Confessions of a Bondi Blonde

Family is a genetic illness.

I have inherited a large nose, long spidery limbs and varying degrees of craziness from my father; usually our individual levels of weird increases in direct proportion to the temperature. We are temperate in temperate climes and absolutely barking mad during a heat wave. Christmas in Queensland is best avoided by rational people when me and my dad fight over the ham mountain or pop the Crazy Charlie’s Christmas crackers. Ho, ho, ho. From my mother I have inherited a desire to eat all matters of sweet junk after 8:00 p.m., no matter how controlled the diet in the daytime and also a sophisticated martyr complex, enhanced by lessons learnt over the years at the stockinged knee of mother master. We both can make those nearest and dearest feel guilty for the smallest misdemeanour while insisting, “Really, there’s nothing wrong”. We can engender the most complex blend of hate, love, frustration and anger with a raised eyebrow or the smallest shrug. We have made a silent pact, in the way women do, not to use this skill too often on each other, just send the others in our very scary family killer-mad with its usage. Sometimes, however the beloved/bedevilled matriarch can’t help herself and winds me up, up, up so tight I snap into an explosive, expletive-laden offspring. The killer blow is always perfectly delivered by mummy dearest as I lay squirming like a large Queensland cockroach on the linoleum floor, apoplectic with rage, “Really Blondie, you never did have a sense of humour. It was just a joke.” Ho, ho, ho.

So, with these lovely scrapbook memories in mind, I looked warily forward this school holiday to a week away from Bondi with the nippers at a fancy Queensland beachside resort…. With…my…parents.

The ghosts of Christmas past nagged at me as I made the airline bookings. For years in the era BC (Before Children) I had been a sharp shouldered, sharper tongued corporate thing, living large in London. Each Christmas I took what was left of my savings and spent them on a ticket to hell and back, a return trip to the family home in deepest, fluorescent-lit Gympie. A twenty-four hour flight in cattle class was always followed by a one hour wait at Arrivals while my parents argued then decided that my mum should meet me at the luggage carousel and my dad should “do the block” and drive around in circles rather than pay the six dollar parking fee. Needless to say, my mother and father lost each other every single time. We would wait in the 30 degree plus December heat while my dad decided to nap in a nearby lay by. By the time he awoke, partly dehydrated and a little rested and drove illegally to the taxi rank to pick us up, my mother’s tongue was hotter than the pavement and I was just pure ectoplasm and unfortunately, inherited DNA. As we went homeward bound though the new Brisbane suburbs, each of which seemed to have popped up from the red soil where small farmers used to plant flowers and corn, we always had to stop at a hardware store or a supermarket. Like I needed to see a Bunning’s after the bright lights of big City London.

So this year, being a grown up and a mother and therapied into understanding that I could stop situations from becoming problems by exercising free will, I decided to ensure that all encounters would be friendly by ensuring that we stayed in separate locations, meeting on neutral territory like ice-cream stores or parks. I stayed in fancy Noosa digs (on the cheap from an indulgent multi-housed friend) and the oldies hit the highlights of Tewantin Caravan Park, a handy eight kilometres away.

We had a blast. And nobody died.

The parents proved themselves admirable grandparents. They spirited my children away for new adventures through hardware stores and supermarkets, chasing red light specials at Spot Light. Caravan Park delights, unknown to my city slicker kids, were unveiled in shimmering layers; 50 cent white paper bags of mixed lollies from the caravan park store; sausage sandwiches on white bread, cooked on the communal barbecue; and swimming in pee-filled camp ground pools with dozens of similarly happy-faced, toilet-shy kids. These are the things that my kids dreamt of after long holiday days. It was a joy to see my extended family working so well and my kids building bonds that wouldn’t break with their eccentric, loveable-in-small-doses grandparents.

My oldest son sat with his grandfather, who is a mix of Steve Irwin and well, probably an escapee from the local loony bin, and learnt interesting facts, such as:

• The best way to kill a bull shark is with a baseball bat. (My precocious eight year old replied “a baseball bat will probably kill anything, grandpop”.)
• Rum is medicine. Mix it with milk and it will probably cure cancer.
• Colloidal silver, when ingested, will cure the cancers that Rum can’t fix.
• Kookaburras at dusk mean that it will rain in the next 48 hours.
• Most worryingly, my father explained how electricity works.

My mother rolled her eyes so often at my father’s questionable truths that I thought she was having a “turn”, which they both seem to have frequently since hitting the magical age of 70, taking their “turns” in turn.

We moved en masse to ice-cream stores, where all of us had a kiddie cone, slurping merrily away and making repeated trips to the free topping bar; my father liked the nuts best (takes one to like one), but the four year old preferred the sprinkles. We sat at long park tables, eating mystery meat rissoles, burping in tune and laughing together as the Kookaburras joined in. The highlight for my children was the last night, after six marvellous days of sun, no rain, sand and family feasting. Their Aunty, my sister, had been working hard all week but managed to escape the cold clutches of professional responsibility to see her nephews and give them cuddles. She’s the perfect aunt and brought the perfect gift. A whoopee cushion. Fart. Fart. Fart. 50% real, 50% fake. Only those creating the noise knew which was which and I stood near the door for air, wondering what it would have been like to have daughters. Then I saw my mother give an assisted bottom burp, to the hysterical delight of my sons, and I thought it probably would have been the same. You can’t escape your gene pool.

The next morning, our last in Noosa, my parents joined us early to consume the left-over food. Breakfast comprised bacon, pancakes, cereal, toast, pasta, steak, lettuce, tinned apricots and ice cream with chocolate sauce. I shoved the left-over vegemite and peanut butter into the luggage, almost collapsing trying to reach the suitcase zip over my distended tummy.

We drove in convoy to the airport following my sister, as my father forgets his way to the car, much less a destination. (Note to self: Buy a GPS for Dad’s Christmas gift. One with a female voice, so he can tell the stupid bitch to shut up – something he’d love to say to me, if he’d dare.) My children drove with their aunty and sang songs. I drove with my parents and tried to meditate my way to sanity as my father took on every other driver between Noosa and Maroochydore, outgunning, out speeding and outswearing every other Queensland Bogan on the road that day. He lost his way, I lost my mind. Finally all were found and we arrived at the airport almost sane, and luckily, two hours early for a domestic flight delayed for a further hour. Yippee.

We managed one last feeding frenzy at the airport cafe. Parking is free at Maroochydore Airport so my father was reassured that he could stop the car for more than a minute. The kids sat on their grandparents’ knees, cuddling and giggling in equal measure and taking turns to be Indiana Jones in my father’s Cancer Council hat. The holiday had exceeded my wildest expectations. My kids were happy, I was happy. Amazingly, for the first time since Queensland won the State of Origin, my parents were happy. It was the perfect moment. Then somebody farted. Somehow, we improved on perfection.

Where else but Queensland?

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