If there’s an idyllic sun dappled grove in my garden of lifetime memories it has to be those few weeks after finishing VCE.
The lightness and the fun of that time. The going out. The sleeping in. The sense of doors opening and roads firing off in so many directions, of being free, of being an adult, of not feeling like one or knowing if I’d ever feel like one, but actually being an adult, who’d be called ‘a man aged 18’ if I ever did anything that made the news, of having a freshly minted drivers license, ready to take off down one or some of those roads. That sense of life about to start.
Our daughter Polly is in her own sun dappled grove right now, radiant with end of school relief; beautiful and funny because she’s always beautiful and funny. She wanted to have her 18th birthday at Barwon Heads — she’s had her last ten birthdays here in the run up to the long weekend. My wife Tamsin’s special place has become her special place too.
I thought that being the actual 18th birthday, we might be sending her off to the allure of Fluffy Ducks at the Barwon Heads Hotel (does anyone drink Fluffy Ducks anymore? another golden corner of 1990 memory 😊) but Polly’s day was a rolling cavalcade of activity and indulgence — salmon on sourdough breakfast, present opening attended by all, an iced chocolate on Main Street, body surfing at the 13th Beach, dog walking at Ocean Grove, a beach tent party with donuts and paddle boarding at the heads, and jetty jumping as the tide swept in and the sun sank low.
Youngest daughter Alice completed her first jetty jump. I went from reluctant jumper to enthusiastic back flipper, which pretty much sums up the glory of Polly Marie-Louise Wilson. She is a ball of positivity, a person who lifts people’s moods, who talks to everyone and makes everything better, especially me.
I thought after the beach she and her best friend Zoe Hargreaves (drafted to Richmond with pick 20 in December, a story for another post) might flex their newly legal IDs and go across the road to the Barwon Heads Hotel. But given I’d had a few drinks, and the beach wheelchair was hard to fit in the van, I walked it back to the Airbnb while recently licensed Zoe drove soon to be licensed Polly and her three Wilson siblings and two Brooks cousins slowly around Barwon Heads, pumping tunes and whooping with the glory of life. Two eighteens, a fifteen, a thirteen in a wheelchair, a nine, an eight and a seven. Our Green Party bus’s finest and youngest hour. They cheered themselves into the house when they finally arrived, having apparently cruised half the streets in Barwon Heads.
We finished the day with a conga line to Voulez-Vous by ABBA, and can I say that if you’re not the keenest conga-liner, and I would put myself in that category, Voulez-Vous has an astonishingly long fade out. It was a strikingly wholesome 18th birthday, now that I’m seeing it set down in words. It’s not the whole story, there are adjacent birthday plans in the works that involve hundreds of eighteen year olds and threaten the very foundations of our house, but it’s lovely that she can do these sorts of days too — a day that filled the hearts of family aged seven to eighty.
Happy birthday, Polly. I love you so much! You are better at back flips than me. I can’t wait to see what twists lie in store, and by that I mean literal twists you might add to your pier jumping. Now if only I had a photo that was a cheap metaphor for you stepping into the next phase of life ….
Ange & The Boss screenings update:
We are going to have a cinema season from 14th March. Melbourne, Geelong and Adelaide confirmed so far. These are the Q&A sessions::
14/3 Nova, Carlton 6.30pm (with Francis Leach and Paul Trimboli and us)
15/3 Classic, Brighton 3pm (guests TBC)
16/3 Lido, Hawthorn 3pm (with Libbi Gorr & us)
22/3 Cameo, Belgrave 3pm (guests TBC)
23/3 Pivotonian, Geelong (time & guests TBC)
23/3 Thornbury 5.30pm ((cam and me)
29/3 Piccadilly (Adelaide) evening session
Please like ❤️ and comment on posts to give them a push along! My dad also turned 80 this week. Happy birthday Dad! I’ll write a tribute for him in the next days.
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