Five and a half hours' work on the studio roof this afternoon devising a way of ousting the possum who has made a comfy home for himself in the ceiling. With the thirty degree slope, the intervening ridge and the corrugated iron, not easy.
Young Goran the handyman today constructed a hinged portal which should now allow the ratfink to exit, but not re-enter. Hopefully by the morning the little chappie will find another abode for himself.
Over a number of months now 4:30 - 5AM returns from his foraging through the almond, the apple and plum trees in the front yard, landing with a bang on the roof-top, before crawling in back home through a tight little gap that was left below the upper level guttering. Late afternoons one heard him lazily stirring after his day-long sleep; usually by 8:30PM he was scratching around the ceiling and out & away round 9.
Sorry matey, Vamos! You have worn out your welcome.
Shortly before we took a late lunch, Anteć happened by. Last Sunday Ante had also visited, announcing himself suddenly with a handful of weeds and searching out the green waste bin by the side fence. Stopping unnoticed at the front garden, he had busied himself pulling up grass & weeds along the footpath.
A fortnight before the man had been found at a bus stop in Footscray, where we had a warm and friendly chat, Ante telling of his mother continuing out in some kind of residential care facility in Altona Meadows. She was in room such-and-such, her son reported. Sundays Ante went out to see her and on Christmas & Easter she came home for a day or two (or for a few hours it may have been).
Ante had the name of the place, the street address & phone number by heart. During lunch he gave what seemed to be the block and unit number too. If there was pen and paper, it should be recorded, Ante suggested.
Last Sunday at his previous visit Ante had roared the same as today and must have made the people in the front house wonder. This afternoon soon after his arrival, the little boys on the patio of the front house could be heard crying.
Bab had minded young Ante as a child. Of course, she had pitied him and given him much kindness and affection. The man, now well over two metres tall, had not forgotten.
Last week Ante had promised he would return the following Sunday with some oranges from the tree in his front yard. If oranges were welcome he would bring some. Eight oranges, he had said specified for some reason.
This afternoon Ante handed over a brown paper bag that he had stapled on top and on both sides of the paper written the same bird message in large font:
Za Pok Teta Jelena Pavo
8 Orange Za Danas 21.5.17
For Departed Auntie Jelena Pavo
8 Orange For Today 21.5.17
Pok could only be abbreviated on the narrow space: pokojna, departed.
Ante's father, who eventually shot through on wife & child, was also named Pavao; the form Pavle / Paul took in Croatian. Big rangy Pavao had never been able to accept his son't condition, always hounding the boy to learn his lessons and to speak properly.
Picked prematurely and still green around the stems, the eight majic orbs had just managed to fit in the bag. Perhaps against the glass of the kitchen window they could ripen over the next few weeks.
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