Archive for January, 2008

When I was a kid I used to find this part of the year totally and utterly depressing. The end of the summer holidays, the approach of a new year at school, the longest term of the school year at that, an end to warm days, the onset of winter, all compounded by ‘Back to School’ signage in every shop in the high street. And while I’m not a kid any more and while the seasons are reversed here and while the onset of winter isn’t nearly as depressing … there’s still something vaguely melancholic about the end of the summer holidays.

The long weekend, which is bookended by Straya day, is the aussie equivalent of the August bank holiday. Very similar things happen too. In the UK, everyone squashes enough luggage to see them through a three month trip in Alaska into the back of their estate cars and attempts to drive en masse down the M4/M5 to Cornwall. This inevitably results in an extended stopover in the middle lane of the M4 next to the sewage works near Windsor (and later on near Bristol and then the other side of Bristol and then in Exeter) sandwiched between an Ikea lorry and a white Renault van, a midnight arrival at a campsite, the hurried erection of a tent in the yellow glow of car headlights and several fucking great rows.

Over here, all the aussies get in their Landcruisers, hitch a boat up to the rear, chuck bikes, playhouses, dogs, bbqs, fishing tackle, tents and semi-disposable children into the boat and attempt to drive en masse out of whichever large city they live in. Since the majority of roads outside cities here are dual lane (at best), there are inevitably traffic jams around public holidays. Moreover, since the distances are considerably greater, there’s usually quite a few prangs/deaths as people attempt to drive for 18 hours straight in order to get a good tent pitch near the public barbies.

Where we live, the one and only main road heading south from Sydney (the Princes Highway) is predominantly single lane and the stretch from Swindon to Surftown is tortuous at this time of year. The weird thing for us, though, is that we’re the destination that many thousands of people are heading to from Sydney and locations inland. So we get to join the traffic on the Princes Highway for a short time, safe in the knowledge that most of the people on the road have been on the road since dawn – and we’re just going to Aldi.

We also get to see all the boat-towing utes leaving town, the occupants no doubt a bit pissed off at having to head home and get back into the daily grind; whilst we can smile smuggly knowing that we live here and have it all on our doorstep. And next week, our little town will shrink back from its summer population of nearly 8,000 to its more usual 3,400. And we’ll get our beach and river back – and our pub – and our shops – and our peace and quiet. Until Anzacs that is – when the last gasp of summer is exploited to its full, before we have to endure the nightmare of high teens/low 20s temperatures for the whole three months that make up the winter in our little part of Australia.

Le weekend …
We didn’t have anything planned for the Australia day long weekend. As often seems to happen here though, things just tend to happen without the need for forward planning. On the Friday I bumped into Dave in the petrol station – he said that he and the family and friends were going to the Bay pub – and invited us down.

So I headed down first on my bike in order to see if it really was a family evening or a bit of a lads beer night – to report back to Liz if she’d have a bit of company. I arrived at about six o’clock and there was indeed the whole family enjoying the beautiful warm summer evening at our local boozer overlooking the Broughton River and Seven Mile beach. Liz was notified and she and Jack rode their bikes down to join us.

Dave and Kev and I sat on the wall putting the world to rights, whilst Liz, Jodie, Kylie and the other ladies had a natter over a glass of chardy. The kids (all 10 of ‘em) ran around like banshees, playing hide-and-seek, shinning up trees, mucking about in the sandpit and popping back to see us every 30 minutes or so to plead for another drink or packet of crisps. Not an eyebrow was raised, not a ‘tut’ was heard – the easy-going acceptance of kids is without doubt one of the best things about living in this country. There was one elderly couple sat on their own table having a quiet drink next to a palm tree that several of the kids tried noisily to climb – the old bloke was cheering them on and the old lady was smiling. Can you imagine that happening in a pub garden in the UK? Nah, me neither.

The pub had laid-on a karaoke and Catheirne and Kylie decided to bless us with their rendition of Manic Monday (they were actually very good). The kids wanted to play on the pool table, but this old bloke insisted on staying on until someone beat him – so I played him and (miraculously) won and handed the cues over to the kids. They twatted the balls all over the place for a good hour or more, taking it in turns with the cue,.

By the time it was dark I suggested to Liz that I’d nip back and get the car so we could put hers and Jack’s bike in the back on account of Jack would a) be knackered and b) not the greatest bike rider in broad daylight let alone pitch dark. At about 11 o’clock, Jack finally started to wilt and everyone said their goodbyes. We stopped off at our beach on the way home, it was deserted so we all stripped off and had a night-time paddle under the stars.

On the Sunday I was on patrol at the beach. I was the first person down there and unlocked everything and started prepping the IRB for the day. Our usual patrol captain (Richard) had subbed out to Daniel, who arrived half an hour late and admitted he’d only had two hours sleep. He spent a lot of the day sleeping in the radio room so effectively, I was in charge for most of the day. The beach was heaving for most of the day, but I did have plenty of young surf lifesavers on duty with me who didn’t seem to mind me telling them what to do. They all took it in turns to disappear in pairs on the quad bike, driving the entire length of the beach and back on ‘roving patrols’. There was only one save of the day, which I carried out, when an unsupervised four year old kid got swamped by a wave and lost both his footing and his boogie board. It wasn’t exactly high drama though, as I merely had to wade out and pick him up. But still – that’s why you swim between the flags, folks.

Early on Richard showed up and asked me if I fancied a run in the IRB. It had been a good three months since I was last in the thing, so I willingly agreed and we set off through the 2m – 3m swell. Now normally the driver of the boat will choose his moment to get over the larger waves, usually just cutting the throttle and drifting over it. I noticed with interest though, that Richard showed no signs of backing off from one particularly large wave. We went into it, near vertically, me riding the nose of the boat. We popped out the other side and I said to Richard, “Was that a test?” – “Yes,” came the response. “Did you expect me to get up the front?” and, “Yes.” came the response. “Oh,” said. You see on big waves like that I’m supposed to pop my foothold and lie across the bow of the boat. During my crew training I was always told when to do this, but Richard clearly felt it was about time I started making the judgement for myself and was testing me out. He then let me drive for a while and when I said I didn’t want to drive the boat to shore, he said I was being overly negative. Fair enough comment I guess – but then I am British!

At midday I received a phone call from Liz on the main club phone number asking me to call her – which was unusual. Turned out my mum’s eye had ‘exploded’ and she’d had to take her to casaulty. By the time I knocked off at 5 o’clock, Liz and Jack had been sitting in casualty for four and a half hours (some things are the same world over) and I had a very quick shower and drove over to Swindon to relieve them. Jack, bless him, had been on excellent behaviour throughout, despite the mind-numbing tedium. Anyway – it turned out some blood vessels in my mum’s eye had popped – it looked nasty, but in reality was the sort of thing a doctor could easily have dealt with. I waited with them for another two hours.

Now the funny thing is that my mother is the world’s worst ‘waiter’. If it takes a restaurant longer than 10 minutes to get her food on the table she’s up to the counter like a flash to remonstrate with the staff about their appalling service. So just imagine what sort of mood she was in being made to wait for 7 hours to be seen at the hospital. I got my book out of the car, found myself a nice spot away from the screaming babies and nasty septic smells of the casaulty waiting area (and from my mother, lest anyone discover I was related to her) and relaxed on a far comfier chair in the closed cafe area. An ambulance man passing through saw me sitting on my own, reading my book, with my feet up on the table and a chilled can of coke on the arm rest and said, “You’re the smartest bloke in the building.”

So eventually she gets seen and (surprise!) she’s got to go and see her GP in the week. I dropped them off at their house and then drove 300 yards round the corner to our friends house. We’d been invited round for a meal and a late night chinwag. Liz was well into her third glass of wine by the time I got there and, with impeccable timing, the food was just ready on the barbie. We had a great feast and then played the Australian genus Trivial Pursuit until midnight, when my body started shutting down and I drove us all home.

We all slept in late this morning – Jack slept through to 10 o’clock which is unprecedented. We were awakened by my work phone going off and a call to a job in Surftown. Whilst I was out fixing PCs, my parents called round to thank Liz for the previous day, by presenting her with a food mixer. That’s my parents for you.

Bak 2 Skewl …
The new school year begins this Wednesday. We have yet to acquire a uniform for Jack, so it looks like he’ll be starting the year in last years, decidedly tight, clothes. There are many advantages to being self-employed (as both Liz and I are) but without doubt the main one is that we don’t have to panic about childcare during the summer holidays. I honestly don’t know how employed parents, working 9 to 5, do it.

Anyway, we’ve had a ball this summer. Days at the beach, plenty of swimming our pool, days out, playdates for Jack, barbies around at friends houses, late evenings sitting on our balcony sipping something alcholic and smoking a guilty ciggie. The temperatures don’t start to seriously drop until about May either, so we’ve got a few more sunny summer days to go yet. And that, my friends, is one of the things I like best about living here.

Till next time – later ‘taters …

And I leave you with this …

Flipping hell – I always thought I kept this blog up-to-date, but every time I come to write a post it seems another 10 days have passed. Ah well. What’s up?

Thankyouplease…
Liz’s sometimes found herself on the outside of cliques looking in and for this reason, she always makes a point of extending the hand of friendship to people who find themselves in the same situation. and so it was with Simona (not her real name) – a Croatian lady and the mum of Adrian (in Jack’s year at school). Adrian’s a bit of a shithead, but when Jack goes to his house to play he gets tennis lessons, so they have play-dates.

Problem is that Adrian’s such a little wanker that very few of the other mums/kids want playdates with him during the school hols. We put this down to him, until we met Simona. To call her pushy would be akin to describing James Blunt as an average singer (understatement of the year). Liz put this pushiness down to the fact that Simona is a) European and b) Just trying to gain entry to the mum’s club. It transpires, however, that she’s just not very nice.

Just before they broke up for the summer holidays, Simona gave Liz a note with a list of dates she’d like to arrange for Jack to play with Adrian. Liz gets in touch with her and says – ‘whatever’ – because she’s fairly easy-going like that. Turns out Simona is counting on those dates as free childcare and would like ‘em pencilled into the diary. Okay – so Liz rolls with it. Anyway – this is getting tedious to write, so god knows what it’s like to read. I’ll cut to the chase.

Jack is enrolled in swimming lessons every morning for two weeks. Simona takes great umbrage to this because it would mean Adrian having to watch from the sideliness for 30 minutes – tells (and I do mean ‘tells’) Liz to either cancel the lessons or enroll Adrian! WTF?! Liz says that, ermm, no – that’s not going to happen, so Simona arranges to drop her precious turd off a bit later. Two days later the day of the next playdate and Liz decided to treat Jack to a trip to the science museum in Wollongong with Adrian. Several texts go back and forth including one in which Simona says to Liz that she doesn’t want her driving all that way and that she doesn’t want them to go ‘Pleasethankyou’.

Anyway – there were myriad other things, such as when Simona said she didn’t trust Liz to drive her son around on account of the fact that she’d only got her red P plates 8 months ago. Also the fact that she sends her kid with loads of ‘suitable’ toys (mainly shitty jigsaws) that she expects to be played with. Or the fact that we’re expected to lock our dog up for the duration of her and her son’s visits because they don’t like dogs. So… a long time after most people would have told her to go fuck herself, Liz does just that. Much relief all round – apart from with Jack, who said he’ll miss his tennis lessons.

In the swim…
As I mentioned above, Jack is enrolled in a Swimsafe swimming course down at our excellent little outdoor pool here in town. We want him to learn to swim properly because if he’s going to be involved in the surf lifesaving club’s Nippers next season, he needs to be able to swim 25 metres using an overarm stroke. The good news is that the teacher’s excellent, many of the kids in his class are schoolmates – and he’s coming on leaps and bounds. This morning the weather was so shitty that only Jack and another little girl showed up (Aussies are real light-weights – smallest sign of inclement weather and they hibernate – but I digress) and got a great personal lesson which was well received.

The rain ain’t in Spain …
This summer has been a wet one. It hasn’t been non-stop, but I’d say it had rained on half of the days in the last four or five weeks. With the caravan parks full here in town I can’t help feeling sorry for anyone whose two week holiday was reduced to shopping in Broughton because it’s pissing down with rain and cold with it. Don’t suppose the shopkeepers in Broughton are complaining though. The coming week’s looking a lot better though.

Where you control the action…
We recently had a trip up to Jamberoo. Lyndall and Darren and the kids came with me, Liz and Jack. We picked a good day to go too – it was a fairly grotty grey day, which deterred a lot of people – but it brightened up about midday and warmed up. Highlight of the day was convincing Liz to go down their new Taipan ride. I honestly thought it was fairly tame, but she screamed the whole way down and called me a few choice names. Darren also took four year old Mitch down the ride – he didn’t say much on the way down, but when we splashed down at the bottom, he said “I am never doing that again.”