While we were in the studio on night the computer glitched twice and I decided that I'd had enough for the evening and we did what we always do, we went and sat inside sat down and talked, where chatting away with Aaron just absentmindedley doodling on his guitar when the images came, this was the most intense memory movie I've ever had.

It's a bright sunny morning in my grandmothers kitchen, I'm young, about 9-10 years old, and the sun is sparkling off the window, the magpies outside are singing and the oldest is on the porch step warbling it's demanding song; toast scraps please. My grandmother has dutifully cut the crusts of the toast and put them aside waiting for the call, she moves over to the bench with the wooden beard board, the butter knife with the chipped handle and putting the scrap's in my hand gently pushing me to the screen door, my young timid hand is hesitantly out stretched as the magpie tilts its head fixing, me with just one tiny eye, and stretching out its beak it plucks the crust from my hand, with a blink of thanks, it hops twice and effortlessly glides to the concrete below to its waiting raucous babies. Many years later the old woman with the sparkling eyes and that big old house would be come my home for ten years off and on as music and relationships allowed, always there, always welcoming, always full of forceful grandmotherly advice, after years of marriage with a family of my own later, that old woman died as people you love always do, and the sparkleing eyes left that house, it was still the place I call home, but it was my old home. Almost 30 years later and as if on cue just after my marriage break down, I drove down Millers Rd for no reason except habit, to find a large yellow excavator and I pile of rubble, and in that moment what had been, was gone, signaling a change in my world, their was never any going back.
I loved that old woman, warts and all despite cigarettes, alcohol and biting acid wit, she is largely responsible for my uniquely dark sense of humor, and is the one, the only unique grandmother,

PS Dave where's my petrol tin. . . . . (tear)