Bubblin’ Under

Azure, ultramarine, sky, turquoise, lapis, cobalt and teal are all shades of the beautiful colour blue. And that colour has always attracted me to the water. From a very early time I remember leafing through books and marveling at what might lie just beneath those shades of blue. And just like the first time I went off snorkeling in the Mediterranean Sea it felt all too familiar when on Sunday we climbed down the wooden staircase to a small horseshoe shaped bay in New South Wales and came out of the bush to be faced with those ever attractive calming shades of blue.

Within a few minutes I was up to my waist fitting fins and mask into place and then, back underwater after far too many months procrastinating about it all, getting waylaid with other things, not feeling like it or whatever other excuses, the familiar hiss of air followed by the gurgle of bubbles thumping out through the exhaust engulfed me once again to be with SCUBA under the sea. We headed out into the bay and despite all my thoughts of what it would be like to once again go under the waves I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was no different to before. It still felt fantastic to be weightless. It still felt remarkably peaceful to be out of communications verbally. It still felt enormously inspiring to fuel the imagination with what might appear. It still took on that mesmerizing cycle of tranquility.

As the little group of floundering humans bubbled its way along the rock face we hovered over pockets of sand to spy the frying pan shapes of brown stingrays dozing, occasionally throwing the sand from their backs to change place and float through the waving kelp to another parking bay.

There were fields of spiny urchins, black from a distance but tinged with bottle green and rich dark blue when viewed up close. Tiny pale blue nudibranchs with yellow frilly gills creeping over the seascape. A species of scorpion fish perched on rocks that camouflage their shapes beautifully, merging perfectly with their backgrounds. They are adorned with spines and fins all dappled and mottled in the purples, browns and greens of the seabed. Only the perfect circular geometry of their eye in contrast to all the irregular shapes of their markings gives away their presence to beady eyed divers.

Then as we crossed the mouth of the bay amid swirling thermo clines that always resemble a cool clear Gordon’s and tonic, one of my favourites lies on the bottom. About 80cm long with pale honey coloured skin and dark brown harness type markings it can only be the unmistakable Port Jackson shark, his wonderful Latin name, Heterodontus portusjacksoni ringing around in my head.

And so the wonders of the sea carried on appearing, wrasse of all shapes and sizes, Old Wives hanging around in pairs contemplating the rest of Sunday afternoon, squirrel fish and a small shoal of little runners out to the blue. Before we reach the place to leave the water we are visited by a fair sized Eastern Blue Groper and as he sidles up alongside his swiveling glass eye scans around like a nosey CCTV camera eager for a morsel. In a flash he’s gone.

We too are leaving now but I’m so happy to be back…

Good Job He’s Handy

And indeed it is a good job I’m handy as I’ve been doing a spot of D.I.Y. these last few months. Not your little have-a-go magazine article project bookshelf or house sign though. No, this one’s been a bit more of a major undertaking. First, there was the conversion of the loft space above the garage to create a room for the youngest two girls, then there was the complete renovation of the bathroom. Coming up there’s a minor fit-out to convert some garage space for the eldest teenager who’s joined us and my personal favourite will be a deck on which to sit and enjoy a cold beer or two.

Suggestions were mooted about someone else to D.I. but the only fool to show his face didn’t even submit a quote, I probably scared the living daylights out of him when I showed him what I wanted in the loft and then said “I’m a little fussy about the finish…”

There’s an understatement. Anyway, we never heard from him again. Then the Tradies came trooping through the door with fancy quotes, groovy DVDs and three-D animated drawings along with lists of conditions and 5 figure prices to boot. So they were promptly dismissed and I ended up D’ing It M’self. Would’ve been nice to support our local cottage industries but I’ve seen some of the waterfront three-storey glass and marble cottages with boat-houses they occupy along the Hacking River and I don’t think they’re struggling. There’s also something of a question mark over whether they represent good value, although I will now concede that the inconvenience factor of an outside loo and sleeping on the lounge room floor could have been worth the premium.

The loft was a test of endurance more than skill or ability, simply because there was so much of it to cover in gyprock plasterboards. First the stud work had to be fabricated around the bare brick walls and open raftered ceiling as well as removing some old paneling. Around 45 square metres of boards had to be screwed and glued, then joins taped and the whole lot filled and sanded smooth so as to appear as one heavenly flat surface with no bumps, lumps or ripples. And it does. Then there were new electrical sockets to wire and fit, a new loft access door to make and the final skirtings and architraves to finish off. Painting it was a doddle as I had little paint-covered helpers for that bit.

Then all of a sudden just as I was fitting the lights to the sanded exposed roof beams the carpet fitters were throwing me out to get going with their bit. An hour later and the whole lot was fitted and finished, just like that and we could move the girls out of our room that they had temporarily taken over into their brand spanking new bedroom.

More disruption than just having to pull out our mattress of an evening to watch telly was to follow for the bathroom. In my heart of hearts I knew it would take more than a week or two or maybe three and even I was fed-up after almost two months but it was a complete strip out of all the old fittings and redesign of the space. Again, older paneling needed to be removed and for more space we took down the wall separating the loo and the bathroom, (although separate toilets and bathroom are usually a must with multiple kids) and it was then that I hit my first hitch. It was a Thursday night when I decided to get the removal of the stud partition wall started and so I took out as much as was needed to make a door sized space, leaving the ragged edges of the tiled bathroom wall until I could remove the whole lot the next night or the weekend. And therein lay my mistake as someone in our family likes to fiddle about with things he shouldn’t. No amount of telling, explaining or instructing can tell Ted not to do something he shouldn’t. He only learns by doing it himself, something I would probably attribute very much to his father…

The very next night he came through to the table having just brushed his teeth for bed, all white faced and peely-whally holding up a sore looking arm and saying that he’d caught it on the sharp tile edges in the bathroom. My heart sank, I knew I shouldn’t have left it half finished. But upon further questioning it became clear that he hadn’t just brushed against the edge, nor had he fallen accidentally onto it. He’d been trying to pry off the edges of the tiles and with all his little weight behind it slipped and snagged the back of his wrist on a sharp tag of fixed tile. I worked all this out later when I found the shred of his bloodied skin. But here he stood with a two centimeter wide and almost as deep cut in the outer-most awkward part between hand and arm, quite clearly in need of hospital attention. Off Mum took him to A&E and some hours later returned a sorry little boy with some sticking plasters type stitches across another little badge of honour.

The entire dividing wall had been removed and made Heatley-proof before the new weekend started the following day. Perhaps I don’t see that living in a house with “ongoing DIY projects” is potentially dangerous, after all I grew up with brick chimney breasts being knocked down, walls forever being built, rebuilt and moved, plasterboards here and there, carpets up or down and a whole host of other projects; it was all par for the course really.

Dismantling the old bathroom was only held up for a short while when I stopped to think about how to remove a 250kg cast iron bath single handedly. With some advice from my plumber I cut around the plug hole with a grinder so as not to break the waste pipes and then merrily smashed the little bath tub to pieces with a large sledgehammer. Controversially we’ve elected not to refit a bath in the somewhat small bathroom, preferring just the large walk in shower but it’s only taken one shower with the kids to realize how much they enjoyed playing in the bath! So they now play in the wide shower tray but somehow I don’t think it’s as much fun.

If the loft conversion was a strong test of my staying with a project then the bathroom was the mother of all those tests. Tiling all the walls, window sills, returns and then the floor was never going to be easy but because around seventy per cent of the tiles were cut ones with the rest being whole tiles it took forever to finish. And pretty much every single tile I had to cut was a different size to the one before and the one after! Says a lot for timber framed 70’s brick houses and the squareness of their walls and floors. Then they had to be grouted and finished off which just seemed to never end. Fitting the vanity and sink unit was easy enough and would’ve stayed dry if I hadn’t mistakenly left one of the system cocks open for the sink cold water feed when I turned on the mains… Talk about water everywhere! I heard it as I approached the front door and broke into a sprint, it was spraying from the open tap in a graceful arc across the room just like a geyser in Yellowstone, and a fair bit of drying out was required after the swearing died down. The toilet installation, which I had thought might be smelly at best and downright disgusting at worst turned out to be the easiest of the lot, didn’t even get a waft of poo when that went into place. And then it was all of a sudden in service. Sink worked, toilet flushed, the shower’s just great and the heated floor works perfectly. The final touches of glass shower screen and polished edge mirror were installed just recently and the whole project is a day short of its finishing snags.

Of course these things tend to take a lot longer due to the interruptions encountered throughout the working days so my predicted finish times for any of these projects are never very accurate. They usually happened at the most inconvenient of moments too, like whenever I had a full size plaster board balanced against a saw horse and box, with dobs of stud adhesive placed along the wall batons ready to go someone would call out from the loo that they needed help. They didn’t really need my help but it was such good fun to have Daddy’s attention they just couldn’t resist, nor could they stop calling. So, still with pencil in mouth I’d leave the workpiece balanced precariously and rush to the little damsel in distress (always Lottie) with a drill in one hand and screws in the other and I’d have to put something down to help her out. There she’d be perched all smiley and happy just handing me the scrunched up ball of loo roll. Once we’d finished it’d be touch and go as to what I was still holding and whether I’d put the pencil, screws or used wet-one behind my ear!

Coupled with the regular breaks for preparing lunch, snacks, drinks and refereeing for those frequent playtime issues the little sidetracks were a major contributing factor to my ever growing love-hate relationship with D.I.Y. But summer’s arriving, the deck now beckons and I can feel the need for some new tools coming on…

At the Lake

We went to lake Conjola and we went fishing and that was my first go on my boat whith dad. It was fun at lake conjola. wen I went back to my kabin I saw a kangaroo and it was a big kangaroo he hopd away.I wold like to go back one day.

Speedboats And Sandhills

Two hundred and fifty kilometers north from us along the Pacific Highway is the geographical haven of Port Stephens formed by the mouth of the Myall River. In July 2007 we’d stayed at the little hamlet of Hawk’s Nest and we made a boat trip across the bay and glimpsed the resident pod of dolphins. This time however we hoped for better weather than the wintry cold of a NSW July and had the Tribe of 5 in tow for perhaps a closer encounter with the dolphins.

An easy midday run out of Sydney meant we arrived just after dark around five hours later. You all know how you’d like road trips to go; drive a bit, plan to get so many kms into the journey before stopping and then make the rest of the drive revived and rested. And you know how kids and strung out parents actually deal with it; drive a little way, cave in to the endless “are we there yets”, stop, try to control the release of pent-up energy at the service station, hope they don’t get flattened in the car park, force them to eat the fifty bucks worth of rubbish they so desperately needed, yearn to be at journey’s end, get them safely in and out of the disgusting toilets, fire them back into the car as if they’re being kidnapped and head off up the freeway ever so slightly more wound up than before we’d stopped. Ah, the joys…

Of course it doesn’t always have to be that way but since our trusty people moving eight-seater Tarago has been relegated to bottom division ‘coz it can’t tow the Tribe, we’re forced to use ARNI, Lindsay’s Toyota Aurion, thus giving the littlies free reign as three cherubs sit in a row squashed together just cooking up trouble the minute the wheels start turning. Sometimes it’s only two of them, other times all three, rarely are they sitting quietly for long. It brings back vivid memories of fighting with my brother in the back of the Cortina en route to Pompey for a grandparents visit usually resulting in the lucky one – me – getting to sit in the front seat with Dad. Come to think of it, it was always I who got lucky. Like the time I told my brother to shoot at the glowing light bulb with a water pistol while we were sat in a bathtub of water. It was his name that was uttered first as dear Dad crashed into the darkened bathroom to fish us out from the broken glass and soapsuds!

Seems the mischievous streak that my brother has always had lives on in his nieces and nephew and although we arrived at Hawk’s Nest uneventfully, the corkscrew was already twisted into the first bottle of red. But the frustrations of the journey soon faded away as the kids all played together and our friends and hosts for the weekend arrived with supplies of Chinese take away and additional Aussie plonk.

Saturday came with menacing skies but we refused to be deterred and slipped the boat at the ramp not 500m from the house. After collecting friends from the public wharf, we took a gentle punt down the little stretch of the Myall River in the hope that it wouldn’t be too blowy as we tipped out into Nelson Bay in search of the dolphins.

The sheltered, glass-flat stretch of water to the river mouth meant we could get the boat pretty well flying but a couple of nervous passengers led me to back off a little as the going got bumpier. Once out into the more open water the southeasterly wind met us head-on and the boat carved into the oncoming wave tops with ease. Some loved it but the nervy ones were now plain scared so we settled back down into the water for some reassurance that disaster was miles away, whereupon the windy weather just flipped the tops of the waves over the bow threatening to soak those up front in the open seats.

Squinting of out into the bay, I could see the whale and dolphin-watching vessels but it was too rough for us this time so we turned tail and headed back in. On the way back up the Myall Lindsay took the helm of her toy for the first time. Slow speed under 8 knots technically doesn’t require a licence and it will be good practice for the launch and recovery once she’s familiar with the controls, the steering and the fact that boats don’t have brakes!

We put the less adventurous passengers ashore to play on the leeward side of Winda Woppa beach so that we could go for a play in the estuary with a bit more hooning around but black skies covered us and we decided to cut and run. The winch clicked and clacked the bow onto its trailer roller and locked it down just as the first spits and spots of rain began to hit us, Lottie stayed on board and a salty old seadog cleaning his day’s catch warned me of the bank of wet seaweed laying under my front wheels as I headed for the driver’s seat. ARNI was going nowhere with all that under his feet, so with it all cleared away we dragged the soggy bottom boat up the short ramp to the car park and the rain held off.

After a sumptuous lunch cooked up at home base we took a drive out to Myall Lakes and Bombah Broadwater for the afternoon. The rugged bush hinterland here separates the beach and ocean from the land and has formed interconnecting lakes helped doubtlessly by the meandering Myall River. Forming a road link from the more northern section of Pacific highway to the particular spot is a little chain ferry that spans about 300 metres of water and here we pulled up behind a Saturday afternoon queue of two cars. Now, ever since I was a kid (about 6months ago it seems) I’ve absolutely loved going on car ferries. It must’ve been the early baptism of summer holidays to the Isle of Wight in the UK and Channel crossings en route to Spain but small or large, open or closed I just think the idea of transporting my car or bike over sea or lake on a boat is so, so cool. I can’t really explain it, just think it’s one of transport’s most wonderful things to do.

Our friends in the other car pulled up alongside us and seemed not to be heading over the water, telling us there’s nothing much on the other side except some little eco tourist resort and maybe a bar or coffee shop. Bar? And they weren’t keen on going over? How odd…

Within five minutes we were rolling down the ramp gently enough to avoid scraping ARNI’s chin and creeping up the ferry’s steel boarding plate equally gently so as not to bump his bottom before parking behind the other two cars ready for the voyage across. It takes longer for the attendant to load us, lock the gates, take the money, dock, unlock the gates and off load all four cars that it actually does to cross the water but it was the best five bucks I’ve spent in ages! And as I took my first sip of something cold in a glass I looked back down at the little ferry, reflected on our adventure and realized life’s pretty good.

The fresh air and days’ fun knocked the kids for six that evening so there were no consequences dished out and they settled into bed easily, just a few games of cards and a bottle of red wine or maybe that was a few bottles of red wine and a game of cards, or perhaps a few bottles of cards and a game of red wine, no, no…

Australia is famous for a few things but one top trump where they seem to rack up most points is in the natural world and its wonders. Due to the fact that something like 40000km of it are coastline its beaches really are some of the best in the world.

Of course there’s the famous crowd pullers like Bondi and Surfer’s Paradise, but I prefer beaches where’s there’s more sand visible than people. Bondi’s not my thing, to date I haven’t even been there! So for Sunday morning we drove up the Mungo Brush Road to the sandhills of Mungo Brush beach. We climbed the track from the little car park up to the beach and as it opened out into what felt like another planet this was more my thing. Probably the largest expanse of open sandscape I’ve ever seen in my life compelling me to stand for a few moments to take it all in. It reminded me of a place on the West coast of Ireland with an enormous sandy beach stretching for miles and miles called, rather oddly , Inch. That left an impression on me when I was there about 20 years ago in an old blue and white Combi but this place made Inch look like Millimetre, simply beautiful.

And so we set off across miles and miles of Mungo Brush Beach to find some sandhills. The rain had created a little thin crust on the sand that crumbled underfoot like the pastry on one of Nan’s pies, the going was easy enough and there were no complaints today as we had our own delightful little pioneering moonwalk across a wonderfully unspoilt piece of planet. Soon enough we found a long steep sandhill dry enough and perfectly sheltered from the whipping wind that tingled your ankles with periodic sandblasts. Scarlett utterly hates that, it scares the living daylights out of her, I suppose it would really.

The boogee boards were perfect for a spot of sand surfing and all except the two youngest were unstoppable, Even the grown-up kids got in on the action, although it was as hard hijacking a board as it was trying to stand up on it! When the energy to climb back up became less than the thrill of surfing back down things happily wound up and we trudged back to the cars.

The weather got its little tantrum out of the way in the form of a shower while we had another scrumptious lunch and the thrill seekers among us volunteered for an afternoon on the boat. We took a run up the Mungo Brush Road past the sandhills on to where the lakes opened up and pulled up in the car park next to a near deserted campsite. Believably because of the ropey weekend weather the place was empty, but equally as unbelievable was our good fortune to have the place to ourselves basking in the warm autumn sunshine. The handful of ducks at the ramp politely moved aside as we backed the trailer down and slipped the boat in off the ramp at Bombah Broadwater.

Once afloat we cautiously explored the vast open waters to find a suitable circuit for the tube and kneeboard. A sheltered corner of the lake gave us the best go at it with only one little tinnie out fishing and we wouldn’t bother him. The water itself is a rather off-putting brown colour rather like that of tea before the milk goes in and is largely caused by the fallen leaves of the melaleuca trees that fringe these lakes. Melaleuca trees also include the one we all know as the tea tree, notable for its zingy oil that finds its way into all kinds of smellies and soaps. That aside the one thing I was happy about were the cleansing qualities of all the fresh water on the Tribe’s mechanicals. The brisk wind blew into our faces as we sped round our circuit and the first of the tube victims suited up for an appointment with destiny. Personally I’m not a fan of the inflatable donut rings that we tow, sometimes way too fast, behind the boats but other people think they’re great and who am I to argue, especially when I’ve go the best seat in the boat. Either way, you won’t catch me on one of those things for love nor money.

And it didn’t faze anybody as they all had a blast on the thing, it was actually quite hard to get them all off in the end. Round and round, figures of eight, bumpy and smooth everybody loved it. Even when it came to the borrowed kneeboard with missing leg-strap Craig managed to effortlessly glide up onto the plane (probably the boat driver’s skill) and excel at carving up the wake. The lake revealed its true depths when he fell off and stood up to his chest in the soft mushy lake bed. Then it was the kids turn and they too looked like they’d been doing it for years. We stayed out for ages, as long as we all wanted and towed them home to the ramp one last time, speeding up in the hope of dumping them all for a finale. No such chance! They were all far too expert by now.

The Tribe slid quietly onto the little sand strip at the ramp, hungry kids squawked into eskies and food bags for snacks and drinks and the ducks looked hopeful. We dunked the trailer and with the distinct lack of onlookers (for once), I made a complete cock-up of driving the boat to the trailer blaming all sorts of nonsense such as the wind, the hefty marker posts sticking out of the water, the sun, the birds, just about anything other than simply fooling about! With the boat up on her trailer and the bung out gallons of Bombah Broadwater happily poured down the ramp right back from whence it came. All was quiet except for the sound of laughter and as the sun dropped like a gold dollar coin down the back of the sofa I have to say it was simply one of “those days”.

Touch

On a recent walk along Sharky’s Beach Lottie and I paddled around in the rock pools at a very low tide. She remembered straight away our previous encounters with the eight-legged creatures of legend that brought ships down to Davy Jones’s Locker and so we just had to look out for them.

The rocky outcrop that we’re so fond of poking around in was probably formed a zillion years ago when the tectonic plates were having a creep about somewhere out in the Pacific. As a result it’s more like a rocky platform jutting into the sea made of thousands of horizontal layers of shale that are split all over as you would guillotine a ream of paper. A short distance further up on land this platform becomes the Illawarra escarpment.

We’ve had quite a variety of sea dwellers turn up on these little shoreline walks including dark brown horned nudibranchs, beautiful orange and purple sea dragons (although he was dead), little sand gobies and a myriad of crustaceans.

The bright winter sun lit the water-filled fissures in the rock and soon we’d followed a purple frilly goby along one of the long cracks in the rocks ‘til he vanished into thin water. Peering into the shallow crack, I spotted an unusual pair of perfect shapes, instantly knowing that I was looking at camouflage. Not sure of exactly what it was I made a note of where and checked Lottie hadn’t gone for a swim or slipped on the weed.

You can’t easily tell a four year old you’ve found something until it is obvious – to a four year old – what it is and I was struggling myself. Looking again, I saw two very sharp lined, perfectly formed black oblongs just a few millimetres apart, too close together to be what I thought were two eyes, yet I’d never seen a creature with two pupils in one eye. I found myself staring intensely in the way you do when looking at one of those “What is it?” photos in a book. You know, when it turns out to be an ultra close-up of an elephant’s toenail upside down. Then it dawned on me. We’d found our octopus but not what I’d been expecting. Instead of a fist-sized animal, we were looking straight down into the eyes of the tiniest cephalopod I’d ever seen. Indeed the gap between those two black shapes was the gap between her eyes, she must’ve been no bigger than a coin.

And no sooner had I worked out what we were looking at, so had Lottie too, excitedly pointing the octopus out with a beaming smile on her face as the tiny animal crept out into view.

She was thrilled for I suppose this was something of a rarity; a live, funny sea creature on her very own scale!

We couldn’t resist a little fun interaction and prised off a limpet snack for the octopus. Tiny but full of life we soon had tentacles reaching out for the limpet as well as up onto the ledge where we stood towards our toes. I was curious to see if Lottie would touch the little creature as she’s cleverly wary of the larger ones and it seemed that the size of this one had won her confidence.

She reached out a hand into the water towards the chunk of limpet lying upside down in the sand. As she picked it up a little brown tentacle snaked across and stuck to the limpet meat. She didn’t feel fear but held on and the two of them had a little tug of war until her excitement got the better of her and she let go. However, at the same time so did the octopus. Again, Lottie reached into the water and this time the tiny, flecked tentacle placed a single sucker cup onto her fingertip and the two gently touched for the first time; Lottie drew her hand back, letting out a whelp of delight that only such natural beauty brings.

As the little octopus pulled away taking the limpet with her I wondered if X-Box would ever be good enough.

School Conveniences Inconvenienced

Last Night we were entertained for the second time this week by stories of young Ted’s school activities. Expecting the unexpected, we listened intently as to why he had been paying multiple visits to the headmaster’s office. One of the school’s particular forms of chastisement is that misbehaving students are requested to do their penance whilst eating lunch sat squarely outside the big man’s office. Intended to deter the miscreants from further naughtiness by taking away their free time at lunch and hopefully embarrassing them into wiser ways it seems to do the trick with most kids. Ted, on the other hand, is either fascinated by the seating arrangement and view or, as I suspect, seeking some attention.

His first episode this week involved messing around with a friend in class that ended up in the stereotypical boyish malarkey where bottoms and bits got pinched and the duty bound spectating do-gooder dobbed them in to the teacher. Ted off to the office.

We received this news a couple of nights ago and with stern faces expressed our displeasure, all the while choking back barely controllable fits of giggling.

Episode number two was both harmless and classically naughty at the same time and I cannot for the life of me tell him off. He enjoyed his lunch in peace and quiet outside Big W’s office again because he had been found guilty of locking all the boy’s toilet doors! I might add here my displeasure at his so-called best mate who, in my books at least, is a very short step away from becoming an ex-best mate for dobbing him in. Dobbing is the Aussie slang term for grassing on somebody, snitching, telling tales or, as in this case, running to the teacher frightened of their own shadow. If it were not for the grass the mystery would’ve at least continued until fruito!

Immediately on hearing the story I fell about laughing remembering how we used to go into one cubicle, lock the door and then hop up on the seat to flip over the dividing sides into the next cubicle, lock its door and so on all the way down the line hopping out over the last door as if you’d been nowhere near the place, just like Ted did. Ha ha, all very entertaining and silly I know but just so typical of good old fashioned computerless, internet-free horseplay. Moreover, although it most certainly cannot be encouraged I can’t help feeling a little proud of him. Maybe he does listen to me after all.

We’d better keep the roll of plastic food wrap hidden or that could end up stretched over the loos in the girl’s toilets…

Stingrays in the Shallows and Storms in the Distance

To finish off a very busy weekend we jumped in the car and headed for the beach. Stopping briefly for hot take away chips at The Kiosk we were soon sitting on the grassy bank at our favourite little beach tucking into some dinner. I’d been busy most of the day setting plasterboards after we’d recovered from a rare night out at a 40^th birthday party. (Still on the 40’s, not quite into the 50ths yet!). It was rare in that there were no kids there but it could equally have been rare ‘coz we never go much for nights out! So we’d walked all the kids up to the famous golden arches restaurant for breakfast and then Ted and I managed a quick look round the local hot rod swap meet. There’s always more grey hairs than any other colour, assuming these guys still have hair and some of the creations just make me cringe that anybody would actually still drive something from the LSD-fuelled George Barris car collection on the public street. Still it takes Allsorts to make a bag…

 

Back to the beach and the hour had reached that part of the day where the sun had dropped below the escarpment sinking the east-facing beach into shade. The whole place was then bathed in the strangest of orange glows, like a soft electric light bulb that someone’s left on in the back room.

 

After the chips, we played on the cooling sand and paddled in the shallows. Archie went nuts for the open space and salty sand as ever. The dark weed-like shapes we’d spotted swimming around the wave line turned out to be the critters we’d hoped for and the largest black stingray came round into the beach to pass just a few metres from where I stood. Then it stopped and busied itself foraging in the sand , presumably for its own dinner; molluscs, shellfish and any other morsels it came across. It was a fair sized specimen, probably a metre and a half across the wing tips and the same length to the tip of its heavily barbed tail. The thick body was by now quite well out of the water and as it flapped around the mottled white undersides of its wings were easy to see. Its jet-black body glistened like a well-used leather bag in the twilight. Knowing it wouldn’t beach itself I stood as long as I could and only wish I’d had a facemask and snorkel to have come closer to this marvelous creature. And so with a few flicks of its wingtips and some deft manoeuvering of its tail it soon headed into deeper water only to come back round on another pass a little later on.

 

Back on the sand the kids chattered wildly about the stingray in Disney’s ‘Finding Nemo’ and after Sydney’s recent spate of shark sightings and attacks, I’m only pleased they haven’t been brain-washed about going into the sea.

 

As the soft twilight faded fast, Lottie and Scarlett hurried me over to the rock pools to search for any stay out late crabs and starfish. It wasn’t long though before the girls conceded that even the crabs had called it a day and scurried off to bed.

 

With Monday morning rushing round faster than ever we stood a while watching the fabulous lightning bolts tens if not hundreds of miles out to sea, first flickering a glow across the thick grey cloud banks, then zapping down to the horizon joining heaven and ocean like a massive Van der Graaf generator. The sound never reached us for the storms were so far away. Then while looking over this simply enormous view out towards the earth’s most vast ocean, like a bolt from the sky it struck me; oh beautiful world, why we really are so very small.

The Tribe Of 5

The news is leaking out so it’s time to tell…

 

What’s white and blue with yellow and red graphics, five and a half metres long and a good 10mph faster than a mako shark?

 

A boat, and to be exact, Lindsay’s boat. To celebrate her hard won position as the southeast’s general manager she couldn’t resist spoiling us all a little, well a lot actually and as always there’s a bit of a tale to go with it, in that we didn’t spend weeks and weeks scouring the small ads for a boat. Instead whilst on holiday with friends (and boats) at Jervis bay we happened upon a rare find and it’s not made of recycled beer cans.

 

“Make sure you take a trip into Nowra and check out the boat shop, there’s some lovely boats in there…” they told us.

 

So we did and that’s where it all started and soon after ended. At just over a year old with a mere eleven hours under its timing belt sat an all but brand new ‘07 Bayliner 185 and alongside it in competition a ’99 Haines Signature, both were Bowriders with the extra seating up front, both beautiful boats, both big enough for us all but from the start the Haines was trailing in the Bayliner’s wake. The Bayliner captured our hearts and was so new it outshone the 60 hours on the Haines by a country mile. Ultimately, Lindsay was the decision maker and once she had set her heart on it the token conversations over the next twenty four hours all centred around the Bayliner. I was consulted but did it really matter? Was I ever gonna stop her, really? C’mon now…

 

Some paperwork later and we had a boat. No boat licences but a beautiful, almost brand new, licenced for eight boat. Oh and nothing that could tow it right away as the poor old Tarago wouldn’t legally be up to the job even with its lionheart recent new motor. As a solution we towed it home with Garry and Leanne’s V8 Discovery, Lindsay’s Toyota Aurion, ‘ARNI’ was hooked up for service and Australia Day weekend was our maiden voyage.

 

I had been studying online for the NSW boat licence and am not what you would call new the world of boating; my Dad introduced me to the skills of powerboating when he came home one day with a 13 foot Owens speed boat. “Where d’you get that?” asked Mum.

 

“Saw an ad in the paper, thought it’d be fun…” was sort of how the reply went! And I’ve been on and off of, as well as driven plenty of boats small and large, power and sail ever since.

 

For me now though a few practice test questions were needed and a trip into our local NSW Maritime Office with a colleague from work keen to get a boat too meant we walked out as General Boat Licence holders. When I told him we’d already bought a boat the air turned pretty blue!

 

Boat ramp etiquette in Oz is pretty basic – if you’re not having a crap get off the pot! Messers, duffers, can’t doers and general faffing about is not usually tolerated and people’s patience gets thin very quickly. But we were fine, all the old trailer reversing skills came back to me and both my old mate Micky Kyte and I were smoothly relieved when the trailer went straight down the ramp and ‘Tribe of 5’ was slipped effortlessly into the water and pulled round to the beach while the trailer was parked. Unfortunately, the bubbly and brass band were all that was missing from this momentous occasion.

 

The blowers had been on long enough so it was time for ignition on. With a turn of the key the beeper beeped, one more turn and the starter spun the Chev’s six pistons and rods, she caught when the EFI spat unleaded in and the mechanical fuss hummed through the hull idling smooth as a spoon of honey with the exhaust bubbling away under the stern. God I was getting excited! With everybody on and a slight shove off we backed out of the beach. Trimming the Alpha leg was easy enough with the indicator gauge in the dash array but I wasn’t yet sure of how it would sit once we got going

 

We trolled off downstream amid markers and posts, red and green making sure the right colours were kept on the right sides, although there was a bit of panic and shouting from passengers when it looked like I might be making for the wrong side of a starboard mark! However, no disasters even came close until we were out of the 8 knot speed limit area and I decided it was time to wind her up a little and get onto the plane. I made sure everyone was holding on, I asked them all to go sit up front, which they ignored and I checked they were ready. Then all hell broke loose as I fed the power in smoothly and the big bow rose up to the sky like it was on a ramp. Before I could ease the trim, flatten her off and fool everyone into thinking we were doing fine the girls went hysterical. Ted, of course just wanted to go faster and was pretty disappointed when we dropped like a stone off a cliff back into the water. So was I, for it was to be much later before I could feel the surge of 220 horses from the Mercuiser’s 4.3 fuel injected Chevrolet V6.

 

It’s taken a couple of trips to calm Scarlett enough to convince her the boat isn’t going to flip over and Lottie still just puts a towel over her head when the going gets going but they’re not frightened any more. We haven’t had the chance to v-max her yet but have seen the fun side of 50mph. She’s a fabulous machine capable I’m sure of handling some very exciting conditions, capable of teaching all the children to ski and board, of teaching me and Lindsay some new driving skills and delivering bucket loads of fun all round. All in all she’s a perfect Tribe of 5.

 

 

Look At Me I’m Going to School

The end of the year concert performance put on by the staff and pupils at Sunshine Kids day care for 2008 was indeed a sensation. Scarlett had finished her year in the Starlight Room and was going off to school in January. The previous 2007 year’s show had both of our little girls overcome with stage fright, Lottie just burst into tears all dressed up as a Vegemite kid and Scarlett simply froze, staring out into space dumbstruck by it all waiting for it to end.

 

This time however it was all about one little girl who has risen to the very top of her peer class. Scarlett simply stole the show, well OK I know I’m slightly biased and there were probably a hundred and fifty kids stealing the show for somebody but she did, right.

 

Her renditions of ‘Crocodile Rock’ and ‘Mama Mia’ were stupendous and I can’t listen to either song ever again without seeing her strutting her stuff up there on stage, word perfect in every verse. Even now around the house, someone only has to pipe up with a few words from the songs and she’s off. The best part of it though was that she actually looked like she was enjoying every minute of it and although she knew the video camera was pointing at her, she never let it show. Lottie too had stepped up a grade from sobbing uncontrollably to medium stage fright, so it’s going in the right direction.

 

To wind the whole show up the day care staff arrange a graduation ceremony for those children who are leaving and going into school. All those going sang a little number entitled ‘Look at Me I’m Going to School’. We all know the words to that one now as well! There’s a “hat and back-pack, uniform and shiny shoes, look at me I’m going to school…”

 

Finally after they trotted off stage they were called back up the steps to receive a little diploma and a good luck hand shake in all their mortar board and black cape finery. Little Scarlett Heatley rather looked the part as she beamed her way along. And me? Well it shouldn’t be that difficult for you to imagine how hard it was not to explode! It was funny to see her dressed in the gown and mortar board hat but even stranger was to come later on when she first donned the uniform for school. What a change to see her after five years or so of baby clothes, nappies or nothing, T-shirts, shorts and swimmers to be now standing in a pristine blue and white checked school dress with white ankle socks and black shoes! Although she’s far more suited to the school shorts and polo shirt option is our Scarlett.

 

The first few days of school have been exciting in the main – a little daunting maybe but mostly exciting. There’s been a few teary episodes but they mainly happen when Mum or I are around. Left to it she’s fine, even becoming a little frustrated that she can’t read everything yet.

 

But Last Night she finally came home with something she’s been waiting weeks and weeks to be able to do…  homework! Moreover, judging by the way we’ve tackled it so far I don’t think there’ll be many complaints about reading and writing of an evening.

Into 4th gear

If you’ve been following this blog and the thread of stories about changing gears from 1^st to 2^nd and into a rather slow moving 3^rd you will know about our move across the world to Australia and where we are now. They are sort of shortened versions of the main stages and brought frustrations which vented in the form of a very heartfelt rant on the obstacles and how our situation was getting not only complicated but didn’t seem to be heading for a happy ending. That’s all in the past now and things have moved on.

 

Now we find ourselves two years on almost to the day when my little tribe wandered through the arrivals exit lane at Kingsford Smith airport with huge amounts of luggage and Lottie in a backpack! She wouldn’t fit anywhere near it now. A lot has happened and there’s loads more to do but the main things are in place now. The kids are settled in their schools, the routine is almost becoming mundane on some days, except when they do as they’re told, and we have plenty of sports and things to do to brighten days and prevent life from becoming dull. Jobs are settling into something of a rhythm and the turn of events with my situation stopped our little motor from screaming itself to bits at maximum revs with a path mapped out to a more fixed position. Persistent persuasion and tireless hard work between me and the powers that be put a few things in place at the turn of the new year and to cut a long, dull story short it’s all paid off nicely. Nokia Siemens Networks want me as an employee and Australia’s Department of Imimgration and Citizenship have decided, after dredging through six inches of beautifully prepared paperwork and cashing a cheque for a few grand to grant the Heatleys permanent residence – and I can almost hear the sighs of relief gasping across PC screens on every continent!

 

Thus, we can happily shift into a much more leisurely 4^th gear, let the strain off and enjoy a relaxed cruise through town, so to speak. We should too, for the last couple of years have been pretty hard going at times. Apart from the learning curve in my work which has oftimes resembled the side of an inner city office block, I’ve been restricted to remaining in this job because the terms of our just-expired temporary visa were so rigidly enforced that any changes were prohibited.

 

What we have achieved up til now hasn’t been fully appreciated yet but it’s things like sending copies of the kids’ passports to head teachers so they can be enrolled as permanent and not temporary visitors to their schools that I’m most proud of. They would never have understood about being temporary residents and not being able to stay; in their little minds they live here now. Fortunately, the whole paperchase fiasco can be put to bed and certified copies of this, that and the other need no longer occupy large parts of our days. The form-filling and signatures may be less (there’ll still be loads more for something else…) and the feeling we’ve had inside of ‘not belonging’ can go away now for good. Last night we had a little celebratory glass or two of a favourite red from the Hunter coz we’ve earned it.

 

I remember the recent morning at the medical centre in Sydney where we’d block booked for all of us to be certified fit enough and things went from bad to worse as the kids played on the scales, learnt the letters on the eye chart by heart , teased the poor lady filling out our forms and nearly broke the height measuring stick. Then, they mucked about so much running along corridors like Batman and Robin trying to fly, that the poor lady attendant got flustered enough to write down three year-old Lottie’s height and weight as 1.80m and 85kg! I was feeling very woozy after giving blood, Zoe was starting to feel sick at the thought of it herself, I tried to calm the little ones but it was no use as the room spun and I desperately searched out a chair whereupon I passed out groaning like it was all over. Poor Zoe didn’t know what was going on from the room next door, the three littlies stopped playing up and stood around me on the chair with frightened looks on their faces fearing the worst, while Lindsay talked me back into a world of horribly psychedelic fluourescent lights and no windows. I’m sure the staff won’t forget that day in a hurry!

 

Thank heavens it’s all over now and we can read this and laugh. I know it’s been worth every minute of all that palaver too. We can relax a bit and get on with the seriously funny business of enjoying ourselves and one thing’s now certain – at least we can stay.

 

The Residents.