Buzzzzzzz

Sarabelle and I attended the open garden/tennis club fundraiser work bee at our coach's house Sunday. Elle stayed home -- she has been complaining of a sore back since Grice used her as a step ladder on a playground last weekend when the three of us participated in a weaving seminar hosted by women of the local Kuku Yalangi (pronounced goo goo YAWL angee) in honor of their grandmother, a tribal elder specializing in basket weaving and local notable who recently died -- I wanted to give her a chance to rest it and make sure it's nothing more serious before her big trip, and Grice stayed home to keep an eye on her.

Sarabelle and I picked up Em on the way over. She was a little under the weather, suffering the effects of a late-night party, but she was prepared to tough it out. Vee wasn't expected to show as her family only had the weekend to get her husband ready for his next two-week, four-wheel tour. Fortunately when we arrived there was one other older couple there from the resort town's tennis club to help, and between the five of us, we got a lot of work done. Sarabelle varnished the bench and my main job was to cut pups off bromeliads and fill in gaps in a large bed, then cage each transplant to protect it from the bandicoots and bush turkeys. I also did a little pruning, mulched another big bed with hay, and hauled some big bags of potting soil around and removed a fridge from the property. My back and neck are a little achey. Normally I would ask Em give me a massage treatment, but she is too busy preparing for an impromptu flight this week to the Philippines to celebrate a cousin's wedding. I'm sure she loves her cousin, but I'm sure she equally loves the idea of missing the open garden.

Coach made up for the imposition by serving us a delightful little tea. There were sandwiches and cookies and home-made muffins plus tea and coffee and champagne served under one of his many elegant little asian-styled pavilions at the edge of a broad, rainforest-fringed expanse of lawn. The older couple didn't drink, Em didn't want to even think about consuming any more alcohol (her headache medicine was beginning to wear off at that point), and Sarabelle is under-age, so that left me and the coach to drink the champagne. And you know it's not like wine, where you can just pop the cork back in and save it for later, once it's open, you have to finish it or throw it away. And it was good. Not like most of the syrupy swill that has to be choked down after the best man's toast (too much like taking medicine, but in order to stave off any potential wedding curses, I always dutifully perform this dreadful task), not exactly Clicquot, but a close Australian approximation. We did not waste it, and gardening chores were so much more pleasant afterward.








We ought to do good to others as simply as a horse runs, or a bee makes honey, or a vine bears grapes season after season without thinking of the grapes it has borne.

-- Marcus Aurelius