Sunday, 24th December, 2006

6.30 am and gentle rain. My goal today is to make 30 Scotch eggs before the temperature climbs: doing a spot of deep frying in the middle of an Aussie summer is about as mad as one can get. Last night I had to leave the heat of the kitchen and go and sit in the pool while dinner was cooking. Alone in the dark, I briefly became an observer instead of a participant, an enthusiastic audience of one as I looked back towards the house at those dear folk gathered on the deck, their laughter and their silliness making me smile.

I move my gaze past the horse paddock towards the Mill Pond, moonlit and mysterious, a fairy tale picture, though I know the eels are lying in wait in the deep mud below. The fruit trees are heavy with peaches and plums and the little crepe myrtle is in full flower, its blossoms whiter than white under a mackerel sky. Beneath its roots are whatever remains of our darling stillborn's placenta - she didn't quite make it, but her little body was passed around to be admired and cuddled and kissed, wrapped and unwrapped and eaten up with our eyes - and when it hurt too much we made jokes about how nice it was not to have to change her nappy. We weren't expecting a corpse but that was what we got and we made the best of it. That's what us humans are brilliant at, making the best of it - filled with anguish we walk around and perform tasks and crack jokes, faking it until we can make it, until we have allowed grief to restore us and bring us back to joy.

I raise my glass to us all. Salut au monde!