And no, he decided, he wouldn’t read this book either. No point breaking the habit now. But he would have dinner ready for his wife and daughter when they came back from Overflow tonight — pizza, Mattie’s favourite, made in the wood-fired outdoor oven he’d completed last Christmas as a gift to all of them, including himself. If he lit it now, it would be ready to slide the pizzas in as soon as they got home.

Grinning with the sheer joy of moving, loving, living, with a new child soon to come, Sam McAlpine went to mix the pizza dough before lighting the wood inside the oven.

Chapter 61

Chapter 61

Simple but Perfect Apricot Soufflé

This is low calorie, easy to make and wonderful. The scent of apricot will pervade the kitchen.

4 beaten eggwhites, 1 cup dried apricots, soaked and mashed in water or orange juice, 1 drop (no more) almond flavouring (optional)

Blend eggwhites and apricots gently. Place in a straight-sided baking dish; bake at 250˚C for 15 minutes. Serve hot.

OVERFLOW, 1988

NANCY

Nancy of the Overflow gazed out her kitchen window, a cup of tea — teabag still in it — in hand and a plate of sticky buns with pink icing from the Gibber’s Creek Bakery in front of her.

It was good to be home again. She appreciated its comforts even more after the last month’s camping; the family still went out at least twice a year. The boys had missed a bit of their last year at school, but learned far more about their land, themselves, than from the lesson plans in their saddlebags. But there would be fewer expeditions now they’d done their HSC. They’d be off to Ag College soon, though Clancy said he wanted to study photography instead. He’ll get tired of that pretty quickly, she thought, photographing weddings and studio portraits. Clancy needed the land and its challenges as much as his brother. She’d miss them, miss them, miss them, just as she missed Scarlett.

And the land . . . Nancy gazed out the window.

Flinty was right. They were both right. Their land had changed. The land always changed, of course. That was why learning to read country was so complex, a million bits of knowledge you never knew you had till they were needed. But this change was . . . big. Fast. Wrong.

She couldn’t find the word. Nor even exactly what made her uneasy.

Once more she wished that Gran was there. Gran would notice so much she could not. How many millennia of knowledge were lost with every generation?

Bicentennial! Nancy snorted. Idiots who knew little history and even less about the country that supported them were celebrating two hundred years since a bunch of crooks, some disgraced marines and a few misguided do-gooders landed at what they’d called Sydney Cove. Two hundred years! At least those she had taught knew not to be taken in by talk of ‘two hundred years’.