Happy New Year!
Jan. 3rd, 2006 12:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lizzie_and_ariHello all!
Wow we have so much to tell you since we last made an entry. We are currently in the library sharing one computer so Ari will probably say something in a bit too.\
Well, firtsly, Rockhampton. We borrowed Dave's car and had a very excting drive up, during which I only nearly killed us say, 3 or 4 times, and didn't actually kill anyone once!! The even more amazing thing though is that we had fun in Rockhampton. It was nice. When we arrived there was a tent set up for us in the back garden. Now, this was no Humphrey-style tent. (no offence we love hime etc) This was a ten man ten you can stand up and walk around in. We had two sections - the front room, where we had a loll-about chair set up, and the bedroom where Ari's grandmother set us up 2 mattresses, side by side, and gave us a double sheet for over the top.
Yes that's Ari's Catholic, homophobic, don't-say-the-g-word Grandmother. Ari had a conversation with her which consisted of her saying well I'm not telling your grandad and neither is anyone else because he's too old but I don't mind at all, I'm much more ahead of things, you have to move forward with life etc etc.
We were a bit taken aback. There is hope yet for my mother.
HAving a car in Rocky was also great - when you have a car in Rockhampton, you can leave Rockhampton!! So the first day we went to the beach. Ari showed me her favourite beach in the world at Zilzie(which is an anagram of Lizzie, ooh) which has rockpools and exciting little caves and I got bitten by a crab and everything.
Christmas day was fun, although way too hot. Weather forecast apparently said 36 but general consensus was more like about 40 degrees. There was a small paddling pool provided for the kids and Alex (gay celibate ex-nun aunt) broke the taboo by sitting down in it fully clothed about half an hour after she arrived. I then spent long periods sitting in it and playing with Mariah, who's three, and a duck that squirted out water. That was nice.
There were small kids and presents and wierd noises everywhere (some from the presents, some from the kids, some from me cos it was TOO FUCKING HOT) Lots of people even bought me presents! (well, Ari's grandma and grandad bought me a really nice top and some scented candle and Jack (Mike and Mel really) bought me some shower stuff and lip balm and Auntie Val bought us both a big thing of M&Ms.)
Ariadne herself bought me the COLLECTORS edition of Black Books. More Dylan Moran you can shake a really big stick at. It's bliss. We have been doing bvery little other than watching BB since we got home.
The only low point of the day was when Au -
Let me tell this thankyou very much. My Auntie Val nearly died! Well she fainted. She's in her seventies and all that but she's one of these indomitable old luvvies who will quote bits from her favourite productions until the day she dies, which will be never, because she's invincible. But apparently not! I was showing Mel and Alex our tent and when we came back up the stairs there was Auntie val, lolling in the arms of Useless Bill, unconcious with her eyes wide open. Luckily, Mel and Alex are trained nurses and they leapt into action. They turned Val over on her left side, and then she woke up. I was dispatched to fetch a bowl and wet towels and stuff, and she threw up a bit and when she was ok to be moved we stretched her out on Grandma's bed in front of the fan. (This is catholic matriarchy for you - grandma has the biggest and best fan in the house). Val was really shaken. She thinks she's indomitable too, you see. She's scared of getting old and increasingly creaky. And pissed off about it. Indignant. I spent ages talking to her and when she was ready to come down for prawns and fresh mud crab, she needed help down the stairs.
This on top of seeing how much my Nona's (other grandma) mind has deteriorated meant that when we left, I promised everyone that I wouldn't leave it so long next time, that I'd try to get home every year if I could. Because I love Val possibly more than any of my relatives, and it looks like she's not going to be around forever after all. And I don't think I could handle coming back in a few years and seeing people massively changed and debilitated, not again.
Anyway, Rocky was wonderful and emotional and brilliant. Grandma was wonderful to us both, Grandad had tears in his eyes when he said goodbye to us, and it was with lightness in our hearts and a spring in our step that we drove to Bundaberg and Mon Repos. We had a cup of tea with Jodie, and then drove on to Mon Repos, the turtle laying beach. Mon Repos, for those of you who have no French, like me, means 'My rest.' It was amazing. We pitched humphrey, went to the conservation place run by rangers, discovered there was no more space for veiwing turtles, and returned sadly to our tent. Then we discovered we could get to the beach from our site, so we sat on the dunes, smoking Davo's present, and being serenaded by a seventeen year old twit with a guitar. He had a nice voice so we let him stay. Then we went to sleep and woke up dead early and went for a swim in the most massive waves. There were people surfing, and we played with the waves by waiting for big ones and then leaping up into them going 'wheeee!' and sometimes we'd ride them and sometimes we'd be knocked over. Then we went for a walk along the beach. There was a small knot of people gathered around a lumpy thing. It was a turtle! We carefully approached. The atmosphere in the group was intense and quietly concentrated. This beautiful loggerhead turtle was just finishing covering up her eggs. She was late - the sun was up and the rest of the turtles had gone, but she was still working really hard. She was covering her tracks, flicking sand backwards. She had huge dark eyes, and she was crying, to keep the sand out. She was exhausted. Every so often she'd stop and go limp, and then she'd laboriously keep going. We stood, absolutely still, keeping out of her line of sight, holding our breath. She finished digging and started to haul herself along the beach. We followed her as discreetly as we could, all the way down to the waterline. She pushed herself into the sea and into the waves. We saw her break the surface of the water a couple of times, and then she was gone.
It was so wonderful.
Then we came back to Brisbane, were presented with an eviction notice and then we went to Fraser Island and it was fun. Tired now.
Fraser Island was excellent, though Australians are wierd. It takes about five hours to get that, and we 'just popped over' overnight. Some people go for the DAY! Anyway it was beautiful. We went with Dave and a guy called, well, Guy. He is very very thin. guy had a Range Rover and Dave had the Suzuki and taught me some 4W driving. It was fun. Bumpy. I didn't need to be towed once (which is a genuine achievement, for anyone who has never driven on soft sand) and only crashed into one tree (which, ok, less of an acievement)
The only thing about such a short trip was that Guy wanted to see lots of places and Dave is a wuss. Every time when I was in the car with Dave, or me and Ari were talking to Dave and guy was peeing (which by the way he did about every half hour!) Dave would say, oh, we won't bother goign to x place as planned because it's too far/ it's too late / we're too hungry, then Guy would come back and say 'so we'll just go to X place' and Dave would say 'Oh yes, that's a fabulous idea' and we'd go.' It did mean we saw a lot. It also meant we were very hungry a lot of the time and had to pitch out tent in the dark at 11pm.
Anyway, Fraser Island is the world's largest sand island. It is 170 km long by about 15-20 km wide. We think, but are not 100% sure, that it is also the only place in the world where rainforest grows out of sand. We saw some of this and it was amazing, thought not much due to aforementioned hunger. We also saw and swam in 3 freshwater lakes, including one at the bottom of a very steep sand dune which proved almost impossible to reclimb. One of the lakes was a clear brown colour because of the tanin from the plants. Our favourite bit was Eli Creek, which is a long flowing creek that goes into the ocean. It was the only place with cold water because it was running water, all the lakes were really warm until the really deep bits (you can't swim in the ocean because of sharks. Cool. And rip tides, says Ari, but people's main concern seemed to be sharks. If you fly over you can see whole groups of them swimming about) We walked down the creek, then back up it - which was bloody hard because of how fast th ewater was flowing, then back down it. Then we went back home. We had a magical Christmas time all in all.
Oh, New Year's Eve we went to Quentin's house, who works at Dockside. Well, his Mum's house. We didn't really want to go, and had eviction issues, so thought the party started at 12 noon, we procrastinated all day (and drank a bottle of Southern Comfort) and turend up about half ten. Quentin was the only person there we knew by then , but it was cool. We drank beer and Champagne and frolicked in the pool (Quentin's mother has a pool and a tennis court. I think she may be quite rich.) Quentin offered us $150 for some light lesbina frolics and was trying to do a collection but ended up wandering off and quite possibly passing out. We were referred to by everyone as 'the lesbians' and Q's 15-year old sister asked us lots of questions. It was funny.
Talking of being referred to as a single entity, we experienced a similar thing in Rocky, always referred to as 'the girls' It's sweet because Jack, who's 3, knows who we are but not our individual names 'They're girls' he confidently offers, as if this was out joint name. It is sweet and frustrating in equal parts.
Before this turns into the lj equivilent of a slide show, allow me to tell you about the eviction. Is a brief but bitter story. Our lease is in Nikki's name. Nikkie is nineteen and slightly stupid. The letting agent has been telling Nikki that Jackie's debt is ours and that we have to pay it off. Jackie was evicted for non payment of rent, so no it's not. We were served an eviction notice for non payment of rent in Nikki and Jackie's name. Since Jackie's eviction, we have been on time as a household with our rent. Jackie's debt should have been cancelled for the rest of the household and her name taken off the lease but it hasn't been and now they are trying to get rid of us, we suspect because they've discovered there are people willing to pay more for it than we are. We will fight them on the beaches etc.
Thankyou for the parcel Erin. We put the tablet in the fridge and read the metro avidly and homesickly. We love you!
Love to all, happy new year, hope all your Christmasses were bloody freezing because we like to think that somewhere in the world there were people celebrating who weren't covered in sweat and flies.
Love love love,
Ari and Lizzie.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Wow we have so much to tell you since we last made an entry. We are currently in the library sharing one computer so Ari will probably say something in a bit too.\
Well, firtsly, Rockhampton. We borrowed Dave's car and had a very excting drive up, during which I only nearly killed us say, 3 or 4 times, and didn't actually kill anyone once!! The even more amazing thing though is that we had fun in Rockhampton. It was nice. When we arrived there was a tent set up for us in the back garden. Now, this was no Humphrey-style tent. (no offence we love hime etc) This was a ten man ten you can stand up and walk around in. We had two sections - the front room, where we had a loll-about chair set up, and the bedroom where Ari's grandmother set us up 2 mattresses, side by side, and gave us a double sheet for over the top.
Yes that's Ari's Catholic, homophobic, don't-say-the-g-word Grandmother. Ari had a conversation with her which consisted of her saying well I'm not telling your grandad and neither is anyone else because he's too old but I don't mind at all, I'm much more ahead of things, you have to move forward with life etc etc.
We were a bit taken aback. There is hope yet for my mother.
HAving a car in Rocky was also great - when you have a car in Rockhampton, you can leave Rockhampton!! So the first day we went to the beach. Ari showed me her favourite beach in the world at Zilzie(which is an anagram of Lizzie, ooh) which has rockpools and exciting little caves and I got bitten by a crab and everything.
Christmas day was fun, although way too hot. Weather forecast apparently said 36 but general consensus was more like about 40 degrees. There was a small paddling pool provided for the kids and Alex (gay celibate ex-nun aunt) broke the taboo by sitting down in it fully clothed about half an hour after she arrived. I then spent long periods sitting in it and playing with Mariah, who's three, and a duck that squirted out water. That was nice.
There were small kids and presents and wierd noises everywhere (some from the presents, some from the kids, some from me cos it was TOO FUCKING HOT) Lots of people even bought me presents! (well, Ari's grandma and grandad bought me a really nice top and some scented candle and Jack (Mike and Mel really) bought me some shower stuff and lip balm and Auntie Val bought us both a big thing of M&Ms.)
Ariadne herself bought me the COLLECTORS edition of Black Books. More Dylan Moran you can shake a really big stick at. It's bliss. We have been doing bvery little other than watching BB since we got home.
The only low point of the day was when Au -
Let me tell this thankyou very much. My Auntie Val nearly died! Well she fainted. She's in her seventies and all that but she's one of these indomitable old luvvies who will quote bits from her favourite productions until the day she dies, which will be never, because she's invincible. But apparently not! I was showing Mel and Alex our tent and when we came back up the stairs there was Auntie val, lolling in the arms of Useless Bill, unconcious with her eyes wide open. Luckily, Mel and Alex are trained nurses and they leapt into action. They turned Val over on her left side, and then she woke up. I was dispatched to fetch a bowl and wet towels and stuff, and she threw up a bit and when she was ok to be moved we stretched her out on Grandma's bed in front of the fan. (This is catholic matriarchy for you - grandma has the biggest and best fan in the house). Val was really shaken. She thinks she's indomitable too, you see. She's scared of getting old and increasingly creaky. And pissed off about it. Indignant. I spent ages talking to her and when she was ready to come down for prawns and fresh mud crab, she needed help down the stairs.
This on top of seeing how much my Nona's (other grandma) mind has deteriorated meant that when we left, I promised everyone that I wouldn't leave it so long next time, that I'd try to get home every year if I could. Because I love Val possibly more than any of my relatives, and it looks like she's not going to be around forever after all. And I don't think I could handle coming back in a few years and seeing people massively changed and debilitated, not again.
Anyway, Rocky was wonderful and emotional and brilliant. Grandma was wonderful to us both, Grandad had tears in his eyes when he said goodbye to us, and it was with lightness in our hearts and a spring in our step that we drove to Bundaberg and Mon Repos. We had a cup of tea with Jodie, and then drove on to Mon Repos, the turtle laying beach. Mon Repos, for those of you who have no French, like me, means 'My rest.' It was amazing. We pitched humphrey, went to the conservation place run by rangers, discovered there was no more space for veiwing turtles, and returned sadly to our tent. Then we discovered we could get to the beach from our site, so we sat on the dunes, smoking Davo's present, and being serenaded by a seventeen year old twit with a guitar. He had a nice voice so we let him stay. Then we went to sleep and woke up dead early and went for a swim in the most massive waves. There were people surfing, and we played with the waves by waiting for big ones and then leaping up into them going 'wheeee!' and sometimes we'd ride them and sometimes we'd be knocked over. Then we went for a walk along the beach. There was a small knot of people gathered around a lumpy thing. It was a turtle! We carefully approached. The atmosphere in the group was intense and quietly concentrated. This beautiful loggerhead turtle was just finishing covering up her eggs. She was late - the sun was up and the rest of the turtles had gone, but she was still working really hard. She was covering her tracks, flicking sand backwards. She had huge dark eyes, and she was crying, to keep the sand out. She was exhausted. Every so often she'd stop and go limp, and then she'd laboriously keep going. We stood, absolutely still, keeping out of her line of sight, holding our breath. She finished digging and started to haul herself along the beach. We followed her as discreetly as we could, all the way down to the waterline. She pushed herself into the sea and into the waves. We saw her break the surface of the water a couple of times, and then she was gone.
It was so wonderful.
Then we came back to Brisbane, were presented with an eviction notice and then we went to Fraser Island and it was fun. Tired now.
Fraser Island was excellent, though Australians are wierd. It takes about five hours to get that, and we 'just popped over' overnight. Some people go for the DAY! Anyway it was beautiful. We went with Dave and a guy called, well, Guy. He is very very thin. guy had a Range Rover and Dave had the Suzuki and taught me some 4W driving. It was fun. Bumpy. I didn't need to be towed once (which is a genuine achievement, for anyone who has never driven on soft sand) and only crashed into one tree (which, ok, less of an acievement)
The only thing about such a short trip was that Guy wanted to see lots of places and Dave is a wuss. Every time when I was in the car with Dave, or me and Ari were talking to Dave and guy was peeing (which by the way he did about every half hour!) Dave would say, oh, we won't bother goign to x place as planned because it's too far/ it's too late / we're too hungry, then Guy would come back and say 'so we'll just go to X place' and Dave would say 'Oh yes, that's a fabulous idea' and we'd go.' It did mean we saw a lot. It also meant we were very hungry a lot of the time and had to pitch out tent in the dark at 11pm.
Anyway, Fraser Island is the world's largest sand island. It is 170 km long by about 15-20 km wide. We think, but are not 100% sure, that it is also the only place in the world where rainforest grows out of sand. We saw some of this and it was amazing, thought not much due to aforementioned hunger. We also saw and swam in 3 freshwater lakes, including one at the bottom of a very steep sand dune which proved almost impossible to reclimb. One of the lakes was a clear brown colour because of the tanin from the plants. Our favourite bit was Eli Creek, which is a long flowing creek that goes into the ocean. It was the only place with cold water because it was running water, all the lakes were really warm until the really deep bits (you can't swim in the ocean because of sharks. Cool. And rip tides, says Ari, but people's main concern seemed to be sharks. If you fly over you can see whole groups of them swimming about) We walked down the creek, then back up it - which was bloody hard because of how fast th ewater was flowing, then back down it. Then we went back home. We had a magical Christmas time all in all.
Oh, New Year's Eve we went to Quentin's house, who works at Dockside. Well, his Mum's house. We didn't really want to go, and had eviction issues, so thought the party started at 12 noon, we procrastinated all day (and drank a bottle of Southern Comfort) and turend up about half ten. Quentin was the only person there we knew by then , but it was cool. We drank beer and Champagne and frolicked in the pool (Quentin's mother has a pool and a tennis court. I think she may be quite rich.) Quentin offered us $150 for some light lesbina frolics and was trying to do a collection but ended up wandering off and quite possibly passing out. We were referred to by everyone as 'the lesbians' and Q's 15-year old sister asked us lots of questions. It was funny.
Talking of being referred to as a single entity, we experienced a similar thing in Rocky, always referred to as 'the girls' It's sweet because Jack, who's 3, knows who we are but not our individual names 'They're girls' he confidently offers, as if this was out joint name. It is sweet and frustrating in equal parts.
Before this turns into the lj equivilent of a slide show, allow me to tell you about the eviction. Is a brief but bitter story. Our lease is in Nikki's name. Nikkie is nineteen and slightly stupid. The letting agent has been telling Nikki that Jackie's debt is ours and that we have to pay it off. Jackie was evicted for non payment of rent, so no it's not. We were served an eviction notice for non payment of rent in Nikki and Jackie's name. Since Jackie's eviction, we have been on time as a household with our rent. Jackie's debt should have been cancelled for the rest of the household and her name taken off the lease but it hasn't been and now they are trying to get rid of us, we suspect because they've discovered there are people willing to pay more for it than we are. We will fight them on the beaches etc.
Thankyou for the parcel Erin. We put the tablet in the fridge and read the metro avidly and homesickly. We love you!
Love to all, happy new year, hope all your Christmasses were bloody freezing because we like to think that somewhere in the world there were people celebrating who weren't covered in sweat and flies.
Love love love,
Ari and Lizzie.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
