Galah's columnist Lucinda Stump shows us to host a world summit in the kitchen.
THERE’S a battle being waged in our workshop. A small Danish flag was hung respectfully one day by our Danish backpacker, Simon. This was joined by an enormous Estonian flag only a few days later. Kaspar, an enormous Estonian, and his beautiful fiancée, Airi, couldn’t allow their beloved country to be outshone by the Danes.
This show of national pride proved too much for our manager. It didn’t take long for an Australian flag to appear between Denmark and Estonia. I wish we’d started this practice years ago—by now there’d be French, Welsh, Argentinian, Scottish, Irish, German, New Zealand, Dutch, Canadian, American and English flags, to name a few, brightening up our otherwise unembellished workspace.
We have a long history of visitors at Eurambeen. My mother-in-law was famous for her hospitality. She once met a Tibetan nun on a train from Sydney and invited her for Christmas, thereby initiating the Tibetan Nun Trophy, awarded for the most obscurely connected “guest” at a family event. Years ago, I felt I might finally be in the running for the top prize when we had a Brazilian pig farmer to stay, the brother of an English friend’s Tanzanian aunt. He turned out to be a gifted reflexologist who, after I had spent a long day in the sheep yards, fixed my aching back in minutes.
