Its been a long time between drinks for the blog, so in a desperate bid to catch up, we give you a collection of short stories written during the recent Griswald family vacation to the Gold Coast and Byron Bay. All coinciding with the wildest weather in the regions since 1974 (tru dinks).And buddha statues.
After a hearty lunch we wandered off into the gardens to the big buddha – all 12 feet of him – with his legs crossed and one hand raised, palm out.
“Cyril Squirrel!!” squealed the boy (Cyril Squirrel being a character from the “Maisey” series of books – and apparently a dead ringer for Buddha)
“err… I guess…” said mum
“Cyril Squirrel High Five!” proclaimed boy, looking up at Buddhas raised open palm.
(“Is that some form of blasphemy?” mum asked dad. “Buggered if I know – damn funny I reckon” came the reply, as dad posed Mike giving buddah a bit of flesh.)
Mum had suffered the morning through her first ever bout of braxston hicks (though she didn’t realise until the afternoon when she crept into the Byron ABC book shop and read it up in one of the preggy books – they must hate not having a library in town), so come evening when they were all stretched out on the daybed (or “David” as the boy calls it), the topic of Sissy soon arose.
“Why don’t you say hello to Sissy?” dad asked the boy.
Who promptly rolled over, lifted up mums t-shirt, looked at her belly and promptly said in a voice loud enough to be heard through skin, subcutaneous fat and foetal fluids, “HELLO SISSY!”.
“And what about a pat?” suggested dad.
So the boy gave mums tum a gentle pat.
“Michael hug Sissy” the boy announced, and given the green light from mum, lay across her belly with arms spread.
Then sat upright, announced Sissy was having a rest, and pulled back down mums shirt.
We were a bit stunned.
And amazed.
(Though the boy did note his displeasure when told that Sissy might cry a bit when she arrived.)
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Being his mothers son (she being a maths graduate and all that), the boy has taken an affinity to numbers.
His favourite being four.
“Make a four mummy!” he demanded, handing mum a set of duplo blocks that the kind owner had brought over for him to play with (thanks Anne-Marie!)
Mum promptly put her four years of dedicated tertiary maths training to its ultimate use, and made the lad a “four” (though dad thought the tail was a bit long)
“Four!” bellowed the boy in obvious delight.
And ran round to show dad.
“Four!!”
His delight was so profound he continued to run about the house till inevitably the stumbled, dropped it, and the laws of entropy took over (i.e., it smashed).
Upon which he looked at the few blocks left in his hands, ran over to mum, looked up into her eyes and announced;
“Mummy – your fours broken.”
(Maybe you had to be there...)
Swinging kids on swings is, well, lets face it, dullsville.
So in this respect, Byron has a playground worth the price of admission alone; perched on the grass above the beach, right in front of the pub, and with a swingset perpendicular to the surf so the swinger can watch the waves ensuring the swingee gets a decent ride.
“Smart move that” said dads brother, who lived in Byron way back when dad and mistress P were a courting.
“That patch used to be the wino spot; they would never be able to keep it once the mums moved in.”
And having seen a few mums protect their kiddies now, we reckon he’s right.
We seem to be at the official back breaking age.
Too young to walk at adult pace.
Too distracted by the world to remember where we’re going.
Too easily tired out to want to walk.
But…
Clearly too old to want to use the pram.
So it wasn’t until the final full day of the 
All very speccy.
It also included numerous bush turkeys pecking away on the edge of the sand, and occasionally through peoples beach bags.
“SHOO!!” the boy would scream.
Literally.
“SHOO SHOO!!”
(This appeared to be something that he first picked up getting rid of flies round his weekend pie on the deck at home, and perfected (much to mum and dads horror) in the serene grounds of the crystal/buddha place, where he made an art form of breaking the reverent silence with his loudest possible “SHOO!!”s when the magpies approached his lunch...)
So when tummy rumbles forced the clan up from The Pass to the overlooking café – or at least Master M announced “Café!” and marched off (what in the wide wide world of sports have we bred?) - and an outside table was selected with glimpses of the surf below, it was only a matter of time until the turkeys arrived too.
And even less time after our banana/berry muffin (MMMmmmm…. Banana berry muffffffinnnnn) was served that the turkeys – all 5-6 kg of them – started leaping onto the railings next to our table and we entered into another game of;
“SHOO!!”
“Try this…” said the waiter, sq
uirting at a buzzard with a water sprayer, almost identical to the one that Master M had used during Black Saturdays 47.3°C-in-our-backyard heatwave to keep himself cool.
“Oh no…” we thought.
Mikes eyes lit up like dishplates.
A small noisy miner attack on a muffin brought a Clint Eastwood/”You feel lucky punk” glint to the boys eye, before he let loose with all the accuracy only a Melbourne heatwave training session could provide.
The bird never knew what hit it.
And from that moment on, neither did the café.
Any turkey, magpie or miner that set foot within a 6ft radius of the table was blasted.
And once they all learnt to keep their distance he was off.
A 2.5ft Rambo stalking his prey.
They’d created a monster.
His bird squirting rage was so intense, he not only refused to consder the last quarter of his much-demanded baby-cino, but unbelievably, any of the remaining banana/berry muffin (MMMMmmmm…. Banana berry muffinnnnn…)
“We’ll have to put that kid on the payroll” said the waiter.
“We’ll have to put the kid in therapy” said dad.
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The holiday ended with a blast back to the Gold Coast and, for the boy, a true trip to nirvana.
Otherwise known as Wiggle World.
The boys first trips on the Big Red car ride left him stunned. Litrerally.
Not a word.
Not a sound.
Barely a blink.
Till it all ended and mum asked if he liked it. All that squeaked out was...
"...yes..."
A recovery period on a Dorothy's cups ride, and then off to lunch.
Only he couldn't eat.
Couldn't sit
Couldn't sleep.
After four trips in the Big Red Car ride, three in the Dorothy tea cups, a rather scarey few minutes with Henry the Octopus, and a trip to Wiggle Bay and his first ever waterslide (he hated it...) it was time to go home.
Which lead to the mantra;
"Big Red Car Yellow Wiggle"
(put through babel fish = "I sat in the Yellow Wiggle's seat and drove the big red car!")
Right until we were home in Melbourne.
What a trip... Print this post
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