Pinky and Scotto in Paris

Literally, the first thing Scotto did when we arrived in Paris, was to step in dog poop.

Figuratively, the first thing Scotto did when we arrived in Paris, was to lose his shit.

I’d only recently calmed down from my phobia of travelling on the Eurostar under the depths of the English Channel and couldn’t offer much sympathy.

As the train had plunged into darkness on the journey, I couldn’t decide if it would be better to die screaming as a plane hurtles to the ground or to drown in an under-the-ocean tunnel. For some inane reason, I’d forgotten it was a tunnel and had imagined we were travelling along the bottom of the ocean in a waterproof train. I’d spent the whole journey examining the walls of the train carriage for tiny cracks and tell-tale drips.

“We’re in France now,” I said to Scotto when he came back from the toilet and we’d emerged from the darkness during his ablutions.

He didn’t look that impressed. He was sick with a horrible flu and was coughing like a four pack a day-er.

I was elated due to the fact we’d survived the trip without drowning and I had my nose pressed against the window scanning the countryside for anything that looked French.

“I can speak a bit of French, you know,” I said.

“Good,” he’d replied, his eyes gazing around, red and watery, and blowing his nose for the millionth time.

Therefore, it was great to be able to inform him that I knew the French word for ‘shit’ when he stood in it.

It was one of the only words that most of the boys in my Year Nine French class had committed to memory and it has stuck in my mind for forty years.

“’Shit’ in French is ‘merde’,” I told him. “And dog in French is ‘chien’, so I suppose dog shit is ‘merde de chien’, or ‘shit of the dog’.

I suppose if you wanted to be a bit more couth you would say, ‘caca de chien’, which is ‘poo of the dog’.”

I spent most of the three days in Paris translating words I remembered from my lower high school French class and saying ‘merci’ and ‘bonjour’ at every opportunity. It must have been annoying for Scotto.

On hearing the Gallic expression for dog poo, Scotto merely grunted and continued to scrape his boot violently on the pavement and mutter that he ‘hoped’ the poo was from a dog and not a human.

Why he thought there might be human poo on the Paris footpath, I’m not sure.

Maybe it was because the area we were staying in was a trifle dodgy. At least fifty police vehicles blocked the entrance to our hotel when we returned from sight-seeing on the first day. 

There were water cannons at the front door, and we had to request a police escort to enter. We found out later it was because of a protest by Eurostar workers. I’m not sure what they were protesting about. 

I hoped it wasn’t because of cracks in the tunnel.

We noticed a multitude of French dogs pooping in the street after that. They looked to be a lot more arrogant than Australian dogs. Australian dogs look shifty and slightly tense when they publicly poop because they know their owner is standing nearby, ready to scoop up the offensive material in a plastic bag before they’ve had a chance to get a good long sniff of it. 

French dogs know they can take their time and leave artistic Matisse-style swirls of excreta in the middle of the footpath and sniff with gay abandon. 

One of the highlights of Paris was spotting Will Smith. I was busy taking the perfect photograph of the Eiffel Tower when I suddenly heard a gasp from the crowd and felt Scotto frantically shaking my elbow. We love Will Smith and seeing him was on an equal level of thrill factor as seeing the Mona Lisa.

I am fully aware that what I just wrote will confirm your suspicions that I am, indeed, a bogan moron. 

The queue

We had to line up for fifteen minutes to see the Mona Lisa and when we finally reached the famous painting, we had about thirty seconds in which to take a photograph before we’d be bustled away by the burly security guard.

“You take a quick selfie with her and then I’ll take a selfie, and then you help me take a selfie because mine are always tres merde, okay?” I conferred anxiously with Scotto as we stood in line. I wanted my photo to be Instagram perfect. 

You don’t get to visit Paris and see the Mona Lisa every day!

Sure enough, we dithered around taking the photos, arguing about angles and filters, until we were hurried off to the side by the irritable guard. 

I turned to Scotto after we’d checked and posted our snaps. “Did you actually look at the painting?” I asked him, suddenly struck by the fact that I hadn’t even glanced at it.

“No,” he admitted.

We tried to move back in to the roped off area, but the guard was having none of it.

Merdey bastarde!

When we were walking around Paris, I spotted the Eiffel Tower in the distance and pointed it out to Scotto.

He looked at me sceptically. “That’s not the Eiffel Tower,” he rasped. “It’s too small and the top of it is the wrong shape.”

“What? You think they have a miniature Eiffel Tower in Paris as well as the real one?" I couldn't believe him. That’s a load of merde, Scotto!”

I was pretty sure it was the bloody Eiffel Tower but after mistaking a Ferris wheel for the London Eye, I had to keep my trap shut and just keep walking in the opposite direction because that’s what his GPS was instructing. Plus, Scotto was sick and he gets cranky when he’s sick so it’s best to humour him.

Eventually, the GPS led us to the structure in a roundabout fashion and it WAS the Eiffel Tower (of course) but there was no apology from Little Lord Fauntleroy who was growing paler and breathing heavier by the minute. 

That night, I was kept awake by the sound of Scotto attempting to suck in oxygen and I kept imagining him having to be rushed to hospital in an ambulance. 

I pictured myself sitting in a Parisian hospital waiting room, gnawing on a stale baguette and wondered how much it would cost to fly his body home and if he would mind being buried in France.

The next morning, I insisted he visit le docteur.

Ze docteur deed not speaka ze Anglais.

Neither did the pharmacist from whom we purchased a plethora of medications. Scotto almost drank one of the concoctions he was meant to use to bathe his eyes. Even my expert Grade Nine French was ineffective when it came to translating the French instructions. 

By the time our three days in Paris was up, we both decided against buying an ‘I Love Paris’ t-shirt because neither of us really felt like we loved Paris.

It was alright. Not quite the romantic tryst I’d imagined though.

But did I tell you? We saw Will Smith! 

Pinky and Scotto's European Vacation (Part Two)

Bath

“Do you think that’s a ghost?” I asked Lulu. 

Mr Darcy: Jane Austen Centre

I was showing her a photograph taken of Mr Darcy in the Jane Austen Centre in Bath. She grabbed my phone and inspected it with the intensity of a hard-core sceptic.

“Look!” I said, swiping the phone. “It’s in this photo as well.

And if you look closely it’s in this one on the right side of me.”

“Could be your thumbprint,” Lulu sniffed.

“No, it’s not because it’s not on any other photos.” I triumphantly showed her the other photos.

“I think I can make out a face,” Lulu said.

I quickly snatched the phone back from her and turned it off. Ghosts are okay if they’re just wispy bits of fog, but I didn’t want to know about any eerie faces appearing.

“I think it was Jane herself,” I said, hugging myself with contentment. “She knew it was me coming to pay homage, so she dropped down from the ether for a visit. You know, fellow writer and all that…”

I’d become all teary when we first walked into the centre because I’d wanted to go there for so long and I love her so much.

It was definitely Jane’s spirit and not a thumbprint. Besides, according to the Singapore authorities, I don’t have thumbprints.

I was nearly captured and imprisoned on the way through Singapore to London because no matter how many times I submitted my thumbprint to security, it drew a blank. 

Smooth as a baby’s bum my thumbs are. 

For all I know, I don’t have fingerprints either.

I was innocently standing behind Scotto at Changi Airport, (who merrily scanned his thumb and walked straight through the checkpoint) when I was detained. 

Scotto didn’t see me desperately poking my thumb in the machine as he was fiddling with the luggage. A machine gun attired guard grabbed me by the arm and escorted me into a side room, demanding my passport without a smile on his face.

Naturally, whenever something like that happens, I become sweaty, nervous and highly suspicious-looking.

‘Don’t talk, Pinky,’ I muttered to myself. ‘Whatever you do, don’t start babbling on and making stupid jokes about terrorists, like last time you did at Brisbane airport. This is Singapore. They shoot people here, idiot.’

“Do you come to Singapore a lot?” the guard asked, eyeing me up and down.

“Never,” I blurted. “Well, once I did. But that was twenty years ago. I mean thirty. Thirty years ago. Thirty years ago I was here.” I grinned sheepishly.

He continued to stare at me with hard beady eyes and I could feel heat rising up from the back of my neck and sweat trickling down my face. 

I didn’t want to sweat because they might have thought I’d swallowed heroin. I've seen Border Security on the telly.

“Not that there’s anything wrong with it. It’s nice. (cough) Singapore is lovely. I wonder why I don’t have thumbprints?” I wiped a thick streak of sweat from my top lip with the back of my hand.

I could see Scotto through a glass barrier. He was looking confused, worried and more than slightly irritated that I’d seemingly disappeared into thin air.

I think the guard took a photo of me. I can’t remember because I was so anxious and was obsessing about Schapelle Corby in Bali, and rats in prison cells, and having to use my Nicorettes as collateral in jail instead of cigarettes. 

I thought about how I might finally get a book published if I had a Singaporean prison story but then I thought about missing out on my holiday to London and felt a bit miffed.

Finally, they let me through, and I tumbled out of the secret room to find Scotto looking around in a bewildered state of fury.

“Where were you?” he hissed. “You’ve got to stop disappearing on me, Pinky. I thought you’d been abducted!”

Later on, after I’d calmed down, I googled why I might have no thumbprints. Apparently, four people in a hundred have difficulty at Singapore Airport because they have worn down prints. They wear off with age, so I’m told.

Hmmmmffff.

Singapore

Pinky and Scotto's European Vacation (Part One)

(Video above is clandestine footage taken of Pinky descending a castle staircase)



On looking back at our holiday photographs, I can honestly say that I don’t care if I don’t see any moss-encrusted turrets, Gothic spires or stained-glass windows for a while.

I don’t care if I don’t get to lug a suitcase along cobblestones in the rain, decipher the engineering of a hotel shower faucet or climb up and down a slippery castle staircase either.


We’re back from our trip abroad and had a fantastic time, but BOY is it good to be home.

On our first morning in London, we woke up at some ungodly hour full of dribbling, unbridled hysteria and left the hotel in the darkness at seven am. 

Spilling out onto the streets of Balham like a couple of Dickensian chimney sweeps, the shock of the cold almost killed us. 

Our first port of call was a coffee shop called Café Nero. It’s a franchise all over the U.K. and it became our frequent pit stop.

Cafe Nero

 I was so excited to be in London, I bought a gingerbread man and took a photograph of it and posted it to Facebook. I realise you can buy plenty of gingerbread men in Australia, but it was either that or a toasted cheese sandwich and I thought the former had a more English ambiance about it. 

The second thing I bought in London was an umbrella from Sainsbury's.

Buckingham Palace to see the changing of the guard was our first destination. Apparently, the guards don’t do the proper ‘change’ during inclement weather, so I think we missed it. We were there watching and waiting but nothing much happened. The guard kept stepping in and out of his cubicle and fiddling with his gun and at one stage a booming voice yelled out, ‘Get off the fence’. Scotto got a fright as he thought the voice was yelling at him because he was hanging over the railings trying to take a picture, but I think it’s all part of the performance. 

Next, we walked all the way to Harrods. "Look Scotto!" I shrilled in excitement and pointed to a distant wheel. "There's the London Eye!" We decided to wander over after our Harrods excursion. 

Whilst we browsed the finery on display in Harrods, Scotto spied a pen for sale.

It cost 20 000 pounds. Yes, I know. That’s quite a lot for a pen which I would probably lose after a day or two, so we didn’t buy it. 

Heading over towards the London Eye, we came across a squirrel in Hyde Park. It crept out from behind some shrubbery and started to beg for food but the only thing we had was my gingerbread man and I wasn’t ready to open it, so we gave it nothing. It was a long, damp walk to the London Eye so you can imagine how disappointed we were to discover when we arrived on blistered feet that it wasn’t the London Eye at all. It was just a lousy Ferris wheel set up in Hyde Park. We sat at a café and ate some scones with strawberry jam and clotted cream instead which were delicious but made me feel a bit sick.

After ‘tubing’ it across London, we met up with my daughter, Lulu, and had drinks with her and her workmates. The view from the pub afforded a panoramic scene encompassing the actual London Eye. It was quite a bit bigger than the Ferris wheel in Hyde Park I must say. 

Portobello Road Markets

The next day, as Lulu had finished her teaching term and was on holidays, she accompanied us to the markets. There was no Hugh Grant to be seen at Portobello Road and Lulu insisted we move on to Camden Markets instead. I’m glad she insisted because it was one of the highlights of our trip. Rambling along cobblestone paths surrounded by the aromas of mulled wine and roasting chestnuts transported us into the soul of Medieval Britain. There were buskers and Egyptian stalls galore and exotic dishes sizzling all around us. There was a shop specifically focussed on vaginas which wasn’t Medieval and which Scotto was reluctant to enter. 

“Do you think I should buy one of these vagina postcards?” I asked him as I gazed around at the statues, posters and vagina shaped lollypops. But he kept staring at the ground and shuffling his feet in an awkward fashion.

One thing I really admire about the British is their ability to briskly walk down a street, en masse, carrying umbrellas, and not bump into anyone else. I hadn’t developed this skill and was constantly jostling people and having to apologise.

The rain was annoying but we saw a double rainbow and we knew that signified a magnificent holiday to come. 

Lulu took us across London Bridge to the Eye (finally) and then on to the British Science Museum. It was dark when we left so we got to see the Winter Wonderland skating at Leicester Square. This was part of the reason we warm-blooded Aussies travelled over in winter; to see the Christmas lights. We weren’t disappointed. 

There are no leaves on the trees in winter, so the best scenery is at night. The sun doesn’t rise until 8am and it sets at 4pm which meant we had to squeeze a lot into a short time.

The things I was most nervous about on the trip were firstly, feeling the cold, but my coat was like a down-filled quilt and kept me so warm I didn’t even need gloves.

My second fear was getting pickpocketed, but my coat had an interior pocket so I knew where my credit card was at all times.

My third fear was getting stabbed by a lunatic. I just had to get over that one myself.

On the whole, I felt pretty safe in London and the only time I ever felt in any danger was the day Scotto and I decided to walk to Wimbledon Common. Scotto had his heart set on buying a Womble from Wimbledon. I know. Most men want to go to watch the tennis. He particularly desired a stuffed toy figurine of Great Uncle Bulgaria or something and he’d read that Wombles could be purchased from the Windmill gift shop at Wimbledon Common and NOWHERE ELSE IN THE WORLD.

It was only an hour and fifteen-minute walk according to Google Maps so we set off early in the morning.

As we meandered along through a suburb called, Tooting, we came across three young men urinating on a building. We passed them but they soon overtook us and then stopped, loitering on the corner and going through rubbish cans. There wasn’t much traffic on the deserted road and I became a trifle nervous. They looked like they might hassle us and even though I was with my roguish Womble-loving thug of a husband, there were three of them and only one of him.

“Why don’t we take a side street to avoid those guys,” I suggested to Scotto.

We did, but somehow Google maps took us on a different route and our gentle one-hour amble to Wombledom turned into a three-and-a-half-hour uphill odyssey which left us with trembling quadriceps and wheezing asthma.

After dodging muddy puddles and wild and woolly hounds running loose on the common, we finally arrived at the windmill to find it was closed for the season, so Scotto failed to collect his Great Uncle Bulgaria after all. 

Wimbledon Common: Wombles: Nil

The café was open though and I plunged my choppers into the most delicious Lemon Drizzle cake I’ve ever eaten. I don’t usually eat cake but at that stage I would have eaten a five-day old Womble carcass I was so hungry.

We caught an Uber home.

On reflection we should have caught more Ubers than we did. We’d caught a taxi from the airport which cost us $150 and had felt bitterly remorseful ever since. Getting off a plane after a 13-hour flight, in the dark, in a strange city, lowers your defences. There was no way we could have dragged our luggage onto the Tube in that situation. 

Overall though, the Tube was excellent value but the journey during peak time made my hair stand on end. All those people crammed into a sardine tin hurtling through underground tunnels… shudder. 

On the Tube

Christmas Day was fast approaching. The plan was to breakfast at Lulu’s place then move on to a full Christmas dinner in Tooting. We had bought our daggy Christmas jumpers and were ready to party.

A Possible White Christmas?

Like Dick Whittington and his cat, in a few days’ time, Scotto and I are off to London to make our fortune. Unlike Dick Whittington we are not taking our cat. 

(Frankly, it doesn’t deserve an overseas holiday since it recently cost me $800 at the vet after getting a bacterial infection from eating a gecko. It annoyed me a lot because cats are supposed to have nine lives and I probably should have let it take its chances.)

Also, unlike Dick Whittington, we will not be ‘making’ our fortune but rather ‘spending’ a fortune. And most of that fortune will be spent before we even leave Terra Australis.

Celine, Pablo and Polly have been booked into a luxury boutique pet chateau called, ‘The Bark Royal’, where they will enjoy airconditioned comfort, a television, a terraced garden and two allocated play dates a day with bonus treats.

The boarding expenses cost me twice the return airfare to London.

Not only that, because of Celine’s pernickety dietary requirements and penchant for displaying symptoms of Irritable bowel syndrome, I’m supplying all the food.

My two older dogs, Willy (17) and Borat (14) are staying at home and my parents are moving in to look after them as well as cater to the whims of Dick Whittington’s cat (who isn’t allowed to go to London). 

I’ve spent the first week of my school holidays ferrying boot loads of dog food, biscuits, dog treats, cat food and kitty litter back from the shops. I could have tried to do one big shopping expedition, but I don’t think my car would have made it back up the mountain.

We are off to London, not to see the Queen, but to see my daughter, Lulu, who has been teaching in the motherland for almost a year. 

We’ve booked Christmas lunch at a place in Tooting. I’ve ordered the full-on turkey dinner and proper English pudding for dessert… so there might be more than the usual tooting in Tooting on Christmas Day.

I told Scotto I want to visit Jane Austen’s museum in Chawton and the Bronte Parsonage Museum in Yorkshire. 

My mother told me I’m being cruel to force Scotto to go to places like that, but I’ve agreed to go to see Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker in London with him to make up for it.

We both want to visit Notting Hill to see Hugh Grant’s bookshop, Diagon Alley and also the Beatles Museum in Liverpool. We’ll be spending New Year’s Eve in Edinburgh and Scotto might eat haggis for dinner to get into the Hogmanay spirit. I'll tell him what it is after he eats it.

Scotto is keen to buy a scarf in his McFarlane family tartan. My great grannie was a Wallace so I could buy some tartan too. Perhaps we’ll run into Jamie from Outlander. (Don’t tell Scotto I said that. He gets a bit funny every time Jamie takes off his shirt on screen. Probably because of my whooping loudly at the telly, idk.)

We have three days in Paris before we fly home and Scotto desperately wants to see the Champs Elysees. He doesn’t know what the Champs Elysees is, but he still wants to see it.

“Is it the Yoplait tubs?” he asked me last night.

That’s how Scotto absorbs his knowledge of Gallic ‘culture’. No pun intended. 

Everyone has warned me about how cold it’s going to be there, so I bought a knee length coat from Kathmandu (guaranteed to withstand a small avalanche in Nepal and made from Red Pandas) and some thermal underwear. Only one pair of thermal underwear, but I probably won’t take them off for the whole three weeks. 

I’ll end up smelling like Dick Whittington’s cat towards the end of the holiday, I suppose, which is good because I'll be missing my animals and it might comfort me.

Anyway, I wish you all a merry and safe Christmas and hope to post some tasteful and well-composed photographs during my trip. xxx

I’m Not Smart and I Can Prove it.

Recently, I bravely uploaded my raw genetic data into a website that can tell you what predispositions you have towards dreadful diseases, personality quirks and whether asparagus makes your wee smell funny or not.

Daunting much?

Naturally, it turns out that I harbour particular genes which predispose me to the usual horrible afflictions like, ALL the types of cancer (including prostate), coronary heart disease and colour-blindness,… but happily, I also possess some of the ‘protective’ genes, so fingers crossed they balance each other out.

Unfortunately, though, there was some more important and devastating news in the report.

Apparently, I am in possession of an average intelligence.

I KNOW. I was stunned.

How could this be when I've often suspected I was a bit of a genius?

The first thing I did when I read it was ring my mother.

“Mother dear," I croaked piteously into the phone. "Do you remember how you yelled at me when I ashamedly brought my grade five report card home and I came eleventh out of a class of thirty? Well it turns out you’re a child abuser. It wasn’t because I was lazy and mucked around in class, it was because I have average cognitive ability. IT WAS’NT MY FAULT! I have the intelligence of a ringworm!”

She didn’t react because she can’t hear me on the phone due to an inheritable, age associated propensity to hearing loss.

I told my father face to face. He just kept nodding and smiling at me as if I wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t already know. Mind you, he’s deaf as well.

I won’t say I haven’t struggled adjusting to this new and unpleasant level of self-awareness.

Now, when the television ads for the Bachelorette come on the telly, I have to pull myself up short. I can no longer scream out, “What frickin moronic imbecile would lower their IQ and watch this drivelly tripe?” because the scientific evidence shows that I’m the exact kind of imbecile the programme is aimed at.

When I read the inane comments in the ‘Text the Editor’ section of the local newspaper, instead of casting a scathing eye over the rubbish they write and sitting back in superior disgust, I now feel an affinity with the idiots. They’re my people. My tribe.

I’ve come to understand why it is that I have done, and continue to do, silly, silly things.

I’m just not that clever.

I tried to reason that perhaps in my case, nurture has outweighed nature and that even though I wasn’t gifted great cognitive prowess at birth, I may have developed higher order thinking through my upbringing and education.

But then I realise that in the last five years I’ve never been able to fully complete a Courier Mail crossword, or learn to conjugate simple French verbs or understand gravitational time dilation even when Scotto spent three hours trying to explain it to me after we watched the movie Interstellar.

The report did reveal that I possess a significantly higher capacity for memory but even a parrot can reel things off so that’s not really indicative of intelligence, is it.

It also said that I have larger than normal cranium area which could be a sign of enhanced brainpower. Of course, it could also be a sign of a hollow space with nothing to fill it.

In short, the whole revelation has been quite liberating. Whenever anyone tells me, “Surely you can do better than that, Pinky?” I can reply, “Well, actually I can’t… and I can prove it.”

I must add the website was free so if you have any raw data hanging around and you want to find out if you’re a mediocre human too, feel free to message me for the link.

And my wee does smell funny after eating asparagus in case you were wondering.

Surviving School Camp... Just

My Tent

Part of the recent school camp last week involved actual camping. You know what I mean, the ‘sleeping on the ground with only a veneer of delicate nylon between you and the local bunyips’ style of camping. To say that I wasn’t looking forward to it is like saying that Russell Coight is a bit accident prone.

Two other teachers and I, chaperoned seventeen boys and six girls on the ominous adventure and as we trooped along the track to the camp site, we lugged heavy backpacks, sleeping bags, tents, cooking paraphernalia and a sense of morbid anxiety in our hearts.

Actually, I was probably the only one carrying the anxiety because the two other teachers were young strapping males in the prime of their lives and the kids were all manic with excitement and nothing could dampen their enthusiasm.

Bear in mind there’d been precious little sleep the previous night. 

On arrival, I’d found myself allocated a cabin containing sixteen 12-year-old boys who all seemed to have early onset prostate issues.

They’d been up and down to the toilet every twelve minutes during the night. I’d hear the squeaking screen door whine piteously, then slam with the force of the bomb at Hiroshima and then their heavy feet would stomp along the wooden floor back to bed as if they were trying to make a point of waking everyone in a three mile radius.

If it wasn’t the freezing air seeping through the floorboards disturbing my sleep, it was the thunderous galumphing of nocturnal ablutions at 12-minute intervals ALL NIGHT.

After our dusty trek to the camp site, the teacher in charge assigned two of the girls to choose a spot for my tent and set it up for me. Whilst I was grateful for this kind gesture, I couldn’t help but be alarmed at the position they eventually decided upon for my sleeping spot.

Not only was it set underneath one of the only two trees in the entire area, it was set under the other tree as well.

Isn’t it recommended to never pitch a tent under a tree because of lightning strikes/falling trees/fornicating possums? 

And here I was placed under two very large eucalyptus trees which frankly looked slightly rotten at the base to me.

Also, it was about a ten-minute hike to the Portaloo from where they’d placed me and we all know what a 59-year-old woman’s bladder is like, don’t we? But I couldn’t say anything because I’d already whined about the possibility of snakes and spiders getting into my tent all the way down the track, so I had to just suck it up and not be a princess.

The kids were mandated to cook their own dinner in the darkness by the wispy light of torches.

Guess what they cooked for dinner?

Bean burritos.

Halfway through their dessert of canned peaches and custard, I noticed several boys heading off to the lonely, communal Portaloo across the paddock clutching their stomachs. 

The Portaloo

I needed to get there and do my last wee for the night before the Portaloo was turned into a scene from a lavatory-themed horror movie by twenty-three unstable digestive systems. 

Sprinting across the paddock, images of brown splattered toilet seats whirling around my brain, I suddenly had the urge to just keep running and running, like Forest Gump, never to return. I could run back to the cabin, get my car keys and escape this carnage.

But what would I tell my principal on Monday?

I could say I’d been abducted by aliens, or attacked and held hostage by a Yowie, or that I’d stumbled on a rock and had transient amnesia.

I finally reached the Portaloo panting and spluttering and stood behind Butch Cassidy who was sitting on the step outside the door twirling his Akubra hat in his hands and waiting for Billy the Kid to finish up inside.

“How long has Billy been in there?” I demanded, trying to work out if Billy was doing a number one or number two. 

After a few seconds the smell and noises alerted me to the fact that it wasn’t number ones Billy the Kid was doing. No sirrrreee. Those beans were evacuating through the system with accelerated momentum.

I could hear Billy the Kid humming to himself inside the cubicle. The worst part was that Billy the Kid had gone in without a torch and seemed to be sitting in complete darkness. How was he going to wipe his bum efficiently if he couldn’t see what he was doing? There’d be tan-coloured skid marks all over the toilet seat for sure.

Butch Cassidy let out an audible fart. “Hurry up, Billy,” he called out, hammering on the door. “I’m busting for a poo!”

“Um, Butch, sweetie,” I coerced. “Do you think you could let me go first? Please?”

The notion of suffering the heady pong of two different blends of poop was too much for me to deal with.

“But Mrs Poinker, I’m busting!”

“Well I’ll be quick,” I snapped as, holding my nose tight, I pushed past the departing Billy into the depths of hell.



During the night, I tossed and turned within the confines of my inadequate sleeping bag, kept awake by the unsettling mating call of a randy koala who I estimated was located about three feet from my tent. 

My ears were also pricked for the tell-tale creaking of branches and cracking tree trunks so I reckon I had about ten minutes sleep all up.

I was overjoyed at 4:45 am to finally see the glimmering light of dawn through a crack in my tent. I could hear several boys hooting and kicking a football around the campground already, but I didn’t care.

I’d survived the night.

It was the most horrible experience of my life. It was uncomfortable, cold and I think I have a scrub tick in my armpit.

But I survived.

The Dam

It's Not About the Size of the Sausage

Polly

I happened to be sitting between my principal and the school librarian during a meeting last week as the staff deliberated over the titillating task of refining and pimping a dreary mission statement.

The teachers in the room had just concluded a half hour’s heated discussion on whether the word, ‘promoting’ was more effective than the word, ‘enhancing’ and I had wanted to slash my wrists or at least break for a cup of cyanide-laced tea. 

 

We’d broken into groups and now it was just the three of us work-shopping an innovative slant on the word, ‘community’.

“My dog’s in season,” I suddenly blurted.

A stunned silence fell over my two companions and after a moment of scrutinising me with a curious look in his eye, my principal cleared his throat and said, “You really just blurt out whatever happens to be on your mind, don’t you, Pinky.”

It’s true.

I hate that quality I have, of ejaculating non-related, often inappropriate comments into conversations, or worst still, opening a conversation with something bizarre and totally random. I’m sure many people assume I have something mentally wrong with me. Or that I’m extremely impetuous and erratic.

I think I put people off sometimes.

But now that I’ve broken the ice and told you that little story, you won’t be shocked or put off when I tell YOU that…

my dog is in season.

Little Polly has become a woman.


As you know, we have three male dogs in situ, however, they have been fixed up except for one, the unfortunately named, Willy.

Willy is an arthritic, sixteen-year-old terrier which makes him 112 in human years and he’s unlikely to bother getting off his hammock to wee, let alone do any vigorous mounting.

Scotto did mention he’d observed Willy has developed a bit of a spring in his step in the past few days, but Polly doesn’t fraternise with him alone anyway. 

Whilst some of you might be thinking, ‘please don’t tell me she’s going to dedicate an entire blog post to her bloody (literally) sausage dog’, you don’t need to worry. 

So, what is this blog post about if it’s not about the sausage?

It’s about growing up.

I think I have finally done it. 

Grown up that is.

Last Sunday, Scotto came in from mowing the lawn and this is what transpired.

“Sweetie,” he panted in an alarmed tone as he wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Have you noticed your back windscreen is smashed in?”

I put my crossword down and stared at him.

“What are you talking about?”

“Something has gone right through your back windscreen.”

“Something?" I arched a gentle eyebrow. "It was fine last night. You must have hit a rock when you were mowing and it’s flown up and done it,” I replied calmly.

He began to shake his head in denial. “No, it would have made an exploding sound and I would have heard it,” he replied as he fiddled with the industrial ear protection hanging around his shoulders.

I saw him take a gulp.“You were wearing headphones and the mower was so loud the dog was shivering in terror on the couch. Do you really think you would have heard glass shattering over all that?” I said with the serenity of Mother Teresa.

His face crumpled and he shrugged in defeat, then he sat down on the couch to dial our insurance company.

As I continued to non-violently fill in my crossword, I listened to the pitch of his voice on the phone gradually rise in fear as the conversation progressed.

“Um... Can you check if the policy is under the car registration number if it’s not there under her name?” he was saying in a mildly panicked voice.

My eyes remained rivetted on the Sunday Mail puzzle page and my breathing was that of a Zen master’s.

It seemed there was no insurance policy.

“Surely I haven’t been driving my new car around the rugged countryside sans insurance of any kind?” I purred like a cat waking from a restful sleep. (Scotto looks after all the stuff like insurance and taxes and boring paperwork you see.)

“Of course not,” Scotto stammered, the back of his neck reddening. He grimaced. “Just let me call another number.”

After a bit of frenetic to-ing and fro-ing (which I listened to with the tranquillity of a Tibetan Monk), the insurance people found the policy, and all was well, except that they couldn’t come and fix the windscreen until Tuesday.

“You can take my car to work, Pinky,” Scotto magnanimously offered.

This meant he’d be driving my car around and that annoyed me because he’d adjust the seat to fit his long legs and it’s taken me eighteen months to finally get it right. 

But did I retort in a shrewish or snappish manner that his car is a horrible povvo car because it doesn’t self-lock and you have to use a key?

Did I whinge that I’d just filled my car up with ludicrously expensive petrol so I would be ready for the week and not have to go to the servo?

Did I become aggressively assertive and yell at Scotto because spiders and snakes now had easy access and in the future weeks I could be attacked by a venomous creature without knowing about the colony of funnel webs breeding on my backseat floor?

No.

No I didn’t, because I have finally grown up. Seems like Polly is not the only one.

How to be a Vegan Pariah

“Are you a vegan, Mrs Poinker?”

The question had come out of the blue in the middle of a Math lesson and now the entire class sat staring at me with disparaging faces waiting for me to answer young Buster ‘Muscles’ Calhoun’s provocative question.

Buster Calhoun’s parents own a cattle farm. I think a few other kids in my class have parents who own cattle farms. Several of the teachers I work with have beef cattle as well.

Imagine me sitting in the staff room every day fastidiously eating my can of pinto beans and chickpeas, my apple and my banana. It’s no cake walk let me tell you. There’s a low tolerance for hipster vegans in this part of the world.

“No,” I replied. “I am not a vegan, Buster,” I replied, then quickly added, “Not that there’s anything wrong with being a vegan, unless you raid farms or hold up traffic in Melbourne’s peak hour.”


“Are you a vegetarian?” Buster persisted.

“No,” I said. “I’m not a vegetarian. I’m a pescatarian.”


“I thought you were a Catholic,” Kit ‘the Predator’ Maverick blurted out.

“A pescatarian is someone who doesn’t eat red meat and eats fish instead,” I said, hoping we could get off the subject and get back to learning about the minutiae of Cartesian planes.

“Why don’t you eat red meat?” Buster asked, his little face taking on a mock bewildered expression.

I was silent for a moment while I pondered on a possible answer.

Because the thought of my teeth ripping through the flesh of a once living creature is appalling to me? 

No. I couldn’t say that because I knew they’d tell their parents and I’d get into trouble for painting despicable images in children’s minds.

These kids are tough though. They can be sentimental, but farmer’s kids are realists. They all own beloved pets but a lot of those pets are working animals. Blue Heelers and Kelpies that round up the cattle and sleep outdoors on hessian hammocks, unlike my pampered mutts who monopolise my bed each night and sit on my lap as I eat dinner with their snouts snuffling at my chin.

“My husband loves red meat,” I finally answer as if that might make me seem a tad more normal to them. “My kids all eat red meat too.”

They seemed strangely disappointed but silent at the same time and I congratulated myself on having dodged a bullet and prepared to get back to explaining the x and y axis.

Belle ‘Trigger Finger’ Ferrell put her hand up. “Do you believe in climate change, Mrs Poinker?”

Now that was another loaded question fraught with controversy.

My brain frantically tried to recall the Australian Curriculum. Were we supposed to be explicitly teaching that climate change is a factual reality? Teachers are most certainly directed to teach about sustainable practises, but I wasn’t sure about climate change.

“What I believe isn’t important,” I said. “What you should do is read all the information and make up your own mind so you can believe whatever you think is right.”

“Do you believe Maths is important?” asked Josiah ‘Shotgun’ Wiggins.

“Yes. Of course I do.”

The entire class erupted in guffaws. “You just said that what you believe isn’t important so that means Maths isn’t important.”

Suddenly, I saw what they’d done. They’d flanked me like a cattle dog does a steer or a sheep, keeping at a constant distance in a circular pattern, nipping me on the nose, and skilfully driving me into the sorting pen.

Bloody grade sixers are too smart for me.

Toast Tuesday

Like many schools, my school endeavours to teach children to be kind.

We want our students to grow up displaying empathy for others, to show compassion and to not act like they would if they were say… the sole surviving species in an apocalyptic scenario where everyone over the age of sixteen was dead and they were free to pillage the world eating each other’s brains.

Part of this education in altruistic benevolence is Toast Tuesday and Toast Thursday.

Our ‘social justice’ committee in Year Six is commissioned to purchase, prepare, cook and decorate slices of toast and vegemite twice a week to the poor, unfortunate, and starving children at our school.

May it be noted, that not a single one of our students is poor or unfortunate or starving, however, we persist in the making and doling out of toast to the hungry horde.

When I say we, I mean mostly me.

Why? I hear you ask. Why is it mostly you?

Is it because those selfish little brats on the ‘social justice’ committee can’t be bothered to turn up early in the morning to toast duty, thus leaving you all alone to shoulder the burden of asking, “Would you like toast and butter or toast and vegemite”, two hundred times, twice a week?

No, it is not.

The reason the millstone is placed around my own scrawny neck, is because I have personally carved out that millstone myself and wear it like I would a string of pearls gifted to me by my Grandmama on her deathbed.

I love handing out toast. It makes me feel… valued.

When the little preppies wobble up, their sweet faces barely showing over the counter, I get to hand over a delicious slice of golden bread dripping with Black and Gold Margarine with the salty black congealed tar that is Vegemite spread thickly over the top, and they smile at me and say, “Thank you Mrs Poinker”, and I feel as though I’m doing something great for humanity.

Unfortunately, like Gollum with his precious ring, I have become a little possessive of my career niche.

We had an important early morning meeting one Tuesday.

“I can’t come, sorry,” I said to the Principal. “I have to make toast.”

“Don’t be ridiculous," he said. "Get someone else to make it. You need to be at the meeting.”

“That's impossible,” I said. "I’m sorry but no one else knows how to do it.”

He looked at me with a quizzical glint in his eye. “No one else knows how to make toast? Don’t you just put it in a toaster?”

“No,” I said in a mysterious whisper. “There’s a lot more to it than that.”

Ten minutes later, the Deputy Principal came barging into the tuckshop, chucked me out and ordered me to go to the meeting, but I bet the toast didn’t taste anywhere near as good that day AND she left crumbs in the toaster tray.

The only problem with Toast Days is the ‘social committee’. If I didn’t have to put up with ‘helpful kids’ getting in my way as I bustle around busily, things would be perfect. 

But wouldn’t that be defeating the purpose, I hear you yelling.

No. They have their whole lives in front of them to be kind. I’m running out of time.

I try to sneak into the tuckshop and have two loaves of bread toasted and buttered before they even notice I’m there.

“Do you need us to make toast, Mrs Poinker?” they’ll ask, breezing into the tuckshop with their annoyingly bright helpful faces.

“No,” I sigh in martyrdom. “I’ve done most of it. Try again next week.”

One time, an over-enthusiastic social justice committee member had the audacity to take a piece of toast out of the toaster.

“What are you doing?” I trilled. “That’s my job! It’s far too dangerous for you to touch the toaster. Please don’t do it again. Just stick to buttering thank you.”

And I don’t like the way the kids butter or put the Vegemite on either. I have a specific method of application which can not be replicated by an amateur.

Soon, due to many reasons, I shall have to depart my dear little country school and I will be mandated to write a resume.

‘Very good at making toast’, will be heading my list of achievements.

Just How Boring Am I?

We recently ripped up the carpet in our bedroom and replaced it with a vinyl/timber hybrid that, according to the man at Harvey Norman, is fully waterproof. 

More importantly, it’s vomit, diarrhea and urine proof so now when it’s 4:00 am and gentle heaving sounds emanate from under the doona and we feel a Chihuahua scrabbling desperately up through the bedclothes to get to the bathroom, then ten seconds later, hear short exploding sounds from under the bed, we don’t have to panic quite so much.

It’s life changing really.

Also, it’s a relief to know that whatever sins the previous owner, a little old lady according to the real estate agent, exacted on the carpet… animal sacrifice, orgies involving messy liquid ejections, experiments involving the use of leaking test tubes in order to isolate the ebola virus… we no longer have to have them in the back of our mind when our delicate, pink, bare feet slide across the carpet.

Vacuuming is much easier, I found the hand cream I lost three years ago when we moved the bedside tables and we don’t have to store all our suitcases under the bed to prevent the cat from using it as a litter box forcing us to pull it out by the tail as it lies on its back playing dead anymore.

I want to hybrid the entire house including the walls and ceilings, that’s how much I like it.

There were a few moments when I wanted to take a photo and post it to Facebook and Instagram but I suddenly realised that all my friends post photos of cute babies, overseas holidays and sunsets so a picture of my hybrid floor probably wouldn’t get anyone excited.

I was also going to post a picture of some gnaw marks on a wall where Polly the sausage dog likes to chew, but I’m sure that’s not very interesting either, even though a dog slowly eating a house one wall at a time is a first for me.

I’m kind of glad Instagram has decided to hide the likes because now nobody can see how I don’t get very many because of my incredibly boring photographic choices.

Bit like this blog post really.

The truth is, since giving up the booze and embarking on a healthy diet regime, I’ve become a terribly boring person. Giving up alcohol has physically and mentally aged me.

Even though I’m now free to drive after 6:00pm because I’m not ten sheets to the wind, I absolutely refuse to leave the house after dark.

We go to matinee sessions at the movies and the last three movies we went to were Aladdin, Toy Story and The Lion King. Even then, I felt the music was a bit on the loud side.

My social life consists of a cup of tea with my eighty-year-old parents once a fortnight (if they’re free).

Last Saturday morning, Scotto and I became unreasonably excited at the extra-large sized Pink Lady apples on display at Coles.

We’ve stopped watching Sunrise in the morning because of the ads and have started watching ABC Breakfast.

I stopped wearing makeup and switched to zinc-oxide sunscreen because I’m afraid of the chemicals in normal sunscreen.

I had my hair cut into a bob with a fringe.

The optometrist told me I have the beginnings of cataracts and I keep checking in the mirror to make sure I don’t look like the guy from Kung Fu.

Only a boring teetotaller would remember either the show or that the guy from Kung Fu had cataracts. 

We watch television in bed every night and we refer to our favourite programmes as ‘our stories’.

“Let’s hop into bed and watch our stories,” I’ll say to Scotto, pulling my flannelette pyjama bottoms up to my armpits and shuffling over to the stove in slippers to heat milk for cocoa.

But the most boring metamorphism my friend is the anti-social introvert I’ve turned into.

I call into the same service station twice a week and for the first time in two years the lady at the counter struck up a long pleasant conversation with me. My over-riding thought as I drove away was that now I’d have to find a new service station to patronise.

Very bloody boring person I am now.