There comes a time in your life when you realise that maintaining 9, 000 miles distance between you and them will not prevent your parents from coming and staying with you. Of course, we could have tried joining the witness protection program, but that would have been a little over the top and it does mean that all of those niggling jobs that need doing and never quite seem to get finished, get finished and are finished well.
This trip, they are only here for three weeks and it’s actually not long enough as they have been fantastic company, very generous and industrious, especially my father who has worked tirelessly (for gin and the occasional meal) in the kitchen washing up, which is his speciality and in the garden, which now looks great.
We headed into the City of Ballarat one evening for the second ‘white nights’ festival, which consists of all the bars/restaurants opening late into the night and the lovely old buildings being lit up with animated coloured lights. There’s live entertainment and select venues hold private parties on their balconies overlooking the main streets. It’s a fun evening and the buses run through until 3am, so there’s no need to drive. Just as well really.
A strangely illuminated man stalking through the growing crowds.
Moving Aphids and other critters on one of the old buildings
This one had a medieval theme.
With Jerry Junior living in Adelaide we decided to take a road trip over to see him and his lovely wife, but instead of blatting across country via the most direct 7.5 hour route, we decided in a weak moment, to take the scenic Great Ocean Road (GOR). It is possible to drive past the highlights in a day, but that would be a very long day from where we live and then of course, you would have to carry on up the coast another 600+ kms to the city of churches. Driving with my parents can be interesting as at any one time, you have to be no more than 30 minutes from a toilet and 2 hours from a cream bun. It’s good to know what I have to look forward to.
I am often quite gleefully told that Adelaide was the only city that didn’t have convicts sent to it and therefore none too subtly suggesting that socially, it’s a cut above Melbourne, Perth and Sydney. That’s up for debate, but I always love going there.
When choosing a hire car, I thought that a compact would be sufficient as there was only the three of us, not realising of course, that the hire companies substitute quite reasonably sized compact cars for other roller skate sized toys, that are notionally in the same ‘group’ but that are way cheaper for them to run. The next morning, we took off from home with the sound of a sewing machine working itself up to a decent run of stitching and started rehashing old family story’s; ones that usually ended up with me being the butt of the jokes. I brought them all upon myself, of course.
Part way around the start of the Great Ocean Road a tree had fallen across the road and blocked travel in both directions, so we turned around to Lorne and had morning tea. I tried an alternative route, cunningly suggested by the GPS and we saw some lovely properties before discovering the inevitable scenic but very dead end. Eventually, however, we got somewhere and that somewhere was Warrnambool. If you are ever there, you need to know that out of high season, it’s pretty much dead after nightfall. The hotel of the same name thankfully does a very nice dinner however.
Probably not three of the twelve Apostles, but spectacular, none the less.
Once back on the Princes highway, we passed through Coonalpyn. At first glance it seemed to be the same kind of tiny country town that we’d passed through several times before. It’s around 300 meters of the same kind of street frontage featuring agricultural suppliers, a bakery and a cafe, but the huge grain silos that dominate the town are covered in a mural of the local kids http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-25/coonalpyn-silo-artist-guido-van-helten-finishes-project/8380546 the mural was part of a project to rejuvenate the communities who were badly affected by drought and it certainly seems to have worked, with new businesses opening monthly.
There are very tall vandals in Coonalpyn
We did eventually make it to Jerry Junior’s and a welcome BBQ dinner. They have a small two-year old fur child in the form of Alfie; a rather cute Dachshund.
See what I mean?
Alfie with one of his victims. As with most serial killers, he has started to refine his tactics
It turns out that Alfie has developed his hunting instincts and has taken to chasing down rats and mice in the garden. He’ll happily kill them but he doesn’t eat them, he’s way too fussy for that. Alfie will instead, delicately chew the ears off his victim.
An earless victim
That night, I slept in the living room and shared the mattress on and off with Alfie, he kindly leant his little hot water bottle like body as a bed warmer and aside from the occasional race around the mattress in the middle of the night was no problem. I did however have rather a nice dream in the middle of the night (you know the kind), I won’t go into detail, suffice it to say that when I woke, it was with a very pleasant warm feeling. I reached over and instead of hair, I felt fur. Alfie had been gently nibbling my ear lobes.
What used to be a small pleasure is now a sizeable phobia. My dreams will never be the same again.