Tool

Lady luck has meant I needed to buy more tools for Tracey to hide. This is my favourite. It’s so huge I assumed it was a novelty item like one of those wooden ‘worlds greatest stirrer’ spoons my parents had on the wall to smack us with. This is the giant Toblerone of adjustable spanners and now I’m hungry for more tools. 

“Honey, where’s your drill?” I asked my wife.

You might have noticed the use of the word ‘your’ there instead our ‘our’.

The drill was a recent purchase necessitated by our pantry door taking a very cavalier approach to its primary function of remaining shut as we bounced around a corner, meaning all our groceries, including about thirty tins of baked beans, jumped loudly out of the cupboard and raced un-ca\n-like around the bus floor. The excessive number of baked beans cans is a result of me buying them by the tray when I shop despite Tracey telling me we only have one child who eats them and that’s me.

Tracey was very clear when we needed to duck down to Forbes’ Bunnings – this drill was going the same way as her hammer – she was going to hide it on me.

Actually, it’s not just the hammer she’s been hiding. I had cause to ask her for the steel wool the other day while doing the dishes and I got a minute long lecture on how I’d damaged the new electric non-stick frypan with nothing but my conviction to remove all the burnt tomato paste.

And when I say my wife has hidden something, I mean it may as well have never existed. I warn any potential thieves to bypass our home on wheels if they’e thinking of breaking in for valuables. If there’s any cash on this bus you have no hope of finding it because there are apparently hidey holes everywhere. I mean, Miss13 pulled out a sewing machine the other day I didn’t realise we had with us.

“You don’t need a drill,” Tracey informed me.

“You can’t know that,” I responded.

She sighed.

“Then what do you need it for?” she asked, clearly against her better judgement.

I smiled.

“It’s a surprise.”

“I don’t like the sort of surprises which happen when you have tools in your hands.”

I genuinely don’t know how my wife always manages to take my words and bitch slap me with them, but she does it with unfaltering regularity. It’s one of the things I love about her.

“Trust me,” I said.

And to my great astonishment, she did.

Which is why, only a short hour later, she got to enjoy a banana cake.

I may not know how to encourage a nail into a bit of wood, or how to retrain a pantry door, or indeed, how to remember to pack all the kitchen appliances back into the bus when we’re about to leave for a year on the road.

But I do know to bake.

It’s my one redeeming quality.

A reenactment
I might also have drilled a hole in our trailer to attach a second spare tyre under the car. Excuse me while I gloat.

FORBES

We had a ball in Forbes, enjoying campfire chattering with the caretakers there, Doug and Skye. Because Skye let on Doug happens to be an auto electrician, ‘they’ also helped us fix a few issues we had with our bus – brake controllers and the like. It was an expensive and alcohol fuelled week, but we got heaps of good stuff done. Plus our respective kids had a ball together. This is the thing about life on the road: it isn’t the places you go so much as the people you meet. People with similar goals and ideas about what’s important. Can’t wait to see you guys out here in 2019.

$25/night for a powered site at Forbes Showground. There’s free camping around by the lake but we like toilets and power and water, and feel more comfortable and secure in a show ground.
Staying a week so all three gazebos go up. We always try to camp close to the bathrooms. Saves on lengthy night time walks. We take the spots the other campers reject.
This building was an extra on The Dish. Parkes had changed too much so the film crew decided to use Forbes for external shots. I’m betting that went down well up the road.
There’s a motor museum in Forbes which was recommended to me but which I was going to miss because I’m not much of a rev head. However, I ended up taking the kids when Tracey needed a few hours of peace to work. I’m glad I did. It was much better than I expected. Well presented with lots of interesting history and facts. Genuinely interesting, not ‘have to be into oil and grease’ interesting.
Kids universally wanted this car. A $250k Holden Maloo in there and an E-Type Jag and they want the ‘Barbie’ car. Mattel has a lot to answer for.
Overheard Miss7 explaining to Miss5 the sign says this car was some sort of ‘fun’ car.
I’ll have one of these, thank you very much. Maybe a Mark II though, if it’s no bother.
Doug in my locker of nuh-huh. The only thing I recognise in there is the colours. 
These two because besties almost immediately. Miss7 is already demanding we go back.
I know they’re blurry, but look at me!
Lovely wide paths around the lake in Forbes meant daily bike rides with the kids.
Rare father + son hangout today under the guise of a Pokémon hunt. Found strawberry and cream waffles as well.

Raising a family on little more than laughs

– this post is not sponsored or gifted –

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