38) Bush Regeneration

About the middle of 2003 we found a flyer in our letterbox that invited us to join with the Department of National Parks to attack the weed problem around the Wamberal Lagoon. We thought that this was a great idea and decided to go along.

The meeting place was just at the end of our road and so on the second Saturday of the month we and about ten or so of our neighbours assembled there. The National Parks and Wildlife representative was a young lady called Liz and she explained which plants were “goodies” and which were “baddies”. She handed out the tools we needed and told us how each pest was to be handled. Some like the Lantana and the Bitou needed to be cut off as near to the ground as possible and then painted with the poison that she supplied us with. Other weeds like asparagus fern needed to be dug out roots and all. There is another weed that in Africa we called Black Jacks but are called Farmers Friend here and that had to be pulled up by the roots and bagged so that the many seeds would not drop on the ground. We were all so keen to rid our neighbourhood of all the invasive plants we got stuck in and worked hard to clear them all away. When we stopped for tea half way through the morning we looked at the pile of weeds we had stacked up and felt very pleased with ourselves. Unfortunately a look around at how much more we needed to do brought us down to earth. The National Parks employees though were very positive and congratulated us on how much we had done. It was obviously a very big job but we were encouraged not to look at how much needed doing but to look at how much we had already achieved and to continue to come each month so that we could get Wamberal lagoon back to its original state. The National Parks employees told us that considering that Wamberal Lagoon was surrounded by residential properties it was not in too bad as state and that it was worth our while to keep on with the job.

Over the last six years numbers have fluctuated and the group has got smaller but at the beginning of each term we get help from first year university students. They are studying different forms of land management and have to do a certain amount of practical work so they come and give us a hand. Some times there are as many as twelve of them, all young and full of energy. Then we get a great deal done and feel that we will soon rid the area of all those noxious weeds.

We also get assistance from a scheme called “Work for the Dole”. These are people who are on the dole and unable to find employment who come along during the week and put in a few hours work in return for their dole payments. That is also a big help.

When it was learnt that Jonny and I are from South Africa the rest of our team blamed us for bringing in the Lantana and the Bitou bush. I could assure them that the Lantana was not South Africa’s fault as it was also classed as a noxious weed there. The Bitou bush is a South African plant but it was brought to Australia in about 1908 and it was widely planted to stabilise mined sand dunes. To get our own back on the locals we always tell them how their lovely blue gum trees and the wattle have gone wild in Africa and are considered weeds there. My daughter-in-law Siân was telling me recently how a friend told her that they had been on a trip to Brazil and had joined in a bush-clearing project. They had spent the day protecting Lantana, which seems very strange to us. It just goes to prove the truth of what my mother always said, “A weed is just a plant growing in the wrong place”

Besides destroying the weeds we have also been re-planting indigenous species. It is good to see them taking root and growing. Also often when we have cleared away weeds we find little indigenous plants that have had their sun and air blocked out by the weed and been unable to grow. Removing the “baddie’ give them a new lease of life and many of them are getting quite tall now.

One of the things that I find hard is that some of the “baddies” have a very similar plant that is a “goodie” and it is easy for an untrained person to make a mistake and pull up the wrong thing. Our present leader, a lady called Deb threatens us with all sorts of punishments if we pull up the “goodie” by mistake. The most general punishment for this offence is to have to bring chocolate cake for everyone at the next session.

It is very easy to get disheartened by the enormity of the job. We have been working there for six years and there is still a great deal to do but when we remember what it was like when we started we are encouraged. In some places there is hardly any invasive weeds to be seen. I don’t think that we will complete the task in my lifetime but if we keep at it we will make a difference.

37) Motoring in Australia.

I have mentioned before that when we first came to live in Australia Jonny and I both had to sit our driving tests again (See Chapter 16) and how traumatic that was for both of us but there were other things that we had to learn about the roads in Australia. First of all we had to learn to pump our own petrol, a thing we had never had to do before. In Africa labour is fairly cheap and self-service petrol stations would see many wage earners out of work so one is still served by a petrol attendant there. It is not hard to learn but at first I felt very self-conscious. I was sure that everyone could tell that I did not know how to do it and that they must be thinking that I was very odd. It never fails to amaze me how we so often think that everyone is watching us and that they are nasty and critical, when in fact for the most part the opposite is true. On the few occasions that people notice that you are having a problem they are only too willing to help. At first I thought that I would not know when the tank was full and would spill petrol all over the place. This does not happen as the pumps have a magic sensor that switches the pump off when the tank is full. Don’t ask me how it works I have no idea. A short while ago I was filling up at a petrol station that I had never used before. There seemed to be something wrong with the magic sensor, it kept switching off when I knew that the tank was not nearly full. I kept having to switch on again and again until I thought that I had enough petrol. When I went to pay for my purchase I told the young girl at the counter that there was something wrong with the pump as it kept switching off. She asked me “have you been driving long?” I could not see what that had to do with the problem and did not have any desire to give this teenager the terrible truth about my age so I just replied “Quite a long time” She smiled and said “it does that sometimes when the car is over hot”. I realised then that she was not wanting me to confess that I had got my driving licence almost 50 years ago but wanted to know if I had come a long way. As I had only driven a few kilometres from our house I knew that that was not the answer but rather than admit I had thought that she wanted to know how many years I had been driving I just said “Is that so” and left it at that.


Another thing that I find very strange is the way petrol is priced in Australia. It is listed on the pump as 129.9 cents or 139.9 cents. I don’t know of anything else that is priced in cents when it costs over a dollar. Why don’t they just say $1.30 maybe $1.40 after all if you are paying cash it will have to be rounded up when you pay at the cash desk. Do the petrol companies really think that we are so dumb that we think that 129.9 cents is less than $1.30 and that they are saving us money? Even if your petrol tank held a hundred litres it would only make a difference of one cent.

Something else I have never seen before is what we call “tuck aways”. I still have no idea what the correct name for them is. They are the same principle as refuge islands for pedestrians to cross a busy road in safety In many places when one comes from a side road into a busy main road and you want to turn right there is a section in the centre of the road where you can wait so that you can enter the main road in two moves. You wait until the traffic from the right is clear, pull into the “tuck away” and then wait until the traffic from the left is clear before entering the stream of cars. This is great and makes it much easier to make a right hand turn; we did not have them in Africa. My only complaint is that they are not on every junction and sometimes it is not possible to see from the side road if there is one. So, when you are not sure if there is one or not, to avoid being stuck in the middle of the road between traffic coming at you from both sides one needs to wait till the road is clear from both sides before pulling out. I wonder why they don’t put a sign up on the side road saying, “tuck away in place”. At least then we would find out what the correct name for this facility is. If you have been to that junction before you might remember if there is a “tuck away” on the main road. But a wise person once told me that Australian road signs were only of use if you had been there before.

Some lanes are designated for a particular type of traffic or to go in a particular direction. The sign might read “Left lane must turn left, Buses Excepted” I am sure that it should read “Left lane must turn left, Except buses” but that is the way it is done in Australia so I just have to get used to it.

Another great thing about motoring here is our NRMA (National Road Motor Association) roadside assistance. For a small annual payment we can get cover for breakdowns and emergencies 24/7. Jonny and I have had to call on them a number of times and they are always quick and so very helpful. Usually the telephonist who takes you call for help will tell you about how long you can expect to wait to be attended to and we have never once had to wait any longer than that. They will jump start a flat battery, or sell you a new one, they will fill an overheated radiator, pump a flat tyre or put petrol in an empty tank, or retrieve keys that have been locked inside the car. In fact they will do whatever is needed to get you on the road again. We once had a problem with a petrol pump that had not long been fitted. Once the NMRA mechanic had diagnosed the problem he called out the tow truck and they towed us into the garage that had fitted the faulty part. The manager of the garage knew it had not been in the car long so he fitted a new pump and we were on our way again. From the first phone call to the NRMA to driving out of the garage it had only been a few minutes under two hours and the only cost was the price of a telephone call. Obviously they do not do major overhauls but they will get you on your way as quickly and as painlessly as possible. I think they are wonderful.

36 Odd Customers

Our delivery business was continuing to grow slowly, we were now also doing deliveries for a butcher and we were approached by another branch of Coles in central Gosford to work for them too. Then a discount store close to Coles Gosford asked us if we could do their deliveries. It meant that we were doing much greater mileage between the stores and were pretty busy but I am not sure that the extra work was really profitable. Some of the deliveries we did for the discount store were large and heavy and had to be delivered to very awkward places. Into our little car we managed to squeeze television sets and bookcases, garden furniture and even once a sofa bed. A trolley would have been a great help but there was not enough room in the car for the goods and the trolley.


One morning we got a call at about 9.30 am from the discount store to ask us to deliver a bookcase to a lady in Ettalong so we went in early to get it done before anyone wanted their groceries delivered. Ettalong is quite a long trip, it is a pretty old suburb and the streets are long and straight and the houses all have back lanes. The plots are relatively large and so a many of them have been divided in half and the garages at the back converted into small dwellings. We were given a street name and a number but were told to go around to the back entrance in the lane. We did this and we found the place quite easily but when we pushed open the gate it was like a rubbish tip. We could not see a way to get to the house so we called and called but to no avail. We thought that the people in the front house might have some idea of what we should do so we drove around there, but they were not very helpful saying that they did not know their neighbour and never talked to her. They suggested that we should put the delivery just inside the gate and leave it there. We drove back intending to do just that but when we got there I thought that I would just try shouting a bit more. Then I thought maybe I should try and make my way through the long grass and the rubbish and get closer to the back door. I got near to the house, a woman came charging out and shouted at me. "What are you doing on my property?" I got a bit of a fright but I told her that I had come to deliver her bookcase and she said "Why didn't you just call from the gate" I told her I had but she said I couldn't have as she would have heard me if I had. I said that maybe I did not call loud enough and that we had both been calling for quite a while, and that we had even been round to the front to see if we could get in from there. That made her really mad, "I don't want anything to do with those people, I don't want them on my property, they can't be trusted.” I managed to calm her down enough to ask her were she wanted us to put her bookcase and she insisted that she wanted it at the back gate in the back lane and would not let us take it in for her. It was far too heavy for one person to handle alone but she said that she would open the box and take it in piece by piece. It was one of those ready to assemble kit type, so Jonny opened up the box for her and again offered to help her take it inside but she would not hear of it. Then she started to tell us all her problems, all her moans and complaints and we just could not get away. Poor old girl, I think she needed help but we were quite sure that she would not appreciate help from anyone. She would have felt that if someone came to see her they would have been interfering with her way of life and after all if she was happy like that who were we to try to make her change.

Another day we had to make a delivery of groceries to a lady with a foreign accent, Polish or Slav, I think. We were a little late getting there and she was very nasty to me. It was a day when we were very busy and I did not think it was really that late. I just told her so and said we had done our best but she was very upset and unkind. After that I saw her a couple of times in Coles and each time she was complaining about something. On one occasion she asked for a packet of cigarettes, when she was told the price she became very abusive to the girls and said, "I want to see the manager" and would not listen to anyone else. I felt sorry for him as tried to explain to her that he did not set the price of cigarettes and that there was nothing he could do about it. Every time I saw her she was involved in a heated argument with some shop assistant or other. I just kept as far away as I could and hoped that she was so upset with me that she would not ask for a delivery again. She was a short plump woman between 60 and 65 I would say, with hair dyed a rather bright orange. Eventually what I had feared most came to pass and there was an order to be delivered to her. It was on a Thursday when the pensions had been paid so we were pretty busy but as she lived close to the shopping centre we decided to do hers first so that she would not complain again. We got there very quickly, she was not even home yet so we did what we usually did when our customers were not home, we put the order near her door in the shade and left our card with it.

A little while later my phone rang and I answered "Marina, here" I recognised her accent straight away, she said, "I want to speak to someone else,” I told her it was my personal phone and there was no one else. She tore me off a strip for leaving her groceries so far from her door. We had put them in the shade about six feet from her front door. She said, "I am not allowed to carry all those parcels, because I am pregnant". I realised when she said that that she really was a little touched and had trouble not laughing out loud. I told her that I had done my best and if she had any complaints she had better ring the manager of Coles. Very cowardly, I know, but I thought maybe Geoff could handle it better than I could. When I went back to Coles I thought I had better tell the girls that she had a complaint so they would know who it was on the other end if she did ring. They knew exactly who I was talking about and told me a few more stories of her odd behaviour. She never did ring to complain about us and we did quite a few more deliveries to her after that and she was always very friendly and chatty.

35) Holding the Fort

Having Jonny so sick for six weeks during the lead up to Christmas was pretty hard. Not only could he not come to work with me he also was too sick to do anything except stay in bed. When I got home each evening I would have to look after him and do all my usual chores. Also when we worked together we both had our own tasks and got on with them so that the job went smoothly. With so many different helpers I had to tell them all the time what I wanted them to do and to work out sequences and routes for the deliveries without having Jonny to help. It wasn’t their fault, it must have been hard for them to try and get into the swing of things when they only worked with me for a day or two each. They were great though and it was good to get to know the people from our church a little bit better.

One of my most regular helpers told me that she felt that she at least had a little bit of experience in the delivery business. Her brother had once owned a nappy laundry service (before disposables) and she had occasionally helped him out, so she knew something about deliveries. Our cargo smelt a great deal better than the one she had been used to though as when she had helped her brother she had been the one who had had to collect the soiled nappies to take them to be laundered. She was good fun and we laughed a great deal about her antics when she had last been in the delivery business.

One of the days my daughter-in-law Siân helped me was the busiest day we had ever had during the whole time we had been running the service. I don’t remember the number but we worked flat out and both Siân and I were jolly tired by the time we finished. I only had a short journey to get me home but poor Siân still had to go all the way back to Cowan. Siân was very popular with our customers and she got hugged by a number of the old ladies, I think the old gentle men were very impressed with her too.

Another popular helper was my son Jonathan. He is quite like his dad in looks so when one elderly lady asked “And who is this young man?” I laughingly said “This is my husband Jonny, don’t you recognise him since he has been taking those Youth Pills”. From then on we kept the joke going and we all had a good laugh over it. All the customers wanted to know where they could get the pills. Oh to be able to look 30 years younger overnight.

One evening when I got home from work quite late, Jonny was asleep, as he had had a rather bad day. I started to do my computer work for that day’s deliveries and when the phone rang. On the other end was an oriental voice. I was tired and not in the mood for one of those telemarketing phone calls that we often got. They usually called just as we were about to sit down to our evening meal. I did not listen to what the oriental caller had to say. I just said “Sorry I’m not interested, I don’t want anything”. The voice on the other end of the line got a little more excited; he obviously wanted to get through to me. I started to repeat my self, telling him once again I was not interested in whatever he had to say when some word or other must have penetrated my tired brain. I stopped and listened to what my caller was saying. He was saying, “This is Doctor Lee here Mrs. Crowther can I speak to your husband?” I wished I could have just handed the phone over to my sick husband but I knew he needed his sleep so I had to apologise to our doctor and offer to take a message. I told him I was very sorry for appearing to be so rude but I had not been listening properly and I thought he was a telemarketer. I just wished the floor would swallow me up but he was very gracious and just laughed at my terrible blunder. Lets face it though, who would expect their doctor to ring at about 7.30 pm with the results of test that had been taken a few days before.