Blast from the Past

The girl sat alone, on the bench seat at the school watching the other kids playing around her and hoping. Hoping someone would ask her to play.

This was new to her – only weeks earlier she’d had two best friends but, cruelly, they had both moved town within weeks of each other. So now she found herself alone.

That girl was me, back in the 80s. I don’t know how many lunch times I sat there alone hoping the kids in front of me would ask me to join in their elastics but I remember the feeling. Everyone already had their cliquey groups but luckily it was nearly the end of the year. In the New Year I would be starting intermediate where I would make new friends.

We’d been a tight team – me Teressa and Julie, having sleepovers at each other’s houses, talking long into the night, then getting up the next morning and drinking cold milos in front of the cartoons. Julie and I would walk to school together and talk about … life. There was the occasional spat – three’s a crowd after-all – but we would always make up.

And then they moved away. I didn’t believe it when they each delivered the news. How could life be that cruel?

I never did hear from them again. But enter Facebook. Teressa and I got in touch straight away back in 2007, and although we still haven’t met up in person, keep in touch. Julie was harder to find.

Until she found me last week. She had seen a post on Facebook of my childhood home which is now for sale and it had stirred memories. “I recently saw an article about your 20-plus-year family home being up for sale and this also led me to believe you were she as the Jodi I knew lived a few doors down the road from my aunty and uncle. I was sure it was the house but was confused because I’ve a memory of it having a pool?!”

We spent many hours frolicking in the oval Para pool, purposefully capsizing out of the rubber inflatable dingy. The pool was removed years ago.

It was interesting to hear, as an adult, the reason why Julie left town and, after 28 years of no contact with some of her family back here, she had got back in touch, which lead her to think about her old friends and that long ago but not forgotten past she left behind.

She was rapped that I had thought about her for all these years and was able to share memories she had forgotten. Sometimes we leave chapters of our life unfinished but the places and characters are still there waiting to pick up.

We’re hoping to plan a get-together on our old stomping ground – a bit hard when two out of three live half the distance of the country away. But when it happens, there will be a follow-up. Watch this space.

Needle and Thread

All was quiet on the kiddy front – it was just me and the cat on the couch. In my new state of home-making bliss, I had decided to pick up a needle and thread and, shock-horror, do some mending. 

Now this only occurs out of necessity, due to the fails I’ve had on this front in the past dating back to form two’s home economics’ stuffed pig attempt. Then there was the embroidery.

“Wow, how clever are youuuu …” the observer would trail off as they turned the piece over and clapped eyes on the pig sty at the back.

But this time it was my large black velvet cushions which had been coming undone at the seams for the last year due to the kids using them as play fighting weapons. Unless the cushions suffered the same fate as Master Seven’s beloved stuffed rabbit, ie the rubbish bin after I ran out of both sticking plasters and rabbit to patch him up, then I couldn’t procrastinate any longer.

I picked up the needle and thread with the cat washing herself busily on my lap and eventually managed to thread the needle through the eye. Due to both my poor sight and light I had used a huge needle which made this task somewhat easier. So as not to have to repeat this, I used around a meter-long double strand of black cotton. I stabbed the needle into the couch so it wouldn’t get lost while I picked up the cushion and assessed the task ahead.

It didn’t look too hard – just some sewing in a straight line and, with the thick velvet, one would never see my messy handywork.

I reached over for the needle and thread but it was gone! Baffled as to how it could have come out of the couch and disappeared, I looked around. It must have fallen down the couch. Not wanting to disturb the cat and quite comfy myself, I eventually went about re-threading another. It was then the cat started retching.

Surely not.

She stopped and carried on washing herself. Phew. But then it started again. She was frothing at the mouth and it was then I caught a flash of silver.

My first thought was ‘Can the heimlich manoeuvre be performed on a cat?’ and ‘Would 111 respond to an emergency for a cat?’ CPR? Argh – don’t go there. Then my pony club days kicked into gear. To get a horse to open its mouth, you press your thumb into the side of the mouth.

I did this on my now-convulsing cat. Her mouth opened and I pulled out the giant needle just before it made its descent. A trail of meter-long soggy black thread followed making her gag as it came up her throat.

The cat went back to her washing like nothing had happened while I sat there with my two threaded needles wondering if that really had just happened. 

Eventually I followed suit and nonchalantly patched up my cushions in the usual hap-hazard fashion.