"Sorry to bother you mate, but I've just run over mum."

This really isn't a great way to begin a phone conversation with your son who has just this minute popped down to the store to pick up some bread for a convivial family luncheon.

The son had come over to help his retired, but not elderly parents chainsaw the ornamental tree uprooted by the fierce winds during the recent dramatic storms.

The storms had lit the night sky with angry cracking lightning, and walloping deluges of rain flooded streets and yards. The SES had been extremely busy clearing streets of massive fallen trees, uncovering cars bent beneath limbs and leaves, and providing emergency covering for houses unroofed by the violent winds.

This tree hadn't produced quite as much drama as others had experience around the state, and had been neatly and efficiently chainsawed up by father and son into dinky pieces of wood, suitable for a petite pot bellied stove. The chainsaws used for this exercise had been recently unboxed with a flourish; cute little electric numbers, just the ticket for tidy suburbia!

It's a bit of a challenge to put a positive spin on running over your children's dearly loved mother. Not a call that one would be proud or eager to make. It's not as if it was deliberate or anything like that, just a mistake. Unfortunate admittedly, unintentional (surely that doesn't need to be stated?) and extremely distressing for those involved.  But really, anyone could have confused the figure standing by the letterbox with a broom in her hands busily sweeping up fallen leaves and debris for a limb from the tree - couldn't they?

He'd said "Shall I move the car so you can sweep underneath?"

She'd said "Leave it a minute while I finish the driveway."

He'd decided to move the car regardless. Whether he didn't hear her, who knows, but the next thing she knows is that above the shwooshing sound of leaves being briskly whisked away to a new location, she hears the sound of the car, then whammo, she's on the ground, just missing cracking her skull on the brickwork holding up the metal letterbox. Oops.

Startled by the shock of finding herself on the tidily edged lawn face first in recently swept leaves, and aware of a sudden, unpleasant rise in blood pressure, she began cautiously to take stock.
Limbs intact? Check.
Gushing blood? No, thank goodness.
Obviously broken bones?  Hmm, possibly not.
Headache? Yes, definitely.
Nausea and shaking? Ugh, yes.

Husband's horrified face appeared in her line of vision - she shrieks, with a certain amount of force "don't touch me", no doubt sending the neighbours to the front windows to see what the commotion was all about.

"Ohmygodohmygod what have I done are you alright honey ohshitohshitohshit I didn't see you there I didn't mean to hurt you are you ok? ... What's that noise?"

She's dimly aware of him frantically looking back to the car.

He begins to take a step towards where it should have been, looks at her with undisguised shock and disbelief, and though he's clearly desperate to be by her side to comfort and apologise and tender assistance, he leaps gazelle like towards the violent metallic crunching, tearing, ripping LOUD noise moving steadily away from them into the road.

Craning her thankfully unbroken neck, she sees him leap into the driver's seat just inches before the car reverses into the over-the-road neighbour's front garden, and with the front driver's side door swingingly drunkenly at an extremely awkward angle, (definitely not according to the manufacturer's specifications) he swiftly and gracefully manoeuvres the runaway vehicle onto the nature strip ... without further incident ... or, more accurately none that she's aware of or that he admits to.

Apparently in the shock of the moment of hearing the thud of wife on ground in response to being nudged by the rear bumper bar, he'd leapt out, forgetting to shift the gear out of reverse and put it into park; forgetting to pull the handbrake on and also forgetting to shut the door. Oops.

Throughout the ordeal (I think it's fair to refer to it as such?) she managed to maintain her ladylike composure from her prone position, nose to dirt, and not utter any words that would have made her mother blush, although I wonder if in the privacy of the house later on, her comments might have been a touch more terse and colourful.

Bodies generally heal, the wifely one was bruised, shaken and distinctly upset, her blood pressure was unhealthily high, but is expected to settle quickly. I suspect she will invest in a high vis vest, flack jacket and crash helmet for gardening in future, it's clearly a dangerous pastime.

The car whilst technically drive-able was assuredly unroadworthy and unable to shelter its occupants from drizzle, rain or wind, and needed the tender, and no doubt expensive ministrations of the local smash and repair centre.

Interestingly this couple was thinking of purchasing a new vehicle. My suggestion would be to go for something with clear rearview vision, few blind spots and possibly a reversing camera. It's a no brainer really.

Thank goodness the paramedics weren't needed!

Blogged by Sue Travers
& based on a true story.

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X is for Xenophile - images of America

Xenophile: An individual who is attracted to foreign peoples, manners, or cultures.

That sounds good to me! Though I think the more common terms would be - "someone who has the travel bug", "itchy feet" or simply "wants to see the world"!

My early travel memories are of milling around the Melbourne docks with my relatives ... waiting, waiting, and more tedious waiting for a huge ocean liner to leave. We'd have explored a relative's tiny cabin, looked at the schoolroom set up for the children travelling (can't have them missing out on lessons!), and have been shooed away as the time came for the gangway to be pulled up.

Eventually my cousins and I took off (waiting is sooooo boring when you're 5 or 6 years old) scampering around, getting lost amongst the throngs of people and generally whooping it up.

I recall the excitement of purchasing bags of colourful streamers to throw from the dock to the side of the ship where people jostled for a position to catch and hang on the the flimsy paper, keeping in touch with their loved ones for as long as possible before the paper stretched, became taut and eventually snapped as the tugs shunted the ship into position to leave. By this time adult tears were flowing freely as they knew we'd be unlikely to see these people, who'd become so much part of our lives, ever again.

We'd crawl over the atlas below trying to find the countries and towns which had been mentioned. You can get an idea of the size of the atlas from the iPhone at the top left.

Other early memories are of groups of guests at my childhood home.  Chinese people who appeared to be similar to my young eye, but who were unable to converse with each other in their respective languages, and needed to speak in English which was their common tongue.

Sometimes they'd bring their own visiting relatives to meals. I remember one occasion where someone's uncle looked just like the old Chinese men in paintings - he painted me a picture of a Junk bobbing on waves which I still have somewhere. The dinner chatter would be punctuated with questions about how my mother cooked roast lamb, lemon delicious pudding and other dishes unfamiliar to these friends.

Sometimes, there must have  been discussion about the war, (WW2) because I remember my father reminiscing about being on a Naval vessel in the pacific islands and talking fondly about the native peoples who he referred to as the Fuzzy Wuzzys - always with deep respect. I was aware that even though China and our Chinese friends hadn't been directly involved in WW2, they had been struggling with their own conflicts. These dinners were sometimes very sombre affairs.

There was also discussion about far away exotic places with wonderful names, people with strange customs and lands which even smelled different. How could that be possible?! Letters and post cards came in the post, covered with colourful stamps from around the world as relatives and friends would travel, slowly by ship stopping at different ports and sometimes staying somewhere for months on end.

I learned to pronounce some place names and even find them on a map: Tanzania, Tanganyika, Kenya, Stratton Strawless,  Norwich. I never managed any Chinese ones, though I recall attempting to learn Cantonese, sadly with no success at all.

So how does this relate to America?  The answer is both nothing and everything.

I get an enormous amount of satisfaction when I travel.  I'm fascinated by place names and have fun attempting to pronounce them, both at home and abroad. I love conversing with people even when we have no common fluent language, using only mime and basic, mispronounced phrases. Finding out about different cultures is a pleasure, and I'm always reminded how similar we are, no matter where we live.

When friends have travelled I'm the one who sits and listens, asking questions, drooling over photos. Vicarious travel is the next best thing to being there yourself - and there's little chance of catching a stomach bug!

Naturally, one of the other things about travel which provides general hilarity and entertainment is coming across unusual place names and wondering how the name came about, and why it was chosen for that location ...

Some amusing Australian place names are here

What is your favourite place name?

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T is for Tourist - images of America

I've already talked about some aspects of being a tourist in a foreign country. Coffee, motels, fabulous scenery, (and here too) driving, but I haven't mentioned conversations or the near impossibility of reading street and town names let alone pronouncing them well enough to be understood by locals.

It can be a problem at times.

Scenario - "Hi could you direct me to ..... street?"

The person looks at you as if you were speaking some rarely heard strange language, possibly unheard by any living person for the last three thousand years.

Their eyes open wide, you can almost see their brain gears grinding painfully.

"Pardon?" (Americans are incredibly polite - none of our "whadjasaymate, ay?")

So in an effort to get the directions, you ask more slowly, enunciating each word clearly and carefully.

They squint, screw up their face in an effort at concentration ... it sounds a little like English.

"Sorry, could you ... ?"

Smiling hopefully, but almost despairing, you repeat the request for a third time.

A light goes on ... It is English, but different ... So that's what an honest to goodness, dinky-di Australian accent sounds like!

Everyone who's travelled tells tales of mime, misunderstandings, embarrassment, confusion ... and hilarity!

I experienced the joy of attending a professional training session with some 360+ psychologists and social workers, the majority of them from the US. I really appreciated the camaraderie and sharing professional information .... but of equal pleasure was the opportunity to interact and have fun together - and be teased mercilessly by some of the wonderful participants!

Being an Aussie tourist in the US can be kind of weird. We sort of speak a similar language, though our words and phrases often mean quite different things and there are lots of cultural stereotypes to be kicked under the chair. Film and TV has a lot to answer for.

And just when you think you've got a handle on the accent, whump! you come undone.

Awful offal? Offal Offal? Why would my colleagues be inviting me to a lunch spot where they serve offal? I know the saying is "When in Rome do as the Romans do", but  ... yuk. These guys seem nice - and normal - but was accepting the lunch invitation going to be a wise decision?

But I'd never be here again, and isn't that one of the "rules" of travel? to sample local foods?

So wondering what the hell I'd let myself in for, I toddled along trying desperately to understand the nuances of rapid-fire conversation between locals. Sigh - fail.

I mentioned in Images of Reno that my inability to get a hang of the accent let me down again!

The Aweful Aweful burger served at the Little Nugget Diner rates 4 1/2 stars on Urban Spoon - which is pretty good no matter what language you're speaking. It was a great burger if somewhat on the gigantic side. It's a place I wouldn't have found in Reno except for the welcoming locals. Thanks guys!

More on language here ;-)
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