Looking back, I think this photo gives a clue as to how ‘it’ happened.
We expect to be taking off on the next leg of our journey around Oz Sunday afternoon, and we’re all so excited.
Well, nearly all.
“Uh-oh,” grinned Miss7. “I’ve accidentally brought home someone’s rubber.”
She was holding it in front of my face with the sort of enthusiasm I personally reserve for showing off ear wax. It turns out it belonged to one of her best friends.
“Good work,” I told her. “A free rubber.”
“Bruce!” said Tracey, entering the conversation even though I maintain I had it totally under control. “It’s someone’s rubber. We have to contact them and give it back.”
“Why?”
“Because the kids aren’t going to school Monday,” she said. “It’s the right thing to do.”
While this is true, I don’t think it was the real reason. I suspect, ‘because it belongs to the kid of a friend of ours and I’d like to have a chat’ would have been a more accurate answer. Sure enough, when I arrived home from a quick supermarket raid half an hour later, there was a whole other family running about the place.
“Look who’s here!” Miss7 exclaimed happily as I climbed the stairs.
“Fancy that,” I said sarcastically.
“Look who’s here!” Tracey said at the top of the stairs.
“Fancy that,” I repeated, with perhaps even a little more sarcasm than the first time.
I’m glad Miss7 didn’t steal any other stationary or we might have been postponing our departure another week. Returning a rubber, it turns out, requires upwards of two hours.
“I don’t want them to go,” Miss7 complained as we watched our friends jump into their car.
Then, because of course, we realised we were also watching Miss5 belt herself in as well.
“They have to, sweetie,” I told Miss7 while Miss5 made my life hell by doing her greased pig impersonation across the backseat. “But we’ll be dropping back to Gympie all the time on our trip. I’m sure it’ll only be a month or so and we’ll see them again.”
That was a lie.
Not because I expected us to be away longer than that so much as…
“Uh-oh,” grinned Miss7 as, with a beep and a cheer, they drove up the road and we waved them goodbye. “Look! I’ve accidentally got her thongs on!”
Fancy that.
So at this rate, hopefully, we’ll be heading off by Monday?
How did this happen? I wonder? Top photo gives a clue. Meanwhile, she looks devastated, yeah?Staying with Nanny and Poppy has been fun. Not allowed to stand on things to reach the higher cupboards at home.
…because Easter. Soon. Ish.Nine of us here with one toilet and one bathroom, but it’s so much easier than at our home because they’re not in the same room! Heaven.My mate, Greg, painted the roof of our bus for us. I assisted. As in brought him coffee, water and encouraging remarks.I would have helped by painting but…
I rather cleverly worked out I could hand him stuff with a broom. This gave him less to laugh at me for and increased his work output. So we all had a win.We took our bus to the kids’ primary school, Gympie West, this week so they could show it off to their classes.We have some lovely photos but Tracey won’t let me put them up because she’s worried about upsetting parents. I gave in because it’s 11:40pm and I’m tired. So here’s our bus at school before it was crawling with preppers and grade two’s and five’s. I think. If I’m honest I’m not sure what grades half my kids are in.Last minute addition – Tracey found this one and said I could use it. Well, at least you can see Miss5’s face lolDear interweb. Cutting and sticking this shit in the storage area above our bus engine to keep the heat out took me all day and sucked more than a hail storm on the day you buy your first new car. I don’t care how crappy you think this looks, I deserve praise and lots of it.Went to an auction on Saturday with this handsome man – Ken. Tracey’s dad. We were there because he’s doing up one of these beasts – a 1912 Daimler truck – and wanted some photos of the finished product. I have no interest in both auctions and old stuff, so I amused myself all day by sending Tracey photos of random shit to Tracey with reasons why I should bid. Because of my efforts with the silver stuff in the back of our bus, Ken must have figured I was pretty nimble. My job, because I’m so nimble, was to crawl all over and under the truck taking photos.Because I’m a photographer’s husband so I know about happy snaps. About 300 of them with our replacement camera from when Master25 accidentally opened it under salt water at Christmas. Olympus makes the Tough tough but they can still drown if they get a lungful of liquid.Not only did I not know what I was doing with the camera, I had no idea what the hell I was looking at. Ken was tossing out instructions like “get some shots of the <insert odd words here>”. Like I had any idea.We are now collecting signs as we travel around the country. These things went for a motza. It was nothing to hear bids over $1000. Everything you see on American Pickers is true! People are nuts about this stuff.I sent Tracey a photo of these saying they’d look great on the bus. She disagreed. Not that we have the $800 lying around they went for anyway.Sent Tracey a photo of this but she said we didn’t have room on the bus. Fair call. Also, we’d need a bigger first aid kit. This barb wire collection went for $3100. They’re not even usable lengths! But then what do I know? Reminds me of a show I saw as a kid – Amazing Stories: Gather Ye Acorns. I guess the world needs dreamers who care about this stuff so the rest of us can one day enjoy it. Just maybe not the barbed wire…Another thing we’ll be keeping an eye out for – tractor seats. Or salad bowls, as my wife saw them when I sent her a photo. $250 to $1250 each on the day. EACH.This is how people died before the days of workplace health and safety.Ken obviously had doubts about my photography abilities too because he decided to buy the truck and bring it home.Brum’s big brother? Ken is probably a little too pragmatic to appreciate me saying this about him, but he’s become one of the dreamers. Welcome to the family, ol’ Truckasaurus. I’d say delivery of brides and graduates to weddings and formals respectively are taken care of for the kids now. The only thing it’s missing is a tray of some sort for them to sit on.Sorted.
