by feathers

Created on: May 21, 2008   Last Updated: May 28, 2008

THE MANGO TEA INCIDENT

I'm a huge fan of the queen of fruit, so I was delighted when given a box a mango tea. I boiled up the kettle and made myself a pot. Sat on the verandah drinking it and watching my 4 year old son play one of his favourite games.

Nick loved making stuff up and his most feared animal was the bull-dog. Not the friendly old canine famed for resembling Winston Churchill, this was a mutant: half bull, half, uh, dog. He played the bulldog game by taking off all his clothes, stuffing them into his underpants, and running up and down the verandah shouting "I'm a bull." Strangely, at 21, his MySpace picture is of a bison. I must ask him about that.

His other favourite game was Car Road. Plastic roads that fitted together to make all kinds of different driving experiences for his little toy cars. His 2 year old sister loved to play, too. He would drive his cars and she would set them up in families: "Here's the mummy car, here's the daddy car and this is the baby car."

But there I was, enjoying my cuppa and watching my boy play in the sun. Very mangoey the tea was, with an interesting warmth at the back of the throat. Kind of spicy in a way.

I'd been a little worried about Nick's paintings brought home from kindergarten. They always seemed to consist of nothing more than black scribble. I wondered if he was suffering for some crushing emotional burden, maybe his dad's frequent business trips overseas were having a psychological impact. These were not the kinds of innocent kindergarten artworks you wanted to hang on your fridge or give to his grandparents. When it was my turn to be fruit mum at kinder, I followed him to the easel and watched him paint.

"These are the train rails," he explained. And there, in perfect perspective, two shining tracks with sleepers laid between. Nothing wrong with that.

"And here comes Puffing Billy."

Wonderful. Puffing Billy is a little steam train that runs through our suburb, making its way through ferny rainforest. He'd done a great Puffing Billy, there were wheels on the tracks and the train was red.

"That's beautiful, Nick," I told him. "Stop now." I could see this one hanging on the fridge. I could see this one framed. Possibly in a gallery somewhere. On loan, of course.

"This is the smoke coming up."

Such detail! "Stop now." My hands were itching to take this masterpiece and hang it up to dry.

"And this is Puffing Billy's steam."

Such indepth working knowledge of the steam engine! "I'll hang it up now."

"And this is the explosion!"

And

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