PYRAMID HILL, 22.3.48, Mon
The end of the month has arrived, and also the boss, to calculate our accounts. He’s decided to make some changes. From Monday Kevin will work at the crusher, and I’ll be the boss of the quarry. I’ll work with the explosives all by myself, and so the key to the dynamite room came into my pocket. Of course my wage will increase as well, although only by twopence per hour. It’s not all that pleasant, but what can I do, someone has to be the supervisor.
PYRAMID HILL, 5.4.48, Mon
Today I lay once more in the now familiar hospital, and once more the dentist worked on my tooth. This time the pain was over quickly. Soon the root was out and I could get up again. This time, it seems, I’m free from that unrelenting toothache.
PYRAMID HILL, 10.4.48, Sat
Although it’s Saturday I worked this afternoon. The hospital organised a working bee, in which we were also invited to participate, so it wouldn’t have been right to not show up. The distance wasn’t any particular problem, for all seven of us have bicycles. We worked at this voluntary job right up to five thirty and only then got to go home. The locals will have something new to say about us now.
Riding back I realised that I’d left my swimming trunks behind, so all I could do was watch while the others swam. This wasn’t much fun, but it was my own fault.
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| Modelling swimming trunks, possibly outside the men's original Pyramid Hill home Source: Collection of Vaclavs Kozlovskis |
I felt quite tired and didn’t go to the dance this time, but that’s all right. Around the time I’d normally be coming home from the dance there was a heavy rain shower. I listened to the raindrops clattering on the roof and rejoiced that I’d escaped a thorough soaking.
PYRAMID HILL, 11.4.48, Sun
I’ve waited for rain for a long time and finally it’s here, apparently the Australian winter is starting. T he whole sky is blanketed in grey clouds, the large clay field has become quite sodden, and puddles have appeared in the courtyard. The kitchen tap is working again now that fresh roof water has poured into the water tank.In the evening the rain eased and I climbed on my bike and rode into town. I barely recognised the road - all the potholes are full of water, and the rain has washed a great many new ruts in the road, so I had to be careful not to slip over in the mud. By the time I returned home the bicycle was covered in red clay. I’ll have my job cut out for me until everything is clean again.
PYRAMID HILL, 28.4.48, Wed
Alas, poor diary, less and less frequently have I begun to turn your pages and fill them with words ... but what else can I do, when I have so little time left over from my other pursuits: I have to work on the weekdays, go rabbit hunting and dancing on Saturdays, play golf with the girls on Sundays, so when can I find the time to spend with you? But don’t despair - I’ll try to improve! The hot Australian summer is over and now it’s autumn.
Increasingly the sun hides behind the clouds, and for some time now the cold has begun to shiver through my body on my ride to work. Less and less sweat forms at work, and we haven’t been swimming for a long time.
Thus gradually the days of my life hurry by, they can’t be caught or turned back. Only my yearning rushes away to strange, and also to some familiar places, while the kookaburra laughs raucously about the people haunted by their longing for distant places ... be patient, heart, even these eight remaining months of slavery will pass. Then I’ll be able to climb onto a steel ship, and search for my dreams in the wide oceans!
PYRAMID HILL, 5.5.48, Thurs
Tooth extraction is very expensive in Australia - today I received the dentist’s bill, and I will have to part with one pound, eleven shillings and sixpence. So incredibly expensive was my aching tooth!
PYRAMID HILL, 10.5.48, Mon
Finally the building of our long-awaited cabins is underway. The only question is, how many months will it take to complete them? Today’s post brought me medicine from Sydney, to help me give up smoking. I’ll have to wait to see what the result will be.
PYRAMID HILL, 13.5.48, Thurs
I didn’t want to go anywhere after work, but when the others decided to go to the cinema, I went with them. The entire horizon was covered in grey, ominous clouds, and occasionally the darkness shot through with a flash of lightning. Suddenly in the middle of the second film, heavy raindrops began spattering on the tin roof. I wasn’t enjoying the coloured film at all by now.
Although the rain passed quickly, we didn’t make it home without getting wet. The road was muddy and our clothes, as well as bicycles, splattered with clayey mud. We squelched through this red mud for almost an hour, until finally we were home and could stretch out in bed.
PYRAMID HILL, 23.5.48, Sun
Autumn has arrived, and winter will follow, but summer’s not retreating yet. Today it seems that summer has vanquished autumn’s superiority and sent as a sign of its power one of the warm days that it always has in reserve. The weather was too fine to spend all day inside labouring over my foolish letter writing, so straight after breakfast I took my rifle and went out into the fresh autumn air.
The evidence of changing seasons is very interesting in Australia. As little as a month ago I would gaze at the sky and long to see even the smallest of rain clouds momentarily cover the face of the smiling sun and give some respite to my burning skin! But in vain — there was nothing to be seen except for the sunlit pale blue sky and the dust raised into the air by the rock crusher, and in some secret bush hiding-place the kookaburra hid, laughing and jeering to see the hot sun beating down on the rock splitters.
But now the cool breath of autumn has begun to caress the earth. It seems a long time since my back was soaked in sweat, and since my teeth started chattering during my morning ride to work. The face of the sun has become anxious; increasingly often she hides behind the clouds; sometimes white ones, other times quite grey and spitting lightning, and the water canals have become quite clear for there are no longer swimmers desirous of refreshing themselves, to muddy them. The water reservoir in the sky bursts through often, and onto the parched earth falls abundant, life-giving rain.
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| That's definitely Pyramid Hill in the background, and it may be a local canal in the foreground Source: Collection of Vaclavs Kozlovskis |
Autumn has come, bringing with it several surprises, which it seems are possible only in this strange land. I recall autumn in Latvia — there in that distant Happy Isle it was grey and mostly unpleasant. Grass and flowers died under the cruel bites of the frost beast, to transform into black dust. Onto the ground fell tree leaves bitten by the same beast, amongst which boys squabbled as they searched for acorns, and all of this was cloaked in grey, dirty, autumn mud.
Here things are very different. Up until now I’ve been accustomed to seeing a vast field of yellow grass which seemed to have existed from a time before the world drew its first breath. But now suddenly this yellowness is disappearing, and in its place, wherever my gaze lingers there is green, freshly grown grass. My eyes feast often on this transformation, and my thoughts rummage confusedly in the past trying to work out whether I haven’t again moved to some new continent, without noticing. But no, I’m still here, still surrounded by twisted trees with white rabbit tails disappearing quickly under them.
The sheep rejoice in the food autumn has brought them, and only the black, raven-like birds seem dissatisfied with the changes. They flutter around, caw and with malevolent voices curse in some incomprehensible English dialect. And why wouldn’t they curse? After all, the sheep now have food in plenty, and there are few who are weak enough to collapse helplessly for the pleasure and sustenance of these cawing spectres, in a short time to transform into a small bundle of bones and wool.
But the parrots don’t show the slightest interest in all these proceedings; as usual they argue and try to divide Australia amongst themselves, and with perfect English calm the koalas marvel at such behaviour. This is autumn, but what winter is like I will discover only later, because I can’t make any sense out of what the locals have to say about it.
Suddenly a small grey rabbit leaped out of a clump of grass to remind me that I’m hunting. I came back to the present, and by the end of the hunt four of these Australian pests lay by my feet, lifeless. Having visited nature for long enough, I returned home.
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