I wasn’t at Lindfield long. No more than a year. Sammy and the rest of the family were there probably two years after me then they moved to the family home in Mosman.  My Great Aunt remained in the house although she had sold it to my parents. This made Sammy incredibly happy as once again she had day-time company and better still that company loved gardening; so they spent their days together in the garden. And what a wonderful garden it was.

The front gardens were formal – small squares of grass bordered with tiny hedges and paths leading to the front door and to either side. Down the stairs on one side was the rose garden. Another formal garden with a grass square bordered with rose bushes that bore scented blooms of every hue. The roses went when Auntie Annie did and hydrangeas and other fairly nondescript plants that would look after themselves replaced them. From there, continuing around the side, was the work garden which held all the potting equipment  and seedlings and the like. Then around to the back – another square of grass resplendent with the Australian icon – the hills hoist.

From there one descended into childhood heaven. A long ramp led down to the bottom garden. Here in the overgrown rambling garden there were hidden paths, caves to explore, trees to climb, grassy slopes to roll down. These grassy slopes created logistic problems for mowing but my father devised a method of tying the mower to a tree at the top and slowly loosening the rope, sending the mower down the slope by itself. Once at the bottom he would then pull it back up to send it down again on an unmown strip.

So Sammy became Auntie Annie’s constant companion and really didn’t seem to miss me at all which, was lucky because now nursing and developing a social life I was rarely home. When Auntie Annie fell in the garden, severely injuring her leg to the point she couldn’t walk (she actually broke it) Sammy left her side and went and created such a noise that the next door neighbour, trying to sleep after a night shift, finally came to investigate. Without Sammy I am sure that my Aunt, in her early nineties, may not have survived until my parents made it home, numerous hours after her fall had occurred.

Sammy’s reward for this devotion? That night, for the first time, she was allowed inside. She lay on a towel in front of the television, not moving. I think if she’d been a cat her purr would have been heard all through the house. Mum I think enjoyed having the company and allowed this from that night on.