Up Early

I woke at 3.37am in a mild panic - I knew I had to be somewhere, do something, get up - but what for I couldn't remember in the haze - was it school or chooks or something else. Then my brain switched on and I relaxed and realised it ws the dawn service I had to get ready for. I quickly got dressed, woke Drew, made a cup of tea and off we went.

It wasn't nearly as cold as last year but just as chilling in other ways. When the announcer said that many of the young men who went to war had lied about their age and were only 16 when they signed up, I caught my breath - that's how old Drew is. Can I imagine him going off to war - never to return? No I cannot. That's why we give thanks each year to those men who did go off to fight - so that we can stand freely at 4.28am each April 25, hushed and quiet.

We came straight home and went back to bed. Gibbo barely noticed we'd gone; he thought it had been 5 minutes. We went back in at 9am for the street march; it's a 4 day long weekend here due to the show holiday so numbers were down. Here's my boy. I think he forgot to do his hair.

I thought of Redgum, geurillas on fallen trees and 1967, when I was 5.

The Last Post

The creek in our town.