10 day swirl....

PPinP's blog has been severely curtailed I know for the last 10 days.

It has been a swirl....

Paulette arrived - sister of one of my best friends Beatrice. Bit of a leap of faith having a stranger shack up for 10 days... but after the whirlwind I am now sitting here, missing her and just feeling all the dust settle.

She certainly had a no frills tour of Oz... which included:

On her first day she went on an extremely informative tour of the Daintree rainforest, and then met up at Mossman Courthouse where I had been losing the will to live after a stream of aboriginals were paraded in front of me and where 6 hours later I was finally given my punishment. Banned for 1 month plus fine for drunk (if you can count a thimble full of drink.. drunk!) driving. So she had an aboriginal themed day. Not many get to sit in a real Australian courthouse (mmmm now that's an idea).. It's certainly an interesting way to get a feel for the culture of the place.. from the bottom up type of perspective.

We explored the best resort and beach in the area.. and ended up at Turtle Cove.. after an argument where she emphatically thought that rainbow flags meant it was eco friendly and I thought that maybe it indicated gay friendly. We went in to find out. Seeing the noticeboard with the first poster advertising Lesbian Fest and not Eco friendly ways to carve a pumpkin we know who won that one. But we did end up there in a beautiful cove and if you ignored the naked male bums on the sunchairs it was beautiful. We even got into character with the odd 'darlings' to each other.

Another day spent organising a tow truck as the car overheated whilst Paulette was driving back and was abandoned about 20 km away. So the next day we went to rescue it with Paulette and a new friend, Len. But due to the 'small print' in the recovery breakdown contract, we ended up on the side of the road for a couple of hours. All brightened up by seeing 3 turtles with a juvenile swimming around (don't think there is a name for a juvenile turtle).

Why is it I always seem to end up with cars that

like to flash their insides... Another titillating car...

just can't wait to get it's hood up and show off its insides!

We snorkelled on the Low Isles, sipped wine on a yacht and she experienced the joys of diving and the not so joyous experience of seeing how much everything costs here. With the largest 'How Much!!!' for $19 for a plate of pate and toast in a restaurant!

As for Louis, the 23yr old hunk that I was supposed to meet at the airport -- but he missed his plane!..... Watch this space, after many see you laters... and laters.. his ardency seemed to wane off .. his last message the day before he was due to return was "Be good to hear your voice".. as it then trailed off into the stratosphere.

Funnily enough the phone went at about 2.00 am a few days ago and on the other end was Matt (see previous blog for pic). Seems the special vodka that he had been imbibing activated those special ‘remember Penelope’ brain cells. We had a chat .. eloquence is not my forte when being woken up in the wee hours. He has also disappeared now back into the stratosphere... I'll just have to wait until his next special vodka session!

My last date was with Alec who is a pilot– a charming 29 year old.. who either has the hots for me or is desperate.. Trying to work that one out. We met up and he was very keen on going swimming.. so we had a lovely wallow in the Sheraton pool. In a little shallow secluded area he started to give me a massage – then sat on my back for better positioning. Afterwards I didn’t want to turn over – rather a suggestive position so I pulled myself along like a creeping crocodile… When I asked him why he hasn't a girlfriend.. he said because all the local girls here only want to go out with a tradey or someone who works on the mines and has a ute (a car front - van back type of set up). When he tells girls that he is a pilot they aren't impressed.. how funny life is! Well, that leaves all the interesting, intelligent men out there looking for someone! Ah.. don't you just love niche markets!

After his last text ‘we should have a sleep over’ I haven’t replied. All seems a bit too full on. He is not unattractive and he is totally ‘there’ and a real sweety, but just not sure. Aaah don’t you just love indecision. Well, I suppose that is me at the moment.. confusion.

Alec in job mode....

So here I am sitting here after her visit and missing her vitality, energy and think that sometimes in life it is good to put oneself out on a limb. It has been a lovely experience for us both to explore the local sites together. Also through her I have made new friends which I will talk about more in further blogs. So, methinks I had better now knuckle down.. got to finish my marriage celebrant studies and start getting on with my other projects.

Kitchen is now finished and the small bathroom is now a shell... just a word.. if you do buy a shower unit from China that is $400 cheaper than here. Just be aware that the taps are not a standard distance apart. So now have to pay a plumber $200 to change the width of the existing taps.. aaah, life is always full of one step back to go one step forward...

Today set off to pick up my two blind dates from the International Airport in Cairns.... one 23yr old hunk and a close friends sister - two people I have never met before! Should be interesting.. and indeed it was. I had only just left Port when my phone rang... a plaintive voice from 23yr old hunk saying that he missed his flight... so now only one person to pick up!

Sods law I have tomorrow off so I could have picked him up.. but nay.. I have an appointment at Mosman magistrate Court for my drunk driving charge tomorrow. So that's going to put the kaibush on any plans to go and pop over to see him. And before you say, he hasn't got a car here. it's in Melbourne and being under 23 he isn't insured to drive my car..

Aaaah.. just got a text saying that he can drive over and see me tomorrow as he has got a car.. !:)

Now that could be a solution!


Here's one profile pic that got away..... brings a new meaning to 'playing by ear'.

Reminds me of going to see a band and was told about one of the guitarists who was playing naked and the back plate wasn't on the back of his guitar. Result was one guitarist bonded to the mechanisms of his guitar by his short and curlys.

Just had to post some more of these...... profile pics.. .the photos that will make you stop in your tracks and want to date these guys....




Well. can't resist a profile pic of a man groping a woman's tits!

Only in Australia.....

Hobbies.. wearing an anorak and train spotting?

Do you get three for the price of one... ?

Likes Bands:... ZZ Top!
There is a man under there .. somewhere!

Profile Pic.. complete with blood running down the face (his other pic is one with someone who looks like a girlfriend)

"looking for a sensual and fun woman

I am looking to have a great summer and would like to share in some adventures. I look after myself and prefer to be outdoors... "


Who is he kidding.. 'look after myself'.. the only exercise he looks like he gets is catching the next tinny of beer being thrown at him!

Pensive Plucking!

It's funny how one doesn't notice anything and then 'bam!'.

I suppose it's a while since I have preened myself ready for a male admirer.

I have always prided myself on not having any grey hairs - my Mother and Father both went grey late in life.

On glancing down absent mindedly towards my pubic hairs... I noticed with horror that my otherwise dark brown - cuffs match the collar, now don't. I have veritable salt and pepper minge!

So for the last twenty minutes I have been doing some frantic plucking and hoping that the adage that if you remove one, then another 20 grow in its place isn't true.

Reminds me of that Episode of Sex in the City when Samantha discovers she has a grey hair and then goes on to die her pubic hair , which does a Pollyanna of then having the resemblance of a manic panic orange clown rather than the subtle tones of a flaxen haired maiden.

Also, through my vanity – now that my rendez-vous with my toy boy seems imminent- I don’t want to frighten the poor guy off! Especially when he thinks I am 9 years younger than advertised.

It struck me how quick the metamorphosis has happened. I remember seeing one about 8 months ago, but obviously keeping them in a warm place and in the dark has multiplied them!

Perhaps they have done the Dorian Gray on me – and that all the stress and emotional turmoil of the last 6 months has descended on my nether regions rather than on my higher head region?

Well, they have all been plucked out now… and I have an idea .. do they do Lady Grecian for nether hair? Or maybe shave it all off and stick on a Merkin (false pubic wig!).

We have love....in the sound of laughter....locked fingers...It will leave and it will come again, and when it does I'll give up everything and take it. Just like I am an addict. Like dry grass in new rain. It's not something I'm proud of, necessarily. Then again, maybe I am.

Girls in trucks:Katie Crouch


Interesting story brewing.. so watch out for the blog on this one ... I am collecting a buffed up 23yr old who I have been having constant phone calls with for the last 2 weeks for our first 'get-together', and the sister of a close friend who I have never met who is staying for 10 days....both at 9.00 next Tuesday from the airport. How weird is this going to be......picking up 2 people I have never met before.....(the timing is somewhat unfortunate....)

I'll keep you posted on that one!

VW Beetling in Port

I did mention in a previous blog about buying a car. A bit of an indulgence, but here in Port it’s a bit like being on an island.. so my release to drive to the big smoke does calm down the island fever.

Nothing better than radio on high volume driving along the Captain Cook Highway and International World Heritage site. With the passing scenery of mountains, rain forests and fern encrusted crags on one side and the Coral Sea lapping on the other.

My first VW was a light eggshell blue but I selected a beautiful metallic lagoon sea light blue that I wanted it recoloured with. My friend who was a sprayer said he would do it for me, which he duly did. On going to pick up the car I was presented with a dark green swamp green, not my blue lagoon blue.

Being the oil hungry beast that it was and my mechanical negligence I did manage to blow up the very imaginatively named 'back end' one unfortunate trip down the M1 Motorway with its final gasping splutter being an almighty explosion of metal parts exploding from the ruptured engine.

Another friend who was a mechanic offered to organise putting a new engine in. 500 pounds later and the new engine was duly fitted. I start the engine up, drive 100 metres down the road and with a grating metal noise and splutter my car died (very similar to the dying sounds of the last one!). Never to be resurrected again. My ‘new’ engine was a reconditioned second hand engine with no warranty and was advised that 'that was that'.

After the disasters above, and a freezing 4 hour journey to Manchester from London wrapped in sleeping bags (heater.. what heater?) my maximum speed 50 mph Beetle trundled into my car history memory.

Also a reason I was so mortified about the ‘swamp green’ colour was that a friend of mine swore on all that was sacred (which thinking about him now.. wasn’t very much!) that green cars were bad luck. A theory all backed up and enforced when he was given a new GREEN company car, despite his protestations. He had had it a week and turned up to Rugby practice. Unbeknown to him the wheels disturbed the embers of a fire that had been lit. He found out when his car became less green and more red and orange from the fire ball that then rapidly engulfed it.

And so it was I bid goodbye to my mean green machine. The only time I have sold a car where it had to be trailered away – not quite one careful lady owner.

From that moment on I loved Beetles, but decided that one day I would like one with the personality but without the bad aspect of vintage and a sea lagoon aqua blue....

So enter my new car…

Sitting there just smiling at me in the showroom. It wasn’t even on the sales lot – it was awaiting it’s tarting up before being displayed.

So in my spontaneous way (Ok, I did do some research on the internet on prices and been to every other car showroom in Cairns) I said I would take it.

These are the points that I wanted addressed in its tarting up, which they were doing post sale:

• Chip in windscreen to be mended
• Knob for internal wing mirror correction to be replaced
• Clunks when steering wheel right over to right or left
• Dashboard sticky (for some reason the surface of the dashboard and everywhere black feels like someone has projectile vomited marmalade – so sticky!)
• Electric 12v lighter doesn’t work
• 
  
• Handle for the wing mirror adjustments inside missing

On getting it back from ‘tarting up’ the only thing fixed was the 12v lighter and the knob for the wing mirror.

So back again for the rest.

After ‘back again’

Windscreen chip mended

Given a bottle of solution that was the ‘solution’ to my stickiness.

And now the car was coughing out black pieces grease impregnated foam from the left air vent that was alighting delicately on the light beige upholstery leaving grubby black specks.

I asked for the clunk to be looked into – but they said they would need the car for a while.

I said that I had no form of transport. After putting their foot down and saying that they couldn’t give me a replacement. As I sat in my car before I drove off I put the A/C on and there was a grating and grinding sound…. Seems the fan had broken – so out comes the guy from the car dealer and says - I can hear that noise all the way from my office.. "OK we will take the car to look at it.. have one of ours to drive……………."

So enter the Forester my replacement car for a week – now who would have thought it was straight off a car sales yard. I did think that maybe if I sold it I could get some commission!

So after a week collect my beloved blue beetle. A/C doesn’t make sound.. .but yes, the steering still ‘clunks’.

Parked my car overnight in Port Douglas High Street – big mistake – under the trees where all the paraqueets spend the night.

Notice in this movie.. where the empty parking spaces are…… oh how wise it is to learn by experience!

What my car looked like the next morning……….

The WHOLE car covered in quick setting, hard paraqueet bird shit. Managed to make out the outside world through the blobs on the windscreen to make it home. Googled how to get bird shit off a car without also taking off the paintwork.. that could be a new problem.. the spotted VW Beetle!

All bird shit very carefully removed and then the next weekend….. Came out on a Saturday morning to find my windscreen smashed…..

With my CSI investigative skills it looked to be caused by the rounded end of a full beer bottle. Somebody must have thrown a bottle of beer and I landed awkwardly on my windscreen. Sods law is that I had to park it in the path because my car port was full of flat pack kitchen boxes.

So it was driving round.. not quite through rose tinted spectacles..more like crazed tainted windscreen!

So the next week back to Cairns for a new windscreen at $250 (don’t you just love throwing money into that proverbial bottomless bucket!).

So finally, last weekend went to a garage to see about my clunking steering. The garage got it up on the ramps fiddled with a few bolts and c’est la vie .. apparently.

The raining greasy foam spitting out the air vents was supposed to abate with time - "just drive it with the vents on full and this should clear it"

By the afternoon of yesterday I had returned to the garage with the following problems:

The ABS warning light and the handbrake light don’t go off

And another problem … the AC is now not working!

And to add insult to injury now ALL the air vents are spewing out dirty pieces of black impregnated greasy foam!

Is this a blue car now masquerading as a green one? Has my swamp challenged previous car now metamorphosised into my smiling blue one…?

Still, one thing less after hours of rigourous scrubbing my dashboard is now non stick!

I still love driving my aqua herbie. People know are getting to know me and my car.. people coming up and saying – I saw your car by the pool, or “has your car broken down it has been on the side of the road for a few days” (mmm that was after my little breathalyzer incident, where I was unable to move the car for 48 hours according to law!).

One final incident – I went to pick up my car after leaving it overnight (not under the paraqueet tree) early one morning. The owner of the shop said that he saw a tree frog on my car and helped it into the nearby shrubbery, He said it was a sign of good luck!

Mini Driver and Keith Urban seen together in a bar in Port Douglas

Gareth..........
where's my picture?.. well, that would be telling!

Today, 2nd November is Melbourne Cup Day - the biggest horse race in Australia.

I had bought a ticket to a very fancy chi chi foo foo luncheon here in Port Douglas. But due to running round like a blue arsed fly arrived just after the race had finished and 4 hours after the actual luncheon had started! You know it's posh when you are sitting next to a man with a four door Ferrari (not that he told me.. but there was some mumblings from people querying this phenomenon of a Ferrari with four doors afterwards).

In retrospect to start drinking at 11.00am was a hell of a lot of pacing till 10.00pm.

So it was a bit more controllable to arrive at 2.30pm!

Managed to get ready in 10 minutes (eat your heart out all those men that say women take a long time!). Fascinator (now how did it get it's name?) on, high shoes on, lipstick applied, earrings in and that little black dress that had to cover a not so little body. So out with the corset.... the underwear that packs the meat into an inward curve rather than outward oscillations of undulating lard.

After chi chi foo foo Salsa Restaurant.. onward for more merrymaking at the Courty (The Courthouse Hotel/Bar).

You know the alcohol is having effect when out of the men's toilet walks a guy that I just had to say 'hello! to - enter Gareth'. Now there are not many men that turn my head at the moment - but his style and bearing and looks were right up my alley.

As my Dutch courage continues to get more nationalistic with each drink.... I would see him moving around the bar and we ended up chatting - or rather mutually just exclaiming to each other 'you are gorgeous' and 'you are gorgeous' stage. Him saying how firm my body looks .....(me thinks.. thank God for corset!)

He is English from within miles where I used to live in London. He has 47 acres about 20 minutes from here (I did mention 42 by mistake... .but he promptly corrected me!). Has horses and dogs and is a bookbinder by trade (but not much call for that in North Queensland) but works in Real Estate in the next town. His Father was a sculptor at St Martins.. my Mother was a sculptoress at Slade so we had much to talk about. He also quite obviously wore a wedding ring. So when I pointed this out he didn't deny it and said that his wife who was the first woman to cross Antarctica (or some such frozen wasteland) works away 5 days a week and they have an open relationship. Either the truth or a big lie.... but hey why go out with your wedding ring on if you are on the pull (which he obviously was as he had a hotel room in Port).

We did the touch feelly - caressing each others hands bit.. so all good... and the alcohol was kicking in (about this time I was on the tequila shots).

In the midst of our courting display a couple came up to me looking all awkward and then asked if I was Mini Driver - when I said in my very English accent that I wasn't - I am sure they weren't convinced.

Then a little while later another couple come up all awkward to Gareth and asked if he was Keith Urban (country singer and husband of Nicole Kidman).

Can just imagine the tabloids with that one - Keith Urban and Mini Driver seen drinking and caressing each other in a bar in Port Douglas!

Gareth and I happily wandered towards home.. he complained of being hungry so he grabbed a curry and all was boding well.

Got home .. Enter the sound of the proverbial screech of the needle across the record noise.

Suddenly realised I had to get the corset off, before I ended up with a Bridget Jones moment. So I hurry into the bathroom and stuff it into a cupboard.. by this time he has moved rather swiftly naked into my bed. I get to the bedroom and think... oh shit .. I can't do anything now but breathe in and whip my dress off... and dive hurriedly under the covers, before realisation sets in that those firm lines of my former body were as firm as his marriage vows!

The inevitable took place in a very perfunctory way. I could feel that something had fallen very flat - to the point that a certain member was having problems rising to the occasion, despite oral encouragement. Awfully I did do the ex comparison (who had a baby arm of a shlong) and found him wanting in the size arena and in the lovemaking stakes on all levels. Sure enough when the roll off happened he claimed he had a momentus migraine and wanted to leave! (Note to self - remember to buy Nurofen/Aspirin next shopping trip). "Eat my dust" - as Gareth left in a whirlwind.


Footnote: Got email from my ex 'S' today...

Haven't heard from you in a while. Was wondering if you were OK. I'm sure my last 
email was not something you wanted to receive, but I needed to let you know. The last 
thing I wanted to do was have our friendship fall apart. Like you said, my life has 
been better with you in it as well. I hope we can still remain on good terms. You 
aren't vindictive or hateful. I tried calling on Friday night. If you feel you can't 
speak to me.....thats OK. 
Speak soon and take care
 
XX  


Oh dear - really don't know what to do - so in my usual way I have put my head in a 
bucket of sand and tried to ignore it.

If I call him I am worried that I will make cyncial and bitter snidey digs.  I was 
thinking to try and talk like nothing had happened and 'that I don't really care' and 
that I have moved on - but I don't know if I have the strength to manage this tactic 
and instead of being the latter will revert to the former.

Thinking it might just be best to email him with a one liner like.. will be in contact
but at the moment having a bit of space might be a good idea.

MMmmmm - I'll keep my head in the bucket until something comes up!

'