‘One for the requiem: The funny stories they can share when I’m gone’

Reading on you will see that my story has just a tad of dark humour. Every time I did something memorable silly or both. The cry was, “Oh Mum, one more for the requiem”.

As a young married with four children, our holidays were camping, either at Glenmaggie in Victoria or a bit further up on the edge of the Murray. My lovely husband John was always watching, as he said, “My five children”.

One morning, hot as hades, I thought a little paddle in the Murray was in order. I could swim rather well. But the tide decided to swish me away. Didn’t worry me, I just did what I had been taught to do, however, my husband was running along the bank yelling, “Paddle left! Paddle left!”

Eventually I got out, covered in mud and very cross with him. Imagine a very loud little lady telling him that of course I would paddle left otherwise I would either drown or finish up in New South Wales. We both decided that the less said about it the better.

The children had flown the coop, and we were off. Phillip Island was a favourite and one morning I asked to see the seals from a boat.

I didn’t think anything of the look I got until a hoard of kids climbed on the boat with us. Picture this: beautiful seals, children throwing bread for them, parents holding firmly to the back of their pants, me trying so hard to get food to the one with a crook eye … I was delicately balanced on the rail with John firmly attached to my belt.

Then, after saving we went on my first overseas trip. It was for my 50th birthday. Being extreme fans of Disneyland, we always said we weren’t going to America, we were going to Disneyland. Sounds sooky, but we stood in front of that fairy tale castle holding hands and waving away the odd tear.

After a very fulfilled dream we arrived back to Los Angeles doing the tourist thing. I was so tired, a bus sounded like a good idea, so we purchased tickets and waited.

A very large African American guy was buying tickets and selling over the odds. Of course we had ours, other people just bought another one because they felt intimidated, but I may have mentioned I was tired and a very bad tempered little bantam, so when he made claims about racial bias at me, I didn’t take his rant. Poor John tried to shuffle me away but I yelled him. “I don’t care if you are purple with pink spots we have our tickets!”

Everybody froze, then he gave a huge smile picked up ‘the little lady’, stuffed me in the front of the bus and left John to fit himself in every which way. Definitely one for the requiem.

Walking through parks I was followed by 20 ducks that were quite sure there was more food. I was on a lot of cameras that day.

There have been some seriously silly times too. In a San Francisco Japanese garden there were little bridges and ponds plus a weird bridge shaped like a huge horseshoe. I decided it would be fun to climb. John informed me I would be sorry. I was.

I could get up the steps, but coming down the steps were so far apart I didn’t have a hope. All the people were on the up side, lots and lots of people. Finally a few boys from New Zealand grabbed various bits of me and lifted me down. Where was my husband, you might ask? Filming it.

And once there was a real scare, but sometimes innocence just gets you through. We’d left our hotel reasonably late for dinner and there were no Ubers back then. The concierge told us not to go a certain way. Of course that was where I wanted to go and just trotted off. A group of young men were coming toward us, they spread across the footpath and there was no way could we get past.

Even I had a twinge, but thought what the heck let’s take a chance. I picked out the middle boy, stuck my hand out and said, “G’day Mate”. John followed suit. They asked questions about Australia and Crocodile Dundee. Then asked us to go eat with them.

We spent a bit of money in a grotty diner eating burgers, of course we bought theirs. The poor concierge was debating ringing the police when he saw us coming back. But all was well and yes, you guessed it. One more for a very long requiem.