I couldn’t think of anywhere, except possibly the old dead gum lying on the river bank at the back of our place.
When it was upright, I used to visit it regularly, just to rub my wrinkled fingers over its gnarly white skin and share something about mortality.
But since the last flood it’s been lying on its back just off the track, and now it’s become an Earth B&B for ants and fungi and critters of the dark, which is just as it should be.
In the midst of certainty, things are changing all the time.
So instead of experiencing the magic of a Nordic winter under a glass-roofed igloo, or a luxury cruise past the fairytale castles of the Rhine — we decided to redecorate our lounge room for the first time in 30 years.
Of course, such a drastic decision involves taking everything out of the lounge room to give the painter room to swing a brush.
The first thing to go was our 120-year-old piano, which was so heavy it was tearing the house apart.
A nice man who collects old pianos forklifted ours on to his trailer.
He took it away to a shed where pianos that have lived a decent, upright life are reborn into naughty honky-tonk playthings.
Then, into the hallway went the 19th-century solid teak sideboard that belonged to the Chief Gardener’s Danish granny, the 17th century Scottish oak Bible box rescued by my parents from an Edinburgh antiques shop before the war, and an old rickety bookcase we acquired from another granny in another time somewhere.
Then the TV, records, books, CDs, speakers and chairs all disappeared into the kids’ empty bedrooms along with all the wedding and baby photos, ceramic jugs, acting awards, paintings and my collection of Beatles records and books. In fact, I needed half a carport for them.
After a week of moving stuff, the lounge room was an empty sepia space filled with nothing but cobwebs, log fire smoke stains and memories of Friday night discos for five-year-olds.
So here we are, the painting’s done — the ceiling and skirting boards are so white I need anti-glare glasses, the walls are quarter-strength padua blue and I feel like I’m on holiday in northern Italy and I didn’t go anywhere.
Now the space is waiting to be filled again. But not in the same way. Such a radical change in ambience demands a similar transformation in life.
This could be a chance to start again. I need to cull my record and book collection.
So out go my dad’s easy listening James Last compilations and Herb Albert and his Tijuana Brass records.
The Chief Gardener needs to seriously re-appraise her Carly Simon collection.
I need to get rid of all the badly written books by first-time novelists that I made friends with after college, and all those self-help books about financial success and how to write a novel.
We need to change the art on the walls from signature theatre posters and Turner sunsets to cool, edgy abstraction and anything by me.
I need to stop dreaming about music and literary stardom.
I need to stop drinking so much champagne.
I need to get over the death of Prince Finski and his ridiculously noble Belgian shepherd black mask and rusty cloak.
I need to get a really silly Jack Russell dog.
It all starts tomorrow.
John Lewis is a former journalist at The News.
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