Mary’s Story

Mary Remembers

Blood-red roses growing along the verandah; a wooden shed at each end of the house for storage; a water tank at each end of the house (and a possum falling in and polluting it); a deep well mostly for washing; a summerhouse close to the cottage built of wooden slats for flowers; milking the cows in the morning before going to Ringwood school; termites in the verandah posts and the dining-room floor; peach trees in the flooded paddock, grapes and gooseberries close to the house and pears, plums and peach trees nearer the creek; the wine cellar containing barrels of wine and hay for the cows; picking heath on the hill to sell at the market, and the oxen that were used to take the fruit to market.