Sunday Stories

By 8:30am, day two of the super gp and all we could hear was ‘VRRRRRRRRRRROOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM, VRrrrrrrrrrommMMMMMMMMM, VRRRRroomommmmmmmmmmmmMMM’ as the V8 cars started their warm up laps two streets over. We were packed up and out the door in 20 minutes.

To the SPIT pete! post haste. Fishing, reading, eating and paddling, big agenda.

Pete had his line rigged and flung out just as I settled under the tree to read my book, seconds later he was reeling it back in, whoo hooo! a fish no less! poof, my book was flung aside in anticipation, up out of the water it came…. We gasped, oh god I said. Pete looked at his line and back to me. Er…. ‘Is that, is that a blow fish?’ I stammered. The fish was about the size of my hand but it was blown up like a pastry puff! um um um… ‘don’t touch it!’ I screeched, ‘just in case you know?!’ and ran to the car to get a cloth. Pete nodded. Can’t a blowfish kill you? Am pretty sure, anyway, we weren’t taking any chances. Armed with a trusty tea towel Pete flipped the little blighter onto his back, carefully removed the hook. and biffed it back. Hansom and brave I sighed.… drama over then eh?

um, really no stories, just fishin…and reading….bit more fishin…..

 

amusing myself with the timer function on the camera…..

 

oh and then PEte  broke his rod. It just clean snapped in half he said, but I was down the road buying sushi so I don’t really know what happened. The way he told it was like this:

‘I was fishing, I think it got caught on a rock so I yoinked it like this (does wrist flicking action with rod remainder) and it wouldn’t come so I pulled it like this (does more vigorious wrist action) and it snapped?! (looks to me, eyebrows raised like that’s that).’

Gee, well, that’s a story eh? I ask him where the top half of the rod is now and he looks at the sea,

‘I couldn’t reach it, even when I stood on that far rock’ (he points to the rock a foot leap away).

‘oh’ I said. ‘well that’s real stink’. I think about it for a bit. ‘you know’, I said, ‘you should’a said you were reeling in a massive fish, probably could’ve been a shark even! and it snapped under the pressure!! that would’ve been exciting!’.

Pete grins and looks down mulling over this new idea,

‘yeah I should’ve’ he says and looks up again, ‘but na, it was just a rock’. HA.

   Am looking for rod remains in the sea.

Lazy day. Laughy day. Good day.

 

Check out how close this little guy came. I love it too, he looked at me for a bit, decided I didn’t have any food, turned his back and walked off with all the might of disapproving teacher. hurmph. ‘no thank yooooooooou very much’.

The gcsgp

The gold coast super gp. that did it for us, we were outta here.

We drove 3 hrs inland to Warwick.

 

To the Rodeo!

As we walked down the roughly tarmac’ed street to the entrance that old Sesame Street tune came to mind….‘one of these things is not like the others..’.

Everyone wore a cowboy hat. Everyone wore jeans. Everyone was a friend of mother checker. You could count on your left hand those of us that weren’t. I felt like a black man in Cornwall.

It made me nervous, I started to picture the worst that could happen if someone were to draw attention to our infiltration. Pointy fingers? Laughter. Cold Stares? I quivered as we joined the queue of cowboys. As each person approached to pay, the rotary club members collecting money and dishing out wrist bands laughed and patted backs of the entry goers. I started to relax, who cares, it’s just people eh? It was our turn. “HI!’ I bellowed, still a little tense obviously. ‘HOW’S IT GOING GUYS!’ Pete shouted out next to me, hmm, not the only one a big edgy I thought. The old geezer looked at me. ‘Um, two adults?’ I asked, it was a questions not a statement, like asking the club bouncer if you can enter when you’ve got vomit down your shirt and you’re holding onto the doorframe for support. He gave us our tickets, his eyes gliding painfully slow between us and nodded us on. ‘Shee-it” I said to Pete, ‘that feel like some kind of Mexican stand off to you?’. Pete giggled nervously, looked me square in the face and said, ‘yup’.

We laughed, who cared eh? we were in and over a sea of hats we could smell horses and excitement. A fair dinkem rodeo, ye-HA!

That sign in the background that says ‘our town, our people, our daily’, really just wants to say ‘our town, our people only’.  I felt a bit like we were  hanging out in someone’s house without being invited.  You know, that’s not even really it, unfair even. They were just perhaps a little wary. Like when you’re walking home and a rottweiler is cruising up the footpath towards you, he’s sniffing the grass, the lamp post, his butt and for all intense purposes is probably quite harmless but he’s big, he looks scary. He’s unpredictable, you cross the street.

Above are the ‘members only’ seats. teee heee

 

Whenever I copy our pics onto the pew pew there’s always two of the above, it always takes me two shots to prepare my face and even then, the second one rarely works out.

How does Pete’s city cowboy hat measure up? oh.

The Rodeo was hot. Dry, dusty that hot hot dry heat that leaves you with a perma thirst even though you just drank a gallon.

We watched the steer roping, bare back riding, barrel racing. Paid 6 bucks for a ride on a spinning arm, met a bonafide cowboy from um….Milton Keynes!? Tried on a thousand cowboy hats only to conclude what we’d feared, only real cowboys look good in those things and left.

It was the heat that pushed us out really, the limited seats in the shade were sucked up by dedicated fans early on and we just weren’t prepared for the sun like our fellow outback residents. The sun bore down on our brows and shoulders and chests burning, I mean really BURNing, while the wide brims of the cowboy hat kept the other watchers well doused in shade. Then there were the flies. They settled on your cheek, crawled up your arms, I got one up my nose and Pete spat one out hurriedly as it made a wrong turn into his mouth. They were everywhere and they were unbearable. Again, our compatriots were prepared with long sleeved cotton checked shirts and jeans. The final blow to our inadequate attire was the shoes. By the time we left my black ballet pumps (I mean really, what was I thinking?!) were tan with dust, my ankles and calves were covered too. AHA, the cowboy boot has purpose!

We called it a day and left past the same old rotary club folk we’d come in past, now lying on concrete floor of their check shack, ‘Had enough then’. stated the old geezer as we passed. His smile that told me whatever he’d thought of us, he’d just been proven right and that had made him chuffed. Everything was right again in Rodeo World.

We headed back towards the mountain range and on through Beaudesert. It was hot, have I mentioned that, finally we hit the cool rainforest of Tamborine and took a hike.

You see that T-shirt Pete’s wearing, says ‘white city NY’ we bought it at Kmart. As we were walking down to the falls we passed a couple about the same age, ‘hello!’ I sing out and they smile warmly. Just as we’re about to disappear around the next corner the guy shouts back to Pete in a think American accent,

‘YO! that a New York t-shirt you got there?’ Pete frowns looking confused, ‘what?’ he says, ‘no, um…Woodstock’, he looks back at the American like he’s daft. They walk on. ‘What’d he say?’ I say to Pete, ‘something about me being from New York’ he says, ‘I think cause my t-shirt says Woodstock?!’.  ‘Oh’, I say turning around, ‘or maybe cause it’s got the letters NY on the front’. Pete looks down at his chest. ‘huh.’ he says matter of factly, ‘so it does’.

Pete never thinks about what his clothes say. If it’s a good colour and a good fit, he’ll buy it. Is it true to assume then that girls that wear t-shirt’s that say things like ‘pop my cherry’, or ‘temptress’  are so oblivious? I would like to think so. It just struck me as odd. Because so often I judge people on what their t-shirt says, am convinced that that’s their world message. Guys that wear t-shirts that say something like ‘yes, I just farted’, or ‘girls enter here’ with an arrow pointing at their cock are mentally black listed by me without a flicker of remorse. Similarly are those woman with male attention drawing t-shirts. To me those t-shirts say, crass, boring, can’t operate sober, up for it, have no brain, got crabs. Harsh isn’t it. Where did I get that mind set from…and more importantly, am I wrong? hmmm…

frikken cockroaches, swings and zombies.

It was a long week at work last week and so on Saturday night Pete and I took ourselves out to dinner in Southport. They sat us tucked round the corner in a little darkened alley with a big  mood lighting candle on the table, very romantic I thought. I joked to Pete that this was where they put the ugly people so other diners wouldn’t be put off entering and he pointed to the big window next to us looking out onto the street and said on the contrary, we were window eye candy to attract more clientele, we bantered on a bit and drank wine till the food arrived. 

Just as I was slicing into my steak a MASSIVE cockroach came scurrying across the stone floor towards my feet.  It was the length of my pointer finger and it scuttled high off the ground on horny spiked legs. It made the bush roaches we get at mums look positively tiny. Shit I am getting crawly just writing about it. I lifted my feet and kept my eye on it until it disappeared behind a pot plant and praying that it would remain in the dark corner recess went back to my meal.

Unfortunately this was not the case, within minutes I felt it crawling up my outer calf and leapt up to see it fall onto the paved wall level with my knee. I ran round the table behind Pete and said “I’m sorry, I can’t I’m sorry”. The waiter came over and said ‘what’s the problem?’ and I pointed out the cockroach now making a hasty retreat back to it’s pot plant. “Can you please get rid of it?!’” I begged and he bent down and as he scooped it up in his cloth napkin I saw it filled his fist. Ahh shit, shit, shit I thought and reluctantly went back to my meal feeling itchy and scratchy all over. Pete gallantly swapped seats with me so I now sat in a little pool of light from the bar and he took the dark corner that I now felt sure was INFESTED with roaches.

Just for the record, I am not short of stamping on the buggers and have squished and removed many ‘big’ roaches under protective swathes of toilet paper in the past, the problem here was:

1. no toilet paper to hand

2. I only had on thin ballet pumps from cotton on that were falling apart at the toes, I felt certain that one stomp in these shoes would leave me with roach guts all over the sole of my foot.

3. I was in public and therefore couldn’t let rip my um… ‘battle cry’ that was a necessary part of the squishing.

As conversation resumed, somewhat tersely, another roach came scuttling out of the light towards my feet but this time I leapt up off my chair in a flash. “NO, nope, no I can’t do it, nope” I said in my most authoritive voice as I picked up my glass of wine and moved to a spare table in a well lit part of the restaurant. Pete came trailing after me seconds later, miffed that I was causing a scene, I pointed out to him that most other woman would have screamed and made a horrendous fuss and he finally realised I was being pretty tame about the whole thing . We got a cap for our half bottle of wine, threw it in my handbag and left. Jesus it was awful. Like big scuttling rats. Fudgeee-magola. Not going back to that restaurant.

Still we managed to cheer ourselves up by heading to the park over the road that we’ve been eyeing up for some time now. They had a flying fox that could take our weight, a bicycle train race track and a big circular basket swing that we stood on either side of and tried to create momentum by bending and straightening our knees. As we slowly started to swing I got impatient and so swept back full force knees bent, butt to the sky and as I came rocketing forwards I went face first across the swing into Pete’s white shirt and left a big smear of tinted sunscreen down it. Hahahahha.

Finally we walked down to the cinema and saw ‘Funny people’ which was good but most of the funny bits had already been shown on the trailer. When we left the cinema there was another dust storm rolling in on 30kph winds and it was like there had been a nuclear explosion, everyone had disappeared, it was eerie. I freaked myself out asking Pete what he would do if a mass of zombies started spilling out behind us. He was very practical and said he’d pull down the cinema roller door. ‘Boring’, I said. ‘So’ he said and that was that. 

Mum’s holiday in Samoa

Following a 4am finish the night before I got up late on Wednesday morning. I padded out into the living room in my jammies, put on the jug for coffee and turned on the news.

The screen lit up aqua blue as it displayed a map of the pacific ocean with Tonga and NZ and a graphic of concentric circles undulating over Samoa. I watched in that sleepy way, simply letting the noise of the TV bring me to my senses and picked up my phone to listen to my messages. They were both from Lou but in reverse with the last one first she said:

‘Mum, I mean.. Am, mum’s fine, I’ve just spoken to her and they have been moved to a room higher in the hotel. If you want to call her she’s at Aggie Greys in Room 51, ok, call me back, bye’.

I thought, eh?? The news had moved off the map and a reporter was waffling on as I picked up the second message:

‘Am, it’s Lou, there’s been a massive earthquake in Samoa and I can’t get hold of mum, give me a call!’

And as the reporter on telly said something about Tsunami and Upolu, Samoa I thought to myself, gee, I sure am glad I got the last message first.

There had been a massive earthquake in Samoa measuring 8 on the richter scale and causing a tsunami that was to kill over a hundred people in Samoa, Tonga and American Samoa.

I called Lou back and got her at coffee group,

‘Hello’ she said in a strained voice,

‘Can you believe that mums in the middle of an earthquake and tsunami?’ I said. I could hear a lot of babies in the background, ‘where the hell are you?!’ I asked.

‘I Know!’ said lou, ‘I’m at coffee group, god only mum eh? She’s going to call me again at 5pm tonight but they’re safe, their TV came flying off the wall and smashed all over the floor!’.

This was very exciting stuff I thought, we rabbled on for a bit until I had to go back to work with promises to talk again after mum rang that evening.

After lunch at work I logged onto the NZ Herald Website where they were posting updates on the Tsunami’s destruction at roughly 20 minute intervals. There had been aftershocks and the tidal wave had since hit Tonga with reports that it had killed 10 people. The death toll in Samoa was now at 28 but they were expecting numbers to reach the 100’s. I also read these two headlines:

2:07pm - The village of Lalomanu so far has sustained the highest number of casualties, with reports of bodies being found buried in the sand.

2:43pm - The New Zealand High Commission in Apia confirmed this afternoon that at least two New Zealand holidaymakers had been hurt by the tidal wave.

"As far as we can tell though their injuries are not serious or life-threatening," said acting High Commissioner David Dolphin.

He said it is possible that more Kiwis have been caught up in the disaster.

There were a known 76 Kiwis holidaying in Samoa when the Tsunami struck, these did not feel like good odds. It also said that one NZ woman had been reported dead, we later found out that this was a woman in her late 50’s called Mary who was on holiday with her husband Andy. She was staying in a tourist hut along the shoreline and was flattened by the tidal wave.

My heart was beating really fast and I could feel the blood from my face draining into my neck. I knew Lou had spoken to mum earlier and she was safe that morning, but it felt like anything could have happened since. At that moment two of the Executive Producers walked past my desk, they smiled and said ‘Hello, how are you?’, my face broke into a massive grin and I boomed back, ‘I’m GREAT thanks! How are you!’  They  left and I went outside and called Lou.

‘Hello!’ I said in my best possible bright and breezy voice

‘Have you heard from mum?’.

“Not yet’, said lou, ‘but she said she’d call around 5pm her time which should be….about now’.

‘Ok’, I squeaked, ‘have you been following the news?’. 

Lou said she hadn’t watched anything since she’d heard from mum that morning. I told her what I’d read on the website trailing off with 4-6 meter high waves and aftershocks…

‘shit am’ she said.

‘Yeah, shit, I’m trying not to panic’ I said. ‘I’ve rung Aggie Grey’s 3 times but it just rings and rings and rings, I tried her mobile too but I bet she didn’t take it’.

‘No’ Lou said, ‘she didn’t take it with her, fuck I wish she had, hold on Am, I’ve got a call coming through’.

I listened to the call waiting tone for 2 minutes before feeling satisfied that if it was anyone but mum Lou wouldn’t keep me waiting so long and so I rang off. I searched back through all the bulletins posted that day until I came across this:

12:03pm - From Mike Purchase, whose ex-wife and kids are on holiday in Samoa: "I finally managed to talk to them after a stressful morning of no contact. They are at Aggie Grey's Lagoon on Upolu Island and appear to have avoided the worst of it. The quake woke them this morning and they described it as the earth 'rolling'."

Apparently one guest at the resort took a leadership role and ran around waking other guests and getting people to the reception area. Staff then took them in trucks to safety in the highest part of the resort. The sea receded substantially but it sounds like they avoided any surge on that part of the island.

I breathed a big sigh of relief. My phone rang and it was Lou. Mum was fine, her friend Liz was fine, the impact of the tsunami seemed to have left old Aggie Greys unscathed. What a bit of luck. Photo’s of the destruction were beginning to be posted on the website showing rubble, cars crushed, boats flung up onto roadsides, just chaos and somewhere amongst all that sat mum with her big fat guardian angel on her shoulder without a scratch.

Thank god. Below is a map of Samoa, worst hit by the tsunami was Lalomano at the southern tip of Upolu Island. Mum was staying in Apia at the time.

Hundreds of Samoans were not so lucky. Mum decided to stay until her flight was booked out on Saturday and has been working with the Red Cross to help people pick up the pieces, sorting clothes as they came in from all over the island and cooking food for people in the community.

I finally spoke to mum this morning and after hearing her account first hand really realised how terrifying the whole experience was. She told me that she can't believe how lucky Liz and her really were as they had planned to go snorkling at Lalomanu that morning, the worst hit beach on the south coast. They were just about to have a quick breaky and jump on the bus. Thankfully when the earthquake hit they were still stood in the doorway of their room swearing all derivatives of ‘fuck’ while watching the concrete building across from their window shake and sway like it was made of jelly. Mum said they were terrified.

After the quake they were moved to the 2nd level of Aggie’s despite the rest of Apia being evacuated to the hills. When the 2nd tsunami warning came out they were eventually moved higher up the hill of the resort and into the 3rd storey of one of the buildings. As the 3rd level was full they had to sit in the stairwell for hours, waiting for news that the danger had passed.

Mum also told me two stories of people she met that broke my heart. One of a mother unable to hold onto all 3 of her young children, watched as her two oldest were swept away by the waves, clutching her baby to her chest the water swept over her again and again and she knew that her baby was drowning against her with the constant water flow. Eventually, she lost her too.

The other was from a father of four only having two arms grabbed two of his children and ran for the hills as the tsunami struck, his other two children were not fast enough and were swept away by the tsunami.

If you want to help you can donate to the Red Cross here:

http://www.givealittle.co.nz/default.aspx