LOCAL NEWS
Deirdre Thurston – On My Mind: Bats on the balcony I’ve been in Australia. Between Brizzy (I slipped scarily easily into the local vernacular) and the Gold Coast for a week staying with a close friend. Friends since we were 17-years-old, we have shared many of life’s ups and downs. Cried and laughed together, saved each other’s lives. Which is why I go to see her in a country I personally don’t really enjoy. I mean... mega-sized spiders, snakes, screeching, jet-black crows, and bull sharks out the front of the house in the muddy river. And the accent. A few locals I met were quite miffed that our Kiwi accent had recently been voted the sexiest in the world. I’m not miffed but, like them, I don’t get it. Each of the seven days I was there dawned sunny and bright with vast blue skies and a tickle of a breeze. A perfect 25 degrees with no humidity. Admittedly, the weather at this time of year is divine but that’s where it ends for me. I don’t get Australia. I have lived in Sydney and Melbourne in the distant past and always thought New Zealand superior. Softer – people and place, more beautiful, safer. However, I have to admit that Australia does have its own beauty. Being driven back to my friend’s place one late afternoon after a long, lazy lunch, I was totally in awe of day’s end. In New Zealand, we have a reasonably long twilight. In Queensland, the day ends abruptly. The sun drops rapidly towards the horizon. This particular day, a sliver of white moon lay suspended, motionless in a dove breast-grey sky, that mere moments before had brushed a 1000 rose-gold strokes over grateful, nodding, fluffy melinis minutiflora. And the very last of the sun whispered warmly into the silvered bark of tall, slender gum trees, blushing them golden yellow. The horizon streaked mustard over darkening blue-black hills. Breathtaking. All this ‘un-NZ’ beauty was almost ruined by a two-hour traffic jam on the ironically named Freeway. Home and showered and slipped into something more comfortable (my friend and I have always shared a habit of changing as soon as we get in the front door), we opened a bottle of bubbles, ate cheese, sour pickles, crackers and giant, fresh prawns – everything here is on steroids – while we lazed on her balcony chatting, laughing, always laughing. Great belly laughs. Ones where you just can’t stop and have to clutch your stomach and try to draw breath. Then collapse into laughter again. Best medicine, ever. We watched the lights twinkle on the other side of the river. You can hear someone’s kettle boil on the other side of the water, so I’m amazed the noise police weren’t sent to gag us each night as we put the world to rights and cackled until the early hours. I’m an early riser. No matter when I go to bed I always get up early. Here, on the river, boats glide quietly by at dawn, a pair of ducks wander out from the undergrowth and swim in perfect circles together. I worry about their little feet paddling furiously underneath the murky water what with the bull sharks. Giant crows screech and caw in the trees or strut along the pontoons looking like gothic revivalists. I used to dislike the crows; this trip, I’m loving them. Secretly, I feed them seeds each morning before anyone else is up and about. My friend would kill me if she knew because she detests them. “Evil” she calls them. Another bird flits about singing a soft, long note from low to high. I asked what the bird was: “Don’t know, sounds like a New Zealand bird here on holiday” was the reply. It did. Aussie birds do tend to sound louder, harsher. I’ve named it the ribbon bird. Its song reminds me of a ribbon floating airborne, upwards. Of an early morning, I have a trusty companion who sits with me on the balcony watching the river come to life. Scruffy. The sweetest wee mate a girl could wish for. He sits on my feet or in my lap, little black eyes staring at me: “Belly rub would be good. Or behind the
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ears.” He trots after me as I head for the kitchen to refill my green tea and back again. We discuss the crows. He isn’t a fan. The ribbon bird? Meh. Bull sharks in the river? He quivers, snuggling deeper into my lap. Apparently there was a near miss one day when he fell off the pontoon. Scruffy also has a ridiculously expensive bed. A giant, designer beanbag which he burrows into at nights while listening to the chatter and popping corks. Such a cutie. He slides off the beanbag and tries to slip into my bedroom when I head for bed. As much as I adore him, I need to be able to breathe. Scruff-puff insists on laying over my head and so it’s the beanbag for him. My last night, I wandered into the kitchen to gather glasses and wine to take onto the balcony, settled myself into a chair as the night came in, when suddenly a great whoosh of wings appeared in front of me, then another. I saw a flash of silvery grey and then to my right, two large bats settled on a great bunch of ladyfinger bananas hanging from a banana palm over the balcony. The bats screamed as they attacked the fruit. Were they telling each other to buzz off or were they asking: “How was your day, Dear?” I sat motionless, fascinated and a little nervous. I love bats but aren’t they a bit rabid? Do the attack humans? These weren’t tiny pippins, they were large. And hungry. Luckily, I didn’t resemble a banana in any way at all. I yelled out to my friend: “There are bats on the balcony.” “Yeah, right. We don’t have bats near the house.” “I’m telling you, there are bats on your balcony.” She ambled out, phone in hand, dropped phone, screamed. The bats screamed. I screamed. Scruffy screamed and the bananas, what remained of them, fell to the floor as the bats flew off, wings flapping, like bats out of hell. Literally. Back home, sitting on my sunny, batless verandah, I think about how lucky we are to live in this gorgeous country of ours. She can come here next time. (DEIRDRE THURSTON) F PN
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