Rottnest Island 25 years on

Here we are, a couple of old codgers out and about on bikes on Rottnest Island. Haven't been here since before we had kids 25 years ago and one thing that has changed is that we have to wear these ridiculous bike helmets.

Honestly!

We're over here for a night in a lovely villa on the beach at Thomson Bay, and mid week is a good time to come as it's 10pm as a write this and quiet as the grave. The gentle lap of the ocean on the beach outside our villa is the only sound apart from a few cicadas.

I know I shouldn't have, but I've stroked an inquisitive quokka that came through our back gate looking for food this afternoon (but I didn't feed him a single scrap). Ordering the groceries from the Rottnest General Store online was a good idea. It had all been delivered and popped into the fridge when we arrived. Excellent service.

I'm nursing a bit of a tender bottom after day one in the saddle, and a bit dubious about day two as King Tommo wants us to ride over to Cape Vlamingh. I thought we went that far 25 years ago, but looking at a map we realised we only went as far as the guns and tunnels at Oliver Hill. Oh, dear..... He swears he has never known a person to ride a bike as slowly as I do, and is amazed I don't fall off. Bullshit! He is one of those crazed nutters who pedals down hill and goes so fast I'm sure he doesn't see a thing!

Hotel Rottnest has been done up well. We had a coffee and Baileys on Ice there a short while ago, surrounded by quokkas who couldn't quite work out the unpalatable fake grass! The settlement is looking good and we had a lovely walk over to Geordie Bay this evening. Now it's time to turn in and get ready for the saddle tomorrow.

The Bare Bottomed Truth

I'm just an old scrubber. My job last week was to help remove the old anti foul from our boat, Serendipity, and slap on the new stuff. It's a messy job, but a necessary one.

'Serendipity' is a popular name for boats. It means 'The Faculty of Making Happy Discoveries By Accident'. Here is a shot of her props all cleaned up.

It reminds me of my friend Dave's bottom.

Dave had a propeller tattoed to each cheek of his backside many moons ago in his heady youth when he was single and before he met the love of life and decided this was the girl for him....for ever.

During their courtship Dave had told her a lot about himself but had been too 'em-bare-arsed' to tell her about his 'bare arse', and he was terrified she would reject him when she discovered his bottom was not as unsullied as she might like to imagine.

So he took her to dinner to 'prop'-ose (this is getting silly) to her and to come clean and bare all. (Well not literally, for they would have been thrown out of the restaurant wouldn't they?) He went down on one knee and asked her to marry him, but told her that before she gave him her answer, there was something he had to tell her. He was worried about how she was going to take it and he didn't know how to begin to tell her this terrible thing he had to confess to.

She recalls that evening so well. Her mind was in a tortuous turmoil thinking of all the ghastly things he might be about to tell her. He was already married; he had illegitimate offspring from another relationship; he couldn't have children; he was an axe murderer! She remembers vividly how she reacted when he turned deep red in the face, leant towards her and whispered,

"I have propellers tattoed on the cheeks of my backside."

Laugh! She nearly fell off her chair with relief! Was that all? So she said 'Yes' to his proposal and his props and they lived happily ever after.

He is still very sensitive about his props, and doesn't like people seeing them. He is the only man I have ever walked in on naked in a bathroom who, instead of turning swiftly away to hide his manhood and show me his bottom, has swung round swiftly and shown me his fruit!

'Serendipity'.....the faculty of making happy discoveries by accident!

Country Mums

I had the pleasure to perform at the Country Mums Group in Condingup this week. Pictured are Janet (left) and Suzie (on my right).

This is a lively group of young women who bring their children and themselves together once a month in the delightful setting of The Condingup Tavern. Here, they enjoy coffee, cake, lunch and laughter as they think up entertaining and interesting topics each month.

There are a lot of little people underfoot here, and beautifully behaved too I might add, as well as babes in arms, on the bottle and the breast. Some mothers have managed to birth down two babies at the same time, so it is fortunate that there are plenty of arms available to settle the twins when needed!

We were talking ebay at one stage, the pros and cons, and how I can hopefully pick up a good digital SLR on there. Janet is obviously a seasoned ebay buyer. She had a lot of advice including this gem:

"But you've got to be good at ebay.......I've got four clarinets.....and none of them work!"

Good advice....thanks Janet.

The Bijou Theatre

The Bijou Theatre

Clink on the link above and see how you can enter The Bijou Monologues competition and be in the running to win $1000! You've got until the 15th April to get your entries in, so if you reside in the Esperance districts get writing!

The Old School Tie

The Old School Tie....only this one isn't, in order to protect the protagonist in my blog. I felt that if I posted a photograph of his real school tie, it would be recognised by someone and all hell would break loose in his scholastic institution. Or worse.....we might be called in for another one of those unpleasant 'interviews'.

Parents have so many reasons to be proud of their children, and for us our son is no exception. Perhaps yours was Head Boy or Head of House or Captain of Cricket. Perhaps yours was the winner of The Beazley Medal or Dux of School or Fairest and Best for the footy season. Maybe he plays three different instruments or is the youngest boy to have sailed single handed around the world in a yacht.

Ours did none of the above, but boy are we proud of him. And why, I hear you ask?

Because our son, as he moves through his final year of school, has single handedly manged to get through five gruelling years of secondary education seemingly with the original set of school uniform we bought for him at the start of Year 8. That's right, one set of uniform.

Does he have some sort of growth disorder? No, he does not. He was 152cm when we sent him away four years ago and he is now 186cm.

Is he abjectly shuffling around his school in shorts that constrict his nether regions, long pants that finish mid calf, and shirts whose sleeves finish at his elbows, whose tails are too far from his pants to tuck into anything, and whose button holes have elastic attached to them so that they can connect with their buttons on the other side of his rapidly growing, well muscled, manly chest?

No, he is not. Our boy is quite simply entrepreneurial. Our boy is going to go far. Our boy may be no Rhodes Scholar, but by God he was quick off the mark with his visionary powers when he first came across........... The Boarding House Lost Property Box.

He has quite simply dressed himself out of this receptacale by recycling his school uniforms. He simply takes out his name tapes from his school clothes, drops in a size 10 and pulls out an un-named size 12. Then the follwoing year he drops in his size 12 and takes out a size 14. I was horrified initially.

"Darling! Isn't that theft?"

"No. It's recycling, Mum. None of the stuff I take out has a name on it and it's been in there for ages. It's not as if I'm not putting anything back in either. It's sort of swapping stuff, that's all"

Perfectly harmless, isn't it? So I relent, and realise that is one trip to the school uniform shop I won't have to make at the start of the new school year, and one more trip for me to the frock shop. The boy has saved us hundreds of dollars.

And Madam, before you get irate with me because my son is possibly wearing your son's rugby shirt, might I politely remind you that you should have put a bloody name tape in it or marked it with an indelible pen! I'm starting to sound slightly school marmish now.

Oh, and if any one is after 'an old school tie', my boy might be able to help you out.....though with his entrepreneurial skills, it might cost you!