The Daily Blog experiment – home!

Well, I’m home after a few days in Queensland, visiting ThirtiesGirl and my three grandchildren. They are growing up without me, mostly. Every time I see them, they’re taller, and more independent. Grandma snuggles are going the way of the rotary phone. The two boys are happy to hang out near me, but aren’t too keen on cuddles any more. I am allowed to hold a foot or ankle and provide reiki in that way.

The girl, age 7.5 going on 23, is getting too cool for cuddles also. The first couple of days, she kept close to me, but as the days wore on, I became less and less interesting and it was suddenly fun to ignore me, give me vague answers, and not want cuddles at all.

This is the way of kids getting older. They don’t want, or can’t admit they do want Grandma cuddles and time. I know that. It’s still painful though. I have to let it happen. It’s normal. They’re not babies any more.

I do think it’s a shame though. Australians, on the whole, aren’t a super huggy bunch to begin with, and the push is always there, culturally, to be cool, to be tough, and not need affection, love, or loads of attention.

Maybe they see the time I take away from them to decompress my autistic self, and be alone as me not wanting to be around them. I do, but I can only do so much and endure so much noise before my nervous system starts sending out the ‘we’re getting super itchy, scratch until you draw blood’, ‘bite your nails’, and ‘bite the inside of your mouth’ signals. All stimming things that I do when I’m disregulated and stressed.

There’s no other solution than getting somewhere quiet, or at least away from their immediate needs.

Anyway, I’m home. Thanks to my Loops ear plugs I survived the flight and noise, and I’m now in bed, tucked up in soft pyjamas.

Tomorrow I’ll fully unpack and make sure everything is put away, and my toiletries bag is restocked ready for my next trip.

Oh, the quiet pleasure of being able to choose from my whole tea pantry instead of the 20 or so tea bags I took with me.

The Daily Blog experiment – Australia Zoo

Even though it wasn’t on my bucket list, I ticked off a bucket list item, yesterday. (And yes, I know it’s not a daily blog if it’s not daily, but I’m with my grandkids, so shut up). Australia Zoo.

ThirtiesGirl and her family have been Queenslanders for five years. While I secretly hope they will come to their senses and move back to Victoria so I can get weekly grandkids doses, I know they love the Sunshine Coast lifestyle. I have to say, it’s enticing. Warmer weather, slower life. I’d have moved already if it wasn’t for my parenting-caring-guardian responsibilities with ThirtiesPerson. Who DOES NOT WANT TO MOVE NORTH, THANKS.

Here are: PizzaBoy, myself, Miss J, Logie B, and Super C.

We hit the ground running with an early soccer game for Logie B, then off to the zoo.

Cheetahs, tigers, and lemurs, oh my!

I haven’t been to any zoo in years, so it was good to get amongst wild animals again, and see some up close that I’d never seen before. The lemurs are just as cute as you think they are. Those long fluffy tails – why can I not have one of my own. And if you’ve ever thought something similar, go read ‘The Conglomeroid Cocktail Party’ by Robert Silverberg. I don’t care how that story turns out, I still want a lemur tail of my own.

As you can see, it rained. Welcome to northern Australia and monsoon season. It was still warm, but the lemurs and many other animals were moving towards their heated shelters. And yet, we humans were waking around, buying up cheap plastic ponchos. (@Australia Zoo, how do you justify the plastic ponchos when you’re all about reducing plastic use in the world, especially one-use plastic?)

The giraffes, zebras, and rhinos live together in a large communal enclosure. This giraffe seemed to be going out of his way to bug this zebra, continually breathing on, nibbling, licking and nudging. I guess your older brother can be from another species, and you can bug him like the brat you are.

The croc show in the Crocoseum was headed up by Bindi Irwin’s husband, and two young women. This pale croc is called Casper, and ‘always brings 110%’. Must’ve been a slow day, because he shlumped around. Then again, this show must be a bit like a sushi train. If you don’t fancy the rats and chickens today, meh, because you’ll have another opportunity in a few days.

Even so, I cheered and yelled ‘Crikey!’ with the best of them.

Super C and I kept commenting on the ‘excellent bin chicken show’, whenever some wild ibis landed and poked around. “This is what I flew north to see,” I told him.

“I moved here for this!” he replied.

And I don’t care what species these snakes actually are. Miss J and I called them the Stacks On snakes.

By the end of the day, we were all chilly, and worn out, so home to dry couches, soft blankets, and down time on iPads.

I’m really happy to have had this day with my family, and to have made some new memories.

Daily Blog Experiment – Bucket List

This afternoon, RedHatter and I convened at The Coffee Club, armed with Tombow pens, Quirky Cup Collective biros, notepaper, and brand new Bucket List journals from Officeworks. We were ready to imagine the crap out of our afternoon.

With the help of Google, we set off into the lands of “I’ve always wanted to” and “Hey, that’s a good idea.

Lunch was eaten, drinks drunk, and still we dreamed on.

Some Google-found bucket lists were…um…well, let’s say ho-hum. Grow a herb garden; do some colouring in; do a crossword; cook a meal – um yeah. We’re both over 60. Let’s presume we’ve done that stuff.

As for have a baby; get married; adopt a child; start a company; buy a house. Yeah, sure snap decision I’ll pop in my bucket list, for a day when I’ve nothing else to do. Besides, done it, done it, fostered a child, started numerous businesses. Have not yet bought a house. Nor, given my finances, am I likely to.

Anyway, we were at it for 3 hours and both of us came away with first drafts of lists. Mine…er…goes for 7 pages. I may need to curate it a bit. Some items can be incorporated into others. If I’m in Iceland, I can see volcanoes, the northern lights, and swim in the Blue Lagoon.

I may also have to start selling body part pics on OnlyFans to afford all these items. They do assume a certain level of wealth.

Some items cannot have dates put on them. Russia and the Trans Siberian Railway will have to wait until Putin isn’t being a maniac. Ditto a visit to Ukraine.

But there are plenty of other items to keep me busy, and I haven’t yet sat down with my husband PizzaBoy to see what shared visions I’ve missed.

Now, all I have to do is start filling in the book, and picking out my first items to tackle.

Learning to crochet is an easy one, I hope. And cheap. Unless the ADHD kicks in, and hello new hyperfixation….

Queensland Quillings 12 – travel blog

We travel now back to 2013, the year my younger offspring turned 21. I have two children. ThirtiesGirl should now really be called ThirtiesWoman. She now lives in Qld with her husband and three children. In 2012-12, she was TwentiesGirl, and had just birthed her first baby, FirstGrandson. My younger offspring is ThirtiesPerson, then called TwentiesPerson. They are non-binary, and have autism, a mild intellectual impairment, hearing impairment, and are non-speaking and non-binary. They identify as female/mermaid. There are no pronouns for mermaids. I arbitrarily chose ‘they/them’ for their pronouns.

Let me set the scene in 2012. TwentiesGirl moved out of home to live with her boyfriend, CarMan. She fell pregnant to him, and was sailing through the year as an ever-increasing watermelon shape, and young mum-to-be. TwentiesPerson was in a day programme with Interchange Outer East. PizzaBoy is my husband, but not the father of my children. He came on the scene in 2008, and we married in 2010. He is Canadian.

TwentiesGirl proposes that we take TwentiesPerson to the Gold Coast theme parks for their 21st birthday. Her not-so-hidden agenda – she loved the theme parks, and Queensland.

We booked the flights. Not only are we all going, but CarMan and CarMan’s younger brother, too. It’s very hard to book a ticket for a baby that’s not born yet, but will be four months old when we travel.

TwentiesPerson is excited. We are all excited.

2013: TwentiesPerson is about to turn 21. The baby was born FirstGrandson was four months old. TwentiesGirl and CarMan had some relationship trouble and were temporarily separated. So CarMan and CarMan’s brother didn’t come along.

So, our merry band of me, PizzaBoy, the two Twenties, and FirstGrandson shuffled off to the Gold Coast via a very crowded Jetstar flight. FG grandson cried all the way there, endearing him to no one. I spent considerable time rocking and jiggling him while standing near the toilet. Fun times.

We stayed at the SeaWorld Resort, formerly Nara Resort, and I’d brought our GPS along with us. I kept telling it to find Nara Resort. It had never heard of it. It refused to believe we were in Queensland, and instead kept trying to put us on various freeways to begin the long drive home to Melbourne. Stupid machine!

What we didn’t know was that TwentiesPerson (non-speaking, remember?) had fixated on Movie World as their destination. Therefore, we started with DreamWorld. This one was for me. I wanted a white tiger encounter. I was going to get it, come hell or high water. No babies allowed into tiger encounters, though. Too tempting as a mid-morning snack, I guess. So PizzaBoy waited outside with FG, and the Twenties and I did the encounter. TwentiesPerson was NOT impressed, or happy. They did not want a tiger. However, they obediently patted the tiger. The photo I have shows TwentiesPerson stationed at the enormous white tiger’s head, looking worried, and patting her shoulder, TwentiesGirl in the middle, patting its back, and looking happy, and me at the far end, smiling, but…why am I holding up the tiger’s tail like I’m about to give it rectal exam? And this was the best pic out the whole lot.

(I won’t post pics here, as TP and TW deserve their privacy.)

TwentiesGirl took their sibling on a ride. The photo showed TG having the time of their life, whooshing down a steep slope at speed, and TP hiding on the floor. TP didn’t want any more rides after that.

What I remember mostly about that day was the beautiful sunshine, the shitty food, and TG taking FirstGrandson to meet Cookie Monster, and of course, at four months, FG not having a clue what he was looking at.

The next day was Sea World. At least it was lovely and close to our hotel. FirstGrandson needed a quiet day, so PizzaBoy sat with him, while TG and I did the rounds of the theme park. We did a dolphin encounter that morning, standing waist deep in cool water, while a dolphin cruised past us multiple times. The dolphin looked like steel, rubber, a slick surface, plastic, and there was no heat coming off it, which startled me. I thought all living things gave off heat. Dolphins are presented as friendly, familiar creatures, but I knew I was in the presence of Mystery, of something alien and unknowable.

In the afternoon. TG stayed with FG, and PizzaBoy and I took TwentiesPerson into SeaWorld. I had pre-arranged and pre-paid for a special needs dolphin encounter. TP loved marine creatures, and used to identify as a sea turtle, and a dolphin. I thought this would be up their alley. Readers, it was not up their alley. They came out of the changerooms holding their wetsuit and shaking their head. By then, I was feeling pretty special needs myself, so I donned a wetsuit, and PizzaBoy and I did the dolphin encounter. TwentiesPerson laughed as the instructor showed them how to issue commands for the dolphin to splash us. They threw a ball for the dolphin. But no way would they touch it, or get in the water. Sometimes, it’s wise not to push matters, and I just let things be on this occasion. They were happy at a distance. So be it.

The next day was TwentiesPerson’s actual birthday, and we’d arranged to spend it in northern New South Wales, in Murwillumbah, visiting my best friend, SnakyPoet. The plan: drive to Murwillumbah, order pizza for lunch, celebrate TP’s birthday, hang out, drive back to Sea World Resort. What actually happened: got lost twice in the New South Wales hinterland and had to stop for roadside banana sustenance; FirstGrandson got shitty in the car and grizzled for many kilometres; the pizza shop was closed so we took ourselves to a fancy organic eatery halfway up Mt Wollumbin(formerly known as Mt Warning). Let’s see – TwentiesGirl was overwrought and could barely eat for trying to get her baby to settle. I ordered TwentiesPerson a Vegemite sandwich and a lemonade and what came out was a vegetable sandwich on (according to TP) horrid, horrid organic crusty seeded bread, and awful homemade cloudy lemonade. What they wanted was supermarket white bread and Sprite. They eventually ended up with a cheese sandwich on white, and water. Here kid, have bread and water for your birthday.

For the rest of us, the food was delicious, and we had a lovely afternoon. Late in the day, I took FirstGrandson for a long, screamy walk through the lemon orchard, where he could yell all he liked, and it wouldn’t seem so loud. They sank into an exhausted, sweaty sleep just as we left, and the car drive home was peaceful until we got stuck in Gold Coast peak hour traffic, and FG woke up again to let us know that his world was Not Right. Well, that’s what young babies do.

Finally, we got to Movie World. This was what TP had been waiting for, we now understood. They got inside and headed straight for a tshirt emporium. They bought 3 tees and that was it, they were done.

You mean I could have gotten them to shop online and saved all this money and hassle. Fucking fuck fuck.

Oh well. I was determined that we were going to get our money’s worth, so we loped around Movie World. TG tried a couple of rides, and TP opted for the toddler’s carousel in the little kids’ playground. A 6′ tall person with a five o’clock shadow on a pink prancing pony, knees up around their ears, smiling fit to be tied. The carousel carnie looked doubtful.

“Look, just let them do it. It’s the only thing they’ve liked in five days, and I’m done.”

I considered abandoning my family and walking away into the crowd, to start a new life elsewhere. But, mother guilt, so we all endured the rest of the day, and were glad to fly home the next.

Did we have fun? Moments of. Would we do it again? Fuck no.

Queensland Quillings 10 – travel blog

PizzaBoy aka Husband Thing and I were due to do a big overseas trip. But I got sick, and the after effects just didn’t quit. I was debilitated for quite some time, with residual fevers, and exhaustion that went above and beyond my undiagnosed thyroid issues. So, we cancelled the trip, but already had a support worker booked for the time we’d be away. PizzaBoy’s best friend from Canada was coming to mind TwentiesPerson. So, we booked to go to Cairns instead. Which is all beside the point of a travel journal, but goes some way to explain why I was not at the top of my travel and observational game.

What do I remember about Cairns 2016? I’ve just unearthed that travel journal, so let’s see if I can read my own handwriting (which is truly appalling). We stayed at the Colonial Inn, Northern Cairns, which was about a one hour walk to the main drag. A bit of a pain in the bum, but it was what we could get with a sudden change of plans. The weather was overcast, as it was the start of the rainy season, I think, and while it was warm, it was not the deep heat I craved to burn the last of the virus out of me.

As we walked to dinner the first night, I saw an Aboriginal man down in the reeds by the river, pulling up a net. I’m a Melbourne suburban girl, so this is not something I’d come across before. I couldn’t help but stare. His three kids rode their bikes, checking in on dad every couple of minutes to see if he’d caught anything for dinner. One of the boys yelled ‘Alloo!” at me, so I shouted ‘Hello!’ back.

The other thing I remember about Cairns itself is the swimming pool. No swimming in the ocean in Far North Queensland. Thanks, salt water crocodiles. So, Cairns has a large swimming pool next to the ocean. At low tide, you can sit in the shallow end of the pool and fantasise you’re in the sea.

I was conscious, on the Saturday that I was missing Wuthering Heights Day in Melbourne. I was all set to join a large flock of women in the Fitzroy Gardens, and dance to ‘Wuthering Heights’ by Kate Bush. No biggie, but I wished there was a Cairns group I could join. Then, as we were walking towards the local park in Cairns, I heard the strains of ‘Wuthering Heights’. I hurried around a corner and there was a small group of women, dressed in red, rehearsing in a small ampitheatre. I stood with my mouth open through one whole rehearsal before I left PB in my wake, bounced up to the group and begged to join in. I was warmly welcomed and supplied with a short red dress. Not exactly what Kate Bush wore in her video in 1978, but it was red, and it would do. Three rehearsals later, with only a few moves under my belt, and we were deemed ready to give our talent to the world.

We walked to The Lagoon, which is the name of the swimming pool, and set up where the water shallows out to concrete. I didn’t know we’d be dancing in water, but there you go. A new experience every day. We danced, mimed, and emoted our way through the song, and got a smattering of applause. The only explanation our scant audience got was a brief ‘Happy Kate Bush Day everyone!” The group dispersed. We were in the middle of weekend market stalls, so I nipped behind one stall to change back to my own clothes and give the sopping wet dress back to the kind lady who loaned it to me. And that was that. A brief artistic interlude to being a plain bog-standard tourist. Thanks, Sassy Catz Burlesque and friends, who let me dance with them.

What I remember about our days in Cairns was walking to cafes, and passing many souvenir and opal shops, more cafes, and more opal shops. We sat in a paleo cafe that was big on Pete Evans, Paleo Pete. I wonder if they’re still keen on him now that he spread a great deal of misinformation about vaccinations. Anyway, his books were on display, as were his dvds, and the cafe was likely using his recipes. I didn’t have an issue with eating his paleo recipes, as long as he wasn’t around, being a dickhead. The chef sent out a basket of sweet potato fries because he didn’t think we had enough food for the two of us.

And that sums up my Cairns memories. Next, Kuranda and Daintree.

Queensland Quillings 8 – travel blog

Hamilton Island had, and has, an art gallery. It not only gives local artists a chance to display and sell their work, but tourists can book in for art classes. When we were there, the ‘offer the tourists an art class’ artist in residence was a guy. No, I can’t recall his name. I do remember thinking that he had a bit of a sailboat fetish, because every one of his sea scapes had a sailing ship or boat of some sort in it. I may have even researched him online, and discovered that was his thing.

My daughter, then TwentiesGirl, but now ThirtiesGirl, and I went along one afternoon, and settled in with our small canvases, and sets of acrylic paints. We looked through various art books, magazines, and photographs. We each chose a suitably oceanic image. TG painted a sea turtle swimming. I went for a landscape of pale green-blue water, a sandy beach, and green trees creating a broccoli-like canopy.

SailBoat Guy sketched out our images with faint pencil lines and we got to work. He showed me how to ‘wisp’ my paint a little to give that sea and sand mixing look. Or rather, he kinda did it for me. Hands-on arts and crafts and I have an uneasy relationship, especially if the finished product is meant to look like something. My autistic self has a hard time with gooey textures, stickyiness, and glue in general. I want to utterly control my medium and have it do what I want, what I can see in my head. Paint in particular does as it pleases as far as I can see. I am inclined, when things don’t go my way on the art page, to throw an internal hissy fit, sulk, and then just give up. Or whine and hope someone does it for me. So I was delighted when SailBoat Guy did a couple of hard bits for me, and taught me about really seeing what I was looking at. He showed me how there were several shades of tree canopy, and suggested I try mixing those shades before daubing.

When I had daubed the canopy, and wisped as much as was needed, it was simply a case of putting in long streaks of darker blue to give the water depth.

“But it’s not in the photo,” I said.

“Paint isn’t photography. The way you have your sea now, it’s undifferentiated blue. You need texture through darker blues.”

I doubted he was right. Because photos don’t lie. I hadn’t come across the idea of photo processing. Look, I’d seen ‘Funny Face’ with Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire. I’d watched Fred process pics of Audrey. I’d seen enough stalker movies where the creep develops photos of his victim. But that still had nothing to do with what I saw in the photography magazine. Sometimes I wonder about my brain, I really do.

SailBoat Guy took my paint brush, changed it out for a smaller one and boldly put two streaks across my perfect ocean. Okay, fine, it looked better, like there was a current, maybe small waves. I put some more streaks in.

Then SailBoat Guy was back.

“Do you want to put some boats in?” he asked.

“No thanks, that would imply people, and people can get stuffed.”

My daughter rolled her eyes and kept working on her sea turtle.

“Just one sailboat, a little one?”

“Nope.”

“I could put it in for you.”

“You go paint some more boaties for yourself, and leave them off my nice ocean,” I said.

He was disappointed. No sailboats.

The session lasted two hours, and we left our canvases to dry overnight, picking them up the next day. A suprising amount of people never picked theirs up. We got ours bubble-wrapped and ready to take home.

I wondered what it would be like to turn up for a weekly class in that sweet little gallery; to sit in the warmth and paint everything my body was telling me about the ocean, the beach, and the sky.

If I went back to Hamilton Island, it would be something I’d do again.

Queensland Quillings 7 – travel blog

Here’s where my current real life intrudes upon my travel reminiscences. I had a shwack of dental work done yesterday – replace 2 old fillings, crown those two teeth, 1 new filling. 4 hours in the dentristry, at least 2.5hrs actively in the chair with my mouth open. I’m on Mersyndol painkillers today for jaw, cheek, and tooth pain, headache, lower back ache(effing dentist chair without lower back support) and neck ache.

Let’s see how all this affects my recall, mood, and the putting-the-words-together thing.

Hamilton Island 2012.

The sculpture place. It doesn’t appear to still be on the Island, but when I was there, a couple of guys were carving all sorts of things out of….well, it looks like tie-dyed marble, but it isn’t.

Not only were there huge sculptures like these, but smaller ones in hand-dyed faux-marble. I bought a sea turtle in orange-red-green-yellow-brown. My daughter bought a dolphin in blues and greens. Both weigh about 1.5kg, and are the size of our cupped hands. Beautiful dust collectors.

Whiling away my time, I watched one of the sculptors making a big piece. I expected to have the whole Michelangelo chipping away at David experience, but this guy was taking to a large piece of faux-marble with a small chainsaw. I guess there was no time for chipping, until he got the approximate right shape. New tourists on the island every day. New opportunity for those tourists to take home an art piece.

I was very attached to large white piece depicting the space shuttle launching, but I did not feel I could afford the $$$$$ pricetag, get it home sanely, nor find a place for it. I did go back and pat it nearly every day.

While the sculptor chainsawed at his new faux-marble, a currawong watched him carefully, from a branch quite nearby. The sculptor said he was immensely curious, unafraid of noise, and almost tame. He came daily for food – sculptor had a supply of dried meal worms sent over from the mainland – and hung around to supervise sculpting. He also had loud opinions on visitors and the sculptor said he trusted the bird’s judgement utterly.

“He’s never been wrong,” he said.

Therefore I was pleased that the currawong sidled up to me and gave me a hard stare with his right eye, then settled down to watch the sculptor, occasionally chatting in his own language, as if saying to me: “Get a load of this fool”.

I came back the next day to see how the sculpture was getting along, but there was a different guy working on a different piece, or rather, not working on it, but studiously ignoring it until it behaved itself and the material did what he wanted and stopped threatening to crack. I couldn’t see any new pieces in the shop.

“Where’s the piece the other guy was working on yesterday?” I asked.

“Being polished.”

Oh. “Where’s the currawong?”

“He isn’t interested in me. Just Matt.”

I wondered if it was a judgement on the guy’s inner nature, or if the currawong was just away on bird business.

“Do you sell a lot of pieces?” I asked.

The guy lit up. “Yeah. Heaps. And we’re looking for a new investor,” he said.

I laughed. “I am not your girl,” I said. “I’ll soon be ploughing money into the upkeep of a young grandson.”

And that was the end of our conversation. He wandered off to do something behind the ‘private’ sign in the doorway of a room behind the shop.

Queensland Quillings 6: travel blog

I was 48, and had two notions: (a) being in my 40’s meant I was still young, and not near 50 at all, and could any number of fool things without consequences of any sort; (b) travel was the ideal time to do fool things.

With my daughter tied up with relaxing, and trying to sleep through as much pregnancy sickness as possible, I was at a loose end, and finally, the siren song of parasailing got to me. It was a fool thing I hadn’t tried yet, I was bored, and I still had some money. Out of all the things I could have tried on Hamilton Island, parasailing won my vote.

Mid-afternoon, a group of loaded ourselves onto a speed boat, and were taken out to sea (shades of Gilligan’s Island). We were all given orange life jackets to wear. One man had not worn his swimming outfit onto the boat, assuming, I think, that we’d be parasailing off the back of a yacht that would have change rooms, showers, and possibly, a ten person jacuzzi. Not to mention dinner and dancing. We all pretended to look the other way while he changed out of his clothes and into Speedos. Pretended. It was a small boat.

Then, one by one, we were harnessed, and each of us had a turn to let the wind lift us off the back of the speeding boat into the air. One woman had given the crew some cheek, mouthing off about boat safety. The man steering the boat slowed down three times and dunked her repeatedly.

It became a thing, then. Each of us had to get dunked.

I remember standing on the back of the boat, all harnessed up, and the slight breeze pulling at the sail behind me. It didn’t take a lot of speed for my feet to leave the deck and go flying up. It was beautifully silent up there, and the dark blue water rippled beneath me. I looked down, used to seeing this view only in nature documentaries, and travel brochures. Blue sky above me, the sun hot on my neck, blue sea below, with tiny white caps off to my right, further out to sea.

There wasn’t a sense of descending, but the ocean came closer and closer, and suddenly, I dipped into the water and up again as the boat sped back up. I was wet to the waist, and laughing. The water was a cool shock. Down I went again. The guy in charge of harnessing people yelled out that I was having too much of a good time. The sail pulled me upwards, and the wet strings and I dripped.

All too soon it was my time to be hauled in, and someone else to have a go. The Pacific Ocean’s thick salt dried on my body, and Mr Speedo had his chance. Up he went, down he came, and then sulked that he couldn’t shower. I picked salt off my legs and relived the feeling of flying.

Queensland Quillings 5 – travel blog

With my daughter flaked out with pregnancy sickness, and wiped out to the point where she just wanted to doze in the sunshine, it was up to me to entertain myself on an island resort. I’d never been to a resort before. What did one do? I pictured millionaires lying around with cucumber slices on their eyes, and gold face masks doing to their skin whatever gold face masks did. I thought I’d see people in white tennis clothing lobbing balls to each other across carefully curated nets. I thought I’d be hip deep in celebrities and the idle rich.

Instead, on the foreshore in front of the strip of shops, people like me were hovering over their fish and chips, protecting their meals from ravenous, savage seagulls. And these were big buggers, these gulls, and used to fighting for food. They thought nothing of landing on a table and striding boldly into the middle of someone’s souvlaki. Stealing a sausage roll out of someone’s mouth was daily life for these mini-dinosaurs.

I spent a lot of time watching people being harassed by seagulls. It beat trying to get the tv in our room to work. Not that I wanted to watch tv when there was touristy shit to do.

I must have wandered in and out of every shop a dozen times over the few days we were there. Suddenly, a beach cover-up costing $200 seemed reasonable. $70 swim goggles that cost $20 at Kmart were just fine. I usually left the shops before my debit card got the better of me. What did I want with chunky, blingy jewellery that only went with blingy resort wear anyway? I am a short woman, and big anything makes me look like a kid playing dress ups in their mother’s outfits. And by the time I found a blingy resort wear shirt to fit over my considerable boobage, the sleeves came down past my wrists, and the hem hung below my knees. Great – blinged out tent.

Our one celebrity spotting happened our secondlast morning, in the convenience store. I thought I recognised a man. I nudged my daughter.

“Is that that guy from that show? He won something?”

“Guy Sebastian!” my daughter swooned. She wanted to say hello, but was too shy and overcome. It was up to me. I approached him.

“Hi, are you Guy Sebastian?”

“I sure am, darlin’.”

“My daughter would love to meet you,” I said.

He’d had his hair cut short, so I kept glancing at him, expecting the afro of his younger years. Was this really Guy Sebastian who won the first Australian Idol? What a nice guy. So polite. Was he here with his Mum and Dad. I was stunned to hear later that he and his wife had a condo on the island. Wife? But he didn’t look old enough to vote!

He graciously allowed my daughter to take a selfie with him. I waved him away. If he was only ‘that guy who did something and won something’, a celebrity selfie wouldn’t mean much to me. I thanked him, and my daughter squee’d her way through the rest of the morning.

I know she still has the photo somewhere.

Queensland Quillings 4: travel blog

In 2012, my daughter was pregnant with her first baby, and for various reasons, it fell to me to on the BabyMoon with her. She wanted Hamilton Island in the Whitsunday Islands, off the coast of northern Queensland, so HI it was in September, escaping Melbourne’s cold winter.

Our hotel was right near Hamilton Island’s fitness centre. How did I know this, as a non-fitness centre fan? Because at 6am every morning, a hyperactive zumba intructor (aerobics being old school) started a hour class. Every window open, her music turned up to Midnight Oil concert levels, and her voice even louder through the microphone she had close enough to her mouth that her lips touched it every few seconds.

“C’moooon!” she screamed at her victims. “Let’s *scritch scratch breath* mooooove!”

There were commands to ‘Get down’, ‘Lift your legs higher’, and bizarrely ‘roll’. Zumba or dog obedience class? You be the judge. Whatever the case, she didn’t even stop for weekends. Every single day, this woman yelled at people for an hour.

And I lay in bed, sending death curses her way. My daughter slept on. My daughter is hearing impaired, and could take her cochlear implant off at night. She enjoyed her last few months of unbroken sleep, and not having to wear her implant at night to hear a crying child.

Why was the hotel not insulated to the nth degree? Supposedly so we could all hear the surf. What surf? Couldn’t be heard over Ms Loud Mouth.

At 7.30am, if I was down at breakfast (because what else was I going to do once I was awake?), I sometimes saw red-faced, sweaty people exiting the fitness centre. They had yoga mats under their arms. Had these fools done yoga before zumba? Did they not understand that Hamilton Island was a Holiday Destination? I don’t go on holiday to work out. But maybe I’m just old fashioned.

I will say that the warmth of the air, the sunshine, the bright light, and the prospect of eating my own weight in fruit at breakfast made me think 10% more kindly towards Ms Loud Mouth and her devotees. That’s saying something, because once I get a grudge on….

The hotel had a number of electric carts in which you could scoot around the island, but I wasn’t brave enough. *looks shame-facedly at the audience* They went at a fair clip. I didn’t want to injure myself or anyone else on holiday, so I stuck to walking, and leaping into prickly bushes when someone in a cart rounded a turn and nearly ran me down.

“I’m on holiday!” screamed a young thing with her young thing friends as they whizzed past me in a line of carts.

“I’m old!” I shouted back.

“Bye Grandma!” one called.

I couldn’t shake my head at them fondly and think of my own wayward past. My younger years were spent in science fiction fandom, sequestered in church halls and cheap hotels, hanging out in Huckster’s Rooms, and staying up late at night to watch repeats of Star Trek on VHS. My “I’m on holiday!” meant dressing in a Star Trek minidress, and dancing until midnight with people in Klingon armour, a few Luke Skywalkers, and a couple of Princess Leias.

My daughter, then TwentiesGirl, has very different memories of Hamilton Island. She suffered all day-all night-all through the pregnancy morning sickness, and just wanted to lie in the sunshine and doze. If adventures were to be had, I’d have to leave her to it, and go find them on my own. And as subsequent posts will show, I found a couple.