Wendy

That's a good description.

Gareth, my hubby is not so understanding though. He thinks that if I don't give him undivided attention, then I don't love him


God Men can be hard work sometimes !

Mind he is rather pished, and is now asleep so I can idle away my time on here in peace


For now anyway !

Cheetah7

Wendy, here was a story about the BE house and my pretend characters I wrote last year. This is how I see it.

I posted it in Sept I think last year. Anyway, here it is as I see it.


While You Were Sleeping


Whilst many of you think you are knowledgeable about the migration process to Australia, there is a whole process with a whole lot of people you haven’t heard of, working their butts off deciding who and how many get the Holy Grail.

They are characters you will never meet, they work behind the scenes and whilst the United Kingdom sleeps. Most people will never meet them.

That is until I decided to give you a sneak preview of what goes on behind the doors.

Please don’t tell anyone about what you are going to see. And if you are not expecting to see anything then may I suggest that you leave now and close the door behind you.

Because unless you can see through the eyes and imagination of Professional Princess, then I would consider you blind to creativity in which case, you should go to another thread.

(Takes a sip of tea from favourite giant mug) OK, nobody is looking so follow me.


BEDTIME AT EXPAT HEAD QUARTERS – AUSSIE FORUM

Sue Admin was busy tucking in the Expat members into bed and making sure they had everything they wanted.

John Howard wanted Princess and was snuggled up to her like a Siamese twin and clutching his teddy bear in his other hand.

His little glasses on top of his head, you could just see him peaking out of the covers as Sue gave him his kiss goodnight.

BLC, Mandi, Anne4Terry, Dolly, Tired with Twins, Rooksie, Jonahs Mummy, Stitch, Gobbyjock, and all the other girls lay in their beds snuggled down for the night.

In the boys’ dorm, apart from Barry doing pole dancing round a sweeping brush and getting a few splinters and Alan making animal pictures on the wall with his torch and hand, the boys were ready to settle.

‘Be good and sleep well’ Sue said gently. They were a good bunch really, needed sorting out occasionally, but she loved them all.

And pretty soon and rather unusually, all the members fell into a deep sleep. I say this was unusual because normally there would have been a few pillow fights or at least some water fights between JAJ and George.

It had to be a deep sleep you see. Because in the stilly watches of the night, whilst the people of BE Headquarters slept, two people were missing and hard at work.

DREAMING (sounds of snoring)

Princess opens the door of Kingdom DIMIA which is kept under strict guard with lots of dogs that bark aggressively when you look at them.

Security guards wearing board shorts, thongs, and Billabong T shirts and vests stand there with their guns.

Right you lot, you will have to remain totally quiet, I’ve organised this visit as a treat but no questions no nothing and you had better not repeat what you see. Ready?

DIMIA Towers is a huge building built like a castle from the outside with hundreds and hundreds of Case Officers working like mad to process visas.

Through the windows you can see lots of men and women buried in papers, visas and passports not to mention medical reports.

Excuse me; please don’t look at Rooksie’s application! (It was on the desk).

The smell of office fills your nostrils and you can see scuff marks on the floor from people’s shoes and smell the floor polish.

Right, we are going in to the office now to meet some of the DIMIA lot. Remember your manners.

It’s very busy, but a familiar figure comes running up to greet us from the ‘Visa’s prepared and good to go’ desk – Duncan DIMIA.

‘You Ok Duncan, Princess asks the John Travolta look-a-like, who was wearing his tight white T shirt, black drainpipe jeans and his hair perfectly slicked back.

Grinning at me, Duncan gives me a huge hug and snog. ‘How are you doing Princess?’ He asks with a strong Gold Coast accent.

‘Not so bad Duncan’.

‘Great, no problem, I will show you my desk first.

Taking us to his desk, it’s very clean and neat, it has a flat screen computer at the front, printer and scanner at the side, a blue pot to hold pens and pencils, lots of post-it notes to take messages, a bright red telephone – the old fashioned kind and a picture of his mum – Ethel DIMIA.

‘Tea Princess?’ Duncan asks.

‘Yes please, white with no sugar’. Sitting down in Duncan’s leather chair, I take in the scenery.

Everyone is really busy; you can hear the rhythmic stamping of visa’s going on paper or documents, a radio plays in the background playing ‘Delta Goodrem’.

Spotting Rooksies visa application on the desk, I turn away quickly because I don’t want to be caught snooping.

Duncan grins at me and removes it so I don’t see too much.

Spotting my wistful gaze at the pile of ‘good to go’ visas, he hugs me and says ‘your turn will come’.

You should have seen his desk, there were all kinds of visas on there, I would like to tell you who will be hearing from DIMIA, but Duncan made me promise. All I can say, is you won’t have long I can say.

‘Princess, I want you to meet my friend Brett’ Duncan smiles as he introduces a clone of himself, who was at the Expats show if I remember.

‘Pleased to meet you Brett’, I put my hand out and discreetly check to see if he has a big penis like Duncan.

‘You see people think we don’t do anything and that we take our time and play around with people’s lives, but we don’t, we work hard’ Duncan tells me simply.

Adding fretfully, ‘We do a job like everyone else and like everyone else; we have a timescale to do it. We have families to go home to’. Duncan looked at his old mum in the photo.

Hugging him to show that I understood, Duncan squeezed my hand.

I couldn’t get over how busy it was, Case Officers had letters from Agents, I even saw Alan, George and JAJ’s writing somewhere, how on earth could they deal with that work?’

‘I’m just going off to TRA Towers’ I tell Duncan who kisses my cheek and tells me he will see me when I wake up in the morning at BE Headquarters.

Walking along the corridor, a fat girl called Shazza takes me to TRA Towers. Wearing white trousers, white T shirt, sandals and her black hair scraped back in a ponytail, I try to make conversation with her.

‘You like working here Shazza?’ I ask cheerily.

‘Nope, hate it, but it pays the rent’ She replies flatly, chewing her gum noisily, her thighs rubbed together because they were so fat.

As she opened the door to the TRA Towers, I spy my favourite person who is dramatically holding court to some very sensible TRA men, who are trying very hard to get on with skills assessments.

‘Darling Princess, how are you? You must tell me everything, tell me it all!’ Barry the Camp TRA Man squeals all in one breath.

Wearing his favourite purple shirt, dark purple tie, skin tight satin purple trousers, purple platform boots, and purple and pink spotted scarf round his neck, he finished off the outfit by having a purple flower in his bushy afro hair.

Picking me up, he swings me around till I almost vomit.

Glad of Barry being diverted, the sensible TRA men go back to their seats to try and get on with their work.

Spotting a rather ‘grey character’ sitting hunched up in the corner; I am immediately attracted to him.

‘Hello’ I say to him smiling, holding out my hand to shake his.

A young bloke of say 30ish, sits in the corner wearing a grey suit, white shirt, black tie, black shiny sensible shoes and his hair smoothed to a side parting.

‘The name is Stevo’ He replied quietly as he shook my hand like a wet fish.

‘Don’t try and talk to him, he spends his time failing people’ Barry snapped bitchily.

Stevo puts his head down and sure enough, picked up the ‘piss off you’ve failed’ stamp and slams it aggressively on some poor bastard’s skills assessment.

Gazing into Stevo’s eyes, I visualise him in colour. You see miserable people in my world are always seen in black and white. When they get their personality, they change to colour.

I had this overwhelming urge to get Stevo the sad TRA man into colour vision.

Barry took me to his desk which looked somewhat like a make-up artists work station.

Lipstick, powder, blusher to name a few sat on his desk and at the front, he had a picture of all the BE members, with Paul and Sue at the front.

Being nosey, I spot my own TRA application under a paper weight on Barry’s desk. This rather made me shit myself as I hadn’t submitted it yet as it needed to be signed

Off by employers and checked by Glen.

Feeling hot and cold at once, wondering just how it got there, I turned round and noticed it was in the ‘yet to be sent to the TRA and sub headed ‘The Future’ pile.

How the hell could that be? How did they know who was going to send what?

Feeling someone standing behind me, I jump and feel a strong pair of arms go round me.

‘I think you have seen enough’ Barry’s camp voice whispered in my ear.

‘I’m sorry Barry, I’m so sorry’ was all I could manage to say.

‘Time for you to go to sleep’ Barry said to me firmly. All of a sudden this gay camp man had come over all masterful.

‘What about Rooksie, Claire and the others?’ I ask desperately.

‘Not my department, that belongs to Duncan’ He replied, his face serious.

After begging him to allow me another five minutes in this strange world, I take a coffee and biscuit to Stevo to try and make him smile.

I mean for goodness sake, if he is as miserable as this, I feel sorry for the people he fails.

‘Shall we have some music?’ I plead with Barry.

Relenting, Barry insists we play the ‘Village People’ and ‘YMCA’ much to the groans of the other TRA men.

Spotting a handsome face through the window, Duncan bursts through the door to join in the fun.

Anyway, the Village People blare out and I grab Stevo’s hand and make him dance.

‘He will so never dance; he is grey and boring’ Barry sneers to Duncan who is now clapping his hands to ‘YMCA’.

Within five minutes, the whole TRA office are dancing their socks off and doing the YMCA dance.

‘Come on Stevo, you do it like this!’ I grin to him.

‘Jesus Christ, he is actually smiling!’ Duncan and Barry yell together.

Soon the whole office is smiling at the normally miserable Stevo.

As I look at Stevo’s face, I was totally amazed at what I saw. The black and white man was turning colour and he lit up the office.

‘Can I come back with you to BE Headquarters?’ Stevo pleaded, as he gripped my hand.

‘I don’t know how to get you there’ I cried, holding him so tight I nearly break his ribs.

Hugging each other, I didn’t want to let go of him, I liked him and he had potential to develop.

‘Time to go now’, Barry whispered in my ear, then added; ‘And may I suggest you forget everything you saw?’

Smiling up at Barry, I looked down at Stevo who was now not only miserable, but turning black and white again.

Grabbing hold of Stevo, I kissed him gently and said goodbye.

Smelling his aftershave, I hugged him tightly.


WAKEY WAKEY RISE AND SHINE

(Sound of loud alarm bells fill the BE Headquarters)

Bixie was the first one up, wearing his red and white stripy dressing gown and red furry slippers with lion’s heads on them; he shuffled sleepily to the bathroom.

Followed by Jim, Brisben, Possoms, Grayling, Soapy, JAJ, Alan, George, and Wombat who was dragging his feet as he hated showers.

Pretty soon everyone was up apart from 4 people.

‘Princess, wake up!’ Sue shouts as she shakes a sleepy Professional Princess. Under the covers was a mop of blonde hair, and pink satin nightdress, curled up in the foetal position, hugging her pillow tightly.

John Howard was up and having a shower with the other boys who were comparing the size of their testicles. Bixie usually won that though, you could use his as a space hopper.

Paul Admin had gone to wake up Barry and Duncan who were also fast asleep.

Now bear in mind that Sue and Paul are aware of absolutely everything that goes on in this rather magical house.

HALF AN HOUR LATER

A sleepy Princess is slowly munching on her toast and sipping her tea (white with no sugar).


‘You OK Princess?’ Rooksie and BLC ask full of concern for their normally noisy friend.

‘Who is the tea and toast for?’ Bridie asks Sue who was busy laying the table for an extra person.

‘Everyone, I want you to meet Stevo, he works with Barry at the TRA’. Paul announced as he came through the door.

There standing behind him, was Stevo, no longer black and white, no longer miserable. Sensible perhaps, miserable – no.

Looking up from her breakfast, Princess smiled at him with no apparent recognition.

‘Not another bloody TRA man staying here. If TRA and DIMIA type people are staying here, who the hell is onto our visas?’ Rooksie demanded angrily.

Coming up behind her and snatching her toast and jam out of Rooksie’s hand, was Barry.

‘Oh you know Rooksie, it’s amazing the amount of work that goes on while you’re sleeping’ Barry said to her.

Staring at Barry, Princess puts down her tea. Nervous, Stevo wonders what she is going to come out with.

Stirring her tea, Princess pipes up ‘You know, I had the strangest dream last night’. The other girls gathered round to hear it.

As Stevo chatted to Barry, they both looked over to where Princess was sitting.

Barry whispers in Stevo’s ear; ‘Don’t worry mate, she won’t remember what she shouldn’t have seen and nobody will believe her anyway with the stories she tells’

‘Shame’ was all Stevo replied…

As Princess got up to go to the bedroom, she walked up to Stevo and whispered ever so quietly and only so that he could hear; ‘You look much better with some colour in your cheeks’

And with that, she winked at him and went upstairs….

The end……

Obviously since then, people have got their visas and TRA, some BE members have deleted accounts or changed names.

Cheetah7

Wendy, I shall put you in my next story.

Wendy

Liked the story, I'd be honoured to be in your next one


Now do you want a beer, I'm having one as the "bear with the sore head" is now snoring like a gud 'un

Back in a tic, as it's self service here

Cheetah7

I would love a beer but I really should go and do my letters.

Bugger, I should have done it earlier.

Tiawamutu

Quote:
Originally Posted by Linda Lushardi
PMSL.. that reminded me of an advert somewhere. Every shot stops mid action

LOL! I thought you were talking about linda's name there for a moment:

lush - hardi

Sorry Linda

possoms

LOL thank god its you, only I said something a while back about Haiku to another Pootle on here and she didnt know WTF I was talking about

Cheers

Scossie

Here's the bar here Rooksie!!

Just had a bit of a refit after things got a bit out of hand on Australia Day!

fraser

I hope they won't be showing AFL in here

ionaskye

I'll have a large vodka and put a twenty in the kitty

Stitch

I thought all entertainment was alternative!

Cheers

Ginny

ub40fan

I though Fraser was the entertainment

Rooksie

Ahhh jeeeeez

can i have a strong coffee please

Stitch

With you on that one but maybe we all should do a turn in the entertainment stakes?

Cheers

Ginny

ub40fan

Ok, but you go first!