nanna's hydrangeas

One of the best parts of being back home in Thorpdale is being closer to both of our families, in particular my 88 year old Nanna who still lives on the farm. Earlier this week I popped over to visit her (and to return some containers after her last rum ball delivery to Mr M - spoiled!) and didn't end up leaving for a good couple of hours. Mr M and I both love to hear about farming in the 1950's and 60's when Ballina Park and Pine Ridge were run as dairy farms.

Grandpa purchased Ballina Park (which was then named Bon Vue but he re-named it after his grandparents property in Ireland) for 5 pounds/acre in July 1946, just after my Nanna and him were engaged. Of course without them being married Nanna stayed in Melbourne where she worked at the bank in Collins Street whilst Grandpa 'batched' at the farm until they were married in April 1947. Grandpa's father (my great grandfather) went to stay on the farm also to help out. The farm was a shambles, run down, covered in blackberries and barely scraping together a profit. Nanna in Melbourne needed to know where she was going to live though, she grew up in the leafy southern bayside suburbs and all her friends were horrified that she was marrying a farmer and moving to the country. A dairy farmer no less - the horror!

So Nanna got a telegram from Grandpa advising her to come to inspect her new home, to get the train to nearby Traflagar and find the local mail car to get the extra 10km's to the farm. (They got the mail every day instead of twice a week because a politician lived on their road - fancy!) Nanna boarded a train alone (again - the horror! She now thinks she was allowed to do this as her impending father-in-law was at the farm, no dishonour there) and took the trip from Caulfield station to Trafalgar. Everybody in her six seater cabin had got off the train at the stop before Trafalgar except for one lady who had not spoken to her all trip, she inquired as to Nanna's destination. As it happened she was headed to Thorpdale also after a Christmas shopping trip to 'town'. Mrs Willis said she would look after my young Nanna, don't be silly and catch the mail car, you'll catch the bus with me! Well, Nanna was quite adament she couldn't do that as Grandpa had given clear instruction in the telegram: 'find the mail car to get to the farm'. Mrs Willis would have none of it so after disembarking in Trafalgar they both boarded the bus to Thorpdale, Nanna got off at the corner of our road without a clue where she was or what to do next.

Nanna now can't remember and has no recollection of what happened next but somehow she arrived at a gate which read 'Bon Vue' (she must have walked the 1km up the hilly road with her luggage), she assumed this was it, walked up the driveway and promptly knocked on the door. She found a very startled fiance and his father who had been feverishly cleaning the house all day readying for her arrival. There was no furniture in the house, they had been sleeping on the floor on hessian bags for months, no cutlery or crockery to speak of, barely a bathroom (a tub on the back verandah sufficed) and Nanna cried and cried for her comfortable Elsternwick family home.

Sixty four years, four children, nine grandchildren and four great-grandchildren later my Nanna still lives at Ballina Park, albeit without her groom Grandpa who passed away in the early nineties. Along with the children she grew, there are some beauitful hydrangeas in her garden which just scream 'Nanna' to me. So as I was leaving after my tea, rum balls and storytelling afternoon I asked if I could take some hydrangeas to arrange in my own little ramshackle farmhouse which I am turning into a family home. 

Cyclical I tell you.