It’s been a while since I have posted on my blog – I have been MIA for a while this year and for good reason.  My lovely mother, an amazing archetypal Professional Countrywoman, passed away peacefully in April and I had the honour of helping with her last few months of care, along with my sisters and brothers.   She went a bit earlier than she should have, but peacefully all the same having had a long and fulfilling life. 

She was a little atypical of her generation having taken on a Pharmacy apprenticeship as a young woman, a career which she continued with later on in life while raising seven kids and helping with the farm.   She married the handsomest man to arrive at the Bible Camp which is where young women were meeting boys in her day, moved to the farm near Helensville on the South Kaipara, and went on to create a beautiful home and fill it with babies.  We even had Grandma live with us.

She loved antiques and beautiful fabrics and wallpapers and knew how to make all the soft furnishings. I remember her making loose covers for a whole lounge suite, wallpapering the very high stud walls of our old farm villa, even stripping back old kauri furniture for our dining table.  She could tan hides – not just ours (which she didn’t but probably wanted to sometimes!) – and break down a carcass.  One day the plunket nurse turned up one day to see one of the babies she regularly produced, to find mum presiding over a table full of freshly butchered cattle beast she was prepping for the freezer.

There are pictures of us three girls all wearing dresses she made for us, lined and beautifully made and matching the one she was wearing. We were all taught to sew as well and make our own clothes as teenagers.  She spent hot summer days preserving the fruit off the trees, or boxes of fruit from the local orchards. Always plenty of puddings with cream available for the winter. She could bake better than anyone and there was a lot of tin rattling going on after school as we raided the stash for afghans or yoyoes or chocolate slice.  Dinner was always at the table and there was always at least 10 around that table – often more.  Her hospitality was legendary.

We were encouraged to read widely of all the books filling up the book shelves, classics, mythology, good literature and anything from the local  library.  We were all expected to go to University – especially the girls.  Her one indulgence was beautiful country magazines.  Australian Home Beautiful, UK Country Living, NZ House and Garden, and more recently Australian Country Style and NZ Life and Leisure. She even had a regular order with Oamaru Paper Plus who would post her monthly order up to my sister’s house in Woodhill where Mum was mainly residing while receiving treatment through the Auckland Health system.

We absorbed it all without even realising it. I didn’t know I was interested in gardening but literally became one overnight – the day my brand new young Flight Lieutenant husband and I moved into an Airforce Married Quarter at Hobsonville, Auckland.  I haven’t stopped gardening and creating my own beautiful spaces for my own family since then, even though I now have a different husband and live on a different Island.  Most of my favourite furniture pieces have been generously donated from her collection and I am not parting with them.

Mum was a beautiful redhead in her day and that hair never went grey. It just faded like a rose that had just gone past its full bloom – fooling those who didn’t know her into believing she was younger than she was.  She had a young spirit and never lost her curiosity for life or her love for babies. She got to see her great-granddaughter, Elderflower, who entertained her on a final visit in April this year, and kept on the watch to see where the next one might possibly be coming from.

Then she was gone.  Surrounded by the family members who were there at that moment after a day or two of story-telling, laughter and music.  Life took its course and took her with it. She knew where she was going and it showed on her face right to the end.  It was as good as it could have been.

But it is sad. Really sad.

It still is. We all think she is still up the road and just a phone call away to tell her the latest thing that Elderflower said or the beautiful Pierre de Ronsard that has flowered into the frost. But that spirit of hospitality, generosity, curiosity, and the love of beautiful quality art, furniture, fabric and spaces lives on in her children, her grand children and I’m sure into the future.

She was my role model for a countrywoman: raising a family, gardening, cooking, working, travelling and most of all, being the matriarch and showing the way for those of us who follow.  Thanks.

Rest in peace Mum.