Roses: I don't want to sound ungrateful, but Possum x has eaten both rose bushes you gave me this year. He is fat enough already. The ground is as dry as a packet of self-raising flour and any potted plant you give me will need to be watered. And it's hot.
A hammock: Please do not give me a hammock. It is either too hot to lie in a hammock, or too cold, or there are too many mosquitos. Hammocks should have vanished with the Raj.
Hand cream: Please do not give me or any other gardener hand cream, as we will already have been given seven jars of 'Gardeners Gloop', and possibly peppermint foot balm too.
Gardening gloves: In years when it rains I love new gardening gloves. Spiders love gardening gloves too, especially the ones stiff with dirt where they can make their nests. But this year new gardening gloves will just remind me that I can't garden till it rains.
Gum boots: See comment above about rain. Also the wombats haven't discovered the gum boots I received last year, so they are still intact and unchewed. They are also probably inhabited by at least one large huntsperson spider, but until it rains I don't need to investigate.
Bird netting: Cockatoos and possums find their way under it, and snakes get caught in it. I do not want to spend Christmas Day untangling a brown snake.
A large pot for a water garden: I would love another water garden, but as a wombat broke the other by trying to clamber in and eat the water chestnuts, I suspect any new water garden pot wouldn't last long either. Please deliver instead to any wombat-free gardener connected to a reliable town water system.
Garden furniture: Yes, I know our garden chairs are getting wobbly but they are lichen covered and beautifully aged, and I prefer shabby to new. Shabby furniture has memories, just like wrinkled faces. (I hope my wrinkles show that life is good.)
Another wind vane, sundial, garden gnome, external thermometer, etc: A garden only needs one of each, though I am sure there are many gardeners who are not already endowed with them and would love them, though they might prefer a big and really well balanced wheelbarrow - every home should have one - a compost bin, worm farm, mobile chook pen or push lawn mower that will give healthy exercise so they can give up their gym membership and get Vitamin D into the bargain, and please their neighbours if they decide to mow the lawn at 6am on Sunday morning.
What would I like?
A drip irrigation system for the entire valley would be nice. About 50 square kilometres will do, plus installation and sufficient H2O.
A Victorian (as in her late majesty, not the state) wrought iron glasshouse, tall enough for me to grow mangoes and cocoa trees.
A hydroponic ''green wall'' that recycles its water and captures all it needs by condensing water from the air, or, just slightly less expensive, a Hydropanel that fits on the roof and condenses drinking water from the air, from just under $4000 a panel.
I realise none of those will fit in my Christmas stocking. Maybe a rubber-backed picnic rug, for babies to lie on as well as for picnics?
Any flowering indoor plant, like a poinsettia coaxed to bloom in midsummer, so that I can remember when the garden was filled with colour too?
Or a pitaya in a hanging basket to dangle over the hot paving. A cactus that gives spectacular fruit is just what we need now, though it may not like our winters.
How about donation to any of the charities for fire victims, like the CBCA/GIVIT one that will give books from local bookstores to children and young adults? Or even an IOU promising 25 hours of lawn mowing, once it rains and the grass grows again, and too fast for the wildlife to eat it?
Actually, what I really want is rain, right across Australia, a gentle shower to soften the earth and then a downpour, and then another to flush out water systems, then gentle rain three times a week, at 2am, so it doesn't disturb the cricket that some people think is essential every summer. Do you think, just maybe, Santa, you could bring rain for us all?
Because in thinking about evacuations, I have finally realised how few possessions I would save from a fire. There are many gifts I love, but I would have their memories. I am not sure I want material gifts this year.
So instead, here is a gift for you, Santa, a verse from Andy's Gone with Cattle, by Henry Lawson. I've loved it since I was 10 years old. I'll leave a copy of it in my stocking for you to collect on Christmas Eve, and I promise this time I will leave the carrots for the reindeer out of wombat reach - though I can't promise the wombats won't try to nip their legs again, hoping the reindeer will drop the carrots.
Oh may the rain in torrents fall
And all the tanks run over
And may the grass grow green and tall
In pathways of the drover
And may good angels send the rain
To desert stretches sandy
And when the summer comes again
God grant it brings us Andy*
*For 'Andy' read love and peace and welcome rain, for all of us, including wombats.
This week I am:
- Watching our garden get a bad case of the droops. Even the hellebore leaves have flopped. The next stage is the ''crackling browns'', and after that ''will it come back when it rains?'' The answer is usually ''yes', as I remind myself at least six times a day.
- Wondering who, or what, picked an entire tree full of native limes. Was it Possum X, or did Bryan harvest them for friends? But it is blooming again, and more fruit have set.
- Re-using even the water in my hot water bottle, and brushing my teeth in half a glass of water that goes to the coffee bush. We have plenty of water stored, but the problem with drought is that you never know when it will end. So far we have finished every drought with at least half our stored water, but summer hasn't even begun...
- Cherishing each rose, as we may not get any during the heat of summer.
- Suddenly craving avocados, and being extremely glad there are some still to pick.
- Glad we have many lemon trees, as none have much fruit, but together there is enough for us, as well as for Willoughby Wallaby, who enjoys eating a lemon now and then, as a change from rose bushes, loquats, lemon grass and now the garlic chives as well.
