More Musings!
I must say I have been very impressed with the general good humour of working people we have come in to contact with here in Brisbane. The woman at the Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads (Don’t ask me who is in charge of the minor ones!) was very helpful when we went to register the car in our names. She was very jolly and Will remarked ‘This looks like a fun place to work!’ She agreed it was but added, “it depends on who your supervisor is at the time though.”
The woman at the RACQ (like our AA) was also very friendly and helpful when we went to join. Even the girl on the till at our local supermarket seemed happy in her job and chatted merrily to us while packing our bags. I think it must be something to do with the sun or perhaps everyone is just living life to the full now because tomorrow they might be bitten by a snake!
Practically everyone I meet seems to have a snake or spider encounter they are willing to share and it is not always because I ask them to. It just slips out in general conversation. Will’s cousin has a snake that lives over her bed (!), a friend we were chatting to at the weekend knew someone whose ceiling was covered with red back spiders and Dulcie says she killed a snake everyday when she was younger...with a shovel! Considering all this it seems quite amazing that I have not yet bumped into any myself. Heck! It’s not even that I’m not looking. I am constantly checking...everywhere!
Changing the subject to more pleasant creatures....the koala is back in Will’s sister Wendy’s garden. Fancy having a koala living in your garden? She has wallabies and possums too. Hopefully I will get to see them all soon.
It is quite noisy here. We are right next door to Archerfield Airport. In the past when we have stayed here we have just noticed the whining of small planes but this year there are far more helicopters. Some sound like they are about to land on the roof! The landing flight path for the main Brisbane airport must have changed too because they pass over all through the night...and then there is the screaming of the ‘Hoons’!
We probably have ‘Hoons’ in the UK but I have never heard them as you do here. ‘Hoons’ are young lads (or girls...let’s not be sexist) who must have more money than sense as they rev up their cars whilst pulling on the handbrake causing the tyres to squeal and the car to spin round in perfect circles. You hear them at night when the roads are quieter and then come across their burnt black rubber markings in the middle of a major road junction the next day. Heck! They must go through some tyres!
It’s a wonder with all this noise that we get to hear any wildlife...but we do. At night I can now imagine what it must be like to have tinnitus with the constant background whistle of the cicadas. Then there is the loud ‘tutting’ of geckos or the sound of fruit bats, which to me sound a bit like miniature hyenas with squeaky voices. I've heard lots of them but not seen any yet. Last night there was a new sound...like someone playing a guiro in a tunnel...Will said ‘it’s a green tree frog in the downpipe. It means it’s going to rain’. I never know whether to take him seriously or not but, blow me over with a helicopter down draft, it did flippin’ rain!