Honey has no expiration date

We drive through a swarm of bees and they become liquid smudges on the windscreen – little mustard smears.

For breakfast we have taken to having fruit chopped into bite sized pieces with greek yogurt and drizzled with honey. Blood orange, blueberries, pink lady apples. The honey needs to be exceptional. It follows on from G’s greek sailing adventure and Jean’s morning ritual. Although Jean ate it at break neck speed, shovelled it in like fuel, which is saying something, if G thought so.

It is breakfast food for older people. Ones with middle aged paunches.

As is the pastime of birding.

G tells me the sound is that of a bronzewing. It is incessant and mournful and must take some effort and stamina. Endless cooing.

When we walk the forrest there is lots of stopping and looking up, listening and peering. Waiting.

A thumping is heard. It is the nearby bounding of a kangaroo through the bush. Lola is all aquiver in anticipation. What on earth? She doesn’t know it could kill her in an instant. She would love to chase it anyway. Her brain is exploding with possibility. Her tail is so upright and curled and it too quivers, scorpion strike.

Avocados grow on the hillsides and the fruit hang like bull balls.

We wonder how they are harvested and google they are picked by hand. Seriously. We buy some from a farm gate honesty stall.

Lola sees her first horse. What on earth?

Trump pontificates on how he has made “peace” in the middle east with the help of his pal Bibi. With his orange face and his pouty lips he talks about all the “great guys” on his team. There’s lots of standing and clapping and when he is heckled and the man is removed he compliments the Israelis on their efficiency. Twenty Israeli hostages have been returned to their families. Around 70 000 Palestinians have died.

There is more water in dams and dams are bigger down here. Moss and lichens grows on fallen trees and within the crevices of the gnarly bark on the tree trunks. Except for the smooth grey surface of the karri trees. They soar forever straight. Vertical sublime. European sublime. Lain horizontal though to pave Australian and English roads before their value was known, appreciated. Not able to be regrown once sundered. A giant even turned to paper and pulp.

Leave me to stand to be a home for bees. Scupper me not.

Honey has no expiration date.