Morphing into The Griswolds - The Conclusion

It is surprisingly difficult to launch a recovery mission when you are travelling in a car, you are almost two hours away from your place of residence, your broken car is in one location, the keys to the broken car are in yet another location and you are trying to accommodate an elderly relative from interstate and two young children.

As you might well imagine, The Coach and I were busy racking our brains for a solution. Our usual first port of call for a broken down vehicle, the RACQ, generally assumes that you and your broken down vehicle are in the same place. Clearly our circumstances fell into the unusual category. We made a list of local friends who owed us favours (0). We made another list of friends we could potentially bribe with the lure of alcohol and/or chocolate (many). We tried contacting the first of our friends on our Bribe List and discovered (most inconveniently) that Wilderness Man, who also happens to be an airline mechanic (plane, car, much of a muchness right ?) had chosen that very morning to take off for a three day fishing and camping trip. Bummer.

It was only as The Coach declared for the sixty-seventh time that he was turning the car around, that I realised fortune was favouring us with a small break. Only one week earlier I had employed the services of a local mobile mechanic to service my car and I suddenly noticed his sticker in the top right corner of my windscreen, with a mobile phone number listed, hallelujah.

Calls were made....many calls....but by the time we arrived in Noosa, plans had been set in motion and we were reasonably confident that everything would turn out okay. Yes, the kids managed to score two days off school whilst the car was getting repaired. Yes, we now had an unexpected extra expense tapped on to the cost of our holiday. But it was a small price to pay.

As we walked into the local pizzeria that evening I discovered that our luck had indeed changed. Mojito night. Bonus. Nothing better then a mojito or five to take your mind off car issues. I embraced holiday mode with such gusto that three hours later I was embracing the toilet bowl after having fertilised the manicured gardens of Noosa with my own special blend of pizza and white rum. It's klarsy with a capital 'K' when you take a bit of Gold Coast magic to Noosa let me tell you.

The next afternoon, after I had managed the enormous trek from the bed to the couch, I decided to check in with Nanny B. Le Artiste answered the phone,

"Hi mum, are you having a nice holiday ?"
"Yes thank-you darling, but we're not talking in tin cans linked by string, if you could yell a little quieter, that would be great. How are things at home ?"
"Good. We're having two days off school and Nanny just finished talking to the policeman about dad's car."
(Oh dear God)
"The policeman ?"
"Yes, the policeman called because people thought that dad's car had been stolen and left in the middle of the road."
(I think I'm ready for another mojito)
"But Nanny sorted it all out."
"Yep, she told him the whole story....oh Nanny...."
"Oh no, what's happened now ?"
*sigh* "Oh dear mum, Nanny just tried to put water in the wrong end of the iron and it's gone all over the kitchen."
"Well I'll let you go and help Nanny out darling. I'll call you again later."
"Okay, bye mum."

"Coach, grab your wallet, I need another ten mojitos stat."

Morphing into the Griswolds - Part Two

My way of dealing with the general state of chaos that life throws at you is to make plans and lists. I loooove lists, especially with tick boxes, tick boxes are great. Prior to Nanny B's arrival plans were made to deal with my growing anxiety over the dodgy car hand over :

PLAN A - Get car serviced and have loose clutch cable tightened.

Foiled by : The Coach could still hear his radio thus the expense and inconvenience of a service was deemed an unnecessary indulgence of my paranoia.

PLAN B - The Coach would take Nanny B on the morning school run which would aid her with directions and prove an invaluable test run allowing us enough time to procure an emergency hire car, if required.

Foiled by : A last minute business meeting which The Coach had to attend on the morning of our departure.

PLAN C - I would take Nanny B on the morning school run which would aid her with directions.

Foiled by : Nanny B loves a chat...I mean really loves a chat, and she forgets to pay attention to directions when involved in a good chat.

PLAN D - The Coach would take Nanny B for a quick drive around the block approximately 2 minutes before she had to depart on the afternoon school run.

Foiled by : Business meeting running overtime. Us running late on our departure time and Nanny B stating confidently "Don't worry darling, I'll be fine."

I won't lie to you, as I stood on our balcony watching The Coach's butt hanging out of the passenger front window as he attempted to take the hand break off for Nanny B, my fears were not allayed. As I took in the light fog rolling into the valley and the dark clouds looming overhead, heavy with the threat of rain, I was thinking, this is not good, not good at all. And as The Coach joined me on the balcony and we waved Nanny B off and an altogether new and ominous sounding grating noise filled the air, I shook my head, turned to my husband and said "I have a really bad feeling about this."

To be continued.....

Morphing into The Griswolds - Part One

Although my last blog post may have appeared to be nothing more then a blatant attempt to get Nissan to loan me a new Murano for twelve months, it actually had another far greater purpose. That was to provide you with a small insight into the differences between my car and The Coach's car. I must admit, I went a little off track when I started daydreaming about a new Murano, but the main point was to help you to understand that while my car receives regular..ish services, water and oil top ups, and even the odd wash, The Coach's car is surviving on a lean diet of neglect.

Sure it gets a clean out perhaps once every twelve months, which interestingly seems to coincide with a relative coming to visit, a relative who The Coach has to collect from the airport. It also receives the odd service, usually around the time that The Coach can no longer hear his talk back radio program over the cars determined protests which present as various grinding and squealing noises. Quite frankly, if that car was Kitt from Knight Rider, I imagine that it would have quite a mouthful of expletives that it would like to share with The Coach before self activating the eject button and launching The Coach through the sun roof.

This brings me to the clutch cable episode. Actually it wasn't so much an episode but more of a trailer. The clutch cable broke and The Coach was forced, no doubt muttering expletives of his own, to take the car to the mechanic to get it repaired. Seems pretty straight forward no ?

Now see, this is where The Coach and I really become polar opposites. The Coach returned home in the evening and I asked how the car was.

"I'm not happy with it," he replied "The clutch cable is too loose and it doesn't feel right."

"So why didn't you tell the mechanic?" I responded curiously.

"Something about the cost of pygmy hippos and the growth cycles of turnips." he answered. Well at least that's what I think he said, as he was sort of muttering and walking into the bathroom shaking his head.

And that is how it came to pass that for the last twelve months The Coach has been driving around in a car with a touchy, loose clutch cable. He is now used to the quirky clutch. He has also mastered the art of peering around the crack in the windscreen. He ignores the rattle and crunch that occurs every time he steers around a corner and he is virtually oblivious to the dings in the front, sides, back and roof (yes, we are all rather mystified by the ding in the roof).

Then recently we decided, after thirteen long years, to take a holiday to Noosa. We would require the use of my car. My Mother-in-Law, Nanny B, was going to need a car to ferry the kids to school in our absence, and although I was almost blinded by the neon warning signs flashing before my eyes, I succumbed to The Coach when he insisted,

"Don't worry about mum. She'll be fine using my car."

Oh ho ho, famous last words.....to be continued......

Where've ya been ?

So, where have you been huh ? Oh, you mean me ? Oh yes, well, you know, around the traps as they say. I don't know about you, but I get a little antsy at this time of the year. The pressure to get a thousand things done, attend Christmas do's and school/kindergarten break-ups and concerts. Then there's lodging the school stationary orders for NEXT YEAR before the 11th, squeezing in uniform purchases, getting the septic tank de-sludged, flying down to the hairdressers, picking up those last minute Christmas gifts, getting hams, getting turkeys........getting a headache. *Phew*....thank goodness I can have one of these to ease the stress levels....

So anyway, my blogging absence was unintentional, I've just been a little busy sitting and rocking back and forth in the cupboard.

But now, now school holidays are upon us. Today I took the kids to the local pool and then we went out for some lunch. According to Le Artiste, this put today high up in the ranks of 'The best days ever' (still hard to top the birthday expedition to Time Zone, but I'm glad a morning at the pool still fills him with such enthusiasm). And this afternoon I harvested the crops, I'm so proud of my sieve full of beans and snow peas. Tonight we shall feast on a Hungarian cucumber salad (oh yes, the cucumbers have gone berserk as well) and a bean and snow pea concoction which I am leaving to The Coach, he's the man for culinary experimentation (well, with a little help from Stephanie Alexander and The Cooks Companion).

And to keep things nice and Aussie, we'll throw a few snags on the Barbie. All together now, Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oi, Oi, Oi.

So I will be around, I will be finishing Witchy (so, so close) and I will be swinging by to catch up on all your lovely blogs. It just might be a far more casual schedule, 'cause we're on holidays you know. Happy holidays everyone. xx

Not quite all there.

Image from here

This is exactly how I feel at the moment. Everything seems a tad fuzzy and before you even ask, no I've not touched a drop of champagne or so much as swirled a nice leggy Pinot Noir around in a glass. Rather sad, no ?

Admittedly we are half way through the school holidays, but today we have drifted along at an altogether civilised pace, so I think I must point the finger of blame elsewhere.

Anyhoo, hopefully the fuzzies will blow away in all this wind, it has to be good for something right ? Meanwhile Petal is cleaning her room whilst balancing a book on her head and wearing 3D glasses which make her look startlingly like Roy Orbison and Le Artiste is making a dog named Bob from a cardboard box. Bob certainly looks like he's had a bowl or twenty of MeatyBites. Poor Bob, since you have no legs you really must stick to a stricter diet, or at the very least go and roll down the hill a few times each day.