Words and Pictures – Cosy

When I was little, my Mum had a best friend called Jeanette. She lived in a house in Battery Point in Hobart with her smart, jolly husband and various children of various ages. Sometimes, I think when Mum needed a chat, she would take us to visit Jeanette.

The house abutted a lovely park. In fact it more then abutted it, it kind of flowed into it via an arched side gate. Through the gate and you’d be standing at the top of a grassy rise, surrounded by trees and weaving pathways. The Derwent River carved a deep, blue yacht-dotted streak between the big buildings at the bottom of the hill. Jeanette’s park was vast and old and full of the sort of metal play equipment that could take your eye out or concuss you in about three seconds flat. Needless to say, I loved it. Especially the roundabout – which we called by it’s proper name : ‘The WhizzyDizzy’.

The house had a back verandah leading into a gorgeously fragrant floral garden. Huge roses dropped their petals everywhere like confetti, and there were snails and cats and slugs and moss in abundance. There was a kind of cobbled bluestone front yard where you could park your car. It was one of those houses where the back seemed like the front, and the front seemed like the back, if you know what I mean.

It was a treat to go down to Jeanette’s. We would bump past the adults saying their hellos, tearing up the long hallway and out the back door, through the gate and into the park. Carefully planned games would start immediately, and energetically. We would swing each other on the roundabout in a series of gravity defying tricks. Sometimes we’d spin each other until the rider’s face was so white and panic stricken that we’d have to slow them down and giggle an apology. Sometimes we would lie down on the bumpy roundabout floor as it spun. Sometimes we would lie down on our tummies, the ground whizzing by perilously close to our faces. Sometimes we would hold onto the cool railings and lean right back so our whole bodies were pulling outwards as we swung in circles. I’m completely surprised we didn’t lose our teeth, an eye or a couple of internal organs.

We’d play in the park for what seemed like hours, standing up on the swings, lying down on the WhizzyDizzy, leaping from the space-age 50s climbing frame. It could have been fifteen minutes, in reality, but everything seems so much bigger when you are a wee person, right?

Inevitably we would be forced back inside (despite the acrylic warmth of our stretch flares and hand knitted jumpers) once our hands had gone completely numb from clinging to the metal bars, and our heads had gone completely numb from hanging upside down. It’s cold in them there parts.

Jeanette’s living room had a lovely open fire, and you could sit right next to it on a little brick perch and warm your blue fingers. There was a big wooden table covered in books and papers and pencils and things. There were flowers from Jeanette’s garden stuck in vases all over the place. There was classical music on the radio. There was strong cheese and crunchy crackers. Pate and toast. There were floral curtains and loudly ticking clocks. Sweet, orange cordial was served in big tumblers. Lovely paintings hung on the walls and there were big colourful rugs on the wooden floor. There was my Mum and Jeanette talking about stuff and Jeanette’s husband wandering in and out at irregular intervals. I remember once we went over and they had made mulled wine. We sat by the fire and sipped it from stoneware goblets. I think I was seven. I was most certainly cosy.

That house is firmly etched in my memory. Jeanette’s was a warm, welcoming contrast to the crisp excitement of the park, and it held comfort behind it’s open doors. For me, that house was a delicious, happy, creative retreat from lots of different things: the park, the cold, the rain, the blistery roundabout fingers, the wind, hunger, arguments with my siblings. I think it was a retreat for my Mum too, maybe for reasons that didn’t involve roundabouts. Comfort and Retreat. I think that’s what cosy is about. (And cozy too.)

More Cosy Stories Here

xx Pip