Driftwood

I have a dilapidated fence made entirely of drfitwood found washed up on the shores nearby. One section of my garden is home to flotsam and jetsam collected by a previous owner after winter storms; fishing nets, ropes and floats, shells and corals and pieces of bone, old bottles and glass stoppers, rowlocks and treasures from dinghies and other boats.

So it is also with the people I have met; we all seem to have washed up at Cygnet for one reason or another. There are stories here, behind the faces; I can hear it in the twist of an "r" or the use of a word that tells me you are not from around here nor from Australia, originally. There are stories hidden and there are stories bursting to get out. A quiet moment shared sitting on a log, amongst the hurly burly of a morning in the construction of a permaculture food forest, reveals harder times and begins to add me to the web of Cygnet life.

Every greeting, every welcome, every handshake I have received has been warm and genuine. Within a moment of meeting there is an offer of time or goods or an invitation to join in a day's project or gathering. I am the glad recipient of 2 gorgeous big, blue armchairs and I am looking forward to receiving the bag of worms for my compost and a pine nut tree. Bob has taken a remnant kitchen chair, that collapsed with me on it and I had down to burn in the fire, because he says it can be fixed and would not budge from his desire to have a go at doing it for me.

If there is such a thing as finding one's place, I have found mine.