Country Life – Tale Peddler - Josephine Pennicott

Celebration of the Flowers

josephinetalepeddlerNovember 7, 2017 0 Comments

The haunting notes of bagpipes sounded through the mist as Blackheath’s annual Rhododendron Parade began.

I love this Celebration of the Flowers, featuring rhododendron and spring flowers seen in dazzling displays around the village and the Rhododendron Gardens. The festival is the longest continually running festival in the Southern Hemisphere.

There is a Poet’s Breakfast in the iconic New Ivanhoe pub, woodchopping, a reptile display, jazz music, classic cars, an art show and free entry to the swimming pool for those hardy enough to take advantage.

The local churches hold flower displays and a shuttle bus transports visitors from the train station to the Campbell Rhododendron Gardens to enjoy a Devonshire tea while seeing the gardens blazing with colour.

Whether swaying along to the Hokey Pokey, or hearing the plaintive strains of Amazing Grace, the crowd was enthralled by he pipes and drums of the Lithgow Highland Pipe band as they played in the misty park. The popular pipe band was founded in 1913, when a small group of Scottish immigrants banded together to enjoy the music they loved.

The parade features the local dog walking group, schools, Rural Fire Service volunteers, the Blackheath Theatre Group, steampunks and a vast range of exotic characters who form the vibrant, eclectic community of Blackheath.

Celebration of the flowers in St Aidan’s Church

And, of course, the Rhododendron Princess was crowned.

Monique Alison the Rhododendron Princess for 2018

The mist and rain showers added to the atmosphere. Living above the clouds in the upper mountains means we enjoy plenty of misty days – my favourite weather for writing or just curling up with a book.

Rhododendron is a Greek word meaning Rose Tree.

Roots

josephinetalepeddlerDecember 20, 2015 5 Comments

I love our new life in the Blue Mountains. Waking to a heavy veil of silence, the air so crispy-fresh that I can feel my lungs celebrate when I inhale, desperate after years of inner-city living to consume the sparkling prana. I love the school run where strangers smile hello and artistic-looking parents in paint-smeared jeans drop artistic-looking children.

Birdsong permeates the village and in one day several seasons can pass and I love them all. I walk everywhere marvelling over big kookaburras and the sound of lawn mowers instead of aeroplanes overhead. The smell of freshly cut grass.

After so many years of talking about moving to the country, we fled Sydney. Developers taking over our street and the towering apartment blocks were squashing us. I felt sadness watching a lot of the working artists’ studios closing as the apartments mushroomed. An ongoing bullying case at my daughter’s school – too many toxic environmental pollutants in the air and toxic situations. Life is too fragile to keep trying to make the intolerable work. We fled hurriedly, like characters in a fairytale, leaving behind my roses, writing shed, our good friends, but knowing it was time.

I wanted my daughter to enjoy the childhood I had been privileged to have: a small village with chimney smoke fire and ethereal mist. A village where the trees stand guard and healthy-looking children are surrounded by the changing seasons and a caring community. I wanted her to run free in the woods and not become part of the concrete dragon we had escaped. Without my Tasmanian midlands childhood, I could never have written Poet’s Cottage.

I wanted Daisy at ten to have that depth of life experience. I was weary of smog and bringing in washing streaked black from plane fuel. The air felt as if it was choking our family and our life.

On the Taurus Scorpio Full Moon, we settled the sale of our house. The date was my birthday, 27 October, which was a mystical synchronicity to my family and rounded our city time perfectly, for the day we settled the purchase, all those years ago, was also 27 October. I see our current home in the mountains as a gift from the universe.

I know this velvet silence will bring my current book to life. I delight in sitting on my new deck, listening to the sound of birds and watching ladybirds and butterflies as I write.

Blackheath Rhododendron Festival Queen for 2015 Eleni Vergotis

Being among the trees and gazing upon the panoramic mountain views feels like returning home. We now live in a village I have been escaping to for years and which I used as inspiration for my mystery novel, Currawong Manor.

On my last visit here, I literally felt roots from my feet grow deep into the soil and spread outwards. I knew the time must be approaching that we would find our mountain home . Shortly afterwards, we did find her. She is a grand old mountains lady, a 1920s character weatherboard and I feel a deep joy every day to have finally, after so many years of yearning, to have become a part of this village and country life.