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Published: February 1st 2007
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Christmas 2006
25/12/2006
About 3 years ago, while our pal Tracey was travelling in Edinburgh, she was invited to join us for Christmas in Dalgety Bay. Obviously drunk at the time, she offered to return the favour when we got to Australia, so that we could enjoy a traditional Aussie Christmas while we were away from our families.
Christmas is weird here.
At the start of December, while we were in Melbourne, Lee and I were walking down one of the main streets in the city centre. It was about 30 degrees and we were doing a bit of shopping and we noticed this huge tree in the square across the road that had been decorated with lights and tinsel and stuff. It took us about 2 minutes to realise that Christmas was getting close. Nothing looks more out of place than a Christmas tree in blazing sunshine. Unless you count the first time Lee and I went diving. It really is difficult to get into the festive spirit when you’re not wrapped up in four layers and walking at 45 degrees to the ground into a wind. Santa Claus being dressed in a red and white hat,
beard, white t-shirt and red board shorts doesn’t help the illusion either.
All the cards over here still show reindeer and snowmen and all the stuff you would expect at Christmas, despite the fact snowmen are as rare as…..erm, reindeer. It’s. Just.Weird.
Once Lee and I had done a bit of crimbo shopping for Tracey and her family a few days before the big day, we were feeling a little bit more festive. The prospect of spending the bulk of Christmas day soaking in a swimming pool did our mood no harm either. We went out for a few drinks with Tracey and Mark on Christmas Eve to The Clarry, the pub down the road and got into the festive spirit and by the time we had got back, it was well into Christmas Day so we all sat down and opened our presents before we headed off to bed. Three hours later, we were tearing about the house getting ready so that we didn’t miss the 08.05 train to Burpengary which is where Tracey’s folks live. Needless to say, conversation on the journey out there was not exactly sparkling.
Tracey’s mum, Maree, picked us up at
the train station and ferried us out to the house, so that we could get stuck into Christmas proper. First thing on the agenda was the breakfast barbecue, eggs, bacon, sausages, tomato, the works. It was braw. By this time it was getting to about 11.30, the temperature was about 28 degrees and the pool was getting more and more tempting so we had a few more drinks and I went and ran about daft with Toby the dog for about 5 minutes before realising that the average Scottish male is not designed to run for a paper in Australia, never mind run about the garden with an Aussie border collie and a rubber American football.
After we had enjoyed a lovely seafood lunch, it was time to hit the pool. We never ever thought that we would spend the bulk of our Christmas day in a swimming pool but it’s the norm for Tracey and her family so the rest of the afternoon was spent there, drinking beers and chilling out basically. I think it was about 11.30 when we eventually made it to bed so we had a great day at Burpengary. It’s never the same when
A bit hung over Dove !!
Christmas morning with a hangover and last nights wif beater on !!! you’re not around your family at Christmas, but it’s nice when you can be around another family for theirs, so it was really nice of Shane and Maree to invite us out.
The day after Christmas day is road trip day for the Tilyard’s so we took off in the car to Maleny, a small town further north of Burpengary. It’s quite like the old towns you used to get in the Westerns and it’s full of souvenir shops and café’s to get a cup of coffee, but it’s large enough to need a supermarket, real estate agents and the usual things you would expect in a larger town. It’s not the sort of town that you would expect to find stories about everyday people versus the corporate giants, however, but right here in Maleny, that’s exactly what you have.
The baddies around Maleny appear to be Woolworth’s, who recently got permission to build a new store there on a site which runs alongside a riverbank which is home to the fairly rare duck-billed platypus. Now bear in mind that the store itself is about 30 feet above the riverbank and previous to them moving in, the riverbank
was an absolute tip and they actually cleaned it up as part of the deal, then Woolies have come off pretty poorly in all of this. There are posters all over Maleny saying “I will not shop at Woolworths” in shop windows, on cars, the lot. The Woolies management asked their staff to park their cars in front of the store to make it appear busy, people would even go into the store, load a trolley up to the top, mainly with frozen or fresh food and then just leave the trolley at the checkout. When all this was reported in the papers, more people around the area started doing this in other Woolworths stores to show empathy with the people of Maleny. It’s not quite Erin Brokowic, but it’s the biggest story around here for a few years.
On our way back from Maleny, we really felt like it was Christmas, because the rain started to come down. And so it stayed for the rest of Boxing Day, just like at home in Scotland. We half expected to get in to watch Dr No followed by The Great Escape, but alas, no. We did, however, get to watch
England being taught how to play ANOTHER game they invented, cricket, by the Australians.
One of the advantages of opening our presents early on Christmas morning was that when we were dropped back at the house in Brisbane, we realised that our recollections of what we had been given, were pretty sketchy to say the least. This meant that we could go back in and open them all over again. We had two Christmases in two days.
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Lorna
non-member comment
Hello!
Well, it is great keeping in touch with you through this blog page. Photographs look brill. Jealous of the fun time you are both having. When have we ever seen sunshine and drinks in the pool at Christmas time here. I hope you guys are enjoying yourselves! Love to you both. Lorna xx.