500g apricots (stones and all), 200g walnuts, 500g sugar or honey

Boil all ingredients together — there is no need to add water as long as you stir madly — till a little sets firm in cold water. Take off the heat, spread onto a greased tray, remove the apricot stones. Cook in the oven on as cool a setting as you can till the top is dry to touch and springs back when you press it. Cut into slices, wrap each one in greaseproof paper and store in a sealed jar. Serve with cheese or coffee after dinner.

GIBBER’S CREEK, 1983

The flood came in a sudden welter of bruised-knee clouds, so low the thunder growled among the treetops, and trunks split as lightning spat. The air turned liquid, impossible to breathe. The water rose not from the river, but across the land itself, so Dribble was surrounded by a metre of water, swirling, twisting, finding nowhere to escape.

And then the storm was gone, leaving dry ground, too drought-hard for moisture to penetrate. But the storm left mist that thickened slowly into drizzle and then to rain. Soft rain, that finally seeped into the ground.

Jed and Sam watched it from the swing seat on the veranda, listening to the new roar of the river, Mattie snuggled between them, Maxi, grey of muzzle now, sleeping at their feet. Maxi’s life was mostly sleeping now, though she still came to fetch Jed as soon as Mattie woke in the morning. Now and then she twitched, as if dreaming of chasing sheep, or the villains Doberpeople had been bred to apprehend.

‘Nancy said there’d be a flood,’ said Jed contentedly. ‘It will be good to have them home again.’ Below them Batbat munched the lucerne pellets Felicity sent them as appropriate wombat food, then crunched his carrots. Floods did not matter if your hole was dry under the house on the rise, if there were lucerne pellets, a chunk of sweet potato and a minimum of two carrots. Maxi ostentatiously ignored him. Her job was guarding humans. A wombat was not worthy of her notice.

‘Clancy will come home soon now,’ agreed Mattie. She spoke little these days, but always in perfectly formed sentences, as if she did not want to embarrass herself with baby gabble.

‘That’s right, darling. Clancy’s coming back soon. But he’ll have to go to school every day, except at weekends.’ She wondered if the now-teenage boy would still be happy to have a small girl follow him, once he and his brother were reunited with their friends.

‘Clancy is coming home,’ repeated Mattie with deep satisfaction, and Maxi put her head on the girl’s knee, then licked her fingers, where there was still a faint taste of lamb chop.