Mystery Number Six is solved

Mary finally agreed to meet with me after I solved the fifth mystery for her. I needed to know - did her heritage-listed, wedding-cake styled 19th single storey terrace have a 'map of Australia' or an unravelled sock as a deterrent?

Never, ever underestimate the power of good coffee, or the offer to buy someone some. On my way to Pepper cafe to meet Mary, I soon found out my answer. The map of Australia or unravelling sock that protects her home is an Airedale Terrier who is coincidentally also called Milly.

My Milly was then turned around and taken home because despite her friendliness towards humans, she's not very kind towards other canines - especially if I show an interest in them. It's a shame actually, because the moment she sights another dog she turns from a genial orange Jorgi into an angry walnut with hackles who snaps and yells and refuses to be cajoled into friendliness, let alone acceptance or tolerance.

As such, my Milly was left howling behind our Gates of Hell in voluble indignance and I started walking back to Mary and Milly's (now to be abbreviated to M-and-M) house.

I needed to know:

Is my neighbourhood so lawless and dangerous that she needed a dog sign to scare off any rapists, looters or potential pillagers?

Are Airedale Terriers aggressive?

Has her Milly protected the M-and-M house from danger?

If so, is Milly's innocent 'Ugg Boot with a tongue' appealing looks merely a clever disguise to lure criminals or overly-keen leaflet distributors into feeling a false sense of security?

Milly was surprisingly difficult to get an answer out of that didn't involve licking my face as I bent down to pat her, or sniffing my jeans in intimate detail. Luckily she was soon engrossed in the leftover breakfast sausages a waitress gave her at the cafe.

It turns out that Milly is only two years old but is already a media celebrity and local icon so maybe the 'mystery' was only in my own relatively-new-to-the-area mind. As Mary is the coordinator of the locally produced and written newspaper 'The Flemington Kensington News', Milly has already featured in a story about her vital role in helping Mary through a range of personal blows that would challenge Dr Phil and Frasier combined as well as appearing in a local fund-raising calendar put together by Mr P's mother. Small world, isn't it?

Turns out too that M-and-M haven't been traumatised by crime or dog nappers or anything worse than the occasional drunken reveller winding their way up the street to or from the police station. The scary sign was earned by Milly when she won third prize in an Airedale dog competition. She was the smallest of her litter and Mary is an Airedale fan from way back: "Our previous dog used to let my son grab his tail and slide him along the wooden floors."

Milly's only chomping have involved upholstery, producing some big holes in a couch - "a retro classic I'd just had re-covered" - but none involving any human appendages.

As we chatted, a gorgeous lady embodying Melbourne came up to us and asked if she could pat Milly. You know the type - sleek black bob, a slick of red lipstick, groovy clothes and spunky shoes and handbag. "I have an Airedale too," she cooed, "called Audrey." Audrey too has been a celebrity, as Julia revealed that she was one of a litter of eleven who survived the February bushfires at St Andrews. Her human owners shifted the mother and the pups from room to room of the old stone house as the fires raged outside, wondering if, as the house burned around them, any of them would survive.

They all did, cowering together in the last room of the house with the fire inexplicably and mercifully moving away from the house and towards bushland instead. Audrey's mum works at a boutique around the corner from our caffeine supplier and sometimes accompanies her. Mary and Julia started talking about arranging a playdate for Milly and Audrey. (Milly and Audrey sound like two spinsters crocheting antimacassars to me!).

Mary and I enjoyed the winter sunshine talking about local issues, writers living in the area, her career in nursing and night shelters and the joy of buying a house in the nineties before prices went ridiculously skyward.

Eventually it became too much for young Milly - the doting pats from passersby and my fussy photography found her hiding under the table before I departed to go to the supermarket and Mary had work to do. Mystery solved; except for my Milly who gave my trousers an extra long sniff when I got home.

Question. Dumb. Ask.

Love Chunks and I were sitting companionably at the dinner table, sharing some shiraz in the warmth and gazing into Melbourne's rainy darkness outside.

I had to say it. "What did you enjoy most about our holiday?

"The parts where you weren't there."

Sapphire's eyes


Travelling with ten year old Sapphire is always a joy and more often than not it is she that is scolding me rather than the other way around: "Mum, why do you always end up talking about farting?"

Travelling with Sapph in the middle of Australia on mostly un-sealed roads in a truck-ish 4WD with a motley group of tourists and camping out under the stars in swags has been an even more rewarding experience and one that I've been privileged to view (partly) through her eyes.




















When we arrived in Alice Springs on the very first night, we were in a nice resorty-hotel, wearing our then dust-free Melbourne clothes and about to order dinner in a nice restaurant. As we perused the menus inevitably peppered with kangaroo, camel and (presumably frozen) barramundi, Sapphire opened the conversation with "I remember the first time I saw an old lady's beard up close."

Oh? Turns out it was when she went to church with Grandma. "Yeah, I saw a few that day." Over our shared pitta and dip entree platter, I made Sapphire and Love Chunks swear on their eternal souls that they would ensure that I never, ever grow a beard. Not even when completely gripped by Alzheimers or Dementia and wearing my knickers around my neck in a locked ward. "No matter what the cost or the inconvenience, please promise me that I won't end up looking like Billy Goat Gruff - hell, let's talk up starting up a savings plan for my post-retirement grooming fund!"

Geriatric whisker issues aside, Sapphire has noted my heartache about the cholesterol situation with interest, pity and a healthy dose of 'Well, what did you expect' pragmatism but kindly informed her father that "Mum has been really good, hasn't she? She even gave me the mini-Toblerone we got on the plane."

That's right readers - I have been good. However, I'll admit to ordering cappuccinos lately purely due to the sprinkling of chocolate powder they shake over the frothy milk but Sapph seems to have joined me in avoiding cholesterol, telling the waitress, "I'd like to have the kids meal of spaghetti bolognese but please don't give me the chips but a green salad instead."

"Okaaaay," said the waitress, giving me the This-Is-A-New-One-For-Me raised eyebrow look. Hunger and laziness prevented me from talking about the time when we were in Coles going over the fruit and veg when Sapphire spotted a kilogram-sized back of brussels sprouts and came rushing over. "Look Mum, a whole bag of brussels sprouts! I LOVE these - can we have some please?" Another woman wheeled her trolley over me and whispered out the side of her mouth, "Did I just hear that or dream it?"















As we visited, walked, climbed and photographed Uluru (Ayers Rock), Kata Tjuta (The Olgas), King's Canyon, Palm Valley and Ormiston Gorge, she studiously wrote down all of the Aboriginal art symbols and bush tucker plants in her tiny notebook. When our tour guide Geoff cooked up some kangaroo bolognese for our first meal around the campfire, she tasted it, smiled and said, "I think that this is your signature dish, it's full of flavour."

On our second night, we found ourselves at a cattle station camping ground, with a wood-heated hot water system feeding a shower open to the elements. The black bottle-shaped heating contraption needed heaps of handfuls of spinifex, wood splinters and team effort to get going, but careful planning (ie yelling out "Is anyone in there?") ensured that no-one was caught imitating the full moon in their exposed nudity.

Sapph and I were the first in on the basis of her youth - get the kid clean and in the swag first. Love Chunks stood guard outside and pulled his cap over his ears to soften the impact of our screams of agony as the 'hot' water - roughly air temperature or 4C - rained down on our bodies. Sapphire was gasping for breath as I squealed and apparently those sipping their tea peacefully around the fire a few hundred metres away suddenly decided to forgo a shower that evening.

Later that night was a snore festival like no other. Two couples were all snoring, somehow cruelly timed so that at any given moment those of us still awake were always treated to the leaf-blower volume of an inhalation and the angry walrus sounds of exhalation. Soon an additional percussional element entered the fray - kind of like a sweeter, softer version of Donald Duck - wallah wallah wallah wallah wallah. Lying there in the spotlight dazzle of the full moon, I couldn't help but start giggling at the irony of 'getting away from it all' and yet being surrounded by a cacophony of ear-nose-and-throat emanations to rival anything that inner Melbourne had to offer during rush hour.

A minute later everyone else who was awake sat up and started laughing - eleven out of sixteen of us were all sitting up in our swags and wrapped in our sleeping bags, cackling louder and harder than the snorers yet woke up none of them. Perhaps they'd already deafened themselves.

Sapphire made friends with Toughie, a barrelly blue heeler who lived in the Oak Valley Aboriginal community. He lay beside her at the fire and lifted his front paw to guide her hand towards his stomach, insisting on a tummy scratch. Hours later he waddled away, sated with love and left over BBQed steak.




















There were tears on the last morning when the hot air balloon had inflated enough and the imposing wicker basket was ready for us to climb into. Her anguished face looked up at me as she grabbed at my jacket, "Mum, I don't think I can do---" before being drowned out by Franz's call to us all, "GET IN NOW!" She did and she loved it.

On the flight back home, we buckled ourselves into our seats and got out our respective books and newspapers. Tapping me on the arm she said, "I just don't think I could ever marry anybody called Rupert."
"Why not?"
"Well, you once said that it was a ridiculous name for a man."
"Did I? Oh, but I was only joking - what if he was nice and----"
"No Mum, I'll never say yes to someone called Rupert."

We opened up our books and read for a minute or so before she tapped me again.
"And Mum?"
"Mmmm love?"
"He can't come from Footscray either."
"But what if he's kind, smart, funny and rich?"
"Then he won't be living in Footscray."

She bowed her head back down into the John Marsden, smiling.

Ain't got nothing but love, babe.....

....EIGHT DAYS A WEEK!

If you've ever been on the road for a long drive or five, you'll understand the importance of having some music to listen to.

Add to this the individual tastes of seventeen other passengers whose ages range from ten to seventy and things can get interesting. Geoff, our fearless, camel-lovin' tour leader passed around his iPod for us to select a song each for an 'on the go' soundtrack and the resultant sounds that accompanied the rainbow desert landscape of Central Australia were a strange mix indeed. Think the Beatles, Kaiser Chiefs, Black Eyed Peas, Midnight Oil, Mozart, Abba, Moby, David Gray and Red Hot Chili Peppers just for the first session.

By the fifth day my notebook was being used more to write down songs to search out myself to download than to record any decent diary details. However, I learned a lot of things on this trip; none of which were mentioned in the brochure:

Being warm is far more important than being stylish. However, I did take off my beanie when a camera was around because it makes me look as though a big blue donger is growing out of my scone. If I was wearing my head torch as well, I might as well have been a walking advert for circumcision.

Apples and meusli bars taste like MasterChef manna from heaven when you're roughing it and have just done a seven kilometre hike through rock and rubble. Almost-frozen champagne also tastes delicious even when it's 4C, windy and dark and you're standing in front of Uluru and the Olgas (Kata Tjutu).

Carrot cake (with the lusciously, cholesterol-ly, cream cheese icing) featured in my dreams. Every single night. Not chocolate - why?

Dutch, Canadian and German backpackers use musk lifesavers as a dare in drinking games. It's apparently a rite of passage to buy a pack and see who can keep it in their mouth the longest before gagging. First one to spit it out has to skol their drink. "I thought they were mini urinal cakes," said Reinier.

Large milkshakes enjoyed at a road stop soon turn into intestinal cottage cheese when enduring a bone-shaking 2 hour drive on an unsealed track.

I actually have bum bones. After days of sitting on rocks, dirt and swags, they made their presence felt.

It is easy to horrify Italian kindergarten teachers. Making innocent conversation as we did the dishes, I said, "So, your husband tells me that you two first met at a nightclub?"

"No! no no no no no!" Her eyes were wider than the plates she was stacking. Her husband and translator, Alain, wandered over to ascertain the cause of her distress. They chatted rapidly in Italian.

He smiled. "She thinks you meant a Strip club."

Ah.

Some things at Uluru are more shocking than the price of coffee and souvenirs in the gift shop. One bloke stood behind his open car door, pulled down his trousers and sprayed his Kyber Pass and Dangle Twang with deodorant before hitching up his pants and going to work on his armpits. Most passersby were spared this scene but I unfortunately was approaching from the rear.

We had a competition one night around the campfire to see which of us had the best porn name (first pet you had + first street you lived on). Penny won with Pussy View. Lord knows what she thought of our bawdy hoots of laughter because she revealed to us the next day that she's studying to be a Uniting Church minister.

Robbie, our guide from the Oak Valley Aboriginal community says he likes to eat Witchety grubs raw and at the base of the bush they live in, "but my grandies turn up their noses. They take 'em back to nanna to cook."

Hygiene standards become incredibly lax. By Day Five I was wiping a knife smeared with homous onto my dusty jeans, then using it to cut up some chicken; wiping it again on my legs before cutting up some tomatoes and giving it a final swipe across my upper thigh. There. Nice and clean and put straight back into the cutlery box.

And I finally found the perfect place to fart without detection or disapproval by offering to hold the balloon strings as it filled up with hot air.

Best holiday ever.

Sulker on Safari

Love Chunks, Sapphire and I are heading out into the great Aussie outback for an adventure this school holidays. Granted, we'll be forgoing the hellish week-long drive along the dull and dusty plains and instead be flying on the big silver bird into Alice Springs, but then we're saddling up for a 4-wheel-drive camping trip sleeping out under the stars in swags.







Cool, hey? We want Sapph to see the awesome magnificence of Uluru (Ayers Rock), the Olgas and King's Canyon and to visit an Aboriginal community and get a feel for central Australia. Plus, unbeknownst to her we've booked a hot air balloon ride on the last morning, which will hopefully be rather memorable (at least, until LC said, "Isn't this where that balloon crashed ages ago, killing and mangling all those poor people?" Er, yes).

I'm going for all of those reasons (except the balloon disaster situation) as well, but and also for a personal one of my own - to silently apologise for my behaviour of some time ago. Way, waaaay back in the deep, dim mists of time to 1985.

I wasn't exactly a 'handful' as a teenager because as a teacher's daughter and all-round academic goody-goody in a big bad high school of 1500 students, I was too timid for anything approaching rebellion. The closest I got to being a Wild One was skinny dipping in the Murray River during a girl's camping weekend when I was sixteen, but luckily it was poor Marie who was caught doing a bold starfish leap into the water when a speedboat full of yobbos zoomed past and I was mercifully in the poo-brown water right up to my chin, and at least the smoke from the campfire disguised the three Alpines that I wheezily attempted to inhale instead of 'bum suck'.

Anyhow, by 1985 I was sixteen-and-a-half, deeply into my final year of school and - more importantly for me at the time - experiencing my first real taste of love. Reciprocated love.

Therefore, to be unceremoniously dragged away from our netball grand final - which we won and I was captain of the team!! - and to be reduced to reaching out of the car window and scrabbling to catch the premiership medal as it was thrown to me by the presenter as Dad pulled out of the carpark in our packed-to-the-gills 4WD was distinctly not needed in my hormonally indignant teenaged opinion.















I'm the one with the shocker perm, top right - Dad just leaned out of the car, took a quick photo and said, "Good onyer, now GET IN, we're going!"

Neither was the four day drive up to Alice Springs where a can of warm coke was all that gave us any respite from the choking red dust, David's sniffles (a combination of asthma and suffering from a broken collarbone after running back for a mark and donging into the points post) and the toyota's cassette stereo that played every tape a few beats slower than normal so that Mum and Dad's collection of Nana Mouskouri, Roger Whittaker and The Kingston Trio sounded even drearier, if that's actually possible.....

The only highlight I recall was seeing a sign - literally in the middle of nowhere and not even against a wreck of a building or fence post - that said, 'Lesbians Are Everywhere.' I proudly posed for that photo, wondering just why Dad insisted that it be me and not Mum who did it.

The rest of the trip saw me sulking in every single photo. My reasons for this were immense and numerous at the time:

• Not being able to spend two weeks hanging around the heaving metropolis of Murray Bridge (pop 10,000) with my boyfriend


• Having to set the bloody tent up every night because David had his arm in a sling


• Running out of batteries for my walkman


• Getting a very bad cold that saw me nearly heave up a lung when I finally reached the top of Ayers Rock and have an old guy hobble over and ask, "Are you all right, dearie?"

• ..... only to see an empty coke can and cigarette butt at the summit
  
• My folks befriending some large - and overtly Christian - family at the Uluru camping grounds with my only refuge being to hide inside the tent at the card table doing my biology assignment by gaslight and having it corrected later by Dad in red biro
  
• Knowing my new perm was going disastrously wrong when the hair mousse wasn't packed and electric dryers weren't able to be plugged in
  
• Being forced to eat meusli with powdered milk for breakfast ("But Mum, the bark chips by the toilet block would taste better than this"); and


• Seeing the walls of the tent dangerously collapse in and out in time with Dad's leaf-blower-like snores every night.

So, this time, I want to forget about my hair or setting up an infernally complicated tent, shaking up putrid powdered milk in an empty mayonnaise jar, chatting to religious campers, missing my main squeeze, worrying about the music or dying of swine flu when admiring the Olgas.

Wish me luck. Or should that be, wish Love Chunks and Sapphire luck?

The demonic Doctor Checks

Walking into my local medical centre isn't a welcoming experience. Several coffee cups have been squashed on the steep front steps with their sticky contents dribbling down the grey tiles and making a nauseating soup when mixed with cigarette ash and butts. The graffiti scratched onto the glass doors doesn't enhance the atmosphere either.















Inside the over-heated waiting room, I'm given the luxury of time to observe my fellow patients and to consider just how the very worst of cheaply slapped-together 1990s architecture has stood the test of time. Answer: it doesn't. The once-white ceiling tiles are blooming with latte-brown water stains, the huge green formica reception desk is so gouged that the chipboard underneath has become a crazy-paving feature and the once-proud 'Chemist next door' enamel sign has been covered with a torn piece of paper with handwriting informing me that the 'Neerest chemist is 300m walk further up the road.'

A three year old boy and his mother sit beside me. Well, she does: he's busy doing lap after lap around the low coffee tables, saying "When can I see Dr Checks? When can I see Dr Checks?" over and over.

Dr Checks? Dr Cheques? Is his mother running some kind of blackmailing scheme...? I put my boring novel down and am rude enough to raise one eyebrow at her quizzically. To her credit, she doesn't say, "It's none of your pharkin' business," but laughs and says, "Hugo likes ---" she looks around, sees her target and points "-----that doctor over there, the one in the houndstooth jacket."

I see a stooped old man in glasses slowly shuffle behind the reception desk to reach for his next file. He most certainly would have been around to see the celebrations at end of World War One.

Hugo rushed over to tug at his mother's skirt. "See Mum, Dr Checks is here! Dr Checks! Dr Checks!"

Hugo is shushed by Mum, and I go back to my book. Both of us still have to wait our turn and she tries to ease her son into the idea that it might be Doctor Blue Shirt he sees instead of Checks. "His grandfather has the same jacket," Mum whispers to me and says brightly and in a louder voice to Hugo, "But blue is your favourite colour, isn't it sweetie?"

"Ye-e-e-e-e-sss...." Hugo's voice had now moved up an octave to a high pitched whine that was starting to rattle the windows. "But I wanna see Dr Checks!"

It was time to plough back into the dull book on my knee and let the mother of Hugo try to cajole him with a trip to the water fountain, the tatty community brochure stand, the toilets and shooshing him again when he saw the enormous nose ring in a punky-emo hybrid guy who'd just sat on the other side of him: "Why is he wearing a bangle in his nose?"
"Um, it's a nose ring, Hugo. Some people wear them as jewellery, like you sometimes like to wear my bracelets and necklaces."
Nice response, I thought, but not Hugo. "Yuk, it'll get boogies on it."
Fair point too.

Dr Checks came back out into the foyer.
"Yay!" yelled Hugo, "It's my turn, Mummy!"

Dr Checks smiled - or was he merely airing his dentures - and said, "Mrs Lockett?" I grabbed my bag and left the room to Hugo's anguished sobbing.

Three months ago, at the urging of Love Chunks, I underwent a cholesterol test.
"We'll call you if something's serious, so no news is good news," said the doctor filling up the test tube with my red stuff at the time.

No phone call was received, so I was in the clear: my cholesterol test was obviously OK and I could continue to inhale chocolate, cheese, chips, meat, pastries, pies, eggs and donuts with greedy abandon. Especially chocolate.

















Today however, found me there to get my tumour checked up on - keep an eye on those pesky prolactin levels and have a wee whinge about the unwanted and increasing visits from Mr Migraine. He was becoming the medical equivalent of a stalker.

"You look very fit," Dr Checks said.
"Oh, I am", I sat up straighter, beaming with pride and huge spadeful of vanity. "I run at least three times a week, power walk twice and am a good girl and eat lots of fruit and veges and-----"
"But," Dr C looked down into the folder. "Your cholesterol level is much too high."
"Wha-a-a-a-t?" My smugness disappeared up the anus from whence it came. "But I was told by the other doctor that no news is good news!"

He affected that pose that's so infuriating because you just know you're in for a lecture and you know it's probably deserved but you just don't want to hear it: he lowered his glasses and looked down his nose at me. Pompous git - and look a him sitting there with his old man moobs sweating in crescent marks on his too tight business shirt, about to lecture me, an educated, intelligent, responsible adult about diet and exercise, the nerve..!

"Your cholesterol level is 6.5 and it should not be anything higher than 5.5. The doctor here has made a note saying, 'Discuss this with the patient when she arrives to collect her test results'."
He pushed his glasses further up the bridge of his nose to deliver the final pompous, know-it-all, you-can't-handle-the-truth barb: "That was THREE months ago. Surely you must have wondered what your results were?"

As intended, it was now my turn to play the part of the sheepish, admittedly ashamed and naughty patient and the role fitted perfectly. "Well, um, I just assumed that if it was really bad, one of you would call..."

Dr C held up a tired, I've-heard-it-all-before-young-lady hand. "You're not about to be carted into an ambulance, but you need to do something about it now. Seriously."

And the next fifteen minutes involved talk of cutting out full fat milk, cream, butter, cheese, red fatty meats, chicken skin, animal fats, coconut milk, palm oil from my diet entirely. Yep, okay, fine, nod nod nod, can do all of that. Sure, absolutely.

And no cakes, eggs, bacon, biscuits, donuts, pastries, pies, tarts or quiches. Ye-e-s, okay, it'll be a struggle but yes, my health is important.

Of course I knew what was coming next.

I knew it, he knew it and you know it, don't you?

"How much chocolate do you eat a week, Mrs Lockett?"
"Oh call me Kath, you already know so much about me, inside and out, heh heh, although I don't want to have a pap smear today. Did you know that I'm a chocolate reviewer and writer and manage to look only slightly chubby instead of Jabba the Hutt-like due to my dedication to exercise and the proper intake of vitamins and min--"

"How much chocolate do you eat a week----" he paused, to let his authority and moral detachment sink in more fully "-----Kath?"

Like a mathematically challenged eight year old, I went through an average week, listing each block, truffle and bar and counting them on my fingers. "Well, I had lunch at San Churro - so it was a meal really, not an additional snack, but then there was the two Nestle blocks which were a gift from Helen and M&Ms have released an orange flavour that is only currentlyavailable in the 200 gram bags and it's greedy I know, but it took me three blocks before the willpower to photograph it emerged in order to write the review for the daggy but delicious Cadbury Tiramisu dessert block and just this morning I finally got a hold of the new Lindt Classic flavours and...."

I just can't write the figure here. It hurts too much. Let's just say that if Dr Checks had any hair left, his eyebrows had risen high enough to have hidden amongst his fringe.

"You have to cut that by at least ninety percent or you'll be in serious trouble."

He might as well have yanked my heart out with barbed wire gloves and plonked it into a tupperware container and slung it in the staff fridge to rot amongst the ancient sweet chilli sauce sachets and yoghurt tubs.














A few minutes later, I slowly walked home. The morning sunshine was too bright and harsh, and my backpack was heavy. Love Chunks opened the door and the moment he saw my face, said, "Oh my god Kath, what's wrong, has your tumour grown back again?"
My eyes were blurred with tears. "But I love what I do...."

I hadn't dared show Dr Checks what I'd purchased from the supermarket before my appointment with him; just a few treats to see me through a week in central Australia on a 4WD camping trip that was not likely to fully cater for my specific needs:

Still, if I get to eat ten percent of it....?

Sleepover at Sam’s

Samantha Phillips was my best friend all through Primary School. From the second I clapped eyes on long white hair and wowser-yowser glasses-that-magically-changed-to-sun-glasses in the heady days of ‘reception’ in 1974, I fell into deep and abiding LIKE.

As the years progressed, Sam’s glasses turned into the cooler, silver-edged ones and her sensible uniform gave way to cork-soled sandals, three-tiered skirts and oodles of crushed velvet. Needless to say, for a kid whose mother made her wear the voluntary school uniform at least 95% of the time, Samantha was also my sartorial hero.

Where we did disagree was regarding who was going to be Agnetha during our ABBA lip synch events. I was the bossier one and tended to win, but Sam had the dead straight blonde hair and would have been a more obvious choice: Oh well, in our version Frida had clearly overdone the bleach and tinted contact lenses….

My fondest memories are of the sleepovers I had at her place. Whilst my family home was a monument to all that was fashionable when my parents got married (ie 1964 complete with black vinyl and green fabric lounge, lunar module legs on everything, a crystal cabinet and florally lurid axminster carpets), Samantha’s parents were fully committed to everything that was fashionable and fun about the 1970s.


















Their white, rectangular house looked unassuming from the outside, but as soon as you stepped into the cork-tiled hallway and got a glimpse of the pool room with ‘Abba in the Moog’ on the turntable and a beaten copper wall plaque, you knew you were in for a visual treat.

The kitchen was bright red and blue formica and glossy paint accessorised by a yellow semi-circle light that swung precariously over our heads as we worked the electric popcorn machine on the bench. The lounge was mostly brown, with a modular that was so soft and velvety that your butt cheeks eventually sank to the floor so that you were staring at the Rank Arena at a lower angle than even the cord bean bags alongside.

Going to the toilet there was always a bit of a drama for a shy petal like me because the loo was open and only divided by a bamboo screen that was a merely decorative nod to privacy and certainly not an effective one. With the ferns alongside it, I half expected to see Molly Meldrum in there conducting an interview with Jean Paul Young and the Countdown crew.

Samantha’s room wasn’t particularly restful; not that such an issue was important to two girls aiming to chat and giggle all night long. Plus, we could look through the window at the Murray Bridge Look Out next door and see cars pull up and young couples in there smooching. It was as entertaining and as enlightening as leafing through her mother's stash of Cleo magazines.

Sam's curtains were huge diagonal stripes of dark purple and sunburst yellow – a theme that also extended to her furniture, floor coverings and bed. My envy of the colour scheme was only eclipsed by the fact that Sam had her own record player and we played ‘Take a Chance on me’ ceaselessly.

















Or at least it must have seemed so to her brother Corey, whose adjoining bedroom was done with similar furnishings but in a retina-burning tomato red and riotous tree frog green scheme. I’m sure he saw the reverse colours against the back of his eyes when he finally closed them at night.

Corey was only a year younger than Samantha and even though I loved her dearly, she wasn’t the best when it came to a good sibling scrum. In fact, she was pathetically weak. So, when I came over to stay, he pounced on me, itching for a good wrestle from a tomboyish girl who had two brothers and therefore knew how to punch, give (or receive) a dead-leg, hen-peck or a stinging flick of the earlobe.

We were pretty evenly matched, but being unofficially scheduled as Corey’s physical entertainment used to wear very thin when I had double that amount available to me in my own home and was in fact looking forward to staying in another home for the weekend that had other, less strenuous and far less violent things to offer.

Things such as hearing and being part of what her parents did for a living. My Dad was a high school teacher and Mum was doing her matriculation via night classes and home duties during the day, but Samantha’s Dad was running a Music Bus and her mother was setting up a take-away shop in the main street called ‘The Hungry Bunyip.’ It was the first establishment in our riverside town to sell cappuccinos and I’d sometimes return home on a Sunday afternoon wondering just why I felt like bouncing on the back of Dad’s trailer sending the harvested dead corn cobs he'd stacked ready to take to the dump catapulting up and into the nearby incinerator on only an hour’s sleep and a stomach full of buttered and icing-sugar encrusted popcorn….

The Music Bus was a funky idea, but perhaps not a practical one. The thought of several children undertaking music lessons on a moving bus at the same time might have been a tad cacophonic rather than euphoric. I never found out personally because that was the year I decided that learning the piano was not for me.

Back to Corey. He leapt at me from behind just as I was placing ‘Abba the Album’ reverently on Samantha’s little record player. Sam had dressed their maltese terrier, Danny, in an old black leotard so that he resembled a fluffy liquorice allsort and we were about to take some photos of him ‘dancing’ on their Polaroid.

Corey’s impact sent the needle scratching over the entire music unit, Danny was cruelly squashed under the speaker and Sam nearly dropped her Dad’s new camera. I saw red and blindly reached for whatever weapon was handy.












Unfortunately for Corey it was a stray coat hanger. I hadn’t even turned around to sight my target (Corey’s shoulder, leg or arse would have been fine), but lashed out in fury. Judging from the ‘dangle, stretch and snap’ feel of the wire in my hands, I’d obviously succeeded in snagging something fairly soft and precious residing below his belly button that saw him scream in a pitch that out-howled their 12 breeding beagles outside, and slowly back out from the room, bent double in agony. I didn't see him again for the rest of the weekend.

Whatever: Sam and I had to work out just how the dog was going to dance to a song that now never moved beyond Bjorn and Benny's background bleats of "Take a chance, take a chance, take a ch-ch-ch-chance….”

Mystery Five is solved, now for Number Six

Those pink dots, dear reader, were sprayed only at selected houses, not every single house in my suburb.

That's because we pink dotters are special. And really, really good, because we didn't have any of these in our gardens:

The Queensland Fruit fly: about as unwanted as a Queenslander human in these parts. Presumably one of these little insects (and a few thousand eggs) decided to stow away in an illegal orange hidden in the depths of a cabin bag so that they could visit the colder place with the much better coffee, culture and Aussie Rools footy 24/7.

Apart from the rural fruit growing regions, it was our weeny suburb that also attracted a fair bit of attention from the Department of Primary Industries, who issued a media release.

Soon after we arrived and my attention was finally diverted from how to cram a households' worth of moving boxes into a fortnightly recycling bin roughly the size of *one* of the 2469 boxes I had to get rid of, I saw four utes pull up and a pack of green and silver suited DPI crew climb out, with backpacks and spray nozzles. They kind of reminded me of the Ghostbusters guys except that half of them were women and there were no special effects or dodgy synthesiser music accompanying them.

One came over to say 'G'day' and give Milly a pat. She explained that the pink dots, which had been sprayed a couple of weeks earlier, showed them which houses they didn't need to spray at because fruit fly hadn't been found there. "You'll find a tiny trap hanging in your tree though."

She was right - they came through to double check the trap which was essentially a clear plastic jar with a sticky bait in it to attract any stray fruit fly. It hadn't been disturbed, so they took it away and said, "See, that's why you've got the pink dots: we don't have to bother you again."

See, told you I was special.

I rang my 'Mystery Number Six' subject, who breathed a sigh of relief so loudly down the phone it ruffled my hair. "Well thank god for that," she said, now prepared to reveal herself as 'Mary'. "I'm seeing a few mates tonight so I'll set them all straight."

"So, Mary, your mystery has been solved. Will you meet with me to explain this sign in your window?"

There was a long pause. "Okay. But on neutral territory. You, Me and ~~there was an inaudible mutter~~ at Pepper. 10am. Don't be late."

"I won't be - I'll be the one wearing pink dots."

Mysteries Five and Six

As regular blurb lurkers know, my Jorgi dog Milly and I scour our neighbourhood for things that puzzle, amuse and bemuse us. This is even more convenient if they're on the way to the post office, corner shop or school and sighted during a Flemington Association letterbox drop.

For Milly our investigative process normally means using her wet nose to sniff and hopefully work out which dog left their liquid mark on a nearby tree trunk or tyre and for me it means using my much-larger protuberance and a business card with a message scrawled across it to produce the answer to our present problem.

However, this is an unusual one, because our next chosen subject firstly wanted - no, insisted and very firmly I might add - that we solve another mystery before they would cooperate with our request to reveal their secret in full. To be fair, she sounded worried and anxious.

"Kath, before I meet with you, I need you to do something for me."

"Excluding storage of anything illicit up my colon, just name it," I replied.

"W-e-l-l, a few of us in my street are really worried because these .....

.......... have popped up everywhere."

"Ah, yes," I said, smugly. "I do know what they are for, actually. And maybe you were thinking that you were being marked for a future robbery, a future rape-n-pillage party hosted by overly-medicated fairies or ~shudder~ a televised visit from David Koch?"

"Yes, something like that," she said, voice quivering over the phone. "Can you help me?"

Maybe. If I feel like it. If you bend to my (increasingly nosey) will.

Can you, dear readers?

Nightmare on Bourke Street














It's a wintry afternoon and I'm thirsting for beer and yearning for a handful of greasy, hot dim sims.

The longing is powerful enough to send me out of the house, onto the dodgy Number 57 tram alongside a man sniffing paint from a plastic bag until I step out again into the flotsam and jetsam of Bourke Street Mall.

I don't recall seeing too many pubs around here: a few cafes that are probably licensed, but tucked away into discreet alleys and not on the mainstream shopping strip itself. As for dim sims, they'd be more than likely sitting in some bain maries in noisy food courts, skins hardening and drying the longer they're in the salmonella-graded, not-quite-hot-enough heat of a stainless steel tray atop an ancient element.




















I keep walking and idly wonder if I should just buy a bottle from a wine store and roll it in my hands so that it becomes warm. Yeah, I want it to be room temperature, Old English Inn style, with the yeasty smell mingling with the post-binge vomity bile that soaks into the carpets by the pub's fireplace, forming a lasting reminder of what makes beer the unforgettable drink it truly is.

I want the dim sim to be inhospitably chewy on the outside but moist and pink on the inside, tasting uncomfortably raw with a lingering after taste of fatty pork, sweaty chicken meat and a few slivers of unidentifiable bone fragments. A flaccid little snack with dubious nutritional value and an unnaturally yellow skin. Yeah, that's what I need....















I see this Dream Boat sleeping and nudge him awake. "Hey fella," I ask, "Where can a girl like me find a good warm beer and some dodgy dimmies?"

The rude git flicks me the bird and settles back into his phlegmatic snoring, leaving me to keep searching the mall on my own. My stomach is grumbling in complaint - it needs its fix and needs
it now.

Maybe I should just get back on the Number 57 tram and ask some of the fairly malodorous occupants where they'd go to find----- wait a minute ----- what's Love Chunks doing here?

He's seated on a toilet right in the middle of the mall, situated rather precariously between the two tram tracks; trousers and jocks bunched around his ankles and flanks exposed to the elements. He doesn't see me as he's too busy grimacing and concentrating on what he's - ahem - producing and is also oblivious to the shoppers crossing the tracks around him.

Then I spot my daughter. "Sapphire! Sapphire! Sweetie, can you help me with Dad, because he's-----"

She looks up vaguely because her attention is on the banana she's avidly unpeeling and eating. Our adored dog Milly is beside her, cleaning her own teeth with colgate mild mint, her tail wagging happily. What the hell-----

It is then I sit up in bed and note the evilly acidic bile angrily flippity-flopping in my stomach. This is what warm beer and dim sims must feel like.

Groping for the side table as a lever, I slip out of bed and brokenly feel my way towards the dark bathroom, cursing as the bubble packing refuses to budge and then pops wildly, pinging all the pellets of Panadeine to the edge of the bath tub. I scrabble around the floor and eventually find a couple that, whilst covered in a bit of stray towel fluff and pubic hair, get shoved rapidly and gratefully into my dry mouth.















It all makes sense now: Mr Migraine has arrived again, and is focused on using his new hand-powered screw driver to burrow a clearway between my left eye socket and right temple.

Goody.