Indulge me

 It's my birthday.

Steve  / Mr Google sent me this photo yesterday.  I don't remember seeing it previously.  It is timely.  And from a long time ago.  Wentworth River Bank days.  The summer of the rampant hollyhocks.  The deck is built and Rosie and I are ascending to our little heaven overlooking the Darling.  I have  my morning coffee and what looks like a book, though it's a strange way to carry one.  No glasses in those days.  I am wearing the sarong made from a piece of material which I'm pretty sure the then Southern Belle sent me for a birthday, despairing she could find nothing else in Portland (I may need correcting here).  It took me a while, and a massive magnification, to identify the wrap: the pashmina Sashi Babe brought me back form Italy.  So many things about the garden that I'd forgotten, though it was a garden in a constant state of flux.

I can't work out how old Rosie is here.  How I love her padding along beside me.  How I will always love her.  Once, walking along the billabong, I thought I saw her on the far bank.  I called out to her, then realised she was at my side - I had seen a fox.  Once I put a tiger-skin patterned scarf around her to transform her into a Tassie Tiger.

I love thylacines too, and carry a huge guilt for their demise and last sad years.  Amazingly Georgia found this birthday card for me.  How I wish.

I had asked George to make me a thylacine sleeping in a hollow, just like in this reconstructed picture I found online after seeing a similar image in a documentary.  It is not at the top of her 'makings list', and perhaps I am more enchanted by the thought of 'some day'.