Letters to Ann

Dear Ann,

Well that’s what my friend, Ursula, told me that it was her twenty fourth birthday coming up, but I didn’t really believe her. Her birthday all started about four months ago when I was telling Ursula about the fabulous watches I bought at Los Aneles Fashion District.

My friend Sharon had driven Charley & I to the Fashion District where I had not been before. As she off loaded us before she went to park the car, she said she would meet us at the watch counter inside the arcade. She also said the watches lasted for ever with battery replacements, the same as an ordinary watch.

Wow those watches were unbelievable. I was besotted with them, but my favourite was the one depicting, on the face of the watch, the Arc de Triomphe & the Eiffel Tower in Paris. It came with watch bands in different colours to select from. They are very attractive so I purchased four of them to give as fun watches to some sweet nieces of mine.

When I mentioned this to Ursula she asked could she purchase one from me as she & her late husband, Les had visited Paris briefly & had always intended to go back again. Sadly though, Les passed away with cancer many years ago & they never had the opportunity to return. I promised I would keep one of the watches for her as I could see the sentimental value it would hold for her.

At that stage I only had one of the watches left, which had a nice dark green band that was Ursula’s favourite colour, as it turned out. I already had her birthday gifts wrapped, but I changed my mind after I visited our local post office & found they had some ‘Parisian things’ on sale: namely a floral tray & a clock to match. They were definitely antique looking & certainly had a touch of Paris about them with that city stamped uppermost on the items.

Ursula showing off her Parisian watch.

To add to this I had in my possession a lovely large gift bag sporting the Eiffel Tower & although it was holding a birthday gift for my friend, Cheryl, an idea had been born in my head so I switched that as well. I knew Cheryl wouldn’t mind, but anyway she wasn’t to know about it.

So I absolutely changed everything around, removed the original birthday gifts for Ursula & switched the Eiffel Tower gift bag. I had decided it would be a lovely birthday & instead of Ursula going back to Paris, I would bring Paris to her.

From that point on you would be surprised at the things that popped up about Paris. I walked into the chemist shop one day & they had some delightful little notebooks on sale, but one jumped out at me immediately: it was so pretty depicting the Eiffel Tower.

Another day I happened to be sorting out my tea towels & came across one I had bought in Paris eons before, labelled ‘Made in Paris’ & depicting the Eiffel Tower again. I wrapped that up with a little card saying ‘From my kitchen to yours’.

In the end I had two huge gift bags of Parisian gifts for Ursula’s birthday which we celebrated today at Michele’s Patisserie.

Ursula with her memories of Paris.

With all these gifts for Ursula, including my own homemade Marmalade Jam, Zuccini Relish & Pickled Cucumber you can imagine some of it was heavy stuff! I had to arrive early at the Patisserie to organise all the goodies.

First thing was a super market trolley to transport all the loot from my car to the cafe. It took awhile to organise it all, but when Ursula arrived I was composed & doing some crosswords with the birthday packages hidden behind the cushions.

The food stuffs I left on the table wrapped in rubbishy wrappings to divert her attention from what I hoped was the ‘hidden treasures’! To start with she loved the food stuff!

We had our lunch & I brought forward her secret gifts telling her I had brought Paris to her. Ursula sure does remind me of my Mum who used to take forever to unpick the sticky tape from a parcel, untie the curling ribbon & amid telling several stories about this & that would finally get one parcel unwrapped.

The first gift Ursula unwrapped was (after half an hour) – the watch! It is a pretty watch & the band in green went over well! . The watch looks as if the face is surrounded by diamonds, but it’s actually not!

It was pretty enough for friend, Sue, to notice when she passed by our table when this was going on & it got her attention. She asked if I would get her one on my next visit to Los Angeles Fashion District & Sue is a very elegant lady who only wears the best, but needless to say these watches don’t cost three months wages! They are just fun watches.

I sent one to a sweet niece of mine earlier this year for her birthday & to say she was overwhelmed would be an understatement. Her name is Joanne & she decided to change her birthday from 3rd Jan. when everyone was just getting over Christmas & New Year to the 3rd June, so I sent her the watch with birthday card for that date & she truly did get a great surprise, but it was the watch which overwhelmed her.

I can easily also say that Ursula was loving her birthday too, at her age she received nothing that she needed, it was just the thought. I might also add that is took her three hours to unwrap her gifts. I have never seen anyone so hell bent on making a birthday last for so long.

We must have discussed fifty different subjects while she held gifts in her hands as she unwrapped them. It was fun to watch.

Ursula surrounded by her Parisian artifacts.

I fancy the watch took pride of place until she opened up the package revealing my well worn Eiffel Tower tea towel that I have had for over thirty five years. She was so thrilled with it she is practically going to frame it!

In the midst of our birthday festivities who should go past but Cheryl, so she came into the Patisserie to meet Ursula as they have both heard lots about each other. As I showed the Eiffel Tower gift bag to Cheryl I explained that she nearly received it & why she didn’t get it. She said the pleasure was all hers.

So after a very lovely fun day i trollied Ursula’s ‘loot’ to her car in the car park while she walked behind her lovely new gift her family gave her for her birthday:  a new dark green (favourite colour) walker sporting the latest in good sized wheels, a folding shopping bag under the seat & brakes to keep the walker behaving itself & she is absolutely thrilled.

Also her sister & husband took her to lunch yesterday. Her day was made when her rather non demonstrative sister said how much she loved her. I have the feeling that Ursula had a lovely birthday to remember & it was good to see.

My Blessings & Love to you Ann. Dawn X O X O

Dear Ann,

I am sleeping so well with approximately eight hours sleep every night, which is not too bad considering I have been an insomniac most of my life & considering my age. Sometimes it is a straight through sleep & some nights I could sleep, wake & go back to sleep again, so I am really enjoying this new phase of my life.

Also as I have absolutely no reason to get up when I wake in the mornings I tend to hug to my warm bed where I often get more sleep or just lay awake lapping up the luxury of warmth on cold mornings & ponder.

Well two weeks ago on a Friday morning, I got up & climbed back into bed around 9 a.m as it was too early for line dancing at 12.30, but when I clambered back into bed I somehow pulled a muscle in my back over my waist on the right hand side.

At first I didn’t think much of it, but it became worse so I went to sit up to take a couple of Panadol (for minor pain) & realised I was in deep trouble. I could scarcely move with the pain.

Somehow I got out of bed, put a warm dressing gown around me & sat in a huddled heap in, what I consider, terrible pain. I rang emergency & immediately the lass told me to stay where I was, don’t move & wait for the ambulance. I was happy to do just that!

The ambulance came & the head guy was not as nice as most as he reprimanded me about my dressing gown being too long & I could trip me up, so I asked him several times to please get the one from the bedroom hanging over the fan so that I wouldn’t trip!

He also mentioned about a mat I had, but I really wasn’t interested in mats at that stage so I ignored him! He had his driver with him & after a bit of ‘this & that’ getting things ready to go to hospital he walked me out to the ambulance.

I might add I was crying by the time I managed to hoist myself into that wonderful vehicle. It was just heaven to lie on the bed provided. As we drove to the hospital the ambulance man suddenly become more human, so when he asked me for the details of my life I was happy to fill him in.

This seemed to make him happier & we arrived at John Hunter Hospital where I was transferred to another bed (without having to walk). It was heaven. By this time I think the Panadols had started to do their job, but I kept that to myself until asked!

As time went on & as I lay in my little cot, I started to feel a little less stressed & was happy to supply any info the hospital staff needed, but due to my stay with them last year they already had a lot of info about me – nothing is private!

The outcome was that due to the history they had & due to the fact that I had already taken two Panadols for the pain there was little they could do for me. The advice with my bad back was to keep moving & certainly keep on with my line dancing, but not that day!

So they got me up walking around in my dressing gown. I must say they were delightful nurses, very chirpy not like the grumpy ambulance nurse. After a nice sandwich & a cup of tea I was able to go back home to rest.

I think after this little hospital interlude I have now learnt to take some street clothes as the ambulance does not deliver you back home in your nightie & dressing gown! So my good son, David, came to my rescue after he had finished his lunch. And wow, is it good to see family!

So I came home & stayed still, slept in the arm chair watching television that is something I rarely ever do during the day & let line dancing go by the board for that week;

Next day a miracle nearly happened, (I did look after myself though). I was gingerly walking on egg shells starting to feel brave again & for the following days I felt almost normal.

I went shopping, still walking on egg shells, but I needed some ingredients to make a few kilos of Macadamia Nut Puddings. I managed this exercise very well & started to forget about a bad back. There was a little niggle still, but I was okay & went about life as normal.

On Wednesday I get up a little earlier as I have a lass from Hammond Care calling to do all my housework & I like to be organised when they arrive. It’s usually Sue or Sally that comes, but on this day it was a new lass & when I called for her to come in I met Lily who appeared to be very young.

You will hear a lot more about Lily in a future letter. I had all the ingredients to make the necessary puddings, but I needed Lily to peel some oranges for me as my hands are not as mobile as they used to be & these days I find this a difficult chore.

Unfortunately for Lily I had had the oranges in the fridge for a couple of weeks which makes them very difficult to peel & the poor girl was landed with this awful chore immediately upon her arrival. In my own defence I wasn’t aware that oranges could be so hard to peel when they have been picked from the tree for some time, sat in cold storage for goodness knows how long let alone in my fridge for further time.

However, poor Lily persevered & got the job done. I thanked her immensely. Also there was something about Lily that I really liked.

Now that was on a Wednesday & I had gone up to Michele’s Patisserie for my lunch where I take about two hours of leisure time to do crosswords from my favourite news paper. After this I came home & put all the pudding ingredients together & mixed 16 kilos of Macadamia Nut Puddings.

I thought that was enough for the day. I considered I had done well with a bad back, so deferred weighing out & tying up the puddings ready for cooking until next day. This was not a good choice!

Thursday morning I was up bright & early to go to my hairdresser, Felicity, for my weekly hairdo. It is the usual thing that I go with my hair already shampooed & then it only takes her a few minutes to do the blow wave.

When I arrived there was a note on the door to say that due to a hand infection, the salon was closed for the day. I must say that I sat in the car with my wet hair looking like nothing on earth & said some naughty words.

One thing had already gone wrong that morning, so along with saying some naughty words I wondered what the third thing would go wrong as my Mum always said things come in threes. However you should never put a negative statement out into the universe like that as it came back to bite me.

When I got home I sat at the computer for an hour & on getting up from the chair, I twisted my gorgeous body in the process & learnt never to do that again. I had pulled the same muscle in my back!

As this was getting to be a common occurrence I resisted the ambulance & called my medical clinic instead who know me. The advice was to do nothing all day other than keeping hot pads on the spot. I was willing to do whatever asked, so did what i was told for the whole day while worrying about my mixed puddings as once they are mixed it is wise not to leave them for too long before they are weighed out & tied up into their cloths.

How I wished I had done them the evening before!!

No good wishing, so towards the end of the day I ventured into doing what I felt I had to do. This necessitated pulling (bad back in mind) metres of cling wrap which is needed in layers over the pudding cloths before the puddings are weighed out. I am only doing Macadamia Nut puddings in yuletide log form, not round ones & I had sixteen of these to do. Logs are much more difficult to mould & tie up.

It was going to take several hours to boil all of them, & having done what I felt was necessary under the circumstances, I put the boiling off until next morning. I knew line dancing was not going to be an event for the second week in a row.

The next day I felt my back was well enough for me to put the pudding logs into the cauldrons & soon realised what a pathetic job I had done in tying them up the day before. Before the day had ended almost every pudding log had burst its banks & I was pouring boiling water down the sink along with the logs!

I rescued as much as I could & have several kilos to feed the birds & wild life around me! I managed to save four that are saleable which is sad when, apart from the other ingredients, the nuts alone cost $50!!

It was while I was in this frightful mess trying to salvage what I could from the bad experience when I realised my favourite presenter, Tony Delroy was on the air & this was his last night so I quickly left my mess behind me. This was something more important for me than crying over spoiled nuts among other things. That’s why I said in my previous letter, that I was embroiled in a mess when I realised it was Tony Delroy’s last night on ABC which made me quickly forget about everything else.

As for Macadamia Nut Christmas Pudding Logs, I have enough damaged product which is not considered first class for my pudding project but I have a niece, Michelle, & her three young adult sons who will be on my doorstep at the drop of a hat to take any rejects off my hands as they love the nut puddings & have them every Christmas so all is not lost!!

My love to you always. Dawn X O X O