THE DAY I BLEW MATT UP !!!!

It was one of those moments that would have had the headlines screaming about stupidity and the talk back lines jammed. It all began with the idea of making a bait launcher to fire our rigs out over the sets of waves into shark inhabited areas for our upcoming Friday night fishing odyssey. Tyson, our shark obsessed Mate in Melbourne came up with the ingenious idea of shooting the squidded hooks out there with an orange gun. If you are not familiar with the peculiarities of this beast then Google it, and take heed of the disclaimers and warnings of possible death. So the two mad professors headed into the lab (shed) and started their experimentations. The implement basically consists of a length of PVC tube and an igniter. An accelerant (hair spray, fly spray or such) is sprayed into the chamber, your choice of missile is loaded and then the spark is set off to ignite the spray and hopefully the missile is safely launched into orbit. It is probably better to now envisage Matt and I as two cartoon characters, bumbling ones at that. All things were in place for the first test fire. Squirt in accelerant, load foam plug and……..ready………steady………..click…………click………click………. Nothing happening. Try again……..squirt, load and click…………click………….click…. And now for the fateful words…. “Hey Matt, just have a look in there (down the barrel) and see if the spark is working will ya?”……click………click……..Matt gets a bit closer, squinting behind his sunglasses…….this time it doesn’t just click…… Now picture this……. ….a ball of flame balloons out of the tube and engulfs his head, negating the need for Matt to shave or consider a trim of his curly locks. Actually, he no longer needs to even trim the hair in his ears or the top of his chest as it was all singed away. Looked like he had had blonde tips in his hair, the trendy thing. As the smell of burning hair filled the shed (sorry, lab) and we established that there were no serious burns, we both fell about laughing. It would have to be the funniest thing I have ever seen. But like all good cartoons, no matter what happens, singed hair and blackened face, they always seem to make it back for the next segment with a clean bill of health. Sophie has now banned any more experiments, so our next idea is to make a huge slingshot to get us into the shark zone. She doesn’t think we care too much for her husband, sending him out on surfboards for bait drops and now this. But I am sure she will enjoy all the fish we will catch………..

THEY’RE OFF

It was a strange time seeing Helen and the kids off at the airport on Saturday night. A new adventure beginning for them, a real contrast awaits them in the Scottish winter. I am back at Kangaroobie, getting a few things organised and slowly adapting to the quiet and lonely bus. We had a bit of excitement here today. I will describe it in my next entry……………