Love In a Sunburnt Country Read Online Free PDF Page A

last-minute text messages to other family and friends apprising them of the wedding tomorrow—with the cat still in the bag.
    The next morning over a seven-thirty breakfast—with both sets of parents and Luke’s grandmother sitting at the table, everyone relaxed and in pyjamas, and Luke and Frances standing together by the sink, they (finally) seize the moment.
    â€˜We’ve got something to tell you. You know how last night we said we were engaged?’ Luke says to them, ‘Well, no-one has asked us when we’re getting married.’
    Frances’s mother Janne looks up at him and says, reasonably, as any practical woman would: ‘We’ll get Christmas out of the way first.’
    â€˜No, we won’t,’ says Luke, also in a reasonable tone. ‘We’re getting married at nine o’clock.’
    Silence. For at least five seconds no-one says a word. Frances’s father Richard’s mouth is hanging open. Eventually Luke’s father says: ‘Don’t you need permission for that?’
    â€˜That’s all organised,’ says Luke.
    Joy follows pandemonium as family realise that Luke and Frances are quite serious: handshakes, hugs and tears—drama about clothes, the order of events, cars …
    â€˜Frances and Richard went to church in the Monaro that we’d used for my brother’s wedding. I grabbed a shotgun and let off a few shells as they drove off,’ says Luke.
    â€˜Pastor Tim went right through the Christmas service without saying anything, and then right at the end he said: “And now Luke and Frances are to be married, and if you’d like to stay, you are invited.” Everybody stayed.’
    No photographer had been organised, but a congregation member and old friend had raced home for his camera, determined that the family would have pictures of this precious, unexpected day. On the family pin-up board, next to drawings by Todd and Stella, is pinned one of his photographs from six years ago—Frances and Luke, their fair hair shining, eyes starry, faces incandescent at their Christmas Day wedding.
    *
    The previous day …
    After breakfast the day before my father and I wander in and around the treasured old buildings of Holowiliena. Holowiliena dates back to the 1850s: the old stone homestead is the heart of the property, but it is surrounded by historic outbuildings, some restored, some not. Some of these restorations were completed as part of the ABC’s Restoration Australia program, filmed in 2013 and 2014, but Luke and Frances had begun on this work before the series and will continue it into the future. Frances believes that restoration and preservation is the job for her generation of Warwicks. To restore the buildings will take both time and money, and Frances and Luke are now venturing into tourism in order to ‘make the history pay for itself’.
    â€˜Being asked to be part of Restoration Australia was wonderful luck,’ Frances had told me.
    It was wonderful luck for the producer of Restoration Australia too. Holowiliena is among the few pastoral properties where the family who took up the lease still runs the property. Add to this the family’s passion for sharing, their deep tradition of hospitality and their ability to bring to life family members who are long gone—I imagine the producer was overcome with relief and pleasure.
    Rather than charging for accommodation and food, Holowiliena provided it gratis to the ABC production team—and that money saved, Luke tells me, went straight into producing high-quality television on their episode, the seventh and last of the series, which screened in October 2015. Frances and Luke value good craft in the same way they value time spent talking, interacting and eating with guests: it is a good thing in and of itself. They are delighted that the production team crafted a beautiful opening for their episode and pleased to have played such a big