Where’s Eric?

Saturday morning, 8am.

Milly is straining on the lead, dying for a leash-less run around in the park after two days of non-stop rain and only quick visits downstairs for relieving herself.

Sapphire has been left at home, fitfully sleeping, with her mobile resting on her pillow. Mine is in the pocket of my polar fleece and I finger it nervously, hoping that I’m not a terrible mother for leaving her to give a dog forty five minutes of my undivided attention.

Nafeesa’s grandmother arrives from Lebanon today, the lucky recipient of the laughingly-titled ‘fast track’ visa application on compassionate grounds. Yep, only three weeks: how very thoughtful of them to rush it through for a child without an able parent or family..... Nanna will need help though as she’s eighty one, doesn’t drive, is in a strange country and speaks mostly Arabic.

We’ll all pitch in of course and I know that Nafeesa is greatly looking forward to living in her own home again, where things are familiar and the comforting routines can recommence. This past week, she’s been at her friend Paige’s place. Sapphire’s been too ill for us to have her at ours and, well, she’s made it clear that we’re, um, not who she wants to stay with, despite the wishes of her mother and mother’s best friend. Still, if she wants a week of late nights, junk food and sporadic visits to hospital but is having some fun, who can deny her that when she’s endured several weeks of stress?

Love Chunks is in Canada running a conference and workshop; stopping only to head to the airport, bypass the US and do the same thing for another week in Mexico.

I think back to my birthday, two days ago. Sapphire’s blood test showed that her body was definitely struggling with a major illness, but that her major organs (liver, etc) were functioning normally. Her temperature had finally lowered, but the headaches, diarrhoea, nausea, exhaustion and wrenching stomach pains had not.

“Sorry about ruining it, Mum,” she whimpered, head in my lap as I stroked her forehead. “I got up when you were in the shower and your cards and presents are on the lounge.”

She had sewed me a bag for my latest knitting project and alongside it was a golden chocolate Lindt bear. “Look inside the bag, Mum,” she urged, sitting up slowly, the morning light showing too pale a complexion and dark circles under her eyes.

A beautiful hand-made card with sentiments inside that brought me to tears. “No Mum, look in the bag.” Inside was a framed magazine advertisement pulled from a magazine of the month and year of my birth – November 1968. Nestle’s chocolate – Born in Switzerland, their secret is now being shared with you. “I found it on ebay and when we were at Jumbo’s I put the frame in with the ones you had bought and hoped that you wouldn’t notice. Dad did framed it when you were on your treadmill.” Yes, my other present, which arrived a week ago.

More tears from me as I rushed back to the other lounge and cuddled her. She’s twelve now and yet I still automatically breathe in her hair and am instantly reminded of her as a newly-bathed baby. “Mum, you’re not supposed to cry on your birthday,” Sapphire laughs.

Love Chunks writes me an email with a message so simple and beautiful that I’ve read it every time I’ve logged on since. The rest of the day is spent knitting as Sapphire watches the motley collection of Antiques Road Trip shows we’ve recorded, running an ongoing guessing game on how much each item will fetch at auction. The TV is regularly paused for her to recover from a painful stomach spasm or to dash to the toilet and my worry is masked by the rude jokes I make to try and get her to smile. “Everything is about farts and poos with you, Mum,” she says in a not-very disapproving tone.

Two days later and Milly and I are about to walk into the park. A quick glance shows that there are no other dogs nearby for her to scare off, so I bend down to unsnap her lead.

Putta putta putta putta – one of the ubiquitous mini-bikes has screeched to a halt on the opposite side of the street, the driver calling out to me in French.

“Parlez vous Anglais?”

“Yes,” he says with relief. “There was a bakery here...” he gestures to the shop behind him whose windows are papered white, “........do you know where it is now?”

Being an inexplicable magnet for direction seekers, I actually do know. “Here, it’s around the corner, where we’re heading. It’s only been open for two days, very fancy now. Follow me.”

He nods in agreement, driving on the left hand side of the road as he does so, breaking the law. It’s 8am on a foggy Saturday morning, who’s going to notice?

The police, that’s who. Out of nowhere a heavily armoured van pulls up alongside us, six serious faces peering through the dark windows that are now slowly rolling down.

Gulp.

No French this time; I think my ‘Oh My God’ has given them a clue.

“Do you know where Eric’s bakery has moved to?”

Half an hour later, with a muddy but happy dog I’m still laughing as I walk back home, knowing that Sapphire will get a kick of out this story when I see her.

Show us yer map of Tassie














I'm baaack but still suffering a slight speech impediment due to my lips, tongue, throat and palate being continually burned, blistered and shredded into unflattering flaps of peeling skin giving the inside of my mouth a slightly moist and creepy diorama featuring stalactites of weeping flesh fringes due to the molten temperatures of the coffee served in Tasmania.

After a week with the family in South Australia, we three Locketts drove the bum-numbingly boring trip back to Melbourne ("Oh look, it's the Big Koala! And yes, it still looks like a pile of koala droppings and isn't it disturbing that the entrance to the gift shop is via its crotch?") and hopped on the Spirit of Tasmania ferry the following day, thus ensuring another bum-numbingly boring trip to another state.

In fact, despite the 'entertainment' on offer during our 'cruise', Mr Migraine decided to pay me his first visit of 2010 and because we ferry virgins didn't push pensioners down the stairs in the rush to snaggle some decent seats and were left to while away nine hours sitting beside the squeaking door that desperate smokers forgot to close; treating us to passing farts, stray fumes, lashing winds and new hairstyles. If the door did close - again to an agonisingly loud shriek - the wind continued to blast in via the gap in the window that thoughtfully included sea spray spat via the drooping pollyfilla directly into my eyes.

Add the 'Best of Stevie Wonder' being inexplicably and evilly piped through some tinny mono speakers in every part of the boat, toilet doors that would shake into the locked position due to the lurching of the seas thus fooling me into waiting and hopping fifteen minutes longer before I twigged that no-one was in there and the joys of an machine-excreted nescafe with added cardboard flavour and it was a long trip indeed.

I did, however, have the foresight the night before to predict (accurately, as it turned out) that the food available to purchase might not be particularly appealing - especially when wedged in between decades-old lavender fudge, devil tea-towels and the worst example of photoshopping I'd ever seen, featuring two headed people and animals on postcards optimistically and greedily priced at $2.50 apiece.

Love Chunks surveyed the snacks - dried fruit, meusli bars, chocolate and pretzels and then said, "I've got myself some Lucky Nuts." Bless him; he's not usually one to brag about such things but it gave us several minutes of double entendres and some sober explanations afterwards to Sapphire which at least got my mind off Mr Wonder wailing, "....and it's much toooo late to cry...." That's his opinion.




















Then, after the nine hours had finally ended and we were yawning in our cars, another hour was wasted: "Would the owner of the Nissan Microbe on level 3 please come and collect their vehicle to enable the rest of the garage to leave," said the loud speaker, mercifully quelling Stevie Wonder for a wee moment.

Another four cars were called in the following hour. To this day I have no idea what would cause anyone to want to dawdle getting into their car after nine hours on a ferry....

As for our fortnight in Tasmania, I learned a few things.

Firstly, their love of quirky signs:








































Secondly, that Love Chunks is irrepressibly perky on holidays and had us up at 6.30am most days in order to catch a ferry, do a river cruise, get on the road to the next location, see some animals before they became road kill and generally wanting to fully carpe his diem.

Thirdly, Tasmanians, as mentioned first up, love their coffees searingly, hellishly HOT. Love Chunks and I actually developed some empathy for the US woman who infamously sued Maccas a decade ago for being burned by their coffee. Tasmanian stuff needed to be purchased, bleary-eyed soon after LC's 6.30am start, and carefully left alone until it was ready to be drunk at morning tea time.

At Deloraine we stopped off for a wee (I estimate that fifty percent of my time is spent on holidays looking for toilets), some bakery goodies and a coffee. Sapph and I wandered off to the ablutions block which was made out of convict-hewn bricks from a demolished building, had a chat and a pleasant amble through the gardens before dawdling into the bakery. Love Chunks greeted me more effusively than normal.

Turns out he didn't have his wallet on him, so he was waiting there with two coffees, two sausage rolls (his and Sapph's) and a custard tart (mine) and chatting up Maureen behind the counter ("Hey Kath, I showed her my Lucky Nuts") until I coughed up the readies.

By this stage we knew that the coffee - already causing our palms to throb with rapidly painful heat despite the insulated cups - wasn't ready to drink and thus busied ourselves sitting outside in the sunshine eating our selected versions of naughty pastries. Dusting the crumbs off, we three headed towards our car, parked right in front of the bakery.

Poor Sapphire had a coughing fit and promptly vomited up her entire sausage roll. After checking that she was OK (she always is - she's been a 'better out than in' girl her entire life), we clambered in. My coffee sat between my legs as I plugged in my seatbelt and somehow, as I turned around to hand some water to Sapphire, it tipped........ straight into my map of Tassie.

AAAAARGH I shrieked, causing more coffee to scald that most delicate of regions as I frantically wriggled about (hindsight reveals that this merely created more coverage for burning rather than a quick escape), grabbed Sapph's water and doused myself before leaping out of the car, still screaming. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Maureen's worried face, deciding to stay inside and perhaps stick a 'back in ten minutes' sign on the locked door in case we decided to bother her again.

It hurt. No blisters thank God, but a hot throbbing that - usually welcome in that area on other more erotic and private occasions - wasn't pleasant. I wet myself with more water, unzipped my fly, took off my belt and slid my jeans down to Plumber's Crack level and said, "Keep driving, LC." He did, eventually, after his hooting, mocking laughter subsided. He, at least, got to enjoy drinking his coffee (an hour later) whilst mine had soaked into my knickers, under-butt beach towel and - most irritatingly - up my bike rack, causing the 'ol seat cheeks to have to be unsealed via steam, baby wipes and a fair bit of swearing later on.

My Fourth observation is that road kill rules. We'd barely got off the ferry before several beautiful, fluttering butterflies had smooshed themselves on our windscreen and a galah flew straight into our front grille before being flattened into a feathery pancake by the car behind us. The road itself resembled the underside of a block of almond chocolate with lumps of Tasmanian devils, pademelon wallabies, rats, blackbirds, rabbits and possums. For every animal we saw alive, there were 50 spread like pate on the bitumen.

The fifth observation was a pleasant surprise. It is South Australia's own Farmers Union Iced Coffee that rules the corner shops here, not Melbourne's mediocre Big M. It'd be easier and cheaper to ship Big M over, but Tasmanians clearly know quality (at least in flavoured milk drinks) when they see it.

Finally, it was clear that after a week inhaling every fattening, sugary, cholesterolly and bad for me food in Victor Harbor followed by a fortnight of fudge, chips-with-everything, cheap chocolate, roadhouse pasties and no running whatsoever that photos do NOT lie. Elmo, when worn by me, has a set of cheeks that only a squirrel storing nuts for the winter possesses. Back to the treadmill.

The perils of packing

“Have you seen my head-strap torch?”

Er no, not recently.

“While I’m out getting the gas and the hot-cross buns, can you pack all of our clothes so they fit in one bag?”

I’ll try, but please remember that we have a nine year old child who, over three days, is likely to fall down a hill; slip and do the splits in puddles; dribble baked beans, melted marshmallow and curry down her top and sit on a plate of buttered hot cross buns. As for me, I need my ugg boots and tracksuit if I’m to find any kind of warmth in an ancient sleeping bag with nothing but a layer of parachute material between me and the night air and our parkas seem to be about as bulky as Kirstie Alley clad in a King-sized continental quilt. There are hot showers at the site, so I would like to be able to take a towel, wash my bound-to-be-filthy-from-living-in-the-outdoors-body and then have the luxury of stepping into clean underwear afterwards. But sure, I’ll try and dehydrate everything into a silver vaccum pack the size of a cuppa soup sachet and we’ll see how it goes.

“Bloody Bunnings, K-Mart and Rays’ Tent City don’t have any gas cylinders left, said they forgot to order in extras for Easter!”

Oh, you’re back already? Never mind, defrosted bolognese will be a new kind of holiday challenge, and it’ll free a bit of space in the back of the station wagon. Or couldn’t biscuits and cheese be considered a meal? Why are you frowning? Don’t walk away from me – I’m just trying to be helpful – this is meant to be FUN, isn’t it?

“The Sherrin just has to come.”

Fair enough, but we also have to fit in our tent, three sleeping bags, three folding chairs, two card tables, an esky, five shopping bags of food, four plastic tubs filled with our cooking and eating gear, tarpaulins, our clothes, water containers, pillows, blankets, blow-up mattresses, the blow-up mattress blower thingy that connects to the car cigarette lighter, stove-top coffee percolator, beanies, toasting forks, dishwashing bucket, cameras, bathroom bags, torches, gaslight, bottles of wine and this massive bag of choc bunnies that I somehow have to hide from the three other families of kids who are still believers…… oh but can we perhaps lose the bocce balls?

“But we’ve got heaps of space in the back seat.”

Yeah but Sapphire needs to sit somewhere and you know her tendency to projectile vomit if she doesn’t have a view out of both windows and the dashboard air vent blowing directly into her face. The car still pongs of reconstituted chup-a-chup, egg sandwich and apple slices from last time. And remember when the lid of the esky flew off and chipped her tooth?

“Fine, but why are you taking your iPod and laptop when we’re going to an unpowered camping ground?”

Because I spent several dog years downloading our entire CD collection onto my iPod only to earn a premanently painful crick in my neck and don’t want to have to do it all over again if someone sneaks in and nicks it and the same goes for the computer. I’ve saved far too many LOLcat pictures on there to feel exhausted at even contemplating trying to find them all again, plus there's all my book chapters and several important drafts I’m still working on that will just make me shrivel up and cry in a corner if I ever had to write them over again and I know it’s negative to assume that just because we’re living in a gritty inner-city suburb that we’re automatically going to get robbed but I just don’t want to risk---

“Alright, alright, bring 'em. Are we all ready to go?”

Yep. Oh hang on – have to just go and put Milly on my lap until we get to the dog boarding kennel….. please don’t lick, poochy – what the hell have you been EATING? Satan’s arse would smell better than you! (turning head to the back): Sorry Sapphire, I shouldn’t have sworn like that. Have you been to the loo – good. Let’s go then!

“Hey! How come we’re heading towards the West Gate Bridge and not Caroline Springs?”

Er, sorry, I was busy looking at the pretty sights – was I supposed to have the Melways open? Okay okay, keep your hair on – the 1996 version didn’t have the new road for the dog boarding kennel so how is it going to have the new overpass that only opened last week on it?

Four hours of driving and two hours of unpacking and setting up later:

“Kath, isn’t it great to get away from it all?”

Just slosh a bit more port into my cup and rip the wrapper off that Lindt block resting on the esky there. Ta.

Hi-ba! How-ba are-ba you-ba to-ba day-ba?

Good-ba? Me-ba too-ba!

Yes, imitating Fat Albert's speech patterns amused Sapphire and I nearly 24/7 on our two week drive-through holiday of New Zealand's north island.

We both loved the challenge of adding 'ba' to every single word we spoke during the tedium of being stuck behind logging trucks and single lane bridges and simply enjoyed the spit-soaked hilarity that imitating speech impediments as fast as you can always provides. At least for my daughter and I but not, I suspect, for Love Chunks, who tended to look at us both convulsing with laughter as though we were unsightly stains on the brand new seats of the rental car he needed to return without incident or additional costs.....















"But Dad, wait until you hear us sing Abba's 'Dancing Queen' like Fat Albert: 'You-ba can-ba dance-ba, You-ba can-ba jive-ba, having-ba the-ba time-ba of-ba your-ba life-ba, Oooh-ba Oooh-ba Ooooh-ba.....'"

Sadly, he remained resistant to our pleas to join in with our frivolities. He may also have found a soulmate feeling equal dismay in Laura, our Lord of the Rings tour guide, when I decided to pose in the very spot of Rivendell that Orlando - nay, Legolas - did, albeit wearing plastic elf ears and shoving the tip of Frodo's 'sting' blade up my nose in jest.

Or perhaps it was when we were in our fairly-blah hotel room in Napier, still getting over the utter excitement of seeing some badly painted art-deco buildings, the over-priced fur socks at the o-possum shop or somehow finding three wineries using a scandalously inaccurate map only to find that they were all shut until the summer season that we gave up, returned to our hotel room with cheese and crackers and he turned on the taps to fill up the jet-propelled spa bath: the real highlight of our stay there.

Imagine, you fellow parched Aussie readers out there: water so plentiful we sank up to our nipples when walking on the always-sodden grass and the concept of the four-minute shower timer merely an interesting anecdote mentioned to front desk staff at check out time!

"Kath, I've added half the bottle of their bath gel stuff, so it should bubble away for you and Sapph quite nicely."

And so it should have, if I'd been mature and left it at that. But nooo, I wasn't prepared to wait ten minutes to see the water levels rise and the bubbles with it; I had to add the rest of the tiny freebie bottle and the entire contents of another freebie bottle I'd swiped from the previous hotel as well.

When Sapph and I eased ourselves in - elbows keeping every part of our nervous bodies out of the water except our arses which were the first parts of our anatomy forced to endure the hellish assault of flesh-peelingly hot water - the magic button was eventually pressed and the jets pulsated. "Ooooh, this is nice, Mum! Look, I've got a bubble beard!"

Bubbles, bubbles and more bubbles appeared, rising higher and higher until Sapphire had to stand up, and my glass of rose (from the Napier region of course) had disappeared under the white creeping clowd along with the taps, the folded pile of towels and our pyjamas.

"Er, Love Chunks? Are you out there?"

He was, and walked in slowly, the "What have you done?" still on his lips as he saw the quicksand of detergent moving past him in its determined journey from across the bathroom floor, out of the wet area and towards the mini bar fridge. "Where's Sapphire?"

"Oh she's in here somewhere. Aren't you Sapph. Sapph?"

Still, I learned that there's a surprising amount of soaking capability in paper drinks coasters, face flannels and the contents of our week-old dirty clothes bag. And quite a lot of cheap laughs to be had in blobbing on the bed in front of Sky NZ telly watching a ten year old episode of 'Hypnotize' and photographing flavours of Whittakers chocolate not yet available in Australia.

"Hey-ba Sapphire-ba - Want-ba a-ba few-ba squares-ba of-ba choccy-ba?"

"Yes-ba please-ba Mum-ba!"















Sapphire's first comment on seeing this photo she took of me (forsaking glamour for warmth during the Bay of Islands cruise) was, "YOU can dance, you can ji-ive!"