Waggin' Trail: Lest We Forget To Sober Up

Well it's been an action 'n' beer packed 48 hours with the Anzac Day memorial service shenanigans at Paddy's Flat here in the desert. I don't know where to start. Burly biker veterans arrived on monster Harleys and once again something unappetising in my genetic code (Viking ancestors? Barbarians?) set off their pheremone alert systems but thankfully Gary is worth a hundred burly bikers so there was no Bad Behaviour (on my part anyway, but I got offered lots of Harley rides). They cooked up a brilliant meaty eggy breakfast.

There were a lot of costume changes. First of all, I clocked off work, got changed out of my aged care uniform into my casual fire brigade uniform, went to the fire station & tried on my firefighting uniform. In the morning I changed into my formal fire brigade dress uniform; Gary helped me with the tie, polished my boots AND made me a coffee (I am still in shock). I lost track of the blokes' wardrobe changes during the evening and the next morning; a dizzying rotation of hats and berets was involved. I felt like I was in some kind of mad fancy dress party relay.

We all turned up for the dawn service and about 100 locals came along; I managed to get some good photos while respecting the very very VERY serious moments of the poetry reading, last post and so on. I was disappointed to learn that Storm had gone to hide in the laundry, not being much of a crowd dog (also his head is still the size of a melon from all his fightin' & bitin' last week and I think he's ashamed). Two older aboriginal women came along, but other than that the crowd was honky white folk. I did feel proud to stand in line with my fellow firefighters in our ties & button up shirts; most of the town know me now through the fire brigade, hostel work and Gary, and I definitely feel like part of the community.

Gary and I managed to pace our drinking and stay sober while everyone else just kept knocking back the cans, I don't know how they do it. There were many matey hugs and firm handshakes among the men, along with quivering lips and teary eyes. Personally I think that there is an unhealthy obsession at Paddy's with all the war stuff, but it means a lot to the guys there, not just for their own army pasts but those of their fathers & grandfathers, so I just shut up and behave myself.

At one point Gary got up to make a little speech in the mess to acknowledge all the hard work they've been doing to create the "museum" displays around the walls for the last month, and Cam got up to say thank you to me for putting up with them stealing Gary all the time to do the lighting and wiring, which was a nice gesture. Gary is very proud of my photo taking and I'm in danger of becoming the pet photographer at the place as well as their emergency googler.

After the public had wandered off home, bursting with bacon & sausages, the veterans' mob sat down for some serious drinkin' & football watching, so I went home to sleep and print up some of the photos, not to mention throwing my 17 costume changes into the laundry. I went back after lunch and was surprised to find Gary still able to form whole, intelligible sentences; they were all deep into story telling (I'll blog some of them a bit later), so I listened until the beer levels triggered off a sudden need for the guys to go and tek-screw Ray's donger door shut while he was sleeping inside. If I'd tried to leave any later I would have been trapped by the rising wall of beer cans piling up by the door. "Youse ready to go for a spin on me bike?" asked Big Greg. "Um, maybe tomorrow when we haven't all been drinking," I politely replied. "Crikey, oi've only had 12 cans love." No Greg No!

Gary and I finished off the day with a wild evening of googling audio system cooling fans (don't ask; I didn't). Tomorrow we are delivering gravel to one of the stations. There's just no end to this rich motherlode of source material for my outback romance novel.