Becoming a playwright

I am very excited to announce that two of my ten minute plays have been chosen for the Short and Sweet Festivals in Merimbula and Cootamundra. I hope that there is a good roll-up to these Festivals of ten 10 minute plays written, directed and acted in by volunteer participants. Please post feedback if you get to go to the shows.

Love Bites

500 Words: Things We Do For Love

https://open.abc.net.au/explore/52904

The first real ‘on my own’ cooking experience I can remember, is baking
a packet cake called a French Teacake. The cake was very simple, you just
had to pour the packet of mix into a bowl, add water, stir
and bake. I think the thing that made this basic cake ‘French’ was the
slathering of a teaspoon of butter over the cooked cake and the sprinkling
on of a sugar/ cinnamon mix that came in the box. During my primary
school days, I must have made this cake for my family every Saturday
afternoon for a couple of years or at least until the company changed the
cake and turned it into an English Teacake instead.

The cooking of that cake still brings back happy memories. I loved the fact
that I had the kitchen to myself, that my mum trusted me with the stove
and the electric mixmaster and that I was producing something that
everyone was waiting to devour the moment I took the finished product
out of the cake pan!

As I grew, I went on to enjoy bigger and better cooking experiences. Jelly whip parfaits, toffees and even lamingtons – they were all
cooked up in my mum’s kitchen usually on my own, or with a sibling
sitting on the kitchen counter, waiting to lick the bowl. Cooking definitely
bestowed a feeling of power then!

If I close my eyes, I can see my mum and dad in their kitchen in our family
home all those years ago, working together to make their famous trifle.
Mum was the milk and sugar measurer, whilst dad was the mixer and the
stove-top stirrer. They worked with military precision to produce layers of
strawberry, chocolate, caramel and vanilla custard separated by thinly sliced store-bought sponge cake, liberally sprinkled with whatever liqueur
my dad happened to have on hand. They cooked their trifle together, with
love and determination – a special occasion dessert that they became
renowned for amongst the extended family.

I remember with great fondness my father-in-law who fancied himself as
a superb cook. And he was. The only problem was that he liked to cook
whilst drinking red wine – glass after glass. While he drank and cooked, he
talked, a lot, and we all soon learnt that dinner would always be at least
two hours late if father was cooking!

Cooking with my children has been another loving albeit sometimes
frustrating experience. The focus involved in cracking eggs,
measuring sugar and sifting flour has been wonderful to watch. Despite the
fact that the cooking takes twice as long, the joy of being with my kids and
witnessing their cooking experience has been priceless.

How wonderful it is to cook with love – to choose ingredients, put them together and produce something to be enjoyed by family and friends!

What fantastic magic lies at the heart of cooking and the memories of love that cooking makes!

Dear Husband

500 Words: Things We Do For Love

https://open.abc.net.au/explore/52407

When our friend Norm developed dementia, we were all devastated. His wife, Gladys, cared for him at home, but as his condition worsened, she found it increasingly difficult to look after him. So, being a wonderfully practical woman, she sold the home she and Norm had lived in for over forty years, found a care facility for Norm and bought herself a tiny unit within walking distance of Norm’s new abode.She visited Norm every morning for breakfast, went back for lunch and was there at dinner time to help as much as possible.Gladys said it broke her heart to leave Norm there – they’d been married for over 50 years and raised a family together, battling the ups and downs as a team. But she knew her own limitations physically and was worried that Norm could be injured if she wasn’t able to lift him or shower him or otherwise attend to his daily needs.Norm deteriorated pretty quickly, which Gladys now feels may have been a blessing for him. As much as she loved him, she couldn’t stand to see him suffering anymore.Norm passed away at the home, peacefully, after lunch one day. Gladys was there with him when he went.I was greatly upset by what happened to Norm and Gladys. A few months after Norm passed, I wrote a poem for couples like Norm and Gladys, trying to put into words what I think Gladys might have liked to wish before a cruel and debilitating disease like dementia took her husband away. It reads:DEAR HUSBAND What will become of us,
you and I,
my dear husband
when we are old?
Our youth spent?
The dreaded twilight years upon us? I pray that dementia
will be kept at bay
so that we might enjoy our time together
and talk
and laugh
and love. Let there be no erosion of our minds,
no dying of our intellect.
Let us die having lived through old age
with our minds intact,
happy with each other like we were
when we first met and fell in love. But,
should that not be our fate,
let us diminish together
so that not one of us is left alone
to witness the other’s demise. Let us become two strangers to two strangers,
not one stranger to another.
Let our past life together be forgotten.
Let us exist only in this time,
not the past.

Sarah’s Story in her words

500 Words: Things We Do For Love

https://open.abc.net.au/explore/52077

We’ll travel south, you’d said.
We’ll follow the whales.
So we slept rough under inky skies
in sleeping bags smelling of petrol
and greasy takeaway.
We’re living the dream, you’d said.
Living the dream, I’d echoed,
entranced.You’d find work
on the fishing boats, you’d said.
Might be gone for a few weeks at a time,
but you can get work,
you’ll be right, you’d said.
Wrapped in your arms, under milky moonlight,
I believed.The fishing soon ran out
but the pubs stayed open
and the town did a steady trade
in disability pensions
and girls laid off from the cannery.
I slept alone most nights
in that falling-down dump
praying the landlord wouldn’t turn up
demanding payment in kind
for the outstanding back rent.I waited for you,
so we could get back to living the dream,
but you said I’d changed
and I wasn’t the whale-following girl
you’d set out with.
You needed time to think.When the girl with the rockmelon belly
turned up,
with a face full of dreams
and a Woollies green bag full of her life,
I showed her the way to your saggy bed
and started travelling north,
following the whales.