I’m The King Of The Road!

“Best parents ever,” I murmured to Tracey as the family disembarked back at Southbank.

We’d taken the kids for a ride up the river on a CityCat. Took about an hour and cost us $20. The huge Ferris Wheel at Southbank was going to cost us $99 for 10 minutes. Instead, we’d spent an hour effectively pretending we were on our own private boat trying to stare into houses and units while our ‘staff’ ran around asking the kids to please stop doing things like standing on the seats to see better or running between the front and back of the boat.

It was fantastic.

Or so I thought.

“You can’t claim to have been parenting,” Tracey assured me.

“You kidding? I was right there with them,” I said. “I was having fun and chatting to them most the way. That was some a-grade daddying.”

As usual, Tracey had an answer for everything.

“You didn’t even realise they were running off until I sent them back,” she huffed.

She’s always exaggerating.

“That only happened like three times,” I protested.

We’d arrived in Brisbane the previous day so Tracey could catch up with her surgical team at RBWH, our bus could get some stickers and we could finally pick up our car trailer, which we’ve been waiting nearly three months for.

Unfortunately, one of these three things didn’t go very well.

Fortunately, it wasn’t Tracey’s appointment. She’s now being handed over to the hernia people for the next bit of fun.

Also, rather wonderfully, it wasn’t the sign writing so our bus is looking particularly snazzy.

But because our car is demanded longer tracks we needed to hole up in Brisvegas for a bit while a couple of issues were sorted out. Finding somewhere to park and plug in a 40ft bus at five in the afternoon isn’t as easy as searching AirBnB so we went for somewhere close and relatively cheap – the Ipswich showgrounds (bus rate is $25/night including power – bargain).

“That’s a lot of police,” Master11 pointed out as our GPS guided us from Moggill over some hills I’m pretty sure the locals would call the rollercoasters, camel humps or simply ‘weeeeeeeee!’ and into the outer suburbs.

We’d encountered three separate lit up and wailing cop cars heading off in three separate directions and we hadn’t hit the centre of Ipswich yet.

“Means this is a very safe place to stay,” I said, “because they make sure everyone is doing the right thing.”

He looked doubtful.

“They don’t stop people doing stuff,” he said. “They just catch them after they’ve done it.”

Sounded like a good point. Personally, I was just happy none of them were around a minute later when I went around a corner and mounted the curb. Pretty sure that would have been a fail on my driving test.

So today we had time to relax and wile away on the Brisbane River.

Well, some of us did.

“What’s the worst that could have happened?” I asked Tracey, because she seemed intent on bringing up how much better she was at watching them than I was.

“They could have fallen in the river,” she said.

“But they didn’t.”

“Because I was watching out for them!” To be honest, I was just at the point where I was going to concede she might have had a point, but then she went on, “Meanwhile, you were standing at the front on the boat, catching the breeze with your arms out.”

Again, she exaggerates.

Not about the wind in my hair – if it was longer I could have whipped cream. But come on. “Arms out? As if.”

“Oh, please,” Tracey said as we walked up the pier past fifty or so people waiting to board. Suddenly she was doing a poor impression of what I’d apparently looked like, with her arms stretching back behind her. “It was Titanic all over again.”

I still don’t know about that, but in Tracey I’ve definitely found my iceberg. Great day, in so many more ways than one.

We’re still at the Ipswich Showgrounds for at least Sunday, not least because some idiot let slip the markets are here tomorrow. All around us, in fact. So if you’re in the area, come and say hi. You can’t miss us now, what with all that great signwriting.

Raising a family on little more than laughs

Not a sponsored post, although Bold Badger looked after us like a boss – thanks again, Madonna x

Whereas THIS, on the other hand, is my latest sponsored post 🙂 please check it out – The Golf Racket – a great reminder for everyone and a really important message