
School Projects
In these strange times, I have had time to sort out boxes and stored material.
In one I found some old school stuff….printing exercises about Don and Fay and a project for my Biology class.
I must have spent hours drawing and writing pages of text with a black ink pen. No idea how the teacher was able to read the minute text.
But now I see it foretold my later life, my move to the country and my passion for writing children’s books.
I completed this project in my second last year at school (now year 11) and I then went on to Sydney University to do an Arts degree.
I had room for an extra subject so I enrolled in Zoology 1 , continuing my interest in animals and inspired by my high school teacher.
Apart from crowded lecture halls, Zoology 1 also required lab work.
I was blessed by having as a partner, a charming young fella who was repeating the subject.
He did all the dissections with (or for) me…the rats and the frogs…and I passed.
The lecture hall was full of young men, many of them medical students for whom the subject was compulsory.
My eyes were drawn to one in particular; I pursued him subtly and finally we did met.
We married in his first year after graduation as a medico, and this year marks a most momentous celebration…which may not happen because of the restrictions.
But he has taken me to a magical place in the country where I have boundless inspiration for stories for children.
My stories are full of images of kelpies, frogs, echidnas. roos, cows and calves, chooks, bees, magpies, and of course snakes (which I had foretold in my early sketches)
I even managed to insert a crocodile into my most recent story called ‘The Race,’ set in the wilds of Africa as a radical change from my Australian stories.
So it seems that life long patterns are set very early but only appreciated when you have time to look back and reminisce.