted by a beautiful girl in an elegant black dress and high-heels.

“Millionaires, too, wear shorts,” someone suggested and the rest of us agreed.

Indeed, we were greeted and treated with the deference usually reserved for the very rich. However, before leaving I admitted to the agent that Chris and I would have to win the lottery in order to even consider buying the property.

“But our friends are rich,” I smiled.

“Perhaps you’d like to enjoy a glass of champagne with us here on Monday night?” the agent asked Terry and Val as they were departing a few minutes later.

“Thank you, we might just do that,” answered Terry.

I’m not sure if they went. As for Chris and I, the next day we drove back to Brisbane – to Roland’s place – and would you believe it? Roland asked us if wanted to visit the house that a friend of his is in the process of building not far from here. The house is a massive edifice, built on a commercial scale with lots of concrete and steel, and big windows, and an inside pool (of course), and fantastic views of Belivah and beyond; and, oh yes, it will be about thirteen hundred square feet, possibly more if you count the bedroom patio. Is Roland the friend of a film star or celebrity? No, his friend is a bricklayer.

Incidentally, I came across the kind of property to suit my pocket – note the tree-house in the last photograph!

Well, actually, it wasn’t quite the last straw (though it sounds good) but who knows how many are left in the world? Perhaps I should explain…

At the time – last Saturday afternoon – Chris and I were at a wonderful place called “The Barn”. We had been enchanted by the setting and the authentic atmosphere of old Australia when our friends Val and Terry had taken us there on a previous visit to Toowoomba four years ago. This time there were some new additions – Scotty’s Garage, Texaco petrol pumps and a nineteen forties Ford in the forecourt – and I was transported back to my childhood (not that I was around in the forties!).

Inside The Barn the others ordered modern coffee – cappuccinos (unheard of in bush towns in the sixties) – whilst I plumped for a diet Coke in a can (in my childhood “The real thing” came in curvy little glass bottles that, when empty, also doubled up as fishing lines).

“Would you have any straws please?” I asked the waitress.

“Oh, aren’t there some in the holder?” she responded.

“No,” I answered, “don’t worry, I can manage without one.”

“Oh that’s alright,” she smiled, “I’ll find you one from out back and bring it over to you.”

A minute or two later the pretty blonde was as good as her word and brought out a single straw. She seemed very pleased with herself and I was happy to receive such hospitality The straw felt rather strange to my fingertips, not smooth – even a little knobbly – and quite unlike straws to which I have grown accustomed. During the course of our conversation, and many sips through the straw, I found that the end of straw was getting wet and soft, so much so that I had to turn it upside down and resume sucking from the other end. I chuckled to myself. I hadn’t enjoyed a Coke so well in a long time. Before leaving I took my empty can, complete with the wet straw, to the counter.

“Thank you for the nostalgic experience of drinking through a paper straw,” I beamed.

“It’s the last straw,” the lady’s husband turned to me from behind the bar, “at least, I bought two and a half thousand of them sixteen years ago and there are about two thousand left, but then that could well be the last of them. Here, have a couple more.”

I gave one to Val and kept one to give my brother Bill. I wonder if he will recognise the waxy coating when I hand it to him…. Will he say, “Well that’s the last straw?”

It was early and the sun beckoned. Chris and I decided to go for a long walk – back to the spot we had found most enchanting just a few days ago, before cyclone Marcia whirled in from the sea and over Yeppoon (up north), and the heavy rain swept across Brisbane. This time the ‘Time Gate’ was chained and locked but it was easy enough to step over so we did just that, and once again we were transported into a bygone age when Australia was a land of bush, dirt roads, stage-coaches and goldfields.

We found the abandoned Gaol and Assayer’s Office, the Palmist’s Hut, the General Store, the Bakery and the Farrier’s place – we even found the Goldfield School (although I would have called it ‘Goldsmiths’). The small settlement was muddy after the recent rain and the mosquitoes were pleased to meet us in the shade under the trees and the corrugated iron roofs of the buildings. Like the miners of yore, we wore no insect repellent and we were feasted upon, and perhaps moreso because our skin is still fair and tender.

At last, our curiosity satisfied (and now itching to leave), we opted to take a different way home. We guessed that the dirt road would lead eventually to a main road from the modern age but first we would walk through cattle country… Cows are really rather large – aren’t they? The herd was up ahead, some in the fields on either side of the track, and others actually on the road. A big cow called Rosie (she had a name tag attached to her left ear) showed no fear of the approaching strangers from a different time zone, in fact she was immensely interested and walked over to us and sniffed us.

“Hello Rosie!” I said in a friendly confident voice and I patted her cheek and nose.

Rosie put her nose in the palm of my hand and sniffed some more. We didn’t feel that she very enamoured with us but perhaps somebody, or something, else did… Suddenly we heard hooves galloping towards us. A big sprightly bull with long pointy horns came running along the field above the track. We looked at him and he at us. Each of us hesitated and halted while we all summed up the situation and decided upon a plan of action.

“Let’s go back Sally,” suggested Chris.

“No, let’s go forward,” I countered, “don’t look at him and let us walk away slowly.”

It’s quite hard to appear nonchalant when a big bull is chasing you. Never-the-less, we stuck to the plan and the bull lost interest – we didn’t turn around to check but we imagine that to be the case because we lived to tell the tale. Before long (in fact we walked rather briskly) we had passed an old farmstead and an area strewn with rusty old vehicles, and we reached another ‘Time Portal’ in the form of another cattle grid. Once across Chris and I saw a ute coming our way and I waved in a friendly and disarming fashion (lest it should be a disgruntled cattle farmer). The driver and his mate smiled back as they drove past. Relief.

Soon we were on the edge of housing estate. We swung our arms and enjoyed the scenery as we sauntered back to the main road. And when we arrived at Roland’s place, nearly three hours after we had set out, we enjoyed recounting our adventure, especially the most exciting bit…

Marcia is the category five (highest degree of severity) cyclone which crossed the coast at Yepoon (near Rockhampton, 660ks north of Brisbane) at eight o’clock this morning. Most people who live here would blame Marcia for the expected four hundred millimetres of rain falling currently over Brisbane; other people know that Marsha is only partially responsible…

“I see you brought the rain with you again Aunty Sally,” said my niece Sarah over the phone yesterday.

“You’ve done it again Sally,” laughed my big brother Bill over the phone this morning.

“Oh Sally,” my brother Henry admonished, “you always bring the rain, the floods and cyclones!”

Only two months ago (when there was a drought here and I was freezing in England) Roland had emailed with a photograph of his brown grass and begged me to do a rain-dance. A few days later he asked me stop but to date I haven’t mastered the art of stopping the rain. And yet again, as everyone points out, it rains for me by the bucket-loads. My apologies go to all those expecting floods or cyclone damage. In recompense I got wet and risked life and limb whilst taking photographs of the deluge at the bottom of Roland’s garden.

The meteorologists forecast another  three days of intermittent heavy rain but I’m working on it…