Originally Posted by melibeam

This is a fantastic thread, I am eagerly looking forward to the next installment. You should definitely write a book!

Love

Mel

Originally Posted by leedslad

Hiya Crone

I'm sat here at work in Shipley, Bradford near your home village of Baildon.

If you want any pics of the place as it is now, or of the area i would be glad to send em to you by e-mail

Your stories are great! hope my life down under has as much adventure.

Originally Posted by Quinkana

May you live in interesting times.

Originally Posted by leedslad

Originally Posted by Quinkana

Originally Posted by Simone

Or you could help the interesting times along by taking the right oppertunities, going for the adventure, taking risks......
At the moment, I'm to lazy and a wimp, but who knows what the future holds.... I do take after my father after all....

Originally Posted by Larissa

What are you on about girlie? I always thought you and your folks had been quite adventurous.

Originally Posted by leedslad

Hiya Crone

I'm sat here at work in Shipley, Bradford near your home village of Baildon.

If you want any pics of the place as it is now, or of the area i would be glad to send em to you by e-mail

Your stories are great! hope my life down under has as much adventure.

Originally Posted by TheCrone

Fortunately the caravan was clean and well equipped with a new bottle of gas; fortunate too that I knew exactly where all our belongings were packed. It wasn't long before the billy was boiling for coffe and a stew, mostly made from tinned ingredients was bubbling away on the stove and the beds were made. Will and M. were carrying furniture and cartons into the apartment. I knew I was expected to go and help, but I was in no mood to do so; I needed a little time and space, peace and quiet for myself.
Tomorrow would be time enough to get involved with the kitchen, the restaurant and the other family.

By Friday, a morning routine had begun to emerge. M. and I would open up the cafe and service station around 6.30 am. M. would serve petrol while I was waitress, cook, shop assistant and washer-up in the other half of the business - though to be fair, M. would help whenever he wasn't busy on the forecourt. Will would put in an appearance about an hour later and make tea, a cup of which he would take to Amy. He would then sit at a cafe table to drink his in leisurely fashion, regardless of how busy we were : only at 8.30 would he stroll out to join M - invariably leaving his dirty cup on the table. It's funny how sometimes it's the small things that are most annoying!

But I could cope with this. Custom was steady, if not brisk and I soon began to recognize and chat with the regular customers. Both they and a petrol company rep. who'd called told me that weekends, beginning on Friday evenings, would be our busiest times. We could expect surfers going up to Noosa or Tewantin for the weekend; families on outings to the Glasshouse Mountains; and others coming south for a weekend in the city. I pointed out to Will that if the influx did arrive, I would need far more help from Amy than I was getting; I suggested that she should be on hand from 8am onwards, especially at weekends. He fixed me with a gravely reproving look and replied that she was always busy with the children at that time. To which I retorted that she also had a half-share in the business and a responsibility towards that, too; and maybe they needed to examine their priorities?
To give her her due, Amy was, under direction, becoming a reasonable kitchen-hand. She made sure there was a supply of prepared salad ingreients for hamburgers, cleaned counters, washed dishes, swept and mopped the floor. She would not, however, venture into the cafe, serve in the shop or make any attempt at cooking; and she had a weird habit of suddenly dropping whatever she was doing, grabbing the smallest child and running into the flat, from which she would emerge quarter of an hour later and take up the task in hand as if there had been no hiatus.
Strange!
Matters came to a head on Saturday lunchtime. M. and Will were busy at the pumps, I was making half a dozen hamburgers for waiting customers when another four people came in and sat at a table.
"Go and take their order, please", I asked.
"I can't!" she responded.
"Oh yes you bloody can!", I hissed. "Get out there, put a smile on your face , tick off what they want on this order form and bring it back here! Simple! Just do it!"
"I can't!", she said again.
Exasperated, I threw down the spatula.
"You get out there and do it - right now! If you don't, I'm telling you I'm walking out of this kitchen -RIGHT NOW - and I won't be back!"
Like a zombie, she picked up the pad and walked into the cafe. Returning a few moments later, she carefully placed the pad on the bench - and promptly fainted at my feet.
Ten year old Jenny slipped from her stool at the bench and said solemnly "Mummy can't cope with stress, Auntie, that's why Daddy and I have to look after her. I'll go and get him now".

Originally Posted by Simone

Ah yes, and you mentioned somewhere else living in Darwin for 3 years, I guess that's still to come too!

How's the English teaching going?