(Dylan, Stevi, Murrae and Mikey at Perth zoo)
It was near on three weeks ago when I received a fraught text message from somewhere in Brunei. It was Shazza obviously at the end of her tether.
"Plane is delayed, not leaving for hours. Murrae vomiting. Kids driving me mental"
I know for a fact that Shaz had only enough sedatives for a twenty hour flight. How could she possibly cope with three teenage kids for hours with NO 'Mamas Little Helper'. Especially in a place where the only dish offered to them was sweet and sour fish served in traditional flight style mush? On top of all these separate traumas was the fact that she had mistakenly chosen a Muslim flight.
No alcohol!
I felt for her, really I did.
However, this was seriously eating up my beer drinking time. Now I had to stay sober until midnight. Unheard of!
So it was approximately ten pm when I just happened upon the flight website to check where her plane was (Scheduled Time of Arrival: 00.10), the website has one of those fancy things that can track where your beloved is in the sky. Shazza's plane should have been somewhere over Shark Bay.
It was hovering over Perth CBD!
Arse.
Cue much panic, grabbing two shoes that matched and frantic phone calls to Dave (he was out celebrating, minus alcohol, his mates birthday) to try and entice him away from his enjoyable evening to help collect Shaz and her clan as I was never going to get five people plus suitcases in just my car.
Luckily I arrived before they had managed to sneak through customs. Over here they xray your luggage before you leave the airport just in case you happen to sneak something terribly dangerous in like a Granny Smith apple or a rack of lamb. If faced with a half eaten snickers bar hiding in your case, the guards and their fierce puppy dogs wrestle you to the ground, fire off a round of ammo screaming 'None of you fucking bastards move or you'll get a bullet in your eye' before throwing you into the nearest prison for terrorist behaviour. So when the clan eventually strolled through the doors they were looking only a little travel weary and nicotine deprived but with no obvious signs of an assault of the 'gloved finger'.
So back to mine for beer then!
And there began the two weeks where we tried to cram as many people into our wee hoose as possible. Dave's ex student Joe, in the spare room, Stevi, Mikey and Murrae in the second spare room (we didn't have beds for them so they slept on inflatable mattresses that only deflated a couple of times) and Sharon and Michael on the sofa bed in the living room. Unfortunately we don't have heating in our house except for the one heater in the living room. Sharon wasn't hearing any of the kids complaints about the freezing bedroom until she and Michael moved into Joe's room when she moved out. I think that was when she decided that they would get heaters for ALL the bedrooms in their new house!
Having eight people living in a small space was a lot like how it is on Big Brother but with more intelligent conversation and less silicone addled blondes. We each had exactly three minutes and fifteen seconds to shower before the hot water ran out which means that I did not shave my legs for two weeks as the necessity to attend to my greasy locks far out weighed the need to evict the small amazonian tribe living amongst the shrubbery of my kneecaps. We debated for well over an hour each evening as to what to cook for everyone (much trickier than at first thought) and we drank beer and vodka as if we were students again!
All in all I felt like a Queen of a small country. Stevi was my personal hairdresser and in one hair episode she managed to dye a few strands of her own hair pink when she was streaking mine by clasping the back of her dripping with dye, gloved hand to her head and murmuring 'so difficult' in a diva-esque way! Joe was always there to amuse me with tales of drunken hilarity, usually accompanied by a few glasses of chenin blanc. Sharon was the head of domestic duties in which she made sure that I didn't lift a finger for the whole time and managed to delegate the washing and cleaning to the kids before ordering them to bring me cups of tea placed on silver trays adorned with doilies!
And now the house is empty it feels so eerily quiet. I'm going to miss them all!
Welcome to Oz, Shaz. Glad you made it!
