Early July 2016
The Tale of the Bozo family landing on the island has now become an even greater event than Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Treasure Island” or “The Swiss Family Robinson” (German: Der Schweizerische Robinson) a novel by Johann David Wyss, first published in 1812, about a Swiss family shipwrecked in the East Indies en route to Port Jackson, Australia.
**** it’s a rare talent to be able to hijack your own thread to educate yourself and those around you.
Just think, did you even know that “The Swiss Family Robinson” were on their way to Australia?
Huh?
Well?
No, I thought not!!!
You can thank me later!!
Education off
Hijack off *******
Why you ask?
Well that’s easy…. We got here!!! And guess what… it’s still an island.
I do believe there are many things that one can experience in life and one of the greatest is to watch the world change through the eyes of our children.
Yes they may work on our ability to see straight, buy nice cars, motorbikes, fornicate with sound effects or even…….god forbid just have a poo in peace and quiet.
They are there, all the time, but, we love it. Except for the trying to have a poo part.
I realized this when my two terrorists aka sons were still far away on the African continent. A continent that is so huge that the rest of the continents can fit into it (HE HE HE Zuma you beauty).
This realization became more apparent when they arrived on the island. Is the small things that we take for granted.
For example….
At the grocery stores here there is a thing called an self-check-out counter. I can just about guarantee that you will never see one of these in South Africa.
The concept is simple and it works. You walk into the shop and collect the stuff you want to buy.
You then walk up to the empty counter (there is no teller), scan the stuff you packed into your basket (yourself), load that into your packet (yourself), swipe your credit card and walk out the store. It works on a honesty principle.
Really? Really, really!!!
I have seen it, with my own peepers
, but being old school, I’m happy to stand in line and wait patiently to get access to a Till Operator. (if you read this carefully you maybe be thinking to yourself…..” its because he is too shy to ask for help if something goes wrong”….. well you would be absolutely correct on your thoughts.)
Trent saw this and after his experience of shopping at “ALDIS” ,where he had to pack the trolley at lighting speed, he decided that this is his new favourite method of shopping.
Unfortunately his favourite method of shopping means that he needs to use my card. So I now have lots of charges on my card for $1 or $3 . (LOTS). *edit* Apparently you can use cash as well…..
The fact that the kids can stroll up to the shop or to the park without adult supervision takes getting used to, in a week they will be catching a bus to school and then I ask myself what’s next.
Well the island is an interesting place. BUT let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
Things like washing clothes and ironing takes on a whole new meaning. Living a privileged life where your clothes magically travel from the bedroom floor or the shower floor to the cupboard, neatly folded and clean, well that life is over pappy. Wearing 3 different t-shirts during the day because you feel like it, well that’s over too.
On the journey to the island there was only so much space to pack stuff, as the rest of the escaping South Africans also needed space to pack their kak.
So there is only so much clothes to go round. In the first week the boys were so excited they tried to get through all their clothes in 2 days. Nikki the ever calm mother said nothing… for the first week.
Then we went washing.
At the laundromat.
Where its $5 a load.
And you still need to tumble-dry it.
At $1 for 7 minutes.
This is when I saw the edging on the perfect person start to fray, Juuuusssst a little, there were people (Nikki’s different personalities) standing in line trying to get out first to give their opinion. The operations manager part of her was almost at the door when the accountant did a double flick flack and landed just behind the mother part, leaning over the mother’s left shoulder whispering in her ear the current exchange rate and counting the loads of washing. On the other shoulder was Nikki’s General Manager personality saying things like,
”Get a grip of this situation, you need to ensure that this place runs like a tight ship, no over expenditure on the budget allowed”.
The operations manager is still in the background on her tippytoes trying to rally support for how to get to the laundromat with a ton of clothes on a bus, and further back is the admin person quietly crying over how this is all going to be ironed and hung without it getting dirty and creased on the ride home in the bus. (slowly we are starting to understand the mind of a woman)
While the edges are starting to fray, (and we had only just arrived) in the background Spiderpig has lost his marbles and is staring that clothes spinning in the tumble dryer making whooo wwhoooo whhoooo noises.
Trent is trying to look swag (in a laundromat) and I’m getting a high score on bubble breaker.
Just think about this for a second. A family of four sitting in line at a laundromat doing washing. Talk about living on a budget entertainment!
With the washing done and the coins all deposited into the various machines we are now folding clothes and the boys come to see what this strange behavior is that their parents are doing.
We introduce this concept to them slowly, first the action is called folding clothes.
And It looks like fun, so we demonstrate/ instruct / show / help them.
A light goes on in Trent’s head as he watches this from the corner, he realizes that this is work and quickly does a sideways shimmy a small distance away, far enough to look like he’s helping but doesn’t actually have to.
It’s an old trick we all learned in boarding school, so that when you get spotted on the outskirts and chirped you can easily give a look of innocence and say “What? I am helping … see (and pick up something)”.
Spiderpig on the other hand has not learned this tactic and is standing there trying to tell a story unrelated to what we are doing. I give him a tee-shirt and try to show him how it done…….. Need I say more.
Watching him fold a shirt is a taxing effort, it slow, and wrong, and frustrating, and you know you should not take it away and do it yourself (every books says that they need to do it themselves) but in the end, we as parents failed.
His attempt looked like a someone losing a slow motion Kungfu fight with four kilograms of wet pizza dough.
After folding one shirt he thankfully went back to the tumble dryers to make whoo whoooo whooo noises. All this time Trent was trying to eye his muscles in the reflection of the glass.
I think I was foxed again. I think that spiderpig is the most intelligent human in the family and has out witted the rest of us. He will probably never have to fold a shirt again in his life.
Only time and patience will tell.
Fast forward a couple of days and the kids are down to one set of clothes a day, the accountant has retreated to rest for a while and the admin person has stopped crying.
Peace has been restored on the island….. for now……..
Topic: Australia.... The Island Saga (Read 32982 times)
