Changing Seasons: Winter V, part 1.

Winter V, part 1 “I can see as how you’re plannin’ for spring already.”
“Spring, summer and beyond.” Grandpa Geo followed his old classmate into the room.
“Might take me a bit longer than it used to, but I’m aiming to make this garden lovely again. And mebbe a few others as well. I don’t think anyone’ll be objecting…” “How you been keepin’? Georgie said as you’d not been too well…”
“Have to admit, I’ve been feeling my age a bit. Now you look as fit as a flea on a butcher’s dog…”
“Better’n I was five years ago, and I wasn’t complainin’ none then. But meetin’ new people – ‘n old friends comin’ back as well – watchin’ this place come back to life, well, it’s kinder given me a whole new int’rest in things that’s been kinda livenin’, if you know what I mean.”
Geo nodded. “After my Annie died, it was being needed by my daughter-in-law and the grandchildren, when Alan was so sick…Didn’t stop me missing her, but I sure as heck knew I still had something to do.” “Well, they look ‘bout as good as Bess Preston’s cookies to me. Smell mighty good too.”
“Thanks,” Georgie said, smiling back at Old Tench. “Eat them up while they’re still warm.” “So what you plannin’ to do with yourself?” Old Tench went on. “Geo here, he’s got his gardenin’ under way ‘n I know he’ll have you on with the heavy diggin’, but that ain’t goin’ to take up all your time. Got any ideas yet?”
“Funny you should ask that…” Georgie said. After Georgie had gone out to pursue her ideas, Grandpa Geo sighed. “I do worry about her some,” he confessed. “About what she’ll find to do here, I mean.”
Old Tench pushed his chair back, ready to pick up the plates and mugs. “Don’t reckon as you need to worry any,” he said. “She’s a smart one, that Georgie, and what ain’t happenin’ for her, she’ll make happen. Artie‘ll be over real soon, ‘n then we can think about what you want doing with all these white walls.” “So what do you think?” Artie asked Geo. “What colour do you want in here?”
“Well now, that’s hard. I mean, we’ve picked up bits of furniture, Georgie and I, but there isn’t really a theme is there? I can see it doesn’t look right, but I’m blowed if I know what to do about it. And I kind of don’t want to go back to the way it looked when I used to live here…” Old Tench nodded sympathetically. “It ain’t the same. You can’t be goin’ back.”
“No. Annie and I, we chose things together for this house, and there’s a few things I’ll be putting back up when we’re done decorating, but I’m not trying to turn back the clock.” “You’ve got plans and ideas for the garden though.” Artie had already admired the seedlings and heard those plans. “So why not think of this room as an extension to the garden? Plan the colours to go with what you’re putting outside?” Geo’s face lit up.
“Now that’s a really good idea!” “Thanks for the compliment! I’m glad you think this feels really homely and welcoming. But it didn’t look like this when we first arrived…Like Old Tench was telling you, we were the first people to come here after everyone had left and there was just him stopping that company from being able to wriggle out of their compensation agreement. Gosh, when I look back at it, I can’t quite believe how young and innocent we were. And optimistic too…” “But why are you interested in our story? I can tell there’s a reason…”
“Well,” Georgie said. “One, I love hearing people’s stories. Two, I love telling them – that’s what drew me to journalism in the first place. Three…we’re going to need publicity for this place. And everyone loves reading a bring-things-back-to-life story. I want to get a series of articles written and ready to coincide with the gallery opening, to release in the nearby local papers, The Newborough Times, the Hillside Telegraph – get local people coming to see what’s happened, and coming back again to see the ongoing changes. So tell me your story!”
Annette cast her mind back… “I remember when we arrived, sleeping in the old cattle shed because at least that gave us a roof in case it rained! It was where the wine presses are all standing now.
Marcus had inherited the place and we decided to sell up what we had (which was not much!) and go there. We were just friends then – had been for ages, and we’d always been up for trying the crazy together. Total enthusiasm of youth!”
“Oh come on,” Georgie said. “You’re still young now!”
“Not like that, though. Not that invincible we-can-do-anything sort of young any more.” “Anyway, we arrived to discover a total lack of amenities. We cycled over to the far side but found nothing but deserted factory buildings and an eerie empty silence. A sadness, almost.” Hard to believe, now, that the art-gallery-to-be had once looked like that. “There was one dried-up lake and one that had diminished to just a watering hole and acres of dusty, sandy soil. Which reminds me, have you seen the changes over there yet?”
“No, I’ve not been down to the lake bed. Amber said something about it to Rafe – that he must go to the top of some building or another and have a look at what’s happened now. But there’s so many bits of this place I haven’t had time to see yet, what with getting Grandpa Geo settled and sorted as well.”
“Get her to show you. In fact, I might try and go myself, when I can get a bit of child-free time that isn’t full up with other work!” “And then we met Old Tench, when we were exploring another bit of the town. Well, the ex-town as it was then. He was all set to run us out of the place at first because he thought that we were reporters…”
“He nearly threw a blue fit when I told him that was what I was,” Georgie said, laughing.
“But then he found out that Marcus was James Winter’s great-nephew and suddenly transformed into the Old Tench we all know and love so well.” “He gave us the keys to the library – such as it was, back then – and we both studied like mad and just experimented to see what would grow and sell, those first few months. The fact that there was plenty of fish in the river definitely helped! Food and also fertilizer – worked wonders on the soil. And we found out what grew and decided to give winemaking a go. If we’d known then what we know now, we’d never have done it – and never have succeeded either.”
“Just as well you didn’t know, then!” “And then more people appeared. Well, one to start with – Clara just turned up from nowhere, researching her family history, camping out in the old church. She knows loads about a certain period – apparently her great-great aunt came from round here, and wrote loads of letters, like people did back then. And Clara found them and thought she’d come and see the place. I don’t think her home life was any too good, though she won’t talk about it. Anyway, she just sort of stayed and we all took care of her. And she talked us all into restoring the church.”
“I saw the scaffolding coming down the other week. Is it finished now?”
“Outside, anyway. We commissioned Marianna to make new stained glass windows for it, and she’s been doing that for the last couple of years: Marcus and I, we decided our spare profits could go into restoring the church. I had this dream of Mary getting married there one day – and maybe Clara Anne and Sarah Jane too.” “So who came next?”
“Patience and Euan arrived next, and their triplets – the first set – arrived pretty soon afterwards.”
“What brought them here? Did they inherit property too?”
“No. You’ll have heard of the Lee Popeman company by now? The one that ruined the town? Anyway, one of “them danged journalists” wrote an article about how the company graveyard was being neglected, so they decided to send Euan here to be the graveyard caretaker. I don’t think they treated him any too fairly over that: you’ll have to ask Patience for their story.”
“Sounds interesting. I want to do a series on the back story of how the town died, as well as how it’s coming back to life.” “It was fun having more people around. And their babies were so cute! We’d go over and babysit sometimes so that they could go for a walk together – which was about all the entertainment there was! We’d swop our not-much-more-than-a-shack for their grotty house for the evening, and enjoy the contrast.” “And then Marianna and Lachlan arrived – gosh, he was Mr Gloomy to start with! – and suddenly Two Lakes was feeling so different. Seven children made the place feel alive. Old Tench, two couples, one resident Troubled Teen, four toddlers, three babies – and Marcus and myself.”
“But you and Marcus were still Just Good Friends?”
“To be honest, I think we’d been working too hard, were too exhausted, to have the energy to think about being anything else in those early seasons. But then…” “Go on! But then…”
“But then Marcus proposed! Proposed we got married. And also proposed that we took on a seasonal worker, because we were just totally at our limits.”
“I thought you had two people working for you?” “We hired Blake first of all. That was really funny, because from the ad he was expecting an old couple and he started off by asking if my grandparents were around! We were the first people here to employ someone! And now he’s running Smallcott Honey and making a living from that. We hired Chris and Caleb on a two year contract, and their time is nearly up – we’ll miss them. And we’re advertising again for new hands: we can’t run this place on our own. Now that we’re beginning to make a name for ourselves, we’re getting more applicants.” “That is quite a story! I’ll let you see what I write: I’m not going to publish anything that people aren’t happy with. One, it’s not kind and two, it’s dumb.”
“Especially in a place as small as this! Tell you what, Georgie, could you write a sort of story that we could put in a leaflet for the wine tours? And use for publicity as well?”
“Sure. Tell me what size you want the leaflet to be, and I’ll work from that word count.”
“I guess this town must have had a newspaper once – I mean, the offices are still there.”
“It did. The Two Lakes Chronicle, it was called.”
“It’s a pity we don’t still have one,” Annette said idly.
“It’s funny you should say that. Because there’s an old printing press in those offices that could probably be fixed by the right person…