We're not the baby boomers

I remember the brush fence that had been built around the house that bust the budget, balanced on the hill with the sea encircling it like a decorative wallpaper. The woodheap next door was what attracted the snakes, and they would creep along the tops of the brush fence, hiding amongst the coarse bunches of sticks brambled together with wire. Gumboots and a shovel went hand in hand when the discovery of a snake was made, and I never saw the outcome that came after that, whether it was through shielding my own eyes or being called away from the window (so essentially someone else shielding them for me).

I remember how angry she was at the lack of street signs, at the winding roads in the place that there seemed to be a constant mist of rain from June until September. The anger at the warren of turns and blind corners, the slippery roads and the dull yellow headlights, turned into joy, when spring finally tickled our chins with warm fingers and the blossom tree at the bottom of the driveway burst into a calm array of pink and white.

I remember the smell of disinfectant that I came to associate with moving house, as we scrubbed out cupboards, wiped away the dust on skirting boards and powerpoints, the type of cleaning nobody really bothers with unless it's thought someone will examine these spaces with an attention to detail. There was a makeshift wall made from cupboards and boxes, which gave me a new appreciation for doorknobs, even if they didn't have locks. She would buy the discounted flowers from the supermarket, the wilted and sad ones, then nurse them back to life with water and sunlight, before they had their moment to shine on the front table, greeting the people we didn't know who might've wanted to buy the house ('We knew it was the house for us because of the slightly dead carnations in the front room').


I remember the lack of fly screens, in this place where blowflys and their disgusting magnetic buzzing tendencies didn't seem to exist. A lack of fly screens made it possible to thrust open the double windows and be faced with nothing between you and the air outside. As a result, people would tumble their bedding out of the windows in the morning, leaving it to air. Even when the air was so cold that you wondered whether it would turn the bedding to icy sheets of cardboard, deft hands would hurl the blankets from the terrace windows for the duration of the morning.