“YOU’RE NOT BIG ENOUGH A WOMAN TO STEAL MY MAN.”

These were the words I heard as I tuned in the radio to the local station in Narrandera, home of the big guitar and Texas Rose. Like Andre said about the bakeries I feel about the local radio stations. Narrandera is certainly a country music spot. Have you ever REALLY listened to the words in these songs?? I never really paid much attention, so the other night while I prepared the dinner and the great fishing team did their stuff, I listened carefully. “Your not big enough a woman to steal my man” was closely followed by “ I remember _____ ( fill in any place that takes your fancy) where I had my first beer, I found Jesus and smashed my car” I felt something was amiss and contend that surely smashing the car was entirely due to the beer drinking and Jesus wouldn’t be able to help you much with that. On the way here through this wide open land – very hard on the eyes, just seems to be miles of crops and sheep – I couldn’t help notice all the local entertainment on offer. We have mower racing, camel racing and of course the ubiquitous mallee root toss. I was a little disappointed that we have managed to miss them all. Fishing, open fire and marshmallows about sums up my memories of Narrandera. We are now settling in to the rhythm of life on the bus and even within so much change we often have a semblance of routine. When we arrive at a new destination it is time to have a platter of nibblies and do a reckie (?) of our new spot. We are starting to realise that we need to read ahead a little more, so that we don’t miss some the off the track things. Jarra seems to be settling down a bit now and I think his teeth had been bothering him quite a lot. He even seems to have finally sussed out the whole sleep thing, which has lightened our load tremendously. Both Tal and to a lesser degree Rennie are missing school and their friends. We seem to have waves of it, just as I do myself. I suppose for us all it is mostly the just not knowing what everyone is up to. We have heard that Cash Grove (our old house) has been let and it is funny to think of another family in there. I hope their lives are filled with happy times as ours were. FORBES. The night was shared with hundreds of galahs instead of the usual cockies. The galas have a much more gentle squawk. Hundreds of them filled the sky at dusk and squabbled and squawked until they had all found there places in the trees above our bus. We had a bit of company of the human variety too. Six other campervans or caravans were parked alongside us, but most kept to themselves only taking time top warn us about “them blackfellas” in Dubbo. I find this all a bit offensive, but sometimes even I feel the less said the better. These people are not going to change a lifetime of prejudice in a moment. The town itself is a very pretty historical one. Full of period buildings and quite a few art deco ones too – we took photos Penny!! We will send them to you when we get a chance. We were just starting to think what an idyllic placed Forbes was when we reached the library, which is next door to the local courthouse. After Andre had spent half an hour in the park outside with Jarra while we were inside, he had met most of the local petty crims. Dodgey has never been a more appropriate word. When we asked a bunch of local lads what they thought of Forbes their reply was “ .. too many criminals” This certainly makes you think twice about a place. I have changed some of the settings on the blog and I hope I have now made it easier to post comments. If you have had problems in the past give it another go and see if it is any better. I have also added a few more links and the layout seems to have righted itself. I have to admit that one surprise on the trip is our lack of down time. I really expected to have more time to do the blog, study, read and play games, but the days just seem to roll on and we live the life we do. How could I possibly say to you all that I sometimes feel busy and feel like I am trying to catch my tail a little. The difference is that I really can put it off to tomorrow. We have also been having very chilly mornings and evenings (sunny during the day though) and I have invented a new piece of clothing to combat this. I have decided to name it a “bug” – short for belly rug. A piece of material that wraps around the area between my hipster pants and my not so long top, covering the area in between nicely. You girls out there will know what I am talking about! Ahh bliss!! H