Open Writing

When I reached the hard surface of the drive at the side of the house, I realised that I'd lost the little rubber tip of my walking stick. Instead of the quiet flump flump it went woodenly tap tap on the concrete.

It was one of those days when I felt like kicking something that brings suffering to the world. A neighbour's cat which kills possums, for instance, or a fundamentalist, Christian or Muslim, it doesn't matter which sort. But I'm not a violent person, so I'd attacked the grass instead.

The city council were supposed to mow all the grass in the wetland area behind my fence. After the driest October for 100 years, it poses a fire risk. It can also hide snakes, which won't slither their way over a crew cut. There will be more snakes this year, because the frogs have returned. Frogs eat insects, snakes eat frogs, owls eat snakes — we have the whole cycle behind the fence.

The grass had been partly mowed. The growth behind the fence had been ignored, so I began slashing at it with my walking stick, trying to break down the metre-high weedy stuff. I confess to being just a little violent. And that's where I lost the rubber tip — somewhere among the tangled mess of stalks. That happened a couple of weeks ago. How time flies.

During that period, a gift from a kind family member enabled me to move a step further into the 21st century. A bit late, yes, but these things have to be done decorously. It wasn't until five years ago that I moved into the 20th century and linked my brain to the Internet, at the age of 65. Now, at three score years and ten, it seemed reasonable to purchase a DVD player.

Playing DVD's on a computer is nice, but it does tend to make your back ache. That's because you're sitting on an office chair, albeit comfortably padded and ergonomically positioned, not a comfy armchair. Another advantage of having the latest player in the parlour is that you can watch DVD's designed for any zone.

I didn't know about this zone thing until I discovered that Australia is in zone or region 4. Disks from the USA and Britain are for different zones and can't be played on any old machine. So, with part of the gift, I bought a multizone player. Very cheap, too, at $49, with all the bells and whistles. And that enabled me to take the next step.

Some years ago, I watched the film versions of Marcel Pagnol's 'La Gloire de mon Père' and 'Le Château de ma Mère' on telly. Drenched in the sunlight of Provence, they lovingly convey the author's memories of his whimsical father, his beautiful mother, and his delightful childhood at the turn of the century. That's the bit around 1900, I mean. It wasn't long before the English translations were on my bookshelf: 'My Father's Glory' and 'My Mother's Castle', and I relished every word. Now I'm having a second look at the films. They're worth it.

In the child's eyes, his father's glory was that he could shoot pheasants more skilfully than the local people in the village where they spent the lingering summer holiday. There's a lot of bird shooting and trapping throughout, but it does not detract from the idyllic sunshine of the memories.

Marcel's mother's castle was a château which they passed when they surreptitiously took a short cut on their long walks through the glorious countryside. But I won't tell you any more. You'll just have to buy the book and find out. It's totally delightful. Pagnol's gentle ability to revisit the glory, the castle, the sunlit scenes and events of his childhood, and to present it all in his perceptive writing, brings tears of joy to the eyes. To my eyes, anyway.

The council mower came again the other day. I revisited the area I'd slashed with my stick. The grass now has a crew cut and the weeds have been severely threshed and thrown in all directions. And there it was, exposed to the world like a frog about to be taken by a snake — the rubber tip. The discovery didn't exactly bring tears to my eyes, but it was certainly worth the second look.

© Copyright Brian Barratt 2007