The Road to Hell

I just read back over my New Year post and gosh, I was cheery. Full of good intentions!

It’s been three months since my last “weekly” post. That probably has some significance.

Although we have moved into the extension which now has adequate means of blocking out light, and it even has an Occupation certificate, the pool build is ongoing and despite the fact that it looks finished and has pumps and heaters and fences and gates and filters and covers, it is still officially a building site until it also gets certified.

Astute readers will note it is now Autumn, in these parts.

Here’s the reason why it remains uncertified:

On fencing installation day, I heard an almighty crash. And I ran.

Then I saw the fencing guy standing there, looking perplexed, with shattered glass all around his feet. I figured I had nothing to add and went back to my desk. And so we wait.

There are two reasons why I ran when I heard the crash. Their names are Calpurnia (don’t worry; we’re calling her Callie) and Clover, and they are the most adorable troublemakers we’ve seen … well, since Tinkerbell and Scout were the same age, anyway.

Working with these guys around feels a bit like a mini-Staypuft scene.

Now when Mum (ie me) is a former English teacher with a PhD in English literatures, you get themed pet names. Cats are named after favourite book characters; chickens after the Doctor’s companions. When we had quail, they were named after characters from Bridge to Terabithia and lived in an aviary named Janice. (Geddit?). Fish have been named after Mulder, Scully, Lone Gunmen etc.

Naming the kittens proved trickier than one might think, since there is still a dearth of strong, female characters out there. I went back to childhood and in one instance, there was a seven book series featuring only two females. And they were named Jane and The Lady, so that wasn’t going to work.

For the record: Scout & Calpurnia are from To Kill a Mockingbird. The late, great, Tinkerbell was named from Peter Pan (I looked for more options from the same text, but there were very few: Wendy or Jane, or the racially problematic Tigerlily, or Nana, who was both a dog on the page and stage, and a grandmother in our household, so that wasn’t going to fly. As it were). Clover comes from What Katy Did, which was probably my earliest introduction to representations of disability in literature. Clover was the eldest sister after Katy and was described as being “pretty and clever with a cheerful disposition,” as being loved by everyone and loving them in return.

Callie and Clover were being fostered in Lithgow, and I saw their pictures on a local Facebook group and fell in love. And so I ended up in Lithgow for the second time in three weeks, having just been back for a school reunion. This time, I caught up with a school mate who hadn’t made it to the reunion, and we talked for hours. We’re booked to be back there in another three weeks, for the wedding of another dear school friend. The Spousal Unit is totally on board with this, because he reckons that when I visit, I come home happy and stay happy for, like, days.

For someone who actually lived outside of Lithgow (apart from eight months in 1978, but that’s another story) and always felt a bit Other, going “home” to Lithgow has been something of a revelation to me. When I left for Uni, I didn’t think I was all that attached –we had lived in three states by the time I was in first grade, I went to 5 different primary schools, and after going on a high school exchange, I effectively only spent nine months with my ultimate year 12 cohort–so I never had a particularly strong sense of belonging anywhere. But that year 12 cohort went a long way to change that, and I’ve since been told, on more than one occasion, that I was–and am–a “Lithgow person.” And Lithgow people have the back of other Lithgow people permanently, as far as I can tell. So when I go back, I feel very safe, and at home, and understood, and like I don’t have to give a back story because there’s a shared history there.

Adopting two wee feline babies from there seemed like an apt way to bring a little bit of Lithgow into our daily lives.