Wednesday, February 28, 2018

The Paths We Travel


The road wasn’t too busy as we cycled down the bike lane. Most semis, vans and cars giving us the newly regulated one metre clearance as they drove past us on Burns Beach Road. Not that I was paying particular attention to them, I was focusing more on staying well to the right of the white line and casting the occasional eye over the native bushland three metres or so to the left of us.

The highlight of our day was going to visit some long-time friends for morning tea. There’s no doubt that one of the advantages of house-sitting around WA is that we get to (temporarily) live close to all kinds of friends. In fact, at our previous stay we’d been only a stone’s throw from our daughter... which had led to more than the occasional morning tea!

This time round we are only a few minutes away from a gorgeous couple who became dear friends over twenty years ago when Steve and I physically built a kit home next door to them in Beverley (a rural town, just outside York in WA’s wheatbelt). And yes, I did say ‘physically built’! We put up the exposed beams, attached the Western Red cedar cladding, put down the slate floors, and everything in between… we did the lot! It still amazes me what we achieved… and the fact that the house is still standing!

Living in the country (on four acres), surrounded by wildlife, was so different from the life we have now. We haven’t been back though, not since we left twenty odd years ago, and I have little idea of how our house is fairing. Part of the reason we love catching up and reminiscing with old friends I guess.

These were the thoughts flowing through my mind as we cycled down the semi-main road.

Thoughts, suddenly interrupted as a wild kangaroo appeared from the nearby bushland, and hopped beside us for about half a kilometre before heading back into the bushland.

And, funnily enough, thoughts that were starting to resurface an hour or so later when an unexpected friend (a stranger to us, but friend of our friends) called in and interrupted our morning tea. Who was she? Believe it or not… the current owner of the house we built in Beverley! The person who is currently living under our exposed beams! On our uneven slate and behind our Western Red cedar!

Who’d have guessed? 

Certainly not me.


2 comments:

  1. Delightful story which I feel will be repeated to your children and grandchildren.

    ReplyDelete
  2. It certainly got repeated a fair few times this week!

    ReplyDelete

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