The Old House at Deep Creek Road

This morning as I walked Dizzy up to shop for the papers, I had a sublime deja vu moment. It was the wind rustling through the big pine tree on the corner that did it. There is a distinctive noise that the wind makes through a pine tree and it took me back about 43 years.

When I was a very small child my fathers parents, Grandma and Pop Archer, lived on a small farm at Deep Creek Road.  It was an old farm house set up on a bit of a hill at the end of a gravel road. The piece of land that the house was situated on had one of the best views in the area. It looked out over farm lands, to the town and then straight up to Table Cape.  A visitor once said to Pop, "Gee Mick, that's a great view you've got!"  Pop said in typical 'Archer, King of Understatement' manner, "You can't eat a view."

I only have a few clear memories of that old house, one is the smell and another is the long dark passage that led up to Pop's bedroom.  The reason that we used to venture up there in the dark, which was a bit eerie, was to pinch his XXXX  strong peppermints that he kept beside his bed.

Mum said that it was always obvious where we had got to because we would come back into the kitchen blowing and puffing because the mints were so hot! Serves us right :)

The passage was so dark as it ran up the middle of the house and because of the pine trees that flanked the house and kept out the sunlight. It is strange how such an incongruous kind of memory can remain so clear. What memories do have of your grandparents house?

As I am the youngest of six children, by the time I came along my grandparents were fairly old.  Dad was the eldest as well so that added to the age factor.  My grandparents were battlers, they brought up their children during the Depression and knew what it was like to make do and mend! I remember my mother telling me how Grandma would cut up a potato sack and throw it over her shoulders so she could garden in the rain.  She said that was the best time to be out in the garden.  That must be where Dad gets his love of gardening and his ability to grow almost anything.

The Hippeastrum that Angela gave me about five years ago, still blooming each summer 

My grandparents lived in that house at Deep Creek Road until the family moved them into town.  As I remember it, Dad and his sisters and brother, did all the shifting while Pop and Grandma went to Melbourne to visit Auntie Shirley. Once they were settled in Park Street, a whole cache of new memories were made. Like the back sunroom where Grandma kept an old kitchen dresser stocked with blackcurrant, raspberry, strawberry, blackberry jams, tomato sauce and relishes and all other kind of neat homemade delights.  I cannot eat blackcurrant jam now without thinking about my Grandma and that sunny back room at Park Street. 

Chris' Lilliums out the front of our house