Testing for return
HAVING saved up our holidays for a grand family hoop-de-doo in Sydney for Christmas we have at last been able to return home. The dreaded COVID-19 is now testing neutral. However we did get a dose that was generously spread through the family by Auntie Typhoid Mary or her equally generous niece, Germie.
Nothing to do with me – I was shipped out earlier with a favourite travel companion who glories in the name of Dan Han Houlihan. I'd back her against any travel agent or organizer in the world. I've known her to sit in front of an airline check-in counter until some great mess is sorted and passengers could again get through the glass doors that held back the less determined souls. You need to know the woman knows her rights and is never wrong or nasty about the chaos that was Sydney airport a couple of days ago.
The seating was eventually arranged so that the mother of the Mongoose Muppets of Flagstaff got sat next to them while the rest of our merry band chortled from across the aisle. Actually the Muppets love travelling and are now extremely knowledgeable and organised about what bags go up or down and where their colour pencils are.
We stayed with Cuddles the Thug, now a well-built 30-something lawyer who runs a disorderly house in a respectable neighbourhood close to Sydney city, supervised by a Staffordshire bullterrier named Mako. We had a sensational time buying our Christmas comestibles for the following few days, from lamb joints to the doings for a fruit-topped pavlova that seemed to lurk for more days than expected in the refrigerator (considering its tastiness).
The next few days passed in a food coma and all suggestions of cooking were totally and completely ignored, with advice on how to make nourishing sandwiches of cold chopped chicken and salad in Australia.
There was no use trying to do anything much between Christmas and New Year – I think that is some kind of rule in Australia. Same as you have to know how to barbecue a kangaroo, or build a full lovo in Fiji to qualify for citizenship. Plus with all the COVID in the household, shared in an elegant knock-on effect way, we couldn't really leave the house until New Years.
New Year celebrations passed with suitable festive drinks and nobody fell through the deck again. I still don't know what it was those people spilt on the dog but it was horribly sticky and the sofa has not recovered. The dog is supposed to sleep in its own bed in the middle of the house so it can 'keep watch'. As far as I can see the dog sleeps somewhere it can see television if some annoying burglar who doesn't know the rules tries to break in. Anyway, her bedding is now so smelly and sticky she won't sleep there anymore.
I can say we all had a wonderful Christmas and New Year and all the exciting bits in between. Especially the times we were alarmed and shattered by the sort of insect pests airlines warn their passengers about.
We thought we had become hardened after the red back spider in the letterbox incident, but I fear worse was to come. The Mongooses from Flagstaff were talking tough when their Mausi-aunt disturbed the entire household with screams in the night. (You hardly get any night to scream down in Australia where daylight saving allows about 20 minutes darkness to really sleep).
Anyway, just a few nights ago there was screaming on a scale never heard before from Mousie auntie.
"Spider" she screamed. "Many spiders," she shrieked as she fled her bed. And there were; many, many tiny spiders abseiling from the ceiling on filaments of web. There were literally hundreds. The elder Hope of the Side, called in on the rescue, was loathe to "poison the babies" but even she had to admit it was a bit much for anyone (let along an arachnaphobe) to contend with. I suppose a coven of witches whom we suspect of living in the ceiling of the front bedroom is responsible.
Whatever, it's all over now and we have done all our tests showing we are disease and random poisoning free. Set to rally on with 2023. May you all feel the same, ready to take up your duties as a vigilant public in a truly democratic system and watch out for spiders. Best wishes to all.