Mutiny

The girls (who are used to outnumbering the boys and even when they don't, outvoting them) and not having supreme confidence in Papa's ability to make decisions that perhaps they themselves would not,  decided that to play safe they wouldn't pack any of his swimwear.  That would remove temptation and eliminate the "swimming in winter" option.

But they just don't understand that pirates aren't afraid of a bit cold water.

Or swimming naked.

They might be a teensy bit afraid of soldier crabs and those little mud pellets sticking to their feet though.

Boy Genes

Mr ThreeNearlyFour is with us for a few days, so life becomes faster and noisier in the blink of an eye, and there are a few blinks in the normal course of our day.  We have never underestimated the differences between boys and girls, well not for a long long time, but our entire experience of child rearing did not include more than a glimpse into the ways of little men.

Being woken to "Can we go into the workshop now?" is not something to which I am accustomed.

A few minutes later, while I was detained in the course of my morning ablutions he was caught by his grandmother and mother sitting in front of my computer where quite randomly and coincidentally the screen saver had captured an album of tools and projects I'd photographed over the years.  Again we are not accustomed to seeing small children transfixed as a bandsaw morphs into a patternmaker's vice over layed by a carpenter's square, let alone hearing a running commentary on what was appearing.

It was, however, late in the course of our breakfast that really set the tone for the day.

"Papa..."

"You're my friend."

Practise

I am nothing if not a creature of habit, although the last few months have left us with surprisingly few Saturdays with which to feed my habit.  It's astonishing how rare in recent months have been the times we've actually been home on a Saturday or not had some commitment that involved waking in the wee small hours and driving off.

All of that stops next week of course, and as today may well be the last opportunity to get some last minute practise for the arduous months that lie ahead, I trotted off to van Wegen's as is my usual wont.

Cafe, croissant aux amande and the washing up.

It doesn't get any better.

Except maybe if there was no washing up.

The roar of the greasepaint, the smell of the crowd...

The Nambour show was on today, and I couldn't help but be disappointed in the sloth and almost arrogance of the show people.  My fondest memories of sideshows are of tenacious salesmen who would crawl over cut glass to get everyone passing to have just one more throw at the cans. 

Noisy they were, and active, thieves to a man, or so "they" would have one believe, dressed in clothing they'd no doubt stolen from a charity bin to reflect their true life poverty.  They'd abuse one if they took a photo, feigning terror lest the tax man should see it, never explaining why the tax man would be interested in my family albums or what sort of audit would be required for him to get a peep.

Wouldn't the Mercedes Benz' they used to tow their caravans have been a bigger clue for the Commissioner, I used to wonder.

Now, well they just sort of hang around really with tummies full, feigning disinterest without even a hint of desperation, waiting for passers buy to throw a few spare fifties in their direction.

I wandered the length of them without once being accosted, not once did I feel compelled to try for my pick of the top shelf.

As a result, I went home unladen. 

No box of chocolates, no giant kewpie doll on a stick.

Nothing but memories of the good old days, when shows were shows!

Ralph

After years of him lurking half finished in the back of the shed, supervising everything that's gone on within when he wasn't blind folded by the canoe, we delivered Ralph to Ralph today.

I developed newfound respect for his mother on the way as well, if she had as much trouble delivering him as we did.   Apart from him not actually fitting in the car, necessitating a whole packaging process, we had our first ever packaging failure and thank the nice bus driver flashing his lights to draw our attention to the surprising fact that he was floating somewhere above the roof racks while still attached and undamaged.

Then there was the nasty caravan explosion: inverted car, van in pieces no larger than the average dog's breakfast, and no one hurt.  Even with an hour's delay on the highway, our day was going to be better than theirs.

As for Ralph, it's a wonderfully ego soothing affair, when someone not only likes an image of themselves that one has created, but likes it enough to hang it in their own home, and then to discover his wife appears to like it as well just adds icing to the cake.

I'm somewhere between excited, pleasantly surprised and not surprised at all.

But I am just as chuffed as he is none the less.

Although I'm going to miss his omnipresence I think.

Endless Summer

I don't think we are going to see our frangipani completely bare this year,  we'll be back and it will once again in full foliage.  We may well be back before autumn seriously hits in the north as well, so no bare trees or golden leaves falling photographs from me.

It's not as though I NEED another blog, but while putting the bones around Canal Chat and thinking too much, I observed that those of us who are caught in this human form of migratory loop between northern and southern hemispheres live in an endless summer,  a state of being first described in a surfing movie of the same name from the mid sixties.  I wonder if those early influences implanted a subconscious restlessness that makes us do this stuff?

As we get nearer to the shortest day of the year here, it occurred to me that in our "loop" the days are in a constant state of getting shorter.

We leave at just about the time they start to lengthen again, but arrive in the Northern Hemisphere with the opposite consequence.

Can that be good for our health?

I'll have to stop thinking about it or something will drop off.

Oh Joy!

The boat name arrived in the mail today, ready for it's big trip, and now we feel as though it really is happening.   

Having a fake home port name on the transom is very uncool, and Mooloolaba, last time I looked was not a port in the north of France.

It is so uncool that it contravenes international maritime law, and we probably shouldn't do it.

But I really love the smile that French people get when they try to read it.  It's very similar to the one they get when I try to pronounce any French word with an "r" in it, so until we get locked up for our flagrant disregard for authority (unless we chicken out in the meantime) we'll proudly fly the tricoleur from her stern right above the sign that reads:

Joyeux

Mooloolaba