Burrinjuck, October 5, 1931
How much I enjoy the newspapers you send me! But if you knew how I am hobbling behind the times. I have just got to Hoover's great proposal, and Piccard is rising to the heavens, but the old news is no less interesting and exciting for being old. If Sverre goes back to work I will have more time during the day for reading. At the moment I spend my leisure hours reading aloud from the White Prophet. It is a thick book, and I read slowly. The chessmen are all finished now, and look very fine, also the box with the chess board lid. At the moment Sverre is making a picture frame for the picture of you all sitting around the table New Year’s Eve. I love that picture.
My blue dress is now finished and ready to wear. IT looks very pretty, but unfortunately the weather is not right for it. It is cool and windy and rainy. We live again in a time of rising waters.
Today is an Australian holiday, Eight-Hour-Day. Tomorrow work is supposed to start. It’s strange, but right until the last moment nobody ‘knows anything’. Such conditions would be unthinkable in Europe, and I would not believe this possible if I hadn’t experienced it myself. So although Sverre will be leaving home at 7am tomorrow, I cannot yet say that he has work. Not until he has gone, ant come home after a while, will I know that he is working.
Sverre just came home, bringing me your letter. And what a wonderful letter it was! I am so looking forward to reading Leo s report from Russia. The little bit Mama told me went right to my heart. It is so dear to me too, everything belonging to my childhood. Maybe some day I will be able to go back too, and see all the beloved places. But now, if Leo tells me everything, it will be almost like experiencing it myself, since Leo and I share the same feelings and thoughts about most things. Sverre does not like it when I talk about Russia, about "our" Russia, as we knew it then, and love and praise it. He is probably jealous, because then I exist in a world that is strange to him, and that he doesn't .understand. I don t like it either, when he talks about it and criticizes it. He can’t understand what it is I love, and I can't explain it.
Besides Mama’s letter, Sverre also brought me the news that he met Mr Townsend on the street, and Mr Townsend had asked him to come to work tomorrow morning. So now, I guess we can almost believe it. It would really be wonderful. In a couple of months, we could pay all our debts and live a normal life. We don‘t want to stay in Australia forever, though. I am quite certain that I will get to see Leo again, in this life (when I left he said he didn't believe so, the wretch!). Somehow I have a feeling that things will soon work out well for us, and that we will be able to visit you. I certainly don't have any logical reason for having this feeling, since we don t even possess a lottery ticket, but I have it all the same.
Mr Taylor has got the sack. He, and in particular his Missis have been making too much noise, nothing suited them. In the end Mr Townsend got angry. (He boards at the Taylors as does also Mr Tierney.) Taylor has supposedly gotten himself a job in a laundry in Sydney. I don’t know if it is true.
Sverre and Jip (the sugar puppy) have gone hunting rabbits, so we'll have something to eat. We have to keep our eyes on the beast all the time now so we don't get a new edition of Oigle and Goigle. It's a terrible nuisance.
Our Auntie Meyer (the outhouse) has finally got a door installed. Sverre found a couple of hinges and made the door, and I painted a heart on it with white enamel. According to Norwegian custom, the heart should be cut out of the door, but that is so much work. A painted heart says welcome just as sincerely.
Burrinjuck, October 14, 1931
I didn’t get round to writing on Monday as I had intended. I can’t remember why. Today I have the flu and feel terrible, but I don’t want to put off writing for another day since then you will have to wait and extra day, and I do want to thank you for the latest newspapers which gave me so much pleasure. My heart almost stopped still when I saw the pictures, and tears ran down my cheeks, right on the road from Burrinjuck. How they woke my longing for all my loved ones and for everything that once was, for that was lovely, friendly and bright, and what now is so far away and un-retrievable. Does Uncle Trost really look like that? Do you remember, Mama, the time you took me to his office? He put a heavy chain around his neck and said he was going to judge me. I was so afraid I can still remember how I felt. His face looks so different from the way I remember him.
Yesterday, I received a letter and a parcel from Evelyn. When I was in Sydney, I wanted to buy myself a pair of summer pyjamas, but there were no nice ones to be had since the season had not begun yet. Now Evelynn bought some pretty cotton material and sewed me a pair herself. That was a lovely surprise and made me very happy. There were two blocks of chocolate in the parcel as well.
Sverre is working. Early last Tuesday he left home, but returned shortly after. On Wednesday, he again left early and again returned. However, on the same day, about noon, work started. I met Mr Townsend on the street yesterday, and he said that the work was not going to be interrupted any more. Sverre was running a temperature, 38, last night, and the same again this morning at six, but I couldn‘t hold him back. He went to work. He maintains he has never gone to bed with influenza, and he's not going to do so now either. I hope this doesn't end badly. I only have a slight temperature, but my head feels stuffy, and I'm coughing. I hope it will soon be over. Everybody here has the flu.
The water is rising by just a couple of millimetres a day. We haven't had any rain this week, and if the weather stays clear just a little longer our garden will be out of danger. Only a couple of cms , and the wash house floor is under water and I don't imagine it will be for long.
The Saturday before last, we went on an all day trip with Mr Anderson. We took our rifles with us but we had no luck. Mr Anderson shot only one rabbit and it had to be thrown away, since it had hydatids. So I had to go out on my own on Monday and shoot a couple to feed Jip. I don’t like going on my own.
Tomorrow Sverre will get his first wages. How wonderful it will be to pay off the first part of our debts.
This evening Mr Tierney is supposed to be coming to dinner: but I am going to ask him not to come because of the flu. I won't invite him to come another time either.
Burrinjuck, October 21, 1931
This year I started early, collecting jars for jam, so we won’t have to take the necks of bottles. You can buy jam here in tins almost as cheaply as you can make jam yourself (in spite of the free fruit), but the home-made jam tastes much better. Dot Chaffer has a friend whose husband refuses to eat bought jam, but she is too lazy to cook it. So she buys a lot of tins of jam, buts it in jars and marks the “Plum 5.1.31” and he likes it much better that way.
So you have sold the piano! I am so sorry you were disappointed in us. Unfortunately I’m just plain untalented as far as playing the piano goes. I did make a concerted effort in Zittau, but nothing came of it. I love music, but not my own.
There is now about an inch of water covering the floor in the laundry. Sverre built a platform for me in front of the wash tub. So yesterday I could do the washing indoors, although I had to bend don to do it, which was not too comfortable. The waves splashed merrily around me and I didn’t have to worry about spilling water. It had been raining heavily for a couple of days, otherwise the water would not have risen.
Before the rain, the weather was already deliciously warm, 30 degrees in the share. Then came the storm and cooled it off again. Today I’m back in long pants, since they are warmer and have pockets, but last week I was able to wear my blue dress for the first time. It is so pretty, and suits me too, especially when I wear the cape with it. Blue is still my favourite colour.
I have such an ache in my heart. I want so dearly to give you something which could give you pleasure, for Christmas. But however much I think about it, I don't know what to do. I feel as if I am somewhere outside the world. I see nothing and hear nothing, and don’t even have any money. But I will make up for it when we get away from here. We won't stay here forever. Sverre, of course, can't think of anything. He is the last person in the world who would be able to. I have nothing with which I can comfort myself, especially as you, dear Mammi, understand, and send a thousand things to please me. I am so sad.
Elsie Fraser came over on a visit yesterday. She is very like Mrs Anderson. She's not very interesting, but quite nice. Ann is very boring. She is lively and very sweet, not stupid either, but she has experienced nothing, read nothing, seen nothing, her horizon is very narrow, but she has, like all the Frasers, a most loveable nature.
Burrinjuck. October 28, 1931
I have just finished washing. It was very awkward and took me a long time. The water was so high in the wash house, there was no room for anything. It’s quite warm here now, 28 degrees in the shade. Today I washed my blue dress for the first time, after I wore it on a trip last Sunday. The trip was the only interesting thing that happened this week. About miles from here lives a Mr Carberry. He used to be a farmer and had a tremendous lot of land, but now (he is 76 and a bachelor) sold everything and lives alone in a tiny house, miles from everyone and everything, and just tends his house and his vegetable garden and a small potato patch. Every Saturday he comes to Burrinjuck to buy bread and groceries. This Mr Carberry has a bitch which is going to have pups in November. The father of the pups is Mr Taylor’s “Chief”, a very fine dog. Since I would like to have a good (I am very fond of Jip, but she has no pedigree) we wanted to go and have a look at his "Gin”. However, we met him on the way to Burrinjuck and agreed to come this week instead. So there we were. To get there we had to row three miles to McPhersons Creek and from there, there is a steep climb through wild, and, in places, very thick bush for about five miles. At the moments there is a family by the name of Wilson living at Mr Carberry's. They are rabbit trappers, whose job it is to clear the land of the animals.
The Wilson’s, as well as Mr Carberry, had declared the day a holiday in our honour. Dinner was ready when we arrived, and we had a most enjoyable time. It doesn’t often happen that someone takes the trouble to climb all the way to “Hilltop”, as the place is called just to visit. So they were very happy to see us, and we were happy too. Next time we go I’ll take my camera and take some pictures. Mr Carberry says there are a lot of kangaroos up there, but in summer the skins are not good. Also they are protected at this time. Mr Carberry game me two beautiful winter furs and said that if we are still here next winter he will give me more. If he does I will have a fur coat made.
Sverre bought himself a very good second hand bike for two pounds ten. He has to pay two shillings a week to drive to work by car, so it pays for him to have a bike. He got it so cheaply because the owner was in trouble and needed the money in a hurry. A Mick Creagan, our chief creditor, and a big land owner, doesn’t mind if it takes us a bit longer to pay our debts.
Now I have to take the washing in and mended a pair of Sverre’s trousers. Poor Sverre, his clothes are so torn and shabby, but it will be a while before he can buy new ones.
NEXT: November 1931