Annabelle Hickson: A Day in the Country

ANNABELLE HICKSON SHARES HER PHILOSOPHY: “YOU LEAVE IT, YOU LOSE IT”.

IF YOU COME AND STAY AT MY house and your daughter forgets to pack her shoes, it is likely you will never see them again. If you leave behind a hat, you’d better say a mental sayonara, as it will be gone. If you call me and explain it is your very favourite hat, I will endeavour to get it in the post. But I wouldn’t want to guarantee anything. I cannot manage my own family’s stuff, let alone that of anyone else’s. I’ve made a meagre attempt at a lost and found stash, but I raid it when I’m ducking outside to do a spot of weeding and can’t seem to find my own hat, or in the final minute before the school bus arrives when I remember I have to pack spare clothes for some sort of water-play day at kindy. If you see my children wearing something familiar, stop wondering if it’s yours. It is yours. I’m sorry. And if you’d like it back, please let me know there and then and I’ll give it to you. Once it re-enters the washing/drying/to-be-folded-andput-away cycle, who knows when it will next resurface. Almost every day I experience some sort of this-isn’tmeant-to-be-here-related shame. But I feel powerless to do anything about it. I simply do not have the will to return what is not rightfully mine. It means phone calls, addresses and remembering to take the parcel into town, all of which feel difficult. “It’s all the bothering, Mum,” says my son Tom, kindly. He understands. For some people, their struggles are different. Returning things that are not theirs comes easily. I know this because three mangy old toothbrushes my children left behind when we stayed at a friend’s were returned by a third party in a brown paper bag. I opened the bag and felt ill. These brushes were in such a state I wouldn’t put them anywhere near my mouth. This led me rapidly to two rather uncomfortable conclusions. Firstly, I need to spend, say, a minute a month overseeing my children brush their teeth and inspect what they use to brush them. I didn’t realise how low the bar was until the brown paper bag moment. Secondly, my friend actually chose to pick up those gross brushes and put them in a bag and keep them on the kitchen bench, in the car, god, maybe even in her handbag, and wait until an opportunity to get them to us presented itself. She opted for that over throwing them out, such was her desire not to be wasteful. The conclusion being that we don’t all share the “you leave it, you lose it” mentality. You’d be hard-pressed getting a Helen Kaminski hat back from me. Some grotty old toothbrushes — I’d probably flick them out the window with the end of a hairbrush. Despite my deep Scottish roots (my mother is a Campbell, my father a Mcdonald), I cannot seem to drum up the energy to repatriate the left-behinds to their country of origin. The silver lining is, of course, if I leave anything behind at your house, you’re totally off the hook. Not for a second would I expect you to get it back to me; that would be my duty — to notice in the first place, which may or may not happen. In my version of sleepover utopia, children would arrive with nothing but the clothes on their back. Preferably shoeless and definitely sockless. They’d arrive and promptly put all the clothes they’re wearing in a plastic trug at the door. Sounds a bit like jail, but stick with me. I’d then kit them out with items from my own family’s wardrobes, or from the lost and found stash, as needed. Pyjamas, swimmers, grip gloves (don’t know why they are so popular) — the works. Then, when it’s time to go home, they’d slip back into their own gear. Nothing would get lost. No parent would have to pack a thing. Sounds good, right? Although, yes, you might want to pack a toothbrush. I’d allow that. Annabelle lives with her family on a pecan farm in the Dumaresq Valley, NSW. Follow @annabellehickson on Instagram.