Letters to Ann

`Dear Ann,

Over recent years I have made it a habit to visit my favourite cafe, Micheles Patisserie, every day for lunch. When you live on your own it is good to get out of the house for a while, just to be out in the world. It makes a break in the day & I have realised it is good for my mind, body & soul!

Rachelle, the young owner, has been very good to me over the years, saving the crosswords in the daily papers for me & also supplying me with cartons that I particularly need as storage containers for my relish & Christmas puddings for markets.

Plus the fact Rachelle doesn’t seem to mind when my friends & I sit there for hours over coffee & lunches. All the staff know me & my likes very well.

Of course, I also know the staff well. They have become friends over the years. There are eight casual staff plus Rachelle herself, also her Mum & Dad, Richard & Sue. So when Christmas comes along I like to give them all a Christmas gift to thank them for their care & service.

Richard & Sue have become ‘constants’ in the patisserie for well over a year since their daughter became pregnant & ever since little Spencer was born five months ago. It has been like a little family with the clientele adopting Spencer when he first appeared three days after his birth with his wobbly litttle head & not able to decipher anything in his new strange world.

His Mum feeds him well; he is played with by many who talk to him, bounce him & take him for daily walks, particularly his grandmother, Sue. He is a good baby & smiles at everyone who fusses over him. For sure he won’t get spoilt!

We all love the little fellow. I even got to have a nurse of him the other day when his granddad passed him over to me. Wow, I had forgotten how heavy little babies can be & could hardy contain him. He knows me, doesn’t call me Dawn yet, but I am teaching him almost daily to wave ‘ta ta’!

All of us who frequent his Mum’s patisserie & although we are not biased, think he is the most perfect baby & realise that in no time at all Spencer will be making the coffee for us all!!

So that’s the latest development in that corner of my world. Over the years I have developed some very good friendships with some of the folk who make regular visits to the patisserie.

Firstly there was Richard & Sue. Richard loves cooking & shares with me some of his fare. Apart from his chutney, apricot & strawberry jam, I swear he makes the best marmalade in the whole wide world. I am not a lover of marmalade but I do love his recipe. In return he loves my Curried Zucchini Relish & particularly my Christmas Puddings.

Sue too, has become a real friend. I will never forget what happened when I came out of hospital over two years ago, David walked me down to the cafe ever so slowly while Rachelle & Sue watched. They hadn’t seen me for months.

Sue came around from behind the counter saying “Well you never gave us a hug when you went away so how about one now?” That was so nice & for me unforgettable. These two parents could not do more for Rachelle. I guess when little Spencer is weaned & toddling around we will not see so much of Mother Sue as she will no doubt stay at home to mind the little fellow.

I used to watch one of the customers who frequented the patisserie almost every day & finally learnt that he was David. I would see him order cakes & coffee. I often see his wife, Roslyn who I have met since, come in & catch him, chastising him as he is a diabetic.

He isn’t a serious diabetic & loves my Christmas pudding. Around the festive season I carry slices of it in a piece of Tupperware & when I offer him some he never refuses. He would make hay while the sun shone when Roslyn went over to New Zealand to spend a week with her Dad who is also a diabetic & because of this lost one leg.

I might add that he is also almost a hundred years old & still has all his faculties. I must admit I did aid & abet David when his wife was away as he has become a good friend.

I learnt that these two good people have two cats, they are twins, Anna & Bella, but they have different coloured coats. These two cats are not spoilt: they are doted on. Bella is bigger than Anna measuring a full metre from the tip of her nose to the tip of her tail.

Earlier this year David was very miserable as Anna, his cat, left home & he thought she had lost her nine lives. However, he was elated when after four days she returned home to be doted on again. She got into the habit of leaving home intermittently & David shared his concern with me saying he couldn’t understand Anna doing this when he fed her so well, he felt hurt by his beloved cat’s actions.

Early in the year David had a fall when leaving the patisserie & I didn’t see him for awhile. When he returned he had lost ten kilos & looked very grey, but was okay. Just recently he had another fall & broke a leg, so I haven’t seen him for nearly three months.

It will be a good day when he can return & have a coffee with me so we can catch up on our news together. David is twelve years younger than I am, but that doesn’t matter when we are as old as we are.

Then there is John who is my age & one of the most interesting people you could meet. When we both meet accidentally at the patisserie we make it our business to sit together. Like me, John had a very early struggle in life & is never short of a great story to tell. Other than that he has some really good jokes stored up his sleeve as well.

I have met his wife, Kathy. John says she is a strange woman (tongue in cheek) because she is of the age where she could retire, but she loves her school teaching so much that she refuses to leave even though she travels quite a distance daily to teach maths in another town miles from Newcastle.

Early this year she fell over in the school ground breaking her hip. The replacement wasn’t successful & the operation had to be repeated. She is now having rehab & John has been taking good care of her throughout the whole procedures so I haven’t seen as much of him lately as I do normally. I hope all gets back to normal soon as I have missed seeing both John & David.

Then there are my very dear friends, Harry & Freda, we gelled with each other the first time we met. Both are extremely interesting people, with Freda having delved into her family history so much that she has acquired books written about some of them. These date back to when they were sent out from England for some petty theft but made good in Australia.

I have read the books & wonder how the early settlers made a life for themselves & how difficult it was. I’m all for refrigerators, washing & drying machines etc and a motor car! I am very grateful that it was people like them who settled in Australia. I am truly grateful for the country they made for us but it wasn’t easy.

When the three of us meet we never run out of things to talk about. They have keen minds & one would never know that they are in their nineties. They still drive around & have been married for 73 years. What a record! They are still sharing a good life with each other in their own home. They are a real lovely couple & I can never see enough of them.

Christine & Alistair are another couple who are at the patisserie every day & hail from Scotland originally. These two are serious people, but a lot of fun.

The other day when I went in Alistair had just sat down & was shivering a bit in the cold of the winter’s day so I jokingly asked if he would like me to give him a good rub down. He almost jumped on the seats to lay himself out ready! I reneged so he keeps reminding me every time he sees me.

Apart from these good people I have mentioned there are others like Mick & Margaret: another delightful couple who always greets me with a smile. Often when I walk in to the cafe Mick will hand me the daily paper with the crosswords.

They also keep me their used jars for my relish. When I receive them they are devoid of sticky labels & glue & all I have to do is the sterilising. This saves me a great deal of time as the the rubbing & scrubbing to get jars clean can be very tiring & time consuming.

Margaret suffers from a debilitating disease where her limbs & sight have been affected. Once when I asked Mick what the problem was Mick told me saying that Margaret has never complained, all she ever said was “Why me?”

Mick is a devoted husband looking after her in her wheel chair & also reading to her from the daily papers. They are a couple to be greatly admired.

These are just some of my friends at Micheles, perhaps the closest ones that I have known for the longest, so you can see I don’t lack for someone to talk to. There are always more friends in the making. Today I sat down next to a lady & her companion & she straight away looked at me, smiled & handed me the local daily paper.

Then it hit me that I knew this face, as she has done it a few other times recently so I smiled back thanking her for the crossword saying my habit must be well known, She replied that I could do the first half of the crossword & maybe she will tackle the rest.

Later her companion left & somehow we found we had a lot in common! Her name is Kathryn & she makes a Christmas Pudding from her Gran’s recipe! Then said it wasn’t a success as it went moldy, so I shared a secret with her telling her what to do so that it will keep for the next ten years if need be. I also asked her not to spread that secret around too much!

I think it was a mutual feeling that we enjoyed each other’s company so much that I possibly have another friend coming up from this venue, that I have enjoyed so much over the past decade & more. Needless to say we exchanged names & phone numbers.

So these are some of the people I have come to call friends, they are part of my life. Not exactly anything exciting, but if I couldn’t go to Micheles I would be a little devastated. Living on one’s own it is good to leave the house for a couple of hours.

I think I have said this before, these mundance things. represent life itself as you age in years. They are the things you look forward to when you wake up in the morning. It doesn’t worry me if I just drink coffee, have lunch & do crosswords that I am addicted to, or whether I talk to those who have become friends, but I really do enjoy the diversion.

A few years ago I would walk to this venue but since my hospital experience two years ago I drive & very thankful that I still have the mobility to do so – it’s a Blessing I appreciate very much.

Love you, Dawn X O X O